The Broken Sphere

Teldin jerked as if stung.

Djan's grip on his arm slacked off. 'I know it's hard, Teldin, maybe the hardest thing you'll ever do, but you've got to put it behind you, at least for now.' He smiled wryly. 'If you want to torture yourself, you'll have the rest of your life to do it… which might not be long unless we figure out what to do now.'

'What?'

'They tried to kill you once, my friend,' Djan stated, 'whoever they are. You can bet they'll try again, unless we think of some way of stopping them.'

Teldin nodded slowly. Djan was right, he knew. Self-pity and self-blame weren't any kind of answer. He'd known that all his life, and had been confused-and vaguely disgusted-when he'd seen others crippling themselves with self-blame.

And yet it was so seductive. While he was busy blaming himself, he wouldn't have to take action, wouldn't have to do anything. It was a nice, safe excuse, with the added advantage of a smug sense of moral superiority. Sure I'm not doing anything, but look how guilty I feel…. Seductive, but totally pointless.

He forced himself to his feet, driving his guilt and his sadness into the recesses of his mind. He knew all too well that he'd have to deal with them sometime, but his friend was right: now wasn't the time for self- castigation.

Think, he told himself.

'Who else knows about what happened here?' he asked after a few moments. The vague outlines of an idea were taking shape.

Djan raised his eyebrows. 'Nobody,' he answered, 'I heard noise and came to investigate. I don't know if anyone else heard anything or not, but nobody else came with me.' He gestured to the closed cabin door. 'When I saw what had happened, I shut the door.' He shrugged. 'I don't think anybody else knows anything happened here… apart from the murderers themselves, of course.'

'Is Dranigor on the helm?' Teldin asked, thinking about the helmsman's expanded perception.

The half-elf shook his head. 'Why should he be? No, he's still resting up from his injuries.'

The Cloakmaster nodded. He thought he had his plan. It would be difficult-not practically, but emotionally-but it might just lead the murders to show their hand and reveal their identities….

'What if the murderers succeeded?' he asked Djan quietly.

*****

While Djan went aft to spread the word of the captain's 'foul murder,' Teldin spent a few minutes in his cabin.

The face and body he'd assumed-using the cloak's shape-shifting powers-felt alien, his balance very different from normal. He touched the smooth skin of his cheeks and felt the tears that leaked from eyes that weren't his.

I'm sorry, Julia, he thought. Wherever you are, forgive me. Forgive me for taking your life, and forgive me for this deception.

He straightened his spine, brushed his short, copper hair back from his face, and opened the door. 'Julia' walked out into the saloon, carefully shutting and locking the door of the captain's cabin.

There was a handful of crewmen in the saloon, standing around uncomfortably in silence, as though they didn't know how to react or where to go. When they saw Julia emerge, they dropped their gazes and looked away- looked anywhere but at the petite woman. Nobody stopped Teldin as he crossed the saloon. Nobody spoke to him- which was just as well, since if he'd been forced to speak, the deception would have come to an end instantly. He hoped that, if anyone did try to talk to him, he could just pretend to be too overcome with emotion to speak. Everyone on board knew about the on-again-off-again relationship between the captain and the second mate, and would presumably expect Julia to take her erstwhile lover's death hard.

The entire ship felt heavy and somber, Teldin thought as he emerged onto the main deck. Or was that just his own emotions coloring his perception? No, he decided after a moment, the sense of depression was real enough. The ship had lost its captain-or so the crew thought-and that was a major tragedy. Julia's lips quirked in an ironic smile. I'm one of the few people who know how people react after he's died, he told himself.

There were a dozen crewmen on the main deck and the fore- and sterncastles, working to repair the damage inflicted by the beholder's death spasms. Actually, at the moment they weren't working, just standing around as though they didn't know what to do, as though waiting for orders from their dead captain to get back to their lives. As he crossed to the ladder leading belowdecks, Teldin observed them from his peripheral vision, watching for some inappropriate reaction-a sense of satisfaction, perhaps. He knew Djan was already belowdecks, moving among the crew, looking for the same kind of thing, waiting for the murderers to take the next step in their plan.

Suddenly he heard a yell from belowdecks. 'Fire in the hold!' From another part of the ship, a hoarse scream sounded, followed by the crash of footsteps. He sprinted down the ladder, almost falling as he forgot to compensate for Julia's shorter legs. The air was acrid with smoke, which drifted forward from the cargo hold. He ran aft.

The fire was small, a pile of oil-soaked rags burning next to one of the holes the dying beholder had blown in the portside hull. Most of the smoke from the blaze was pouring out through the hull breach, instead of fouling the air of the hold. Crewmen had responded instantly to the warning shout, and three sailors were already throwing buckets of sand on the fire. As Teldin watched, the small fire was extinguished. He heard more commotion in the area of the crew compartments and ran forward.

There was a small knot of crewmen in front of the door to the forward sleeping compartment. One of them- Anson, Teldin saw-clutched a nasty gash in his left forearm, blood seeping between the fingers of his right hand.

'What in the hells is happening?' It was Djan, pushing his way through the crowd.

It was the wounded Anson who answered, his voice rough with pain. 'They're in there,' he gasped. 'They killed Dranigor.'

The last helmsman, Teldin thought. With Dranigor, Blossom, and (presumably) the Cloakmaster eliminated, the Boundless should be dead in space.

'Who?' Djan demanded.

'Dargeth and Lucinus.'

Teldin closed his eyes and swayed as the world seemed to spin around him. Dargeth, who'd claimed that Julia had worked with him on the forward catapult-probably just to sew dissension and suspicion, he recognized now, a psychological analogue of physical sabotage to the ship. And Lucinus, who'd reinforced it by contradicting Julia's claim that she'd never touched the catapult. He ground his teeth together, struggling to bottle up the scream that threatened to tear from his throat. Paladine's blood, I'll kill them…

'Tell me what happened,' Djan ordered.

'They came in, swords drawn,' Anson replied, 'ordered us all out of there. We were unarmed. What could we do?'

The half-elf pointed at the man's wound. 'You tried to do something.'

Anson grimaced. 'For all the good it did. Before Dargeth shut the door, I saw Lucinus kill Dranigor in his hammock, just slash his throat open. Then they shut the door and secured it.'

'Why?' Djan asked. 'They're planning to just hole up in there? What are they…' The look of shock on the half-elf s face told Teldin he'd come to the same conclusion that the Cloakmaster had reached.

'They're expecting help,' Teldin stated flatly. 'Rhom, get up on deck. Keep a close lookout for other ships. Now!'

The crewman he'd named paled as he heard his captain's voice coming from Julia's mouth. But at least he didn't stop to question. As he sprinted away, Teldin turned back to the other crewmen and the door.

'I want them out of there,' he almost snarled.

The crew turned shocked eyes on him. 'They're armed,' Anson said.

'So get weapons yourself,' Teldin snapped. 'I want them.' To emphasize his point, he drew Julia's short sword from the scabbard on his belt.

While Teldin and Djan watched the door, the crewmen vanished, reappearing a few moments later with knives, swords, belaying pins, and other weapons. They looked tense, ready… dangerous. The Cloakmaster smiled