'What was all that about?" Julia called down to him.
The Cloakmaster shrugged. "I think we've just been dismissed."
From within the hull, he heard Djan's yell of astonishment and joy as the half-elf saw the mended keel.
Teldin stood on the afterdeck of the Boundless. Julia and Djan were still leaning on the rails of the grounded ship, staring at the periphery of the meadow. Since the departure of Speaks First and Message Bearer, nobody had seen any sign of the trilaterals. It's almost as if they've decided the Incomplete animals" are off-limits, the Cloakmaster mused. Certainly, the creatures seemed to have no curiosity about Teldin and the others, or what they'd do now that the ship's keel was fixed. That, perhaps, was the most alien thing about them, he mused. Virtually every other race he'd ever encountered had some touch of what his grandfather had called "monkey curiosity."
"A mending spell," Djan breathed for the dozenth time, amazement still sounding in his voice. "A mending spell, that's all it was that fixed the keel. Rudimentary magic, the kind of thing any wizard's apprentice learns in his first year of training. But the scale, a whole ship's keel…" He shook his head. "If we could find some way to harness this Mind-"
"No," he cut himself off sharply. "Forget I said that. I don't want anything to do with those… those things, and the sooner we're back in space, the better."
Teldin turned, surprised at his friend's vehemence. Although he, too, wanted to get clear of Nex-and intended to, as soon as the crew had the ship spaceworthy again-he didn't have any particular negative feelings toward the trilaterals. "Why's that?" he asked.
"It's this whole 'Mind of the World' thing," Djan replied. He shrugged apologetically, visibly forcing himself to calm down. "This whole business of the world-mind cherishing and protecting the People. It scares me."
Julia had turned to regard the half-elf as well. "What's wrong with it?" she asked. She grinned. "I wouldn't mind a little cherishing from time to time."
"But what does that cherishing mean?" Djan asked. "Doesn't it mean that the People get their every need met? Maybe even before they realize they've got a need. Remember what Teldin said about that rat creature bringing Message Bearer a fruit'"
Teldin nodded slowly. He thought he knew where the half-elf was going with this.
Julia obviously hadn't guessed yet, however. "So what's wrong with that'" she repeated blankly.
"It's stagnation," Djan answered, his voice cold. "That's what's wrong with it. The People are living in this… "-he struggled for words-"this terrestrial paradise. The Mind protects them from anything that might threaten them. The Mind gives them food whenever they need it, probably gives them warmth. Maybe reassurance, too, I don't know.
"So what's left for them to strive for?" he demanded. "What goals are they pursuing? Name me one thing they need and want that's just a little bit out of their reach, that they have to struggle to achieve. There's nothing, is there?"
Neither Teldin nor Julia had an answer for him.
"And that's stagnation," Djan concluded more quietly. "They're not progressing, they're not advancing. They're just there." He turned to the Cloakmaster. "Teldin, you think they evolved from some species-the equivalent of a monkey, perhaps-the Juna left behind, don't you?"
Teldin nodded wordlessly.
"So they evolved, the People," the half-elf went on. "They evolved to the point where the Mind of the World decided that they were no longer animals, that they were different from the rat-things, and the birds, and who knows what else. That's when the Mind started to 'cherish' them.
"And at that moment, evolution stopped." Djan sighed. "If we could travel a thousand years into the past, I'm convinced we'd find the People living exactly the same way. And a thousand years into the future, the same thing: nothing would be changed.
"If the People ever had a destiny as a race," he said, his voice little more than a whisper, "I think the Mind has made sure they'll never reach it. All from the highest of motives, of course." He looked steadily at Teldin, then Julia. "And that's what bothers me."
*****
Teldin watched the mini-suns crisscrossing the sky overhead and felt the fear in his chest. One of those things almost got us once, he thought, and that was on the way down, when we could use the planet's gravity to give us more speed. Can we evade them on the way up?
