The growing relationship-if you could call it that-didn't go unnoticed. When it comes to such things, after all, even the largest ship is very small. The retinue of male crew members that had been following Rianna around the ship began to tail off in number. While she was still considered by far the most beautiful and alluring female aboard ship, it was generally accepted-at least according to the gossip that Teldin heard-that she'd made her choice as to the man with whom she wanted to spend her time. With anyone else, that might have led to some uncomfortable, jealousy-fueled confrontations. In Teldin's case, however, the crew seemed unwilling to provoke an incident with the warrior-mage who now wanted to be called Aldyn. Envy and jealousy did still appear, but in the harmless forms of generally shunning Teldin and not talking to him unless absolutely necessary-which, Teldin found, was just fine with him at the moment.
The Probe's officers were a different case. Rianna seemed to have totally won them over-particularly Sylvie, it seemed. Teldin had frequently seen them in private tete-a-tetes. Now the half-elven woman was quite likely to shoot Teldin knowing-and somehow sly-glances whenever they met. Only Julia seemed to feel anything less than total friendship for the blond woman, and that, Teldin decided, was merely jealousy. While the red-haired officer was attractive in her own way, she definitely paled in comparison with Rianna.
Aelfred and Estriss seemed to view the whole thing with what could only be called paternal amusement-which Teldin found patronizing but was unable to complain about. The illithid had reminded him that it was still a good idea to maintain his new identity, no matter how he felt to the contrary. Aelfred's only comment had been that "Aldyn's" face looked great, but that he hoped the illusion was as good all over his body-this said with an expression of studious innocence.
Teldin wanted to argue about the whole thing. He enjoyed Rianna's company, and apparently vice versa, but that's all it was. Not even friendship, really, just close-acquaintanceship, if there were such a word. He well knew that it'd do more harm than good to argue the point. Oh, well, what did it matter? He was enjoying himself at the moment, and he might be nearing the end of his quest, if Estriss was right about the arcane.
Estriss. That was another interesting issue. Rianna had been aboard the Probe only a couple of days when she'd marched onto the bridge-so said Aelfred-and demanded to see the captain. She'd figured out that the captain was keeping himself hidden, she'd explained, and had concluded it was because he wasn't human or demihuman. Was he a lizard man? she'd asked. Or maybe an illithid?
Aelfred had been surprised, but admitted to Teldin that he'd also been quite impressed. He'd immediately arranged a meeting between Rianna and Estriss, wondering if the woman would handle matters as well when she met the "brain-sucking monster" face to face. If he'd been expecting any show of fear, he'd been disappointed. "She carried it off perfectly," the first mate had told Teldin, "greeted Estriss politely, then started asking if 'the honorable captain' ever had any need for a message-runner." The big man had chuckled deep in his throat. "I'm coming to like her a lot."
"Not too much, I hope," Teldin had replied.
*****
Neither Teldin nor Rianna were on duty as the Probe spiralled slowly down toward the surface of Toril. There was nobody on the forecastle, so they'd taken it as their private viewpoint.
As they'd drawn closer to the planet, and-presumably-as the Probe's navigator picked the course that would best take them to Rauthaven, the cloud cover had thinned beneath them. Now Teldin could look down through patchy white clouds. There was water below them, water of an almost breathtakingly pure blue. Here and there was a flash as sunlight reflected off waves-at least, that's what Rianna assured him the glints were. From this vantage point, Teldin found he had no way of judging their altitude, and hence no way of estimating the size of the body of water below them. It could just as easily be a small lake or a great ocean. He remarked on that to Rianna.
"It's the Great Sea," she told him. She pointed. "See that island? That's Nimbral, called the Sea-Haven. Rauthaven's near the southeast tip."
Teldin moved closer to her so he could sight down her arm. In fact, he could pick out the island she was referring to, but why pass up on an opportunity like this? he thought. Her shoulder was warm against his chest as he lowered his head to sight down along her arm. He took a quiet breath, enjoying the subtle smell of her.
