Nigel Findley - The Broken Sphere

Relief flooded through Teldin's body, threatening to weaken his knees so that he couldn't even stand. With a titanic effort, he kept his face and traitor body under control. "Where's the captain?" he repeated.

"Grampian's on the bridge deck," the first mercenary said, pointing vaguely upward. "Why d'ya need to talk to him?"

"News," Teldin replied, keeping his voice hoarse, exhausted-sounding, in case these men had heard Dargeth speak before. "For Grampian's ears only." He held his breath, waiting for another question-a question he couldn't answer, that would reveal his deception and end his life.

But the mercenaries had other things on their minds. They paid him no more attention as they brushed past him to vault over the rail, onto the underside of the Boundless.

Teldin's knees felt weak, his heart pounding so hard that it threatened to burst. Still he managed to force himself on, up the sloping deck of the battle station. There were three ladders-one, in the center of the deck, leading down-, two leading up. The mercenary had pointed upward when he'd mentioned the captain's-Grampian's-location. The Cloakmaster sprinted up the starboard side ladder.

He found himself in a large, open area that filled the complete width of the nautiloid. To his right, as he reached the top of the ladder, was the ship's main catapult, smashed by the Boundless's ballista shot. Two human bodies, twisted and broken, lay sprawled over the wreckage. The Cloakmaster looked away.

The area was empty. Directly ahead of him were another two ladders, these wider than the one he'd climbed, one leading up, the other down. To the port side of the ladders was a door; to the starboard was a corridor leading aft. There had to be cabins back there, maybe storage compartments.

Where in the Abyss would he find the captain? He didn't have time to search the whole ship. His crewmates were dying….

Where would he be if he were the captain? Somewhere he could see what was going on, of course. That eliminated the cabins, didn't it? He ran to the ladders and climbed up to the next deck.

More than halfway up the shell-like hull of the nautiloid, this deck was considerably shorter and slightly narrower than the one below. But it was much higher, extending right up to the curved upper surface of the hull. Above him, like the galleries in some strange theater, were observation decks of some kind. And, even higher, a kind of narrow causeway extended from the aft to the center of the open space, supporting a large chair. Teldin stopped in his tracks, fascinated by the spectacle.

"What in the hells are you doing here?"

He spun. Facing him across the open deck, a dark, bearded man stood, fists balled and set aggressively on his hips.

By all the gods, it was Berglund, the privateer captain who'd attacked the Boundless outside Heartspace!

Teldin struggled to keep his recognition from showing on his face. "Gotta talk to Grampian," he gasped harshly.

Berglund scowled. "Why?"

"It's important," Teldin grunted. "Where?"

Berglund hesitated, and the Cloakmaster thought all was lost, then the pirate's face cleared and he pointed toward a circular, red-glass portal on the starboard side of the hull. "Out on the observer station."

Teldin grunted his thanks and hurried over to the portal. Just aft of the large, multipaned porthole was a small door. He grabbed the knob and pulled it open.

And there was Grampian (or so he assumed), a tall, nondescript, brown-haired man with a build slightly more slender than Teldin's. He stood on a small, semicircular gallery -open to the stars-leaning on the rail for a good view of the underside of the squid ship's hull. Apparently he was too absorbed in what was going on below him to have noticed Teldin's arrival.

Silently, the Cloakmaster stepped out onto the observation gallery and shut the door behind him. He drew his short sword, felt the sharkskin grip slick with the sweat of his palm. He took a step forward….

Suddenly he was struck by a vision. Superimposed on the tall human ahead of him he saw an even taller figure-gangling, slender to the point of malnutrition, standing twice Teldin's own height. Instead of brown hair, he saw a bald skull, strangely domed, covered with tightly stretched powder-blue skin…

An arcane.

The Cloakmaster must have gasped or made some other sound as the realization struck him; or maybe the arcane that called itself Grampian had otherwise sensed a presence behind it. In any case, it turned, its magically disguised face twisting into an expression of shock.

Teldin hurled himself across the intervening space, simultaneously releasing the magic of the cloak and returning to his true form. He drove a shoulder into Grampian's chest, slamming the figure back against the rail. Viciously, he grabbed the "man's" shoulder with his left hand and spun him around. Then he locked his left forearm around the figure's throat, drove a knee into the small of his back, and wrenched backward. Grampian gasped, a high-pitched whistling hiss, as Teldin arched its spine backward like a bow. The Cloakmaster settled the point of his short sword over where he guessed the creature's kidney might be, and pressed just hard enough to break the skin. "Call them off!" he hissed into Grampian's ear.

"It's you!" the magically disguised arcane cried, its voice pitched high with terror. "The cloak bearer!"

Teldin applied more pressure to the sword, feeling its point penetrate another fraction of an inch into Grampian's back. Pain jolted the body he held. "Call your men off!" he repeated. He felt his lips draw back from his teeth in a terrible, feral snarl. " Now !"

"How did… ?" the creature started.

But the Cloakmaster cut the arcane off by driving his knee into its back a second time. "I'll kill you," he snarled, his voice cold and low, terrifying to his own ears. "Call them back or you're dead."

Teldin was expecting some kind of resistance and was surprised when the arcane immediately bellowed, "Return to the ship! Cease the attack!" Looking down, the Cloakmaster saw the mercenaries still on the squid ship's hull hesitate for a moment, then obediently start climbing back aboard the nautiloid. At first he was heartily surprised at how easily they accepted the order. But, then, Why not? he asked himself. They're mercenaries; it's only their fight as long as their employer says it's their fight.

Behind him Teldin heard the door burst open. He spun, holding Grampian in front of him like a living shield.

"You!" Berglund stood in the doorway, sword drawn. He stared at Teldin, his face pale. "By all the fiends, what are you doing here?"

"Drop the sword, Berglund," Teldin shouted. "It's over." He twisted the sword and felt Grampian's muscles spasm with pain. " Tell him!"

"It is over," the disguised arcane echoed hurriedly. "Drop your weapon."

He watched Berglund's eyes and saw the thoughts flash through the pirate captain's mind-saw him make his decision. The short sword clattered to the deck. Berglund kicked it toward Teldin's feet. "Get down there, Berglund," the Cloakmaster told him harshly. "Get your men back here. And bring my first mate over." He tightened his grip on Grampian's throat, hearing the arcane gasp and choke under the pressure. "And don't think of trying any tricks. Tell him, Grampian."

"No tricks," Grampian gasped. "Do what he says. We must reach… an arrangement."

*****

They sat in the nautiloid's main saloon, a large compartment at the aft end of the bridge deck. Teldin was there, with Djan, the wounded Anson, and Grampian-now in his true form, having let his magical disguise dissipate. The surviving members of the squid ship's crew-only six of them, not counting the two men present-were aboard the Boundless. Grampian had ordered his mercenaries to confine themselves to the cabins on the lower "slave" deck of the nautiloid, and they seemed willing enough to follow their employer's orders.