The Broken Sphere

by Nigel Findley

  “I was to take you to a planet where I’d hand you over to some people who apparently want you quite badly.”

  “What planet?”

  “Falx,” Berglund answered.

  Chapter Six

  “Falx,” Djan said.

  He, Teldin, and Julia sat in the Cloakmaster’s cabin. The half-elfs wounded arm was swathed in bandages, supported by a sling. The ship’s healers had done a little for it, but the first mate had insisted that they concentrate their attentions on the several crew members who were more sorely wounded.

  “So where – or what – is Falx?”

  Teldin glanced over at Julia. From the drawn, pinched look to her face, she knew all too well. “It’s a planet of illithids,” he told Djan simply. “They’ve tried once before – maybe more than once – to get the cloak.”

  Djan’s eyes widened slightly. “Mind flayers, too?” he asked. Then he smiled faintly. “You certainly cast your net wide when it comes to finding enemies.”

  “Apparently,” Teldin said dryly.

  “So, what now?” the first mate queried.

  “On to Nex,” the Cloakmaster replied. “There’s not much else to do, is there?”

  Djan accepted that without comment.

  Julia still looked troubled. “How did they know?” she asked. “How did they know we’d be coming? And how did Berglund know as much as he did about us?”

  Good question, Teldin thought. It was one he’d been chewing on a lot during the day since they’d left the surviving pirates packed aboard their damaged gig. He shrugged. “Spies on the docks, I’d guess.” His lips tightened. “Maybe even spies on board.” He paused. “You know, now that I think of it, weren’t the ‘accidents’ with the boom and the catapult a little coincidental? Djan,” he said, turning to his first mate, “maybe you should look into that.”

  The half-elf looked back with a mirthless smile. “The crew’s repaired the gaff boom,” Djan said, “and they’re working on the catapult. I had a chance to examine the damage before they began.”

  Teldin felt his skin grow cold, as if a chill wind had blown through the cabin. Even though he’d expected it, he didn’t have to like having his suspicions confirmed. “Sabotage?” he asked quietly.

  Djan didn’t even bother replying, and he didn’t have to. His expression was answer enough.

  Wonderful, the Cloakmaster thought. “You know what that means, then?”

  “Of course I do, Teldin,” Djan said, his voice as quiet as the Cloakmaster’s. “We have a saboteur on board, maybe more than one. I personally checked the rigging and the weapons before we set sail. Everything was fine then.”

  “One of the hadozee?” Julia asked plaintively.

  Djan shook his head. “I meant, ‘before we set sail from Starfall,’ after the hadozee had gone ashore. The saboteur’s still aboard.”

  Teldin was silent for a moment, digesting this news. Then, “Have you told anyone else about this?” he asked.

  The half-elf shook his head again.

  “Don’t,” Teldin said firmly. “We don’t want to tip off the saboteurs that we’re on to them.” He gave a grim smile. “And I don’t even want to think about the effect this would have on morale.”

  “So what do we do?” Julia asked, her voice quiet.

  “What can we do?” the Cloakmaster asked bleakly. “We’ll watch the crew as closely as we can …” He paused, the enormity of the situation only now dawning on him. “We’ll watch them. But there are only three of us – four if we include Beth-Abz – and there are twenty of them. The saboteur could wreck just about anything on board, and we’d only spot him if we were extremely lucky. Still,” he sighed, “it’s the only thing we can do at the moment.” He ground his teeth with – frustration. There had to be something else they could do – something active instead of reactive – but he could think of nothing.

  Julia turned to Djan. “Any ideas who it might be?” she asked.

  The first mate shook his head firmly. “None,” he said flatly. “I don’t know any of them well enough to even guess.” He shrugged. “They all have good experience, they all came well recommended, they all seem trustworthy. But, offered enough money – and I assume a planet full of illithids can offer a lot of money – even the most trustworthy person might succumb to temptation.”

