The Broken Sphere

His eyes were wide open, but he could hardly see anything at all. The cabin's lantern was out, and the only illumination was faint starlight coming in through the two 'eye' portholes.

He remained totally motionless, focusing all of his concentration into his eyes and ears. For a moment he considered using the cloak, borrowing the enhanced senses of the ultimate helm, but he immediately dismissed that as foolish. The moment he tried to access that power, the cloak would glow with its magical light, giving the assassin-if that's what had made the sound-a perfectly lit target at which to strike.

The sound came again. Yes, it was stealthy movement. There was no doubt any longer. Somebody was crossing the cabin-slowly, oh, so cautiously-from the door to Teldin's bunk, mounted against the forward bulkhead.

He needed a weapon. The idea flashed through his mind. The hand-crossbow…

He grunted softly, drawing the sound out into a low mumble-hoping he sounded like a sleeper disturbed by a dream. He rolled over, pulling the blanket up around his chin, simultaneously letting a hand flop down over the edge of the bunk. His fingers brushed the deck, then touched something else: the crossbow, cocked and loaded with a single bolt. One shot. It had to be sufficient-enough to either incapacitate the assassin or slow him down sufficiently for Teldin to escape or summon help. Slowly, carefully, he wrapped his hand around the small wooden stock and let his finger rest on the trigger.

In his mind he rehearsed his moves. Bring the small weapon up quickly-but not so quickly that he dislodged the bolt from its seat-simultaneously flipping off the safety catch with his thumb. Aim and shoot.

But aim where? He opened his eyes as wide as they'd go, trying to pick up every iota of light in the room.

Yes, there was something-a faint, cold shimmer. Starlight washing over steel. The blade of a short sword. His pulse was pounding in his ears, so loud that the assassin had to hear it. The faintly gleaming sword blade was only five feet away from him.

He tried to imagine the position of the body behind that blade. Assume it's a right-hander, he told himself. The odds are ten to one in your favor. That would put the swordsman's body… there!

In a single movement he brought the hand-crossbow up, flicked the safety, and pulled the trigger. The small weapon jerked in his hand as the bowstring sang. He imagined he could hear the bolt cross the open space, and undeniably could hear it drive into his would-be killer's flesh.

Light, that's what he needed now. He expanded his awareness through the cloak and squinted as the pink light flared from behind him, flooding the compartment.

From his virtually omnipresent viewpoint, he could clearly see the crossbow bolt's feathered haft protruding from the lower chest of the assassin.

It was Julia. By Paladine's blood, it was Julia….

The short sword dropped from the copper-haired woman's nerveless fingers. She clutched at the bolt, driven into her chest just below her right breast, and she crumpled.

Teldin flung the tiny crossbow aside and dived off the bed toward her.

Oh, no. By the gods, no… His eyes filled with tears, and his heart felt as though it were about to twist inside out.

There's a difference between suspicion and knowledge, he realized with a sickening impact. He'd suspected Julia. He thought he'd reconciled himself to the fact that she could have been the one. But that reconciliation had only been in his own imagination, he understood now. Now he knew that, again, a woman he'd loved-Why not use the word? he asked himself bitterly-had betrayed him, had tried to kill him. And he, in turn, had killed her.

What is it? he wanted to scream to the heavens so that the gods could hear him. What fa it you want me to learn so badly that you keep repeating the same damn lesson?

The light of the cloak faded. The enhanced perception slipped as his emotions overwhelmed his control over the cloak.

The knot in his throat felt so hard that it threatened to choke him as he knelt by the fallen woman and cradled her head in his hands. In the faint wash of starlight, her face was peaceful, youthful-the way it had looked on the pillow beside him when he'd woken in the night and turned to watch her sleep. Her eyes were closed. For a moment, he thought she was already gone, then he saw her chest rise and fall and saw a tiny bubble of air emerge from the bloody wound.

'Why!' he cried hoarsely. 'Why, may the gods damn you?' Her eyes flickered and opened. Normally bright, her eyes were dulled now. They rolled wildly for a moment, and Teldin knew that whatever it was she was seeing, it wasn't this small compartment. Then they cleared slightly and focused on his face. 'Teldin,' she murmured.

'Why?' His voice was a whisper this time, but sounded even more tortured in his own ears.

'Is it dead?'

'What?'

'Is it…' Her voice faded; he brought his ear closer to her mouth. 'Is it dead?' she repeated.

Was what dead? What was… ?

He heard it again. The faint brushing sound that had roused him from sleep and warned him of Julia's approach.

Behind him…

He snapped his head around, saw something hurtling at him from the shadows under the starboard port, a shape of black on black. He hurled himself aside, not an instant too soon. The object flew past his ear, struck the bulkhead with a sound of stone on wood, and fell onto his bunk.

For the first time he saw it clearly, as it recovered from its missed pounce. It was a spider, or something very much like it, its body at least the size of Teldin's clenched fist. Its legs scrabbled on the blanket, trying to gain better purchase for another leap. Starlight gleamed off its body as it might off a huge, dark gem.

Teldin rolled back, trying to widen the gap between himself and the thing. Too late. Its legs were under it again, and it hurled itself right for his face.

Without thought, Teldin flung his hands up in a warding gesture. He felt energy sear through his bones, through every fiber of his being-felt as though his eyes must be burning with the light of a blue-white sun. A sizzling, scintillating curtain of sparks burst into existence before him.

An instant too late; the spider-thing was already past. It struck him heavily in the chest, hard enough to knock him backward. He felt claws like skewers tear at his jerkin, at the flesh of his chest, as it tried for a purchase on his body. Something that felt ice cold, then fire hot, scored the skin of his throat-not quite drawing blood, but terrifyingly close. With a gasp of panic he punched at the thing, a short-arm right jab with more power behind it than he'd ever imagined possible. The blow knocked it clear off his chest-he felt its claws tearing free from his flesh-and across the cabin, to thud into the bulkhead. He heard the clattering as it struggled to right itself and prepare for another attack.

Teldin skittered backward, crablike, across the floor. His right hand struck something-something cylindrical: the sharkskin-wrapped grip of Julia's short sword. He snatched it up and raised it before him, point up and blade angled across to the left to protect his face and throat. With his empty left hand he forced himself to his knees.

The spider-thing was in the shadows again; he couldn't see it. The first glimpse he got of it was as it hurled itself at his face once more.

Without warning, time slowed, divided itself into distinct increments, giving him enough time to examine and evaluate each one.

The cloak, he knew.

His skin felt cold and the hairs on his arras and the backs of his hand could detect the minuscule air currents in the room. He could sense the weave of the jerkin he wore, and imagined he could count the tiny, needle-pointed scales of the sharkskin sword grip just by the way it felt in his hand.

He saw the spider coming toward him, seemingly no faster than a crawl. All eight legs pointed forward, each tipped with a single straight claw. For the first time he saw its two fangs, easily an inch and a half long. It had to have been one of those that scored his throat. Was it poisonous? he wondered. Almost certainly. If that fang had penetrated a fraction of an inch deeper, I'd probably be dying right now. The whole thing, he saw now, didn't really look like a living creature-more like a master sculptor's representation of a spider, cunningly worked in green-black volcanic glass. It isn't alive, he told himself. It's some kind of artifact, magically animated. But what does that