"Steady as she goes," Djan said again. Then he asked the observers, "Everything still on track?"
"Still on track," Julia confirmed.
Then, suddenly, "No!" She pointed up and back, over the ship's stern. "Port astern, high. One's off track!"
Teldin felt tension grip his chest. His fingernails bit into his palms as he clenched his fists. He looked back, following the direction of Julia's arm.
He could immediately see the mini-sun she meant, about fifteen degrees above the stern rail and an equal angle to port of the squid ship's track. It was still a good distance away, not a direct threat to the ship… yet.
"Observation error?" Djan queried. "Check it again."
The two observers raised their instruments, confirming the bearing of the speeding object. "It's off projected course," Julia answered after a few moments. "Ten degrees off." Then, a couple of heartbeats later, "No, more. Fifteen degrees and increasing."
"What in Paladine's name is happening?" the Cloakmaster demanded. He felt suddenly, sickeningly powerless. For an instant he felt an almost uncontrollable urge to use the ultimate helm, to speed the Boundless on its way. But he couldn't, he recognized at once. His crew had computed this "window" based on a certain ship speed. If he changed that speed, or the ship's course, he ran a very real risk of driving the vessel into the path of another mini-sun.
"Mini-sun increasing speed!" For the first time ever, he heard real panic in Julia's voice. "Twenty-five degrees off projected course, deviation increasing!"
In a hushed voice, Lucinus echoed the realization that had, an instant before, struck Teldin. "It's coming after us!"
"Helm," Djan yelled down the speaking tube, "full speed! Now!"
"What about the atmosphere?" Lucinus cried. "If we hit the atmosphere at full speed…"
"By the mind of Marrak!" Djan snarled. "If we don't get out of the way now, we'll never get that far."
Teldin felt the motion of the Boundless change as Blossom poured on the power. He could see the mini-sun changing course, curving from its previous trajectory to follow the speeding ship down.
How's this possible? The question hammered in Teldin's brain.
Nex, part of his mind answered. Nex-violent death. Now you know why it has that name….
"It's gaining!" Lucinus called.
"More speed!" Djan barked down the speaking tube. "Give it everything you've got!"
The deck vibrated under Teldin's feet as Blossom pushed the helm-and herself-to the limit. His ears were filled with the thrum of the rigging's vibrations.
"Still gaining!" Lucinus's voice was a wail that easily carried over the background din.
Teldin could see that he was right. The mini-sun was dead astern now, swelling ominously with every passing moment. He could feel heat like midsummer sun on his face. From the ship's movement he knew Blossom had reached the maximum speed she could manage, and still the mini-sun closed the gap. The heat falling on Teldin's skin continued to increase.
Before he even knew he'd made the decision, he felt the cloak flare with power and felt his awareness expand to include the entire squid ship. He could feel the mini-sun's burning heat on the ship's stern, the strain the speed was putting on the rigging.
"Get Blossom off the helm." His voice sounded calm, emotionless, in his own ears. Djan relayed the order.
As the woman released her control over the major helm, the Cloakmaster felt his command of the vessel become total. He almost lost his footing as the squid ship leaped forward, doubling, then tripling its speed in only a few seconds.
But, in his wraparound view, he could see the mini-sun still closing. He saw, as well as felt, the paint on the stern flukes and spanker sails start to bubble with the heat. He gritted his teeth and drove the full force of his will into the cloak. Still the Boundless accelerated.
"Still pursuing!" Julia called out; Teldin could clearly see the burning sphere on their tail.
But it's not closing! he told himself exultantly. The gap between mini-sun and squid ship was remaining constant. No, it was starting to open up again. The heat on the stern was diminishing. I'm pulling away!
"Still pursuing!" Julia repeated. Then, "No!" she shouted. "It's changing course again."
Teldin was tempted to slow the ship down-the planet below was looming up awfully quickly-but he kept the power on. It could be a trick, he told himself. If a gods-damned burning rock can give chase, it might have more tricks in its repertoire.