She nudged him playfully. "See it?"
"Oh, there" he responded in feigned surprise. Her laugh told him she knew what he was doing, and-more importantly-that she, too, enjoyed their closeness. "So that's where we're going."
"That's it," she confirmed. "Of course, you won't see the city itself until we get much lower."
Even though she'd lowered her arm, Teldin felt no great desire to move away from her. She leaned in a little more against his chest. After a moment's hesitation, he slipped his arm around her waist and let his hand settle on the point of her hip. She made no movement to pull away or remove his arm. "Where were you born?" he asked, more to simply hear her voice again than from any need for the information.
She laughed softly. "Sorry, I can't point it out to you," she said teasingly, "we can't see it from here. It's called Waterdeep, on the Sword Coast, a long way away."
"But you've been to Rauthaven."
"I've been a lot of places. My father traveled a lot, and then I followed in the family tradition."
"What did he do, your father?"
She shrugged, and he felt strong muscles shift under her soft skin. "He was a merchant, I suppose you'd say," she replied. "But, like me, he dealt more in information than hard goods. There are always people willing to pay to have their messages delivered without having to trust to wizards."
"You're a wizard, too, aren't you?" Teldin remarked. "You've got to be to pilot a ship, don't you? Unless you're a priest…"
Rianna laughed out loud. "Oh, I'm no priest, Aldyn Brewer," she told him. "Yes, I'm a wizard, but not much of one, just enough to fly my ship. I learned it young. It didn't take me long to realize that the world's full of creatures that would like nothing more than a nice, harmless messenger for even-feast. Magic's an equalizer, and I always like to have an equalizer." With the suddenness that Teldin had come to expect from her, she changed the subject. "You're with this ship but not of it, at least that's how I read it," she said. "How come you're going to Rauthaven?"
Teldin didn't hesitate. Since their first meeting in the officers' saloon, he'd taken the time to work up a good background story and the answers to the questions Rianna-or anyone else-was most likely to ask him. He didn't have to like it, and he didn't, but he recognized it was necessary-for now, part of his mind added. "I need to meet with an arcane," he told her smoothly. "Estriss tells me there's likely to be one around because of the auction. You know about the auction?"
"Yes, he told me. Why an arcane? What do you need with one of them?"
Again Teldin had an answer ready. "That's what I've been hired to do," he said. "My principal-the one who's paying me-needs me to pass a message on to one of the arcane, and that's what I'm going to do."
Rianna accepted that with a nod, and Teldin knew he'd guessed right in his prevarication. Someone whose livelihood lay in trading messages and information would consider the "mysterious employer" as a normal condition, and as a sacrosanct trust.
As the two had spoken, the Probe had slipped lower into the atmosphere. The world below had changed, unnoticed, from a section of a sphere to a flat plane that was for the first time truly below the vessel. As the viewpoint had changed, features had expanded and retreated, to be lost by distance and curvature. The southeastern tip of the island had expanded until it filled almost the entire view beneath the Probe. It continued to expand, too, bringing home to Teldin just how fast the ship was descending. The scattered clouds that had been just streaks overlaying the distant landscape were suddenly great islands of fleecy white, fantasy landscapes that could in tales become the homes of pegasi or dragons. The ship
then plunged into one of the drifting islands, and everything was white. Teldin felt moisture on his face. Tendrils of mist whipped past him.
With breathtaking suddenness, the ship was out of the cloud and the view was clear again. They were much lower now, perhaps not much higher than the tallest mountain. The peninsula had vanished. There was just an indented coastline, roughly straight for as far as he could see in either direction.
There was no farmland, he noticed with some surprise. Did that mean that all the food necessary to support a city was shipped in from elsewhere? It wasn't that the region was barren; in fact, it seemed like it would make excellent farmland. Everywhere was lush and green, like the tended private parkland of a noble-except that this private park stretched from horizon to horizon. There were regions of uninterrupted greenery that could only be woods. At one point a thin line of green meandered through grasslands to reach the sea-a river lined with trees; it could be nothing else. The land was beautiful here, Teldin thought. There were much worse places for a man to settle down and make his living. Perhaps after this business with the cloak was finally concluded, he could buy himself some land here and be happy. Of course, where would he get the money? Ah, well, he told himself with a grin, burn those bridges when you come to them.
