Into The Void

by Nigel Findley

  Shandess forced the words out. His voice was a croak. “Prissith Nerro Master.”

  The neogi reared back. “Yes,” it spat. “Master. Meat obey. If no —” the creature’s mouth opened wider into an evil grin “— if no, master meat tear. Master meat rip. Master flesh from bone pull. But meat obey, master meat kill swiftly.” The monster’s voice became almost wheedling. “Now. Meat questions answer?”

  “Yes,” Shandess croaked. With blinding speed, the second neogi lashed out with a claw and opened a gash in the old man’s arm. “Yes, Prissith Nerro Master!” Shandess shrieked.

  “Good,” Prissith Nerro breathed. “First. Ship where bound?”

  Shandess hesitated. The Probe’s destination was no secret, but … The second neogi’s claw ripped his flesh again. “Realmspace,” he screamed.

  Nerro nodded. Its wicked smile remained unchanged. “Meat aboard ship,” it went on, “master must know about. Meat cloak has. Cloak —” the neogi hesitated “— power has, value has. Such power, meat commander must be, inconceivable else. Old meat master tell, of cloak, of meat aboard ship. Old meat master tell everything.”

  Shandess was confused. Fear, and the monster’s garbled language, were making it hard for him to understand what the neogi wanted. Something about a commander … Aelfred Silverhorn was the highest-ranking human aboard the Probe. That had to be whom the monster was referring to – but to Shandess’s knowledge, the first mate had no cloak … at least, nothing magical, nothing that could interest this neogi. “I know our leader,” he said quickly, “we call him Mate.” There was no reason to give this monstrosity Aelfred’s name, he decided. “But as to the rest,” he went on, “I don’t know what you’re talking about. He has no cloak.”

  “Meat lie!” the neogi spat. Then its smile widened, showing more of its needle teeth. “And glad I am. Meat no resist, I feared. Pleasure master denied, I feared.”

  “I’m not lying!” Shandess yelled. “I’m telling the truth!”

  The neogi hardly seemed to be listening. “Pleasure I have now. Knowledge I have later,” the creature hissed, almost to itself. “Pleasure.” Slowly the monster brought its mouth down toward Shandess’s throat. “Now, withered meat,” it said quietly, “your taste I will know, after all.”

  Shandess fought vainly against the bonds. The creature’s breath was on his face, then his chest, then his belly …. Horror overwhelmed him.

  Shandess knew it would serve no purpose to scream, but he screamed anyway.

  *****

  Teldin Moore sat alone in the Probe’s saloon, gazing out at the flow. Although it was nowhere nearly as beautiful as the star-specked sky of wildspace, today the view of the phlogiston served the same purpose. Gazing at the universe, Teldin could temporarily forget – or at least minimize the torment of – his responsibilities, his fears, and his memories. He felt drained, both emotionally and physically. When Sylvie had led him belowdecks, she’d started to take him to his cabin, but he’d had enough mental spark left to know that wouldn’t be the right place. Dana was gone, Miggins was in the infirmary – expected to live, but probably missing an arm – and Horvath’s presence would have been a reminder that it was all his, Teldin’s, responsibility. He’d insisted on visiting the officers’ saloon instead, and Sylvie had agreed without argument. As she’d left him, she’d touched his hand and given him a gentle smile. “There are those who can help you,” she’d told him softly, then had left him alone, shutting the door behind her. He hadn’t known just what to make of her cryptic words, but had recognized that he was hardly in the best condition to puzzle them out. There would always be later.

  Teldin could hear the crew moving around the Probe’s decks: cleaning up the blood, repairing the damage, and throwing the bodies of the dead overboard. Elsewhere, he knew that the ship’s healers were treating those who could be saved and easing the last hours of those who couldn’t. Julia, promoted to second mate after the death of Sweor Tobregdan, was seeing to the erstwhile neogi slaves, teaching them what she could about ship routine and explaining their duties. Everybody had duties, the officers most of all, so it wasn’t surprising that he was alone in the saloon.

