The Broken Sphere

trick, he reminded himself wryly. He leaned over the locator and examined the display.

From what little he'd heard about planetary locators, the devices normally showed simple, discrete dots to represent planets and other astronomical bodies, their colors indicating their true nature. This display was very different, the Cloakmaster noted at once. Instead of clean, discrete circles and dots, the crystal surface was covered with a shifting network of hair-thin red lines, making an almost impossibly fine mesh. In places, the mesh seemed to fold in on itself, twisting into some complex pattern.

Here, for example. With his forefinger he traced a place on the display where the mesh-shading from red to yellow-was twisted into great loops, whirling up and around like some impossible skein of wool. Encompassing the loops was a circle of intricate patterns rendered in burning yellow-white, where the spiderweb-thin lines wove in and out, spiraling and knotting around each other.

It was the loomweave, he knew with sudden certainty. It was the same twisting, swirling field of energy that Zat had shown him, in orbit near the fire ring of Garrash. The perspective was different now, and the detail and resolution so much less. The colors, too, weren't right-on the display there were colors, not the strange analogues that the Cloakmaster had sensed. This was Garrash and its ring he was looking at-or their presence as defined by eddies in the loomweave.

Teldin shook his head, almost incapable of believing it. Now, for the first time, he had the tool he needed to find the 'center of all,' the Broken Sphere.

He looked up at Djan and felt a broad, triumphant smile spread across his face. 'Transfer the crews,' he told his first mate. 'We sail immediately.'

Chapter Fifteen

Teldin Moore drove the nautiloid outward from the vicinity of Garrash, toward the boundary of the crystal sphere, at the maximum speed the ultimate helm could manage. He sat in the single human-sized chair in the captain's day room. Through the wraparound perception of the cloak he saw the crippled squid ship falling rapidly away behind them.

There'd been a couple of tense moments as the arcane's mercenary crew had filed aboard the wrecked Boundless. Even though they were unarmed and facing the weapons of Teldin's crew-and even though their employer, T'k'Ress, had specifically ordered them to go peacefully-Teldin could hardly believe it when all were aboard and he backed the nautiloid's ram out of the squid ship's hull.

For a moment, Teldin felt a twinge of guilt at marooning the arcane and its men aboard a ship that might never sail again. But the emotion was fleeting; all he had to do was remember the faces of his dead comrades-and, particularly, Julia's peaceful, bloodless countenance-and his regrets evaporated like a snowball thrown into a sun.

Through his omnipresent senses the Cloakmaster saw Djan climbing the ladder to join him in the small day room. He smiled at his friend. 'How's the crew?' he asked.

'Adapting as well as can be expected,' the half-elf responded. 'We can maneuver, but we don't have the men to fight with this ship.'

Teldin nodded. Crewing even one weapon would take too many men away from more vital duties. 'We'll just have to stay out of trouble, then.'

Djan nodded. He didn't say anything else immediately, but neither did he make any move to leave. On his face Teldin saw the expression that he'd come to associate with unpleasant thoughts. 'Out with it,' he told his friend at last.

The half-elf sighed and seated himself on the edge of the map table. 'That was too easy,' he said softly. 'You know that, don't you?'

Teldin nodded unwillingly. He'd been thinking the same thing. The monopoly that the arcane, as a race, possessed over spelljamming technology was of almost inconceivable value. Yet T'k'Ress had given Teldin a means of finding the Spelljammer-and thus potentially destroying that centuries-old monopoly- while putting up virtually no fight. Certainly, Teldin had threatened the creature with torture and death, but even a modicum of resistance would have shown his threats to have been empty bluff.

Even if T'k'Ress had utterly believed that Teldin would kill it, surely the magnitude of the loss to its race if the monopoly were destroyed would be reason enough to sacrifice itself. And even if the creature had no loyalty to any beyond itself, it must have realized that destroying the monopoly would earn itself the eternal enmity-and probably the vengeance-of every member of its race. It just didn't make sense…

Unless the means that it gave Teldin to find the Spelljammer was flawed in some way.

He looked over at the milky glow of the modified planetary locator. The technomagical device still worked; it still showed the glowing matrix of the loomweave. There had to be something he was missing, but what?

'I know it was too easy,' he said, echoing Djan's words, 'but what else could I do?'

*****

Via his cloak-mediated senses Teldin could see the inner surface of the Vistaspace crystal sphere like an infinite black plane a few leagues ahead of the nautiloid. Below, in the helm compartment on the scout deck, he knew that Djan was preparing to use the passage device that T'k'Ress had left behind on the vessel. The Cloakmaster thanked the gods that they had this arcane device. Without it-and without a mage capable of opening a portal with his own magic- they'd have been trapped within Vistaspace.

'Ready to make passage.' Even though the half-elf was a deck below, and pitching his voice at a conversational level, Teldin could hear him clearly, thanks to the cloak. 'Flow stations. Captain?'

Teldin called down confirmation. 'Open the portal.'

He felt a strange shiver in the power of the ultimate helm as his friend triggered the passage device. Ahead of the nautiloid, the portal flared into being, quickly expanding to more than a bowshot in diameter. Through the lightning-limned circle Teldin could see the curdled colors of the Flow. He tapped only a fraction of the ultimate helm's power, and the spiral-hulled vessel shot through the opening into the phlogiston. As soon as they were through, the portal closed behind them.

'Passage successful,' Djan called up, needlessly.

The Cloakmaster felt tingles of anticipation shoot through his nerves. They were out of Vistaspace, into the infinity of the Flow. Next stop… the Broken Sphere. He shifted his gaze to the modified planetary locator, to read from its surface the condition of the loomweave, to see on what course he should set sail.

The crystal surface was blank.

He virtually leaped out of his chair and dashed across the compartment to the pedestal. Yes, the surface was totally blank. The twisting matrix of colors had vanished. Even the milky glow that he associated with the device's operation was gone. 'Djan!' he yelled.

The half-elf was up the ladder and beside him in a moment. He stared down at the blank, featureless display. 'Now we know why it was so easy,' he said quietly.

Without turning, Teldin reached behind him and dragged over the chair. He slumped down into it. 'Now we know,' he echoed dully.

He felt as though he'd been plunged into a black, cloying fog of depression. Oh, logically he knew he was no worse off than before T'k'Ress and the nautiloid had put in their appearance. In fact, he was better off, because he'd rid the crew of traitors.

But it felt so much worse. He'd been almost euphoric. Finally he knew how to find the Spelljammer! That knowledge, and the hope it brought with it, had been wrested away from him by the arcane's machinations. Now we know why it was so easy, he thought again. T'k'Ress knew the planetary locator wouldn't work in the Flow…

And why should it? he realized. It was a planetary locator, after all, and you only found planets within crystal spheres.

So, what was he to do now?