Roger Moore - Cloakmaster 3 - The Maelstrom's Eye

Chapter One

The beholder's yellow central eye still bore the gleam of fanaticism, even in death. Its wild gaze,

undimmed by the passing of years, looked down at Teldin Moore as he walked past the guild hall where

the beast's spherical body was mounted over the main doors. Teldin's mouth went dry when he saw it,

and he couldn't help but stare.

A thick wooden beam ran through the back of the beholder's round body for support; the ash-gray

creature was wider than a man's reach with both arms. The dozen eyestalks on its top were cracked in

places, some revealing the iron rods that supported the fist-sized eyeball at each stalk's end. Teldin tried

to imagine what the ugly beast had been like in life, before it had met its final opponent and was turned

into an advertising sign.

"That's Graffin the Gray," said the big, blond-haired warrior at Teldin's side. Aelfred Silverhorn gave a

lopsided grin at the stuffed monster. "He's been there as long as I can recall. Quite a looker, isn't he? He

used to attack shipping near the Rock. It took three shiploads of men to kill him, and he disintegrated one

of them before the other two finished him off from behind."

"Interesting," said Teldin, finally looking away to watch the thick street traffic around them as they walked

on. He pulled his royal blue cloak closer around his shoulders. "I wouldn't like to meet one of those

here."

"There is one good thing about beholders," Aelfred replied, his eyes sparkling. "Given the choice, they'll

kill each other long before they'll kill us. But they're not going to give us any trouble here, old son. There's

one beholder who does live here, but Luigi's all right. He's a bartender. The Rock of Bral's just a calm,

run-of-the-mill place."

As he spoke, the big man made way for a pair of grunting, red-haired gorillas in rainbow-patterned

robes, each sorting through fruit in a streetside bin. Teldin tried hard not to stare as he and Aelfred

walked past them, but Aelfred never gave them a second glance. "The Rock isn't very big," he continued

sagely, scratching his broad chest through his loose black shirt. "Still, damn near everyone in the Known

Spheres comes here eventually. Politeness is the rule. You might have your pocket picked, but the

picker's in more danger than you are." Out of long habit, Aelfred let one hand stray to the money pouch

on his thick brown belt, then dropped his hand when satisfied of the pouch's safety.

Teldin nodded blankly, looking back at the red gorillas for a moment. Each wore two huge swords in

crossed scabbards on its back and probably weighed as much as three adult men. Their huge chests and

thick forearms were an effective promise of their talents. By contrast, Teldin's work-hardened frame

looked weak indeed.

Aelfred raised a thick-knuckled hand and pointed up the street. "The Greater Market's right ahead,

around the corner, where that cyclops is going-the one with the head horn, not the bald red one."

Teldin Moore looked in Aelfred's direction and started to say something, but the sight of two Cyclopes at

once among the crowd caused his thought to trail away. He'd never seen a cyclops before, much less

discovered that Cyclopes came in different sizes and shapes. His blue eyes widened at the sight, but he

was slowly becoming accustomed to being surprised.

"The market can be a rough place," said Aelfred, warming to a memory. "I heard a story about a goblin

here who tried to cut the purse on this merchant, only to find out that the merchant was an illithid. The

illithid mind-controlled the little guy, then made the goblin take its dagger and cut out its own-"

"Aelfred," Teldin said abruptly. He was already able to visualize the rest of the gruesome tale. "You told

me you'd heard that the elven Imperial Fleet was here, but you didn't say anything about exactly where it

was. I haven't seen any elves wearing that silver fleet armor you described."

"Oh, the elves are here, all right. The first mate on the Drunken Kraken, in the dock next to ours, said

that his sister, who's a helmsman on a freighter out of Toril, once met this gnome who said the elves had

an admiral or two here on the Rock. Their embassy is just a small one, up in the forest I pointed out

when we were coming in. The elves had the trees imported to make a little bit of home for themselves.

