The Maelstrom Eye tcc-3 Read online

  "I'm having some trouble following what you are saying," said the admiral quietly. "You say that you found some sort of cape or cloak that will allow you to control the Spelljammer- this nonmythical, mightiest of all ships-but one of your servants stole it. You chased down the servant and killed him, but a reigar had stolen it by then, and your other servants tried to murder you after that. You've since… well, changed into your current form, and now you want us to help you find and seize this cloak from the reigar."

  The lich had watched the admiral intently as he spoke. "Little trouble with my words you have had," it said at last, "but reigar the cloak has not. My not-servants to slay her did succeed, but the cloak missing has been, by a human stolen away. This human I know where is. Clever he is, as all not-servants now not-alive are. With other ships and companions this human travels, ahead of me always. Now in this sphere he rests, on the Rock of Bral on this sphere's far side. Of this body you know?"

  "It's an asteroid city of mixed population," said the admiral easily. "We have it charted. It's of no interest to us. Our quarrel is with but this one small world."

  "Good news that is. With me you will serve then, this cloak to find?"

  The admiral frowned with annoyance. "I think we've said that we are not for hire, Skarkesh. Besides that, you're implying that you, not we, will gain this treasure, tie cloak. Just what could we gain from following you?"

  The lich said nothing for a while. General Vorr fidgeted, the strain of waiting to attack beginning to eat at him.

  "The universe," said the lich.

  There was a pause.

  "I'm sorry?" said the admiral, leaning more closely.

  "The universe," repeated the lich. "The benefit you as my servants would gain. Need you I will, when the cloak is to be found, and need you I will, when the Spelljammer later is found. Need you I will, when the universe beneath the wings of the Spelljammer is held, and all the worlds in existence mine will be. Need you I will, my riches to count and share."

  The admiral looked at the lich without comment. His arms slowly unfolded, and the old scro rubbed his hands together before him, as if to warm them in a cold wind.

  "What proof do you have that anything you have said is true?" asked Halker.

  The lich tilted its head halfway to one side. "Proof?" Slowly, the lich reached for its side, dipping a skeletal hand into the lone pouch on its belt. "Proof?" it asked, and pulled out a heavy, round disk on a short chain. It set the disk and chain on the table before it. The disk appeared to be cast from bronze and was greatly worn. A few deeply carved geometric patterns remained on its weathered surface, forming a three-pointed star design.

  "Proof," said the lich. "To examine it you arc allowed." The lich stood back with careless grace.

  The general and admiral stared at the item without moving for it. "What is it?" asked Vorr, more out of curiosity than anything. He still craved an excuse to destroy the lich.

  The lich gestured toward the disk. "Pick up you may."

  The admiral weighed the risks, looked at General Vorr, then sighed heavily and reached for the disk. He touched it-and froze in midmovement. His eyes took on a glazed, unseeing look as he stared off into space.

  "Admiral?" asked Vorr, glancing away from the lich. Seeing that the black-robed scro could apparently make no reply, Vorr tugged his sword from its sheath and took a heavy step toward the lich, who retreated. "If he's been cursed," Vorr said, his voice thick with promise, "you're garbage."

  "Your admiral unharmed is," hissed the lich, eyes bright with angry green flames. Its hands rose, fingers spread. "But if closer you come, on your flesh the worms will feast tomorrow. Prepared for your treachery I was, gray orc meat, long before my ship here landed."

  "What is happening to the admiral?" The words came out as Vorr moved in on the lich, his voice starting soft and growing in strength until he was almost shouting. His sword arm swung up, the tendons standing out on the back of his huge, hamlike fist as it gripped the pommel.

  "Stop," said Admiral Halker flatly. Vorr froze, sword poised and ready to cut off the lich's hands. He held his position, waiting for more.

  "Stop," said the admiral again. "Cease. This…" Vorr heard the admiral swallow. "This thing is speaking in my head, and I… I don't want to miss what it is showing me." The lich slowly stepped back, almost out of General Vorr's range but now backed up to the wall. The three of them held their positions for what seemed like an age, with the general's sword arm lowering slightly.

  There was the sound of something being laid on the table. "General Vorr, put away your weapon. Now."

