The Broken Sphere

it wasn't consuming it, or even heating the structure of the great ship. An ovoid bubble of clear, fire- free air surrounded the vessel, in much the same way as a normal ship's atmosphere envelope excluded most of the phlogiston when in the Flow. Is it flying through a sun? the Cloakmaster asked himself.

For the briefest of instants-so fleeting that it could easily have been an illusion- Teldin felt a flash of pleasure, aesthetic pleasure from the massive vessel, as though it sensed and appreciated the beauty of this sea of fire, Teldin thought. But that didn't make sense, did it?

And then, with shocking suddenness, the fire was gone from around the Spelljammer. Space was black and star-specked once more…

Except dead astern. The fire was still there, a seemingly endless plane of silent yellow-red flames churning and writhing. And then, rising above the flame plane like the sun over Krynn's Great Ocean, he saw a massive disk, glowing the dull red of a dying ember….

For a few moments, Teldin was totally disoriented. Then he realized just what it was he was seeing.

The brick-red disk was a massive fire body, like a great, bloated sun. Even though there was nothing to give it scale, he knew-thanks to the strange perception bestowed by the amulet-that the fire world was titanic, as many times larger than the world of Krynn as the Spelljammer was larger than the Boundless. The 'endless plane of flames,' he saw now, was a broad ring of yellow fire that girdled the huge world around its equator. So broad was the ring that a spelljamming vessel would have taken perhaps a quarter of an hour to traverse it, and the ring itself was probably a full hour of fullspeed flight from the 'surface' of the fire body. The Spelljammer, it seemed, had plunged right through that ring of fire.

The scene was spectacular-one that couldn't exist twice in the universe, Teldin told himself. Maybe this was the opportunity he'd been waiting for, when the Spelljammer was near a recognizable world. He 'looked' around, seeking more distinguishing features to eliminate the chance of error.

There was something: a dark, circular area on the face of the great fire world, covering an appreciable fraction of the visible disk. A weather pattern in the fire? he wondered.

And something else, shapes moving among the yellow flames of the fire ring. Great, angular shapes-winged forms like strange spelljamming ships built along unfamiliar configurations. Yet how could ships exist in the fire ring? he wondered. The Spelljammer had done it, but now he knew that it was only some magical attribute of the mysterious ship that had let it survive unscathed….

The view changed again. A small, bright disk-little more than a point-of burning, blue-white light rose above one limb of the dark red world. Sunrise on a sun…

*****

Without warning, the strange vista collapsed in upon itself. There was a wrenching sense of discontinuity, then information from Teldin's normal senses flooded back into his mind.

He opened his eyes and looked into the concerned faces of his two friends. Setting the amulet down on the table, he wiped pinpoints of cold sweat from his brow. His fingers were trembling, he realized, and his heart pounded as if he'd run a footrace.

Why? he asked himself. Why did using the amulet sometimes take so much more out of him than others? Was it something to do with distance-and did that then mean the Spelljammer was a great distance away?-or was it something else? There was so much about the amulet, and its relationship with the Spelljammer and the ultimate helm, at he didn't understand.

'Well?' Julia asked. 'Anything?'

'I think so.' Teldin's voice sounded tired in his own ears. from the solicitude that showed in his friends' expressions, he guessed he looked as bad as he sounded… if not worse. 'Maybe something important.' He went on to de-scribe what he'd seen in as much detail as he could. 'I can't imagine that there could be more than one place like that in the universe,' he concluded dryly.

'I think you're right,' Djan said. His voice was quiet, but held a timbre of tightly controlled excitement. 'A fire world a half day's flight in diameter, with a fire ring,' he went on, ticking points off on his fingers. 'A dark spot- maybe some kind of weather pattern, you think. And all orbiting a smaller, blue-white sun. I think it has to be Garrash.'

'Garrash,' Teldin echoed. 'You've been there?'

'I didn't say that,' the half-elf corrected. 'I read about it once in the Geonomicon- that's a book describing almost a hundred of the more fascinating worlds ever discovered- but your description definitely matches what I remember.'

'Where is Garrash?' Teldin demanded. 'Near here? Far?'

'I don't remember,' Djan admitted, shaking his head.

Julia stood. 'I'll bring a chart,' she said, heading aft.

She was back quickly. With Djan helping, she spread it but on the table and pored over it for a minute. Teldin felt impatience growing within him, but he knew better than to hurry the copper-haired woman.

Finally she straightened up. 'Garrash is in a crystal sphere called Vistaspace,' she said, 'over here.' She tapped a dark circle near one side of the chart.

'And where's Nex?' Teldin asked.

'It's not shown on the chart, of course,' she answered slowly, 'but it's over here.' She laid a finger on a region of the chart near the opposite edge.

Teldin felt his face fall. 'How far's that?' he asked, dreading the answer.

'Far.' It was Djan who'd replied. He craned over the table for a better look. 'We can pick up a couple of phlogiston , rivers-to Pathspace, for example, and from there to Prime-space. That'll save a lot of time over the direct route…' His voice trailed off.

'But… ?° the Cloakmaster prompted.

Djan looked up, meeting Teldin's gaze steadily. 'But,' he continued, 'we're still talking about a total voyage of… '- he glanced questioningly at Julia, as if to confirm what he was about to say-'of thirty days, maybe thirty-five?' Julia nodded slowly in agreement.

'And that doesn't include moving around within Vista-space once we're there,' the half-elf added. 'The chart says it's a big sphere. We don't know how Garrash's orbital plane is aligned, or where the planet's going to be in relation to where we enter the crystal sphere. But actually getting to the planet's going to add another… well, call it thirty days to be safe. Total voyage time…'

'Sixty days or more,' Teldin finished for him. His excitement over Djan's recognition of what he'd seen was gone, and depression threatened to wash over him again. 'Two months. It's unlikely that the Spelljammer's going to be there in two months.'

'I know.' Djan laid a hand on the Cloakmaster's shoulder, gripped hard, 'I understand. It's a slim chance, I suppose… 'But a slim chance is better than none,' Teldin elaborated, 'that's what you're saying.'

'Isn't it?' Julia asked quietly.

The Cloakmaster was silent for a few moments, lost in his own thoughts. Then he nodded. 'Yes,' he said. Then, again, more firmly, 'Yes, it is.' He turned to Djan and drew himself up to his full height. 'First mate, pass word to the helmsman and navigator. Set course for Vistaspace and Garrash.'

The half-elf snapped into a salute. 'Aye, Captain.'

One advantage of the long voyage was that the crew of the Boundless Possibilities had plenty of time to conduct the repairs the ship desperately needed. In an example of the foresight that Teldin had come to expect of his first mate, before the ship had lifted from Crescent, Djan had loaded much of the cargo hold with planking of the same kiln-dried hardwood that made up the squid ship's hull. Now, with two months of sailing ahead of them, the crew was kept busy-and out of trouble, Djan had pointed out-nailing the planking into place to repair the hull breaches caused by the magical attack and the crash-landing on Nex.

During the first couple of days in the Flow, the half-elf had gone over the ship from stem to stern, listing all the areas that needed attention. Although the crew members had groaned almost as one when they'd initially seen