"The Broken Sphere" - читать интересную книгу автора (Findley Nigel)

Chapter Ten

Even the longest voyage eventually comes to an end, Teldin reminded himself, and this one was no exception. The crystal sphere boundary of Vistaspace was fifteen days behind them, and Garrash was no more than five days ahead. From this distance, the mighty world appeared as nothing more than a point of ruddy light, occasionally tinged with a brighter yellow that had to come from its fire ring. Even the Cloakmaster's spyglass wasn't sufficiently powerful to resolve the fire world into a visible disk.

They'd been fortunate, the Cloakmaster knew. By sheer luck, the point at which they'd penetrated the Vistaspace crystal sphere was relatively near-on a cosmic scale-to Garrash. If the planet's orbital plane had been oriented differently, or if the world were at a different point along its orbit, their voyage would have been fifteen days or more longer.

Throughout the voyage, Teldin had used the amulet regularly to keep tabs on the Spelljammer-not every day, but at least every few days. The results had been inconclusive. Since that first time, the great ship's perception hadn't included anything as distinctive as Garrash and its fire ring. Each time he'd used the amulet, Teldin had seen nondescript views of star-studded blackness-obviously wild-space, but within which crystal sphere? Conceivably, the patterns of the stars might have given some idea-at least confirmed that the vessel was still within Garrash's crystal sphere-but the Boundless didn't have a detailed starchart of Vistaspace on board.

Still, Djan had pointed out, the fact that Teldin had never once seen the Flow seemed to hint strongly that the Spell-jammer hadn't yet left the sphere. The Cloakmaster wasn't as firmly convinced as his half-elven friend. After all, he knew from his reading at the Great Archive that the manta-shaped ship seemed able to complete in a day or two voyages through the phlogiston that would take any other vessel weeks. Yet, he had to admit, the odds of finding his quarry still in Vistaspace rose with each observation.

Of course, as Djan had stressed to him several times before, crystal spheres are almost inconceivably huge. Large though the Spelljammer may be on the scale of ships, and even of worlds, considered on this scale it was a very small needle in a very large haystack. Thus, actually locating the Spelljammer could turn out to be a task in and of itself.

Julia and Djan had both agreed with him that the best place to start was in the vicinity of Garrash itself, however. At least that was a recognizable "landmark" in the vastness of the void.

From his cabin, Teldin heard Julia "make" eight bells-sounding the ship's brass bell in the stern-indicating the time. The beginning of the forenoon watch, he thought. That put the time at about eight in the morning, according to the groundling clock. He hadn't been awake long, and he had yet to make an appearance on deck. He'd long since lost his farmer's habit of rising early, and he'd been getting up progressively later recently as he'd gone to sleep well past four bells in the bottom of the night watch-past two in the morning. That'll change, he told himself firmly. I'll make it change. Yet still there was some part of his mind that cast doubt on his resolve.

He reached above his head, pressing both his forearms flat against the overhead, feeling the muscles of his back and legs stretch. His stomach felt like a fist clenched around emptiness, and the stretch only intensified the sensation. Breakfast, he thought.

The four sailors sitting in the saloon just aft of his cabin greeted him politely. Nothing was cooking in the galley-he was between meals, after all, too late for what the crew still called dawnfry and too early for highsunfeast-but the cook had left out a plate of cold meats, pickled vegetables, and a sliced loaf. Teldin built himself a hand meal, which he munched as he headed out onto the main deck.

Djan called a cheery, "Well met," down to him from the afterdeck as Teldin emerged from the forecastle. He waved back and started to head aft to join him.

It was then that the commotion broke out belowdecks, just a muffled yell at first, but quickly followed by the pounding of running feet. Teldin stopped in his tracks, looked questioningly up at Djan.

A figure-it was Dargeth-dashed up the ladder from the cargo deck and the crew's quarters. His face was pale. "It's Blossom," he gasped.

Blossom? She's on the helm… But, no, this was the forenoon watch, wasn't it? That meant it was the dwarf, Dranigor, currently helming the ship. "What about Blossom?" he demanded.

"She's hurt bad," the half-ore told him. "Maybe dead, I don't know."

"Where?"

Dargeth pointed down the ladder he'd just climbed. "The cargo deck."

Teldin went down the ladder so fast that he might as well have jumped. He heard footsteps behind him-Djan probably, he thought. At the bottom, he turned left, then left again, sprinting aft past the foot of the mainmast.

There was a small crowd already there, five or six crewmen crouching or kneeling in a group at the aft end of the dimly lit cargo hold near the mizzenmast. As they saw him, they all backed away, giving him his first view of Blossom.

The rotund woman lay flat on her back, arms outstretched. Her eyes were closed, her round, cherubic face at peace, as though she were asleep, Teldin thought. Even from a distance he could see great bruising on the right side of her neck, under her ear-a great, spreading hemorrhage under the skin, reddish pink, not yet turned to purple. "Where's a healer?" he demanded.

