The Maelstrom Eye

Chapter Eleven

"The portal! It's opening!" Gaye shouted, clutching the bow railing on the top deck of the Perilous Halibut. Ahead of her, impossibly far away but drawing nearer, was a dark gray wall that stretched from one end of the universe to the other. In the center of the wall was a burning yellow whirlpool of light whose arms rotated with agonizing slowness. At the hub of the yellow whirlpool was a sky-blue dot that grew steadily larger as the arms turned.

Gaye thought of the pupil and iris of an unspeakably mighty god, and she shivered with excitement even as she puzzled over the color beyond the portal. She was looking into the crystal sphere of Herdspace, of course-but wasn't it always black beyond a portal, in the wildspace beyond?

"Prepare to fire!" thundered Gomja's voice from aft. Gaye turned and saw the giff, wearing a freshly cleaned white uniform and clutching a crossbow as long as a man's arm. Gomja had demanded the chance to fight the enemy, and Aelfred had finally agreed to stay below and handle shipboard activities there in case of boarding. The gnomes were already filling the ship with boobytraps.

With his free hand, Gomja was directing the array of crossbow-bearing gnomes who knelt along the ship's railing or crewed the newly installed deck ballista. The gnomes wore a chaotic assortment of armor manufactured from cooking utensils, metal scraps, and ship's supplies. The giff stood by the trailing edge of the ship's huge vertical fin, lit all around by the infinite depths of the rainbow-hued phlogiston. The "flow" was a sky painted by a mad deity with every color a god's palette could hold. The colors ran and blurred together in evershifting swirls larger than worlds.

Gaye never got tired of looking at the flow, even if it now held the shape of a trailing enemy ship. It was only about a mile behind now, a greenish scorpion ship with its great claws extended and open as it came on for the Perilous Halibut's tail.

A tiny, dark shape detached itself from the upraised tail of the scorpion ship, gaining rapidly on the gnomes' ship. "Incoming fire!" Gomja roared. "Flatten and hold fast!"

The two dozen gnomes on deck threw themselves flat as they watched the catapult shot close in-and take an increasingly obvious path to their right. As the yard-wide rock flew by at a distance of only a few hundred feet, Gaye sighed with relief, only now remembering that she hadn't ducked, too. She heard a ragged cheer erupt from the gnomes. Several sent their crossbow bolts chasing after the stone, and a few others fired at the scorpion.

"Company, hold your fire until I give the command!" Gomja ordered. "Those dogs will get a taste of our bolts yet, but we're going to make each shot count!"

Gaye looked ahead again. The flaming yellow whirlpool was much closer, but she couldn't begin to estimate its distance or size even now. It was vast and painfully beautiful. The blue pupil continued to grow. No stars were visible beyond. How bizarre, she thought. Dyffed had said that Herdspace was different from other crystal spheres, and he'd tried to explain how, but she'd never caught on to the specifics of his unbearably detailed lecture. Herdspace was a sphere with no planets-she had caught that part, and Dyffed's reference to everything living on the inside of a gigantic bubble, but the concept hadn't quite jelled yet in her mind as to what he had meant by that. The gnome also kept talking about a something-something "mega-fawn" on which the fal, One Six Nine, was said to live. Gaye pushed it out of her mind as she watched the yellow whirlpool's blue center open. She'd have to see it to understand it.

"Begin the climb!" the giff shouted. Gaye looked back even though she knew he wasn't yelling for her. He was calling through the voice tube to the helm, where Sylvie had been sitting for the last two days since the ores in the lone scorpion had begun to gain on them. In moments, the Perilous Halibut's long black bow rose, lifting up and away from the vast portal ahead. The gnomes, looking sternward, took aim at the scorpion with their light crossbows over the heads of their fellows-exactly the result Gomja had wanted, to allow all the gnomes to fire at once.

"Sir!" came the shrill cry of a gnome somewhere aft. "Potentially hostile spelljamming vessel apparently crewed by unidentified humanoids is now trailing at fifteen hundred yards, with an estimated error of one hun-"

"Fire!" Gomja bawled, drowning out the gnome.

