The Maelstrom Eye tcc-3

by Roger E. Moore

  "I thought you'd like some company!" she whispered back, pulling herself fully into the room. The dark-haired kender was wearing a short purple dress with a red sash and no shoes. "I would have brought some fruit, but the gnomes said you weren't to eat anything but creamed soaked grains until you were released."

  Teldin's stomach knotted at the thought of facing another bowl of that tasteless gray sludge. He was being fed five times a day now, and he hated every moment of it.

  Gaye wiped her dirty hands on Teldin's bedsheets. "Anyway, now that I'm here, we have some time to talk!" she said brightly, seating herself on the bed. She was wearing a new sort of flowery perfume. "Aelfred said you brought us down when both the helms were knocked out," she said, leaning toward him excitedly. "Is this another power of your cloak? I don't mean to be nosy. Aelfred was trying to keep it a secret, but I overheard him yesterday talking to the navigator. I hope I'm not getting him into trouble or anything by saying that." "Well-" Teldin began.

  "I guess I should first say thank you for saving us," Gaye continued quickly, "but that seems so inadequate. That big blue guy with the nose, General Gomma whatever, said you almost drowned when we splashed down, but he pulled you out. I was really grateful he did, too. We've only known each other for what, five days, and here we are, crashed on a flat planet with no ship left, and who knows what's lurking in wildspace for us, trying to get your cloak. That's what Aelfred was saying, but not to me. That was to the navigator."

  "I don't-" Teldin said.

  "Oh, don't worry, none of that's important," the kender went on. "None of us can predict the future, so we'd all better eat our desserts first. That's what everyone says, anyway. I like your mustache. So, what have you been doing with yourself lately?" She waited expectantly, her dark eyes shining.

  Teldin opened his mouth to answer.

  There was a knock at the door. "Teldin?" came Aelfred's muffled voice from outside. "Teldin, mind if I come in?"

  "Oops," muttered Gaye, bounding to her bare feet. She looked hurriedly around the room, then dropped to her knees and crawled under Teldin's bed. "Don't tell!" she whispered with a wink, and was gone from view.

  "Teldin?" came the voice at the door again.

  "Come on in," Teldin said in defeat. "Why not."

  The door opened silently. Aelfred had a new gash over his left eye, but it had healed already. He moved unsteadily, favoring his right leg. The big man gave Teldin a lopsided smile as he limped over and reached out to shake his hand. "Good to see you alive, old son," Aelfred said, taking a seat on a stool he pulled close to Teldin's bed. "Hope you don't mind a visit."

  Teldin snorted. "Gomja was going to keep people out for me, but you must have missed him. Don't worry about it. How are things going here?"

  "Well," Aelfred started, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees, his hands clasped together in front of him. His crooked smile faded, then was gone. "I've got some bad news, some good news, and some more bad news."

  Grimacing, Teldin tried to prepare himself. "What?"

  "The first bad news is that we did lose a few people," Aelfred said, not looking Teldin in the eye. "Asinwilk, the stern castle catapult crewman, he drowned, and Bor Oxeman and that new priest, Garioth, they were killed in the lower bridge by that catapult shot. We haven't found five others: Varisot, Mamnilla, Old Hok, Mithko the Elder, and Yishi Narsh, the cook. They could have fallen off anywhere in space or in the lake. We just don't know. Yishi was probably in the galley when it was hit."

  Aelfred looked down at his interlocked fingers. His eyes saw nothing there. Teldin remembered Mamnilla and Old Hok, lying on the deck as Teldin had hovered over the ship in his dream, or whatever state the cloak had produced. Mamnilla had had a warped sense of humor for a halfling. An empty place formed in Teldin's stomach. He tried not to take it personally, but he knew he was the cause of all these deaths-he and his cloak.

  "The good side," Aelfred went on, "is that the rest of us survived, which comes to thirty-nine people that you saved. The gnomes have their healers-real healers and priests-working on the crew, and we're getting back on our feet. They told us we should be at full strength by the day after tomorrow. Now, we go back to the bad news again."

