There were three of them, slender shapes slightly taller than Teldin's almost-six-foot height. Each creature had a smooth cylindrical body supported by three legs arranged evenly around the bottom of the torso. The legs looked flexible, with more joints and better articulation than a human limb, and ended in broad, soft-looking feet with three long toes. From two-thirds of the way up the body sprouted three more limbs-arms, Teldin labeled them, though they seemed boneless, more like muscular tentacles. Overall, each tentacle was about six feet long. Halfway along its length, each tentacle split into three, and each of those split again into three. The nine tips, each more slender and delicate than a child's finger, were in constant motion, writhing and twisting in complex patterns. Above each tentacle was mounted a single large eye, as big across as the span of Teldin's palm. The eyes were all bright gold, catching and reflecting the light of the hurtling mini-suns, with black, three-lobed pupils in their centers. The creatures wore no clothes of any kind and had no hair. They were covered in smooth skin, a pale yellow-cream color, that showed a satinlike sheen in the bright light. Teldin guessed each creature weighed about as much as an adult human, if not slightly more, but they moved with a grace and delicacy that made him think they were weightless.
The Cloakmaster gaped at them in wonder. He "heard" Estriss's mental voice speaking in his memory, describing the mysterious creatures he'd dedicated his life to following. They had a trilateral symmetry, the mind flayer had told him. Three legs, three arms… Like a xorn or a tirapheg, but unlike both. For an instant, he remembered holding the grip of the Juna knife that Estriss had given him, recalled the feel of the strange channels and ridges against his palm. At the time he'd known the grip had been designed for manipulative organs very different from human hands. Now he looked at the weaving, nine-tipped tentacles of the creatures, felt a strange stirring of… not quite familiarity, but certainly a hint of recognition.
Are these the Juna?
The instant the three creatures emerged into the light, they stopped dead in their tracks. As surprised to see us as we are to see them, Teldin thought.
Maybe they're surprised that we survived their magical onslaught…. The Cloakmaster braced himself for some kind of hostile response.
But no attack came. For a few of his racing heartbeats, he watched as the three-legged creatures remained totally still, even their tentacle tips motionless. Then the tentacles resumed their weaving. They were moving faster, he thought, jerkier, more anxiously-or was that his own mind reading an inappropriate meaning into something totally different? Slowly, almost cautiously, the creatures turned around their central axes-one third of a circle at a time, pointing one eye after another at Teldin and the others. Only when each creature had scrutinized the humans and demihumans with all three of its eyes did one of them start forward in a strange, crablike gait.
Teldin felt Dargeth and Anson tense beside him, readying their weapons, and saw the lines of the beholder's disguise start to shift like water. "No," he said, his voice pitched barely above a whisper. "Let's not do anything hasty." Obediently, Beth-Abz resumed its disguised form, and the crewmen lowered their weapons. Still, however, the Cloakmaster could feel their tension radiating from them in waves. If I can sense it, he wondered, looking at the trilaterals, can they? And, if so, how will they interpret it?
He watched as the single trilateral-already he found himself considering it the leader, or at least the spokesperson- approached. It moved slower than a walking man, though Teldin couldn't shake the feeling that it could sprint much faster if it had to. Its motions were less graceful, less sure, than it had appeared before it had sensed the presence of the strangers. Although it showed none of the emotional cues that were normal to demihumanity, Teldin strongly suspected it was anxious, if not downright fearful. He frowned slightly. That didn't make any sense. Anxiety in the face of four humans fit his image of the Juna about as badly as… as fear did his perception of the Spelljammer, he concluded. Yet hadn't he sometimes felt fear, when he'd eavesdropped on the great ship's perceptions through the amulet?
He shook his head, forcing those thoughts away from his mind. Worry about the Spelljammer later, he told himself. I've got enough to think about here and now.
The trilateral stopped thirty feet away from the crewmen. While the eye itself remained motionless, Teldin could see the three-lobed pupil opening and closing in precise, almost mechanical gradations-presumably scrutinizing the two figures standing in front of the creature. After a few seconds, it edged a couple of feet closer, then stopped again. The Cloakmaster waited for almost half a minute, but the creature didn't move again. Neither did it make a sound, or try to communicate. It just stood there, its tentacle tips writhing like baskets of snakes.
I suppose it's my turn, he told himself. Taking a deep breath in an effort to calm himself, he stepped forward, between Beth-Abz and Dargeth, toward the creature. Stopping twenty feet in front of the creature, he opened his hands to show them empty.
It watched him in utter silence, its only movement the rapid opening and closing of its pupil.
Without warning, Teldin felt a warm pulse of power from the cloak at his back. The back of his neck tingled, and the sensation-almost like a slight jolt of static electricity- spread up his spine and into his brain…
And he could suddenly sense and interpret the trilateral's thoughts, a confusing mix of concepts and emotions blended with symbols for which Teldin's mind had no referents.
This one [interest] partial crippled [surprise-pity] incomplete!
Teldin staggered backward a step under the impact- almost painful-of the creature's thoughts. If Estriss's mental voice had been the "volume" of normal speech, this unexpected rush of thoughts was more like a full-throated yell. As he regained his balance, in his peripheral vision he saw Julia and Djan running to help him. He waved them back. "I'm all right," he told them. "Everything's okay."
Then he turned back to the trilateral and took another slow step toward it. "I mean you no harm," he said calmly, trusting to the cloak to convert his words into something the creature could understand. Around his shoulders, the cloak pulsed and throbbed with power. It suddenly struck him that this was the most complex translation task to which he'd ever put the ultimate helm, and it was pushing the powerful item to its limits. "I wish to talk to you."
The trilateral jerked as though it had been whipped or stung. Lightning fast, it pivoted around to focus a different eye on Teldin. Its thoughts flooded out and into the Cloak-master's mind, filtered through the cloak to a more bearable psychic "volume."
This [shock] animal talks [amazement]. Yet not [disbelief] cannot be. Cannot be intelligent. Mistake [certainty].
Teldin almost smiled. He could understand the creature's denial all too well. Before the reigar's ship had crashed on his farm, if some strange apparition that didn't match his image of how an intelligent creature "should" look had spoken to him, he'd probably have denied it and dismissed it as some kind of mistake or hoax. He took another slow step forward.
"It's not a mistake," he said quietly, and felt the cloak processing his meaning. "I can understand you, and I can speak. I am intelligent. Different, but still intelligent."
The trilateral pivoted again to give its third eye a view. It was "silent" for a long time-processing his words, Teldin thought. Then it edged a couple of steps closer.
Not mistake [doubt-fear]? Incomplete animal [wonder] talks. Where from, incomplete animal?