"Immediately activate the mechanism according to the preset trajectory!" Gaye heard a gnome shout rapidly. The command was interrupted after the first word by the heavy thump of a ballista and the crack of two dozen crossbow bolts being released. Then came the creaking sounds of the ballista mechanism being cranked back for a second shot. A small cloud of bolts could be seen for a second, flashing toward the scorpion. The gnomes immediately reloaded their crossbows, snatching bolts from the huge pile of ammunition carefully stacked along the deck.

"Roll her over and climb!" Gomja shouted, leaning back. The backdrop around the Perilous Halibut began to rotate, starting to send the lone trailing ship below the deck's horizon. Quickly, though, the spelljammer changed course and climbed again in the opposite direction that it had originally taken, like a fish unable to decide which way was up. By the time the gnomes had reloaded their crossbows, the scorpion was again in view-now upside down, but with its main deck-and the crew on it-clearly visible.

"Prepare to fire! Hold it, hold it-Fire!" Gomja shouted. Gaye heard the crossbows and ballista snap in unison. It was incredible to think that, only a month ago, those same gnomes could barely be made to breathe at the same time, much less function as a military unit. Gomja's constant drilling had taken care of that, even if the constant stream of shouted orders kept everyone else awake some nights.

Gaye had turned back to look at the opening portal when she heard someone climb the ladder from the deck below. She saw with relief that it was Teldin Moore, a short sword belted on under his dull maroon cloak. Everyone had given up trying to explain the cloak's seemingly random color changes.

"What's the-oh," Teldin said, turning around to see the gnomes still firing at the scorpion ship. He looked back at Gaye, who was wearing a remarkably low-cut red dress with a skirt made of cloth strips. Teldin knew better than to ask where she'd gotten it; she produced clothing out of thin air, but never admitted how she did it. "Where's your shield?" he asked in astonishment. "Didn't you pick up a shield?"

"It was too much of a bother to carry around," Gaye replied with a smile. "If my thread's going to get cut, it'll get cut, and a shield isn't going to help. Besides, I get a much better view without it. Isn't it grand?" She punctuated her last comment by waving a hand at the oncoming portal, visible but dropping below the bow as the ship maneuvered.

Lips parted, Teldin stared at the yellow whirlpool and its blue eye. The sight literally took his breath away. "We're going to go through it in only a few more minutes," he finally mumbled. "I was just talking with Sylvie."

"How's she looking? She's been on the helm for-"

"She's exhausted," Teldin said, tearing his gaze away from the yellow maelstrom. "We can't replace her as long as the ores are coming up on us like this. I'm here to bring you back inside. That scorpion's crew might board us soon, and you've got to get out of here before it does. Now, move."

Gaye got a surprised and indignant look on her elfin face. "Teldin Moore, what right do you have to-"

"Incoming! Shields up!" Gomja roared from the stern. Both Gaye and Teldin looked rearward. Gnomes snatched up the wooden shields beside them. Recognizing the danger, Teldin instantly threw himself over Gaye, knocking her down with a thud and flattening her against the black, metal-plated deck. The kender gasped, the wind knocked from her lungs.

There came a brief clattering sound across the length of the ship, not unlike hail on a metal roof. A gnome gave a brief cry of fear. Teldin felt something punch him hard against his cloak under his left shoulder blade, and he grunted and clenched his teeth against the stab.

"Teldin," came Gaye's muffled voice as she struggled beneath him, "I like you, too, but I can't breathe. Let me up." Teldin risked a look around, wincing with pain. All the gnomes seemed to be okay, aiming their shields in the direction of the scorpion ship. Gomja held an enormous tower shield made from the ship's galley door. "Lower shields!" he shouted, suddenly setting his shield aside and hefting his huge crossbow. "Reload and prepare to fire! Ballista with us!" "Teldin!" Gaye wheezed, trying to shove him off her chest. "Darn you!"

"Get below, now!" Teldin ordered the kender, getting up. His left shoulder blade hurt abominably; an arrow clattered to the deck as he moved. No doubt the magical cloak had kept it from punching through his ribs. He kept his cloak positioned above Gaye as she rolled over on her side, still trying to get her breath. With a dirty look up at Teldin, Gaye crept to the deck hatchway, stopping only as she was ready to descend.

