"Kobas, wake up." Her voice came from the room's far side. Vorr listened carefully but heard nothing out of the ordinary.
"What do you want?" he asked. It had to be an emergency. Usso had been warned too many times to never disturb his sleep for any other reason. He reached for the wall beside his floor mat and pressed his hand against it. The magical lights in the ceiling came on as he did.
Usso flinched at the lights, then steadied herself. She sat in a respectful posture by the doorway, hands folded in her lap, fox tail curled around her side.
"Let's hear it," he said, sliding his sword back into its sheath and sitting up. He wore only his kilt.
"Something weird just happened," Usso said. Her face was tight with tension. "I was on deck, invisible, when I noticed one of the scro, Sergeant Dlavish, at the signaling lamp. I thought he was working on it, but I recalled that the lamp had been in perfect shape earlier, so I investigated. Dlavish was aiming the lamp at the pyramid ship, two miles trailing, and was preparing to send a message. I read his mind with a spell, then confirmed my findings with other spells. He was acting as a spy for the false lich, Skarkesh. I checked him magically using a few devices of my own and found that he had been placed under a spell of charming recently. He was about to send a message that indicated our current crew, weapons, and supply status."
Vorr grunted and rubbed at his face. He'd been expecting news like this for some time. "Go on," he said.
"I didn't want to alert Dlavish or the lich that I had caught on to the situation, so I cast a ventriloquism spell to make him think someone was approaching. He shut down the lamp and went on about his normal duties. Once he came below decks, I was able get the assistance of several officers to have him arrested and held in his cabin under guard, where he is now. I do not believe I alerted Skarkesh by my actions."
"Had Sergeant Dlavish ever been in contact with Skarkesh?" Vorr asked hoarsely.
"Not at all. To my knowledge, there is no way a charm-type spell could have been cast on him. The range was always too great. My belief is that either Skarkesh used a new charm spell with a very long range, that he managed to get Dlavish to touch some object that had the spell imbued in it, or that Skarkesh cast the spell through the medium of a magical device with scrying abilities, like a crystal ball or magical mirror, perhaps one that produces an image of the caster through which other spells can be cast. If the latter is true, then Skarkesh can spy upon us as well as cast spells on our troops, and we are in terrible danger."
Vorr thought of the magical mirror he had seen Skarkesh try to use the previous day, without success. "What's our tactical situation?"
"We should reach the edge of the atmosphere in one hour. Skarkesh's last message indicated that Teldin Moore and his ship had set off for a specific point on the inside of this sphere, about ninety thousand miles from here. Teldin must be using his cloak to spelljam the gnomish ship, because of its extraordinary speed. At best, we should be about two or three hours behind him, unless he is delayed. It appears that he will be meeting with a creature of some kind, something called a fal. All ships are in full readiness and are in standard flight formation with us. I should add that we've neither heard from nor seen the elves at any time since we entered this sphere."
Vorr looked down in deep thought, then got to his feet. He reached for a fresh uniform in a wardrobe and began to get dressed. "I want you to check the rest of the crew aboard this ship and find out if any of them have been charmed. Do it as quickly as you can. After you check Admiral Halker and Captain Azofin, have them meet me here immediately. Under no circumstances is any word of this to be released to the troops. I don't even want other ships notified yet. We've got to find a way to check everyone on the other ships. I think the war priests have spells that would help. Just get the admiral and captain and start checking everyone."
Usso nodded quickly and got to her feet.
"Usso," said Vorr.
The fox-woman turned, then jumped. Vorr had moved across the room to her in two swift strides. He caught her by the arm, his grip like a gentle vice. "If you had been charmed," he said in an even voice, "the charm would be negated now by contact with me. Are you lying to me, Usso?"
"No," she said in a shaking voice, shrinking back from him. "Kobas, please don't hurt me. I'm not lying. I'm not charmed. I'm telling the truth. Please don't."
Vorr stared down at her, then let go. "If we pull out of this, Usso, I'll owe you a special reward-but don't fail me."
"No," she said, rubbing her arm. She moved closer to the door, her eyes still on the general, then pressed an amulet against the door's wood. She then walked through the door as if it were not there, and was gone.
