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

Chapter Eleven

Teldin stared disconsolately out the "eye" porthole of his cabin. Below the ship he could see several of the massive metallic creatures cruising slowly into and out of the liquid fire of Garrash's ring. Behind him, at the table, Djan toyed idly with the bronze amulet.

Immediately after the conversation with Zat, Teldin and the half-elf had gone belowdecks, and his friend had watched while the Cloakmaster had made contact again with the Spelljammer. This time the great craft was definitely somewhere in the Flow. Before it, deep in the churning colors of the phlogiston, were half a dozen crystal spheres packed closely together, looking for all the world like a cluster of great pearls.

It's the same place I saw through the amulet when I was approaching Crescent, Teldin recalled, or somewhere very much like it. The Spelljammer was heading back to the shards of the Broken Sphere, as Zat had told him. And where was that? "Between the pearl clusters," as Message Bearer of the People had told him. Somewhere where the secondary eddies in the paramagnetic gradient increased in amplitude, according to Zat. Two descriptions, detailed enough in their way…

But both useless. Nobody aboard the Boundless knew of a place in the Flow where the crystal spheres were this tightly packed, and the charts gave no hint of it. And Teldin couldn't sense the paramagnetic gradient as Zat and its kind could do, and certainly knew of no other way of measuring it… largely because he didn't know what in all the hells it was. How can information be so uninformative? he asked himself bitterly.

"Where do we go now?" he asked softly. The creatures playing in the fire ring, predictably, gave no answer.

"Where?" He turned to Djan, repeating his rhetorical question.

The half-elf shrugged, setting the amulet down on the able before him. "I don't know, Teldin," he said candidly. "Somebody must know about the 'pearl clusters.' I'd wager hat some spelljammer captain has seen them sometime, tows where they are. Maybe the best bet is to head for one of the major centers of spelljamming trade-Radole, maybe, or Garden-and ask around." He shrugged again. "I know it's not much, but it's all I can think of at the moment."

Teldin nodded and gave his friend a tired smile. "Thanks," he said simply.

"Just think on it," Djan suggested. "And maybe try this again when you're feeling up to it." He tossed the amulet to the Cloakmaster, then he stood and walked toward the door. "Plus," he added over his shoulder, "I think you should get some rest."

As the first mate reached for the door latch, a diffident knock sounded. He quirked an eyebrow at Teldin-"Expecting company?"-and opened the door. The half-orc, Dargeth, was framed in the doorway. He tugged his forelock. "Sir, Captain." He shifted from foot to foot in discomfort. "Captain, do you have a moment, sir?" Teldin sighed. He didn't want to take a moment for dealing with ship's business, not right now, but duty does bind both ways, he reminded himself again. "Of course. Come on in, Dargeth. Have a seat. Is it all right if the first mate hears this, or is it personal?"

Dargeth ducked to avoid cracking his head on the overhead and crossed to the table. "No, sirs, it's not personal. It's…" He glanced at the open door behind him.

Taking the cue, Djan shut the door.

"Have a seat," Teldin repeated. To make the sailor more comfortable-obviously he didn't like the idea of sitting while his captain stood-he pulled a chair out for himself. "Now, Dargeth," he prompted, "what is it?"

Dargeth seated himself, hands in his lap, wringing them together uncomfortably. He glanced back and forth between his captain and the first mate.

"It's all right, Dargeth," Teldin told him, trying to inject as much reassurance as he could into his voice. "Whatever it is, it's all right."

The half-ore bobbed his head. "As you say, sir," he said tentatively, though he obviously didn't believe it.

"I've been thinking, Captain," Dargeth started slowly, his voice pitched little above a whisper. "About Blossom… about the helm-priest's death."

Teldin shot a quick glance at Djan, but tried to keep his face expressionless. "What about her death?" he asked, as lightly as he could.

"I've been thinking it's not an accident, Captain. Sorry to say it, but it's true. I think… I think she was killed."

The Cloakmaster sighed. Well, it had only been a matter of time, hadn't it? He had to admit he didn't have much respect for the half-orc's intellect, so if Dargeth was entertaining suspicions, what about the rest of the crew? "Why do you think that?" he asked coolly.

Dargeth shifted in his chair uncomfortably. "Lots of things, really, Captain," he mumbled. "I'm sorry, but…"

"No," Djan broke in, "no apologies. You've figured something out, or think you have. If you're correct, you did the right thing in coming to talk to us about it. If you're wrong, you still did the right thing. I've always told the entire crew I want them to use their heads, to think for themselves, haven't I?" The half-ore nodded. "You can be sure you're not going to get in trouble for doing what I told you to do," the first mate concluded. "Tell on."

The sailor looked immeasurably less uncomfortable, and Teldin again found himself respecting his friend's ability to deal with people.

"Like I said," Dargeth said, more confidently, "it's lots of things. I just sort of put them all together. First off, I got to wondering why the helm-priest would be checking the bilges or the keel." He looked directly at Djan, patently struggling not to drop his gaze. "I know you said you ordered her to, sir, but…"

"Yes," Djan said simply. "Go on."

"So there was that. Then there was the business about her falling and breaking her neck." Dargeth hesitated again. "It's just that Blossom… wasn't a small woman, if you take my meaning," he went on, "but nobody heard her fall. And, anyway, the distance in the bilges isn't much of a fall to get you a broken neck."

"She wasn't a small woman, remember," Djan pointed out.

Dargeth bobbed his head again. "I know that, sir, but it's like I said: it's not just one thing, it's a lot of things all coming together."