  Licking his lips and feeling that he would regret this, the general did as he was told. The lich waited at the wall a little longer, its gaze focused on Vorr alone.

  "Tomb of Dukagsh," said the admiral. Vorr looked at him sharply and saw that the admiral was a pale yellow now. "The things I saw. What is that?"

  The lich moved from the wall, but not by far. "It by the hands of the ancients was built," it said. "Through the eyes of the Spelljammer it lets you see, world after world. Buried in the dark asteroid with the cloak this was, under the ice. This alone I kept when my servants then traitors became. Weak now this relic of old is, and not long to last. It my last clue to the Spelljammer is."

  General Vorr suddenly reached down for the disk and chain himself. He picked it up in his thick fingers as the other two looked on. After looking it over for a few moments, he held it to his head, then put it down.

  "You, too, through the Spelljammer's eyes see?" said the lich. "What revealed to you was?"

  Vorr hesitated. He'd seen nothing, of course, being immune to the influences of magic. "Impressive," he said, and glanced at the admiral, waiting.

  "It was startling, to say the least," said the old admiral, quickly covering for Vorr. "I saw a small green world below me, and there was a voice in my head that said the world was called Torus. The world was round but had a hole through it. It was so clear when I saw it."

  "Sufficient proof now you have?" inquired the lich, edging closer to the table where the disk and chain lay. "Now my servants you will become, my cloak to rightfully rescue from the touch of a groundling human?"

  Vorr felt something inside him snap. "We're not servants to any being but our own kind, Skarkesh," he said, his jaw tightening. "You'd best drop that word from your vocabulary before it gets some of your thin, little bones broken."

  "Brave the gray giant's tongue is," retorted the yellow-eyed lich, stepping back and raising a hand toward him. "Will so brave the tongue be if in flames it is wrapped?"

  Vorr's hand went for the hilt of his sword.

  "Stop it!" bellowed the scro admiral. He slammed a fist onto a wooden tabletop. "By the Holy Tomb of Dukagsh, you will both cease this damned bickering! If we are to work together, then we are going to start now!"

  The admiral pointed a withered hand at the lich. "Skarkesh, you threaten us once more, and not even a wishing ring will save you from us. I won't tolerate that kind of crap from anyone, especially not a dead wizard. If you want slaves, you can get them dirt cheap at any marketplace, and you can treat them however you want. But if you want a wildspace navy to back you up, you're going to pay through your eye sockets for it, and you're going to cut out this krajen dung about us being your servants. If we decide to help you-and I mean if we help you-you're not going to become our little brass god. If you don't like it, you can load your big rock-diggers out there back on your ship and get your bone-white ass off our planet. Do you understand me?"

  General Vorr waited, watching the lich. His hand still hovered over his sword hilt. The next time he pulled it out, he'd use it, the admiral be damned.

  The lich made no immediate reply, but the yellow-green light in its skull burned furiously. It lowered its hand quickly, reaching some decision. "Money and gems you may have," it said, its voice devoid of emotion. "Magic you may have. Slaves you may have. The cloak, not. For the cloak much I have suffered, too much to see in ot
her hands it held. To me the cloak must go. Agree you must."

  The old scro tilted his chin up. "We'd have no use for a gods-damned cloak. It's yours, but we'll have to work out the basics of what you're going to pay us. Trust me that it will be a king's sum, but if we accept your mission, we'll make it worth the cost."

  "Then agreement we have?" asked the lich, appearing to have no trouble with those terms. "You my serv-my helpers on this quest will be? Soon we must leave if so, on to the Rock of Bral."

  "General Vorr and I need to talk first," the admiral said, his anger appearing to dissipate. "But we need to talk alone. Will you excuse us?"

  The lich was taken off guard, but it recovered quickly. It reached down and snatched up the bronze disk and chain, then sidestepped to the door. With a last look at the two, it pushed the door open and stepped outside.

  With a nod from the admiral, General Vorr reached over and shut the door lightly, allowing them to hear any noises in the other room. The general trusted his ogres to raise a shout and attack if the lich made any hostile move. They wouldn't be able to do much to stop it, but once Vorr came out, the fight would be over. The ogres would have to handle the umber hulks on their own, but Vorr had faith in them.

