The Maelstroms Eye (2 page)

Teldin clenched his teeth, but he kept calm and looked away. This wasn’t the time to start thinking about the copper-haired woman back on the
Probe,
Aelfred’s sharklike hammership, but Aelfred insisted on poking at the topic of Teldin’s love-life at least once a day.

“I’ll look around for something,” Teldin said vaguely.

Aelfred grinned. “That’s the idea. Good luck, then. Don’t let the elves put you on a waiting list.” Aelfred slapped Teldin on the shoulder, then strode away and was lost in the crowded market within seconds.

Teldin pushed the conversation out of his mind and tried to make sense of the madness around him. It struck him that he was being introduced to some of the limitless and alien possibilities of wildspace civilization and commerce, and he was content to soak it in for a moment before moving on. He wondered again if he should have commanded his cloak to disguise his features, changing him into another person entirely, but again he decided against it. There was no point in trying to fool the very people whose help he needed most.

Teldin knew he was not especially remarkable in appearance, being of average height, weight, and looks for a human male of thirty-three years from his now-distant homeworld of Krynn. His tanned face and hands were lined from years of farming and soldiering, more recently scarred by fighting in wildspace. His sandy brown hair had grown longer; he kept it brushed back and trimmed, but the feel of it was more pleasing now than the short-cropped style he had once favored. He’d even grown a mustache and had been please’d with the result, though he still shaved the rest of his beard whenever possible.

His clothing – except for his cloak – wasn’t particularly striking, either. He’d always liked quiet tones. Today he favored a well-worn blue cotton shirt and long, stone-gray trousers belted with dark leather. The brass hilt of a short sword stood out from his left side, strapped to a second leather belt. Two worlds ago, Teldin had found a comfortable pair of high-topped boots, simply done, made from the rust-colored hide of an alien beast whose name Teldin couldn’t begin to pronounce. In contrast to Aelfred’s careless but often dashing dress, Teldin looked quiet and somber, not one to attract attention. Given the events of late, he was quite happy to be seen and forgotten.

Grandfather would have loved to have seen this, Teldin thought, and he smiled. Old Halev had always wondered what, if anything, lay beyond the moons of Krynn. He’d dearly loved tales of mystery and adventure, but Teldin suspected the old man would never have believed a word of what had happened to his grandson in the last few months. Still, he would have loved to hear the story.

Teldin pulled his long blue cloak close around his shoulders again as he started uphill into the noisy crowd. This little world certainly looked big enough when you were walking on it, he thought. Teldin had looked down at the Rock of Bral with the other crewmen as the
Probe
had flown in for docking. From space the Rock had looked like a mile-long potato coveted by a city, complete with streets, buildings, and trees. Aelfred had had the ship dock at the small end of the Rock; the bigger end, uphill from the docks, was given over to the estates of the local prince and a narrow lake where gullions congregated by the hundreds. While the crew was unloading the cargo, Aelfred had offered to give Teldin a quick tour through the city. Teldin had been grateful for the help, but he was happier now that Aelfred had found other things to do. Being on his own was Teldin’s natural state. He knew he would have lived out his natural life on Krynn, hoeing crops and caring for his animals, needing only occasional company. It was easier to get things done by himself. Nowadays, it was safer, too. It wasn’t wise to trust many people, thanks to his cloak. It had become the ultimate scavenger-hunt prize to the worst son of foes.

Teldin scanned the crowd for any sign of Aelfred’s face, but he could see nothing of the grinning warrior. He almost felt relieved. Teldin was all too aware of the dangers he presented to everyone who traveled with him, and he knew his few living friends were aware of the risks, too. Aelfred, Julia, and a handful of others had suffered terrible injuries because of him, and uncounted numbers more, friends and enemies alike, had died in awful ways. If he weren’t looking for the elves, he knew he probably would have disguised himself using the cloak, or at least would have shrunk the cloak until only the silver clasp, chain, and a tiny bit of cloth showed, concealing its true nature. Removing the cloak was impossible and always had been. He couldn’t unfasten the cloak’s lion-headed catch, and the cloak held unpleasant surprises for those who tried to cut it or remove it from him by force.

Teldin slowed, seeing a knot of beings ahead of him. Some Oriental humans were arguing politely with a horse-sized creature that looked like a brown praying mantis, apparently about a payment of some kind. None of them spoke any language Teldin had ever heard, but he understood them anyway – another benefit of the cloak, which often, seemingly at whim, translated unfamiliar languages for him. For all its faults, the cloak had its benefits, too.

