The Broken Sphere s-5

by Nigel Findley

  In his mind he rehearsed his moves. Bring the small weapon up quickly-but not so quickly that he dislodged the bolt from its seat-simultaneously flipping off the safety catch with his thumb. Aim and shoot.

  But aim where? He opened his eyes as wide as they'd go, trying to pick up every iota of light in the room.

  Yes, there was something-a faint, cold shimmer. Starlight washing over steel. The blade of a short sword. His pulse was pounding in his ears, so loud that the assassin had to hear it. The faintly gleaming sword blade was only five feet away from him.

  He tried to imagine the position of the body behind that blade. Assume it's a right-hander, he told himself. The odds are ten to one in your favor. That would put the swordsman's body… there!

  In a single movement he brought the hand-crossbow up, flicked the safety, and pulled the trigger. The small weapon jerked in his hand as the bowstring sang. He imagined he could hear the bolt cross the open space, and undeniably could hear it drive into his would-be killer's flesh.

  Light, that's what he needed now. He expanded his awareness through the cloak and squinted as the pink light flared from behind him, flooding the compartment.

  From his virtually omnipresent viewpoint, he could clearly see the crossbow bolt's feathered haft protruding from the lower chest of the assassin.

  It was Julia. By Paladine's blood, it was Julia….

  The short sword dropped from the copper-haired woman's nerveless fingers. She clutched at the bolt, driven into her chest just below her right breast, and she crumpled.

  Teldin flung the tiny crossbow aside and dived off the bed toward her.

  Oh, no. By the gods, no… His eyes filled with tears, and his heart felt as though it were about to twist inside out.

  There's a difference between suspicion and knowledge, he realized with a sickening impact. He'd suspected Julia. He thought he'd reconciled himself to the fact that she could have been the one. But that reconciliation had only been in his own imagination, he understood now. Now he knew that, again, a woman he'd loved-Why not use the word? he asked himself bitterly-had betrayed him, had tried to kill him. And he, in turn, had killed her.

  What is it? he wanted to scream to the heavens so that the gods could hear him. What fa it you want me to learn so badly that you keep repeating the same damn lesson?

  The light of the cloak faded. The enhanced perception slipped as his emotions overwhelmed his control over the cloak.

  The knot in his throat felt so hard that it threatened to choke him as he knelt by the fallen woman and cradled her head in his hands. In the faint wash of starlight, her face was peaceful, youthful-the way it had looked on the pillow beside him when he'd woken in the night and turned to watch her sleep. Her eyes were closed. For a moment, he thought she was already gone, then he saw her chest rise and fall and saw a tiny bubble of air emerge from the bloody wound.

  "Why!" he cried hoarsely. "Why, may the gods damn you?" Her eyes flickered and opened. Normally bright, her eyes were dulled now. They rolled wildly for a moment, and Teldin knew that whatever it was she was seeing, it wasn't this small compartment. Then they cleared slightly and focused on his face. "Teldin," she murmured.

  "Why?" His voice was a whisper this time, but sounded even more tortured in his own ears.

  "Is it dead?"

  "What?"

  "Is it…" Her voice faded; he brought his ear closer to her mouth. "Is it dead?" she repeated.

  Was what dead? What was… ?

  He heard it again. The faint brushing sound that had roused him from sleep and warned him of Julia's approach.

  Behind him…

  He snapped his head around, saw something hurtling at him from the shadows under the starboard port, a shape of black on black. He hurled himself aside, not an instant too soon. The object flew past his ear, struck the bulkhead with a sound of stone on wood, and fell onto his bunk.

  For the first time he saw it clearly, as it recovered from its missed pounce. It was a spider, or something very much like it, its body at least the size of Teldin's clenched fist. Its legs scrabbled on the blanket, trying to gain better purchase for another leap. Starlight gleamed off its body as it might off a huge, dark gem.

  Teldin rolled back, trying to widen the gap between himself and the thing. Too late. Its legs were under it again, and it hurled itself right for his face.

  Without thought, Teldin flung his hands up in a warding gesture. He felt energy sear through his bones, through every fiber of his being-felt as though his eyes must be burning with the light of a blue-white sun. A sizzling, scintillating curtain of sparks burst into existence before him.

