The Maelstrom Eye

Chapter Twelve

Teldin felt the top deck of the Perilous Halibut slowly roll with the waves, and, despite his headache, he steadied himself easily as it did. The ship kept a surprisingly even keel for a gnome-built craft, he thought-particularly a craft that had just been through a nearly disastrous landing. As the throbbing in his head came and went, Teldin watched a group of six gnomes paddle for the shoreline in their small raft, cobbled together from doors and wooden beams knocked from the interior of the ship. He mulled for a moment over Sylvie's bad news, which he'd received shortly after the splash-landing, then sourly pushed it from his mind. Things were looking worse all the time.

Looking down, Teldin checked the railing where a thick rope had been tied off. Once the gnomes got ashore, they would take the other end of the rope and tie it to one of the trees there; then the crew of the Perilous Halibut would pull the ship in. The screws and paddles the gnomes had originally designed for powering the ship no longer functioned. The screws were made to be turned by the giant hamsters, both of which had been knocked unconscious in the crash and were still "woozy," Gaye had reported. The paddles were nearly all broken, having been badly stored, and the mechanisms for the screws had also taken some damage in the crash; they could not be fixed without two days of work. It was easier to simply haul the ship in by force.

Someone walked heavily from the stern of the ship to stand behind Teldin. He heard the being stretch and yawn, then casually straighten his uniform.

"Lovely day, if you don't mind my saying so, sir," said Gomja, carefully shading his small eyes with a thick blue-gray hand as he watched the gnomes' progress. "Unless, of course, we're attacked by the local militia or those scro find us, but we can handle that, I'll wager. By the Great Captain's blunderbuss, a good fight would get the blood stirring. We gave better than we got up there."

"Scro?" Teldin asked, half turning to look at the huge giff. The giffs pleased remembrance of the battle was starting to annoy him. "What are scro?"

"Scro are space orcs, sir," said Gomja, still watching the gnomes. "I didn't realize it at first when we were fighting them, but it came to me afterward. My sire told me a few tales about them. Scro are orcish survivors of the Unhuman War, hundreds of years ago, when the elves and humanoids fought for control of all the spheres. The survivors spelled the name 'orcs' backward when they cut their ties with their ancestors. They've been just an occasional nuisance until now. Sao are much more dangerous than common orcs, and even ogres will leave them alone. They're supposed to be partially resistant to magical spells, and all are well trained for combat. They fought well, I must admit. I wish I had saved one of their suits of armor as a trophy."

Teldin looked back at the shore. The gnomes were climbing out of their boat at the beach, a hundred yards away. Two gnomes fell into the water and disappeared as he watched. "But the scro, or whatever you call them, are dead, and we aren't," he said, summing up all he cared to recall about the battle. "I wouldn't like to see them get another chance at us."

Gomja grunted. The gnomes had managed to upset their entire raft, and it appeared to have come apart. There was nothing that could be done about it.

"The scro should have an easy time with us now that we're stuck here," Teldin said grimly. He turned to look back at the dozen or so gnomes on the top deck, each holding a loaded crossbow and nervously watching the sky for other spelljammers. Teldin lowered his voice in hopes that the gnomes couldn't hear him. "With the helm gone, we don't have much of a chance to escape them."

Gomja looked down sharply. "Where did you hear that, sir? The helm's quite functional. Its magic was merely nullified by the antimagical properties of this lake water."

"What?" Teldin frowned at Gomja. "Sylvie said that the helm wouldn't work, no matter what magic or effort she used on it. That was why we lost control and went underwater, hitting the lake bottom. The helm is simply dead."

"I am sure she would say now that she spoke too soon, sir," Gomja said promptly. "Before I came on deck, I asked her about the ship, and she explained what she had discovered about the antimagical properties of the water in this lake. It's quite remarkable, sir. The water doesn't remove a magical item's powers, but the water will keep the item from functioning. All we have to do is pull the ship onto the shore, out of the water, and we'll be off."

Teldin snorted softly, crossing his arms in front of him. "I wonder if the water would shut off the powers in my cloak long enough to let me take it off."