  Everyone has duties except me, Teldin thought. They don’t know what to do with me. From the start, he’d been more – or perhaps less – than a full member of the hammership’s crew. His friendship with Aelfred and the way the big warrior treated him set him apart from the others, and, over the days, that had only increased. The rest of the crew had seen him hobnob with the captain and the first mate, and this he felt was the reason for the respect in which the crew seemed to hold him. Even when he was standing watch, the crew always treated him more like an officer than as one of them. And now?

  As Sylvie had led him down from the forecastle, he’d seen the crew’s reaction. They’d watched him – all the while trying to pretend they weren’t watching him – and had moved out of his way, as though they expected three-rayed stars to burst from his fingertips and form a hissing curtain about him. He’d heard somebody mutter, “Fighter-mage,” but when he’d turned to see who had said it, no one would meet his glance.

  He’d always seemed to come, somehow, to the forefront of any group he was a member of, Teldin had to admit. In general, he got on well with the vast majority of people. Not that they always liked him, or he them, of course, but there was something about his manner that made it possible to deal with virtually anyone. There was no conceit in this admission; it just happened to be the case. After a while, people came to him for advice, and they listened to his answers. Even when he intended to keep his opinion quiet on a particular subject, people would try to secure that opinion from him as though it were something of value. It seemed that the more he remained aloof, the more he tried to stay out of the focus of an issue, the more people would believe his silence was a kind of calm wisdom. Teldin had never been able to understand this. He knew from personal experience that he was no more wise than the majority of people; quite the opposite, perhaps. He found it amusing, albeit somewhat irritating, at times. His grandfather had been like that, too, Teldin remembered, but the old man had shrugged it off with a typical grandfatherly comment: Better to keep your peace and be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt. Of course, the aphorism wasn’t appropriate: nobody thought grandfather a fool, except for perhaps his son.

  The respect – no, more like awe – that he’d seen on the faces of the Probe’s crew was something totally different. It wasn’t him they respected, he was convinced, it was the power that he’d displayed on the forecastle. They thought of him as a wizard now, someone like Vallus or Sylvie, who could wield spells to protect them, to strike down enemies. They wouldn’t understand or believe that he had no control of that power no knowledge of its source, purpose, or significance. They’d come to depend on him – as he’d come to depend, at least in part, on the focusing power of the cloak – and then the power wouldn’t be there, and they’d suffer or die. This realization chilled him. It was yet another burden to bear.

  “Ahem.” Someone coughed behind him. He turned quickly to see Aelfred standing in the middle of the saloon, hands on his hips, his lopsided smile in place. The warrior had replaced the bandage around his head with a clean one, Teldin noticed, but Aelfred still looked dirty and tired. “How long have you been there?” he asked.

  Aelfred shrugged. “Long enough for you to solve the problems of the universe, maybe.” He pulled a chair up near Teldin and flopped down into it.

  “How goes it above?”

  For a moment, the big man seemed to sag. His exhaustion showed, making him look twenty years older. “Messy.” He drew a scarred hand across his eyes. “We lost a lot of good people.”

  “I know.”

  Aelfred looked at him a moment, his eyes steady. “Yes,” he said quietly, “I suppose you do, as much as any of us. Well.” He slapped his palms against his muscular thighs, shaking off his fatigue like a dog shakes off water. “Estriss will be down in
awhile to speak to you, but, in the meantime …” The warrior leaned forward, his voice low and intense, his eyes boring holes into Teldin. “Just what in the name of all the demons of the pit went on up there? First you’re fighting like an old hand, much better than you have any right to, and then …” He shook his big head in amazement. “And then you’re throwing spells like Elminster himself. And then you can’t even defend yourself against someone who’s already half-dead.” His voice took on a joking tone, but his eyes remained deadly serious. “Don’t you think there’s something you should tell me?”

  “Yes,” Teldin sighed heavily. “I would have told you earlier, but …” He paused. “Some of it’s as much a surprise to me as it is to you.”

