Nigel Findley - The Broken Sphere

"In all honesty, I did not expect Berglund to succeed," T'k'Ress confided. "You were, by all accounts, an innovative man and a skilled ship's captain. It would be foolish to trust to a single stratagem."

"So you put spies-saboteurs, murderers-aboard my ship," Teldin growled.

Unaffected by the Cloakmaster's anger, T'k'Ress nodded. "Dargeth and Lucinus, yes. Dargeth was a mage with a mind of great subtlety, one of the finest dissemblers I have ever met. Lucinus, too, was a fine operative." The creature raised its hairless eyebrows in interest. "What fate did they meet?" it asked incuriously.

"During the battle they tried to escape," Djan answered. "Their guards were forced to kill them both."

Teldin knew that the half-elf was telling the complete and utter truth, but the arcane obviously didn't believe him. Not that it mattered one whit to the creature, the Cloakmaster could see by its expression. He felt anger, hatred, burning in his chest.

"What happens now?" T'k'Ress asked quietly.

That was the question, wasn't it? But as soon as the question was posed, the answer appeared fully formed in his mind. "We maroon you here aboard the Boundless," Teldin told him coldly. "We take your ship."

"Aboard the squid ship?" For the first time, the Cloakmaster could hear alarm in T'k'Ress's voice. "Is it not crippled?"

"Not totally." It was Djan who answered. "It's dead in space for the moment, but you should be able to repair it… eventually."

"But the helm-"

"Should be functional," the half-elf cut T'k'Ress off. He grinned fiercely, his expression echoing Teldin's emotions. "If not, you should be able to repair it, shouldn't you? It's part of the arcane monopoly, after all."

"But…" T'k'Ress looked worried now. "But I sell helms-"

It was Teldin's turn to cut him off. "You don't repair them, is that what you're trying to say?" He smiled coldly. "I'm afraid you're not going to find me too sympathetic."

"Berglund and the mercenaries will not wish to go along," the arcane pointed out desperately.

"Then it's up to you to make them, isn't it?" Teldin snapped. "You'll recall my colleague has a crossbow pointed at your large blue head. And you can be dead sure he's not going to set it down until you're all safely aboard the squid ship and we've pulled away."

T'k'Ress studied Teldin's face. "Would you really kill me?" it asked, its voice a high-pitched whisper.

"After all of his friends you've killed? What do you think?" Djan shot back.

Teldin kept his face expressionless, pleased that the half-elf's answer had really been no answer at all. That's my weakness, he thought grimly. Could I order Djan to put a crossbow bolt into the arcane's head, just like that? And would he obey? The trick, then, was to maintain the bluff so strongly that T'k'Ress wouldn't dare call it.

The arcane was silent for a moment, its small eyes-shiny, like small, polished stones-studying Teldin's. Then it dropped its gaze and looked away.

It has its answer, Teldin thought. Let's hope it's the right one.

T'k'Ress looked up again. "And as for you?" it asked Teldin. "You will continue to pursue the Spelljammer, will you not? Where will you go?"

Teldin hesitated. Why not tell it? he asked himself, with a rush of frustration. It's not as if I really know anyway. "To the center of all," he said, "between the pearl clusters. Down the secondary eddies of the paramagnetic gradient."

Something changed in the arcane's eyes-a flicker of recognition, of understanding. It knows, the Cloakmaster realized. "You know about the paramagnetic gradient, don't you?" he demanded harshly. "You know what it is. And you know how to measure it, don't you?" Yes, he thought, his certainty increasing as he asked the questions. Yes, I'm right.

"And you…" T'k'Ress started. Then it shut its mouth with an audible click.

"And I don't," Teldin confirmed. He strode up, glared up into the blue giant's cadaverous face. "But, by Paladine's blood, you're going to tell me."

"No." The arcane shook its head firmly. "No, I will not."

Slowly, with what he felt as a terrible certainty, Teldin drew his short sword. He rested the blade across the flat of his left palm, stared intently into the mirror-bright blade as if an answer could be found there. Both his hands were trembling, he noted almost detachedly. "Then I'll hurt you, T'k'Ress," he said quietly. In his own ears, his voice sounded devoid of emotion. It could as well have been the voice of Death itself. "I'll hurt you as you've never been hurt before, more than you've ever thought you could be hurt. I'll keep hurting you until you tell me what I want to know. And you will tell me," he added, a touch more conversationally, "eventually. And you know what?" He raised the short sword so that its tip pointed right between the arcane's black-marble eyes. "I hope you don't tell me for a good, long while."

T'k'Ress stared down, aghast, its blue skin paling with horror. Its mouth worked silently for a moment before it could force any words out. "You would not do this…" it gurgled.

Teldin drew his lips back from his teeth in a killing smile and echoed Djan's words. "After all of my friends you've killed? What do you think?" He turned to Anson, standing- open-mouthed with shock-by the door. "Bring some ropes to secure our friend," he told the sailor. Then, as an afterthought, added, "And some absorbent cloths, too."

Anson stared at him for a moment, then hurried to obey.

T'k'Ress surged halfway out of its seat, before Djan steadied his crossbow at its head and snapped, "No!" The arcane's eyes flicked back and forth between Teldin's sword and the half-elf s crossbow.

"Think about it, T'k'Ress," the Cloakmaster hissed. "If you don't want to tell us, you've got two ways to go. The quick way"-he inclined his head toward the crossbow-"or the lingering way." He stroked the blade of his sword almost lovingly. "It's your choice.

"Or…" He paused, drawing out the tension. "Or you can tell us what you know. As I said, it's your choice."

For a terrible moment, he thought the arcane was going to resist, was going to call his bluff.

But then T'k'Ress seemed to deflate, as all the resistance went out of it. "I will tell you what you need to know," it said, "if you swear to let me live."

It was difficult to keep the triumph out of his face, but Teldin figured he'd managed it. He shrugged, as though the issue was hardly worth discussing. "We'll see when you're finished if it's worth your life," he said as coldly as he could.

"It will be, I assure you," the arcane said hurriedly. "If you will take me to the captain's day room on the command deck, I will even show you."

Teldin glared fixedly at the arcane, letting the tension build as high as he dared. Then he nodded briskly. T'k'Ress sagged with relief, wiping at its eyes with a six-fingered hand. While its eyes were covered, the Cloakmaster flashed Djan a smile of victory.

*****

The arcane had to hunch forward to fit under the low, curved roof of what it called the captain's day room. On the uppermost deck of the nautiloid, this was little more than a broad extension of the causeway that supported the captain's chair. The only furniture was a human-sized chair, a small map table…

And something that looked like a narrow, waist-high pedestal, on which to display a small sculpture or other work of art. Its fluted column was intricately carved wood, so dark as to be almost black. Its circular top, about two feet in diameter, was a flat sheet of smoky white crystal, smooth and cool to the touch. On closer inspection, Teldin could see fine black lines graven into the crystal's surface-a dozen lines crossing the circle, intersecting at a single point, and six concentric circles centered around that point.