Into the Void

cursed himself for a fool. He'd been so proud of his plan to manipulate Barrab. Now he realized that his cleverness might well kill him. Barrab would make sure that the harbor was watched, and anyone trying to reach the Probe would be detained.

With an effort, Teldin calmed the panicked flow of his thoughts. Barrab's only got four bravos. Three. Rianna's magical fire killed one, didn't it? How close a watch can he keep with three men? he thought.

His relief lasted no more than a heartbeat before logic crushed it. Barrab's got money, he realized, lots of money, if he was staying at the Edgewood. How much would it cost to hire three sellswords, or another score, if that's what he needs? No, Teldin understood, the cordon at the harbor would be as tight as Barrab wanted it to be, plenty tight enough to check every tender that was ferrying people to ships at anchor. If he was caught in that cordon, on his way to the Probe, he'd be detained, possibly killed, whether or not he was disguised.

Then there was the problem that Estriss had put into words when they'd discussed the cloak's powers. There might well be magical means for tracking the cloak. If that were true, then capture certainly spelled disaster, because he definitely couldn't get rid of the cloak.

What could he do? He had to get out of the city somehow. Or he could go to ground, but how would that help in the long run? His only chance of survival was to get the cloak to 'the creators' and have them remove it from his shoulders. Hiding out in Rauthaven-assuming that he could find sanctuary-wouldn't get him any closer to that goal.

He settled back against one wall of the alley and slid down into a sitting position. He stretched his leg out as far as he could-hot too far-and rubbed the damaged knee gently. The pain was still there, and the sense of internal swelling, but at least both were becoming more manageable. Most importantly at the moment, they didn't interfere with his thinking.

All right. The goal, then, was to get the cloak to 'the creators.' From what Estriss had told him, it seemed most likely that the cloak had been created by the arcane. T'k'Pek had claimed the same thing and had shown at least some proof in the form of the tripartite flower on his ring. At the time, Teldin's gut reaction had been not to trust the blue-skinned giant, but now, with the current turn of events, how much faith could he put in as unsubstantiated a feeling as that? Wasn't this just like not buying a horse because you don't like the color of the trader's eyes? Logically, he had no reason to doubt T'k'Pek's words. Everything the creature had told him made sense and was internally consistent. Why should he expect the arcane to instantly and instinctively know every power and attribute of any particular item created by his race?

Teldin felt familiar doubts churning in his stomach, but ruthlessly forced them down. I've got no proof against T'k'Pek's story, he told himself, and some font. I'm not going to get myself killed over a feeling. That was it, then. The cloak had to go to the arcane.

But how? The momentary relief he'd felt from that decision vanished. He still had the major problem: how to avoid Barrab and his bravos while reaching T'k'Pek. The arcane had left the auction as soon as he had acquired the sword he had come for. He probably would have returned immediately to the Nebulon.

How could Teldin reach the ship? There was the ship's boat, the dragonfly, but presumably the first trip up had been arranged through Barrab. Teldin had no way of summoning the craft, of forcing the crew to take him to the Nebulon, or of flying the ship without them.

That left the Probe. The question had come full circle. How could he get to the hammership?

Swim? Maybe, as a last resort. The hammership was anchored a good distance offshore, and Teldin wasn't a particularly strong swimmer…. No, trying to swim would more than likely prove just an uncomfortable method of suicide.

On balance, the only reasonable option was to head for the harbor and hope that he spotted one of the Probe's crew- Aelfred Silverhorn, by choice-before Barrab s men spotted him. Aelfred and Estriss probably still thought that he'd gone to a meeting with T'k'Pek, but wouldn't they wait for him on the seawall? Or at least leave some crewmen to wait for him? There was Rianna-assuming she was still alive, he thought grimly. Would she be looking for him, or would she have gone to ground to save her own life? She loved him, he was sure of that, so he assumed the former, but even if he could make contact with her, could she help him? Thinking logically, if she knew she was helpless, she wouldn't try to make contact until she figured there was some value in the meeting.

Since he was already making so many assumptions, Teldin assumed that Barrab and crew couldn't detect the cloak. If he was wrong on that score, he was dead no matter what he did. A better disguise was in order. He looked down at his clothes. The cloak was already reduced to its smallest dimensions, making it difficult to notice for one who didn't know exactly what to look for. Barrab knew what die rest of his outfit looked like, though, so that had to change.

With a sigh, he struggled back to his feet. Clothes, then, were the first order of business, then the harbor. He looked at the sky. The sun was near the zenith, giving him precious little sense of direction. He shrugged and continued down the alley the same way the derelict had gone. One direction was as good as another, and if he just kept going straight, he'd eventually have to strike a major street.

It wasn't easy to keep straight through the rat's nest of streets and alleys, Teldin quickly found. Gazing down on Rauthaven from the descending Probe, he'd thought that the orderly-looking city must have been laid out by a geometer. If that's the case, he must have done this section on the morning after a major wine binge, Teldin grumbled to himself, or left it to his assistant, who happened to be insane. There seemed to be no rhyme or reason to the arrangement. Mazy streets started with no apparent purpose and ended for no readily discernible reason. There were doors in the low buildings, but no windows.

There, was virtually no one around. Those few people who Teldin spotted looked little better off than the derelict to whom he'd tossed his coin. They all watched him with interest and undisguised hostility-or was that just his paranoia talking?

Whether he was overreacting or not, he decided against asking for directions. What better way to draw attention to myself, he thought with wry amusement, than go up to somebody and ask, 'Excuse me, but how do I get to that big piece of water where they keep all the boats?'

At least his immediate problem solved itself quickly. Laundry habits in this part of town included hanging wet clothes on the sills of windows to dry in the sun. It was a matter of minutes only to snatch a new jerkin from here, a pair of leggings from there, and duck into a noisome alley long enough to put them on.

Eventually, as he knew it would, the winding street he was following disgorged into a major road-not the Processional, but something very much like it. The wide thoroughfare led very noticeably downhill, and he could even see the reflection of sunlight off water in the distance.

For the first time, Teldin was almost thankful for his injured knee. Without it, the temptation to burst from the alley and sprint down to the harbor probably would have proven irresistible. Instead, though, he stayed within the mouth of the alley, looking cautiously left and right. It was near noon, and the street was crowded. That was good. He'd have a much better chance of not being spotted if he could lose himself in a crowd. But, of course, the crowd also made it more difficult for him to spot anyone who was looking for him.

The first step out of the alley's relative safety was the hardest. It took him a minute to get up the nerve, his heartbeat sounding like a drum's tattoo in his ears. He felt drained of energy. Before, in the alleyways, his fear had driven his flight, but now it seemed to sap his will. He took one final deep, calming breath and walked out into the street.

The crowd engulfed him. Hemmed in on all sides with bodies, he felt paranoia and claustrophobia surge within him, but he drove the fears down into the depths of his mind. For a moment he wished for the crystal clarity of thought-and the lack of emotion-that the cloak had bestowed in the past, but it didn't come. He forced himself to walk downhill toward the harbor.

He concentrated on his gait, trying to minimize the limp. His knee burned. In fact, he found that walking downhill, even on this gentle slope, put additional stress on the joint and increased the pain. Paradoxically, he found that the pain helped keep his mind clear. He walked on.

A hundred yards or so downhill, the road widened into a square. Stalls were everywhere around the marketplace and spreading into the central space. Buyers milled around them, and the cries of hawkers filled the air. It was so much like market day at home that his throat tightened with sudden homesickness. He forced himself to keep walking.