Nigel Findley - The Broken Sphere

Unless the means that it gave Teldin to find the Spelljammer was flawed in some way.

He looked over at the milky glow of the modified planetary locator. The technomagical device still worked; it still showed the glowing matrix of the loomweave. There had to be something he was missing, but what?

"I know it was too easy," he said, echoing Djan's words, "but what else could I do?"

*****

Via his cloak-mediated senses Teldin could see the inner surface of the Vistaspace crystal sphere like an infinite black plane a few leagues ahead of the nautiloid. Below, in the helm compartment on the scout deck, he knew that Djan was preparing to use the passage device that T'k'Ress had left behind on the vessel. The Cloakmaster thanked the gods that they had this arcane device. Without it-and without a mage capable of opening a portal with his own magic- they'd have been trapped within Vistaspace.

"Ready to make passage." Even though the half-elf was a deck below, and pitching his voice at a conversational level, Teldin could hear him clearly, thanks to the cloak. "Flow stations. Captain?"

Teldin called down confirmation. "Open the portal."

He felt a strange shiver in the power of the ultimate helm as his friend triggered the passage device. Ahead of the nautiloid, the portal flared into being, quickly expanding to more than a bowshot in diameter. Through the lightning-limned circle Teldin could see the curdled colors of the Flow. He tapped only a fraction of the ultimate helm's power, and the spiral-hulled vessel shot through the opening into the phlogiston. As soon as they were through, the portal closed behind them.

"Passage successful," Djan called up, needlessly.

The Cloakmaster felt tingles of anticipation shoot through his nerves. They were out of Vistaspace, into the infinity of the Flow. Next stop… the Broken Sphere. He shifted his gaze to the modified planetary locator, to read from its surface the condition of the loomweave, to see on what course he should set sail.

The crystal surface was blank.

He virtually leaped out of his chair and dashed across the compartment to the pedestal. Yes, the surface was totally blank. The twisting matrix of colors had vanished. Even the milky glow that he associated with the device's operation was gone. "Djan!" he yelled.

The half-elf was up the ladder and beside him in a moment. He stared down at the blank, featureless display. "Now we know why it was so easy," he said quietly.

Without turning, Teldin reached behind him and dragged over the chair. He slumped down into it. "Now we know," he echoed dully.

He felt as though he'd been plunged into a black, cloying fog of depression. Oh, logically he knew he was no worse off than before T'k'Ress and the nautiloid had put in their appearance. In fact, he was better off, because he'd rid the crew of traitors.

But it felt so much worse. He'd been almost euphoric. Finally he knew how to find the Spelljammer! That knowledge, and the hope it brought with it, had been wrested away from him by the arcane's machinations. Now we know why it was so easy, he thought again. T'k'Ress knew the planetary locator wouldn't work in the Flow…

And why should it? he realized. It was a planetary locator, after all, and you only found planets within crystal spheres.

So, what was he to do now?

Part of him wanted to turn the nautiloid around, to make best possible time to the crippled Boundless, and follow through with the threats he'd made to T'k'Ress. Part of him wanted to give up, here and now.

He shook his head. Neither option was attractive.

He glared at the inert crystal-topped pedestal. Maybe there was some way to fix it, he thought suddenly, or modify it so that it would work in the phlogiston. After all, it worked by detecting folds and wrinkles in the loomweave, and both T'k'Ress and Zat had implied that the loomweave existed in the Flow as well as within crystal spheres. Maybe if he could figure out how the device worked…

But how?

The cloak, why not? The ultimate helm gave him omnipresent vision when he used it to drive a ship. Wasn't it possible-remotely possible-that it would let him look inside this magical pedestal and see how it worked? It was worth a try.

The Cloakmaster took a slow, calming breath and let the tension flow out of his muscles like water out of a vessel. He mentally reached out to the ultimate helm and felt the artifact's power stir in response. He focused his attention on the dark pedestal of the planetary locator, trying to reach out with the cloak's arcane senses. Power glowed and throbbed around his shoulders.

Suddenly, it glowed and pulsed against his chest as well. The bronze amulet, on its chain, bloomed with energy. Although his physical senses knew the object wasn't changing size, his new nonphysical senses told him that it was swelling as it filled with power drawn from the cloak. The power of the amulet flashed brighter-invisible to his eyes, but easily discernible to his mind-and arced over to the planetary detector. To Teldin's amazement, the crystal display surface burst to life again, writhing and twisting with a colored representation of the loomweave.

The Cloakmaster turned a triumphant smile on his friend. "Djan," he said, his voice choked with conflicting emotions, "get the crew to their stations. We sail."

With an answering smile, the half-elf jumped to with a will.

*****

The Cloakmaster ran his fingers delicately over the smooth surface of the planetary locator-the sphere detector, as he'd come to think of it. The display was more complex than he'd ever seen it, more cluttered. According to the device, the Flow before the ship was filled with warps and folds in the loomweave-secondary eddies in the paramagnetic gradient, as Zat would style it. On the crystal display, the eddies appeared as knots and vortices in the dull red mesh that was the loomweave, glowing yellow with an intensity that represented their amplitude. Today, the whole display seemed to burn with yellow brilliance.

We're almost there, he told himself.

It had been a long journey from Vistaspace. At first, the Cloakmaster had wanted to drive the nautiloid-renamed the Julia -straight on, following the rippled loomweave to the Broken Sphere without any delay. Djan, however, had eventually convinced him of the need to resupply and rearm. Teldin had resented the holdup, but had to admit to the necessity. At the maximum limit of the ultimate helm's power, he'd driven the Julia through the phlogiston to the crystal sphere of Primespace, where the half-elf knew of a mercantile post near the edge of the system.

Both Teldin and Djan had been a little nervous about cruising up to the outpost in a nautiloid; neither knew what kind of reception illithid vessels could expect in Primespace. As it turned out, their worries were baseless. We probably could just as well have sailed up in a neogi deathspider, the Cloak-master had thought at the time, for all the attention the merchants paid to the nautiloid, and to the contrast between ship type and crew. They'd simply filled the Julia's orders of food and other supplies, accepting without question Teldin's elven letter of credit-the same letter he'd used to buy the Boundless. While the Cloakmaster had supervised stowing the merchandise, Djan had frequented the outpost's bars and hiring halls, selecting new crew members. As the new hires had trooped on board, Teldin had found himself scrutinizing each one closely, as if he could detect in their faces some sign of treachery. Foolishness, of course, he'd told himself; I didn't see anything untoward in the faces of Dargeth or Lucinus.

At the time, he hadn't fully agreed with Djan that they needed to replace the losses in the Boundless's crew. After all, he'd told himself, they'd made it to Primespace without any difficulties, hadn't they?