Rianna took his shoulder and pointed. The Probe had continued its spiral approach and was now on a different heading. While he'd initially been looking to sea, Teldin was now gazing inland. He was still unsure about the scale, but he guessed that the parkland extended five miles or so from the coast. Then, suddenly, the flat landscape changed. Rising out of the plain like walls were rugged, tree-covered hills. There was no hint of foothills. It looked almost as though the hills had just been placed randomly in the midst of arable land. Okay, let's set one down here, he could imagine one godlike workman saying to his fellow. The hills probably weren't that tall, he thought, but the contrast with the surrounding terrain made them look much higher. What would it be like to live at the foot of one of those? he found himself wondering. Claustrophobic? Or would you eventually get used to it and just not notice anymore?
He turned to Rianna. "Who delivered the mountains?" he asked jokingly.
She laughed in reply. "If they want to compete in my business, I'm getting out of it."
The ship continued its slow spiral, dropping lower and lower with each turn. Teldin found himself looking at the coastline again, but now he was close enough to the ground to see the narrow white-sand beaches that lined the ocean. From here it looked as though the parkland came within a hundred feet or less of the water, then there was a low cliff-it was difficult to tell how high, because of the foreshortening effect of the ship's altitude-dropping down to a narrow strand, then the ocean. From this angle it wasn't the pure blue he'd seen from higher up; it had taken on a deep, almost metallic green and had gentle wrinkles like the marks of hammer blows on the forged steel of a plow blade. He could make out here and there the white froth of waves breaking on the sand.
Rianna squeezed his shoulder again and pointed forward.
There was the city, Rauthaven, a walled port town built around the circumference of a small bay that made for a perfectly sheltered harbor. Breakwaters extended from both sides of the bay's mouth, closing the entry into the harbor down to a narrow passage. There were watch towers at the extreme ends of the breakwaters, and Teldin imagined that in time of war chains could be drawn across the passage. The harbor itself looked packed with ships; vessels ranging from tiny fishing boats to coasters to ships-of-the-line swung at anchor, seemingly at random.
The city itself rose up the sides of the low hills that surrounded the bay. Once more altitude made it difficult to estimate sizes, but Teldin thought that the buildings were generally small and the streets wide and spacious. The larger of those streets radiated outward and uphill from the harbor like the spokes of a wagon wheel. Narrower streets followed generally concentric curves around the harbor. Around the city's walls, however, this sense of order broke down. The harbor was roughly circular, but the outlying regions of the city were much more irregular. For example, the city extended farther along the coast to the northwest, which put the harbor nearer the southeast end of the town. The buildings got larger as you headed northwest, until the largest of all were atop the low hill-with, no doubt, a spectacular view down into the harbor. Those would have to be the homes of the noble families, or whoever it was who governed the city, plus the richest of the merchants, Teldin thought.
In his travels, Teldin had seen a few cities, but nothing to rival Rauthaven in beauty. Krynn cities generally looked like jumbled assortments of buildings, some stone, some wood, tossed together with no kind of overall plan. Architectural styles warred and colors dashed. Here, even though they varied in size, all of the buildings seemed to share one architectural style, leading to a sense of harmony he'd never experienced before. The colors, too, were consistent. The vast majority of the buildings had white walls, with sloping roofs of what could only be red tile. As he watched, the sun came out from behind a cloud and the city practically glowed. He felt the breath catch in his throat. Again he found himself thinking, I could live here.
The Probe had changed course again and was now heading out to sea. This only made sense, Teldin reasoned: There was no space for the hammership to land within the harbor, and the natives might get a little nervous about a strange flying vessel heading straight for them.
Now there was an issue. He turned to Rianna. "Are they likely to shoot at us?" he asked.