  The Cloakmaster looked at his two officers, his two closest friends. He could see anxiety written plainly in the lines of their faces, but there was something else there as well as they looked back at him. He thought it was trust, mixed with hope. They trust me to do something about this, he realized grimly. I’m the captain; I’m the gods-damned Cloakmaster. It’s my responsibility. I’ve got to do something … but what’

  He stretched a painful kink out of his neck. I’ll think of something, he told himself. “Well,” he said aloud, “we’ll do what we can on this issue.” He turned to Djan with a wry smile. “Have you got any good news for me?”

  “As a matter of fact, yes.” Djan’s face brightened a little. “Blossom tells me we’ve entered a phlogiston river. A fast river, one that doesn’t appear on our charts … but does appear on yours.” He smiled. “Maybe Nex isn’t a myth after all.”

  The voyage continued with no further incidents – a pleasant surprise, Teldin told himself; we’ve had all too many incidents recently. As captain, it had been his unpleasant duty to officiate at the funeral services for the four slain members of the Boundless’s crew. He’d known he’d have to say a few words before their canvas-wrapped bodies were put overboard – “consigned to space” – but at the time the words just hadn’t come. Staring at the bodies – Allyn, Vernel, Manicombe and little Merrienne – his eyes had filled with tears, and his throat had tightened so much that he’d felt as if he was choking. All he’d been able to manage was a croaked, “Good-bye. And thank you.” To the crew, that had seemed to be enough – a fitting tribute from a captain who so obviously cared for those who served with him. The burial crew had taken over, and the bodies had slid over the rail. For a few minutes he’d watched the pathetic bundles drift out along the squid ship’s gravity plane. More deaths added to the tally, he’d told himself. But then Julia had appeared at his side to lead him away, down below to his cabin.

  Julia had been there for him during the hours and days after the funeral. Never had she pressed her presence on him, but when he’d wanted someone to talk to – or someone just to silently be with him – she’d been there. The intense, confusing emotions he’d felt for her when they’d both been aboard the Probe hadn’t returned. In their place he felt a growing kinship, a calm acceptance of each other’s strengths and weaknesses, of needs and desires. It was friendship, but a different kind of friendship than he’d experienced before, more intense, yet also somehow more subtle. The two had been lovers aboard the Probe, and both seemed to accept that they’d be lovers again. But neither felt there was any need for haste in consummating matters.

  While the captain had been coming to terms with the changes in his emotional landscape, the crew had been busy. Under the close scrutiny of Djan Alantri, they’d gone over the whole ship – supposedly checking for hidden damage the Boundless might have taken from the recent engagement, but actually looking for more signs of sabotage.

  They’d found nothing, the half-elf had reported. While they’d been at it, they’d reinforced the mountings for both booms – mainmast and mizzen – since Djan had recognized that that was a weak point in the squid ship’s design. They’d also patched and reinforced the bow where the pirate’s catapult shot had struck. In what Teldin had considered a meaningless exercise, they’d even repainted the scores and scratches left on the ram from when it had pierced the battle dolphin’s hull. Now those areas gleamed a bright blood red, a strong counterpoint to the dull, space-faded hue of the rest of the ship.

  The Boundless was seventeen days out from the Heart-space sphere. A new crystal sphere loomed ahead of the squid ship, right where Teldin’s copied chart had said it would
be. Nex is within it, the Cloakmaster told himself. It bas to be. The ancient book had been right about everything else. And if Nex were there, were the Juna present also? He’d know soon enough.

  Standing on the afterdeck, Teldin looked forward along the hull, along the slender ram, toward the crystal sphere that hung in the phlogiston like a huge pearl. In the Flow it was nearly impossible to judge the scale of anything, or its distance, with the naked eye alone. Even so, he could feel that he was close.

  He looked away from the sphere as Djan joined him on the sterncastle. “Six hours from the sphere,” the half-elf said with a smile, “maybe a little less. That’s what the navigator says.” He hesitated, and Teldin could see doubt in his friend’s expression. “She also says it’s very small,” he went on slowly. “Unusually small. Maybe too small, I don’t know. Based on our distance and its apparent size, the sphere can’t be more than a single day’s sail from one side to the other.”