Teldin signaled for the man to go on.

"And then there's the hatch," the sailor continued. "Harriana said it was shut-not all the way, but shut. I don't think any of the other jacks remembered that, but I did. If Blossom fell and broke her neck by accident, who shut the hatch?"

The Cloakmaster was silent. Maybe he'd been hasty in underrating Dargeth's intelligence after all. "That's one thing," he pointed out. "What are the others?"

"The accidents, when we were fighting the pirates and before," the man answered. "When Merrienne fell, and when the catapult broke. All on their own, they didn't mean much." He-shrugged. "Things break on board ship, that's why you need jacks like me to fix them, but to have two things break, just when we're about to be attacked by a pirate who knew we were coming… Well, it made me think.

"And now it's the catapult again."

Both Teldin and Djan jerked upright in their chairs as though they'd been stung. "What's wrong with the catapult?" the Cloakmaster demanded.

"You know we wound it back when that metal thing was coming after us," Dargeth explained. "You ordered us to do it yourself, Captain. Well, when we were told to stand down again, it was my job to let the tension out of the catapult so it wouldn't be damaged staying ready to fire for too long.

"Well, when I was letting it back, I looked at the skeins and the bearing." His gaze settled steadily on Teldin's face. "They've been jiggered, Captain. Somebody split the bearing with a spike and cut one of the skeins. Not all the way through, otherwise she'd have torn apart right when we wound her back. But real clever, a couple of strands here, a couple of strands there, all the way around. If we'd left her wound back for any longer, she'd have gone soon enough. But she'd certain have gone the first time we fired her. She'd have torn herself right apart, and that first shot wouldn't have hit the side of a barn even if we'd been in the barn."

"Hold it." Djan raised a hand to interrupt the half-ore's rapid words. "When could this have happened? When did you last check the catapult?"

Dargeth shrugged. "During the repairs after we landed on the planet with those three-legged things," he explained. "I was tuning the catapult-Miss Julia was working with me- and everything was fine then."

So this happened recently, then, Teldin realized, during the voyage through the Flow after leaving the Nex crystal sphere. "Who else worked on the weapon, Dargeth?"

"Just me and Miss Julia at the time, Captain, but others might have come to work on it later. I don't know."

Teldin nodded. "Go on."

"So I put it all together, Captain," Dargeth mumbled, "and I'm sorry if I was wrong, but I think they're all connected. Somebody jiggered things so the boom and the catapult would break, outside Heartspace, just like somebody jiggered the catapult now.

"And"-his voice firmed up-"I think maybe that same somebody killed Blossom." He lowered his eyes. "If I'm wrong, Captain, tell me, and I'll take whatever discipline you see fit."

Impulsively, Teldin leaned forward, clapped the big man on the shoulder. "No discipline, Dargeth," he told the sailor. "I just have one question: who have you talked to about this?"

The half-orc looked up, surprised. "Why, nobody, Captain," he asserted. "It's not my place."

"And nobody else has talked about any of this in your hearing?" Djan asked.

"Nobody, sir," Dargeth said firmly. He paused and looked at his two superior officers.

Then I am right, sirs?" he asked quietly. He didn't wait or them to speak; apparently their expressions were all the answer he needed. "I won't mention this to anyone, ever, without you give me leave first," he stated flatly. "Is that what you want me to do, sir? Captain?"

"That's exactly what I want you to do," Teldin confirmed. He patted the big man's shoulder again. "Thank you, Dargeth. You've done exactly what you should have done, exactly what both of us would have wanted you to do." He smiled-difficult, since he didn't feel at all like smiling. "You can return to your duties now."

Djan watched the half-orc scramble to his feet and vanish out the door. Then he turned to Teldin and raised an eyebrow. "Interesting," he said neutrally.

"As my grandfather always told me," Teldin said, "Troubles are like raindrops; they never come singly."

The half-elf nodded agreement.

*****

Julia, Teldin thought. It couldn't be Julia, could it?

He lay in his bunk, staring off into infinity. Through the closed door he heard someone make six bells. Six bells in the bottom of the night watch-that made it three in the morning by the groundling clock.

It couldn't be Julia…

But… how else to interpret their conversation of earlier that evening? He'd sought her out soon after Dargeth had left, to confirm the half-ore's memories about the catapult repairs. She'd been sitting in the saloon, eating a hand meal and chatting with Lucinus, the navigator. He'd joined her at the table.

After the quick kiss with which they usually greeted each other-just a peck, not the more intense kiss they used to share-he'd said, "Tell me about the catapult."

She'd looked at him blankly. "What about the catapult?"

"What condition was it in?" he'd asked. "When you tuned it with Dargeth after we left Nex."

"I never went near it," she'd responded lightly, and then she'd shrugged. "I know Dargeth was asking for my help, but I was busy with other things and never got around to it. I guess he found somebody else to help him."

"You're sure?" he'd pressed.

"Of course I'm sure," she'd replied. "I'd remember if I did it, wouldn't I?" Four bells had sounded, and she'd got to her feet. "No rest for the wicked," she'd joked. "I've got bridge duty. See you later, maybe?" And with a warm smile, she'd left the saloon.

That's when Lucinus had cleared his throat. "Captain…" he'd started uncomfortably.

"Yes, Lucinus?"

"Captain, I…" The ginger-haired halfling had paused to order his thoughts. "Captain," he'd begun again, "I don't mean to contradict the second mate, but…" His voice had trailed off.

That's when the cold chill had started to invade Teldin's bones, his blood. "But what?" he'd pressed, maybe a little harshly.