Her reply was a chuckle. "Only if we do something untoward," she elaborated. "Believe it or not, Rauthaven gets a considerable share of Toril's spacefaring traffic. Mostly that's
because the whole of Nimbral is much more open to magic, and to things that would be too strange for the rest of Toril. It's also got a lot to do with its sheltered harbor. Spelljamming ships are built for space, even those that can land on the water-like this one-and they don't do well in heavy seas. So when you put one down, you want to get it into a snug harbor, and right quick, too."
"How are we going to land?" Teldin asked. It was interesting. In all the conversations he'd had on spelljamming with Estriss, Aelfred, and the others, this was one topic they'd never touched on.
"It depends on the harbormaster," Rianna replied, not quite answering his question. "The lookouts will have spotted us by this time, and the harbormaster will be giving us our instructions on wind direction and speed, where we should drop anchor, that kind of thing."
"Give us orders? How?"
"By flags. And-" Rianna pointed over the rail to the harbor that was now below them "-there they are."
Teldin leaned over the rail, but not too far. While they had been in space with, presumably, uncounted millions of miles to fall, he'd felt no sense of vertigo, but now that they were only a thousand feet up, he felt an uncomfortable stirring in the pit of his stomach.
Rianna seemed to sense his discomfort and had the perfect cure for it. She leaned into him again so the sides of their bodies were pressed together from knee to shoulder. Teldin, not surprisingly, found he no longer noticed his vertigo. Rianna pointed again.
He sighted along her arm. At the innermost point of the harbor, directly opposite the passage through the breakwater, was another watchtower-like structure-presumably the harbormaster's office or whatever served its function in Rauthaven. From this angle, he could easily see a tall flagpole atop the building. A string of small, brightly colored flags extended the entire length of the pole. All except the uppermost were similar to the signal flags he'd seen used in the army. In pride of place atop the string was a larger flag that bore a red device-from this height, it was impossible to make it out- on a field of green. No doubt this was the flag or ensign of the city itself.
Teldin tried to read the message in the flags, using the code he half-remembered from his military service, but got only gibberish. They must be using a different code. The only information he could glean from the message was that the win
d was blowing from the west-and this solely from the direction the flags were fluttering. "What do they say?" he asked.
"Wind from the west, ten knots," Rianna told him. "We're told to identify ourselves." She looked back over her shoulder. "Look," she said, "we're answering."
Teldin turned, too. On the main deck, several crewmen were running a string of flags up the hammership's mainmast.
"They say we're the Probe" Rianna translated quickly, "registered out of the planet Parcelius."
Teldin looked again at the harbor below, fascinated by the efficiency of this silent conversation. As he watched, the harbormaster's flags were brought down and another string run up the staff. He looked to Rianna for the translation.
"We're approved to land outside the harbor," she told him, "and to anchor at… Well, they're coordinates. I'd have to have a harbor chart to know what they meant."
Teldin turned to watch the Probe's reply. There was none; the crewmen on the main deck just took the flag string down. There was some movement on the sterncastle, though. Two crew members were mounting a short jackstay on the aft rail. When it was secure, they trailed another, larger flag from it. Teldin recognized it to be the same design as the lowermost flag in the Probe's recent message. He tapped Rianna on the shoulder and pointed it out, his expression questioning.
"It's the Parcelius ensign," she told him. "Laws of the spaceways are like those of the sea. You always run up the ensign of your home world at the stern, or your home port if it has its own ensign. If you're being formal, you really should run up the flag of your destination at the bow or on the mainmast, but most people aren't too picky about that. If you do much traveling at all, your entire cargo capacity's going to be taken up with flags," she concluded with a chuckle.
The hammership turned slightly more to the northeast, out over the ocean now, and continued to descend. For the first time, Teldin could see whitecaps on the waves below. The ship was only a couple of hundred feet up, he guessed. Then the big vessel maneuvered again, pointing its bow into the westering sun. It decelerated gently and swept lower still.
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