"That is possible, sir, but not likely." Gomja looked over the side of the ship briefly, ""You could try it, but the ladder came off in the landing, and you'd have no way to get up the side of the ship and on deck again unless you used a rope."

Teldin made up his mind to try it anyway-closer to shore. "If we run into one more minor setback like antimagical water that interrupts spelljamming," he muttered, "the scro, the neogi, the elves, and everyone else can fight over the cloak and my smashed body at their leisure." He felt the dull throbbing of his headache behind his eyes. He'd have to try the cold compresses that Gaye had applied to him when he'd recovered in his cabin, surrounded by his scattered belongings. He couldn't for the life of him recall anything that had gone on for a few minutes before the crash; he remembered only that he was trying to get to his cabin to lie down. He'd asked Gaye, since she'd been in the cabin with him, but she'd shrugged and said only that she'd discuss it later.

In the distance, the gnomes made it to the shore and managed to pull part of their raft onto the beach. After some confusion, the gnomes worked their way up the bank to the closest of the many trees there, the rope trailing behind them into the water. It took them about twenty minutes to tie the rope down. When they finished, the huge giff braced himself on the deck and began pulling on the rope, hand over hand. The ship creaked and groaned, changing its heading to face the shore, and slowly moved toward land.

"Antimagical water," Teldin said, half to himself. "What else does this place have in store for us?"

He turned away to look out over the lake. Thus, Gomja, not Teldin, was the first to see the horse-sized, green-and-gray insect that broke through the tree branches behind the tired gnomes. One of the centaurlike creature's clawed hands grasped the rope that the gnomes had just finished tying off. With a curved saber in its other hand, the creature chopped through the rope with a single cut.

An instant later, dozens of the multilegged horrors crashed out of the woods, rushing down the slope at the startled gnomes with long bows drawn and curved swords raised.

Bony hands seized the gilded frame of the mirror, lifting it swiftly out of its cradle.

"Accursed you will be!" shrieked an inhuman voice. "Accursed by all the powers of darkness forever you will be!" The bony hands raised the heavy mirror over the lich's skull and shook it, then-carefully-placed it back on its stand.

General Vorr drew in a breath of foul air, held it for a moment, then released it while inspecting a clawed fingernail. He had been listening to the lich rave for the last ten minutes, its odor of decay growing ever worse, and he was getting bored. The lich's initial news about the fate of the scorpion and its crew was bad enough; he couldn't afford to lose another ship without good cause. The possibility that Usso had been killed in the crash bothered him only in that it would be difficult at this date to replace her with someone equally capable as a spell-caster, even if she was a traitorous slut. Her information-gathering talents-among others-would be missed if she hadn't teleported out in time.

Vorr ignored the lich's ranting as he glanced around the small stone chamber again and stood near the open archway where he'd entered. The room was not large but was mildly impressive, if one liked ancient tombs. General Vorr didn't care for tombs, himself-unless they were for his enemies.

"Teldin Moore where is? Answer! Answer your master now, or to the burning planes of the Abyss and rotting shall you go!" The lich uttered another string of curses in a foreign language, then waved its arms in impotent fury.

Vorr swallowed a yawn.

The lich regarded the looking glass for a few moments, then turned away, muttering. "Gone he is! A power of the cloak this might be? An act by live meat this might be?" It shook its head, thinking furiously. "Not possible it is. Weak and simple his mind is, this live meat Teldin, and not for the tinkering with artifacts was it made." The lich paused as it turned, considering the objects that lay upon its rickety workbench. It looked up then and seemed to see the general for the first time.

"I take it you can't find Teldin Moore as you once said you could," Vorr said dryly.

The animated skeleton waved a bony hand in Vorr's direction as if dismissing him. "The gnomes' ship vanished it has, gone," it said. "Cloaked the cloak is-but what this could do? Wildspace this could not do. Metals thick as a lordserv-as an umber hulk this could not do. A crystal sphere this could not do." It pondered, staring at the faded paintings on a nearby wall with empty eye sockets.

