The Broken Sphere

Estriss. From what others had told him about run-of-the-mill mind flayers, another illithid would probably have just taken what it wanted and killed Fazin in the process. But it wouldn't do to count on that fact.

'Did the gentleman find the books he wanted?' the Cloak-master asked.

Fazin nodded. 'Two of them,' he confirmed. 'He was quite impressed with them.' He shrugged. 'He read many more as well-he was quite a demanding patron, I'll tell you that-but I recall he, um, 'said' that only two were worth the parchment they were scribed on.'

That sounded promising, Teldin thought. 'Could you please bring me those two books, then?' he asked.

'Certainly, certainly, right away.' Fazin indicated a leather-upholstered wingback chair. 'Make yourself comfortable. This won't take long.' And with that he turned and scurried away.

Teldin watched his retreating back with a half smile. Gnomes, he thought. They'll do anything for you… if you can get them to do anything at all. He settled himself down in the chair Fazin had indicated-it was surprisingly comfortable, he found-and waited.

He didn't have to wait long. He guessed it was less than five minutes before the gnome reappeared in the doorway… empty-handed.

Teldin sighed. 'What else do you need me to write down?' he asked tiredly.

Fazin looked confused for a moment, then shook his head. 'No, it's not like that at all,' he explained. 'The books you wanted aren't in the stacks.' Teldin blinked. 'Not on the shelves where they're supposed to be,' the gnome elaborated.

'Has someone borrowed them?'

'Borrowed them?' Fazin asked in outrage. 'Let people borrow them? Never. All the books here are so important we'd never let them outside the building, no matter how much people requested us to change our policies-'

'Anyway,' Teldin interjected forcefully.

Fazin stopped and visibly changed mental tracks. 'Anyway,' he said, 'the books are missing. Stolen, probably, or maybe lost.'

Probably the latter, Teldin corrected mentally. 'Do you often lose books?'

'Not often,' the gnome stated. 'Misplace, yes. Lose, no. And the number of misplaced books will go down when we bring in the new indexing and retrieval system-'

'But at the moment,' Teldin cut him off, 'the books are…'

'Gone,' Fazin finished for him. 'Not here. Not available. So sorry.'

'Both of them?'

'Both of them.'

Teldin thought about that in silence. How likely was it- really-that both of the most valuable books about the Spell-jammer were accidentally missing, and simultaneously at that? It was remotely possible, but far from probable. How much more likely that somebody who was also searching for the mysterious ship had decided owning the books would be much more convenient than reading them in some library waiting room? He slumped in his seat. He'd put so much hope in his quest to Crescent, he realized, even more than he'd thought. After all, wasn't the Great Archive supposed to be the largest repository of knowledge anywhere? And now the two books he wanted were missing….

Wait a moment, he thought. Paladine's blood, two books Two books out of the greatest library of them all? That shouldn't be catastrophic, should it? Books were often written based on information taken from other books; Sylvie had told him that once. Mightn't he be able to find the earlier books on which these had been based? Why not? Anything was possible; and anything was better than just giving up.

He jumped to his feet. 'Take me to the indexing system,' he told Fazin.

The gnome twitched as though he'd been pinched. 'The indexing system? That's off-limits, it's not allowed, it's against all the rules, and for good reason, too….'

'Where is it?' Teldin demanded. He strode toward the door. 'I know it's through here somewhere.'

Fazin darted around Teldin's legs and stopped in front of him, drawing himself up to his full height of three and a half feet. 'No, you can't,' he said firmly. 'It's more than my job is worth.'

Teldin hesitated. For a moment he considered just pushing the gnome out of the way, but then he crouched down so his cornflower eyes were on a level with Fazin's green ones. He rested a hand heavily on each of the gnome's shoulders. 'I need to see the indexing system,' he said quietly. 'Now, will you take me to it, or do I have to tear this place apart until I find it myself?' .

For a moment, Teldin thought the gnome was going to resist, but then he saw all the fight drain out of the Second Assistant Third Backup Vice-Librarian's Aide (Day). 'I'll take you,' he sighed. 'Just don't cause any trouble. It's getting so a gnome can't get through a day without someone coming in here and throwing his weight around. I tell you, this job is harder than ever I thought…' Without any break in his monologue he turned around and led Teldin deeper into the labyrinthine Great Archive.

Chapter Three

'Well, here it is,' Fazin announced. He pushed open a door and stood aside to let Teldin precede him.

For a moment the Cloakmaster hesitated, then he pushed the flash of paranoia aside and stepped into the room.

And stopped. 'This is it?' he asked.

Fazin slipped by him. 'This isn't all of it, of course,' he explained. 'This is just what we call the GUI-the Gnome User Interface. The actual workings are down in the basement, where it's cool and where the power supply can't get loose and damage things. Of course,' he added, 'it's going to be very different when we install the new indexing and retrieval system-'

'Yes, of course,' Teldin interrupted distractedly, 'Now, er…'

'How does it work?' The gnome pointed to the large chair dominating the small room, its back to the door. 'The operator sits in the operator's chair, in front of the workstation.' He indicated a desklike surface mounted on the wall directly ahead of the chair. 'The operator then enters his search terms-what he wants to find out-through the digitizing tablet.' He pointed to a complex contraption on the desktop.

'Digitizing… ?'

'So called because the operator uses his digit to enter information,' Fazin elaborated, wiggling his right forefinger.

'Then he pulls the processing lever, there on the wall.'

Teldin saw a large leather-handled metal lever mounted in a slot in the wall, within easy reach of the chair. 'And that's it?' he asked.

Fazin nodded. 'Then the operator just waits for the results to come out of the output slot, there next to the tablet.'

'Sounds simple enough.' Teldin strode over to the large chair and seated himself. He stared down at the 'digitizing tablet,' as Fazin had called it. It looked like an open-topped box of dark, small-grained wood, about a foot square and an inch high. In the center of the box was a small ring of silver metal, about the same size as a man's finger ring. Attached to it were a number of slender and delicate leverlike linkages- reminding Teldin uncomfortably of a spider's legs-that disappeared into small holes and slots in the desktop.

Seeing Teldin's confusion, Fazin pointed to the ring. 'Put your finger in there,' he instructed.

The Cloakmaster hesitated, then did as he was told. The spider legs held the ring about half an inch off the bottom surface of the 'box.' With the tip of his right index finger resting on the smooth surface, the ring was at a level with the first joint.

'Now move your finger around. You'll see the linkages communicate every movement to the mechanisms in the basement.' Fazin smiled. 'Cunning, yes?'

Teldin moved his finger in a circle, watching with fascination the way the linkages bent and flexed. They made a faint clicking, whirring sound that he found slightly disturbing, but the resistance to his movements was a lot less than he'd expected. 'Cunning, yes,' he agreed. 'Now what do I do with it?'