The halfling had blinked in surprise at the Cloakmaster's tone-had visibly considered dropping the entire matter- but he'd swallowed hard and pressed on. "I saw her, Captain," he'd said quietly. "I saw her working with Dargeth. I don't know quite what they were doing. I don't know anything about catapults. But they were working on it," he'd stressed. "The two of them. Then Dargeth left, and the second mate continued to work." He'd shrugged. "I didn't pay it any mind at the time, of course, but I do remember it, clear as day. Just thought I should tell you," he'd finished, then hurriedly vacated the saloon, leaving Teldin to his thoughts.

Julia. Could it have been her?

She certainly knew her way around the ship. She'd exhibited an incredible knack for fixing just about anything, from a sprung hull plank to a sticking hatch hinge. And didn't the ability to fix things imply the ability to unfix them, to sabotage them? He knew she was a doughty warrior, despite her pelite size-he remembered the three sellswords she'd dispatched aboard the Nebulon in orbit around Toril. Was she was skilled with her bare hands as she was with a blade? Maybe Blossom's spirit could tell him….

He shook his head forcefully. No. But…

But. His mind kept drifting back to Julia's surprise appearance on Crescent, when the Boundless was readying for departure. The strange, circumstantial tale she'd told about now she'd come to be there. He'd never really felt comfortable with that, had he? Even with Djan's declaration that Teldin was verenthestae, a weaver of the strands of destiny, the coincidence had seemed just too strong, too unlikely. At the time, he'd suppressed his doubts from pleasure at having Julia back in his life, accepting Djan's half-baked metaphysics as a way of denying his thoughts. Now, however, he had to reexamine things. How likely was it-really-that Julia had "just happened" to appear on Crescent right at that crucial moment? Not very likely at all. In fact, astronomically unlikely.

He ground his teeth in frustration. I should have thought all this through long ago, he berated himself. Instead I let myself be blinded, didn't I? I let myself be taken in. Again, by Paladine's blood. By another woman. He remembered Rianna Wyvernsbane, the lustrous fall of her honey-blond hair, the flash of her green eyes.

Her snarl as she lunged at him with his own sword.

Her betrayal.

Teldin writhed in degradation. Another betrayal, by another woman he loved-this time without the intervention of a magical charm, which made it even worse… By all the gods, how could I be so stupid twice in a lifetime? Tears stung his eyes, tears of bitter humiliation.

Yet, was he being stupid now? Was he overreacting, letting his suspicions-perhaps unfounded-get the better of his reason? He forced himself to think dispassionately-or, at least, as dispassionately as was possible given the circumstances.

Maybe he was being too quick to suspect-no, to be honest, to suspect, try, and convict-Julia. Considering his history, his experience with Rianna Wyvernsbane, it was perfectly understandable, he told himself. But did that make it right'

No, it didn't. What was he basing this on, really? On the coincidence of her appearance on Crescent-which, Djan attributed to the Cloakmaster being verenthestae. Although Teldin didn't believe it fully, Djan most certainly seemed to. And on the fact that she denied working on the forward catapult with Dargeth. The first point seemed telling, but-who knew?-maybe the half-elf s metaphysical mumbo-jumbo was right after all. And the second point: it came down to a lapse in Julia's memory, perhaps. The first weeks after leaving Nex had been busy ones, the crew scrambling all over the ship and each other to repair the damage. Wasn't it possible that Julia herself had been so busy that she'd simply forgotten tuning the catapult?

Possible, yes. Likely? Maybe.

He was sorely tempted to seek her out-she had bridge duty tonight, didn't she?-and question her again about the catapult. Maybe if he pressed, she'd remember.

But he couldn't do that. Maybe she'd remember, but if she was involved in the sabotage, she'd pretend to remember. And he'd have tipped her off that he suspected her. It was just like the investigation after Blossom's murder. He couldn't ask the questions he most wanted answered be-cause those very questions would communicate too much to the people hearing them.

He sighed-a sigh that threatened to turn into a sob. What do I do? he asked the overhead. I can't trust her, not fully, but I can't let her know I don't trust her.

He rolled over, let his hand fall to the cocked and loaded hand-crossbow that he'd taken to keeping under his bunk since Blossom's death. When will this all be over?

*****

When would this voyage be over? Grampian asked himself sourly. The ship he'd commandeered was reasonably large as spelljamming vessels went, but that still didn't represent much elbowroom. The sense of claustrophobia that always accompanied travel in space was strong in him.

The crew didn't help. It was all human-a necessity, he had to admit, but still a disappointing one. Like most of his race, he enjoyed the company of his own kind. But there had been none of his race available, and, anyway, "Grampian"-the identity he'd maintained for much too long now- was human, and would presumably hire a human crew.

He sighed, a high-pitched whistling sound. Still, the quarry was near, now: still in the crystal sphere it had entered two days ago, the same sphere Grampian's ship had entered, too, just hours before. Why remain here? he wondered. What was so fascinating that the quarry would remain in this vicinity? The question troubled him slightly. Anything that fascinated the quarry might turn out to be of help to him. And anything that helped the quarry would hinder Grampian.

Or perhaps the quarry just doesn't know where to go next, he mused. That was possible, wasn't it? Perhaps even probable. Grampian had been surprised by the quarry's moves of late. Apparently the quarry had found something important in the Great Archive-why else the voyage to that tiny crystal sphere, deep in the Flow? And why else the trip to this undistinguished sphere, this valueless world in the vicinity of which the quarry now remained?