Then he saw the angle at which her head lay, and he knew there was nothing a healer could do. He dropped to one knee beside the corpulent shape and touched two fingers to the unbruised side of her throat just to be sure. For an instant, he thought he could feel some feeble trill of life left in the woman, but then it was gone. Was that just my imagination, my own anxiety? he asked himself. Or did I feel the woman die? Regardless, he knew that Blossom was dead.

He looked away and saw Djan kneeling beside him. "I'll deal with this," the half-elf told him quietly. "You talk to the crew."

Teldin nodded, climbed slowly to his feet. The crowd of crewmen-larger now-had backed away, leaving a respectful space around the captain, Djan, and the dead priest. The Cloakmaster could see Julia at the back of the group, by the mainmast. "Who found her?" he asked.

"I did, Cap'n." One of the sail trimmers-a stout halfling woman named Harriana-stepped forward. She looked uncomfortable, slightly pale. At first Teldin wondered why, but then she added, "I sing out as soon as I found her, Cap'n, I promise you. I wasn't no sluggard about it…."

He smiled as reassuringly as he could under the circumstances and clapped her on the shoulder. "I know you did, Harriana," he told her firmly. "I know you weren't a sluggard. Nobody thinks you were. I don't think it would have mattered even if you'd found her sooner." He looked down into the diminutive woman's eyes and saw the specter of guilt fade from them. "Now, tell me what happened."

Harriana shrugged. "I come down to the hold just a couple of minutes back, looking for a sail patch. I keeps my repair things back aft there, by the mast foot." She pointed aft, toward where assorted gear had been stacked against the hold's rear bulkhead. "On the way I passes the bilge watch."

The Cloakmaster nodded. The woman was referring to a wooden hatch, about two feet square, giving access to the bilges and the keel under the hold deck for repair or inspection. "So you passed the bilge hatch," he prompted.

"And I sees it's open," the halfling said. "Not all the way, like, but just a thumbspan. I think there's somebody down there, inspecting the bilges. So, just to be friendly like, I opens the hatch and I calls down, 'halloo.'

"And that's when I sees her." Harriana pointed at Blossom's still body. "The helm-priest, just lying all huddled up at the bilges. She doesn't look comfortable," she went on with a shrug, "so I thinks she might be hurt. I calls for help, and these two"-she pointed out Dargeth and Anson-"they answer. They drags the helm-priest out, and then we just fells like the blazes."

Teldin looked questioningly at the two. It was Anson, predictably, who answered. "That's how it was, Captain," he confirmed. "We thought she'd maybe been checking the bilges, fell in, and hit her head. We didn't think it might be her neck until we saw it." He hesitated, obviously uncomfortable. "Did we do wrong, pulling her out?" he asked quietly. They say you don't move them with less…"

It was Djan who answered, his voice quiet but carrying, You didn't do her any harm, Anson, or you either, Dargeth. nobody could have done her any more harm by the time you got here."

The two men looked noticeably relieved. "Captain," Anson started tentatively, "one thing I wondered… What was Blossom doing in the bilges anyway? Checking the keel?

"That's right." Again it was Djan who responded-louder, more firmly this time. He stood and strode over to join Teldin and the others. "She was checking the keel, like I ordered her to."

The Cloakmaster shot the half-elf a quizzical glance. There was something strange about his friend's manner. He trusted Djan, and it wouldn't do to question him about it here.

"I think you were right, Anson," Djan continued, "I think she must have slipped, fallen, and landed badly. A tragic, fluke accident." He turned to the half-orc. "Dargeth, would you see to the body, please? Pick the people you need." Then he looked over at Teldin-meaningfully, the Cloak-master thought-and said, "Captain? I think we've got to discuss the watch list. Can we speak in your cabin?"

*****

As soon as Djan and Julia had followed him into the cabin and shut the door behind them, Teldin turned to his first mate. "Could someone tell me what in Paladine's name is going on?" he asked quietly.

Djan pulled a chair out from the table and sat down. There was something in his expression that Teldin hadn't seen before-a tension that chilled the Cloakmaster to the bone. "I didn't send Blossom to check the keel," he said bluntly.

"Then, why… ?" Teldin's voice trailed off. A sharp pang of suspicion stabbed his chest. He suggested softly, "So the crew wouldn't think… what?"

"Blossom's neck was broken," Djan answered, "but not in a fall." He looked up, meeting the Cloakmaster's gaze squarely for the first time. "Somebody killed her, Teldin. Somebody-a skilled warrior, I'd say-broke her neck with his hands. Then he stuffed her in the bilges." He blinked thoughtfully. "I say 'he,' but it could just as easily have been a woman, I suppose. Breaking a neck isn't hard if you know how to go about it." He shook his head briefly, as if forcing his mind back to the subject at hand. "Somebody killed her," he repeated. "It wasn't an accident. We've got a murderer on board."