  Halker leaned against a table and massaged his pale, watery eyes with a thumb and forefinger. "Paranoid bastard, isn't he?" he remarked.

  Vorr said nothing, still feeling the raw heat of his anger, but he nodded.

  "I think our undead friend is insane," said the scro, looking up at the general, "but I also think he's telling the truth. I can't describe what happened when I touched that medallion. The vision I had was so real that…" He raised his hands helplessly. "The damned thing convinced me. Maybe he enchanted the medallion to do that, just to fool us, but I don't think so. He has nothing to gain. I think he needs us."

  "I can believe he needs us to get the cloak that will let him control this Spelljammer," Vorr said in a low voice, "but that he needs us afterward to count his riches-I doubt that very much. All the tales I've ever heard about the Spelljammer were terror stories for infants. Every soldier and sailor in wild-space has heard them. They're all skawer crap. But if a tenth of what's said about the ship is true, and if Skarkesh were to get his bony little hands on it, he wouldn't need us. If he could rule the universe with that one ship, we'd be only flies to him. Everyone swats flies when they get in the way."

  "Mmm-hmm," mumbled the admiral. He rubbed his wrinkled chin with thin fingers. "Certainly. Unless…" He left the thought unfinished.

  The two commanders looked at each other in silence.

  "I don't believe it would be the first time for you, would it?" said the admiral at last.

  "I'd love the chance," said the general, "but I couldn't do a thing with the cloak. You know that."

  "I'll need someone like that," said the admiral. "Someone I could trust to handle things. If a spell-casting lich can use the cloak, then perhaps a spell-casting scro admiral can, too." He raised both his hands, fingers apart. He didn't smile. "We'll need all the information we can get on this Spelljammer, and I don't mean baby tales. If we can use it against the elves, we might just win the war by ourselves."

  Vorr's interest was rising by the second. He was starting to imagine leading his marines into action again. It would be good to fight after so long a peace. "We'd still have to follow his lead for a while," he said.

  "That's another thing," said Halker. "He claims he can show us the way to the cloak, though I'm damned if I know how he could. Does he have a crystal ball, a seeing pool, a spell, or a helpful godling? I want to know how he knows. Usso could help us there, and maybe he could get a little more intelligence on the pyramid ship, too.

  "One more thing. Skarkesh wants us to fly to the Rock of Bral, which, the last time I heard, has its own little navy. We could crush it, but we'd be wasting our strength on humans, not the Imperial Fleet. I'd like to avoid that unless absolutely necessary, no matter what the lich wants. Maybe a marine raid, in and out, something like that. You'd know what to do. Then we'd have the cloak."

  Vorr nodded again, looking at the door as if he were looking through it. His face was set in stone, broad teeth showing between his drawn lips.

  "Later," said Halker. "First, the cloak. Then…" He tilted his head toward the door.

  Vorr considered that and smiled, showing all of his teeth. It was the first time the admiral had seen him smile since the landings on Spiral, when a zwarth had attacked the general's command post. "Don't want to forget the elves," Vorr said.

  "I haven't," said the admiral.

  "Then we're agreed to help him?"

  "Mmm-hmm. But first have Usso check him out, just to make sure he's not pulling us along for something else. If his story is dear, then let's get on with it."

  "Agreed." The general reached for the doorknob-and stopped, deep in thought.

  "What's on your mind, General?"

  Vorr shook his head briefly. "I was just wondering what route the lich took into the building."

  Halker raised an eyebrow. "He and his bodyguards walked in. They came up through the goblins' quarter of the camp. The 'hulks wore those eye shrouds, and none of them gave us any trouble. Why?"

  "Just curious, sir," he said. That tears it, he thought. If goblins wouldn't run from a lich, something was wrong. The truth was suddenly undeniable.

  Skarkesh was not a real lich.

  The general grunted, then opened the door. Together, they went out to greet their guest.