Still, any line of inquiry could play out at any time- Grampian knew that all too well from personal experience. Perhaps that had happened to the quarry.

Well, it wouldn't matter soon enough. Grampian's ship was closing the gap rapidly. It would arrive in another few days, unless the quarry decided to move on.

And, if Grampian's plan worked as he expected it to, the quarry wouldn't be able to move on. Grampian felt the muscles of his assumed face-quite different from his own muscles-twist thick lips into a smile. If all was happening according to schedule, his agent aboard the quarry's ship should already be seeing to that. He nodded slowly. He'd chosen well with that agent, an intelligent operative, and highly innovative.

Grampian sat back in his chair, staring out of the red-tinged, ovoid porthole set in the bulkhead of the captain's day room. Yes, he thought, a few more days, and then we'll see what we shall see.

*****

Teldin emerged from his cabin into the saloon. His head felt stuffed full of cotton batten, and his eyes felt as though somebody had thoughtfully taken them out and sanded them for him while he'd slept.

Slept, he thought bitterly. If you could call what I did "sleep." He'd tossed and turned for hours, replaying scenes over and over again on the stage of his mind. His betrayal by Rianna Wyvernsbane, the line of reasoning that supported his suspicion of Julia… Even an unhealthy volume of sagecoarse hadn't stilled the churning thoughts and allowed him to relax.

And now he was paying the price for his "medication." Lights seemed too bright, even the small lanterns in the saloon, and sounds too intense. Even the sound of someone making two bells had sounded like the tolling of doom. And smells-anything seemed capable of making his stomach writhe. He needed food, he decided, something bland but solid, to settle his stomach.

Unfortunately, he saw, a settled stomach wasn't what he'd find in the saloon. There was only one of the. crew members there-the beholder, Beth-Abz. It was hovering beside one of the mess tables, telekinetically manipulating some food into its gaping maw. While Teldin had long ago come to consider the eye tyrant a friend, he still had difficulty watching Beth-Abz eat, particularly now, he thought. The creature's meal, a joint of meat big enough to feed a family of four, totally raw and still dripping blood, hung in the air before it.

The Cloakmaster's stomach knotted, threatening to empty itself at any moment. With a grunted greeting, he hurried aft, through the door, and out onto the cargo deck.

He breathed deeply, drawing the cool, clear air into his lungs. Thankfully, he felt his nausea subside and the cobwebs in his head start to dissolve. Damn fortunate thing Beth-Abz didn't have to eat often, he told himself with a wry smile. Even with maybe one meal like that a week, the beholder was a serious drain on the ship's provisions. Fortunate, too, that the Boundless had come equipped with a "freezebox," a magical device of arcane manufacture that kept food fresh for protracted lengths of time. Beholders were carnivorous, after all, and Beth-Abz had proven unable to stomach cooked food. If they hadn't been able to keep raw meat fresh in the freezebox, they'd have had to let the young eye tyrant off the ship long ago. Even with a good supply of food, Teldin mused, Beth-Abz probably found the proximity of the rest of the crew a real stimulus to his hunger-much the same as if the Cloakmaster were living and working in a well-stocked larder…

He shook his head. What am I doing? he asked himself. Inventing more troubles for myself? As if I don't have enough….

He looked out over the port rail. Garrash was a distant, ruddy disk about as large as an apple held at arm's length, its fire ring still clearly visible. After his frustrating conversation with Zat, Teldin had ordered the ship to stand off from the planet. Not from any fear of the great metal creatures; they seemed-well, not harmless, but not inclined to do any harm. More than a dozen of the metallic beings had congregated in the vicinity of the squid ship, seemingly fascinated by the fact that there existed one of the "tiny, scurrying things" that could actually communicate with them. The great, mirrored triangles had taken to cruising close to the Boundless for a better view… and scaring the wits out of Teldin's crew in the process. Even though he knew the beasts meant no harm, the Cloakmaster could understand his crew's reactions. Seeing another one of the things-one hundred feet long, one hundred and fifty wide-drifting in space a spear cast off the beam was enough to frighten him.

For that reason, he'd pulled the ship back to this distance. Zat and its fellows had seemed not inclined to travel so far just to satisfy their curiosity, and had returned to their normal life, which had let the crewmen return to theirs.

"Captain Teldin Moore." A voice that could have come from a clogged sewer sounded behind the Cloakmaster. He turned.

Beth-Abz had followed him out onto the deck. The beholder had swallowed its meal, but drips of blood around its thin lips still were enough to start Teldin's stomach churning again.

"Well met, Beth-Abz," the Cloakmaster said, backing off a step to stay out of range of the creature's slaughterhouse breath.

"Captain,…" the creature started, then its deep-pitched voice trailed off. There was something about the way its ten eyestalks moved that made Teldin think it was uncomfortable. What's this about? he wondered, with a chill of foreboding.

"Captain," it started again, moving closer and lowering the volume of its voice. A miasma of blood and other nauseating odors washed over Teldin, but he forced himself to stand his ground. "Captain, I have heard two of the crew talking about damage to the ship."

"The ship's damaged?" Teldin demanded.

The beholder's eyestalks weaved a complex pattern. "I am not communicating well," it said quietly. "I find my thoughts are somehow sluggish. What I mean is that they were speaking of causing damage to the ship."

Sabotage! "Who?" Teldin saw a couple of the crewman on deck glance over as they heard his barked question. He forced himself to pitch his voice lower, and repeated, "Who? Who was it?"