He knew his tension was shared by the rest of the crew; he could feel it in the air around him like the sense of waiting before a thunderstorm breaks. But they weren't talking about it-not in his hearing, anyway-and it didn't seem to be interfering with their work as they readied the ship for space. Maybe the fear's a good thing, the Cloakmaster mused. If it makes somebody jump just that bit faster, it might help keep us alive.
He abandoned his scrutiny of the sky as he heard Djan join him on the sterncastle. "Are we ready?" he asked.
The first mate nodded. "She's as ready as she'll ever be," he announced, patting the Boundless's rail.
"The keel?"
Djan spread his hands. "As good as new, as far as I can tell. Better, even. I don't think we've got anything to worry about on that score."
Teldin saw his friend shoot a quick glance at the speeding mini-suns. "I've been thinking about that," he admitted. "And I think we're reasonably safe. The world-mind tried to destroy us in case our arrival turned out to be a threat to the People, right? Well, what threat could our departure be? You'd think the Mind would be glad to see the last of us."
That's what you think and what I think," the half-elf said darkly. "But what does it think? That's what matters." He paused. "How fast can you take us out of here?"
"Fast," Teldin replied simply.
"Then I think you should do it."
The Cloakmaster nodded. It made sense. "Let's get underway," he suggested.
As Djan hurried about the ship, making sure all crew members were at their stations and ready for what might be a rough ride, Teldin breathed deeply and let himself relax. His breathing slowed, and he could feel the cloak's presence. Gently he let his awareness expand to encompass the whole ship.
He could feel the Boundless wounds, the breaches in the hull that they'd repair only once they were underway. The damage was serious, but he was confident that it wasn't ship-killing. What really mattered was the keel.
As his awareness touched it and spread throughout it, he felt the heavy keel tingling with the remnants of the powerful magic that had repaired it. Djan was right, he sensed, the keel was as good as new, as strong as it had been when the squid ship had first been built. He felt his anxiety lessen another notch.
Blossom was on the ship's main helm; he could feel her presence, her expanded perception overlapping his. Her duty throughout the departure was to keep a lookout around the vessel, to watch for any mini-suns that seemed to be taking an interest in them, and to spot any magical manifestations on the planet's surface. She was not to exert any control over the ship itself, though-Teldin had been adamant about that-unless she knew for a fact that the Cloakmaster had somehow been incapacitated. The risk of conflicting "orders" slowing the ship down at a crucial point was too great otherwise.
Julia swung up the ladder to the afterdeck, carrying her sextant. She flashed him a quick smile as she set up the instrument, steadying it on the stern rail. "Just taking some final readings," she explained.
He nodded wordlessly. The positions and movements of the mini-suns weren't going to be so crucial during the ascent-that's what he'd told himself, at least. On the approach to the planet, the plan had been to keep the ship's speed relatively low as it passed through the region of the fire bodies, to minimize the danger of plunging into the atmosphere at a velocity high enough to destroy the ship- not that that plan had worked all too well anyway, he thought wryly.
That constraint wasn't important now. Teldin figured he could lift the ship as fast as the cloak would let him, confident that the air resistance would only decrease with altitude, until the Boundless emerged into the vacuum of wildspace.
By the time the vessel was at an altitude at which the mini-suns could conceivably threaten it, it would be traveling so fast that nothing could keep pace with it.
"Ready," Julia announced, setting her sextant aside. "We've got a window directly overhead."
Teldin nodded wordlessly. Tension still gripped his chest and throat, but as always he found his communion with the cloak kept the stress tolerable, almost as if it were affecting someone else. He looked forward to where Djan stood on the foredeck. The first mate waved and gave him a thumbs-up gesture.
It was time to go. Teldin felt the power of the cloak grow around him, flow through him. Light flared, a nimbus of bright pink that seemed to shine right through his bones. He felt the ship around him like an extension of his body, an extension of his will. As responsive as thought itself, the large squid ship lifted clear of the ground.
