Teldin couldn't control his reactions. He slapped both hands over his eyes and folded at the waist so his chest was against his knees. He heard a whimper of panic… and realized that the voice was his own.
He felt a hand on his back, and the cool touch of Estriss's voice in his mind. There were no words involved. It was the mental equivalent of a soothing murmur, the inarticulate sound of comfort parents make to their small children. Teldin drew strength from it. He sat up again, taking his hands away from his face. "I'm sorry," he mumbled. He couldn't meet the illithid's gaze, nor look up at the others standing around the map table. His humiliation was complete.
Words formed within his brain. There is no reason to be sorry. Fear is natural when one is confronted by the unknown. The vast majority of those who travel the universe experience a reaction similar to yours at some time,… often the first time they see the boundary of a crystal sphere and realize its significance. Humor tinged the mind flayer's words. My own reaction was much the same as yours, perhaps more intense. Estriss continued more seriously. The shock typically strikes but once. After the first impact, die traveler is inured, it least partially.
Come, a test. The illithid tightened his grip on Teldin's shoulder. We are about to pass into the flow. Look on the portal and tell me your reaction.
Somewhat hesitantly, Teldin raised his eyes. The view ahead of the ship was vastly different. The true nature of the porral was obvious now. It was perfectly circular, a great hole in the blackness. The margin of the portal-the circumference of the circle-glowed with a harsh and brilliant blue-white light that reminded Teldin of lightning storms over the mountains neat his home. Under other circumstances, this glowing margin might have been bright enough to dazzle, but here it faded almost to insignificance-because the light of chaos itself seemed to flood through the portal!
Beyond the black plane of the crystal sphere was what looked like an ocean of multicolored fluids intermixing in turbulent, riotous confusion. Streaks and whorls of every color of the rainbow churned with hues for which Teldin had no names. All glowed with a radiance in which every object on the bridge cast shifting multihued shadows. Wisps and ribbons of color seemed about to leak through the portal, but appeared to evaporate at the last instant. This must be the flow….
The ship's forward motion had slowed drastically. No longer did the portal seem to grow with such dramatic speed. Instead, the Probe seemed to be edging its way forward, cautiously, toward the unknown. For the first time, Teldin's brain could finally make sense of what he was seeing and grasp the scale involved. The portal was near now. He could tell that for sure; only a hundred paces or so remained. It wasn't as big as he'd initially guessed, only about twice the length of the Probe-a total of about five hundred feet-in diameter.
How do you feel? Estriss asked him.
Teldin didn't look at the illithid, didn't take his eyes off the view ahead. "Dazed," he replied quietly. "Amazed, but under control."
Good. The captain joined the others at the chart table. Even though the thought wasn't directed at him, Teldin "heard" the illithid's order: Take us through.
The Probe inched forward. The distance to the portal halved.
The chaotic colors of the flow seemed to bulge outward, away from the ship's bow, as though a bubble were forming in a liquid. As the ship advanced, so did the bubble. It's like we're a ship in a bottle, Teldin thought, remembering the intricate ship models he'd once seen an old man selling, impossibly constructed inside a narrow-necked glass bottle. If you immersed the bottle in paint, this is what the crew would see. The Probe's bow passed through the portal. For an instant, the black wall was invisible. A thin line of blue-white brilliance encircled the ship. Then the vessel was through.
Teldin's curiosity overcame the sense of weakness that still possessed him, and he forced himself to his feet. He edged his way past the officers at the chart table and descended the three shallow steps to the forward weapon deck. The crewman who was taking Teldin's watch duty was squatting on the deck, his back against the ballista's swivel mount, gazing around him with undisguised fascination. He heard Teldin's approaching steps and nodded a greeting before returning to his observations.
Teldin searched his memory for the man's name. After a moment, it came: Shandess. Older than most other members of the crew, he reminded Teldin of an ancient bit of chewed leather: very much the worse for wear, but still tough and resilient. "You've done this before?" Teldin asked him. He'd meant to speak in a normal voice-a way to prove to himself that he'd shaken off his earlier shock-but the words still came out in a whisper.
