The Broken Sphere (38 page)

Silently, the Cloakmaster stepped out onto the observation gallery and shut the door behind him. He drew his short sword, felt the sharkskin grip slick with the sweat of his palm. He took a step forward ….

Suddenly he was struck by a vision. Superimposed on the tall human ahead of him he saw an even taller figure – gangling, slender to the point of malnutrition, standing twice Teldin’s own height. Instead of brown hair, he saw a bald skull, strangely domed, covered with tightly stretched powder-blue skin …

An arcane.

Chapter Fourteen

The Cloakmaster must have gasped or made some other sound as the realization struck him; or maybe the arcane that called itself Grampian had otherwise sensed a presence behind it. In any case, it turned, its magically disguised face twisting into an expression of shock.

Teldin hurled himself across the intervening space, simultaneously releasing the magic of the cloak and returning to his true form. He drove a shoulder into Grampian’s chest, slamming the figure back against the rail. Viciously, he grabbed the “man’s” shoulder with his left hand and spun him around. Then he locked his left forearm around the figure’s throat, drove a knee into the small of his back, and wrenched backward. Grampian gasped, a high-pitched whistling hiss, as Teldin arched its spine backward like a bow. The Cloakmaster settled the point of his short sword over where he guessed the creature’s kidney might be, and pressed just hard enough to break the skin. “Call them off!” he hissed into Grampian’s ear.

“It’s
you!”
the magically disguised arcane cried, its voice pitched high with terror. “The cloak bearer!”

Teldin applied more pressure to the sword, feeling its point penetrate another fraction of an inch into Grampian’s back. Pain jolted the body he held. “Call your men off!” he repeated. He felt his lips draw back from his teeth in a terrible, feral snarl. “
Now
!”

“How did …?” the creature started.

But the Cloakmaster cut the arcane off by driving his knee into its back a second time. “I’ll kill you,” he snarled, his voice cold and low, terrifying to his own ears. “Call them back or you’re dead.”

Teldin was expecting some kind of resistance and was surprised when the arcane immediately bellowed, “Return to the ship! Cease the attack!” Looking down, the Cloakmaster saw the mercenaries still on the squid ship’s hull hesitate for a moment, then obediently start climbing back aboard the nautiloid. At first he was heartily surprised at how easily they accepted the order. But, then, Why not? he asked himself. They’re mercenaries; it’s only their fight as long as their employer
says
it’s their fight.

Behind him Teldin heard the door burst open. He spun, holding Grampian in front of him like a living shield.

“You!” Berglund stood in the doorway, sword drawn. He stared at Teldin, his face pale. “By all the fiends, what are
you
doing here?”

“Drop the sword, Berglund,” Teldin shouted. “It’s over.” He twisted the sword and felt Grampian’s muscles spasm with pain. “
Tell
him!”

“It
is
over,” the disguised arcane echoed hurriedly. “Drop your weapon.”

He watched Berglund’s eyes and saw the thoughts flash through the pirate captain’s mind – saw him make his decision. The short sword clattered to the deck. Berglund kicked it toward Teldin’s feet. “Get down there, Berglund,” the Cloakmaster told him harshly. “Get your men back here. And bring my first mate over.” He tightened his grip on Grampian’s throat, hearing the arcane gasp and choke under the pressure. “And don’t think of trying any tricks.
Tell
him, Grampian.”

“No tricks,” Grampian gasped. “Do what he says. We must reach … an arrangement.”

*****

They sat in the nautiloid’s main saloon, a large compartment at the aft end of the bridge deck. Teldin was there, with Djan, the wounded Anson, and Grampian – now in his true form, having let his magical disguise dissipate. The surviving members of the squid ship’s crew – only six of them, not counting the two men present – were aboard the
Boundless.
Grampian had ordered his mercenaries to confine themselves to the cabins on the lower “slave” deck of the nautiloid, and they seemed willing enough to follow their employer’s orders.

