Into the Void s-2

by Nigel Findley

  Conversation had inevitably turned to Dana, "I miss her," Miggins had admitted, "but, you know, I could never really think of her as a gnome. She was more like one of you big folk. She was never too interested in the way things work, and she liked action much more than she did talk."

  Teldin had nodded, remembering her feisty manner and the way she'd tried to stand up to Aelfred in the longboat.

  "Ah, well," Miggins had continued, "at least she died the way she always said she wanted to-in battle."

  Another one who died a "good" death, Teldin had found himself thinking. What would be a good death for me? Or does it really matter?

  The injured gnome tired easily, so he'd left soon thereafter. It had saddened him to talk about Dana, but in another way it had been somehow freeing, as if in talking about her-celebrating her existence-he'd come to terms with her passing.

  In the days that followed, even though he didn't see the gnomes, he was reminded of their existence by shipboard gossip. Virtually everyone aboard had a favorite "gnome story," about how the small creatures would have "remodeled" the Probe if somebody hadn't caught them before the damage was done. Teldin's favorite was Miggins's suggestion that a hole be cut in the hull to allow the underside of the hammership to be used as a secondary weapons platform. Explanations that this would make the vessel as seaworthy as a brick when it put down on water didn't dissuade the young gnome. All he did was come back with a bewildering description of baffles and gaskets to solve the problem. Predictably, some of the less patient crew members threatened the small creature with death if he so much as mentioned the idea again.

  When he wasn't sleeping, Teldin had taken to wandering the ship and talking with those crewmen he met. This had turned out to be a very good idea. Initially the crew had treated him with a respect that contained a healthy measure of fear. They'd stayed out of his way-after all, wasn't he a fighter-mage who could cut them in two or burn them down in their tracks?-and called him "sir." Teldin had decided that the best way to react to this was not to react at all. If he'd told them not to call him sir, he knew they'd have stopped, but that would just have reinforced the aura of authority that he'd inadvertently acquired. Instead, he'd chosen to talk with them exactly the same way he had when he'd first come aboard the Probe. Let them call him sir. He'd chat with them the way he always had and ask the same naive questions.

  To his surprise, this tactic had worked, and quickly. At first, most of the crew had been a little reticent in answering him, but he'd just talked on freely, and he could almost feel the reserve melt away. The first time that a crewman had laughed at one of his questions and clapped him companionably on the shoulder, he'd taken it as a major victory. Within a couple of days, the crewmen of the Probe were treating him as one of them-in fact, more so than they ever had. The one exception was that they never asked him about what happened on the forecastle, or about any details of his apparent powers.

  That was all to the good, he figured. Let them reach their own conclusions. It was highly unlikely that anyone would guess the cloak's significance. The fewer people who knew about that, the safer he felt.

  The fact that his watches and those of the gnomes were staggered turned out to be a blessing. He knew, for example, that there were eight hours out of each day when he'd be alone in the cabin. At those times, he could shut the door, secure it with a small wooden wedge, and know he wouldn't be interrupted. Each day he took advantage of the privacy to practice the cloak's shapeshifting abilities.

  Estriss was right, it turned out: Each time he used the power, it became easier. The chilled, strained feeling lessened steadily until it vanished altogether, and the residual fatigue also faded away. His control improved significantly as well. He could now change his face in two or three heartbeats, and without the total concentration the first few shifts had required.

  His control now extended to more than his face. Carefully, he'd experimented with changing the appearance of his body as well. He was still cautious with this part of it. Never had he tried any major changes-like shrinking to the size of a gnome or expanding to the bulk of an umber hulk, for example-but he now regularly altered his build to match Aelfred's muscular physique or Vallus's willowy bone structure.

  No matter how hard he tried, however, he couldn't affect the clothes he wore. When he took on Aelfred's physique, his jerkin almost burst at the seams; when he duplicated Vallus or Sylvie, his clothes hung on him like a tent. The only exception was the cloak itself: whatever form he took, it subtly enlarged or contracted to fit perfectly around whatever neck he happened to have at the time.

