Nigel Findley - The Broken Sphere

Julia was back at the sextant, tracking the mini-suns once more. "No change," she announced quietly. "The window's still open."

Teldin nodded. He could feel the resistance of Nex's atmosphere lessening, and he added a touch more speed. The ship was now flying faster than a dragon, faster than a swooping eagle. Soon, he knew, it would be traveling unimaginably faster still.

Below the ship, the surface of the world was changing from the landscape of a map to a sphere. From this altitude, he could easily see the curvature of the horizon.

Without warning, the keening of the wind through the rigging died. They were clear of the planet's atmosphere, Teldin knew. The only air around them was that which the ship carried along with it, and that was traveling at the same speed as the vessel itself. In other words, there was no more air resistance. He extended his will, through the cloak, and the Boundless leaped forward.

"Coming up on the mini-suns," Julia said.

"Any change?" he asked.

She shook her head, her copper hair gleaming in the ruddy light of the fire bodies. "They're all still on course."

"Let them stay that way," he muttered.

The passage through the region of the mini-suns turned out to be purest anticlimax. At the ultimate helm's full spelljamming speed, the squid ship flashed through the danger zone and out into the emptiness of wildspace. If the Mind of the World had even noticed their departure, it hadn't shown the slightest sign. According to Julia's readings, no mini-sun had diverged even a fraction of a degree from its normal course.

For the first time since the Boundless had lifted from the planet, Teldin let himself relax. "Please tell Blossom that she has the helm," he said quietly to Julia, and he heard her relay the message down the speaking tube. Only when he felt the priest extend her will did he let the power of the cloak fade from around him. The ship immediately slowed to normal spelljamming speed from the velocity imparted by the ultimate helm.

"Blossom wants to know what course to set," Julia announced.

The Cloakmaster was silent for a few moments. Then, "Tell her to take us out the way we came in," he decided, "That'll do for the moment. I need to talk some things over with you and Djan."

*****

Teldin stared fixedly out of the Boundless's starboard "eye" port, as if looking for an answer to his questions in the unrelieved blackness of wildspace. Behind him he heard Djan shift uncomfortably in his chair.

"You don't know where to go next," the half-elf said quietly, is that it?"

The Cloakmaster nodded wordlessly.

"The People didn't know where the Juna disappeared to?" Julia asked.

"No," Teldin replied. "Message Bearer said they're just gone."

"But they did mention the Broken Sphere," Djan reminded him.

"Yes," Teldin agreed, "but they didn't say anything meaningful about where it is. Just that it's 'at the center of all things,' and 'between the pearl clusters' or something. Does that mean anything to either of you?" He turned his back on the porthole to look at his friends.

Djan shook his head. "That sounds like myths I've heard in the past," he said, "about the First Sphere, the Cosmic Egg."

The Cloakmaster nodded. "Me, too," he agreed, remembering what he'd read in the Great Archive on Crescent.

"There was nothing new?" the first mate asked.

"Only that the People link the Spelljammer with the Broken Sphere," Teldin said, "and with the Juna. But I've heard both those connections before."

"And it doesn't help anyway," Djan concluded. "People have been looking for the First Sphere for a long time and they've never found it. What are the odds that we'd be the first?"

Teldin glanced over at Julia, saw the pensive expression on her face. "What is it?" he asked. "Did you think of something?"

She looked up, a little surprised to be jolted out of her reverie. "Probably not," she said slowly, "it's probably nothing…" She smiled self-deprecatingly. "But… you said something about 'pearl clusters,' didn't you?" The Cloak-master nodded. "Well, from the Flow, crystal spheres often look like pearls, don't they?"

"So?" Teldin wanted to know.

"So, what if there's somewhere in the universe where the crystal spheres are very close together?" she suggested. "Where they look like clusters of pearls? Maybe that's where you'll find the Broken Sphere."

A half-forgotten memory tugged at Teldin's consciousness. What was it… ?

Then it came back to him. It was an image he'd seen through the perceptions of the Spelljammer via the amulet, while he was cruising in the Ship of Fools to the world of Crescent. An image of half a dozen crystal spheres so tightly packed that some were separated by less than the diameter of a single sphere-gathered together against the backdrop of the Flow like a cluster of gargantuan, magical pearls….

Excitement washed over him like a wave. Breathlessly, he described the image to his friends. "Is there any place like that on the charts?" he asked.

His excitement turned into depression again as he saw them both shake their heads. "Not on any charts I've seen," Djan answered for both of them. "Maybe it's on some specialized chart somewhere, but most of the charts you can buy show only the important 'known' spheres, the ones that are on standard trade routes." He laid a hand on the Cloak-master's shoulder in commiseration. "I'm sorry. I wish I could tell you different."

Teldin looked at his friends with empty eyes. "Then I've got nowhere to go," he said quietly.

Teldin felt drained, physically exhausted. He slumped into a chair and lowered his head into his hands.

What now? he asked himself. Where do I turn? What do I do?

This was the first time he really had no clues, no leads to follow. Since that first night, the night the spelljammer had smashed his farmhouse and set his life on a new course, he'd always had some goal to pursue. At first it had simply been escape. Then it was the gnomish port within Mount Nevermind. Then the arcane on Toril, followed by the elves of Evermeet, the fal of Herdspace, and on and on, until finally it was the forbidden world of Nex. There'd always been something to go after next, something to keep him going…

Until now. The Juna were gone from the universe, or might as well be, for all the chance Teldin had of ever finding them. The Broken Sphere was… somewhere in the infinite universe, but he had no usable clues to lead him toward it.

So what was he to do now? What? What course was he to instruct the helmsman to set?

Where was the Cloakmaster to go now?

It was a terrifying, overwhelming sensation, this aimlessness. For so long, he'd been following a path. It had been a twisting, cryptic one, granted, and often one that he had lit-

He desire to follow, but now there was nothing. He felt as if he'd been set adrift on the trackless ocean, given no map and no instruments, no way of charting a course.

Since the beginning of his quest, he'd been wishing for freedom. Wasn't that what he had now? And, if so, why was it so traumatic?

But this isn't freedom, is it? he asked himself. The cloak still exists; I still wear it. And the enemies who've been after me from the outset are still out there, searching for me. No matter what I do to hide myself, they'll eventually find me.

That was the difference, he decided; that was where much of the anxiety came from. Before, the fact that he was being hunted had been almost secondary. He was being active. Now he had no choice but be reactive, responding to the actions of others.

No. He felt some deep, basic part of himself rebel, strive against the depression that weighed him down. No, he thought again, I still have options. I'm still the master of my own destiny. So I've met an obstacle; I've met obstacles before, and I've never let them stop me. What's so over-whelming about this one?