  Teldin nodded slowly. “Unusual,” he admitted.

  Djan smiled wryly. “Very unusual,” he emphasized. “If Nex is the outer planet of the system, that makes it only six hours’ sail away from the sun. If it’s not the outer planet …” He shrugged.

  The Cloakmaster understood his point. If it’s not the outer planet, Nex is even less than six hours from its primary. In contrast, Krynn was twenty-four hours’ sail from the sun. Did that mean Nex would be a fire-scorched cinder? Or was its sun abnormally small, or very cold? “Well,” he told Djan, “we’ll know soon enough.”

  The half-elf nodded. “That we will.”

  *****

  Unusually small or not, the crystal sphere still loomed huge before the Boundless as the ship approached. From this distance, the curvature of the mother-of-pearl outer surface was invisible, and Teldin could almost believe the squid ship was suspended, bow down, over an infinite flat plain.

  Below him, within the sterncastle, Blossom was on the helm, while Dranigor readied himself to open the portal. Djan stood in his customary position by the speaking tube that communicated with the helm compartment. “Ready to open the portal,” the first mate announced. Teldin simply nodded, hardly listening as the half-elf relayed the command to Dranigor. This could be it, he told himself, the end of my quest. Maybe ‘the creators’ – the mysterious figures the dying reigar had spoken of at the outset of all this – were on the other side of this crystal barrier.

  Or maybe there was nothing there at all, and this was just another dead end. Part of him eagerly awaited the opening of the portal; another part wished for more time – more time before his hopes were dashed again.

  With a firm shake of his head, he forced the negative thoughts deep into the darkness of his mind.

  A point of brilliance sprung to life on the surface of the sphere, swelling quickly to become the lightning-limned disk of blackness that had become familiar to Teldin. The Boundless plunged through the portal …

  Into total blackness. There were no stars, no sun; there was nothing to give any illumination. For an instant, Teldin thought he’d been struck blind.

  “Make lights!” Djan called from beside him. Within a few moments, he saw small flames burst to life around the decks as crew members struck lights with their tinderboxes and ignited strategically placed oil lamps. Djan himself lit the large ship’s lantern hanging from the jackstay at the aft rail.

  Teldin looked around in puzzlement. Beyond the extent of the ship, there was literally nothing to see, nothing at all. Even the portal had closed behind the ship.

  “No stars,” he murmured. Then he turned to Djan, and asked, “Is this common?”

  The first mate shook his head. “I can’t remember ever hearing of a crystal sphere without stars,” he admitted. He gestured forward. “Or a fire body of any type.”

  Teldin looked forward, too, in the direction that should lead to Nex. The half-elf was right: there was no light ahead either.

  No sun? he wondered. How could life exist without light? Maybe the sun’s burned out … which could explain why the crystal sphere’s so small.

  “Well, Captain,” Djan said slowly, “what course?”

  Teldin didn’t answer at once. It was a good question. What course do you set in a crystal sphere that seems to be completely empty? And how do you set it anyway, with no stars or sun to navigate by? “Hold position,” he ordered. “Let’s think about this.”

  Djan relayed the order down the speaking tube, then announced, “Station-keeping, Captain.”

  Teldin suppressed a smile. He’d noticed that when the time came for a serious decision, the half-elf would usually become much more formal, addressing the Cloakmaster as “Captain” rather than “Teldin.” Did he do it to divorce himself from the responsibility, or to remind Teldin of the weight of his burden? Or was the first mate even aware that he did it? Probably not, Teldin decided.

  Regardless, the responsibility was Teldin’s. He and only he could decide what to do next.

  Well, what he needed at the moment was information – any information – on which to base that decision. But where would he get it’

  Possibly from the cloak. He knew that he hadn’t explored all of the ultimate helm’s powers. Maybe one of those abilities would help him.

  “Continue station-keeping,” he told Djan. “I’ll be below if you need me.”