Teldin pulled a chair over and sat down. He nodded slowly.

"Do you have any idea who?" Julia asked. Her face was pale and drawn.

The first mate shook his head. "It could have been just about anyone, really," he answered. "It definitely happened less than half an hour before Harriana found the body. But half an hour's a long time on a ship this size, and it doesn't take long to kill someone if you've got a mind to." He sighed. "Somebody leaves his watch station-he claims it's a lead call-or slips out of his hammock. Or, if he's off duty and awake, he just goes belowdecks. Nobody's going to question him. He finds Blossom, leads her down to the cargo hold on some pretext. He kills her-snap!-and disposes of the body. Then he just strolls back to wherever he's supposed to be and waits for the commotion to start so he can look suitably shocked and horrified."

"Why do you think she was killed there?" Julia asked.

Djan chuckled mirthlessly. "You try carrying Blossom more than a couple of paces," he suggested. "Anyway, the hold's the only place deserted enough to get away with it."

"He must have known the body would be found soon enough," Teldin pointed out.

The half-elf nodded agreement. "But he didn't need it to stay hidden for long," he explained. "Just long enough to fade back into the woodwork, so to speak."

Teldin was silent for a few moments. A murder, he thought. That's a long step up from sabotage, isn't it? A murderer among the crew. Someone who wants to… what?

What does he want? he asked himself. Why kill Blossom? Why kill a helmsman? And there he had his answer. If you look at it from the right standpoint, it's not that much different from sabotage. If you want to slow down a ship or cripple it, you can sabotage its rigging or you can eliminate its source of power. With Blossom dead, the Boundless had only one official helmsman left-the dwarf, Dranigor. Eliminate Dranigor, or just incapacitate him somehow, and that just leaves me. Then do something about me, and the ship's dead in space….

"Put some kind of a guard on Dranigor,'' the Cloakmaster told Djan. "Come up with some kind of excuse." The half-elf, nodded. "I like the way you handled things back there," he added.

Djan's lips quirked in a half smile. "I was making it up as I went along," he said, "but I had to do something. If the crew figures out we've got a murderer aboard, then everything we've done-you've done-to build morale goes out the porthole… and I think I want to get off this ship." His smile faded. The murderer knows I made it up," he went on grimly, "and he knows that you two know now as well. But I couldn't see any way of avoiding that."

Teldin waved that aside. "I don't think that matters much," he decided. He paused. "Can we ask around-see if anyone did make a head call during the half hour in question?'"

Djan looked doubtful. "I can try," he reflected. "I will try, but I can't be too obvious about it, or people will guess what happened."

The Cloakmaster nodded sadly. "You're right, of course." He patted his friend on the shoulder. "Well, do what you can," he suggested, is there anyone other than the three of us that you think we can trust?"

"Beth-Abz?" Julia proposed.

Djan nodded agreement. "If the beholder wanted Blossom out of the way-for whatever reason-it could have just disintegrated her, and we'd have thought she fell overboard or something." He stood. "I'll get on to things, Captain," he promised, in the meantime,… I suggest we all watch our backs."

*****

Djan had been as good as his word, Teldin thought five days later. He'd asked around, just as he'd said he would, trying to get a line on anyone who might have been inexplicably missing around the time of Blossom's death. But, for obvious reasons, he'd had to be very circumspect, and that had seriously limited his effectiveness.

At first, the Cloakmaster had considered helping his friend by asking his own oblique questions, but then had discarded the idea as counterproductive. The whole purpose was to prevent anyone in the crew from attaching any significance to the questions, and-almost by definition--any queries by the captain, the master of the ship, would attract such significance. Although it galled him to sit back and let Djan do all the work, he had to admit that this was the most logical course.

After two days, Djan had sadly admitted to Teldin that he hadn't found out anything useful. Nobody could remember seeing someone acting in a suspicious manner-but that didn't really mean much, he'd stressed, since he couldn't let anyone think that his questions were important.

A highly skilled priest or mage would have come in really handy, Teldin told himself. He'd heard enough folk tales about powerful spellcasters being able to speak with the souls of the dead. Surely Blossom herself-her soul, wherever it happened to be at the moment-would be able to shed light on the details of her death, and even the identity of her killer. But the only person aboard of sufficient aptitude for such a task had been Blossom herself.

Which the killer had known, he thought with grim certainty.

In the five days since the murder, he'd found himself eyeing every crew member he encountered. Is he the one? he kept wondering. Or is it him? The knowledge that a murderer was constantly nearby had been unsettling enough, but what had made it even worse was that he had to hide his suspicions, his knowledge.

