He shook his head. His battle dolphin against a squid ship was normally a much closer fight than he liked. Smaller, less maneuverable, and worse-armed vessels were much more tempting targets. Even though Berglund was a good tactician, there was always the chance of losing such a well-matched battle. Yet the mystery man had said that had been taken care of, too….
A final time he read the section describing how the enemy captain was to be treated. Bound hand and foot, blind-folded, and gagged-that he could understand. But kept unconscious throughout the entire return voyage, even if that meant risking his captive's life through repeated blows to the head? There definitely was more to this mission than he knew.
Still, he supposed, he who pays the piper calls the tune. And this piper was very well paid indeed.
*****
The crew's even better than I expected, Teldin Moore thought. Although the revelation that Beth-Abz was a beholder shocked the crew members down to their very cores, their outward reactions had been calmer than the Cloakmaster would have thought possible. There'd been no hysteria, no outrage, and-Teldin's greatest unspoken fear-no hint that anyone was considering mutiny.
Certainly, the crew had treated the beholder with fear at first, shying away from it whenever it appeared, as though it would vaporize them at any moment. But within only a few days, their reactions had started to change. Fear had faded and quickly become respect. Crewmen still stepped well back when Beth-Abz floated across the main deck or entered the galley, but the wide eyes and grimaces of terror were gone. It hasn't killed me so far, each crew member seemed to think, so why should it now… as long as I don't give it a reason?
For the first week after the revelation, nobody had talked with the beholder, probably because they just didn't know what to say. Teldin, Julia, and Djan-who took the whole matter in stride, as if sailing with an eye tyrant were an everyday thing-had gone out of their way to be seen treating Beth-Abz no differently than the rest of the crew. They'd greeted the creature in the same way they would anyone else, and chatted idly with him whenever they happened to have similar duties.
The example hadn't been missed by the crew. At first cautiously, and then more freely, other members of the Boundless complement had taken to striking up conversations- albeit very brief ones-with the spherical creature. Teldin had known the campaign to integrate Beth-Abz with the rest of the crew was won when he'd wandered into the saloon one graveyard watch and found the beholder trading travelers' tales with a handful of off-duty sailors. When he'd heard them break into laughter together-the harsh, coughing sounds of the beholder's mirth mixing with human chuckles-he'd been amazed.
"I can't believe it," he'd told Djan the next morning, after describing what he'd experienced. "The credit's all yours for picking good spacers."
The half-elf had shaken his head. "No," he'd corrected Teldin, placing a hand on the captain's shoulder, "I think the credit's yours. They trust you, Teldin. They trust your judgment, and they want to sail with you. If a beholder in the crew's mess is acceptable to you, then it's acceptable to them."
In his familiar position on the afterdeck, Teldin shook his head. Everybody's always so keen to trust me, he thought. Sometimes I think I'm the last person they should trust… if they want to stay alive, at least. He took a deep breath and forced the thoughts from his mind. He knew all too well that they'd be back, however.
"Portal ahead, Captain." Djan's voice rang out, echoing hollowly through the speaking tube the half-elf had installed running up the mizzenmast from the helm compartment to the afterdeck. "Slowing to tactical speed."
Teldin stamped on the deck once-the agreed-upon signal for "message received and acknowledged." Then he waved to Julia, who stood on the forecastle by the mainmast.
"Crew aloft," the copper-haired second mate called. "Rig for portal passage. Flow stations. Extinguish all flames." On her order, four crewmen scurried up the ratlines, while twice as many more on the main deck hauled on lines to trim the rigging. Still others scoured the ship, putting out torches and braziers, so as not to ignite the volatile phlogiston once the ship passed through the portal.
The Cloakmaster felt the motion of the ship change as it decelerated-from about three hundred leagues each heartbeat, to less than a spear cast-and the strange winds of wildspace filled the sails. A lot of trouble just to pass through a portal, Teldin groused to himself. The other times he'd passed through a sphere portal-except for obvious special cases such as Herdspace-the ship had done so at full spelljamming speed, without any ill effects.
But Djan had been adamant. "The permanent portals of Heartspace aren't like any others anywhere in the universe," the half-elf had told him firmly. "The very fact that they're permanent tells you that. You might be able to blow on through at full speed, and live to tell about it, but then you might find yourself thrown totally out of control, with no steering and no helm command, and no way to bring the ship back to an even keel. Hundreds of ships have died in or near Heartspace because their masters were overconfident."
Teldin had considered telling Djan about his own entry into the crystal sphere-in the Fool he'd come in at full speed, not knowing any of the risks-and he'd been fine. But then he'd remembered that the tiny Fool was under the control of the ultimate helm at the time, and that could well have made a difference. Rather than making an issue of it, he'd gone along with his first mate's recommendations.
He could see the portal ahead now. As always, he found his sense of perspective thrown off by the view. Even though he knew the inner surface of the Heartspace sphere was only a score of leagues away, the black backdrop of space looked very little different. Granted, there were no stars-his field of view encompassed only a gap between stars-but he still experienced the sense of gazing into infinity that he always felt when he looked into space. The crystal sphere showed no detail and no texture-nothing to give him any due as to its proximity or distance.
The portal itself, now that was a different matter. It seemed to hang in space in front of the Boundless-a totally fallacious image, he knew, but one he couldn't shake. It appeared to be a huge disk, with a diameter several times he length of the squid ship, showing the myriad curdled colors of the Flow. Outlining the disk was a shimmering margin that reminded Teldin of the heat lightning he'd sometimes seen during the summer storms in Ansalon. The portal appeared to expand slowly as the Boundless crept forward.
"Crew down," Julia called. "Lookout aloft."
Teldin watched as all but one of the ratline crew slid down ropes to the deck. The one remaining sailor-Merrienne, a young woman not yet out of her teens, with long blond hair gathered up in a bun-crawled into the crow's nest atop the mainmast. "Portal ahead," she sang out in a clear, ringing voice-more to confirm that she was in position, Teldin thought, than to tell anyone something they didn't already know.
Djan joined the Cloakmaster atop the sterncastle, swinging up the steep ladder as if he'd been born on ship. Flashing a quick smile at his captain, he positioned himself near the speaking tube. "Ready to pass the portal," he told Teldin. "Be ready. Sometimes it can be a little rough." As though to confirm his words, he spread his feet into a broad, stable stance and steadied himself with a hand on the mizzenmast.
Teldin still remembered his uneventful entry into Heart-space. But, better safe than sorry, he told himself. He took a firm grip on the port rail.
"Crew ready," Julia ordered.
The Boundless nosed into the portal.