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?
But when the Julia had set sail again with a crew of fifteen-enough sailors to fully man all the ship's stations- he'd had to admit that it definitely did make life easier. For one thing, among the new hires were two helmsmen to spell Teldin.
Where had T'k'Ress acquired the nautiloid? he'd wondered many times. The ship was equipped with a normal major helm, rather than with the series helm or pool helm typical of illithid vessels. Well, he'd told himself at last, I'll probably never know, and it doesn't matter anyway.
Of course, Teldin still had to use the ultimate helm, in combination with the amulet, to get the planetary locator to function, but at least now the Julia could make headway while he slept.
He was almost at the end of his journey, he told himself. It had taken them more than ninety days to get this far, but they were almost there. He glanced again at the crystal display. Yes, he thought, it can't be much longer now.
With a sigh, he released the power of the cloak and saw the crystal display fade once more to dormancy. He climbed down the ladder from the command deck to the scout deck, and from there to the bridge deck. He headed forward, out onto the broad, wraparound gallery that was the upper battle station. Here were mounted three of the Julia's ballistae-currently unmanned and unloaded, yet still looking severe and lethal silhouetted against the light of the Flow. The Cloakmaster found himself drawn to the forward rail. There he rested his forearms on its top and stared out into the phlogiston.
I've never seen anything this beautiful, he told himself.
The spiral-hulled ship was in the midst of a "pearl cluster." All around it, hanging against the phlogiston backdrop, were crystal spheres-half a dozen of them separated by distances Jess than the diameter of a single sphere. The iridescent surface of each sphere reflected curved, distorted images of other spheres-reflections of reflections of reflections, until it was almost possible to believe the "pearl cluster" was infinite in extent.
Teldin smiled, remembering his reaction-and that of everyone else aboard-when they'd first entered the cluster.
Claustrophobia, bordering on unreasoning terror, had been the order of the day. Passing between colossal crystal spheres that hung in the Void, it seemed that the titanic "pearls" had to fall sooner or later-probably sooner-crushing the infinitesimal speck that was the Julia. Crew members found it almost impossible to step out onto one of the nautiloid's open decks, and even a glance out one of the red-glass portholes would often prompt a fit of shivering. Teldin had found himself glad that the illithid-designed vessel was almost fully enclosed, sheltering its inhabitants from the terrifying spectacle.
The real problem had been the helmsmen-Corontea and Lilith, both human women. When on the helm, the wraparound perception made it impossible for them to ignore the spectacle of the pearl cluster, and the sense of calm that the magical device usually instilled was barely enough to counteract the atavistic terror.
Fortunately that had faded with time-and not that much time either. It was amazing, Teldin mused, just how adaptable humans and demihumans were. In a matter of only a couple of days, the crew had moved from uncontrollable fear of the vista to an equally uncontrollable fascination with it. Most of the off-duty crewmen spent much of their time on the various battle stations or at observation posts, staring out in wonder, and even those who were on duty kept finding excuses to frequent the same places. The Cloakmaster shook his head in wry amusement. And here I am, he reminded himself, doing exactly the same thing.
He drew a deep breath and held it. He ran a quick inventory of his feelings. There were wonder, certainly, and anticipation. But mixed with those emotions was a strong sense of satisfaction.
I'm near, he told himself firmly, near the end of the voyage. Near the end of the quest' Who knew? Even though he wasn't there yet, he had to give himself credit for getting this far. And, even if he were to die tomorrow, he had to admit that it might be worth it just to have seen the pearl cluster from the inside.
He looked around him, for a moment extending the cloak's enhanced perception. This was, truly, a place scaled for the gods. It was easy to forget just how large the "pearls" were, to forget that they were whole crystal spheres that would take a spelljammer months to cross, separated by distances that could be crossed only in days of full-speed travel. In a place such as this, faced with this kind of spectacle, how could anyone consider himself-or his actions-to be significant in the grand scheme? Everyone should see this once in his life, he told himself, just to put it all in perspective.
He felt a presence beside him and glanced to his right. Djan was leaning on the rail with him, an innocent smile of wonder on his face as the half-elf stared out at the vista, it's worth it," his friend said softly, "if only for this."
Teldin Moore nodded his agreement.
*****
Journey's end, the Cloakmaster told himself.
The pearl cluster was twenty-three days behind the Julia-still clearly visible, of course, though now the crystal sphere really did look no larger than pearls. As Teldin's will brought the magical trine-cloak, amulet, and locator-to life, the crystal display was a riot of yellow, so brilliant in places that it burned almost white. This region of the Flow literally churned with folds and ripples in the loomweave- like the echoes of a mighty explosion, Teldin thought, still ringing through the fabric of the universe.