"The flow?" Shandess nodded. "Oh, aye, three score times, more maybe." He grinned, showing crooked and broken teeth. "It always gets you, don't it?" The old man pointed upward and astern, over the forecastle. "That's your home behind us, ye know."
Teldin turned. The black plane was visible again, but this time astern of the Probe. The sense of infinity was missing, simply because the flow itself wasn't perfectly transparent, and attenuated his vision over distance. Still, the sheer immensity of what he could see was quite impressive enough.
The stern of the vessel was just passing through the portal. From this perspective, it was easier to appreciate the shape and size of the air bubble that surrounded the ship. It looked like a smooth ovoid, about three times as long as the ship, and about three times as wide as the Probe's beam. As far as he could tell, the bubble's "walls" were totally insubstantial; the light of the flow didn't reflect or refract from anything. He knew that his initial image of the bubble as a glass bottle was wrong, but still it was very descriptive. As the ship moved forward, the intertwined rivulets of color parted for it, eddying slightly as they flowed backward along the bubble's periphery.
He looked astern once more. The portal was gone, closed. The black plane of the crystal sphere was unbroken and unmarked. Krynnspace-his entire life up to this point-was on the other side of that colossal barrier, and he was sundered from it, perhaps forever.
Chapter Five
The corridor was dark as Teldin made his way back toward the cabin he shared with the gnomes. Normally corridors and companionways were lit by small oil lamps mounted in brackets on the bulkheads, but now the brackets were empty. The only light came through open doors, and that was the shifting, colored light of the flow flooding in through portholes. Teldin wasn't sure if it was this dim but constantly changing illumination or his own weakness that made him sway almost drunkenly as he walked.
He could hear the conversation before he reached the cabin and found himself grinning. Although he couldn't distinguish the words, he recognized the tune. Dana's voice dominated, and from her tone he could tell she was voicing her displeasure about something aboard the Probe. Maybe it was the food again, or the way the ship's weapons master wouldn't let her adjust the action of the heavy ballista, or maybe it was something new. He had to give Dana credit: she had a gods-given ability to find something wrong with everything.
Rather surprisingly, the conversation cut off as he opened the door. The two hammocks were occupied by Miggins and Dana, while Horvath sat cross-legged on a cushion of folded canvas. Teldin stifled a sigh. The way his body felt right now, he needed a rest, and sacking out on the floor just wasn't comfortable, but what could he do?
Before he could lower himself to the deck, however, Dana had swung herself out of her hammock… anticipating by an instant Miggins's attempt to do the same thing. The younger gnome shrugged and resettled himself comfortably.
Dana flopped down on a bundle of sails in the corner. "Take it," she said gruffly, indicating the hammock. Not once did she look up or meet his eyes.
Wordlessly, Teldin clambered into the hammock and relaxed with a sigh. He didn't know what to make of Dana's actions, but as a farmer he knew the inadvisability of looking a gift horse in the mouth. He glanced surreptitiously over to Miggins, hoping the boy would give him some clue, but the youth's smug smile didn't tell him anything-or, at least, anything he wanted to know,
part of his mind admitted. He shook his head as if to clear it.
The chaotic light of the flow poured into the cabin, washing the bulkheads with ever-changing veneers of color. Under other circumstances, Teldin might have found it beautiful, even somewhat hypnotic. Now, however, it made him feel edgy and a little claustrophobic. Looking around, he saw that the cabin's single oil lamp wasn't burning-why should it be?- but at least it hadn't been removed like the ones in the corridor. "Can't we cover the portholes?" he said a little peevishly. "Here, I'll light the lamp." He reached for the steel and flint he always kept in his belt pouch….
He didn't even see the gnome move, but suddenly Horvath's hand was like a steel band around his wrist. "No!" Horvath said sharply. "No fire."
Teldin looked at the other gnomes. They were all staring at him in horror. "All right," he said reasonably, "no fire, but why?"