"Skarkesh," said General Vorr with clenched teeth, "You're going to wish you had just stayed dead."
Chapter Fifteen
The cheerless giff wore his spotless red-and-gold uniform when he reported to Teldin in the helm room. "Hello, sir," Gomja said, giving a halfhearted salute with a thick blue hand. "I thought I would bring you up to date on Dyffed's condition."
"It looked like his hands were injured when the box exploded," said Teldin, shifting positions in the helm seat. The helm wasn't the most comfortable chair, and Teldin's lower back ached. The room wasn't ventilated, either, and his clothes were already stained with sweat.
"I'm afraid that I have some bad news on that," the giff said heavily, his shoulders drooping. "We've run out of all healing potions and magical curatives, and none of the crew aboard has any clerical spell power. Gaye was able to bandage Dyffed's hands after cleaning the wounds, but he lost two fingers from each hand in the explosion. Without magic, the damage cannot be repaired."
Teldin groaned softly at the news and looked away. He had somehow imagined that nothing bad would happen to the little guy. Gomja sighed and continued. "He has some burns on his face, as well as both arms and hands, but these aren't life-threatening. There were worse injuries with four of the gnomes who took part in the fight on the deck when we entered this sphere, and they're pulling through well, though we had the last of our heating potions for them."
Gomja held up a blackened box in his thick right hand, flecks of red paint still showing around the box's edges. "I'm afraid this is all that's left of Dyffed's thingfinder, sir. We're on our own as far as finding the fal's megafauna."
"Maybe that won't be so difficult after all," said Teldin, his eyes unfocused. "I don't know if it's the right one, but there's some kind of giant animal ahead of us now. I have no idea how far away it is. We should arrive there in a few minutes. Can Dyffed still see?"
"Oh, certainly he can," the giff hastened to add. "Only his nose and beard were harmed in the explosion, sir. Gaye was forced to give his beard a. fairly close trim."
Teldin sighed with relief. "Fine. See if he can identify the megafauna we're approaching. I haven't any idea if I'm supposed to land on this monster's back or head or what in order for us to get to the fal. He should know."
Gomja nodded, then had a thought and held up the ruined thingfinder. "Did you want this saved, sir?"
Teldin shook his head with a look of disgust. "No. It might still be dangerous. Dispose of it in the safest way possible before someone else gets hurt with it."
Gomja nodded agreement. "I'll send it out the back of the ship on the jettison, sir, and I'll then see if Dyffed is up to one more trip to the top deck." He opened the door, but he hesitated before leaving. "Any sign of the scro outside the ship, sir?"
Teldin took a long look aft, below, and around the ship. "Nothing so far. We seem to have left them behind for now, maybe for good."
The giff appeared pleased with the news. "I'll take care of things, sir," he said, and closed the door.
Gomja had been gone only a minute before there was another knock at the door, this one from the lower part of the door itself. Dyffed? Teldin wondered. "Come in, it's open," he called, wishing he could see everywhere inside the ship as well as he could see everywhere outside. On second thought
, perhaps it was just as we!! that he couldn't.
Someone fumbled at the door. It then opened to reveal a gnome with wide brown eyes and a curly beard-Loomfinger. He peered in hesitantly, looking all around before entering.
"Um, Mister Aelfred Silverhand said you wanted to see me about something that I did, but I didn't mean to do anything wrong, honest. I was just following orders, and everything was going along fine, and I had nothing to do with anything."
"What?" Teldin said in confusion. Maybe the gnome thought he'd done something wrong while he was on the helm. "Oh, don't worry about that," said Teldin, feeling foolish now. "I don't want to reprimand you. I'm just trying to sort out something. I'm not sure it was very important, but I wanted to check anyway."
The pale gnome nodded, then pushed the door dosed behind him without completely shutting it. He looked up at Teldin with sweat beading up on his forehead, wringing his hands in front of him. "Anything you say, no problem." He swallowed. "You aren't going to grab me and throw me around, are you?"
Teldin had the good grace to be embarrassed. "No, and I do feel badly about that. I was curious about something. When did you find out about the scro fleet chasing us, after we took off from the rastipedes' forest?"