Beth-Abz was silent for a moment. Teldin cursed silently in frustration. He knew that the eye tyrant had a frustrating inability to easily remember human and demihuman names -probably because they didn't communicate the same information about clan and nation as did beholder names. "It was the small one," Beth-Abz said slowly, "the small one on the bridge."

Did that mean Julia?

"And another, a larger one."

"Describe them to me," Teldin ordered.

"The smaller one…" Suddenly the beholder fell silent. One of its eyestalks had suddenly convulsed, driving directly upward from the top of the creature's body. The other nine pivoted around to stare at the wayward eye. "The smaller one… ° it started over.

The eyestalk convulsed again, another joining it in its spastic motion. The creature's loose-lipped mouth opened slightly, and a gobbet of yellow-white saliva dribbled down its lower surface to drip on the deck.

"What's the matter?" Teldin asked, suddenly alarmed.

"I feel pain," Beth-Abz said, its voice taking on a strange, bubbling tone. "Sharp pain. I feel…"

Another convulsion racked its eyestalks-all of them, this time. The creature made a sound like a cough, and saliva sprayed Teldin's jerkin, looking puslike against the black fabric.

"What is it?" Teldin asked again.

"Pain…" the beholder gurgled. Its huge central eye rolled wildly, the horizontal pupil contracting down to a black line, then suddenly expanding so large that the pale-colored iris almost vanished. It coughed again, but now green-black bile-or was it blood?-sprayed out with the spittle.

Teldin stepped back, horror and fear churning in his chest. What in the hells was happening?

Beth-Abz rocked, like a ship in heavy seas, listing one way then the other, as though it could no longer control its levitation power. The eyestalks convulsed again. The beholder crashed to the deck.

"What is it?" Teldin screamed at the stricken creatures. "What?"

The great mouth worked, made gargling sounds as Beth-Abz tried to answer. It coughed again, spewing bile and bright blood.

A brilliant green beam lashed out from one of the minor eyes, lanced out into space.

Teldin heard yells of alarm from the crewmen on deck, the thundering of running feet as they sprinted for safety. He backed off another couple of steps, wanting desperately to join them in their flight, but unable to take his eyes from the agonized creature.

Another beam-pinkish red this time-burst from another eye and persisted for a second or two as the eyestalk lashed about wildly. The beam swept through the air like a scythe, cutting into a pack of sailors struggling to get through the door into the forecastle. One of them screamed, a huge gout of blood bursting open in his back. The sailor fell, to lie still in a spreading pool of scarlet.

Now all of the thrashing, weaving secondary eyes were cutting loose with their magical powers. Beams of green, yellow, and actinic blue-white hissed through the air, striking wildly all over the ship. Teldin heard rather than saw the top of the mainmast detonate into splinters. The body of the dead sailor was struck by another beam, bright violet this time, and it was hurled into the air as though shot from a catapult. The green beam lashed out again, blasting a hole clean through the deck.

"By Paladine's blood…!" Teldin gasped.

He had to get out of here, had to get clear of the creature's magical convulsions. Its death throes? What else could they be? He turned and sprinted for the door into the stern-castle. More screams sounded in his ears, mixed with the rending of tortured wood as something forward blew apart. He grabbed the door handle and flung it open as another beam-this one as black as night-played momentarily over the planking by his head. He ducked low and flung himself through the door into the helm compartment.

There was nobody on the helm-no need for a helmsman when the ship was drifting in space-and the compartment was empty. Teldin leaped behind the heavy wooden chair that was the helm itself and crouched low.

Not a moment too soon. A green beam lanced through the forward bulkhead, exploding a man-sized area into dust before continuing straight through the rear of the hull and out into space. Even over the sound of the destruction, Teldin could hear the gargling, choking sounds of Beth-Abz's death.

Another concussive blast sounded from the deck outside, then silence.

Teldin crouched behind the helm for almost another minute before emerging into the scene of devastation that was the Boundless.

*****

The Cloakmaster knelt alongside Djan, examining Beth-Abz's corpse. The dead beholder lay on its side on the deck, looking like some kind of partially deflated kickball. Its eyestalks, which, only minutes ago, had lashed the ship with magical destruction, hung limply. The big central eye was open, the black pupil contracted so far as to be an almost invisible hairline. The area of the mouth and the deck around it were spattered with blood and bile and partially digested meat. Teldin wrinkled his nose, suppressing his nausea only through a titanic act of will. The stench was terrible.

Although Djan's face showed his own distaste, he dipped a finger in the horrid liquid and raised it to his nose. He coughed-a tight, gagging sound-and wiped the finger clean on a cloth he pulled from his belt pouch. "Bitter almonds," the first mate said quietly. "Poison."

Teldin rose unsteadily to his feet. He looked around.

The Boundless looked as though it had been through a major action, suffering mightily under the heavy weapons of an opposing ship. The upper half of the mainmast was gone, as was much of the portside rail. The dying beholder's disintegration beam had blown half a dozen holes in the main deck and in the fore- and sterncastles. One of the stern spanker fins had been half torn away, and the mainsail was shredded, its fragments tied into complex knots, courtesy of the eye tyrant's telekinetic beam. The keel, the Cloakmaster could feel, as he extended his perception through the ultimate helm, had been cracked again-not critically, but enough to put the ship at serious risk if it had to weather any heavy maneuvering.

He sighed, shaking his head slowly. "Casualties?" he asked Djan.

The half-elf s shoulders slumped. "Four dead, not including Beth-Abz," he announced, his voice exhausted. "Six wounded, two seriously. One-Harriana-not expected to live."

Teldin felt his head bow forward as if under a crushing weight. More dead. And how many more to follow before this was all over?