  Aelfred paused, not looking at Teldin, and swallowed. "The Probe's just scrap, I'm told," he said, no emotion in his voice. "The orcs, or whatever they were up there, did for us pretty well. You got us out of there in time, but the ship's going for kindling." Aelfred gave Teldin a rueful smile. "At least I got to be her captain for a while."

  "I'm sorry," Teldin said. He was blanketed in misery. He knew more than ever that his presence threatened everyone he had ever cared about. "It's my fault," he mumbled. "I shouldn't have stayed and put you and everyone else in so much danger. The neogi, the mind flayers, the orcs, they want this cloak"-he gestured at the silver "necklace" at his throat, the cloak being kept small so it was out of the way-"and I couldn't even give it to them if I wanted to."

  Aelfred made a short gesture as if brushing away a fly. "Don't talk like that. You're not getting anywhere with self-pity. We chose to be with you even though we knew it would be hard going. We stuck together, and you pulled our roast out of the cooking fire when things balled up." Aelfred rubbed at his face. "The point of all this is that my crew has nowhere to go, and some of them are thinking about staying here. They're not that crazy about gnomes, but they'd rather either settle down here and work or else wait for the next freighter that stops by and sign on her, no matter where she's bound. I released them all of their duties as of this morning, and paid them off with what the gnomes salvaged from the currency locker in my cabin. Everyone's staying here at the infirmary for now, but soon they're going to start going their own ways." Aelfred hesitated. "And Sylvie and I are going our own ways, too, old son."

  I'm going to miss you, Teldin was ready to say, feeling even more depressed and responsible for the whole mess.

  "So," said Aelfred, rising to his feet and stretching his right leg gingerly. "As soon as you get off your lazy ass and get some real food in you instead of this scavver dung they've been feeding us all, you and Sylvie and I are going to see this sage the elves want us to see. And if I have any luck at all along the way, I'm going to make some space orcs damned unhappy that they shot up my ship."

  Teldin stared at Aelfred with an open mouth. The captain leaned down and gave Teldin a healthy punch in the shoulder. "I've also got to teach you about landing ships if you're going to spelljam them, if that's what you did to get us down. A blind-drunk liar bird would have done better. And I haven't forgotten that other problem you and I were going to work on, either. We can't do anything about it here, since all they have available are gnome women-unless you like that type-but we'll work on it." With a crooked, bowing grin, the blond warrior waved and headed for the door, letting himself out.

  "You old dog, you," Teldin said, staring at the door. I can't believe you still want to travel with me, he thought. I just can't believe it. For the first time in ages, he felt a sense of lightness inside him.

  "Hey!" came Gaye's voice from under the bed. "What kind of problem are you having? And why did he say you couldn't do anything about it here because of the gnome women?"

  Teldin closed his eyes for a moment. "Gaye," he said wearily, "it's none of your business."

  The kender, now covered in dust balls from her black hair to her tanned legs, scrambled to her feet. "They don't sweep very well in here," she said conversationally, brushing herself off beside Teldin's bed and scattering dust clouds everywhere. "Well, if you don't want to talk about your deep, dark problem, then maybe you'll talk about it later when we get to the fal. Aelfred told the navigator that a fal was like a snail, only a zillion times bigger. Is that true? Why are we supposed to go see a snail, anyway?"

  "You know," Teldin said irritably, "I don't recall that any invitation was extended to you or to anyone else for a chance to go on this expedition."

  "Really?" Gaye said, unfazed. "We were a
ll going there anyway until we crashed here. What's the difference?" She wiped her hands off on Teldin's sheets again. "Anyway, I've already been talking with the gnomes. I told them you were looking for the Spelljammer, and they were quite excited about helping us out. So get some rest." Gaye patted Teldin's shoulder. "You've been a big hero, but you need a little more nap time. Then we'll visit the big snail and find the Spelljammer and tell all our friends about it."

  The kender padded over to the window and hoisted herself onto the ledge with youthful grace. Turned so that she faced out, she leaned back and gave Teldin a last wave.

  "I'll ask Aelfred if I can help with your problem, whatever it is," she called, then swung herself off the ledge, disappearing from view.

  "No!" Teldin cried, half sitting up. He waited with terror for the awful crash that he knew would follow as the crazy kender hit the ground.