  And to me. Liquid words formed in Teldin’s mind. He looked up to see Estriss standing in the doorway. My day to be surprised, he thought. May I join you? the illithid asked. Both Aelfred and Teldin waved the mind flayer to a seat. “I don’t really know what to say,” Teldin told his warrior friend. “I should have been honest with you from the start. I just …”

  Aelfred gestured him to silence. “Water under the keel,” he said flatly. “You didn’t know if you could trust me, so you held your tongue. If you want to keep breathing in this universe, that’s what you’ve got to do. In fact,” he added thoughtfully, “you should still ask yourself that question: Do you trust me? Don’t answer too fast. You can always say something later, but you can’t unsay it.” He sat back, watching Teldin calmly.

  Teldin considered the big warrior’s words for a moment, then nodded. “I’m going to tell you,” he said firmly. “What happened today —”

  The illithid’s mental voice cut him off. Background is often important, Estriss said, and in this case I feel it is key. Perhaps you should start from the beginning.

  Teldin nodded agreement. Quickly but thoroughly he repeated the tale of how he’d come to possess the cloak, of his encounters with the neogi, and how he’d escaped from Krynn with the gnomes. Throughout, Aelfred remained silent, taking it all in. Teldin watched the big man’s intelligent eyes. He quickly recognized the flicker that indicated that he’d left something out or hadn’t given enough detail, and made sure to remedy that immediately. As a result, there was no need for questions. “That takes us up to today,” Teldin eventually concluded.

  Aelfred rubbed his tired eyes. “Improbable, incredible, impossible,” he grumbled. “If I hadn’t seen what I saw today, I wouldn’t believe a word of it.”

  The power is there, Estriss interjected, and the tale has its own kind of consistency.

  “I know that,” Aelfred countered, “and I don’t disbelieve you, Teldin. It’s just that …” He waved his hand in the air to indicate confusion. “I don’t understand magic … and truth be told, I don’t trust it or like it much, not deep down.” He sighed. “You’ve got no idea who these … these creators are?”

  “Estriss believes they might be the Juna,” Teldin answered slowly.

  Aelfred let out a bark of laughter. “Well, he would, now, wouldn’t he? No offense meant, Estriss. It’s just that you – or anybody, I’m no different – you’re going to see everything through your own interests and preconceptions.” He shot Teldin a keen glance. “What do you think?”

  Teldin hesitated a moment, then shrugged.

  The first mate laughed again. “Playing it close to the chest, I see. Of course you don’t know who the creators are. Of course you don’t have any suspicions. And of course your interest in the arcane was just coincidental. Well, I freely admit I know nothing of such things.” The big man’s humor faded, and his face grew serious again. “This cloak has cost a lot,” he pointed out quietly.

  Teldin felt cold. The cost weighed heavily on him, probably always would. All the deaths – the gnomes in Mount Nevermind, the crewmen aboard the Probe – were his fault, and would haunt him for the rest of his life. He nodded miserably. Aelfred’s hand grasped his shoulder and squeezed reassuringly. Teldin looked up. The warrior’s expression was still grim, but there was understanding in his eyes. “Don’t get me wrong,” the first mate told him. “It’s cost you, too. I’m not blaming you. Nobody who knew the facts could. You had no choice through any of this.” He spat a curse. “Neogi. May the gods damn them to the lowest pits of the Nine Hells. How did they find us anyway?”

  It seems possible the neogi are able to somehow track the cloak, Estriss remarked.

  “How?” Teldin demanded, very glad that the conversation was on another subject. “You said you could only sense magic from it when it actually did something.”

  Estriss gave a broken-backed shrug. Through the use of my limited abilities, yes, he admitted, but that does not mean that others cannot sense it even in its dormant state. In fact, there are many legends that tell how various artifacts have other artifacts that are attuned to them. The illithid paused. There is also another possibility. Perhaps, when the cloak’s power is used, the characteristics of that power can be detected and recognized from a distance. Did you first experience the powers of the cloak before or after the neogi pursuit began?

  Teldin searched back through his memory to the start of this whole affair: not long ago, in the grand scheme of things, but it seemed now like a lifetime. Memories had begun to fade …. When had he first realized there was something unique about the cloak? Surely it was soon after the ship crashed, but was that before or after the first spidership had arrived? “It was after,” he said slowly, “I think.”