The answer came easily for the general, but he resisted saying it aloud as even his answer didn't explain everything. Since Vorr knew he was himself completely antimagical at birth, a sort of antimagical field suggested itself as the cause of Teldin's disappearance. Could some antimagical device or creature have affected the gnomish ship? It would have to be a remarkable effect, given the size of the ship. The only other alternative was to assume that the gnomes' ship had disintegrated on impact, and Teldin was dead. This was reasonable enough, but the general knew enough not to jump to conclusions. What was the truth?

Vorr stared at the preoccupied lich and once again hated the thought that he needed to keep this reeking abomination alive-well, unharmed was a better word-for the time being. It was still of some value in leading them all to Teldin Moore- and the Spelljammer's cloak.

It dawned on the general that if the lich was no longer able to find Teldin, there was no reason to keep it… unharmed. The corners of his mouth crept upward. He would give it a little mote time to find Teldin-but only a little. He was interested in finding out what sort of being it really was before he broke it into vase-sized pieces.

"I later with you will speak," said the lich, turning away toward a dusty shelf of scrolls and papers. It began sorting through the papers and paid no further attention to Vorr.

The general nodded solemnly, as if the lich could still see him. His almost-smile was gone. "We will await your word," he said smoothly. Then he left, walking through the stone archway and down the broad corridor toward the ship docks. He passed rows of skeletal soldiers, his face registering his disgust as he looked down their crooked lines. The skeletons were nothing more than bones made mobile with a necromancer's spell, as mindless as the true dead could be. A force of scro could make short work of the pyramid's entire force, with the exception of the lich itself-but the general could dispose of that problem. The umber hulks would be tough to crack, too, but not impossible.

This thought kept him happy as he swiftly descended several ladders and stairs, eventually coming to the flying pyramid's cargo deck, an open area of ancient stonework with faded pictograms adorning the cracked walls. A spell on one far wall cast dim yellow light across the bay, illuminating a pile of stones, scraps of old wood, and a few scattered bones.

Vorr's squid ship was drifting in space only a few feet from one open cargo-bay door. A boarding rope tied around a thick pillar led out to the ship, and Vorr walked up to it and caught the rope without breaking stride. He swung hand over hand out through the cargo-bay doors, out across the abyss of space. If he fell, it was of no consequence, as he would only hit the pyramid ship's gravity plane and bounce. For a few moments, though, he imagined that if he let go, he'd fall forever toward the stars, never reaching them. It was a pleasant sensation.

"General aboard!" shouted an armored scro as Vorr appreached. Every scro on the deck snapped to attention and saluted, black-gloved fists up, the tarantula emblem facing out. Vorr swung over the squid ship's railing and dropped onto the forecastle deck with a heavy thump. It was pleasant to smell clean air again. "Ship away!" another scro called, casting off the boarding rope, and the stars turned around the squid ship as it pulled away from the flying pyramid.

Vorr trotted down the stairs to the main deck, then turned and went through the door to the galley and his own offices beyond. Scro eating their meals in the galley leaped to their feet as he entered, but he bypassed them, opening his office door and closing it behind him after he entered.

"You missed a rotten fight," came a familiar but subdued voice from the floor mat where Vorr slept.

"A pity," Vorr said. He glanced at Usso, who sat in the corner with her legs drawn up to her chin, then he took a seat at a heavy wooden desk and picked up a feathered pen. "Was this the fight in which you lost control of your ship when it was battered by a gnomish one, and you teleported away but left the crew behind to die?"

"That was the one," she said. Her voice lacked its usual liveliness, an indicator that she was depressed or upset. "How did you know? Could the lich see it all?"

"If Skarkesh can track Teldin Moore by his cloak, I imagine he can track more than that if he wants to," Vorr replied. He scribbled a few notes to himself on a sheet of paper. "He informed me of the ship and crew's fate, then tried to contact Teldin again, just to prove to me he could do it, but he couldn't find Teldin." Notes finished, Vorr turned on his stool to face the beautiful Oriental woman in the corner. "It was as if Teldin Moore's ship had vanished, he said. I thought of an antimagic field. Would that block our bone man's ability to spy on Teldin?"

The woman's face twisted with hurt and anger. "Kobas, you bastard, I almost died! The port wall of the helm room was broken through, and I was almost caught in the helm when the whole damned wall fell on it. All you can talk about is that filthy cloak! You don't give a rotting damn about me!"