  No crash came. Wind stirred the tree leaves outside the window. Some very loud machine could be heard in the distance, probably a fan boat rumbling across the lake.

  Teldin swung his feet off the bed, wadded up the now-filthy sheets, and carefully made his way over to the window. Thanks to the gnomes' healing magic, his legs had outwardly recovered from their injuries on the Probe, but they ached abominably with every step. Limping to the window, he peered down to find a trace of the kender.

  There was nothing on the ground but grass, running right up to the infirmary walls. Gaye was nowhere in sight.

  Stunned, Teldin looked down at the wall itself. There were no handholds, no pipes, nothing at all that she possibly could have used to climb up the wall to his window. He looked up, and it was then that he saw the last bit of a piece of rope flick over the roofs gutter, pulled up by unseen hands, Gaye's. Teldin felt a stab of admiration with his relief.

  He was heading back to his bed when he heard short footsteps outside, marching up to his door. As he swung his feet under the sheets again, shaking the dust off as well as he could, Teldin heard a rapid, continuous knocking sound from a spot low on the door.

  "I'm busy," he said, too worn out to see anyone else. He figured the knocker had to be a gnome, and his legs were still aching from moving around. He fell back on the pillow and stared at the ceiling.

  Haifa minute passed before the knocking resumed, Maybe if I tried real hard, Teldin thought, I could choke myself with this cloak and save the neogi and everyone else the trouble. Maybe then I could get some rest.

  The knocking went on and on.

  "Come in!" Teldin shouted in surrender. "Just come in!"

  "I'm not bothering you, am I?" came a voice outside his door. It was Dyffed. "I wouldn't do this, you understand, but some matters have come up since we landed here, and I felt that I should probably discuss them with you when you had a free moment, and I didn't think you'd be doing anything right now, so I thought I'd come by and-"

  "Come in, come in, come in, come in, come in!" Teldin shouted, too tired to throw something at the door.

  "Ah, then I'm glad I'm not bothering you," said Dyffed cheerily, letting himself in. Sporting a thick bandage on top of his bald head, tied down with a strip of white cloth, the little gnome also wore a new set of gold-rimmed spectacles, probably having lost his previous pair in the ship crash. He was dressed in maroon pants, a white shirt with a round, stiff front made of white paper, and a gaudy green-and-gold jacket with at least eight pockets visible on the front. His short beard was neatly trimmed, and Teldin could tell that the gnome had probably had a bath, his first in a while.

  "You're looking splendid, if a bit pale," said the gnome, beaming up at Teldin from the side of the bed. "They've gone and put you in the humans' ward, too, so the doorknobs are all at your height and the water closets don't bump your ankles and you can sleep without feeling you've been stuck in a bookshelf. Simply splendid. I must tell you, your joke about One Six Nine is quite the rage around the yacht club, and even First Commodore Smedlookinblakburdincan was quite beside himself, laughed until he nearly vomited and had to be taken outside and given water. Marvelous sense of humor, but that's not why I'm here. Just sign these." The gnome pulled a stained sheaf of papers from an inside pocket of his jacket and spread them out on Teldin's chest. He then produced a short, black stick with a coppery point on one end. "You can use my portable hydraulic transcription device if you like," he added, "but mind the ink. Refilling it takes four hours."

  Teldin made no move to take the black stick. He valiantly resisted the urge to punch the gnome in the nose. "What are you talking about? What are these?"

  "Ah," said the gnome, pointing a stubby finger at various sections of the papers as he spoke. "This is a legal statement giving me permission to accompany your expedition to the Spelljammer-not just any spelljammer, of course, but the one-and-only Spelljammer- purely for scientific purposes. This is a release form that absolves you from any responsibility for all accidents, illnesses, or injuries, to include death and/or dismemberment, that I might suffer while in your company. This is a release form that absolves me from any responsibility for all accidents, illnesses, or injuries, to include death and/or dismemberment, that you might suffer as a result of anything that I do for research purposes. This is a waver that grants-" Teldin snatched the papers out of Dyffed's hands and almost wadded them into a ball. Instead, with the greatest single effort of willpower he ever recalled using, he carefully handed them back to the gnome. "I am not signing anything," Teldin said with finality, "and it doesn't matter if you want to go or not. We have no ship. We're stuck here."

