The Broken Sphere

by Nigel Findley

  “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-orc’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-orc’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 petite 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 because 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?”