Vorr looked steadily at Usso. "You're alive. My scro are not. This expedition is costing us more with each passing minute.

Do you want to waste my time, or help me get Teldin Moore's cloak before we are reduced to one battered ship and a crew of corpses commanded by a monster?"

"Take a jump right to the bottom of the Abyss, you fat, dung-eating, bootlick-no! No!" Usso broke off her retort as Vorr launched himself across the room, seizing one of her arms. Usso covered her face with her other arm, pulling her legs in against her stomach. "Don't kick me!" she cried. "Don't do it! I'll stop-ow! No! Owwww!"

Vorr held her delicate wrist in one massive hand and slowly rotated her wrist and forearm in a direction they were not meant to go. Usso writhed, trying to pull free. "Kobas! Ko-bas, stop it, stop it!" She screamed incoherently, her face pressed down against the bed mat.

Vorr eased the pressure off, leaving just enough to make Usso acutely aware the pain would return in an instant. The usual dining noises from the galley outside his door had ceased; if the scro were smart, they had gone elsewhere to eat.

"Your mouth will be your tombstone," he said, his voice as soft as a silken glove. "I found you, I made you strong, and I gave you power. I can take it away like this." He did something with Usso's arm, and she screamed again until he eased off once more. "Let's be reasonable before I lose all interest in reason. Teldin's cloak is the goal. We shall endure. Our enemies will decay on forgotten battlefields, but we shall endure-if you cooperate with me." He stopped and waited.

"Yes," Usso panted, her face hidden by her mass of long black hair, which lay spilled across the mat. "I'll help. Don't hurt me, Kobas. Please don't hurt me. I'll be good. I'll help you. Don't hurt me anymore."

He eased more of the pressure off, but not enough so that she could get up. "Could an antimagical field block the lich's attempts to spy on Teldin Moore?" he asked.

"It might. It can do that. It won't hurt the cloak, but it can stop magic coming from it. I'll be good, Kobas."

He reflected on the news. "What would happen," he said, "if I were to touch the cloak? Could Teldin be traced? Could he use any of the cloak's magical powers?"

Usso was panting hard, trying to get her breath back. "I think you would negate the cloak's powers, but only as long as you were holding it or touching it. It would work if you let it go. I believe it's very powerful. You couldn't destroy it, but you could stop it. He can probably spelljam with it. I told you that weeks ago. He must have used it when he escaped from us the first time. I saw him throw spells from it, magical missiles, just before we crashed. He killed a lot of scro before they boarded his ship."

Vorr listened to the woman's panting, then looked down her back. Clearly visible under her long white gown, her fox-like tail lay flat on the mat between her legs. Usso could lie, but her tail never could. She was like all of her kind: clever, arrogant, strong in the face of the weak, and weak in the face of the strong. All she cared about was herself.

It was a mistake to let her live, and Vorr knew it. Usso would sell out the gods themselves for more power. She no doubt had her own designs on the cloak Teldin wore; Vorr didn't mind that, because it would be easier to deal with her treachery than it would be to deal with the lich. If she could just keep her mouth shut more often and rein in her emotions, she could have a much cozier and more comfortable life-but she could never manage that, no matter how many warnings she got.

That was fine, too, Vorr thought. He sometimes enjoyed administering a loving warning or two to the fox-woman. If she pushed things hard enough at the wrong time, he'd administer a final warning one of these days, and he'd take his time at it. The thought was a pleasant one.

Vorr got to his feet again. He kept one broad, iron-muscled hand on Usso's wrist, forcing her to stay down until he was completely up. He gave her arm a final sharp twist and released her as she yelped and crawled away, sobbing.

It was all show, he knew. Usso, like all hu hsien, could heal her wounds and eliminate pain quickly. She was just hurt in the heart, or whatever she had that passed for one, because he didn't want to listen to her.

Vorr walked back to his desk and picked up his pen again. He imagined Teldin, wearing his cloak, attacking him with a sword. How could he get a grip on that cloak? What could he do with it when he got it in his hands? Could he use the cloak against Teldin in a face-to-face fight?