  His voice was also a problem. At first he'd assumed that, when he took on Aelfred's body, the larger chest cavity would give him the same booming voice as the first mate. It didn't happen that way, however. If there was any change in his voice, it was of the utmost subtlety-and he couldn't be totally sure that even this wasn't wishful thinking. Whether he looked like Aelfred Silverhorn or Vallus Leafbower, he always sounded like Teldin Moore. The contrast was even more noticeable when he took on the form of Sylvie, the navigator, or Julia, the second mate. Although the throat and mouth were female, the voice was most definitely male. There was absolutely no way he could use the cloak's powers to impersonate another person if the "audience" had ever heard the real pet-son speak.

  That was just as well, he concluded. He still felt there was something inherently wrong with taking another's form, no matter what the motive. The knowledge that it was impossible to take another's complete identity was somehow reassuring.

  Chapter Nine

  So the rest of the voyage passed. Fifty-three days from Krynn they reached the crystal shell that contained Realm-space. So inured to the wonders of space did Teldin find himself that he didn't feel disappointed when he learned that they'd pass through the shell during his sleep period. When he went to bed for his fifty-third night aboard the Probe, the view through the cabin's porthole was the tempestuous colors of the flow. When he woke several hours later, the cabin was dark for the first time in week and there was blackness on the other side of the port. Teldin swung himself out of his hammock and went on deck.

  The sky around the hammership at first looked identical to the familiar one that he'd seen all his life: velvet blackness studded with stars shining with a light that looked somehow brittle. After a few moments, though, the familiarity slipped away. The orientation of these stars was nothing like what he was used to. There seemed many more of them, clustered into totally alien groupings. The constellations that had been his friends from childhood were nowhere to be seen, and his mind was unable to impose any order on the stars that he saw. Over to the port side, just over the rail, was something that he'd never seen before: a smoky haze, glowing faintly. When he looked at it directly, it seemed to fade away, but when he looked at it with peripheral vision, he could make out a kind of structure to it.

  That structure was familiar, he realized with a mild shock. It reminded him unmistakably of the weather pattern he'd seen over Krynn as the Unquenchable pulled away from the planet. There was the same circular core, with curving arms sweeping out from it. The only thing that was missing was the sense of motion that the storm had given him. Maybe it was the black, featureless background, or the motionless stars that surrounded it. In any case, the sensation that this pattern gave him was one of limitless distance. The Probe's crew had told him that it was no more distant than the other stars, but that both the stars and this swirling shape were actually gates to another plane-the Plane of Radiance-set into the inner surface of the crystal sphere. No matter what he knew, he felt that this spiral pattern was unimaginably farther than the other points of light.

  For the first time, Teldin noticed that there was someone else on the deck-someone who was watching him with an expression of mild amusement. It was Vallus Leafbower, the elven mage, one of the Probe's helmsmen. Teldin shot him a quick smile but hesitated to walk over and join him. There were two reasons for his reluctance: One was that he was enjoying
the sense of solitude, of being alone beneath the unfamiliar stars; the second was the same reason he'd been avoiding the elf since the battle: Vallus obviously was a mage of significant power. As such, he might be more inclined to question Teldin about his own displays of ability. While the other crew members had avoided the topic-at least partially out of fear, Teldin guessed-Vallus wasn't likely to do the same.

  Teldin's reticence turned out to be irrelevant when the elf crossed the deck and joined him.

  Vallus nodded a greeting. Even when he was making efforts to be friendly, Teldin had noted, there was a sense of aloofness about the elf, a feeling that he was somehow apart from everyone and watching from some unapproachable vantage of knowledge and wisdom. There was also a strong sense of exclusivity-that was the closest word that Teldin could come up with-a sense that the elf wasn't revealing everything he knew or thought.

  Perhaps it was just a consequence of the fact that he'd lived ten years or more for each year that Teldin and the others had been alive. Whatever the reason, it had a chilling effect on any sense of friendship that Teldin might otherwise feel, and made it very difficult for him to trust the elf.