But then even he, without the benefit of a sextant or astrolabe, could see that the mini-sun had broken off the pursuit and was climbing again, back toward its normal orbit.
He gasped as Djan grabbed his arm in a grip like a vise. "Pull up, Teldin!" the half-elf almost screamed into his ear. "Pull up!"
Nex was much closer now-no longer so much a planet as a landscape, with the world's curvature more inferred than directly visible. He could feel the rigging straining as the ship entered the outer wisps of the planet's atmosphere. Normally a ship's own air envelope would protect it from turbulence and from the effects of entering a planetary atmosphere, he knew, but not at speeds like this. He closed his eyes, focusing every fiber of his being on bringing the Boundless out of its lethal dive.
Pain racked him; he clenched his teeth, trying to hold back a scream. The strain on the squid ship's keel burned up and down his own spine. He felt as though he were being torn in two. His skin crawled as he heard the keening of wind through the vessel's lines, the musket-shot cracking of the sails' canvas. We're not going to make it, he told himself.
But that thought was the spur he needed. He forced himself to dissociate from the ship's pain, concentrated the last iota of his will on bringing the bow up, up, away from the planet.
The strain lessened-imperceptibly at first, then with growing rapidity. As the ship's speed decreased, and its nose-down attitude changed, the stress on the hull and rigging diminished. I'm doing it! he thought, with a flash of triumph. He brought the bow up even farther…
And it was over. Back out of the atmosphere, back in the vacuum for which it had been built, the Boundless was back under control.
Teldin released the force of his will; the sense of internal relaxation was directly analogous to easing tension in a strained muscle. He felt the breath hiss from between his teeth, felt his shoulders sag. He opened his eyes again.
The Boundless was hurtling in a low orbit, maybe twenty leagues above ground level. It was still traveling abnormally fast, but the danger seemed over. He let the speed bleed away.
We're safe, he thought as he climbed up to the deck.
Djan, Julia, and Lucinus were clinging to the rails, their faces paste-white, their wide eyes staring at him, He forced a smile, saw their answering relief. "We've made it," he whispered. Their exhausted smiles mirrored his.
He wouldn't have seen it if his sphere of attention didn't still surround the entire ship. A sudden fire-red glow bloomed on the planet's surface. Another mini-dawn, he thought.
But no, the light wasn't on the horizon, it was directly beneath the squid ship.
Before he could react in any way, a titanic burst of searing energy arced from the ground twenty leagues below, flashing past the Boundless like an oversize lightning bolt. Concussion like a dozen thunderclaps pummeled him as the bolt superheated the outer edge of the ship's air envelope. Screams echoed around him, audible even over the ringing in his ears.
Another glow sprung to life, now to the left of the ship's path. Another bolt arced skyward, burning past the hull.
Another glow, another bolt, then another. Instantly he knew this one wasn't going to miss like the preceding three.
He felt the impact like a punch over the heart delivered by an ogre. He felt the ship's hull rupture, felt his body torn asunder. Redness, then blackness, enveloped him.
"We're going down!" Julia screamed.
And her voice followed Teldin down into unconsciousness.
Chapter Seven
Teldi
n could only have been unconscious for a couple of heartbeats if that, not even long enough to fall. As awareness returned, he could feel the deck jolting beneath his feet as the Boundless plummeted toward the world below. He grabbed at the mizzenmast to retain his balance.
His connection with the ship-his cloak-mediated control-had vanished as consciousness had fled. Now he struggled to regain it. Rosy pink light flared around him.
He gasped, almost doubling over with the pain, as his awareness once more encompassed the whole of the stricken squid ship. A huge hole had been smashed in the hull just starboard of the keel-directly amidships, in the middle of the cargo hold. Flames licked around the jagged edges of the hull breach and across the overhead. The large hatch cover had been blown loose and lay smoldering on the main deck.
"Fire in the hold!" he gasped, and heard Djan echo the cry. He felt and saw crewmen with buckets of sand jump to deal with the threat.