The forest is just beyond the Greater Market, a little ways up toward the prince's palace over there."

Aelfred pointed in the same direction as before, his finger elevated toward an illuminated tower shining

against the black, star-filled sky.

They walked on together in silence, Aelfreds tale about the unfortunate goblin thankfully dropped.

Hundreds of white, gull-like birds-Aelfred called them gullions-wheeled and cried above them, sailing

against the starry darkness like winged ghosts. In a few moments, the two men rounded the corner and

came to a stop.

"The Greater Market," Aelfred said.

Teldin gaped, then closed his mouth. For perhaps a tenth of a mile ahead of him lay a shifting sea of

humans and other beings, their voices filling the open square like roaring surf. Teldin rubbed his bristly

mustache as he surveyed the rolling chaos before him.

An arm's length away, a huge giff in a green military uniform drank from a great pewter tankard as he

walked by, his normally blue hippopotamus face now a warm purple. A brown, waist-high halfling with

curly black hair and a bright yellow outfit argued vehemently with an overweight albino human, the latter

in a black robe belted with a live white serpent. A shoulder-high elf wearing only deerskin trousers and

moccasins, his face and chest tattooed with fine green whorls into patterns of trees and leaves, examined

the wares of a leather-goods booth. Behind the booth's counter was a sad-eyed, winged baboon-woman

in a toga of white silk, whose two hair)' children shouted creative insults at passersby. A stone's throw to

his right, seven colorfully dressed aperusa, human gypsies whose handsome, tanned skins shone with

sweat, entertained the crowd for coins. The men played mandolins and tambourines as the women

danced and laughed. On and on went the sights, across dozens of races, scores of languages, and

hundreds of beings stretched over the whole of the marketplace.

Teldin smelled the heavy, sweet perfume of the aperusa women, the scent mixing with that of curried

meats from a nearby food vendor, the citric odor of a pulpy green fruit crushed on the paving stones, and

the smell of potent beers and ales. It was a place once beyond his imagination.

"Doesn't look like much is going on today," said Aelfred, surveying the crowd with a bored gaze. He

shrugged and glanced at Teldin. "You want to find the elves on your own, or you need a hand?"

"I... I'll be fine." Teldin recalled with an effort the details of his mission to the Rock. "Let's meet at the

Probe later. I could be quite a while, so I can't say when I'll get to the ship."

"Take your time," said Aelfred. "I'm going to look up some old friends and get another cask or two of

sagecoarse for the saloon." He gave Teldin a nudge in the ribs with a rock-hard elbow. "Maybe you can

find a trinket for Julia. Women love that, even the warriors-sometimes especially the warriors."

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 theProbe, 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 theProbe 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 theProbe,

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-"

"Myparents?" 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 theProbe 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

Aelfired'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'sbig,

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."

The details were jumbled up, but Gaye had apparently been roaming on her own for ten years or more.

The issue of her exact age was becoming more confusing all the time, but Teldin wasn't ready to ask

about it.

Three hours after they'd eaten, they were somewhere in the Dracon Enclave, near a semitropical grove of

palm trees, sitting on the short-cropped grass. Before them was a large collection of reptilian beings of

every sort, from centauroid dracons to manlike lizard men.

"I used to think that a lizard was a lizard, you know," said Gaye, "but then I saw that there were as many

types of them as there are of people like us. I met some trogs once, not very friendly ones at that, and,

wow, did they ever stink. It was incredible. Then I met dracons, saurials, sithp'k, and, of course, the

wasag, like that little blue guy over there." Gaye pointed at a halfling-sized reptilian humanoid about thirty

feet away, which looked over at them with a blank expression. Teldin leaned back on the grass and

looked at the wasag, which flicked a thin, forked tongue in his direction, then he looked off to his left at

one of the Rock's huge hexagon-base defense towers, bristling with siege machines aimed into the starry

sky. The tangerine sun hovered low over the city skyline ahead of him. Aside from the sun's presence, he

had learned that night was no different from daytime on the Rock of Bral. The air envelope around the

asteroid wasn't thick enough to create a colored sky, so it was always dark above. Street and shop lights

kept the city lit even when the sun was shining on the Rock's other side.