He forced his depression into the deepest recesses of his mind. Deal with that later, he told himself. Right now you've got to be the captain… and be seen to be the captain. He pulled himself up to his full height.

"Start the repairs," he ordered loudly. "Prepare the bodies for burial. And whatever the wounded need, give it to them."

As crewmen scurried off to attend to their duties, the Cloakmaster turned to Djan and asked him quietly, "You're sure about the poison?"

"As sure as I can be," the first mate confirmed, his own voice barely above a whisper. "Somebody killed Beth-Abz, almost killed the Boundless as well."

"How is the ship?"

Djan shrugged. "We can sail-slowly-but we can't fight," he replied, confirming Teldin's own analysis. "Dranigor's one of the wounded, but"-he glanced at Teldin's cloak-

"but I suppose that doesn't hamper us as much as it might."

"Be thankful for small favors, you mean?" The Cloakmaster clapped his friend on the shoulder and squeezed-gaining as much reassurance from the gesture as he gave. "You're right, of course."

The half-elf lowered his voice even more, so much that Teldin had to lean forward to catch his words. "The crew knows about Beth-Abz," he said grimly. "There's no way to cover this one up. They all know he was poisoned, and they know that means one of them did it."

Teldin nodded. As with Blossom's death, the guilty party could have been anybody on board-literally anybody. Every crew member had free run of the saloon and the galley, of course, they had to be able to eat when they needed to. There wasn't a lock on the freezebox, as there might have been on some ships. Teldin had insisted on an honor system for such things, and it had worked fine. Until now, he reminded himself. Anybody could have slipped in, at any time during the voyage, and insinuated the poison into Beth-Abz's food. By unspoken consent, the meat that would be kept raw for the beholder was stored separately from the crew's provisions, so there'd been no risk that the poisoner would end up eating his own poison for dawnfry. The killer would have had to bring his or her own poison aboard, of course, possibly when the Boundless was last in port. But that wouldn't have been much of a problem. The Cloakmaster knew all too well how easy it was to buy just about anything around the docks of a major port like Starfall, and there was no way of knowing what a crew member brought aboard in his duffel, or even in his belt pouch. The only issue was the forethought and planning involved-it had been a long time since the squid ship had made landfall, but this whole thing reeked of a complex, organized plan, didn't it?

He sighed again, feeling the weight of his responsibility threatening to swamp him once more. For Djan's benefit, he tried to force a smile-but he feared as he did it that it would look more like a rictus. "Try to get us as spaceworthy as possible," he suggested.

"And then?" the half-elf asked softly.

Teldin had no answer for him but a shrug.

*****

The Cloakmaster thrashed, straining against sweat-soaked linen ropes. He moaned deep in his throat.

He knew he was asleep, knew he was dreaming, but that didn't make the dream any less horrific.

The dead Beth-Abz was hovering before him, the beholder's eyestalks limp and inert, its central eye sightless. Still it moved, tracking him with its blind eyes as he ran wildly around the deck of the Boundless. The creature's slack-lipped mouth was open, drooling blood and bile onto the deck beneath it.

And there was something stirring within that gaping mouth, something trying to free itself from the prison of the eye tyrant's body. It writhed and mewled, Coated with dark blood. As he tried to escape Beth-Abz's empty stare, Teldin couldn't see well enough to recognize just what it was that was trying to free itself and emerge into the light. But he had the unescapable feeling that he would recognize it if he only looked long enough. And that when he did recognize it, the horror would drive him insane. He moaned, running for the door leading into the forecastle, to his own cabin.

But before he could reach it, the door swung open. Someone stood there, the corpulent figure of Blossom, her head hanging unnaturally to one side. She smiled. Teldin recoiled in horror and sprinted past the beholder, heading for the door to the sterncastle.

Again the door opened before he could reach it, revealing Merrienne. Little Merrienne, the young woman who'd plunged to her death from the crow's nest as the squid ship had left Heartspace. The side of her head was slightly flattened, the skull staved in from its impact with the deck. Still she managed to bare her bloody teeth at Teldin in a warm smile…

Other figures were appearing from everywhere, climbing the ladder from belowdecks, descending from the fore- and afterdecks, even clambering over the rails from somewhere overboard. Allyn, the gunner's mate, and Vernel. Manicombe and Harriana. More-figures from deeper in the past. Dana, the gnome. Shandess, the forward gunner on the old Probe. Sylvie, the navigator, slain by an elven ballista shot in Herd-space. And still they came, all those who'd died while helping him in his quest-all those that he, in a way, had killed. They surrounded him, a ring of smiling faces atop torn or shattered bodies, pressing ever closer, forcing him nearer and nearer to the floating corpse of Beth-Abz.

He heard a sound. From deep within the body of the beholder it came, a sibilance of movement.

The thing within the eye tyrant, trying to escape?

But, no, it came from elsewhere, he recognized now. From all around him, maybe? Yet not that either. No, it came -somehow-from outside this horrible reality altogether….

And with that, Teldin was awake. He lay motionless in his bunk, staring up into blackness, every nerve fiber tingling. By the gods, what a nightmare. He was growing all too used to night terrors, but this had been particularly…

What was that! He stiffened.

It was the noise from the dream: a faint sibilance from somewhere in the darkness around him, as of something brushing softly against the deck. A foot? That was it-stealthy movement.

Was it the saboteur, the murderer, sneaking up on him, ready to finish him off as well? He'd latched the door of his cabin, but he knew all too well how little hindrance that would prove to someone with any skill at lockpicking.

