The Maelstrom Eye

Gomja nodded with satisfaction. 'Prepare to fire!' he said, raising his crossbow once again.

Teldin aimed and thought he saw something coming at him from the scorpion. The object flashed by-and a moment later cracked as it broke against the deck. A half-dozen or more other missiles also slammed into the ship. A gnome to Teldin's left gave an agonized cry and fell over the railing, gone. The other gnomes gasped in horror.

'Steady!' Gomja said in a commanding voice. 'Now, fire!'

Teldin looked down the sights of his crossbow-and felt a peculiar clarity of thought. Time slowed down. It's about time the cloak started working again! Teldin thought jubilantly.

Teldin's senses were now sharpened to nearly unbearable levels. Suddenly he saw the scorpion ship as if it were only twenty yards away instead of hundreds. He heard odd noises, the tiny sounds of the joints in his body moving and the rush of blood in his ears. He smelled his own sweat, the unwashed bodies of the gnomes, the heavy scent of the giff, even the aroma of the wood of his crossbow. He was drowning in a torrent of sensations.

He held the crossbow steady, quickly selecting a target: an ogre crewing a ballista on the scorpion's main deck, below the ship's upraised tail. Teldin fixed the ogre's face in the sights, then squeezed the trigger. The crossbow released its bolt with a lazy thump.

Time returned to normal. The flood of sensations died. Teldin lowered the crossbow and tried to see what he'd done, but the scorpion ship was too far away.

Teldin turned to say something to Gomja, but a bright light from the bow of the ship distracted him. The titanic whirlpool on the crystal sphere was right on them. The ship was flying through the center of it, into a pure blue sky.

Teldin gaped. The giff and several of the gnomes saw the sight, too, and stopped moving.

Directly ahead of the Perilous Halibut, in the midst of the blue sea, was a huge, bright yellowish-white star. Teldin could look at it directly for only a second before shielding his eyes. It appeared to be twice as large as other suns he had seen. At the same moment, Teldin had a peculiar feeling that everything was slowing down. He realized the ship had dropped to tactical speed. What was going on? he wondered. The ship behind them wasn't within range to do that!

'Oh, wow!' came Gaye's voice, directly behind Teldin. 'Oh, wow, it's beautiful!'

Teldin looked back, startled to hear her voice-and a blast of wind hit him from the bow, building rapidly in strength. Teldin staggered and crouched low, then grabbed the railing, as did almost everyone else. Bolts and weapons stacked on the deck swiftly blew away, falling behind the ship in a shower, few crossbows and shields were lost as well, but fortunately none of the gnomes. Three gnomes clung to the deck ballista. Gomja merely stood firm, hunched down a bit as the white lapels and flaps on his uniform snapped in the wind.

Teldin could hardly believe it-they'd entered an atmosphere upon entering the crystal sphere! No wonder they were at tactical speed. The ship's speed continued to drop, allowing a degree of movement on the deck, though Teldin hardly trusted himself to stand. He looked aft again-and saw the inside of the crystal sphere they had just entered.

The scene behind them could have come straight from his homeland on Krynn. He looked down on an endless green countryside, lined with roads and checked with cultivated fields and clusters of small houses. Forests stretched away to all sides, with a few round lakes dotting the landscape.

There was no sign of the portal, however. No phlogiston. No scorpion ship. Just grassy hills and a dirt road.

Teldin gaped, unable to imagine what had happened.

People lived on the inside of the sphere itself.

'I've never seen anything like this.' Gaye sighed, her eyes as big as cartwheels as she clung to the low railing. She stared aft again, then gasped. 'It's a gate! Here they come!'

Teldin looked back and saw, for the briefest moment, a huge, circular opening into the phlogiston around the scorpion ship. Then the gateway vanished, and the scorpion ship was driving up from the ground to catch them in the air.

Not only did people live on the inside of this crystal sphere, Teldin realized, but they would never be disturbed by entering vessels. The ships must have been gated past the crystal sphere and directly inside it. But then how did anyone ever get out of this sphere?