"I want to stay up and watch," she said petulantly.

"Not a chance," Teldin said, and he pushed her head down into the ship. He flipped the hatch shut, jammed the locking bar in place, then got to his feet. Only a gnome ship would have locks on both sides of its hatchways, he noted.

"Roll her over and climb!" Gomja called as the gnomes raised their crossbows again. "Prepare to fire!"

Teldin could sec that the scorpion ship was much closer now than before, only minutes from catching up. The orcs must have put their best spell-caster on the helm, he thought grimly. The last month had been so peaceful that he'd thought they had escaped. For the hundredth time, Teldin considered asking the gnomes about their "birthday party" weapon, but discarded the notion. Any gnome-made secret weapon would be deadlier to its users than to its target. Teldin never even brought up the topic, for fear of getting Dyffed interested in testing the device, wherever it was.

"Fire!" Crossbow and ballista bolts leaped out at the scorpion ship.' Teldin cursed himself when he realized he didn't have a missile weapon. He had come up to the deck after he'd heard Gaye was here in the thick of the trouble, and now that she was safe he didn't feel he could abandon Gomja and the gnomes. He hurried aft to see if a spare crossbow was available for him.

The gnomes steadily continued their loading and firing and paid no attention to Teldin as he ran up. Gomja reloaded his bow and shouted for the ship to roll over and climb again, always keeping the scorpion in view. The giff saw Teldin approach from the corner of one eye and looked around. "You shouldn't be here, sir!" Gomja said in astonishment. "You don't have a shield, and there's no place to take cover!"

Teldin saw several spare light crossbows on the deck. He grabbed one and cranked it back. "My cloak's good enough," he said, quickly setting the bowstring and reaching for a bolt, "and I'm getting claustrophobia anyway."

Gomja stared at him, then nodded and raised his crossbow once more at the scorpion. "As you wish, sir," he said, sighting in with a proud grin. "My sire always said, 'A brave heart seeks the heart of the action.' Prepare to fire!"

Teldin raised his crossbow, stepping back to get out of the giffs way. Gomja would have preferred to use the musket strapped to the inside of his shield, or the pistols stuck in his belt, but the phlogiston's flammable nature precluded use of any firearms.

"Fire!" Gomja shouted. Teldin concentrated, but his cloak did nothing to improve his aim or sharpen his senses. He hastily squeezed off a shot.

As he nastily reloaded, Teldin couldn't help thinking that it was nothing short of a miracle that the supply rooms aboard the ship had turned out to be well stocked with personal weapons and ammunition, even the deck ballista, just as the galley had been overstocked with food-this despite the fact that none of the thirty-one gnomes aboard the ship remembered having stocked anything before the ship took off. All had been busy examining the ship's hull for scratches on its paint job and talking about the "birthday party" Dyffed was fond of referring to. They were confounded when Gomja confronted them with the spare materials, which he had uncovered while making a detailed inspection of the ship just before they had entered the phlogiston.

As a result of the discovery, Ruff and Widget, the giant hamsters, had been saved from the dinner table. Gaye promised never to lock herself in a room again, and there was enough ammunition for the giff to have the gnomes practice with their crossbows for several days without threatening the whole supply. Gomja had shaken his broad head when he had told Teldin, Aelfred, and the others of the situation, putting it down to the gnomes' ability to have their left hands not know what their right hands were doing at any given time.

"One last volley, lads!" Gomja ordered, cranking his enormous bow's string back. A few firearms, too, had been among the supplies in storage, and Gomja had taken all of them from the moment he'd laid eyes on them. "The scorpion's too close for us to stay in the open. We're going to spin the ship to put the scorpion beneath us and hope we can drop something on it from the jettison before they get aboard! It's going to be blood and fire, but they'll not try to take us without dying for it! Are you with me?"

The gnomes, who had been peaceful maintenance workers only a month before, gave out a mighty cheer and waved their shields and crossbows in the air. Gomja gave them a wide, savage grin, his huge blue face flushed with anticipation of the coming battle. He gave a quick look at Teldin. "Last chance to get below, sir!"