Even without the rest of the crew knowing that Blossom had been murdered, her death had seriously weakened morale aboard the Boundless. He'd overheard muttered conversations among the crew that the squid ship was a jinxed vessel. Some crew members seemed to be linking Blossom's "accidental" death with that of Merrienne, the lookout who'd fallen to her death from the mainmast crow's nest. The crew still considered the incident with the boom, just outside the Heartspace crystal sphere, to have been an accident, not the sabotage that it actually was. That made two tragic, pointless, fluke deaths. And sailors seemed almost universally superstitious, Teldin had noticed, whether they sailed the rivers of Ansalon or the void of wildspace. A third "accidental" death, and the crew would be convinced that the Boundless was a ship of ill omen.

Still, he couldn't let himself dwell on such things, Teldin knew. His crew depended on him-on him and his officers-more now than ever before… even though they might not be fully aware of it themselves. They were trusting him to guide them through the troubles that had beset them and might continue to do so, to protect them, even to convince them that the Boundless wasn't a jinxed ship after all. He owed them that much, he recognized-or, at least, his best efforts-and didn't feel that their expectations were in any way unreasonable. Bonds of duty go both ways, he'd frequently reminded himself. He owed his crew his best efforts.

Yet, right or wrong, those expectations put even more pressure on him.

At least they were now close to Garrash, looping around the vast planet in an orbit that would take them just under a week to complete. The ship's current attitude presented its starboard beam to the world, which guaranteed Teldin a spectacular view from his cabin's large "eye" porthole.

From the ship's present position, Garrash was a swollen ember-red disk, not quite circular, but slightly bloated in places, as though the world's gravity was barely capable of restraining its burning atmosphere. Looping around it was the fire ring, glaring with bright yellow-red light. From this point of the ship's orbit, Teldin was looking at the fire ring from directly above, showing it as perfectly circular, concentric with the planet itself, a thin band of flames. Djan had told him it was only-only!-a quarter-hour of spelljamming flight wide, but since that was only one-fiftieth the diameter of the planet itself, in comparison it looked like little more than a line. When the Boundless had first approached Gar-rash, they'd been seeing the fire ring from edge on. Since the band was only twenty or so leagues thick, it had been invisible from any significant distance, and Teldin had feared they'd somehow come to the wrong system. Today, however, there was no doubt.

So we've reached Garrash, he told himself. Where's the Spelljammer?

The previous night watch, he'd used the amulet again, striving to maintain his contact with the Spelljammer for longer than he'd ever done before. For almost an hour, his senses had been united with those of the great ship. During that time, he'd seen a small, bluish fire body-presumably the primary of the system the ship was in-and countless views of the distant stars. But there'd been no glimpse of Garrash, the fire ring, or-and here he'd admitted to wild hopes-the Boundless itself in orbit around the great world.

The star patterns hadn't been any help. Even now that they were within the Vistaspace crystal sphere, Djan and the navigator had charted only a fraction of the system's stars. The patterns he'd seen hadn't matched anything on those incomplete starcharts. But that didn't really mean much, one way or another, did it? Also, the bright blue-white sun might have been the primary of the Vistaspace system, but it might just as well have been in an entirely different sphere. At least he still hadn't seen any hint that the Spelljammer had passed through a portal into the Flow, or that it was about to do so in the near future.

Throughout his contact, he'd also tried to connect with the mind of the mysterious ship-if it had anything resembling a mind-not just its wide-ranging suite of senses. Some tinge of emotion-or thought, even-might have given him some clue as to his quarry's location. But, though he'd sometimes felt such emotions in the past-or thought he had, he forced himself to add-nothing came through the link this time.

After an hour he'd let the contact slip away, returning to a physical body that was panting with exertion and drenched in cold sweat. Nothing.

Still, the Spelljammer had been here. It had passed close to Garrash itself, apparently sailing right through the fire ring. And, during its passage, the ship had sensed other vessels-if that's what they were-moving within the ring itself.

That's the last real clue I've seen, he told himself, the best lead I've got. He sighed.

He wrapped the cloak around his shoulders and headed aft, to where Dranigor sat on the helm. "Take us down," he ordered quietly, "closer to the ring."

*****

Standing on the afterdeck, Teldin imagined he could feel the heat of the fire ring on his face, just a baseless fancy, he knew. While the ring burned hot enough to ignite the squid ship like dry kindling, both Dranigor and Djan had reassured him that this heat didn't radiate far through the vacuum of wildspace. If necessary, they'd told him, he could bring the Boundless within a league of the ring without undue risk, maybe even closer.

Let's hope it won't be necessary, he thought. Even from this distance-a league or so from the ring, a distance inconsequential in comparison to the width of the band of fire- the violence of the Garrash system was impressive, terrifying. The huge planet itself, more than an hour's full-speed flight away, filled the sky. He could see the writhing, tortured surface of the atmosphere, churning and bubbling with heat, sometimes sending out great flames and prominences that soared many thousands of leagues above the surface before falling back. The comparison with the magical bolts rising from the surface of Nex were unavoidable, and every time another prominence started to climb into the heavens, fear squeezed his heart. Would this one fall back like the others? Or would it continue out into space, questing blindly for the ship, to send it down in fiery destruction?