Images began to move in the general's mind as he listened to the hu hsien weep worthless tears. When he met Teldin at last, Vorr sincerely hoped the man would give his very best shot at trying to kill his opponent. Vorr wanted it that way. He wanted it to be a fight to always remember.

The shoreline grew nearer, foot by foot, as Teldin clumsily paddled the raft toward the shoreline. His legs were already awash in water up to his hips, but it mattered little as he had fallen into the lake once already and was completely soaked. His raft was barely more than a few more doors from the ship roped together, and his oar was a broken one from the ship's hold, but it worked. Nothing else was available.

Far behind him, Gomja and Aelfred watched anxiously from the ship's deck. They carried an assortment of wheel-lock pistols and muskets, primed and loaded, with more on the deck within reach. Lining the ship's railings and facing the shore was the ship's remaining crew, crossbows cocked and aimed, bolts piled behind them. Only Sylvie and Gaye remained inside the ship, and Teldin was positive that Gaye would not stay there long.

Teldin's cloak had pulled up into its necklace form when he'd hit the water earlier. For just a moment he wondered if he should use the cloak's powers to shapechange into one of the centaurlike insectoid creatures that lined the bank. Perhaps he could then use the cloak's translating abilities to convince these creatures that they were friendly. However, they had already seen him, and they would suspect the worst of any sudden transformation now. If he were them, he certainly would. The translating power would have to serve alone-that, and whatever he had in the way of oratory.

The insectoid creatures that awaited him on shore had hardly moved an inch since they seized the six gnomes and cut the rope. Teldin counted about three dozen of them, many armed with long bows. Each creature was striped and sported in a peculiar pattern of gray and green, which Teldin realized made them hard to spot against forested backgrounds. Crossing the chest of each eight-legged being were various straps and bandoliers, including a long quiver of arrows and numerous long-handled daggers. Only a few of the creatures held land weapons, long scimitars and pole axes, and these troops were clustered around the group of wet, frightened gnomes they had captured.

When he was only twenty feet from the shore, Teldin remembered that the lake water was supposed to be antimagical. That meant his cloak… he stopped paddling, almost paralyzed with fear at his next thought. Would his cloak's powers even work? It was too late now. He didn't even want to try to take the necklace off, for fear it would fall into the lake and be lost. Slowly, he resumed his progress toward shore, his heart sinking inside him. When he was close enough, he carefully slid off the raft and stood in the algae-thick water up to his knees, pulling the raft behind him until he could lay one end of it on the sand and rock bank. That done, he rose and faced the creatures, standing erect with his hands open at his sides. Cold water dripped from his soaked trousers and spilled out of his boots.

One of the insect-beings flipped its saber behind it, neatly dropping it into a broad sheath. It moved through the ranks of its fellow soldiers until it stood about ten feet before Teldin, looking him over with many-faceted black eyes as broad as the span of a man's hand. The head of the insect-centaur resembled that of an ant, with two huge antennae that twisted to and fro on its head, and a pair of dark mandibles larger than any animal's claws. It made a come-hither motion, and Teldin carefully stepped closer, away from the shoreline.

"Ship you sail sky?" the creature asked. Its voice was not unpleasant, almost like a chirping song. It gestured with one long, clawed hand toward the Perilous Halibut.

Teldin couldn't be sure if the creature was really speaking the Common tongue, as it seemed to be, or if the cloak was translating its words. "Yes," he said simply. "We came down and landed in the lake. We wish to rest." He canceled the idea of telling the insect folk that the ship wouldn't fly yet.

The creature regarded the Perilous Halibut without expression. "You no sail sky now? Ship you no sail lake? Home you here find?"

Teldin hesitated, not sure what the creature meant. "Ship fly… Our ship flies, yes. We just want to rest here, then leave. We will not bother you." He looked in the direction of the gnomes. "Please release our crew. They meant no harm."

In answer, the creature called out in an incomprehensible singsong language over its shoulder. There was some motion near the gnomes, then another insect-centaur appeared from the rest, holding, a gnome aloft under the armpits. The gnome, his face as white as his beard, appeared frozen with terror, but the insect-centaur merely deposited him on the ground in the long, flat grass near Teldin. With a push from behind, the creature sent the gnome in Teldin's direction.