"Not a chance," Teldin answered. He thought of the days when he had been a mule skinner in the War of the Lance, a naive soldier who hunted for glory and found only death and sorrow. There was no glory even now-but there was the chance to save his friends, and he meant to pay back a part of the debt owed him by the forces that had hunted him.

Gomja nodded with satisfaction. "Prepare to fire!" he said, raising his crossbow once again.

Teldin aimed and thought he saw something coming at him from the scorpion. The object flashed by-and a moment later cracked as it broke against the deck. A half-dozen or more other missiles also slammed into the ship. A gnome to Teldin's left gave an agonized cry and fell over the railing, gone. The other gnomes gasped in horror.

"Steady!" Gomja said in a commanding voice. "Now, fire!"

Teldin looked down the sights of his crossbow-and felt a peculiar clarity of thought. Time slowed down. It's about time the cloak started working again! Teldin thought jubilantly.

Teldin's senses were now sharpened to nearly unbearable levels. Suddenly he saw the scorpion ship as if it were only twenty yards away instead of hundreds. He heard odd noises, the tiny sounds of the joints in his body moving and the rush of blood in his ears. He smelled his own sweat, the unwashed bodies of the gnomes, the heavy scent of the giff, even the aroma of the wood of his crossbow. He was drowning in a torrent of sensations.

He held the crossbow steady, quickly selecting a target: an ogre crewing a ballista on the scorpion's main deck, below the ship's upraised tail. Teldin fixed the ogre's face in the sights, then squeezed the trigger. The crossbow released its bolt with a lazy thump.

Time returned to normal. The flood of sensations died. Teldin lowered the crossbow and tried to see what he'd done, but the scorpion ship was too far away.

Teldin turned to say something to Gomja, but a bright light from the bow of the ship distracted him. The titanic whirlpool on the crystal sphere was right on them. The ship was flying through the center of it, into a pure blue sky.

Teldin gaped. The giff and several of the gnomes saw the sight, too, and stopped moving.

Directly ahead of the Perilous Halibut, in the midst of the blue sea, was a huge, bright yellowish-white star. Teldin could look at it directly for only a second before shielding his eyes. It appeared to be twice as large as other suns he had seen. At the same moment, Teldin had a peculiar feeling that everything was slowing down. He realized the ship had dropped to tactical speed. What was going on? he wondered. The ship behind them wasn't within range to do that!

"Oh, wow!" came Gaye's voice, directly behind Teldin. "Oh, wow, it's beautiful!"

Teldin looked back, startled to hear her voice-and a blast of wind hit him from the bow, building rapidly in strength. Teldin staggered and crouched low, then grabbed the railing, as did almost everyone else. Bolts and weapons stacked on the deck swiftly blew away, falling behind the ship in a shower, few crossbows and shields were lost as well, but fortunately none of the gnomes. Three gnomes clung to the deck ballista. Gomja merely stood firm, hunched down a bit as the white lapels and flaps on his uniform snapped in the wind.

Teldin could hardly believe it-they'd entered an atmosphere upon entering the crystal sphere! No wonder they were at tactical speed. The ship's speed continued to drop, allowing a degree of movement on the deck, though Teldin hardly trusted himself to stand. He looked aft again-and saw the inside of the crystal sphere they had just entered.

The scene behind them could have come straight from his homeland on Krynn. He looked down on an endless green countryside, lined with roads and checked with cultivated fields and clusters of small houses. Forests stretched away to all sides, with a few round lakes dotting the landscape.

There was no sign of the portal, however. No phlogiston. No scorpion ship. Just grassy hills and a dirt road.

Teldin gaped, unable to imagine what had happened.

People lived on the inside of the sphere itself.

"I've never seen anything like this." Gaye sighed, her eyes as big as cartwheels as she clung to the low railing. She stared aft again, then gasped. "It's a gate! Here they come!"

Teldin looked back and saw, for the briefest moment, a huge, circular opening into the phlogiston around the scorpion ship. Then the gateway vanished, and the scorpion ship was driving up from the ground to catch them in the air.

