"Blossom wants to know what course to set," Julia announced.
The Cloakmaster was silent for a few moments. Then, "Tell her to take us out the way we came in," he decided, "That'll do for the moment. I need to talk some things over with you and Djan."
*****
Teldin stared fixedly out of the Boundless's starboard "eye" port, as if looking for an answer to his questions in the unrelieved blackness of wildspace. Behind him he heard Djan shift uncomfortably in his chair.
"You don't know where to go next," the half-elf said quietly, is that it?"
The Cloakmaster nodded wordlessly.
"The People didn't know where the Juna disappeared to?" Julia asked.
"No," Teldin replied. "Message Bearer said they're just gone."
"But they did mention the Broken Sphere," Djan reminded him.
"Yes," Teldin agreed, "but they didn't say anything meaningful about where it is. Just that it's 'at the center of all things,' and 'between the pearl clusters' or something. Does that mean anything to either of you?" He turned his back on the porthole to look at his friends.
Djan shook his head. "That sounds like myths I've heard in the past," he said, "about the First Sphere, the Cosmic Egg."
The Cloakmaster nodded. "Me, too," he agreed, remembering what he'd read in the Great Archive on Crescent.
"There was nothing new?" the first mate asked.
"Only that the People link the Spelljammer with the Broken Sphere," Teldin said, "and with the Juna. But I've heard both those connections before."
"And it doesn't help anyway," Djan concluded. "People have been looking for the First Sphere for a long time and they've never found it. What are the odds that we'd be the first?"
Teldin glanced over at Julia, saw the pensive expression on her face. "What is it?" he asked. "Did you think of something?"
She looked up, a little surprised to be jolted out of her reverie. "Probably not," she said slowly, "it's probably nothing…" She smiled self-deprecatingly. "But… you said something about 'pearl clusters,' didn't you?" The Cloak-master nodded. "Well, from the Flow, crystal spheres often look like pearls, don't they?"
"So?" Teldin wanted to know.
"So, what if there's somewhere in the universe where the crystal spheres are very close together?" she suggested. "Where they look like clusters of pearls? Maybe that's where you'll find the Broken Sphere."
A half-forgotten memory tugged at Teldin's consciousness. What was it… ?
Then it came back to him. It was an image he'd seen through the perceptions of the Spelljammer via the amulet, while he was cruising in the Ship of Fools to the world of Crescent. An image of half a dozen crystal spheres so tightly packed that some were separated by less than the diameter of a single sphere-gathered together against the backdrop of the Flow like a cluster of gargantuan, magical pearls….
Excitement washed over him like a wave. Breathlessly, he described the image to his friends. "Is there any place like that on the charts?" he asked.
His excitement turned into depression again as he saw them both shake their heads. "Not on any charts I've seen," Djan answered for both of them. "Maybe it's on some specialized chart somewhere, but most of the charts you can buy show only the important 'known' spheres, the ones that are on standard trade routes." He laid a hand on the Cloak-master's shoulder in commiseration. "I'm sorry. I wish I could tell you different."
Teldin looked at his friends with empty eyes. "Then I've got nowhere to go," he said quietly.
Chapter Nine
Teldin felt drained, physically exhausted. He slumped into a chair and lowered his head into his hands.
What now? he asked himself. Where do I turn? What do I do?
This was the first time he really had no clues, no leads to follow. Since that first night, the night the spelljammer had smashed his farmhouse and set his life on a new course, he'd always had some goal to pursue. At first it had simply been escape. Then it was the gnomish port within Mount Nevermind. Then the arcane on Toril, followed by the elves of Evermeet, the fal of Herdspace, and on and on, until finally it was the forbidden world of Nex. There'd always been something to go after next, something to keep him going…
Until now. The Juna were gone from the universe, or might as well be, for all the chance Teldin had of ever finding them. The Broken Sphere was… somewhere in the infinite universe, but he had no usable clues to lead him toward it.
So what was he to do now? What? What course was he to instruct the helmsman to set?
Where was the Cloakmaster to go now?
It was a terrifying, overwhelming sensation, this aimlessness. For so long, he'd been following a path. It had been a twisting, cryptic one, granted, and often one that he had lit-
He desire to follow, but now there was nothing. He felt as if he'd been set adrift on the trackless ocean, given no map and no instruments, no way of charting a course.
Since the beginning of his quest, he'd been wishing for freedom. Wasn't that what he had now? And, if so, why was it so traumatic?
But this isn't freedom, is it? he asked himself. The cloak still exists; I still wear it. And the enemies who've been after me from the outset are still out there, searching for me. No matter what I do to hide myself, they'll eventually find me.
That was the difference, he decided; that was where much of the anxiety came from. Before, the fact that he was being hunted had been almost secondary. He was being active. Now he had no choice but be reactive, responding to the actions of others.
No. He felt some deep, basic part of himself rebel, strive against the depression that weighed him down. No, he thought again, I still have options. I'm still the master of my own destiny. So I've met an obstacle; I've met obstacles before, and I've never let them stop me. What's so over-whelming about this one?
He had the Boundless, which represented freedom to move. He had the amulet, which gave him access to the Spelljammer's perceptions. He had friends and allies around him. He had options. His major obstacle, he decided, was an unwillingness to explore those options.
Take the amulet, for example. As a matter of course, throughout the voyage, he'd been using the artifact, hoping to sense something that he recognized through the Spelljammer's strange perceptions, something that would give him a clue about the Spelljammer's location. So far he hadn't seen anything useful, but there was always the next time, wasn't there, and then the time after that? Eventually he'd have to see something that would give him some guidance.
Why not now, for instance?
He raised his head and looked at his two friends. Neither had moved. Both were watching him, their expressions showing how they empathized with his pain, but they respected his privacy too much to interfere.
I have friends, he reminded himself again. And that was the most empowering thought of all. He felt new energy flow through him, felt a broad smile spread across his face. As he watched, his friends echoed that smile-a little more tentatively-though they couldn't have known what was going through his mind.
"I'm trying the amulet again," he told them. He reached down to his belt pouch and extracted the bronze disk. The smooth metal felt heavy in his hands. Pregnant with possibilities? he wondered. He ran his thumb over the smooth surface, felt it slightly warm-from its proximity to his body heat, or for some other reason?