  An instant too late; the spider-thing was already past. It struck him heavily in the chest, hard enough to knock him backward. He felt claws like skewers tear at his jerkin, at the flesh of his chest, as it tried for a purchase on his body. Something that felt ice cold, then fire hot, scored the skin of his throat-not quite drawing blood, but terrifyingly close. With a gasp of panic he punched at the thing, a short-arm right jab with more power behind it than he'd ever imagined possible. The blow knocked it clear off his chest-he felt its claws tearing free from his flesh-and across the cabin, to thud into the bulkhead. He heard the clattering as it struggled to right itself and prepare for another attack.

  Teldin skittered backward, crablike, across the floor. His right hand struck something-something cylindrical: the sharkskin-wrapped grip of Julia's short sword. He snatched it up and raised it before him, point up and blade angled across to the left to protect his face and throat. With his empty left hand he forced himself to his knees.

  The spider-thing was in the shadows again; he couldn't see it. The first glimpse he got of it was as it hurled itself at his face once more.

  Without warning, time slowed, divided itself into distinct increments, giving him enough time to examine and evaluate each one.

  The cloak, he knew.

  His skin felt cold and the hairs on his arras and the backs of his hand could detect the minuscule air currents in the room. He could sense the weave of the jerkin he wore, and imagined he could count the tiny, needle-pointed scales of the sharkskin sword grip just by the way it felt in his hand.

  He saw the spider coming toward him, seemingly no faster than a crawl. All eight legs pointed forward, each tipped with a single straight claw. For the first time he saw its two fangs, easily an inch and a half long. It had to have been one of those that scored his throat. Was it poisonous? he wondered. Almost certainly. If that fang had penetrated a fraction of an inch deeper, I'd probably be dying right now. The whole thing, he saw now, didn't really look like a living creature-more like a master sculptor's representation of a spider, cunningly worked in green-black volcanic glass. It isn't alive, he told himself. It's some kind of artifact, magically animated. But what does that matter if it rips my throat open?

  He had plenty of time to estimate the spider's path, and almost an eternity to bring the blade up to block it. He saw the spider slam-still in slow-motion-into the edge of the short sword, and saw one of its fangs snapped off by the impact. But he also saw the incredible ferocity with which the clawed legs scrabbled at the sword blade in the instant they were in contact.

  Then the momentum of his parry carried the sword around and knocked the spider off into another shadowed corner. This time, though, he found he could see into those shadows as if the starlight had somehow been intensified tenfold.

  One of these times it'll get me. The thought struck with chilling clarity.

  Without even being aware that he'd made a decision, he felt his right arm flip the sword up into the air. He watched it trace a lazy arc as it rotated end over end. Almost casually, he grabbed it by the blade a third of the way down from the point, with plenty of time to make sure he didn't slash his palm on the edge. He drew the weapon back to his ear as if for a knife throw, and snapped his forearm forward hard.

  The blade flashed in the starlight as it whirled through the air. It struck true, driving po
int first into the scrabbling black-glass spider.

  With a sound that was a hideous cross between the shattering of crystal and an inhuman shriek, the thing exploded into fragments.

  As though that sound had been a signal, time returned to normal. Now, the fear that the cloak had partially held at bay came crashing back in, knotting his stomach with nausea.

  And with the fear came other emotions: horror, sadness, revulsion… and, most of all, guilt.

  He flung himself back to the deck beside Julia and cradled her head again. Sobs tore at his throat. Tears blinded him. Oh, by the gods, no… "What were you doing here?" he railed-at her, at the gods, at his destiny. "What were you doing here?"

  He felt her stir weakly in his arms. Her eyelids flickered open. But now, he knew-somehow he knew-her eyes were sightless. "Teldin?" she whispered.

  "I'm here."

  "Did I kill it?" When he didn't answer, "Did I kill it?" she repeated. "I don't remember."

  He closed his eyes and lowered his head until his forehead rested against her cheek. "Yes." He struggled to force the words out. "Yes, Julia, you killed it."

