The Maelstrom Eye

*****

After two hours of traveling straight up, Teldin could see that the footprint shape of the lake was much clearer. His sinuses clearing up at last, he stared out of his cabin porthole, feeling a curious sense of deja vu. Hadn't he done this before? He had the feeling that someone was about to enter his cabin, but he shrugged off the feeling and concentrated on the view. He guessed that they were about seventy miles up.

Loomfinger was on the helm for now. Sylvie had slept badly the night before, and she was so exhausted that she could not be awakened. Aelfred had made the helm substitution so the ship could get on its way as soon as possible. With enough altitude, Aelfred hoped the ship's speed would increase regardless of who ran it. Then, too, if they had to find a beast like the one that had made those unbelievable footprints, they would need all the altitude they could get.

Someone knocked on Teldin's door. Gaye, he thought, not quite sure why he believed it was her. He heaved a sigh and left the bed, walking over to his door. He crouched as he opened it, to avoid banging his head on the door frame.

'Ah, Teldin!' cried Dyffed. 'Just the man I wanted to see, and here I am, seeing you!' The gnome gave a hearty chuckle. Dyffed had not changed his clothes in the last month; his brown tweed suit was fraying apart at the elbows, his lime-green shirt was a lifeless green-brown, and his bright yellow tie was decorated with hundreds of food stains.

Maybe seeing Gaye wouldn't have been such a bad idea, Teldin thought. 'What do you want?' he asked tiredly.

'Miss Gaeadrelle Goldring informs me that you have the thingfinder!' Seeing Teldin's blank expression, the gnome hurried on. 'The thingfinder! Smallish crimson box, about so big, which I thought I had lost when the hamsters got loose but which Miss Gaeadrelle Goldring says she found and took with her when we left Ironpiece, then-'

'I've got it,' Teldin said, leaving the door open to walk back to his bed. He reached down and opened a drawer in a bedside dresser, then pulled out the red box. He gave it to Dyffed. 'I forgot all about it. Forgive me for that.'

The bald gnome inspected the box, then gave Teldin a glowing smile. 'Marvelous-it's in perfect shape! You've taken excellent care of it, not what I would have expected from someone not born to the rigors and demands of science and technology, the exacting care that they-oops.' He gingerly withdrew and pocketed a broken gear fragment from the open back of the box. 'Do hope that wasn't important,' he muttered. He looked up at Tel Jin again, the incident forgotten. 'As I was saying, let's be off!'

'Off where?' Teldin asked cautiously.

'Why, off to find the fal, of course!' announced the gnome, as if the goal had been perfectly obvious from the start. 'We'll go topside and swing our little thingfinder around and see what thing we find!'

Teldin looked down at the red box as if it were a live serpent. He remembered the way the gnomes with Dyffed had ducked when it was pointed in their direction, back in the hangar on Ironpiece. 'Is that thing dangerous to use?'

'Dangerous? You mean dangerous?' The gnome appeared astonished. 'Why, not at all. It's perfectly safe. There's not a thing it could do to harm either of us. At least, not that I know of. I mean, my colleagues on Ironpiece had made only this one model, and they hadn't had time to properly test it, but they gave me their utmost assurances that nothing could go wrong, nothing that they could possibly imagine. It's as safe as the Bank of Ironpiece, Reorx bless it.' The gnome chewed his lower lip. 'But I guess I shouldn't say that now, should I. How fast they go. The bank had experienced some difficulties, but no one had thought…'

Five minutes later, the two were on the top deck. The wind wasn't particularly troublesome because the gnome at the helm couldn't give the spelljammer the speed that the more-experienced wizard Sylvie could, but Teldin still kept his cloak reduced to necklace length to keep it from flapping against him. He suddenly felt queazy about approaching the low railing around the top deck while the ship was in flight. The suddenness with which the ship had entered Herdspace and the excitement of the earlier air battle had negated all his nervousness before; now the situation was very different. He kept low, reaching the railing and sitting down next to it with one leg against a railing post for additional support.