His eyes were wide open, but he could hardly see anything at all. The cabin's lantern was out, and the only illumination was faint starlight coming in through the two "eye" portholes.

He remained totally motionless, focusing all of his concentration into his eyes and ears. For a moment he considered using the cloak, borrowing the enhanced senses of the ultimate helm, but he immediately dismissed that as foolish. The moment he tried to access that power, the cloak would glow with its magical light, giving the assassin-if that's what had made the sound-a perfectly lit target at which to strike.

The sound came again. Yes, it was stealthy movement. There was no doubt any longer. Somebody was crossing the cabin-slowly, oh, so cautiously-from the door to Teldin's bunk, mounted against the forward bulkhead.

He needed a weapon. The idea flashed through his mind. The hand-crossbow…

He grunted softly, drawing the sound out into a low mumble-hoping he sounded like a sleeper disturbed by a dream. He rolled over, pulling the blanket up around his chin, simultaneously letting a hand flop down over the edge of the bunk. His fingers brushed the deck, then touched something else: the crossbow, cocked and loaded with a single bolt. One shot. It had to be sufficient-enough to either incapacitate the assassin or slow him down sufficiently for Teldin to escape or summon help. Slowly, carefully, he wrapped his hand around the small wooden stock and let his finger rest on the trigger.

In his mind he rehearsed his moves. Bring the small weapon up quickly-but not so quickly that he dislodged the bolt from its seat-simultaneously flipping off the safety catch with his thumb. Aim and shoot.

But aim where? He opened his eyes as wide as they'd go, trying to pick up every iota of light in the room.

Yes, there was something-a faint, cold shimmer. Starlight washing over steel. The blade of a short sword. His pulse was pounding in his ears, so loud that the assassin had to hear it. The faintly gleaming sword blade was only five feet away from him.

He tried to imagine the position of the body behind that blade. Assume it's a right-hander, he told himself. The odds are ten to one in your favor. That would put the swordsman's body… there!

In a single movement he brought the hand-crossbow up, flicked the safety, and pulled the trigger. The small weapon jerked in his hand as the bowstring sang. He imagined he could hear the bolt cross the open space, and undeniably could hear it drive into his would-be killer's flesh.

Light, that's what he needed now. He expanded his awareness through the cloak and squinted as the pink light flared from behind him, flooding the compartment.

From his virtually omnipresent viewpoint, he could clearly see the crossbow bolt's feathered haft protruding from the lower chest of the assassin.

It was Julia. By Paladine's blood, it was Julia….

The short sword dropped from the copper-haired woman's nerveless fingers. She clutched at the bolt, driven into her chest just below her right breast, and she crumpled.

Teldin flung the tiny crossbow aside and dived off the bed toward her.

Oh, no. By the gods, no… His eyes filled with tears, and his heart felt as though it were about to twist inside out.

There's a difference between suspicion and knowledge, he realized with a sickening impact. He'd suspected Julia. He thought he'd reconciled himself to the fact that she could have been the one. But that reconciliation had only been in his own imagination, he understood now. Now he knew that, again, a woman he'd loved-Why not use the word? he asked himself bitterly-had betrayed him, had tried to kill him. And he, in turn, had killed her.

What is it? he wanted to scream to the heavens so that the gods could hear him. What fa it you want me to learn so badly that you keep repeating the same damn lesson?

The light of the cloak faded. The enhanced perception slipped as his emotions overwhelmed his control over the cloak.

The knot in his throat felt so hard that it threatened to choke him as he knelt by the fallen woman and cradled her head in his hands. In the faint wash of starlight, her face was peaceful, youthful-the way it had looked on the pillow beside him when he'd woken in the night and turned to watch her sleep. Her eyes were closed. For a moment, he thought she was already gone, then he saw her chest rise and fall and saw a tiny bubble of air emerge from the bloody wound.

"Why!" he cried hoarsely. "Why, may the gods damn you?" Her eyes flickered and opened. Normally bright, her eyes were dulled now. They rolled wildly for a moment, and Teldin knew that whatever it was she was seeing, it wasn't this small compartment. Then they cleared slightly and focused on his face. "Teldin," she murmured.

"Why?" His voice was a whisper this time, but sounded even more tortured in his own ears.

"Is it dead?"

"What?"

"Is it…" Her voice faded; he brought his ear closer to her mouth. "Is it dead?" she repeated.

Was what dead? What was… ?

He heard it again. The faint brushing sound that had roused him from sleep and warned him of Julia's approach.

Behind him…

He snapped his head around, saw something hurtling at him from the shadows under the starboard port, a shape of black on black. He hurled himself aside, not an instant too soon. The object flew past his ear, struck the bulkhead with a sound of stone on wood, and fell onto his bunk.

For the first time he saw it clearly, as it recovered from its missed pounce. It was a spider, or something very much like it, its body at least the size of Teldin's clenched fist. Its legs scrabbled on the blanket, trying to gain better purchase for another leap. Starlight gleamed off its body as it might off a huge, dark gem.

Teldin rolled back, trying to widen the gap between himself and the thing. Too late. Its legs were under it again, and it hurled itself right for his face.

Without thought, Teldin flung his hands up in a warding gesture. He felt energy sear through his bones, through every fiber of his being-felt as though his eyes must be burning with the light of a blue-white sun. A sizzling, scintillating curtain of sparks burst into existence before him.