Teldin frowned. He didn’t feel fully comfortable. The mercenaries outnumbered his surviving crew by more than four to one. And Berglund, he knew, was a wily man. The only thing that the Cloakmaster had going for him at the moment was “Grampian” – or whatever the creature’s real name was – and the fact that Djan had a crossbow leveled at the blue-skinned giant’s skull from point-blank range. The saloon had only one door, which meant the mercenaries couldn’t get to them without giving plenty of time to … encourage … the arcane to call off his sellswords. Berglund could, conceivably, set up some kind of standoff, trading Teldin’s crew’s lives for the arcane – and if he did, Teldin knew he’d have to surrender. But he didn’t think the arcane would countenance that kind of risk to its own precious blue skin, and he tried to tell himself that Berglund didn’t have enough personal stake in the matter to initiate something like that.

The Cloakmaster forced his doubts aside. He’d worry about those things if they came to pass. Right now he had to concentrate on the present: there were some things he had to know.

Teldin stared into the arcane’s small, watery eyes. Even with the creature seated, he still had to look up into its face. “Who are you?” Teldin asked quietly.

With its magical disguise dropped, its voice had a high, fluting tone to it. “My name is T’k’Ress,” the creature said emotionlessly. “I understand you met my …” – it hesitated – “my
brother,
you might say, T’k’Pek.”

Teldin raised an eyebrow and nodded slowly. T’k’Pek was the name of the arcane he’d met aboard the
Nebulon,
a cylindrical ship in orbit around Toril, before the creature had been killed by the neogi. Interesting, he thought. “Why?” he asked.

The arcane’s voice remained emotionless, though its expression seemed to indicate tolerant amusement. “The cloak, why else?” T’k’Ress answered. “I wish you to understand, Teldin Moore,” it continued, “that there is nothing personal in this. My interest in the cloak is purely business, my acts motivated purely by business necessities.”

Teldin wanted to spit. “That’s what your hired dog Berglund said,” he snarled, “after he killed my crew.”

T’k’Ress extended a six-fingered hand, palm up. “The deaths are regrettable,” it said quietly. “Would that they were not necessary.”

“But you’d do anything to get the gods-damned cloak, wouldn’t you?” With an effort, Teldin fought his rage back to more manageable proportions.

The arcane pivoted its shoulder girdle, a strange gesture that Teldin tentatively interpreted as its version of a shrug. “If the truth be told, I have little interest in the cloak as such,” it said levelly. “I cannot speak for others of my race, but I would expect them to share my outlook.”

Teldin stared at the creature. “What?”

“I have little interest in the cloak as such,” T’k’Ress repeated.

“Then …?”

“Why?” the blue-skinned giant finished. “Business, as I have said.

“You know that my race survives through trade,” it went on quietly. “We are the only source for new spelljamming helms, for passage devices, for countless other technomagical products. Our monopoly was hard-earned, and we will do what is necessary to maintain it.”

“The cloak …” Teldin started.

“The ultimate helm is of little importance in isolation,’ T’k’Ress cut him off. “We sell other items that provide all of the powers of your cloak, except one.”

“The
Spelljammer,”
Teldin breathed.

“Of course, the
Spelljammer.”
T’k’Ress nodded. “From what I have learned of the ultimate helm, it gives you an ability that should allow you to locate the
Spelljammer.
Further, I believe it will allow you to take control of the great craft should you so locate it.

“And that is what I cannot allow,” the arcane continued, not the slightest trace of emotion disturbing its voice. “There are great secrets aboard the
Spelljammer.
Perhaps knowledge of how to create spelljamming helms, and passage devices, and planetary locators. Perhaps knowledge even more advanced – more
valuable
 
–
than that.”

Realization dawned. “You’re afraid I’m going to go into
competition
with you,” he said, aghast.

“Were you to enjoy a monopoly such as ours, would you not fear the same?” T’k’Ress wanted to know.

Teldin shook his head slowly. He couldn’t believe it! All this – all this effort, all these deaths – merely to protect the arcane’s market dominance …

But there was nothing “mere” about the arcane’s universe-spanning network. They were the only source of spelljamming helms. How many did they sell a year, on all the worlds, in all the crystal spheres? Thousands, millions? Say, just for argument, ten thousand major helms a year, at a going rate of … what, two hundred and fifty thousand gold pieces? That represented two billion, five hundred thousand gold pieces per year flowing into the arcane’s coffers. And that didn’t include such relatively minor peripherals as passage devices and the rest, which, no doubt, netted the race another paltry few millions …

And all that wealth stemmed from the fact that the arcane held the monopoly on the ability to create such – what did T’k’Ress say?
Technomagical?
 – devices. He could suddenly understand how the blue giants might consider a threat to that monopoly worthy of much effort to avert.