He could see the great, dark circle-the weather pattern or whatever it was-near the distant limb of the planet. From this range, he could see that it wasn't black, as he'd thought initially. It was just a darker red than the rest of the world, appearing black only in comparison to the brighter fires around it. The circle-which Djan had taken to calling the Great Storm-was actually a great cone, the half-elf had explained to him, easily large enough to swallow tens of thousands of worlds the size of Krynn, extending far down into the heart of the world. The Great Storm was much colder than the rest of the flaming atmosphere, so much colder that Djan had guessed a spelljammer might be able to descend some distance into it before bursting into flames.

The ring itself was a spectacle in its own right. From a distance it had seemed perfectly flat, but now Teldin could see that its surface churned, too, as though currents of unimaginable speed and ferocity were flowing through its liquid fire. Its light was largely yellow, but sometimes rivers or bubbles of flame burned at the surface in different colors- red, emerald green, even sometimes lightning blue. The result was an impression of barely contained violence.

The Spelljammer sailed through that? Teldin found himself wondering. And what about the other shapes-ships or whatever they were-he'd seen cruising within the ring? It boggled the imagination.

He turned away from the view, stared out into the star-specked blackness. Where are you? he asked mentally. Where?

"Ship ahoy!" Harriana's voice echoed down from the repaired crow's nest.

Her words jolted Teldin like an electric shock. The Spelljammer! "Where?" he yelled,

"Low off the stern, starboard," the halfling called. "In the fire ring."

Teldin sprinted to the aft rail on the starboard side and pivoted the ballista aside to give himself more room. He leaned over the rail, looking aft and down, past the broad spanker sail.

Yes, there it was, a darker shape moving within the liquid fire of the ring. Was it the Spelljammer?

No, the configuration was all wrong. No manta shape, this, but a broad-based triangle with an extended, sharp apex. As he stared in shock and amazement, the apex emerged from the ring, liquid fire dripping off it. Metal, it looked like, finest steel polished to a mirror finish.

The rest of the-the thing-emerged into the vacuum, and he could see it clearly for the first time, a cylindrical body or hull, maybe a hundred feet long, maybe a little more, sprouting broad, knife-edged wings that spanned at least one hundred and fifty feet. The tips of the triangular wings bore sharp, forward-pointing spines or spears dozens of feet long. The whole thing seemed to be made of the same mirror-polished steel as the apex.

A ship made completely out of steel? Capable of surviving-and keeping its crew alive-in the depths of the fire ring?

Teldin sensed a presence next to him-Djan. "What in all the hells is it?" he whispered.

The half-elf shook his head. His face was pale, his eyes wide with wonder, or perhaps fear. "I don't know," he answered slowly, "I've never seen, never heard of, anything like that before. I can't even guess what race could build a ship like that."

The broad-winged metal ship moved slowly, cruising parallel to the rippled surface of the ring. Although he couldn't see any portholes-and there definitely couldn't be any open decks!-Teldin imagined he could feel the vessel's crew scrutinizing the squid ship. Then, smoothly, the metal ship's bow lifted, pointing directly toward the Boundless, and it began to accelerate.

"Battle stations!" Djan screamed. "Man all weapons!"

Feet pounded the decks as the crew hurried to obey. Teldin moved farther forward, getting out of the way of the gunners who began to prepare the twin ballistae.

The first mate turned to Teldin. "Captain… ?"

"Bring us around," the Cloakmaster answered after a moment's thought. "Bring the bow toward it."

Djan paused, then nodded and relayed the order through the speaking tube to the helmsman. Teldin could understand the first mate's hesitation. Normally, aligning the bow with an approaching vessel would allow the squid ship's main weapon-its forward catapult-to come to bear, but it would limit the ship's maneuverability if it needed to escape. The half-elf had realized, however, that the Cloakmaster's unusual control over the Boundless-through the ultimate helm-would compensate for that disadvantage.

"And get Beth-Abz up on deck," Teldin added, "just in case."

The bearing to the knife-edged metal ship began to change as the squid ship's bow came around. As Teldin watched, the strange vessel maneuvered, too-much smoother than he'd seen any other ship change course-to keep its own bow pointing directly at the Boundless. It continued its acceleration for a few seconds, then settled down on a fast-though not incontrovertibly aggressive-approach course.

Djan had brought the Cloakmaster's spyglass to bear on the vessel. Now he lowered it, his expression one of profound puzzlement. "No obvious weapons," he said quietly. "And no portholes, no hatches, no way of getting in or seeing out." He shook his head. I've never seen anything even vaguely like this."