Not only did people live on the inside of this crystal sphere, Teldin realized, but they would never be disturbed by entering vessels. The ships must have been gated past the crystal sphere and directly inside it. But then how did anyone ever get out of this sphere?

"Shields up, if you've got them!" Gomja bellowed. "Helm, turn us over!"

Teldin thrust all other questions aside. "Get back below!" he said, suddenly realizing Gaye's danger. "How'd you get up here, anyway?" He reached out to grab her and force her back below, noticing an open hatchway in the vertical "shark's fin" of the ship. So that was it.

Gaye squirmed out of his reach and ran against the wind toward the bow. Teldin started to give chase, then gave up. If she wanted to stay outside and get shot, it wasn't his problem.

He looked back just as the black ship began rotating. Suddenly he saw the tail catapult on the scorpion fire again. The rock it hurled was right on target.

"Flatten!" Gomja cried, ignoring his own advice. "Hang on to the railing!"

The Perilous Halibut continued to rotate. Teldin threw himself flat again, eyes fixed on the rock as it came at him- and flew by to the left by a matter of twenty feet at most. Teldin felt his stomach churn with terror.

"Jettison!" Gomja shouted. "Jettison away!"

There was a deep thumping sound that ran throughout the ship, and a spray of metallic shards and debris was launched from the rear port of the ship, spreading out in a glittering cloud as it flew toward the scorpion. Teldin noticed no major change to the orcish ship itself as the jettison struck home; the scorpion was now close enough that he could see the shrapnel bounce off its hull. He saw no casualties being taken by the shot, however. Then the scorpion vanished below the deck's "horizon," hidden by the Perilous Halibut's own mass in case the ores fired again.

"Stand by to repel boarders!" Gomja was now reloading his huge crossbow. A few of the gnomes managed to load their crossbows while clinging to the railing at the same time. "On my command, when we rotate the ship again, fire at the enemy crew, then draw your weapons and fight as we come alongside! Cut all ropes launched over to us! Use your size against your foe! Take no prisoners!"

Teldin tried to ready his own crossbow, but he had no bolts left near him; they'd all been blown away. He waited in a half crouch with his long cloak flapping around him. The twenty or so gnomes were obviously nervous and afraid, but they clutched their weapons and stole glances at the resolute figure of the giff as he towered over them, crossbow at the ready in one hand and long sword drawn in the other.

"Helm!" Gomja cried. "Rotate and pull alongside the scorpion before our gravity fields match up!"

There was silence then, except for the roaring wind. The few gnomes who had managed to hold on to their crossbows rested them against the railing and aimed them in different directions, unsure of which direction the ship would rotate. Teldin had the presence of mind to look for Gaye, and he saw her on the bow, clutching the railing there. He saw, too, that she held a short pole in one hand. The stick was as long as she was tall. Now, where did she get that? She hadn't even been able to say how she'd hidden the thingfinder on her person weeks ago, on Ironpiece. That was a kender for you.

The ship rotated counterclockwise. The scorpion would come up on Teldin's side. He dropped the useless crossbow and freed one hand from the railing. His cloak once had enabled him to cast a curtain of energy before him that protected him during a fight. He had an inspiration, and now wanted to see if the cloak could turn that energy into a weapon. Could he fire magical missiles or bolts from his fingertips? No other weapon was left to him. If the cloak couldn't obey his commands, he'd be dead very soon. He concentrated on the image of a magical bolt of energy, keeping his fingers extended.

The scorpion ship came up into view. Its deck was full of black-armored figures with long poles in their hands. Some had ropes. Some had crossbows themselves, but the high wind made it difficult to aim them. Draped over the side railing was the body of an ogre, an arrow protruding from its forehead. I did that, thought Teldin.

"Fire!" Gomja roared, his crossbow snapping loudly.

One of the orcs dropped when Gomja fired. Another fell with a gnome's bolt in him. The orcs fired back, and two gnomes were hit; one fell from the ship and vanished. Teldin concentrated as hard as he could, putting his whole mind in his fingertips. Just like hitting the ogre, he thought.

