CassaRoc shrugged. "Same as before. He'll be fine tomorrow, they say. My healer does wonders with burn salves and poultices."
"Good." Teldin pulled his cloak around him. "I think I'll head to my quarters soon. I'm going to stop in on Djan first, and see how he's feeling."
CassaRoc smiled. "Good man. Sleep well, Teldin. You need a good night's sleep after all you've been through."
Teldin left the meeting room as CassaRoc joined his band of warriors in drinks. He climbed the tower stairs to Djan's tiny room, which seemed only slightly larger than a storage closet and held only a narrow bunk and a small table, where half-empty vials of potions and creams had been left by CassaRoc's healers. Dim light from the phlogiston was the room's only illumination, glowing through a small window in one wall.
Teldin could see that his half-elf friend was in pain. Sweat beaded across Djan's pale brow, and his sheets, tangled uncomfortably around his body, were stained with sweat.
Teldin drew the sheets free and pulled them carefully up to Djan's neck. His friend's eyes flickered as Teldin bent over him, then slowly opened. "Teldin…" he whispered. "I'm here."
"How… the crash…"
"Don't talk now," Teldin said. "We survived, and the healers say you're going to be fine by tomorrow. You'll be a little stiff, but you'll be up and fighting." He smiled, hoping that his friend would not see through his bravado.
Djan's eyes closed. Teldin thought he had gone to sleep again, but suddenly Djan's eyes snapped open again. He whispered, "Corontea…?"
Teldin turned away. Djan and Corontea had become close friends on the journey to the Broken Sphere, and he did not want to hurt Djan again with news of Corontea's death. "The healers say you have to sleep. That's the only way these potions will work. That's an order, first mate. Now, you have to rest."
Djan grabbed Teldin's arm. The grip was weak, and his normally pale flesh seemed white, almost translucent. Teldin looked down. Their eyes met for a moment, then Djan's face seemed to sag, as though in defeat, and the half-elf turned away.
Teldin felt he could say nothing. They sat in silence until Djan said softly, "I heard the guards as I was brought here."
Teldin watched him.
"Our coming was foretold. The Cloakmaster."
"I've heard it," Teldin said. "Now, get to- "
"They said, 'The Cloakmaster brings death. The legends of the beholders are true.' "
The Cloakmaster placed his hand on his friend's. "Never place much faith in legends. People have a tendency of making their own fears come true."
Djan faced him with teary eyes. "I don't listen to legends such as that. It is the fact they knew you were coming. The Cloakmaster. And coming for a reason."
"And?"
"Teldin. Can't you feel it? This is your destiny. This is your purpose. We are supposed to be here. Verenthestae.''
Djan's eyes flickered shut, and Teldin sat on the edge of the bed as Djan fell asleep. He then rose and opened the door. In the light angling from the corridor, he saw Djan's chest rising evenly in peaceful sleep.
Teldin closed the door. "Damn," he said. "Damn."
He climbed the tower steps to his meager quarters, where he commanded his cloak to shrink to a thin necklace, and he removed his clothes and prepared for bed. CassaRoc was right. The day had been damned hard and exceedingly strange. His quest had taken him farther than he had ever expected, and it had forced him to grow in directions that had before seemed inconceivable.
He lay across his bunk and pulled a light blanket over him. The glimmer from the phlogiston flickered through his single small porthole, across the opposite wall. It was just dim enough to let him fall asleep quickly and easily.
He was standing, naked, looking down at the bunk, where his body lay sleeping. He saw the line of the cloak wrapped at the base of his neck, the amulet a dark talisman below that.
The amulet.
He realized that his chest was glowing, and he looked down at his astral body. The outline of the amulet, pulsating with golden light, was imprinted on his chest. The three-pointed symbol burned coldly and flickered against the darker image of the amulet's mysterious pattern, woven like veins across Teldin's ethereal flesh.
His dream self traced one of the lines of the amulet, and he heard the Spelljammer's voice in his head, a high, keening song that echoed with immense age, immense sorrow.
His quarters disappeared from around him. He was floating in the cold blackness of wildspace, in a sphere he had never before seen. Here the stars burned with their own inner fires around the circumference of the sphere, and he could feel the eighteen planets lazily circling the huge yellow star at the center.
— Aeyenna.
He knew the star's name as though he had been born there, and he knew that he was looking untold millennia into the past, at the One Egg, the Cosmic Egg, the Broken Sphere.
— Ouiyan.
He laughed out loud; he could feel the echoes of his own voice, laughing in his sleep, somewhere in a bunk yet to be dreamed of. He laughed, for the wildspace of the sphere known long ago as Ouiyan was filled with a million swimmers, singing high, sweet songs of peace and freedom. Teldin swam among them, pushing himself through space with his small wings, and he knew he was one with them, seeing through their eyes.
Tfrespaakiil migrated from planet to planet, star to star, living in harmony with the humans and other creatures inhabiting the planets below. The manta race was looked upon as something holy, and their sentience was revered among the people of Ouiyan, who respected the swimmers' intelligence and their simple philosophy of benevolence and love.
Then a great shadow fell across the worlds and rfeespaakiil scattered across the sphere in horror. He felt their terror screaming through his bones as, one by one, his brethren were butchered, and the peoples of Ouiyan were decimated by forces they could not understand.
The spaakiil met together between the stars. A fleet of ships sailed with them, and in a thunderous explosion of unharnessed, magical energy…
Someone called him. The amulet shone at his neck, calling.
He was running. The floor was the maze engraved in the amulet, and he tivisted around corners, following the narrow walls and the fleeting shadow that hovered just out of his vision.
Teldin!
He stopped suddenly. Cwelanas stood nude before him. She was radiant, her silver hair flowing down her shoulders. She beckoned to him. He took one step- Teldin! — and stopped.
Cwelanas came to him, reached for him with one soft hand, and ran a finger down his chest.
Her hair caught fire. Her finger glowed where she touched the sigil imprinted on his chest, and her face, her body, was seared away in a blast of light.
Then it was Gaye standing before him, the kender who loved him, whom he had left with the fal One Six Nine millions of miles away. She glowed with an inner fire, like a being of raw power. Her dark eyes danced with golden fire, and her youthful appearance seemed infused with a neu? awareness, one of newly found purpose. Her long black hair swam around her head as though it were alive, and her robes, tied at her waist with a belt woven with golden symbols, flowed about her.
His love for her washed over him in a warm embrace, and he saw for the first time how much she resembled Cwelanas. Then she spoke, but her words were distant, a whisper on the winds of dream.
He cocked his head. Gaye shouted, but the dream wind scattered her words as though they were pieces of broken feathers.
She floated before him and stretched out her hand. She placed her palm upon the design on his chest, and he heard her words in his head, though she did not speak.
Three things you must understand, Cloakmaster, three things that I cannot explain.
The closest are not what they seem.