Again, the squid ship was plunging toward the ground. But this time the Cloakmaster knew he had more time to react. They were falling free, not being driven downward in a screaming dive by the power of the ultimate helm. That alone made the threat less immediate, but that benefit was negated by the serious damage to the ship.
Cautiously, he extended his awareness throughout the squid ship's structure. The impact of the bolt-whatever in the hells it was-had been tremendous. Joists and thwarts throughout the hull had been cracked or ripped apart. As his consciousness touched each area of damage, he flinched anew. The "wounds" he felt were grievous, maybe even mortal. His chances of bringing the ship out of its plunge rested totally on the condition of the keel. He hesitated, afraid to discover the worst. But then he forged on.
The keel was cracked amidships. He could feel the fibers of the timber grinding back and forth against each other, like the two bones in a badly broken arm. But the crack didn't extend right through. There should be enough support for him to bring the ship down in one piece… if he was careful. If he applied too much force, or turned the ship too sharply, the damaged keel would part, and then there'd be nothing even the ultimate helm could do to save it. Carefully, he started to pull the Boundless out of its stern-first plunge.
The ship jolted sideways-none of his doing!-threatening to rip the keel in two. Blossom!
"Get her off the helm!" the Cloakmaster screamed, loud enough to tear his throat and bring the bright copper taste of blood into his mouth. In an instant the spurious motions were gone, and he recognized that the ship was again entirely his.
Carefully-oh, so carefully-he started to apply forward power. With the stem of the vessel pointing downward, that began to slow its fall. He felt timber strain, felt the keel shift a fraction of an inch, another dozen wood fibers shearing under the stress. Then he started to bring the bow down-a couple of degrees a second, no faster. He tried to gauge how far they still were above the mountains below, but realized instantly that even that slight shift of his attention decreased his control over the ship's motions.
"Get Blossom to call out the altitude," he croaked to Djan, and heard the half-elf relay the instructions down the speaking tube.
He could feel Blossom sitting on the helm. She was no longer trying to exert any influence on the ship, but he could sense her extended perception overlapping his. He didn't need Djan as a relay when she announced, "Ten leagues."
Slowly he continued to push the squid ship's bow over. He tried adding a touch more forward force, instantly felt the damaged keel complain, and backed off again.
The ship's attitude was still forty-five degrees stern-down. But now the hull was exposing more surface area to the strong wind that whipped through the atmosphere envelope. He felt their downward speed start to diminish further… as the strain on the keel increased again.
"Four leagues." Even through the-artificial calm that connection with a helm brought, he could hear the fear in the woman's voice.
He didn't have much time left. The ship had a huge amount of speed; there was nothing he could do to bleed it all off, he knew. It's make or break, he told himself. He forced the bow over even harder.
He felt his stomach lurch and his feet almost leave the deck as the ship pivoted around an axis running horizontally through its beam. He felt and heard the screaming of tortured timber. But now the ship was horizontal, falling keel-first through the sky.
"Two leagues."
Still he pushed the bow over, until the Boundless had fifteen degrees of downward pitch. He felt the air catch the spanker sails bracketing the stern, felt the wooden supports take the strain. He fought the ship's desire to flip into a vertical bow-down attitude. Wood and canvas screamed a banshee wail.
It was working. With the spanker sails catching the wind, some of the ship's downward speed was being converted into forward velocity. If the spanker sails didn't tear loose, and if the keel didn't part… Again he added a touch more forward power.
The wind was a howl around him. He knew that, with the main helm effectively inactive, the ship's atmosphere envelope would collapse if he released control. Then the speed of their flight would tear the masts away, fling everyone on deck over the stern, even peel the decks themselves away from the hull.
"One league."
We really might make it! He knew it with sudden clarity. The ship was still in a screaming dive, but it was traveling bow first now. He had control of both its attitude and its heading. He started to bleed off speed with feather-touches of reverse power. Wood ground against wood as the keel flexed. If the keel were ever going to let go, now was the time, as his attempts to decelerate effectively tried to compress the Boundless along its longitudinal axis.