Teldin held the vessel at an altitude of fifty feet or so over the meadow, as he repeated his mental "inspection." Now that it was airborne, the stresses on the ship's hull and keel were slightly different. The staved-in planking of the hull had shifted slightly-nothing critical, he decided-but the keel felt as solid as a rock. Gently at first, he put the ship into a climb, feeling out its maneuverability, ready to respond instantly to any instability or other hint of problems. With his wraparound awareness, he saw the verdant forest drop away below him.
The ship was steady, responding instantly to his mental commands. He let the speed build up slowly, as he simultaneously brought up the bow. Again the torn planking of the hull complained, but again he judged it to be nothing dire. Ever more confident with the ship's solidity, he pushed the Boundless to the maximum speed he felt was safe within the atmosphere. Rigging creaked and sang in the wind that penetrated the vessel's air envelope, an audible counterpoint to the tension that still gripped his heart. He brought the bow up even farther. The contrast between what his sense of balance and what his eyes told him became profound. While he felt as though he were standing upright on a horizontal surface, the horizon of the planet was canted at an angle of sixty degrees or more as the squid ship hurtled toward the freedom of space.
Julia was back at the sextant, tracking the mini-suns once more. "No change," she announced quietly. "The window's still open."
Teldin nodded. He could feel the resistance of Nex's atmosphere lessening, and he added a touch more speed. The ship was now flying faster than a dragon, faster than a swooping eagle. Soon, he knew, it would be traveling unimaginably faster still.
Below the ship, the surface of the world was changing from the landscape of a map to a sphere. From this altitude, he could easily see the curvature of the horizon.
Without warning, the keening of the wind through the rigging died. They were clear of the planet's atmosphere, Teldin knew. The only air around them was that which the ship carried along with it, and that was traveling at the same speed as the vessel itself. In other words, there was no more air resistance. He extended his will, through the cloak, and the Boundless leaped forward.
"Coming up on the mini-suns," Julia said.
"Any change?" he asked.
She shook her head, her copper hair gleaming in the ruddy light of the fire bodies. "They're all still on course."
"Let them stay that way," he muttered.
The passage through the region of the mini-suns turned out to be purest anticlimax. At the ultimate helm's full spelljamming speed, the squid ship flashed through the danger zone and out into the emptiness of wildspace. If the Mind of the World had even noticed their departure, it hadn't shown the slightest sign. According to Julia's readings, no mini-sun had diverged even a fraction of a degree from its normal course.
For the first time since the Boundless had lifted from the planet, Teldin let himself relax. "Please tell Blossom that she has the helm," he said quietly to Julia, and he heard her relay the message down the speaking tube. Only when he felt the priest extend her will did he let the power of the cloak fade from around him. The ship immediately slowed to normal spelljamming speed from the velocity imparted by the ultimate helm.
"Blossom wants to know what course to set," Julia announced.
The Cloakmaster was silent for a few moments. Then, "Tell her to take us out the way we came in," he decided, "That'll do for the moment. I need to talk some things over with you and Djan."
*****
Teldin stared fixedly out of the Boundless's starboard "eye" port, as if looking for an answer to his questions in the unrelieved blackness of wildspace. Behind him he heard Djan shift uncomfortably in his chair.
"You don't know where to go next," the half-elf said quietly, is that it?"
The Cloakmaster nodded wordlessly.
"The People didn't know where the Juna disappeared to?" Julia asked.
"No," Teldin replied. "Message Bearer said they're just gone."
"But they did mention the Broken Sphere," Djan reminded him.
"Yes," Teldin agreed, "but they didn't say anything meaningful about where it is. Just that it's 'at the center of all things,' and 'between the pearl clusters' or something. Does that mean anything to either of you?" He turned his back on the porthole to look at his friends.
Djan shook his head. "That sounds like myths I've heard in the past," he said, "about the First Sphere, the Cosmic Egg."
The Cloakmaster nodded. "Me, too," he agreed, remembering what he'd read in the Great Archive on Crescent.
"There was nothing new?" the first mate asked.
"Only that the People link the Spelljammer with the Broken Sphere," Teldin said, "and with the Juna. But I've heard both those connections before."