Teldin felt the urge to reach down and snatch up the gnome as he would a returned child, but he resisted it. He did crouch and force a smile as the gnome walked nervously to him, looking over his shoulders every few seconds at the insect people. "Are you hurt?" Teldin asked.

The gnome shook his head, rubbing his chest where the insect being's claws had held him. "Fine," the gnome said-the shortest phrase Teldin recalled ever hearing from a gnome. He recalled this particular gnome was named Druushi.

Teldin clasped a hand on the gnome's shoulder with false bravado, then stood again. "Thank you for returning him," he said, feeling only slightly more confident. "We want the rest of our crew, too. I give you our word we will not bother you. We wish only to rest, then leave and, urn, sail the sky."

"Trade," said the insect being. "You trade talk. We trade crew. You trade true talk. Ship you no sail sky. Lake no sail. Home here you find?"

"No, we are not making our home here," Teldin said. He judged that these beings knew the lake water was antimagical, and he further had the impression that they were not evil. It was only a hunch, but he had nothing else, so he plunged ahead. "We didn't know the lake would stop our ship from flying-sailing the sky, I mean. We had to land, and we will leave again as soon as we get our ship out of the lake."

The insect-centaur turned and repeated its earlier gesture. Another insect warrior left the group surrounding the remaining gnomes, another frightened gnome clutched in its clawed hands. This gnome, too, was sent on his way toward Teldin, and Druushi welcomed him briefly, if anxiously.

That leaves four gnomes left, Teldin thought. Was he going to have to talk all the rest of them out of captivity? "I don't know what else I can tell you," Teldin said finally. "Will you allow us to come to shore?"

The insect being considered this. Within moments, Teldin felt a change in the atmosphere. Several of the insect beings close to the speaker lowered their bows. Moments later, large numbers of them followed suit, appearing to relax as they stood. Several even put their bows away, shoving them back into leathery sheaths strapped to their long tail sections. Teldin felt his nose twitch. He was going to sneeze.

He fought the impulse as long as he could. "If you want to trade talk," he said, "we can tell you some of our stories. True stories. You seem to know we can fly-sail, whatever. We can tell you where we've been. We can tell you about the…" He sneezed then, violently, four times in a row. Eyes watering, he forced himself to stop and looked up, then waved a hand to encompass the entire sky. "We can tell you about the universe, the worlds beyond the sky, if you let our crew go."

Huge black eyes gleamed as they looked Teldin over again. "You say true?" it chirped-sang.

"On my word of honor," Teldin answered, his nose starting to run. What in the Abyss was happening? Was he allergic to something in the air? "I say true."

For a moment, nothing happened. Then, to Teldin's astonishment, all of the insect folk put away their weapons and relaxed their postures. They moved away from the gnomes, who hesitantly began side-stepping toward Teldin and their two compatriots. When it was obvious the insect beings did not care, the gnomes broke into a run and collided, arms out, into drawn-out hugs with their friends. "What's that odd smell?" he heard one of the gnomes ask another.

Teldin felt his knees grow weak with relief. He started to say "Thank you" to the insect being when he was seized with an uncontrollable urge to sneeze. He could barely do anything else, and the sneezing went on and on.

"You say ship crew, all good," said the insect being, out of Teldin's sight. "We and you pull ship. Trade talk and talk. You and crew rest." The creature hesitated, then looked curiously at Teldin, who was also being regarded with some concern by the gnomes.

I… I can't… stop!" Teldin gasped, then sneezed again twice. "I… can't.. stop!"

"Of course, I did tell you that medical matters were not in my central curriculum when I was at the university of Lirak's Cube," said Dyffed, examining Teldin's red, swollen face. "I was in engineering-none of this tinkering with the insides of dead things or trying to make trees grow watermelons or crossbreeding dragons with giant hamsters. No, I had the clean feel of the slide rule, the virgin expanses of fresh paper, the thrill of multiple equations, the afterglow of a correct sum. I was young then, only fifty, young and foolish, eager to yield myself to the temptations of differential mathematics and spell-jamming theory. Some fools called it infatuation, but they wouldn't have known verifiable ardor even if it chose to affix its incisors on their ischial tuberosities." He sighed and looked off into space. "Ah, it was an exciting time to be alive."