An instant too late; the spider-thing was already past. It struck him heavily in the chest, hard enough to knock him backward. He felt claws like skewers tear at his jerkin, at the flesh of his chest, as it tried for a purchase on his body. Something that felt ice cold, then fire hot, scored the skin of his throat-not quite drawing blood, but terrifyingly close. With a gasp of panic he punched at the thing, a short-arm right jab with more power behind it than he'd ever imagined possible. The blow knocked it clear off his chest-he felt its claws tearing free from his flesh-and across the cabin, to thud into the bulkhead. He heard the clattering as it struggled to right itself and prepare for another attack.

Teldin skittered backward, crablike, across the floor. His right hand struck something-something cylindrical: the sharkskin-wrapped grip of Julia's short sword. He snatched it up and raised it before him, point up and blade angled across to the left to protect his face and throat. With his empty left hand he forced himself to his knees.

The spider-thing was in the shadows again; he couldn't see it. The first glimpse he got of it was as it hurled itself at his face once more.

Without warning, time slowed, divided itself into distinct increments, giving him enough time to examine and evaluate each one.

The cloak, he knew.

His skin felt cold and the hairs on his arras and the backs of his hand could detect the minuscule air currents in the room. He could sense the weave of the jerkin he wore, and imagined he could count the tiny, needle-pointed scales of the sharkskin sword grip just by the way it felt in his hand.

He saw the spider coming toward him, seemingly no faster than a crawl. All eight legs pointed forward, each tipped with a single straight claw. For the first time he saw its two fangs, easily an inch and a half long. It had to have been one of those that scored his throat. Was it poisonous? he wondered. Almost certainly. If that fang had penetrated a fraction of an inch deeper, I'd probably be dying right now. The whole thing, he saw now, didn't really look like a living creature-more like a master sculptor's representation of a spider, cunningly worked in green-black volcanic glass. It isn't alive, he told himself. It's some kind of artifact, magically animated. But what does that matter if it rips my throat open?

He had plenty of time to estimate the spider's path, and almost an eternity to bring the blade up to block it. He saw the spider slam-still in slow-motion-into the edge of the short sword, and saw one of its fangs snapped off by the impact. But he also saw the incredible ferocity with which the clawed legs scrabbled at the sword blade in the instant they were in contact.

Then the momentum of his parry carried the sword around and knocked the spider off into another shadowed corner. This time, though, he found he could see into those shadows as if the starlight had somehow been intensified tenfold.

One of these times it'll get me. The thought struck with chilling clarity.

Without even being aware that he'd made a decision, he felt his right arm flip the sword up into the air. He watched it trace a lazy arc as it rotated end over end. Almost casually, he grabbed it by the blade a third of the way down from the point, with plenty of time to make sure he didn't slash his palm on the edge. He drew the weapon back to his ear as if for a knife throw, and snapped his forearm forward hard.

The blade flashed in the starlight as it whirled through the air. It struck true, driving point first into the scrabbling black-glass spider.

With a sound that was a hideous cross between the shattering of crystal and an inhuman shriek, the thing exploded into fragments.

As though that sound had been a signal, time returned to normal. Now, the fear that the cloak had partially held at bay came crashing back in, knotting his stomach with nausea.

And with the fear came other emotions: horror, sadness, revulsion… and, most of all, guilt.

He flung himself back to the deck beside Julia and cradled her head again. Sobs tore at his throat. Tears blinded him. Oh, by the gods, no… "What were you doing here?" he railed-at her, at the gods, at his destiny. "What were you doing here?"

He felt her stir weakly in his arms. Her eyelids flickered open. But now, he knew-somehow he knew-her eyes were sightless. "Teldin?" she whispered.

"I'm here."

"Did I kill it?" When he didn't answer, "Did I kill it?" she repeated. "I don't remember."

He closed his eyes and lowered his head until his forehead rested against her cheek. "Yes." He struggled to force the words out. "Yes, Julia, you killed it."

"Then you're all right?"

"Yes." He thought his heart were bursting-wished it would burst. "I'm all right."

"I think it stung me, Teldin." Her voice was growing weaker. "I don't remember."

The Cloakmaster wanted to scream for help, call for a healer, run for help, but he couldn't. He was rooted to this spot. Julia was dying, he knew that, fading rapidly. There wasn't anything a healer could do for her now. He knew that, too. And he couldn't-couldn't-leave her, turn aside from her, in the moments she had left.

"I heard them talking, Teldin." He leaned forward, put his ear right to her lips. "I heard them talking about killing the captain."

"Who?" he whispered.

"I heard them," she repeated. "They said they were using an obsidian spider. I came to warn you." Her voice was little more than the faintest of breaths now. He had to fill in the syllables he couldn't hear.

''I came here," she went on. "But the spider was already here, I saw it. And you sleeping… I couldn't wake you. You might make noise, trigger the spider's attack. I had to kill it.

"And I did." Her hand, which was gripping the haft of the crossbow bolt, trembled, the fingers seeming to search for something. Teldin took the hand-it was chill to the touch, already-and squeezed. He tried to pour his emotions through the physical contact, to tell her that way what he couldn't with words.

Her pale lips twitched into a faint smile. She knows, he told himself. Oh, thank the gods, she knows. Desperately he tried to force himself to believe it.

Julia's eyes flickered again and sought his face. He felt the faintest pressure of her fingers. "Teldin, I…" The last syllable became an extended exhalation of air as her lungs emptied. He waited for the inhalation, though he knew it would never come.

He let the sobs come, now, the great, racking sobs that he'd been suppressing. They shook his frame, seemed about to break his ribs to fragments. He rocked forward, cradling the slight woman in his arms, his tears washing over her peaceful face.