'Shields up, if you've got them!' Gomja bellowed. 'Helm, turn us over!'

Teldin thrust all other questions aside. 'Get back below!' he said, suddenly realizing Gaye's danger. 'How'd you get up here, anyway?' He reached out to grab her and force her back below, noticing an open hatchway in the vertical 'shark's fin' of the ship. So that was it.

Gaye squirmed out of his reach and ran against the wind toward the bow. Teldin started to give chase, then gave up. If she wanted to stay outside and get shot, it wasn't his problem.

He looked back just as the black ship began rotating. Suddenly he saw the tail catapult on the scorpion fire again. The rock it hurled was right on target.

'Flatten!' Gomja cried, ignoring his own advice. 'Hang on to the railing!'

The Perilous Halibut continued to rotate. Teldin threw himself flat again, eyes fixed on the rock as it came at him- and flew by to the left by a matter of twenty feet at most. Teldin felt his stomach churn with terror.

'Jettison!' Gomja shouted. 'Jettison away!'

There was a deep thumping sound that ran throughout the ship, and a spray of metallic shards and debris was launched from the rear port of the ship, spreading out in a glittering cloud as it flew toward the scorpion. Teldin noticed no major change to the orcish ship itself as the jettison struck home; the scorpion was now close enough that he could see the shrapnel bounce off its hull. He saw no casualties being taken by the shot, however. Then the scorpion vanished below the deck's 'horizon,' hidden by the Perilous Halibut's own mass in case the ores fired again.

'Stand by to repel boarders!' Gomja was now reloading his huge crossbow. A few of the gnomes managed to load their crossbows while clinging to the railing at the same time. 'On my command, when we rotate the ship again, fire at the enemy crew, then draw your weapons and fight as we come alongside! Cut all ropes launched over to us! Use your size against your foe! Take no prisoners!'

Teldin tried to ready his own crossbow, but he had no bolts left near him; they'd all been blown away. He waited in a half crouch with his long cloak flapping around him. The twenty or so gnomes were obviously nervous and afraid, but they clutched their weapons and stole glances at the resolute figure of the giff as he towered over them, crossbow at the ready in one hand and long sword drawn in the other.

'Helm!' Gomja cried. 'Rotate and pull alongside the scorpion before our gravity fields match up!'

There was silence then, except for the roaring wind. The few gnomes who had managed to hold on to their crossbows rested them against the railing and aimed them in different directions, unsure of which direction the ship would rotate. Teldin had the presence of mind to look for Gaye, and he saw her on the bow, clutching the railing there. He saw, too, that she held a short pole in one hand. The stick was as long as she was tall. Now, where did she get that? She hadn't even been able to say how she'd hidden the thingfinder on her person weeks ago, on Ironpiece. That was a kender for you.

The ship rotated counterclockwise. The scorpion would come up on Teldin's side. He dropped the useless crossbow and freed one hand from the railing. His cloak once had enabled him to cast a curtain of energy before him that protected him during a fight. He had an inspiration, and now wanted to see if the cloak could turn that energy into a weapon. Could he fire magical missiles or bolts from his fingertips? No other weapon was left to him. If the cloak couldn't obey his commands, he'd be dead very soon. He concentrated on the image of a magical bolt of energy, keeping his fingers extended.

The scorpion ship came up into view. Its deck was full of black-armored figures with long poles in their hands. Some had ropes. Some had crossbows themselves, but the high wind made it difficult to aim them. Draped over the side railing was the body of an ogre, an arrow protruding from its forehead. I did that, thought Teldin.

'Fire!' Gomja roared, his crossbow snapping loudly.

One of the orcs dropped when Gomja fired. Another fell with a gnome's bolt in him. The orcs fired back, and two gnomes were hit; one fell from the ship and vanished. Teldin concentrated as hard as he could, putting his whole mind in his fingertips. Just like hitting the ogre, he thought.

Power bloomed inside him. He felt he would burst with it. It burned as it ran through his veins, filling him like a