As he made his way around the arguers, Teldin thought about his past. How would he tell Halev about it, if the old man were still around? Just half a year ago, Teldin was an embittered war veteran, scratching out his life on a farm in a little valley. He knew his homestead would be a mess now. Neighbors long ago would have found his home burned to the ground, with the ruins of a ship, of all things, right in the middle of it. The burned or butchered bodies of his closest neighbors and several unknown people, including an alien woman of a race called the reigar, would have been dug up shortly thereafter. Unless they traced him across the continent of Ansalon after the fire, the few people left who knew Teldin would have assumed that he was dead, too. Almost everyone else who knew of his troubles after the ship fell out of the sky and crushed his home was now dead. His new enemies had killed them all.

Teldin shrugged. Like his grandfather, the neighbors would not have believed the rest of the story either. Teldin was given his strange cloak by the reigar woman before she died of her injuries from the crash of her space-flying ship, called a spelljammer. Teldin and an alien soldier named Gomja – a huge blue, hippopotamuslike humanoid – had crossed the lands of Ansalon, pursued by a murderous, wicked, spiderlike race called the neogi, who wanted the cloak he now wore. Aided by the gnomes of Mount Nevermind, Teldin had escaped into wildspace and had survived treachery, piracy, and murder as he searched for clues to the cloak’s purpose.

Once, Teldin gladly would have left the cloak with anyone who had asked for it. Now, he didn’t dare let it out of his grasp. Pirates, vile neogi, hideous mind flayers, blue-skinned humanoids called the arcane, and others wanted his cloak very much. The neogi in particular wanted it badly enough to torture and murder everyone they met. They had hinted that they could enslave and decimate whole worlds if they came into possession of the cloak – just how, Teldin hadn’t a clue, but he wasn’t sure he wanted to know.

On the advice of Vallus Leafbower, an elven wizard who had once been the helmsman for the
Probe,
Teldin had decided to contact the admirals of the elven Imperial Fleet. He wanted answers. Who had made the cloak? What was the cloak’s purpose? What were all of its powers? Why couldn’t he take it off? And why were so many forces willing to kill for it? The dying alien woman had told Teldin to take the cloak to “the creators” – but who or what were they? He shook his head as he walked. It was a crazier universe than Grandfather Halev ever could have imagined.

Teldin stepped around a group of steel-armored dwarves, all examining a faded parchment in a tight circle. They barely glanced up at him before returning to their whispered conversation. It would be nice one day, he reflected, to be able to take the cloak off and walk around like a normal human being. With as many enemies as he now had, though, perhaps even that was unwise. The cloak had an assortment of magical powers that Teldin had painfully discovered by accident and by trial and error. He could hardly afford to lose its protections now.

Teldin passed and ignored a pair of babbling, fishy-smelling penguins, each dressed in red-and-green plaid shirts and ridiculously waving their flipperlike wings at him from the blanket on which their wares were laid out. Aelfred had already warned him about the dohwar, and their squawking pleas faded behind him. He did give a long look at a towering gray giant sitting cross-legged ahead of him. The giant wore purple-and-red striped breeches and a dirty white shirt. He stroked his braided beard as he quietly spoke with a motley collection of children of every race Teldin had ever hard of. Even sitting, the being was twice Teldin’s six feet in height and almost as broad across the chest as Teldin was tall. A spacesea giant, he thought, recalling Aelfred’s lessons on wildspace inhabitants.

It was because of the spacesea giant that Teldin didn’t sec the girl, and they thumped solidly into each other in front of a rug merchant’s stall.

“Oops!” the girl squealed, a startled look on her face. Barely a teenager, she came up to Teldin’s breastbone. It struck Teldin next that the girl was also very beautiful.

“Paladine! I’m sorry. Are you all right?” Teldin instantly reached out to steady the girl.

The girl giggled and reached up to her black hair with a golden-bronze hand. A bright magenta kerchief was tied around her head, and a high, thick ponytail fell like water down her back. Teldin was vaguely aware that she wore a flowery perfume and a color-splashed dress that reached to her toes, but he was not able to look away from her huge, dark, eyes. Flecks of gold swam in them like distant stars. She would be a stunner when she grew up.

“I wasn’t paying attention either,” the girl said, still smiling. “It’s hard to get around in a place this crowded. I’ve been here a few days, and I’m still trying to find my way. Are you new here, too?” Her voice was songlike. Something about it and the way she looked tugged at Teldin’s memory.