  He descended the ladder to the main deck and walked forward into the forecastle. As he did, he noticed that the on-duty crewmen were lining the rails, staring silently into nothingness. Nobody was speaking, but they didn’t have to for Teidin to understand their anxiety. Paladine’s blood, he felt it himself. Originally, when he’d first taken to space, the star-flecked void had terrified him. Now, however, it was familiar, reassuring, and the absence of stars was cause for concern. He continued forward into his cabin and seated himself on the edge of his bunk.

  Now, how do I go about this? he wondered. He’d never consciously used the cloak for information-gathering before. He took several deep breaths, letting the tension flow from his muscles. As he felt his mind grow calm, he let his awareness of the cloak grow. Warmth on his shoulders told him that the artifact was responding. Mentally, he posed a question: What is the nature of this crystal sphere? As he let the warmth wax against his back, he concentrated on that question.

  Without warning he felt a new sensation: warmth on his chest as well, where the bronze amulet hung on its chain. Apparently something had triggered the power of that artifact as well. For a moment he felt as though he stood between twin suns, their light shining bone-deep into his body.

  Then he gasped as information flooded into his mind ….

  *****

  Djan, Julia, Lucinus, the navigator, and the Cloakmaster stood in the helm compartment around the Boundless’s chart table. To the aft of the large compartment, Blossom sat on the helm, a look of calm patience on her face.

  Teldin had spread a blank sheet of mapping parchment on the table. He picked up a broad-nibbed pen and dipped it in the table’s inkwell. He leaned across the sheet and drew a large circle. “That’s the crystal sphere,” he said. “As you said, Djan, about a full day’s sail in diameter.” He drew a black blob halfway between the center of the circle and its periphery “This is a outer planet of the system,” he said. “An air world, a small one, about six hours inside the crystal sphere. Frigid-cold, apparently – cold enough that some of the gases in its atmosphere are probably frozen solid.”

  “Can that be Nex?” Julia asked.

  It was Djan who answered with a shake of his head. “I don’t think so. And if it is, we may as well leave now and save time and effort. There’s no way anything could live there – not anything like life as we know it, that is.”

  The Cloakmaster nodded agreement. From what he’d read about the Juna, the worlds they chose to colonize and alter were similar in climate to Krynn and Toril, hinting that the mysterious creatures shared at least some characteristics of humans and demihumans.

  “Are there any other
planets?” Lucinus, the ginger-haired halfling navigator, wanted to know.

  “One,” Teldin announced. “Here, right at the center.” He drew another blob in the middle of the circle. “It’s an earth world ….” His voice trailed off.

  “But …?” Djan prompted.

  “But I didn’t find any fire bodies,” the Cloakmaster continued. “No sun, or suns. Now,” he went on quickly, “I didn’t actually see the system. I …” – he paused, trying to find the right word – “I felt it. And I don’t know whether I learned everything about it.”

  Djan nodded slowly, looking at Teldin’s rough drawing. “An earth-centric system without a sun,” he mused. “Unusual. Very unusual.” He looked up. “You’re sure about this?”

  “As sure as I can be, considering.”

  Lucinus piped up again. “Maybe your … your perception has a size limitation,” he suggested. “Maybe you can’t … experience anything smaller than a certain size. Class B, for example, thirty leagues or so in diameter. Much too small for a sun.”

  “Couldn’t you have a tiny, very bright sun?” Teldin asked.

  The halfling didn’t answer, just gave the Cloakmaster a patronizing smile.

  “Is there anything else?” Djan asked after a few moments.

  “Yes,” Teldin said slowly. “There’s something, but I’m not sure I know exactly what it is.” With the pen, he scribbled in an amorphous band encircling the central blob, a fraction of the way out.

  “What’s that’” Lucinus wanted to know, standing on tiptoe for a better view.

  “A dust cloud of some kind, I think,” Teldin said. “It forms a complete shell around the world at the center, about an hour out.”

  “Maybe it glows on the inner surface,” Julia suggested. “Maybe it gives heat and light to the planet …”

  Teldin cut her off gently. “According to what I felt, it’s almost as cold as the outer planet.” He frowned grimly. “But there’s got to be something I’m missing. The book said ships that came here never returned. There’s nothing I’ve seen that could do that.”