Teldin stared at the strange ship. Now no more than half a league off, it had started to decelerate again, slowing its silent approach. Its mirror finish reflected the yellow light of the fire ring and the ruddy red of the planet below. It gleamed in the firelight, occasionally flashing with almost intolerable brightness as the light reflected off facets on its surface.

What are you? Teldin thought fiercely. What?

Then, suddenly, thoughts and images blasted into his mind. He clutched at his head with both hands, as though to keep his skull from splitting under their ferocious impact. His stomach knotted, and he almost doubled over with the pain of it.

What am I? The voice, echoing in his brain, carried a sense of almost ludicrous surprise. What am I? I am.

Through the bolts of agony that still lanced through his body, Teldin felt Djan's supporting hand on his shoulder. He looked into his friend's concerned face. "What is it?" the half-elf asked. "What's wrong?"

Teldin took a deep breath, tried to force his pounding heart to slow. "It's talking to me," he whispered.

"What is?"

Only as the words emerged from his lips did Teldin recognize the truth. "The ship." He pointed with a trembling finger. "That ship."

The titanic voice boomed again into his brain. What are you? it asked. Come closer, so I can see-hear-sense you better.

"The ship," Teldin breathed again. "It's alive, but that means it's not a ship."

"What?" Djan shook his head in disbelief. "What?"

"I'm bringing us in closer," the Cloakmaster told him, struggling to keep his voice firm and under control.

"You're doing what?"

"Bringing us closer," Teldin repeated. "Get Dranigor to release the helm."

He could see conflicting emotions warring across his friend's face. Concern, fear, denial… But, then, finally, he saw Djan's expression settle into one of acceptance. Without another word to the Cloakmaster, he crossed to the speaking tube and issued the order to the helmsman.

Teldin extended his will, focused it through the ultimate helm, and exerted it upon the ship. The Boundless started to move, slowly, toward the metal object.

Filtered through the expanded perception of the helm, the metal ship-being's mental voice didn't seem as "loud" or overwhelming. I can sense you better now, it said, and again the words were tinged with surprise, this time alloyed with intense curiosity. You are of a primitive form, your species, and you seem to be injured. Yet your voice is strong, your presence distinct. How can that be? I sense you suffer from the same infestation as those who have come before you. Explain this to me.

Teldin shook his head, confounded. The words were clear, but the meaning was the exact opposite. The statement about his species, his "primitive form"… Perhaps a creature of living metal might consider a human primitive. He could almost understand that. But what was that about injury? Teldin wasn't injured. And he certainly wasn't suffering from any kind of "infestation."

Djan was by his side, his eyes full of questions.

"It's speaking to me through the cloak," Teldin explained quietly, "like the People did on Nex. It's alive, Djan! It has a mind." Like the Spelljammer? he asked himself.

He turned his attention back to the metal being. It had stopped and was now hanging in space less than a league ahead of the Boundless. Even though the "voice" currently wasn't speaking, he could still sense puzzlement and curiosity through the mental link.

"I am Teldin Moore," he said softly, focusing the meaning of his words through the cloak, "captain of the Boundless Possibilities."

And I am Zat, of the fire ribbon of Garrash, the "ship" replied, as are my fellows. The voice paused. 'Captain'? A strange designation. What does it mean? And what are these 'boundless possibilities' you refer to?

Teldin shook his head again. They were talking, he and this metallic creature, but he wasn't convinced they were really communicating. "Captain," he tried again, it means the person in command of the ship, the ship we name the Boundless Possibilities."

'Ship.' Puzzlement had turned to outright confusion in the mental voice. Is that a place you refer to? The crystal sphere of your origin, perhaps? it guessed tentatively.

"No." Teldin forced himself to think things through. Obviously the cloak wasn't translating as well as it usually did. Probably the mind of this great shiplike creature was too alien for easy communication. "The ship that we call the Boundless Possibilities is what you see directly in front of you," he tried again. "I'm the captain of the ship. I am in command of the crew that runs it. I'm the one who makes the decisions, who tells the crew to set the sails, or steer the ship." He paused, frustrated. "Don't you see the ship?" he demanded.

Of course I see you, the being-Zat-replied. I see you, and I sense your mind, Teldin Moore. But I ask you again: what is this 'ship'?

Teldin rubbed a trembling hand across his eyes. "I don't know what in the hells it's talking about," he told Djan tiredly. "And it doesn't know what I'm talking about. It can see the ship, and it 'hears' my thoughts, but…"

And then realization flooded through the Cloakmaster's mind, it thinks it's talking to the ship," he said to Djan. "It thinks I'm the ship." Of course, he told himself. The "injury"-that had to be the squid ship's ram, torn away during its crash-landing on Nex, and never replaced because the materials weren't available. And the "infestation"-didn't that have to be the crew, and by extension, Teldin himself?

He grabbed the rail with both hands, poured all his concentration into the link with the huge creature. "Zat," he said, "I am not what you see, or what you think you're seeing. I am not what's hanging in space before you. That's what I call a 'ship'. I am-Teldin Moore is-a human. There are twenty of us, each of us about"-he quickly calculated- "one thirtieth the size of the ship we're aboard.

