The Broken Sphere

Djan spread his hands. 'As good as new, as far as I can tell. Better, even. I don't think we've got anything to worry about on that score.'

Teldin saw his friend shoot a quick glance at the speeding mini-suns. 'I've been thinking about that,' he admitted. 'And I think we're reasonably safe. The world-mind tried to destroy us in case our arrival turned out to be a threat to the People, right? Well, what threat could our departure be? You'd think the Mind would be glad to see the last of us.'

That's what you think and what I think,' the half-elf said darkly. 'But what does it think? That's what matters.' He paused. 'How fast can you take us out of here?'

'Fast,' Teldin replied simply.

'Then I think you should do it.'

The Cloakmaster nodded. It made sense. 'Let's get underway,' he suggested.

As Djan hurried about the ship, making sure all crew members were at their stations and ready for what might be a rough ride, Teldin breathed deeply and let himself relax. His breathing slowed, and he could feel the cloak's presence. Gently he let his awareness expand to encompass the whole ship.

He could feel the Boundless wounds, the breaches in the hull that they'd repair only once they were underway. The damage was serious, but he was confident that it wasn't ship-killing. What really mattered was the keel.

As his awareness touched it and spread throughout it, he felt the heavy keel tingling with the remnants of the powerful magic that had repaired it. Djan was right, he sensed, the keel was as good as new, as strong as it had been when the squid ship had first been built. He felt his anxiety lessen another notch.

Blossom was on the ship's main helm; he could feel her presence, her expanded perception overlapping his. Her duty throughout the departure was to keep a lookout around the vessel, to watch for any mini-suns that seemed to be taking an interest in them, and to spot any magical manifestations on the planet's surface. She was not to exert any control over the ship itself, though-Teldin had been adamant about that-unless she knew for a fact that the Cloakmaster had somehow been incapacitated. The risk of conflicting 'orders' slowing the ship down at a crucial point was too great otherwise.

Julia swung up the ladder to the afterdeck, carrying her sextant. She flashed him a quick smile as she set up the instrument, steadying it on the stern rail. 'Just taking some final readings,' she explained.

He nodded wordlessly. The positions and movements of the mini-suns weren't going to be so crucial during the ascent-that's what he'd told himself, at least. On the approach to the planet, the plan had been to keep the ship's speed relatively low as it passed through the region of the fire bodies, to minimize the danger of plunging into the atmosphere at a velocity high enough to destroy the ship- not that that plan had worked all too well anyway, he thought wryly.

That constraint wasn't important now. Teldin figured he could lift the ship as fast as the cloak would let him, confident that the air resistance would only decrease with altitude, until the Boundless emerged into the vacuum of wildspace. By the time the vessel was at an altitude at which the mini- suns could conceivably threaten it, it would be traveling so fast that nothing could keep pace with it.

'Ready,' Julia announced, setting her sextant aside. 'We've got a window directly overhead.'

Teldin nodded wordlessly. Tension still gripped his chest and throat, but as always he found his communion with the cloak kept the stress tolerable, almost as if it were affecting someone else. He looked forward to where Djan stood on the foredeck. The first mate waved and gave him a thumbs-up gesture.

It was time to go. Teldin felt the power of the cloak grow around him, flow through him. Light flared, a nimbus of bright pink that seemed to shine right through his bones. He felt the ship around him like an extension of his body, an extension of his will. As responsive as thought itself, the large squid ship lifted clear of the ground.

Teldin held the vessel at an altitude of fifty feet or so over the meadow, as he repeated his mental 'inspection.' Now that it was airborne, the stresses on the ship's hull and keel were slightly different. The staved-in planking of the hull had shifted slightly-nothing critical, he decided-but the keel felt as solid as a rock. Gently at first, he put the ship into a climb, feeling out its maneuverability, ready to respond instantly to any instability or other hint of problems. With his wraparound awareness, he saw the verdant forest drop away below him.

The ship was steady, responding instantly to his mental commands. He let the speed build up slowly, as he simultaneously brought up the bow. Again the torn planking of the hull complained, but again he judged it to be nothing dire. Ever more confident with the ship's solidity, he pushed the Boundless to the maximum speed he felt was safe within the atmosphere. Rigging creaked and sang in the wind that penetrated the vessel's air envelope, an audible counterpoint to the tension that still gripped his heart. He brought the bow up even farther. The contrast between what his sense of balance and what his eyes told him became profound. While he felt as though he were standing upright on a horizontal surface, the horizon of the planet was canted at an angle of sixty degrees or more as the squid ship hurtled toward the freedom of space.

Julia was back at the sextant, tracking the mini-suns once more. 'No change,' she announced quietly. 'The window's still open.'

Teldin nodded. He could feel the resistance of Nex's atmosphere lessening, and he added a touch more speed. The ship was now flying faster than a dragon, faster than a swooping eagle. Soon, he knew, it would be traveling unimaginably faster still.

Below the ship, the surface of the world was changing from the landscape of a map to a sphere. From this altitude, he could easily see the curvature of the horizon.

Without warning, the keening of the wind through the rigging died. They were clear of the planet's atmosphere, Teldin knew. The only air around them was that which the ship carried along with it, and that was traveling at the same speed as the vessel itself. In other words, there was no more air resistance. He extended his will, through the cloak, and the Boundless leaped forward.

'Coming up on the mini-suns,' Julia said.

'Any change?' he asked.

She shook her head, her copper hair gleaming in the ruddy light of the fire bodies. 'They're all still on course.'

'Let them stay that way,' he muttered.

The passage through the region of the mini-suns turned out to be purest anticlimax. At the ultimate helm's full spelljamming speed, the squid ship flashed through the danger zone and out into the emptiness of wildspace. If the Mind of the World had even noticed their departure, it hadn't shown the slightest sign. According to Julia's readings, no mini-sun had diverged even a fraction of a degree from its normal course.

For the first time since the Boundless had lifted from the planet, Teldin let himself relax. 'Please tell Blossom that she has the helm,' he said quietly to Julia, and he heard her relay the message down the speaking tube. Only when he felt the priest extend her will did he let the power of the cloak fade from around him. The ship immediately slowed to normal spelljamming speed from the velocity imparted by the ultimate helm.

'Blossom wants to know what course to set,' Julia announced.

The Cloakmaster was silent for a few moments. Then, 'Tell her to take us out the way we came in,' he decided, 'That'll do for the moment. I need to talk some things over with you and Djan.'

*****

Teldin stared fixedly out of the Boundless's starboard 'eye' port, as if looking for an answer to his questions in the unrelieved blackness of wildspace. Behind him he heard Djan shift uncomfortably in his chair.

'You don't know where to go next,' the half-elf said quietly, is that it?'

The Cloakmaster nodded wordlessly.

'The People didn't know where the Juna disappeared to?' Julia asked.

'No,' Teldin replied. 'Message Bearer said they're just gone.'

'But they did mention the Broken Sphere,' Djan reminded him.

'Yes,' Teldin agreed, 'but they didn't say anything meaningful about where it is. Just that it's 'at the center of