  "Then you're all right?"

  "Yes." He thought his heart were bursting-wished it would burst. "I'm all right."

  "I think it stung me, Teldin." Her voice was growing weaker. "I don't remember."

  The Cloakmaster wanted to scream for help, call for a healer, run for help, but he couldn't. He was rooted to this spot. Julia was dying, he knew that, fading rapidly. There wasn't anything a healer could do for her now. He knew that, too. And he couldn't-couldn't-leave her, turn aside from her, in the moments she had left.

  "I heard them talking, Teldin." He leaned forward, put his ear right to her lips. "I heard them talking about killing the captain."

  "Who?" he whispered.

  "I heard them," she repeated. "They said they were using an obsidian spider. I came to warn you." Her voice was little more than the faintest of breaths now. He had to fill in the syllables he couldn't hear.

  ''I came here," she went on. "But the spider was already here, I saw it. And you sleeping… I couldn't wake you. You might make noise, trigger the spider's attack. I had to kill it.

  "And I did." Her hand, which was gripping the haft of the crossbow bolt, trembled, the fingers seeming to search for something. Teldin took the hand-it was chill to the touch, already-and squeezed. He tried to pour his emotions through the physical contact, to tell her that way what he couldn't with words.

  Her pale lips twitched into a faint smile. She knows, he told himself. Oh, thank the gods, she knows. Desperately he tried to force himself to believe it.

  Julia's eyes flickered again and sought his face. He felt the faintest pressure of her fingers. "Teldin, I…" The last syllable became an extended exhalation of air as her lungs emptied. He waited for the inhalation, though he knew it would never come.

  He let the sobs come, now, the great, racking sobs that he'd been suppressing. They shook his frame, seemed about to break his ribs to fragments. He rocked forward, cradling the slight woman in his arms, his tears washing over her peaceful face.

  Chapter Twelve

  "This is how it got in," Djan said quietly.

  Dully, Teldin looked up.

  The half-elf was standing by the starboard "eye" porthole. With a fingertip, he traced a smooth-edged hole, not much bigger than a man's clenched fist, that had been cut in the glass crystal. Then he crossed to the corner where the short sword was driven into the decking, surrounded by the spider's fragments. He stirred the shards with a booted toe. "A highly sophisticated magical construct," he mused. "We're dealing with a high level of magical power here."

  The Cloakmaster turned away again. What did it matter? What did anything matter? He looked down again at the still body of Julia at his feet and knelt beside her again. Djan had arranged the corpse, crossing her hands on her chest, then covering her with a blanket from Teldin's bunk. For that he was glad. He knew all too well that if he looked at Julia's peaceful, pale face again, he'd lose control.

  I killed her.

  His thoughts kept turning back to that hideous, unescapable fact.

  I killed her, when she was here to save my life. I distrusted her; I mentally accused and convicted her of treachery. And then I killed her. He swallowed a sob, fearing that if he let his control slip again, he'd never get it back.

  Djan came toward him and squatted down beside him.

  You didn't do this, Teldin," he said, his voice quiet and intense, as though he were responding to the Cloakmaster's churning thoughts. "They did it."

  Teldin looked up at his friend. He felt the unshed tears burning what he knew were haunted-looking eyes. "I was the one who pulled the trigger," he croaked.

  "What else were you supposed to do-supposed to think-when you saw what you did?" The half-elf shook his head impatiently. "You didn't kill her. Do you blame a sword when it kills? No, you blame the person wielding the sword.

  "You're the sword, Teldin," he pressed on. "That's the way it worked out. You may have struck the blow, but the responsibility lies with those who set things up so that you had to."

  Teldin shook his head. The half-elf s words were persuasive, but he knew he wouldn't be able to absolve himself of responsibility that easily. At best, he shared responsibility with the saboteurs, the poisoners, the people who'd tried to kill him with the magical spider. But, still, it had been he who'd pulled the trigger. He remembered the small crossbow bucking in his hand, the bowstring singing its lethal song. He shuddered and closed his eyes.

  He felt a grip on his arm-tight enough to be painful. He opened his eyes again and looked into Djan's face. He saw a new emotion there-anger.