"We are all alive," he pressed on forcefully, "we all have minds, like you do. The ship isn't alive. It has no mind. It's nothing more than"-he groped for words-"than a box of wood in which we live."

A wordless blast of shock, tinged with horror, flooded through the telepathic link, powerful enough to make Teldin sway dizzily. The infestation? Yet… this is not possible. No. How can the tiny, scurrying things have minds, the parasites? No. The last mental words carried a strong sense of denial, of refusal to accept something that went against cherished beliefs. But there was more to it than that, Teldin recognized: a hint of… could it be guilt? Why?

He put those questions aside for the moment. "Why would I lie to you?" he asked firmly. "What possible benefit could I gain?" He took a deep breath. "Look through my eyes, if you can," he demanded. "Use my senses. See if I'm not telling you the truth."

Slowly he turned around, scanning the length and breadth of the ship with his gaze. All the while, he concentrated on every detail he saw or otherwise perceived, trying mightily to channel it down the telepathic link into the mind of the metal creature. "Those 'tiny, scurrying things' you see," he whispered harshly, "they're like me. And they're like you, too. They have minds, emotions. They have wishes, and hopes, and dreams. They love. They feel fear. They're alive."

He pounded the ship's rail with a fist. "This-the ship- isn't alive. It has no mind, no will. When it breaks, we fix it. We steer it, control it. Without us-without our minds-it's inert, goes nowhere."

No, the mental voice maintained forcefully. The parasites are not like Zat. They have no minds. It paused-hesitantly, Teldin thought. Why have the parasites never spoken?

"One is speaking to you now," the Cloakmaster asserted. "Except I'm not a parasite. I am an independent being like you, with my own mind. We all are.

"I know it's difficult," he went on more quietly. "We seem so different, don't we, you and us? In size, in shape, in where and how we live. But we share one thing: we're aware of ourselves, and of the universe around us. Despite all the other differences-minor differences-that makes us the same."

The mental link remained "silent" for so long that Teldin was starting to think that Zat had broken the connection. But then the telepathic communication resumed-slowly, almost tentatively. I hear your thoughts, the creature said. Fora moment I shared your senses. What you say must be true. But is it true for all the infestations on all the "ships"?

"I think so," Teldin confirmed.

There was another long pause. Then we have done something terribly unwise, Zat murmured. All infestations? The sense of guilt was stronger, overlaid now with sadness.

Teldin shut his eyes, his throat constricting so tightly that he could hardly breathe. He thought he knew what the "terribly unwise" thing that Zat and its race had done was. What do you do when you find something you consider to be alive parasitized, suffering from some kind of infestation? You remove the infestation, don't you… ?

Teldin Moore, Zat continued, you and your tiny, scurrying minds are welcome in the space of Garrash. I and those of my kind welcome you.

In response to Zat's mental words, half a dozen more of the mirrored triangles emerged from the fire ring, soaring up into the cold darkness of wildspace to take up station behind and to either side of the first creature.

Is there any service we may perform for you? Zat asked. My kind would learn more about you….

"No service," Teldin said quickly. It wasn't that he particularly distrusted Zat, but there was something about the creature's suddenly effusive friendship so soon after its doubt and denial that bothered him. How many ships have you "sanitized?" he found himself wondering. "We just want some information. We know that you were recently visited by a large ship, a very large ship." He visualized the Spelljammer, tried to communicate the image through the telepathic link.

Apparently he'd succeeded. His mind was filled with a torrent of emotions, powerful enough to sear his thoughts with pain, as if his brain were being scoured with wire brushes. Recognition mixed with surprise, with excitement, and with tinges of ecstacy, but the dominant feeling was one of awe, almost religious in its intensity. Yes, Zat answered eagerly, the Wandering One. It was in the space of Garrash. It deigned to join us, the Wandering One, to sail on the currents of fire with us. It even shared its thoughts with us, to our great honor. The creature hesitated, then continued doubtfully, You know of the Wandering One?

At first Teldin was surprised by the tone of Zat's telepathic contact, but then he understood. You think the Spelljammer's one of you, don't you? he mused. Or something very like you, but much greater. The idea that "tiny, scurrying things" like us know your "Wandering One"-it must be as shocking to you as it would be to me if a rat swaggered up and told me it was personally acquainted with Paladine.

Could they think the Spelljammer's a kind of deity? he wondered. It would make sense, wouldn't it?

"Yes, we know of the Wandering One," he answered. "In fact, we've been following it across the universe."

Why? Zat wanted to know. There was a tinge of something that could have been suspicion in its voice.

"Wonder," Teldin answered quickly. It wouldn't do to tell Zat that I might be a deity's next captain, would it? "Wonder and awe. We've never seen anything like it before, and we want to learn what we can about it. To revere it-from a respectful distance, of course." He held his breath, waiting for the metal creature's answer.