The gnome stared at Teldin, then visibly relaxed. "Oh, that!" he said. "Oh, that's what you wanted! Oh, that's simple, of course, because I was just sitting there in the helm and everything was quiet, and then First Colonel-Commander Gomja came in and we were talking and I saw the scro fleet right there behind us. I didn't know what you were talking about, and here I've been all worried and everything, and I won't let anything bad happen, I promise."
"So you did see the fleet," said Teldin. He felt doubly foolish now. He hadn't the faintest idea of why he had suspected something was funny earlier.
"That's right," said the gnome, almost gaily. "I looked right where First Colonel-Commander Gomja said to look, and there the scro were, and I told him, and he said 'Excellent,' and he left."
There was a short silence as Teldin stared down at the beaming gnome. "You looked where Gomja said to look," Teldin repeated, not believing he was hearing this. "Gomja told you where the scro were?"
"Yes, sir!" said Loomfinger. "Boy, this was a relief, I can tell you, because I had all sorts of things going through my mind about what you wanted to ask about, and gosh if it wasn't something unimportant and routine and not something I would be thrown off the ship for, like… um, nevermind. I feel so much better now, just loads."
The shock of the gnome's news was passing. In its place was a strange feeling of anger and fear, still tempered by disbelief. "I want you to find Aelfred and have him see me at once," he said. "And hurry." His helm vision was revealing more of the distant megafauna; at this distance, it resembled an earless elephant with a rhino horn.
"Get Aelfred?" exclaimed the gnome with mounting panic. "Why? Do you think I did something after all? It wasn't me, really. Please don't do it. Please don't get Aelfred, because I didn't do it!" He hid his face in his hands.
"What in the Abyss are you talking about?" Teldin demanded. "I just want to see Aelfred!".
Loomfinger peeked out from his fingers, then hastily grabbed for the doorknob. "No problem then! I'll be right back with Aelfred!" In a second, the gnome was gone.
"Thas id!" said Dyffed through puffy lips. He pointed with one cloth-wrapped arm. "Thas the megafauna on wigde One Six Nine lives. Id sdill has ids leff foreleg ub afder all this dibe. Of course, id will dake another five hundred and sixdy years for id to-"
"Dyffed," said Teldin. "Don't talk."
"Okay," said Dyffed reluctantly, and subsided.
"Wow," said Gaye, leaning on the ship's railing. "An elephant unicorn. He needs a mustache like you, Teldin."
"Idz nod a unicorn or an elephand, because idz-"
"Dyffed," Teldin warned.
"Okay," said the gnome with a frustrated sigh.
Teldin grimaced and looked away from the gnome's red, blistered face. He hoped this giant slug had some healing spells on hand, not only for Dyffed but for the other injured gnomes aboard who hadn't completely recovered from their earlier battle and from the crash into the footprint lake.
As he looked again at the approaching megafauna, Teldin wondered if he was becoming jaded after having seen the first one. Aelfred had placed Loomfinger on the now-repaired helm while the ship was still coasting through airless wildspace to allow Teldin the chance to see the creature directly from the deck; Sylvie was still asleep. This one was still a shocker: a diamond-patterned creature of black, red, and yellow that Dyffed had said stood twelve hundred miles high. It was vaguely elephantine with a rhinolike face, tiny ears, and a huge horn projecting from where a unicorn's horn would grow. A reptilian-type tail half as long as its body hung from the rear, sweeping hundreds of miles above the ground at its lowest point.
Traveling at a much reduced speed but still covering a thousand miles of space every few minutes, the Perilous Halibut slowly circled the creature. The gnomes who had come up on deck to see the beast were much more talkative now than before with the first monster, and Teldin guessed that they, too, were becoming used to such marvels. We're going to be spoiled rotten by the time this trip is over, Teldin decided. A dragon? Ho-hum. A flying castle? Booooring.
"Where's the best place to land so we can get to the fal's place?" Aelfred asked the half-mummified gnome.
"Idz…" Dyffed stopped and looked up at Teldin questioningly. When Teldin nodded, he continued. "Idz ride on dop of the horn there," he said, pointing again. "Bud we can'd land on the horn. We have do land on idz head and walk up do the horn. We can go up frob there."