  "No," Djan snapped. "What's done is done-a tragedy, a terrible tragedy-but it's done, by the mind of Marrak! You can choose to accept that and work to find out who's behind all of this, or you can choose to turn in on yourself, spend all your energy on punishing yourself."

  "Maybe I deserve punishment," Teldin mumbled.

  "Maybe you do," the half-elf echoed, "but leave that to the gods. That's what they're for. Will torturing yourself solve anything? Will it tell you the names of the killers? Will it bring Julia back from the dead?"

  Teldin jerked as if stung.

  Djan's grip on his arm slacked off. "I know it's hard, Teldin, maybe the hardest thing you'll ever do, but you've got to put it behind you, at least for now." He smiled wryly. "If you want to torture yourself, you'll have the rest of your life to do it… which might not be long unless we figure out what to do now."

  "What?"

  "They tried to kill you once, my friend," Djan stated, "whoever they are. You can bet they'll try again, unless we think of some way of stopping them."

  Teldin nodded slowly. Djan was right, he knew. Self-pity and self-blame weren't any kind of answer. He'd known that all his life, and had been confused-and vaguely disgusted-when he'd seen others crippling themselves with self-blame.

  And yet it was so seductive. While he was busy blaming himself, he wouldn't have to take action, wouldn't have to do anything. It was a nice, safe excuse, with the added advantage of a smug sense of moral superiority. Sure I'm not doing anything, but look how guilty I feel…. Seductive, but totally pointless.

  He forced himself to his feet, driving his guilt and his sadness into the recesses of his mind. He knew all too well that he'd have to deal with them sometime, but his friend was right: now wasn't the time for self-castigation.

  Think, he told himself.

  "Who else knows about what happened here?" he asked after a few moments. The vague outlines of an idea were taking shape.

  Djan raised his eyebrows. "Nobody," he answered, "I heard noise and came to investigate. I don't know if anyone else heard anything or not, but nobody else came with me." He gestured to the closed cabin door. "When I saw what had happened, I shut the door." He shrugged. "I don't think anybody else knows anything happened here… apart from the murderers themselves, of course."<
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  "Is Dranigor on the helm?" Teldin asked, thinking about the helmsman's expanded perception.

  The half-elf shook his head. "Why should he be? No, he's still resting up from his injuries."

  The Cloakmaster nodded. He thought he had his plan. It would be difficult-not practically, but emotionally-but it might just lead the murders to show their hand and reveal their identities….

  "What if the murderers succeeded?" he asked Djan quietly.

  *****

  While Djan went aft to spread the word of the captain's "foul murder," Teldin spent a few minutes in his cabin.

  The face and body he'd assumed-using the cloak's shape-shifting powers-felt alien, his balance very different from normal. He touched the smooth skin of his cheeks and felt the tears that leaked from eyes that weren't his.

  I'm sorry, Julia, he thought. Wherever you are, forgive me. Forgive me for taking your life, and forgive me for this deception.

  He straightened his spine, brushed his short, copper hair back from his face, and opened the door. "Julia" walked out into the saloon, carefully shutting and locking the door of the captain's cabin.

  There was a handful of crewmen in the saloon, standing around uncomfortably in silence, as though they didn't know how to react or where to go. When they saw Julia emerge, they dropped their gazes and looked away-looked anywhere but at the petite woman. Nobody stopped Teldin as he crossed the saloon. Nobody spoke to him-which was just as well, since if he'd been forced to speak, the deception would have come to an end instantly. He hoped that, if anyone did try to talk to him, he could just pretend to be too overcome with emotion to speak. Everyone on board knew about the on-again-off-again relationship between the captain and the second mate, and would presumably expect Julia to take her erstwhile lover's death hard.

  The entire ship felt heavy and somber, Teldin thought as he emerged onto the main deck. Or was that just his own emotions coloring his perception? No, he decided after a moment, the sense of depression was real enough. The ship had lost its captain-or so the crew thought-and that was a major tragedy. Julia's lips quirked in an ironic smile. I'm one of the few people who know how people react after he's died, he told himself.