  "Oh, but we do have a ship," Dyffed corrected him. "The Board of Admirals has given us an excellent ship from the naval ya-um, um, yacht docks, silly of me-an excellent ship from the yacht docks, ready for its trial run. Within a few days, we shall be off to see One Six Nine."

  The charade about the "yacht club," on top of everything else, managed to push Teldin's temper to its limits. "Why do you persist in calling this a yacht dub?" he demanded. He half sat up in bed again, feeling his face flush with anger. "This is a naval base for spelljammers, isn't it? Gnome spelljammers?"

  "Shhh!" Panicked, Dyffed waved his hands in front of Teldin's face. "Careless vocalizations produce maritime disasters!" he hissed, glancing fearfully at the open window.

  "Damn it, everyone knows this is a naval base!" Teldin protested. "I knew that when Gomja brought me ashore on his boat! All the gnomes wear uniforms, you have huge catapult and ballista towers surrounding this valley, you have a military dry dock, and even your security commander told me it was a naval base!" As he uttered those last words, Teldin instantly wished he could take them back. He had undoubtedly just sunk Gomja's whole career.

  "First Colonel-Commander Herphan Gomja has a security clearance that allows him to say it's a naval base, but you don't!" Dyffed retorted, unfazed. "As Colonel-Commander Gomja says, the void holds many foes, even if that's not logically correct because a void should be empty and hold nothing. Regardless, we ask that you please not refer to this base, the lake, or the airspace above it, out to a fifty-mile altitude, as anything other than a yacht club. If our enemies knew that we were working on a coherent-beam, synergized thaumamplifer here, they'd-" The gnome froze, his face filled with horror at his words. "No! I meant, if they only knew we were working on a secret birthday party for the admirals here, they'd be all over us. It's the nature of space monsters, always crashing birthday parties." Dyffed drew a shuddering sigh, his face pale. "I've been working on this weapons project for so long, I almost forgot the code words."

  Teldin thought about this latest revelation. Whatever this secret weapon was, he didn't want to be around when it was set off. "Forgive my asking," he said, "but were you working on this, uh, birthday party at the Rock of Bral?"

  "What? Oh, yes, I was. Their library was of considerable help, too, though I don't think they understood a scrap of what I was doing there. Elves!" The gnome rolled his eyes. "Wonderful people, of course, but absolutely no concept of real science. The admiral and I got along q
uite famously, though, thanks to his interest in the Spelljammer-that's the one-and-only Spelljammer, of course, not just any spelljammer. We used to talk about that for days. He must have asked me a thousand questions about it. That's the sort of thing that happens when you get a proper schooling, none of this 'Everything I Needed to Know I Learned on Dungeon Level One' nonsense. That was why he had me go with you, so I could perform a scientific analysis of the Spelljammer when you found it, then answer all of his own questions about it later."

  The gnome paused for breath, and Teldin broke in. His worst suspicions were dangerously close to being confirmed. "What kind of questions was Admiral Cirathorn asking about the Spelljammer?"

  Dyffed hesitated, lost in thought. "Oh, the usual things, of course, that a scholar of history might ask. How big was it, what kind of weapons would it carry, how could you control it, where would you find it, what sorts of military things might you do with it if you had it, would your cloak have any effect on it, that sort of thing. Natural curiosity."

  Natural curiosity, hell, Teldin thought. I should have known. Why in the name of the Abyss do I keep trusting everyone I meet and hoping they won't stab me in the back with the first chance they get? I never thought the elves would do it, but I've not been seeing this in perspective. The Spelljammer is more valuable than gold; it's real, raw power, and no one can turn away from it, not the neogi, not the mind flayers, not the pirates, evidently not the orcs who attacked us, and apparently not even the elves. Possibly not even the gnomes.

  "At any rate," Dyffed went on cheerfully, "my research assistants and I shall accompany you when you leave to find the Spelljammer. We're going to find out what makes the Spelljammer squeal, as they say, but first we'll be off to see dear old One Six Nine. I've communicated with him only by parcel for the last sixty years. He was quite a help to me on the, uh, um, birthday party. We'll be bringing it with us, by the way. It should be a marvelous trip."