But the magnificently strained keel held. The death scream of the wind faded to a faint whistle. Then it fell silent as the ship's air envelope reasserted itself over the slipstream. The ship still was at a fifteen-degree angle and he didn't think he could pull it up again without tearing the vessel in two, but at least the speed was down to manageable levels.
"Altitude," he croaked.
"Two thousand feet," he heard Blossom gasp. Then she shouted, "Mountains!"
But he'd already seen them, some of the peaks reaching several thousand feet above the deck of the squid ship. By sheer luck, he'd brought the Boundless in along the line of a steep-sided pass between the highest of the peaks. Less than a league to one side or the other of their present course, and the ship would have been smashed to splinters against the rocky slopes.
What in Paladine's name am I going to do? Teldin asked himself. The squid ship was designed solely for a water landing, but there wasn't any water for dozens of leagues, and he knew he wouldn't be able to keep the stricken ship in the air for much longer before something critical failed.
So be it, then, a ground landing it had to be. He knew all too well what it would do to the ship, but his sole concern now was the lives of his friends and his crew.
He looked below the ship for a flat place to land, but couldn't spot anywhere suitable. The pass was actually a V-shapeed valley, with boulders-some as large as farmhouses-around the bottom. To bring the ship down there would be to court disaster.
The pass was narrowing ahead of the ship, he saw, the valley floor rising in altitude until it merged with a high rampart of mountains two leagues or so directly ahead. He was running out of time.
Teldin tried to slow the ship further, managed to bring it down to little more than a walking speed. But each second of flight, he could feel the stress increase on the keel. The cracks in the heavy wood had spread and were on the verge of fracturing the ship's "backbone" at any instant. The Boundless is doomed, he recognized, no matter what I do. The only question is, can I keep us alive? He let the big ship descend several hundred feet for a better view of the terrain.
The walls of the valley were precipitous-forty-five degrees or even steeper, he judged-covered with a thick blanket of trees. The only places where he could see gaps in the forest were where large outcroppings of red-brown rock jutted out of the
mountainsides.
The trees will tear the bottom out of the hull, he thought, probably killing us. But if I hit one of those rock outcroppings, we're definitely dead. He smiled mirthlessly. Yet again, circumstances seemed to be conspiring to force him onto a path he hated.
"Open space ahead!" Julia screamed.
Teldin focused his enhanced perception ahead of the squid ship.
Yes, she was right. A quarter of a league ahead, the right side of the pass leveled out, forming a kind of shoulder. For some reason, no trees were growing there, revealing a verdant meadow almost a hundred yards across. The grass-or whatever it was-seemed totally flat, without even any rolls or hummocks.
Perfect. He started to turn the ship around so that its bow pointed directly toward the meadow. Simultaneously, he let the vessel's altitude creep down, while trying to decrease the speed even further.
Almost there. Just a few more ship-lengths, and he could set the Boundless down. The upper branches of the tallest trees whipped the underside of the hull. Even those minor impacts sent shudders through the tortured keel that Teldin could sense plainly. Just a hundred feet more…
And there was the meadow, right below the bow. Teldin tried to bring the ship to a hover, but as he applied the reverse force, he felt the sickening crack as the keel gave way. His control started to evaporate as the ship ceased to be a ship, becoming instead a broken-backed wreck. With the last vestige of control, he forced the ship's bow down so it couldn't overshoot and plow into the trees beyond.
The ram struck first, gouging a furrow in the soft soil of the meadow. Then the tip caught against something-a buried rock, perhaps-and the ram was torn clear away.
And the hull itself was down. The impact bowled Teldin off his feet, slammed him into the forward rail of the stern-castle, his head striking something with stunning force. Blackness welled up, threatened to take him again, but he fought it back with pure force of will. Through the ringing in his ears the Cloakmaster could hear cries of fear and pain from belowdecks and around him, and the scream of tortured wood. The ship jolted and jarred, each impact sending bolts of pain through Teldin's body.
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