There were few clouds around. Teldin remembered how clear the sky had been that morning, and he wondered if the weather was merely going through a pleasant period or if this was the natural state of things. With luck, they wouldn't be in this crystal sphere long enough to find out.

Dyffed had no qualms about being on the top deck, and he peered over the side of the ship to the ground, now many miles below them. Teldin almost closed his eyes, not wanting to see the gnome fall over by accident. 'Lovely view, just lovely,' murmured the gnome, then stood back with the red thingfinder in his hands. 'Now, let's see what we shall see.'

Teldin's teeth gritted together as the gnome made a few adjustments inside the box, then raised it to his face. 'We're looking for our friend the falmadaraatha, One Six Nine, or old 'Thirteen Squared,' as we used to call him. That's an inside joke, you see, because the value of thirteen squared is-'

'You've already told me about that,' said Teldin wearily. 'Just let me know if you see anything.'

The gnome began scanning ahead of the ship, the wind whipping his filthy tie around his neck. 'You see, this device works on a certain amount of latent psionic energy present in the mind of the operator. You need not be a fully accredited psionicist to use it, since we all possess a certain degree of-'

'Dyffed,' interrupted Teldin. 'I haven't the faintest idea of what you are talking about. Pretend that I'm stupid, then explain it to me.'

'Oh,' said the gnome. 'Well, um, what you do… you think of something, then you look for it through here'-he indicated the dark glass window on the box with a finger- 'and then the box front, here, lets you see the object. I tried to locate you once with this, before we left Ironpiece, and got the most curious reaction when this perfectly imbecilic moron got in the way. Would you believe that this silly box said that this obviously low-grade-but-still- gnomish gnome was actually you? I was quite annoyed, really. Thought I was going to have my funding cut off for it, but then the hamsters escaped, and you know, I can't see a single thing through this.' The gnome lowered the red box and turned it over. 'Ah. Forgot to turn it on.' He made a final adjustment, then looked through it again. 'Ah, much better. One Six Nine, One Six Nine, One Six Nine… really quite a nice chap, I must say. Makes an excellent carrot dip. I remember once when I came here with-'

'Can you find the Spelljammer with that?' Teldin asked abruptly, amazed he hadn't thought to ask before now.

'Why, certainly,' said Dyffed, 'if it's in this sphere, then we should . . .' The gnome swung the thingfinder in several wide arcs, eventually covering the range of the sky and ship. ''Well, so much for that. Must be in another crystal sphere. Back to One Six Nine. Fine chap, as I was saying-'

'Dyffed,' interrupted Teldin again. 'If you've been to this sphere before, and you've visited One Six Nine's home, then why don't you know the way to get there? Why didn't you say anything about what we should expect when we got to this sphere, like these 'megafauna' you talk about?'

'What?' The gnome lowered the thingfinder and looked at Teldin in surprise. 'Oh, well, I… I…' He looked confused, staring at the view wi th a vaguely troubled look. 'I forgot about it, I'm afraid. Because this sphere pops ships inside it, so they never go through it, it's almost impossible to come in where you want to be. You just can't tell from the outside, you know. I also meant to tell you about the mega-fauna, I really did. I was going to say something about the antimagical water, too, since I've read some papers about that-quite fascinating, really. The megafauna's tracks destroy all magical power beneath them, simply crush it out, voiding the dweomer. We are speaking of pressures greater than three point one four one five nine two six five three five nine times ten to the thirty-seventh power scruples per square acre, of course, far beyond any known magical tolerance levels, once the megafauna puts down its foot-a process which takes centuries, as you can imagine. There are local legends in Herd-space to the effect that eventually all of the megafauna will crush out ail magical power, and magic will cease to exist in this sphere. That's the 'Quiet Whimper' theory, you see, and the other view is the 'Unsteady State' theory, in which the footsteps taken by megafauna after the magic is crushed out will then bring magic back. A fascinating idea, the latter, but, as yet, there's no real-'

'Wait,' Teldin interrupted. 'One more question: How do we get out of this sphere?'

'Ah!' Dyffed's face lit up. 'Ah, I did see that. You simply dive back toward the place you came in! Marvelous