Power bloomed inside him. He felt he would burst with it. It burned as it ran through his veins, filling him like a cup under a waterfall, spilling over. Radiant energy poured out from his fingers, flashing straight into the orcs on the scorpion ship. The orcs fell as if they had been scythed down. Only three out of a dozen were left standing when it was over a moment later. The power was gone from Teldin as quickly as it had appeared, and he went limp with exhaustion.

"By the Great Captain!" Gomja gasped behind him. "We've got them good now!" He then bellowed out to the world. "Pull alongside the scorpion! Company, prepare to fire again!"

Even as Gomja spoke and the Perilous Halibut slid close to the scorpion, mote orcs appeared on the deck of the enemy ship, apparently coming up from one or more ladders below. Regaining his energy, Teldin cautiously got to his feet and noticed that both ships were traveling parallel to the ground, miles below them. Wispy clouds, like white horses' tails, were scattered above and below.

With wild whoops, the orcs on the scorpion suddenly hurled ropes and grappling hooks across at the gnomes' ship. A few of the hooks caught, enough for the black-armored orcs to start reeling the ships together. A few of the gnomes drew knives and meat cleavers to hack at the ropes.

Gomja was more direct. He seized a grapple and jerked on it with all his might. The orc holding the opposite end of the rope flipped headfirst off his ship, to fall screaming between the ships until no one could hear him.

Teldin drew his short sword as the ships closed, side by side in the roaring wind. Suddenly the orcs gave out wild cries and leaped over their railing onto the deck of the Perilous Halibut, swords held high. Some slipped and fell down the slick sides of the latter ship, but a dozen made it aboard, and the fight was joined.

As a particularly huge orc came at him with its scimitar aloft, it struck Teldin that these orcs were somewhat larger than the ones Gomja and Aelfred had described while crossing the phlogiston. Teldin dodged the downward blow the orc aimed at his head, slashing the orc across his black-armored chest. His wild blow hardly penetrated the ore's thick leather armor, bouncing off the metal studs across its front.

Teldin tried to back up, realizing in an instant that he'd made a mistake. The orc advanced quickly, lunging forward and almost skewering Teldin with the scimitar. Teldin tried to cut at the orc, but his blow went wild again. I'm screwing this up! he thought, almost in panic. I can't get this right! He almost fell against the orc as the wind shifted suddenly, and the huge warrior drew its sword arm back for another lunge, one that Teldin could see he wasn't going to avoid.

A small, feminine figure with long, wind-blown black hair appeared and jammed a wooden pole between the ore's elbow and its back, shoving the pole back as if it were a lever. The orc spun around, surprise on its face, and fell back on its side. Teldin lunged forward himself, avoiding the scimitar, and plunged his short sword into the orc's stomach. The orc died with a choking cry.

Gaye glanced at Teldin long enough to see that he was unhurt, then turned away to meet a second attacker. Teldin turned just in time to avoid being struck from behind by an orc that had circled around the fight, parrying the blow by sheer luck. Back to back, Teldin and Gaye fought their opponents as the fight raged around them. Even as he beat back the ore's attacks, Teldin heard Gomja's bombastic curses and the garbled cries of gnomes shouting detailed directions to each other.

The Perilous Halibut shifted its heading away from the orcish ship for a moment, then drifted back, slamming into the side of the latter ship. Teldin staggered at the unexpected blow, almost losing his balance. It went for nothing, as the orc could not recover its footing and collapsed against Teldin, knocking them both to the deck. Teldin blocked a badly aimed chop from the orc, then dived on his foe to wrestle in grim silence, weapons still clutched in their hands. Gathering all his strength, Teldin managed to turn his weapon and shove it into the ore's neck, only moments before the orc would have driven his own sword through Teldin's ribs. The ore choked, dropping his scimitar and giving a gurgling scream as he died. Teldin pulled his sword free and started to get up, splattered with gore.

