The Maelstrom Eye tcc-3

by Roger E. Moore

  Gomja stopped eating his cereal and wrinkled his nose in disgust at the mention of eating the giant hamsters. Gaye looked positively stricken, her mouth falling open in shock.

  "What happens when we run out of hamster meat?" asked Sylvie, clearly not looking forward to the answer.

  "Oo, wuh fine sunthun en thuh galley," mumbled Dyffed, his mouth full again. "Don worra aboud id."

  "Can't we find something else to eat besides hamsters?" asked Gaye, her voice breaking. She turned to Teldin and pulled on his sleeve. "Teldin, please talk to them! I know how to cook! Don't let them do that! Do something!"

  Breakfast disintegrated shortly thereafter. Teldin retired to his room, having extracted a promise from the gnomes that they would "check the galley carefully first" before serving up hamster meat. He found out a few minutes later that Gaye had gone rearward and managed to lock herself in the hydro-dynamic pumping station with Ruff and Widget, the giant hamsters, and was refusing to let any gnome near them. He wished he had a strong drink.

  "Do you have a moment, sir?" came Gomja's deep voice from the hallway.

  "Sure." Teldin got to his feet from the cramped bed, his back aching, and stretched out. He opened the door and let the massive giff inside, moving to the far side of the narrow room to give Gomja a chance to sit on the edge of the bed. It was the only furniture in the room strong enough to hold the giff s weight. Nonetheless, the bed groaned and cracked as Gomja settled his weight on it.

  "I was talking with one of the gnomes, named Loomfinger, sir," said Gomja. "He's turned out to be a novice mage who says he took up illusions as a hobby. I made him an assistant helmsman to Sylvie, and he's also helping her with navigational duties. He says the trip to Herdspace will take about thirty days after we enter the phlogiston. I think we should use the time to drill the gnomes and set up a chain of command. I would be the logical choice to lead them in a fight, but I would not like to command the ship. Aelfred would be the best one for that. Having no one in charge is troublesome, and it could hurt us if the orcs catch up to us."

  Teldin nodded briefly. "I have no problem with that. I've been thinking the same thing. But this is the gnomes' ship. Maybe they'd want a say in who ran things here."

  "Yes, sir, but I suspect they'll go along with whomever we designate as leader. None of the gnomes on this ship have any military experience. They're just technicians that I rounded up as soon as I heard the initial alert sirens. They're used to being given orders, not to giving them. It's worse than the situation at Mount Nevermind."

  Teldin sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "If they and everyone else agree to it, it sounds fine to me. I only wish this ship was bigger. It helps to go out on deck, but then I hate to come back inside."

  Gomja nodded sympathetically. Teldin knew his big friend was forced to sleep on the ship's upper deck, as there was no place to put him without blocking hall traffic; the giff fit no bed aboard. Gomja also snored like a lion roaring.

  "It's uncomfortable, I know," said Gomja, "but we were lucky just to have gotten this far, sir. Once Aelfred and I get the gnomes organized and teach them some basic tactics and drills, we should have a chance in case the orcs attack us again and try to grapple and board us."

  "It's your fate to command gnomes all the rest of your life," Teldin said, managing a grin. "I hardly envy you that."

  Gomja smiled, too, his little ears perking up. "There are worse troops, sir," he said. "I would be afraid to command a force of kender, for instance."

  Teldin nodded in agreement. "Speaking of which, I've just heard that she's gone and-"

  "She's still there, sir," Gomja finished. "I was going to ask if you can talk her out. This ship has plenty of supplies hidden in the galley. I found them not five minutes ago. Even with the creamed soaked grains gone, we have lots of food left before we'd ever have to eat a hamster." The giff made a sour face. "I'm afraid I'm in agreement with Gaye on that, sir."

  Teldin frowned. "That's odd. Dyffed told us earlier that no one had gotten around to loading up the ship with food supplies, much less putting in the helm and weaponry."

  Gomja looked at him blankly. "I hadn't heard that, sir. I suppose that Dyffed wasn't aware whether things had been loaded on or not. Perhaps they supplied the ship and forgot about it." He shrugged his gigantic shoulders. "Who knows?"

  The giff got to his feet, stooping to avoid striking the ceiling. "Carry on, sir," he said, giving a quick salute. "We've nothing left to do until we get to Herdspace. I'm looking forward to finding out why it's called that. None of the gnomes know but Dyffed, and he laughs when I mention it. Oh, and don't forget about Gaye, sir."

  "I'll tell her," Teldin said, returning the salute with feeling. "I'll see you later."

  When the giff was gone, Teldin considered lying down again for a few moments more, but decided not to bother. His back was killing him, and he couldn't rest with Gaye all stirred up. He straightened his clothes and prepared to leave for the besieged kender.

  It wasn't until he was going to see Gaye that Teldin though about Gomja's comment about the alert on Ironpiece. Hadn't the first siren been one that only the gnomes could hear? Yet Gomja had said he'd begun rounding up gnomes at that time. The giff had never displayed any ability to hear the high-pitched sounds gnomes could detect, but maybe he could anyway. Maybe the gnomes had heard the first siren and had told him about it. It was only a mildly interesting thought, and Teldin decided he would ask Gomja about it the following day. He promptly forgot all about it.

  Thirty-four days passed. Gaye cooked. The gnomes trained. Everyone waited.

  And the scro caught up with them.

  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 cr
ossbow 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.