Yes, Zat replied after a few moments. Yes, that is filling, but the Wandering One left the space of Garrash, Teldin Moore, it went on. It left over a planetary turn ago. Teldin instantly knew-thanks to the cloak, of course-that a 'planetary turn,' or a Garrash day, was about two hundred hours long.

More than two hundred hours, more than a week. Teldin felt his shoulders sag. The Spelljammer had left Vistaspace, then, traversing the Flow to another crystal sphere between the times that the Cloakmaster had used the amulet. The great ship was just so fast…

"Do you know where it was going?" Teldin asked pessimistically. "Did it tell you?"

The Wandering One returns home, Zat replied, to Teldin's shock, as it frequently does. A tinge of regret seeped into the telepathic voice. I tried to follow, in my presumption, but I was unable to keep pace with it.

You tried to follow your god home, Teldin translated with a wry grin, and it left you in the dust. "Where is this home?" he asked. "Do you know?"

Of course. The voice seemed surprised. Do not all who know the Wandering One know of its origins?

"No. We don't. Where is it?"

The One Egg, Zat replied flatly. Among the shards of the One Egg.

Teldin felt that his heart would burst. The Broken Sphere. What else could the creature be referring to? "And where's that? Do you know?"

At the center of all.

Teldin ground his teeth in frustration. So close… "And how do I find that? Can you give me directions?"

Of course.

The breath hissed from Teldin's lungs. "Tell me," he whispered.

Leave the space of Garrash, and this crystal sphere, Zat instructed, then follow the secondary eddies in the paramagnetic gradient, as they increase in amplitude. There are tertiary eddies that might lead you astray, but if you concentrate entirely on the secondaries, you cannot help but find the shards of the One Egg. It is a long journey, one that would take us many planetary turns, but at least the direction is simple to determine.

Teldin stared at Zat, hanging in space like some demented artificer's trick mirror. I think I understood one word in five, he told himself. What in Paladine's name is a 'paramagnetic gradient,' and what do 'secondary eddies' look like?

He turned to Djan. "What's a paramagnetic gradient?" he asked.

The half-elf looked startled-Teldin remembered he'd only been hearing half of the strange conversation-but then he shrugged. "I couldn't tell you to save my life," he admitted.

The Cloakmaster focused his attention back on Zat. "Can you describe it in another way?" he asked.

Why? The creature was astounded. The paramagnetic gradient is the best signpost leading to the One Egg. It hesitated. Can you not sense it?

"Can you?" Teldin shot back.

Of course. Sensitivity to paramagnetism is one of the basic senses among intelligent life, is it not? It paused again. Or perhaps your understanding of it is different from ours. Perhaps this would explain the sense we refer to.

Suddenly, without warning, Teldin felt as if he'd sprouted a new eye, one that could see things invisible to normal senses. He could see-that wasn't quite the right word, but it was the closest he could find-a field of some kind surrounding the planet of Garrash, whirling up from the planet's poles and looping around its equator, like some strange and exotic skein of wool. Burning in colors for which he had no name, spiderweb-thin lines of force wove in intricate patterns around the fire ring, spiraling through it. The strange colors were more intense near the center of the planet-which he realized his new sense could see right through-and in the heart of the fire ring. And everywhere he could see slight variations in the lines of force, bulges and twists-eddies.

I've seen this before, he told himself, or something very much like it. It had been during one of the times the amulet had linked him with the Spelljammer, when he was experiencing the universe through its mysterious senses.

Then the new sense-the vision-yet-not-vision-was gone, leaving him feeling momentarily bereft, blinded.

That is the sense of which I speak, Zat explained.

"We don't share that sense," Teldin said. "Is there any other way to tell me the way?"

Zat was silent for a long time, then, No, it said firmly. There is no other certain way of describing the direction to the One Egg. Vision is such an imprecise sense, and most others are worse. Only the ability to sense the gradient will serve.

Teldin felt as if he were clutching at straws. "Will you come with us, then?" he asked desperately. "Will you be our guide?"

And leave the space of Garrash? The question was tinged with incredulity.

"You said you were going to follow the Spelljammer-the Wandering One-anyway," the Cloakmaster pointed out hurriedly.

But not far from the space of Garrasb, Zat pronounced definitely. Certainly not beyond this crystal sphere. I and those of my kind cannot travel in the spaces beyond a sphere boundary.

Teldin slumped over the rail as despair washed over him. So near, and yet so far. He'd finally found someone-or something-that could direct him to the Cosmic Egg and, ultimately, the Spelljammer itself, but the directions were useless.

He felt Djan's hand on his shoulder and his friend's concern. He turned to the half-elf. "It's like it's given me a map to the Broken Sphere," he told his friend dully, "but I can't read it."