Horvath still held his wrist, but the grip had loosened from its initial viselike tightness. "We're in the flow," he explained in a tone he'd reserve for a child or a congenital idiot. "We're in the phlogiston. Don't you know what that means?"
"Obviously not," Teldin replied. The gnome's manner irritated him somewhat, but he was sensible enough to realize that he'd been about to make some major mistake. "What's-" he stumbled over the word "-flegisten?"
"Phlogiston" Horvath repeated. He finally released his grip, leaving Teldin to rub his bruised wrist. "The flow is phlogiston."
"Which is… ?" Teldin prompted.
"Merely the most flammable substance in existence," Horvath said heavily, "flammable and explosive. Why do you think there isn't a light burning in the entire ship?"
Teldin didn't answer. Instead, he remembered Aelfred's actions on the bridge when the Probe had been preparing to move through the open portal. The first mate had said something about "flow stations"… then he'd extinguished the lantern over the chart table. At the time, Teldin hadn't attached any significance to it.
Horvath wasn't finished. "Do you know what would have happened if you'd struck a spark just now?"
Teldin felt a cold stirring in the pit of his stomach'. "What?" "You might well have blown your hand off," the gnome told him flatly. "At the very least, you'd have suffered a nasty burn, at the worst killed yourself, depending on how good your steel and flint are. That's why, when a ship's about to enter the flow, an officer always goes around to make sure everything's at 'flow stations'-no lights, nothing burning. Spacefarers are full of tales about ships being destroyed because the cook didn't know the ship was leaving wildspace and hadn't quenched his stove."
"I've got an idea for a flow-stove…." Miggins piped up, but immediately fell silent again under Horvath's harsh glare. Dana snorted. "That oversized lout of a first mate didn't believe we understood about flow stations."
Horvath's hard expression softened slightly. "Nobody told you that?"
"No," Teldin said, shaking his head vigorously. "I suppose they assumed I already knew it."
Horvath frowned. "Sloppy, that was," he said. "Never assume anything with dirtkickers." He patted Teldin's wrist reassuringly. "My apologies for my anger, Teldin. The fault was theirs-and, I suppose, ours-not yours."
Teldin shook his head. So close… "The phlogiston is really that flammable?" he asked.
"All that and more," Horvath assured him. "Why, my father was trying to invent a phlogiston bomb, a sealed flask of phlogiston with a fuse attached. Never managed it, may his soul rest in caverns of gold." The gnome placed a respectful hand on his chest.
With supreme effort, Teldin choked bad a chuckle. He tried to keep his voice casual and amusement-free as he asked, "Did the bomb work too well?"
Horvath shot him a hard look, then his eyes twinkled and a grin split his face. "No, that's not the way of it. The bomb proved impossible simply because you can't bring phlogiston inside a crystal sphere, no matter what you do. No, my father died well, may the gods rest him, of old age with his family around him."
"I'm sorry," Teldin told him.
The gnome shrugged. "Why?" he asked, a little surprised. "My father's free of the troubles of the world. It's us that have to face them still. I only hope my end is as peaceful." He patted Teldin's wrist again. "Now, you came here to sleep, I warrant, and we're keeping you awake with our talk. We're on watch again soon, so we'll just leave you now." He winked knowingly. "Enjoy it while you can. I hear you'll be back on duty again tomorrow."
*****
As the Probe cruised silently through the chaos of the flow, Teldin slept fitfully. His dreams were short, transitory things, but nonetheless disturbing. Night-black scavvers the size of the ship hurtled at him, or tore at the bodies of Aelfred Silverhorn, Sylvie, or the gnomes. Lort, the crewman devoured by the monster, stood before him, sheathed in his own blood, silently reproachful. Estriss, the mind flayer, stood on the forecastle, silhouetted against the brilliance of the phlogiston, trying to strike a light with Teldin's flint and steel.
In his hammock, Teldin writhed and moaned.
Finally, though, the images faded as he sank deeper and deeper into the well of sleep. Both his body and mind became still….