  Vallus spoke first. "I noticed you weren't on deck when we entered this shell," he remarked. "Unfortunate. You missed something, something that you would have found fascinating." His eyes seemed to shine with intensity. "We saw the Wanderers," he concluded in a hushed voice.

  There was something portentous about the word, something that struck some kind of chord in Teldin's soul. "What ate the Wanderers?" he whispered.

  "As we passed through the portal, we saw them," the elf answered, "a line of figures-a geometrically straight line,. hundreds of thousands of figures long. Perhaps millions long. They were walking on the inner surface of the crystal shell. Walking, walking endlessly. They paid us no attention."

  Teldin shook his head in wonderment. "Why?" he asked. "What are they?"

  The elf shrugged. "No one truly knows," he replied. "There are legends, of course. Some say their marching, and their silent chanting, are what allow spontaneous portals to open in the shell of Realmspace. According to this legend, the Wanderers are the souls of individuals who died performing evil deeds of horrific proportions. How they came to their present condition, even the legends fail to say, but they all are reputed to bear the mark of Torm, God of Guardians, on their palms." Vallus shrugged again. "Whatever their origin, or their purpose, it was a wondrous sight." He smiled wryly. "Such things make me realize how much poorer my life would have been had I never left my home world."

  Teldin was silent. There was something about the image of an endless line of figures, eternally trudging around the surface of the crystal sphere, that caught his imagination. Without warning, he found his thoughts turning to his father. How small your world was, he thought, how impoverished you were by your refusal to look outward. And, he added, how bleak would my own have been if it hadn't been for the circumstances that drove me outward. For a moment, he felt almost gratitude toward the stranger who'd given him the cloak. You might have doomed me, his thoughts ran, but you also broadened my horizons in ways I could never have imagined. Even if I die soon, my life is richer for my experiences.

  "I think that you enjoy the sky of wildspace as much as I do," the elf continued, unaware of Teldin's musings. "There seems something of purity about it, doesn't there? A sense of perfection, of changelessness. Do you know the constellations of Realmspace, by any chance?"

  Teldin shook his head.

  "No, I suppose not. That, over there-" he reached out with a slender hand and traced shapes among the stars "-is the Harp. That, the Sword and Dagger. And that is the new constellation, the Lady of Mystery."

  Teldin glanced over at the elf. "How can a constellation be new?" he asked.

  "Of course the pattern itself is as old as any," the elf explained with a half-smile. "The meaning has changed, that's all. Once it was two constellations, the Dragon of Dawn and the Firbolg, but after the Time of Troubles, many inhabitants of the Realms decided it would be best to devise a constellation to revere the new goddess, the Wounded Lady. Do you know the story?"

  "No," Teldin admitted, "but maybe…"

  "Maybe another time, yes." The elf turned and pointed forward. "Do you see that bright star, just over the forecastle?"

  Teldin looked where Vallus indicated. "Yes."

  "That's Realmspace's primary, called-predictably-'the sun.' And that-" he pointed to another dot of light, nowhere near as brilliant as the first but still brighter than the other stars "-is Chandos, one of the giants of the Realmspace system, some seven thousand leagues across. For comparison, your own world is perhaps one thousand leagues across, and Toril is about the same. Do you realize that Chandos is about nine million leagues from us? And yet its light is almost enough to rival the sun. How can we not feel insignificant in the face of scales such as this?" He shook his head in wonder. Teldin shrugged his shoulders but said nothing. The universe might be huge, he found himself thinking, but most of it seems to be eager to make sure my stay here isn't as long as I'd like. "How long to Toril?" he asked eventually. "Another thirty days, perhaps," the elf answered casually.

  He must have seen Teldin's expression of astonishment, because he chuckled. "Yes, it surprises me, too, at times. We traveled from one crystal sphere to another in, what, thirty days or so? Then, once we're within our destination sphere, we have to spend another thirty days to reach the planet we're interested in. Somehow it seems all wrong, but you should understand: There are rivers that flow in the phlogiston, rivers that can greatly increase one's speed if one's navigator is good enough to find them. Sylvie is one of the best. Once within a shell, there are no rivers, and even the smallest sphere is immense. Again, when it comes to understanding the universe- as with so much else-perspective is all-important. Wouldn't you say?"