Aelfred nodded and headed for the ship's huge vertical fin. "I'll call directions down to Loomfinger," he told Teldin.
"We should bake sure thad… bake sure thad…" Dyffed stopped, looking puzzled.
Teldin looked down. "Make sure that what?"
The gnome rubbed the side of his head with a bandaged hand. "I forgod. Id was ride there on by bind and id fell off or sobething."
Teldin shrugged and looked back at the megafauna. The ship's course adjusted after Aelfred called the instructions down, and the ship made its way toward the hundred-mile-wide top of the creature's head.
Something thumped heavily up the ladder toward the top deck. Teldin glanced at Aelfred, who nodded and looked away, busying himself with a set of mooring ropes. As Gomja's broad hippopotamus face appeared in the hatchway, Teldin forced a smile.
Are you a traitor? he wanted to ask. What's going on with you? I was a fool not to have seen it before.
"How do you like the view?" Teldin asked instead, waving a and at the megafauna in the distance.
You certainly changed your mind suddenly enough, back at the hospital on the morning we were leaving, Teldin thought. I told you I trusted you. I don't understand what happened.
"Certainly a big fellow, isn't it, sir?" Gomja said, carefully adjusting his uniform.
Teldin's gaze flicked briefly down to the two pistols at Gomja's belt. He felt the revelations coming faster and faster in his mind. You, not the gnomes, must havestocked the Perilous Halibut. You made sure you had a big supply of pistols and powder, and that there was enough provisions for all of us on war trip. You made sure the gnomes were there at the ship then the attack came. "You made sure that almost everyone in war tight little group from the Probe was at the Perilous Halibut then, too; but you couldn't find Gaye and me before the attack came, so you had the gnomes track us down. You just not lucky there.
"Are we heading for the beast's head?" Gomja asked, When Teldin nodded, the huge giff looked curiously at the oposed destination. "How are we going to land, sir? We have a tail fin that drops below the ship's bottom. Is there water there?"
"We'll hover first, with Loomfinger on the helm," Aelfred said, stepping up. He was the model of a ship's captain, casualy watching the beast's head draw nearer. They were perhaps a thousand miles away, their velocity slowing as they drew l
oser to the top. Teldin could see immense valleys and cracks in the beast's folded hide, and in some places he thought he would see brief gleams of light that might be reflections from the sun on standing water. Maybe there would be a place to and after all, if they could be sure there would not be a repeat performance of the footprint-lake landing.
Gomja sniffed, his broad nostrils flaring. "It is not exactly proper, landing on someone's head, but…" He grinned. "Perhaps we could build a landing platform for the ship as we did when we were with the rastipedes, sir."
I'd almost forgotten about the night you were talking to yourself behind the ship, Teldin thought, looking at the giff. Aelfied thinks you were actually talking to someone with a scrying spell, someone who could hear and see you-and probably me as well, once I got close enough. All this time, I never thought about it at all.
The giff looked at Teldin and blinked. "Sir?"
"What?" said Teldin. He was suddenly aware that he was staring hard at the giff. "Sorry?"
"Is something wrong, sir?"
"No, nothing." Teldin waved the question away and looked back at the beast's head, his arms folded across his chest. The top of the creature's horn reached at least fifty miles above them, a great whorled spike of ivory and red tilted forward in the direction of the megafauna's line of travel.
Several times as they approached, Teldin had to blink, shake his head, or wipe at his eyes, trying to adjust to the immensity of the beast and the bizarre perspectives it presented. He felt more and more like a dust mote, or even one of the unbreakable and minute particles that some sages claimed made up all matter. The world-beast was everything. He was nothing. With but a few steps, this beast could span Ansalon, the continent where Teldin had been raised. It could ford the deepest seas and never know it had gotten wet.
It became apparent as they drew closer that some of the creature's diamond-pattern decoration was due to patterns of forestation on its hide. Conversation faded away on the top deck as the crew looked at tracts of woodland wilderness hundreds of miles across, spread over the world-beast's neck and head. Broad lakes appeared, as Teldin had suspected, and thin clouds and areas of low-lying fog or mist became evident.
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