*****
Space. Velvet blackness and distant stars. Teldin felt as though he were hanging motionless in the darkness of the wildspace the Probe had recently left. He had no body; there was nothing corporeal about him. There was no consciousness of physical existence, not even of thought in the normal sense. He was simply untrammeled perception. Experience impinged on his senses, and he recorded it but felt none of the normal process of analyzing that experience-nor any need for such. He was alone.
Then no longer. With senses more acute than those any corporeal being could ever possess, he saw…
Something-a Presence-was moving against the blackness, eclipsing the stars. It was as black as the backdrop of space, without any discernible boundaries. The only way he could even be sure of its presence was the way in which stats winked out of existence as it moved before them, then reappeared after its passage. There was no way he could gauge the size of the Presence, out here with nothing to measure it against. As with the portal that had opened before the Probe, it could be something small nearby, or of unimaginable size at great distance.
For an unmeasurable time, sight was the only sense to which the Presence registered. There was no sound, no awareness of heat or cold. Then, as though his incorporeal body had somehow been granted another, more delicate sense, he felt something.
There was a sense of questing, as if a powerful intelligence were seeking something.
The capacity for thought returned, and with it came fear. Never had Teldin felt so exposed, so vulnerable. Was the Presence seeking him, he wondered. How could he shield himself from so great a creature?
As suddenly as it had come into being, the new sense was stripped from him. Only sight remained, then even that seemed to be wrenched away. The stars vanished from around him, and absolute darkness enfolded him….
*****
In his hammock aboard the Probe, Teldin flinched as his eyes sprang open. His body was cold, his clothes damp with sweat. His labored breathing rasped loudly through his dry throat. The terror from his dream remained, but the details of what he'd experienced instantly faded. Within a few pounding heartbeats, he could remember nothing. He'd been in space-he remembered that much-but what then? Nothing; he could recall nothing….
He looked around him to find the cabin empty. The rainbow light of the flow still washed in through the porthole. How long had he been sleeping? He had no way of telling. It could have been hours, or only minutes. His mind wasn't rested, he knew that, but at least his body felt stronger than it had since the fight on the forecastle. He settled his head back down and closed his eyes. Maybe he could sleep a little more, clear the quickly fading tendrils of fear and confusion from his thoughts.
But it was no good, he decided almost immediately. Sleep had flown, and he knew enough about the way his body and mind worked to realize that it would be useless
to pursue it.
A little cautiously he swung himself from his testing his balance. There was no trace of dizziness, he noted with relief. Whatever treatment the crew of the Probe had given him had certainly been effective. He left the cabin and made his way on deck.
By the time he was outside, even the remnants of fear left by the dream had gone. He remembered being afraid, bur no amount of mental searching could bring back any recollection of what he'd been afraid of.
The main deck was empty, but he saw movement on the sterncastle. Probably just the catapult crew… but right now he felt the need for conversation with someone, anyone. He started to walk aft, but a booming call stopped him.
"Hoi, Teldin!"
He turned. Aelfred Silverhorn stood on the forecastle, silhouetted against the nightmarish sky of the flow.
"Just what the hell are we going to do about those gnomes of yours?" Aelfred bellowed down at him good-naturedly. "I caught that young one putting a lock on my cabin door, because he figured as first mate I deserved one." The warrior snorted. "Not too unreasonable an idea, but when he was trying it out, he locked himself in and had to take the door off its hinges to get back out."
Teldin stifled a chuckle. "So, how's the lock?" he asked innocently.
"I don't know," Aelfred shot back, "he didn't finish it. He got interested in 'improving' the door hinges he'd removed, and that's when I kicked him out of there. I had to get one of my own artificers to hang the bloody door again." He barked with laughter. "Now I know why you arranged for those pirates, just to get you away from the gnomes. Want to come up?"
Teldin grinned. "On my way." He went up the ladder to the forecastle fast, testing his level of fitness. He was gratified that he felt no reaction to the exertion.
Aelfred nodded approvingly, obviously understanding what Teldin had done. He slapped the smaller man heartily on the shoulder. "Feeling fit again?"
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