“Uh, yes.” Off guard, Teldin gestured behind him, downhill. “My ship docked about two hours ago. I was, ah, taking in the sights.” That’s all she needs to know, he thought. No need to involve anyone else in my problems.

“Great!” she said easily, as if she’d known him all her life. “Then we can explore the Rock together! Have you had something to eat since you got here?”

Things were getting out of hand. Teldin looked uphill for a moment, then deliberately let his gaze wander away and around the city. “I was going to explore a bit on my own,” he said slowly. “I … need to see some people about business. It could take a while.”

“Oh, but you have to eat, right?” the girl said brightly. “My name’s Gaeadrelle Goldring. Gaye is fine. I saw this weird little tavern near the Burrows, son of half-sunk into the ground. Halflings run it. It smelled like they serve some kind of chicken dish. Let’s try it. If it’s awful, I’ll pay. C’mon!”

“What about your parents?” Teldin asked, uncomfortable with the thought of having her tag along after him. She wasn’t acting like a teenager, yet she was like a child in a way. “Wouldn’t they —”

“My
parents?”
cried the girl, putting a hand on her chest in mock surprise. “Give me some rope! I’m not a kid! I’ve been walking loose on deck for years! I’m just shorter than you are, that’s all. C’mon, let’s take a walk. I don’t bite much, and I’m starving. We’ve got to see a bit of the Rock before you get serious. This chicken place, now …”

Before he was fully aware of it, Teldin was walking beside Gaye as she led the way through the Greater Market. Still talking, she headed perpendicular to Teldin’s original course. What in the Dark Queen’s name am I doing? he thought. I have to find the elves and see what they know about this cloak. My life and many others depend on it. If the neogi find me again, they’ll cut me to pieces and pick the cloak out of the gore, and then —

Gaye abruptly turned toward him and gave him a wide, happy smile. Her eyes were like wildspace itself. “So, are you hungry enough to try it?” she said.

Well, he reasoned, Gaye was charming, but she still seemed too young for anything other than polite company. She was very serf-possessed, but she couldn’t be more than sixteen, eighteen at the most. He sighed and looked away, weighing his decision. This was an armed asteroid, and there were no neogi about. He’d been here only two hours. Another hour or two wouldn’t make any difference. He hadn’t eaten in almost half a day, thanks to his nerves over seeing the elves. Gaye could probably do worse in choosing a male figure to whom she could attach herself; he could at least look out for her, even if Aelfred felt the Rock was safe. Aelfred was seeing it from his own point of view, not from a teenaged girl’s.

Halflings were supposed to be great cooks, too, or so he’d heard. There were no halflings on Krynn, and the halfling deckhand on the
Probe
wasn’t trusted in the galley yet. Maybe Teldin had been missing something.

He wondered if he’d pay for this with more than money.

“Sure,” he finally said. Gaye looked ecstatic.

If I’m missing anything, he decided, it’s common sense.

*****

Lunch (or had it been supper? Teldin had no sense of time on this night-sky worldlet) had been excellent. Afterward, he and Gaye had wandered through the Burrows, the surface-and-tunnel community of the local halflings, then through orderly Giff-Town, with its quaint and long-winded signs. They’d even gone into the Lesser Market, a filthy street bazaar where the silent, meaningful gazes the local men sent in Gaye’s direction led Teldin to walk close beside her with one hand on his sword hilt. (So much for Aelfred’s opinions of the Rock’s safety, he thought in disgust.) Gaye had been oblivious to potential danger, stopping at several ramshackle tables to inspect peculiar cups, ornaments, rings, and other items.

And Gaye had never once stopped talking. She had extensive, if superficial, knowledge of numerous worlds, cities, races, and ships. So far, Teldin had heard some of Gaye’s experiences with, and opinions of, gnomes (“delightful!”), elves (“nice, but a little snooty.”), dwarves (“so serious!”), wild-space (“it’s
big,
isn’t it?”), and some place called Kozakura, where she’d studied art of some kind. She’d arrived at the Rock on an aperusa ship about eight days earlier, admitting that she’d been here longer than she’d let on earlier. The aperusa men had been unbearable, she’d said, and had always tried to get her alone somewhere. Teldin felt his blood rise at that, but Gaye thought little of it, aside from saying, “I don’t know how the women put up with it.”