The two ships suddenly struck again, and the Perilous Halibut shook with the collision. Teldin fell on his back, away from the dead orc. The orcish ship again came out second best, its entire forward side smashed inward. Abruptly, the port claw of the scorpion, which had been jammed against the Perilous Halibut's bow, snapped and fell away. The two ships skittered apart, then slammed together once more. Unable to regain his footing, Teldin heard a shrieking sound like thick metal being crushed; for an awful moment, he feared that the gnomes' ship was the source. The scorpion ship then rose, nose up, its entire bow caved in on the near side. Its long metal legs scraped the starboard side of the Perilous Halibut as the orcish ship flipped over in the air, fell behind the gnomes' ship, and began a long, twisting dive toward the ground.

Teldin saw two mote orcs on the top deck fighting gnomes, their backs to him. He dove at them without thinking, killing each with a single blow through the lower back. When the last had fallen, he turned to see the rest of the battle.

The fight was almost over. The black deck of the gnomes' ship was slippery with smeared streaks and pools of blood, the bodies of orcs and gnomes thrown together across it. Only a dozen gnomes were left standing, several clutching the railing. Some of the gnomes were shoving the bodies of slain orcs over the side of the ship.

Gomja was hammering a battered orc lying flat on the deck with his huge, ham-sized fists. Seeing that his opponent was no longer fighting back, he grabbed the orc by its black-armored shoulders, lifted it from the deck, and casually hurled it off the side of the ship into empty space. "Now you know the hazards of inviting yourselves onto other people's ships without asking first!" he roared, clapping his two thick hands together to dust them off.

Gomja looked back and surveyed the ship. Teldin, Gaye, and the gnomes were sweating heavily, their clothing askew and splattered with red. The gnomes had taken the worst of the fighting, having had so little experience with it before; half of their numbers on deck were dead, and the rest were exhausted and wounded. The wind whipped at the survivors as they stood on the deck beneath the huge sun, miles above the ground.

"Well, lads," said Gomja softly. "We've won." He took a last look around, then walked over to catch a gnome who was on the verge of letting go of the railing and falling overboard. "Gather your gear! All hands below!" he shouted. "We've won! Let's tell the rest!"

The weary gnomes staggered against the wind, toward the nearest hatch, some still clutching their weapons. Gaye wandered over to Teldin and fell against him, wrapping her arms around his waist and burying her face in his stained shirt. He held her to him, thinking of the mounting toll of dead, all for the sake of his cloak, which snapped in the wind behind him like a flag.

"We need to put down right away," Aelfred said when he met Teldin in a narrow corridor near the helm. Teldin had just been on his way to check on Sylvie. "I've got to get her off the helm before she falls asleep. She's almost too tired to think straight. No-don't go see her. The gnomes haven't found all their boobytraps yet, and I've got that gnome mage, Loomfinger, in there with her to keep her awake until she can set us down. I wish this ship had a second helm so I could just have Loomfinger take over for her."

Teldin looked down the corridor to the helm room. "If there's anything I can do. ." he said.

Aelfred damped a hand on Teldin's shoulder. "Old son, you've done more than your share already. Sylvie said you took but almost the whole upper deck of the scorpion with some spell you threw at them. She could see it from her helm. It really picked her up for a while." Aelfred's twisted grin came back. "She said your sword fighting needed work, though. Looks like we have to start getting together again on that."

Word came a few minutes later from Loomfinger that Sylvie had spotted a place to land, and Aelfred went to the helm room to be with her. Avoiding several undismantied booby-traps in the corridors, Teldin went to his cabin to peer out the forthole over his too-short bed, not willing to risk being on the top deck when the ship came down.

Fortunately, the ship was circling its prospective landing site in such a way that his cabin was facing the site itself. It was long the coast of a large sea with a very smooth, regular coastline that curved off into the distance. The ship dropped toward the water at a comfortable speed, though Teldin found himself worrying about the impact when the ship hit the water. Sylvie was a much better pilot than he had been when he had brought the Probe down, he knew, but the knowledge did not take the edge off his worries.

"Can I see?"

Teldin jumped when he heard Gaye's voice behind him, striking his head against a shelf mounted right over the porthole. He felt his head, detecting no serious harm, and forced himself to relax. He got up from his bed.

"Don't you ever knock?" he said irritably.