  “You’re not sure,” Aelfred said flatly, “and how could you be? How could you know just what the cloak was doing, and when? Hells, it could have been protecting you from bird droppings from the first moment you saw it, and you just thought the birds had lousy aim.” The warrior grumbled into silence for a moment, then took off on another tangent. “Neogi aren’t common in Krynnspace,” he mused. “It’s one of the few places you’re reasonably safe from them, but what happens? We take you – and your cloak – aboard, and we get intercepted by a deathspider. Coincidence?”

  Perhaps, Estriss replied. It happens.

  “I know it happens,” Aelfred rumbled, “but think. We know there were neogi in Krynnspace, the ones who were after Teldin. It’s possible – vaguely – that we were just unlucky enough to run into them, but do you know what the odds are of passing another ship in the flow so close that you’re dropped to tactical speed?”

  It happens, Estriss said again. Neogi, by nature, will attack my ship they encounter. That means nothing one way or the other.

  Aelfred growled in frustration. “I know, I know, but I can’t help thinking. If the neogi can track the cloak somehow, that explains how they intercepted us. It makes me wonder, Teldin. Those pirates who attacked the gnomish dreadnought, were they pirates? Just pirates? Or were they after the dreadnought for a reason?”

  You may as well ask why the Probe happened along when it did, Estriss put in mildly.

  Aelfred had no answer for a moment, then he smiled ruefully. “Aye, I know,” he said, “that way lies paranoia.” He turned to Teldin. “We’ve been arguing past you as though you’ve got nothing to say, while you’re the person who can probably say the most. Have you got anything to add, or ask, or anything?”

  Teldin had to admit he’d welcomed the respite while the other two shot comments and theories back and forth. While they debated, he could pretend the whole thing was an intellectual exercise, the kind of discussion he’d sometimes overheard between his grandfather and the old man’s friends: interesting in its own way, but with little relevance to the real world of crops and plantings. Now he was forced to accept how deadly serious the whole thing was.

  The other two were looking at him steadily, expecting an answer. He sighed, bone-weary of the whole burden. Why him? he asked yet again. But the burden was his, and he had to bear it as best he could. It hadn’t been laid on Dana, or Sweor, or Shandess, or any of the others who’d died aboard the Probe. It had been laid on him and him alone.

  “If the neogi ca
n somehow track the cloak,” he said slowly, “if they can – and I think we have to assume they can – then I have to leave the ship.”

  Teldin wasn’t sure what kind of response he expected from the other two. What he didn’t expect was the reaction he got from Aelfred.

  The first mate threw back his head and roared with laughter. “You’ll find it a long walk back to Krynn, old son,” the warrior said.

  Teldin felt his cheeks coloring. “You can drop me on some other planet,” he said sharply. “Anywhere will do.”

  Aelfred sobered immediately and laid a calming hand on Teldin’s shoulder. “Sorry, friend,” he said earnestly. “I shouldn’t have laughed. What you said was nobly said, but none too practical. If the neogi can track the cloak, then they’ll come and get you wherever you hide. If you’re by yourself, they’ll kill you and get the cloak.” He grinned deprecatingly. “Truth be told, I’m just an old mercenary. I know little about magic, and that’s just the way I like it, but I do know one thing.” His voice hardened. “I’ve got good reason to hate the neogi, and just because they want something – whatever it is – well, that’s quite enough reason to keep it away from them.”

  For me as well, Estriss put in. It seems to me that the best way to keep the neogi’s prize from them is to learn how to use it, to control its power. The creature’s featureless white eyes settled on Teldin. But not now, the illithid finished. You are tired. Perhaps after sleep we can continue this.

  Teldin felt exhaustion wash over him like a wave. Despite his attempts to keep them open, his eyes began to hood.

  “Use my cabin,” Aelfred told him. “It’s certain I’m not going to get the chance for a good while.”

  “Thanks,” Teldin said weakly. He was tired. Maybe it was something the illithid had done – he remembered an attacker collapsing under the mind flayer’s mental attack – or maybe it was something to do with the cloak. Or maybe it was something less mysterious: the stress, fear, and exertion of the day finally getting to him. In any case, he was only barely aware of Aelfred helping him across the hallway to the first mate’s cabin, and sleep swallowed him the instant he lay on the bed.