Still, it sickened him. There seemed something … base, something ignoble about it. Wasn’t it more – “acceptable” wasn’t quite the right word – to fight, to kill, to die, for a cause more honorable, more based in principle, than profit? Take the War of the Lance, for instance. Large portions of Krynn had been laid waste, but didn’t it matter that the cause was worthy?

Not to the dead. The thought bubbled up from some dark corner of his mind. He remembered those he’d known who’d died in the war. Did it matter to them
why
they’d died?

With a disgusted shake of his head, he focused back on the arcane before him. Now wasn’t the time to worry about philosophical digressions. “What if I told you I had no interest in breaking your monopoly?” he asked T’k’Ress.

The creature’s thin lips drew back from the solid, bony ridges that served it as teeth, a disgusting expression that Teldin guessed it had learned from humans. “I might believe that you tell the truth for the moment,” T’k’Ress said, no hint of humor in its voice, “but trust that you tell the truth for all time? Thai you would
never
consider it? No.” It shook its head. “I could never trust so much.”

Djan spoke up for the first time. “If you’d won,” he asked quietly, “if you’d defeated Captain Moore and taken the cloak, would you have donned it yourself?”

T’k’Ress’s tiny eyes opened as wide as they’d go in an expression of almost ludicrous surprise. “I?” Still, none of the creature’s emotion sounded in its voice. “Never. The benefits might be high, but the risks and costs would almost certainly prove higher. Where would be the benefit to me?” It gave its strange, twisting shrug again. “Perhaps eventually I could find a way of realizing a profit without risking the monopoly, but it would take much thought.”

“Tell me how you planned to acquire the cloak,” Teldin told the arcane.

“You already know.”

“Tell
me,” the Cloakmaster snapped.

“As you wish,” T’k’Ress said mildly. “I tried to block your research into the
Spelljammer
on Crescent. When that failed, I hired Berglund to intercept you.”

“What was that nonsense about Falx?” Teldin demanded.

The arcane spread its long hands. “It seemed unwise to tell a hireling the truth,” it explained, “lest he should fail … as he did. Had he succeeded, I would have met his ship en route to Falx and taken my prize at that point. As it was, you perhaps spent energy in preparing to counter a threat from a direction where no threat existed.

“In all honesty, I did not expect Berglund to succeed,” T’k’Ress confided. “You were, by all accounts, an innovative man and a skilled ship’s captain. It would be foolish to trust to a single stratagem.”

“So you put spies – saboteurs, murderers – aboard my ship,” Teldin growled.

Unaffected by the Cloakmaster’s anger, T’k’Ress nodded. “Dargeth and Lucinus, yes. Dargeth was a mage with a mind of great subtlety, one of the finest dissemblers I have ever met. Lucinus, too, was a fine operative.” The creature raised its hairless eyebrows in interest. “What fate did they meet?” it asked incuriously.

“During the battle they tried to escape,” Djan answered. “Their guards were forced to kill them both.”

Teldin knew that the half-elf was telling the complete and utter truth, but the arcane obviously didn’t believe him. Not that it mattered one whit to the creature, the Cloakmaster could see by its expression. He felt anger, hatred, burning in his chest.

“What happens now?” T’k’Ress asked quietly.

That
was
the question, wasn’t it? But as soon as the question was posed, the answer appeared fully formed in his mind. “We maroon you here aboard the
Boundless,”
Teldin told him coldly. “We take your ship.”

“Aboard the squid ship?” For the first time, the Cloakmaster could hear alarm in T’k’Ress’s voice. “Is it not crippled?”

“Not totally.” It was Djan who answered. “It’s dead in space for the moment, but you should be able to repair it … eventually.”

“But the helm —”

“Should be functional,” the half-elf cut T’k’Ress off. He grinned fiercely, his expression echoing Teldin’s emotions. “If not, you should be able to repair it, shouldn’t you? It’s part of the arcane monopoly, after all.”

“But …” T’k’Ress looked worried now. “But I sell helms —”

It was Teldin’s turn to cut him off. “You don’t repair them, is that what you’re trying to say?” He smiled coldly. “I’m afraid you’re not going to find me too sympathetic.”