Gaye climbed on the bed and peered out the window. She was wearing what looked like a silk bathrobe, tied around the waist with one of Teldin's belts-a belt he did not recall having ever loaned to anyone, least of all her. Her hair was wet and hung down over her face and shoulders in thick strands. Water dripped in the bed from her hair, and her feet left huge wet spots on the sheets wherever she stood.

"My cabin's on the wrong side," she said by way of apology, her face pressed to the portal. "This should be fun, huh? Dyffed says this ship was made to travel underwater if we want it to. Maybe we could go exploring and see what lives under the lake, then take off and see the fid."

"You not only don't knock," Teldin remarked, "but you also don't dress properly, and you're making a mess of things. Did you just get out of the shower?"

Gaye looked back with a frown. "Boy, you're in a bad mood. Yes, I just got out of the shower. I couldn't stand to run around a moment longer without cleaning up. You could use a shower yourself, Mister Cloak Man. Why are you so grumpy, huh? The fight was pretty awful, but at least we're alive. Or is it me? You pick at me a lot lately. Why?"

Teldin started to reply, then stopped. He didn't really know why. He stared at her, wrapped in her bathrobe and still dripping bath water on his bed, and it finally dawned on him why she bothered him. It wasn't because she was a kender; he'd known a kender or two during the War of the Lance, and though they were irritating at times, they could be quite likable, too. Gaye was very likable, in fact-and that was the problem.

He dropped his gaze and rubbed his face with both hands. "I'm sorry," he said. "Everything has me on edge lately." He sat down uncomfortably on the gnome-sized chair behind him, feeling his back ache a little as he did so, and reflected on how much of the problem he wanted to discuss with her. He heard Gaye move away from the window and sit down on the edge of his bed.

"Gaye," he began, "ever since I put on this cloak, I've watched everyone I've ever known be killed or injured because of it. My neighbors, my friends, my enemies, even-one. I can't take it. I can't even count the number of people who have died because someone wanted to get this cloak at every cost. I can't lead anything remotely like a normal life with half the universe out to kill or capture me. The neogi caught me once and tried to cut me up and break all my joints just for fun." He hesitated, seeing one grim memory in particular, then went on. "I even knew a woman once, someone I loved, who betrayed me to the neogi so she could get my cloak. She and I… I thought we were very close, but it meant nothing at all to her. She just wanted the cloak. Aelfred and I… we had to kill her when she tried to kill me."

Teldin covered his eyes with his fingers. "I know you want to be my friend, "You're like Aelfred in a way. Nothing gets to him for long. He always comes back, ready to fight and move on. I like people like that, but… I don't want people to get too close to me these days. I can't take the thought of being responsible for their being killed."

The kender thought this over. "Or maybe for them betraying you," she said quietly.

Teldin thought that one over. "Yes, maybe that, too. It just seems easier not to get… involved."

Gaye sighed as she regarded Teldin. "You know, if there was ever a time when you needed people, this is the time. My father tried to handle everything in our family business after my mother died, and it made me crazy to see him wear himself out. He had people who were willing to help, but he turned them away. For what? The work just made him ill, until… well." Gaye shrugged slightly, looking down for a moment. "Anyway, you can't afford to do that same thing, and you have no end of help. Gomja said he quit his job with the gnomes because you're his best friend and he wanted to help you out. Aelfred told me he and Sylvie decided they would stick it out with you, no matter what, because they both really like you and they don't want any bad guys to get your cloak. Dyffed's here because he's… well, because he's a gnome, but he likes you, too."

Gaye pushed herself up from the bed and padded over to Teldin on her bare feet. Before he could react, she leaned close, her eyes looking deep into his own. She had used some sort of fragrant soap when she had showered, and the scent surprised him. She reached out and took his head in her warm hands.

"And I'm here," she said in a low voice, "because-"

There was a sudden thundering sound outside, all across the hull of the ship. Just as suddenly, everything on the ship was hurled forward toward the bow, which dived downward. The light from the porthole went out. Teldin felt Gaye slam into him with a muffled cry as the room tilted up almost vertically. Loose items around the room crashed into the wall near him. Then the ship struck something more solid than water, and Teldin's head snapped back and slammed the wall behind him. He saw an amazing assortment of stars explode in his vision, then saw nothing at all.