  When General Vorr got back to his office late that night, he found his charcoaled chair replaced by a less-comfortable one. Fortunately, he'd been told that scro carpenters were at work on a replacement, though it would take a few days. A single light globe illuminated his command room. It looked a lot tidier now, but it still smelled of smoke and death. The breezes that blew through the broken windows would clear even that out in time. It being long after hours, the general wore only a military kilt and shoulder straps for small weapons. With the doors firmly closed and the guards properly warned for privacy, Vorr sat in his chair and waited for Usso's report.

  "You called?" came the invisible feminine voice. "I'm not in the mood," Vorr said bluntly. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his desk. "Just get it out."

  He heard Usso snort. "Short of temper, are we? You wanted to know about the lich, or whatever it is? Well, it isn't a lich, I can tell that. You nailed that right. It lacks all the basic lich parts. A lich is a lot more than a bare skeleton in a robe. I couldn't break its disguise without it knowing, but it does show up as undead, as an organized evil being-which liches aren't particularly-and as thick with magic, especially illusion. It also has no personal history, so it isn't who it says it is. I'd guess it was another undead creature that for some reason wants to look like a lich. It's not lying about the cloak, anyway. It wants it so badly it could just about fall apart."

  Vorr thought it over. He could end the charade by touching the lich, but he felt like playing along for now. "Can we trust it not to kill us if it gets the cloak?"

  "Kobas," said the silken voice, "if you had your big hands ready to grab the universe by the neck, would you think anyone could trust you?"

  Vorr grunted. "Recommendations?"

  "Leave the ground troops here, the ores and goblins, but get the fleet up for a spin. Hit the Rock of Bral if the human's still there. When you grab the cloak, break some bones- Skarkesh's. And when you do get it, toss the cloak to me, not to that senile orc-dog you take orders from."

  Vorr looked up sharply. "You are out of line."

  There was faint laughter in the air. "Use that tone with me again, Kobas, and you can sleep by yourself."

  Vorr felt his face darken. "If you play games with me," he said evenly, "I'll see that you go hungry for a month. You know I can do it. You know what that feels like. You know you can't escape me."

  In the silence that followed, Vorr heard a presence stir behind him. A small, soft hand appeared on his left shoulde
r, sliding over his rough gray skin.

  "You were joking with me, weren't you, Kobas?" said the sweet voice, a trace of anxiety behind it. "You know I hate to joke about that. I don't like to go hungry."

  Vorr reached up, his broad hand swallowing hers whole. He slowly turned in his seat and looked into the long-lashed almond eyes of a human woman with long black hair. Her yellow-brown skin was paler than when he had last seen her; she must be quite hungry already. It had been three days since she'd fed last, on an elf prisoner who'd lasted only a day.

  Vorr knew all that lay behind those eyes. If he gave Usso the cloak, she would be only marginally more trustworthy than the false lich. He'd have to watch her closely from now on and warn the war priests and the admiral if she showed signs of treachery; she'd be dangerous right up to the end. It was a good thing Usso couldn't read his mind the way she could everyone else's.

  "Mad at me?" asked the woman. She ran her hands over the sides of his face. "Will you feed me soon?"

  She'd love to have the Spelljammer, Vorr knew. She could pick her meals from any populated world she chose. She was almost as bad as a vampire. Vorr remembered seeing Usso for the first time, a prisoner from an Oriental human-built dragonship. She'd looked human enough; in fact, she'd looked like an old male wizard. The old man's skills and charisma had impressed his captors, and soon he was adopted into the Tarantula Fleet. Only the general knew the truth about her. All he'd had to do was to touch the old man, and the shapeshifted form had melted away. Vorr had kept Usso's secret, but he had named a price for it.

  "Maybe," he said. "Maybe later tonight."

  Her long white robes stirred in back; she had wagged her tail in her excitement. Hu hsien, she had called her race, fox women with spells and an endless hunger for human life energy. "I wish you could find a human for me, Kobas. I'm getting tired of those elves, but anything's better than a goblin. Could you find a human for me?"

  "I might find one for you," Vorr said. Still holding her hand firmly in one of his own, he reached out and caught her under the chin, forcing her to look at him. "But you owe me, Usso, for ruining my fight today." His grip tightened as he pulled her closer, and she winced, her eyes tearing up with the pain. "You owe me a lot."