"What's wrong with Teldin?" Gaye asked, unable to wait any longer.

"What? Oh." Dyffed cleared his throat. "He's got a runny nose and he's sneezing a lot."

"Yes, we know that!" Gaye exclaimed. "But why?"

"Beats me," said the gnome with a shrug. "Maybe it's something in the air."

"It's the rastipedes," said Aelfred with a smile. "I dealt with one a few years ago in Greyspace. They communicate with each other by smell. Most of us can barely detect it, but I'll bet a year's pay that our man Teldin is allergic to the odor. A buddy of mine had the same thing. There's nothing you can do about it except avoid rastipedes whenever possible. Sorry about that, old son."

"Teldin's allergic to those bugs?" Gaye asked. "Thank Paladine it wasn't kender."

I almost wish it had been kender, Teldin thought miserably. His sinuses were swollen far beyond normal limits, and he could barely breathe. He had never had an allergy before in his life, and he hoped he'd never get another.

"It will pass," Aelfred added, raising a mug of ale to his lips. "Give it a couple of days, and you'll be fine. In the meantime, the rastipedes and our crew are building a wagon for the ship. We should have it out of the water by this evening." He drank deeply and smacked his lips.

"Any other news?" Teldin managed to ask, his voice now outrageously nasal. He heard Gaye giggle.

"They're giving us a map of the area," said Aelfred. "It should give us a start on finding what we came here for."

The fal, Teldin thought, rubbing his face. He tried to picture a giant black slug that could talk, but it wasn't possible. He'd almost forgotten about the fal in the last few days since the-what were they again? — since the scro's ship began trailing them.

"Here he comes," said Gaye, "and he's got a map!"

Teldin's eyes watered again as the rastipede jogged up on its eight legs, moving more rapidly than seemed possible for its size. The creature did indeed have a large rolled-up sheet of paper in its claws, which it presented to Aelfred and Gaye. "Teldin sick?" asked the insect being.

"I'm afraid so," said Aelfred, unrolling the map. "Where are we now on this?"

The rastipede turned its attention to the map, trotting over to stand behind the big, blond warrior. A clawed green finger reached down and pointed to a spot on the map that Teldin could not see from where he sat. "We here."

"There?" asked Aelfred, surprise in his voice. "What's this in the center, then?"

"Lake," said the rastipede, looking up from the map to point toward the shore where the other insect folk and the gnomes were laboring.

Gaye gasped, and Teldin could see her eyes widen as she peered at the sheet of paper. "Isn't that weird? Dyffed, look at this! Isn't that bizarre?"

Teldin could stand it no longer. He got up from the rock and tried to get into the crowd, even as his nose stopped up completely as he approached the insect being. "What's going on?" he wheezed, hating the sound of his voice.

Aelfred managed to lower the top end of the map. Teldin looked down. A large blue footprint appeared to take up most of the center of the map. Teldin blinked, his teary vision clearing for a moment, and he saw the rastipede's claw pointing steadily to a forested spot on the leading edge of one of the footprint's four thick toes.

Aelfred looked up at the lake, then down at the map. He snorted and smiled. "Mother Nature having one of its jokes," he said. "Looks like something stepped there, doesn't it?"

"Something did step there," said Dyffed, peering at the map through his gold-rimmed spectacles. "Quadrupedal megafauna. One of the bigger ones, I'd say."

There was a short silence.

"Dyffed," said Aelfred conversationally, "that lake is about a hundred and twenty miles long."

The gnome merely nodded. "I'd say a hundred and thirty, myself, a third the she of Ironpiece. Just a rough guess, of course. We can make more accurate measurements when we're airborne again."

The silence returned. Aelfred lowered the map and looked off into the distance, in the direction the leading edge of the footprint indicated. "Then how big…?" he started to say, but his voice trailed away. Teldin and Gaye followed his gaze, looking over the treetops and into the infinite blue beyond.

"We'll know soon enough," Dyffed said cheerfully, still looking at the map. "One Six Nine lives on top of one."