  With that, Vallus strolled away, leaving Teldin to his own contemplations.

  ***

  The Probe was eighteen days inbound from the crystal sphere when the derelict ship was spotted. The hammership had, two days before, made its closest approach to Chandos, and the huge blue-green world was shrinking astern.

  Teldin was leaning on the sterncastle rail, gazing out past the ship's stem spanker sails. Even at this distance, the great water world was an impressive sight. It had none of the dramatic hues of Zivilyn in the Krynn system, none of the great clashing bands of color. Instead, it was a study in subtle gradients as blues shaded imperceptibly into greens. The planet displayed an unbelievable range of intensities, from royal blues so deep they were almost purple to greens so faint they could almost be gray. Teldin could pick out three unusually bright points of light that appeared very close to the planet. Although nobody he'd spoken to had mentioned moons, he presumed these brilliant specks of light were satellites in orbit around the great planet.

  The emotions that Teldin associated with this massive world were quite different from those he'd felt while viewing Zivilyn, too. Zivilyn, the giant of Krynn's system, seemed to embody dynamic change, energy, and turmoil. Chandos, on the other hand, made him feel calm, at peace with himself and with the universe as a whole.

  "Ship ahoy!" The call echoed from the crow's nest atop the hastily repaired mainmast.

  "Bearing?" That was Aelfred's call from up forward. Teldin turned and saw the big first mate climbing the ladder to the forecastle deck. A brass spyglass was under his arm.

  "High on the starboard bow," the lookout answered.

  Teldin looked up to the recently repaired crow's nest. He could see the lookout in his jury-rigged perch, arm outstretched and pointing. Teldin tried to pick out the exact angle the man was indicating, but from this perspective it was difficult.

  Aelfred seemed to have no such problem. He snapped the brass tube up to his eye and trained it forward, slightly above and to the right of the Probe's bow. "Got it," he called after a few moments. "Mosquito, it looks like. No lights…" His voice took on a harder edge. "She's tumbling.
Crew on deck!"

  From below Teldin heard the clanging of the bell that called the crew to their stations. The deck pounded with running feet as crewmen burst out onto the deck. Men swung into the rigging, and weapons crews prepared their catapults.

  "Teldin! Over here!" Aelfred stood beside the forward turret, beckoning with a raised arm. Teldin crossed the main deck-doing his best to stay out of the way of the crewmen who were still rushing to their stations-and joined his friend.

  Aelfred was leaning against the turret, his gaze directed forward toward the other ship that Teldin had yet to see. The turret was still immobilized after the damaging ballista strike from the deathspider, but that hardly mattered. The heavy ballista it contained was ruined, and there wasn't the material aboard necessary to rebuild or replace it, though, according to shipboard gossip, Horvath had offered to rig up a "suitable substitute." Bubbo, the weapons master, had threatened to clap the gnome in irons if he even tried.

  As Teldin approached, the first mate turned to face him. The warrior's expression was troubled. "Teldin," he said, "I want you to…" He moved his palm in front of his face, as though rearranging his features. "Understand?"

  "Why?" Teldin's eyes strayed to the star field in the direction in which the other ship must lie. "Are they enemies?"

  "I don't think so," Aelfred said reluctantly, "I think she might be a derelict, but…" He snorted in disgust. "I'm getting paranoid. Look." His voice became more persuasive. "Where's the harm? If the snip's empty, just reverse it. If there are people aboard the ship, you might be saving your life."

  Teldin paused. The first mate was right, he thought, Aelfred was being paranoid, but he had to admit, it might be a necessary kind of paranoia. Teldin still didn't like shapeshifting on principle, but what good would it do if he stood on principle so firmly that the neogi ended up with the cloak? He sighed and nodded. "I agree," he said quietly.