"And it doesn't help anyway," Djan concluded. "People have been looking for the First Sphere for a long time and they've never found it. What are the odds that we'd be the first?"
Teldin glanced over at Julia, saw the pensive expression on her face. "What is it?" he asked. "Did you think of something?"
She looked up, a little surprised to be jolted out of her reverie. "Probably not," she said slowly, "it's probably nothing…" She smiled self-deprecatingly. "But… you said something about 'pearl clusters,' didn't you?" The Cloak-master nodded. "Well, from the Flow, crystal spheres often look like pearls, don't they?"
"So?" Teldin wanted to know.
"So, what if there's somewhere in the universe where the crystal spheres are very close together?" she suggested. "Where they look like clusters of pearls? Maybe that's where you'll find the Broken Sphere."
A half-forgotten memory tugged at Teldin's consciousness. What was it… ?
Then it came back to him. It was an image he'd seen through the perceptions of the Spelljammer via the amulet, while he was cruising in the Ship of Fools to the world of Crescent. An image of half a dozen crystal spheres so tightly packed that some were separated by less than the diameter of a single sphere-gathered together against the backdrop of the Flow like a cluster of gargantuan, magical pearls….
Excitement washed over him like a wave. Breathlessly, he described the image to his friends. "Is there any place like that on the charts?" he asked.
His excitement turned into depression again as he saw them both shake their heads. "Not on any charts I've seen," Djan answered for both of them. "Maybe it's on some specialized chart somewhere, but most of the charts you can buy show only the important 'known' spheres, the ones that are on standard trade routes." He laid a hand on the Cloak-master's shoulder in commiseration. "I'm sorry. I wish I could tell you different."
Teldin looked at his friends with empty eyes. "Then I've got nowhere to go," he said quietly.
Chapter Nine
Teldin felt drained, physically exhausted. He slumped into a chair and lowered his head into his hands.
What now? he asked himself. Where do I turn? What do I do?
This was the first time he really had no clues, no leads to follow. Since that first night, the night the spelljammer had smashed his farmhouse and set his life on a new course, he'd always had some goal to pursue.
At first it had simply been escape. Then it was the gnomish port within Mount Nevermind. Then the arcane on Toril, followed by the elves of Evermeet, the fal of Herdspace, and on and on, until finally it was the forbidden world of Nex. There'd always been something to go after next, something to keep him going…
Until now. The Juna were gone from the universe, or might as well be, for all the chance Teldin had of ever finding them. The Broken Sphere was… somewhere in the infinite universe, but he had no usable clues to lead him toward it.
So what was he to do now? What? What course was he to instruct the helmsman to set?
Where was the Cloakmaster to go now?
It was a terrifying, overwhelming sensation, this aimlessness. For so long, he'd been following a path. It had been a twisting, cryptic one, granted, and often one that he had lit-
He desire to follow, but now there was nothing. He felt as if he'd been set adrift on the trackless ocean, given no map and no instruments, no way of charting a course.
Since the beginning of his quest, he'd been wishing for freedom. Wasn't that what he had now? And, if so, why was it so traumatic?
But this isn't freedom, is it? he asked himself. The cloak still exists; I still wear it. And the enemies who've been after me from the outset are still out there, searching for me. No matter what I do to hide myself, they'll eventually find me.
That was the difference, he decided; that was where much of the anxiety came from. Before, the fact that he was being hunted had been almost secondary. He was being active. Now he had no choice but be reactive, responding to the actions of others.
No. He felt some deep, basic part of himself rebel, strive against the depression that weighed him down. No, he thought again, I still have options. I'm still the master of my own destiny. So I've met an obstacle; I've met obstacles before, and I've never let them stop me. What's so over-whelming about this one?
He had the Boundless, which represented freedom to move. He had the amulet, which gave him access to the Spelljammer's perceptions. He had friends and allies around him. He had options. His major obstacle, he decided, was an unwillingness to explore those options.
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