Things were becoming stranger still. The Rock had seemed large earlier, but after wandering around he

had discovered that the horizon was so close that he thought he was on a mountaintop. It was hard to get

used to. He suspected that the scenery could get monotonous, but at least the locals never had to worry

about bad weather. And the steady stream of visitors from other worlds kept things interesting.

Gaye said something that ended in the word "Krynn," then stopped speaking. Teldin looked at her. She

was giving him a big-eyed look, waiting for a response.

"What about Krynn?" he said.

"I asked if you were from Krynn. You said the name of the god Paladine when we met, so I assumed

you were from Krynn, like me."

Teldin's mouth fell open. "I am from Krynn," he said in amazement. "I had a farm in Estwilde, south of

Kalaman. You're from Krynn, too?"

"I don't believe it!" Gaye shrieked. Every reptilian being within earshot turned in their direction. "Is this a

pocket-sized universe, or what?"

Teldin was on the verge of asking her where she came from when he noticed a group of elves, probably

diplomats or nobles, walking down the street toward him. He remembered something important then.

"Damn," he said, and got to his feet. "I've got to find the elves." He cursed himself then for letting her hear

that.

"The elves? You have to see the elves? Was that your business here? I know where they're at. You

should've just asked me back at the Greater Market. They're right in the middle of the Rock, on the edge

of the High City." She pointed to Teldin's right, uphill.

Teldin belatedly realized how far they had been wandering in the last few hours. "We've got to get going,"

he said quickly. "I mean,I've got to get going. I have to go see them by myself." He quickly brushed off

his pants. His magical cloak never got dirty or wet, so he didn't bother with it.

"Let's go, then," Gaye said brightly. She hadn't heard his last two sentences very clearly. "We'll go this

way, around the dracons and down to the arena and up by the festival grounds. We'll reach the elven

forest in a few minutes."

"But-" Teldin started, then had to run to catch up to Gaye's quick pace. As they passed the dracons and

lizard men, the reptile-folk stopped hissing and croaking at each other and gave them both cold,

unblinking stares until they were well down the street. I wonder if they think we're good to eat, Teldin

thought, then shoved the question aside. He let go of the brass sword hilt and focused instead on keeping

up with the girl with the color-splashed dress and anthracite hair.

Gaye chatted on as they went, now talking about the lore she'd picked up about the festival grounds.

Something was pulling at Teldin's memory about Gaye. Had he met her before? He doubted it. Then why

did she seem familiar to him? She didn't have much of a Krynnish accent, but the way she spoke, her

appearance, her fearlessness, her face-what was it? He found himself staring at her magenta kerchief,

where it covered her ears.

They had just passed the Rock's arena and were heading up the boulevard past the festival grounds when

Gaye, in her happy rambling, started talking about Krynn and how she'd first made her way into

wildspace.

"It was really the craziest thing. I'd just finished seeing some relatives in Kendermore when this big

gnomish side-wheeler came right out of the sky and crashed, just smashed itself into little-"

"No," said Teldin, slowing abruptly and staring at Gaye with the beginnings of astonishment and horror.

The childlike face. The endless talking. The nonstop traveling. The unremitting curiosity. The lack of fear.

Great Paladine.

"What?" Startled, Gaye looked up at him and slowed down, too. "What's wrong?" "You're a kender," he

said.

Gaye's dark eyes widened to enormous size. Her mouth fell open, mocking Teldin's expression. "Reorx's

Hammer, do you really think so?" she said, stopping. "Is that where I got these?" She reached up and

pulled off her kerchief.

Gaye's ears were pointed on the tops, just like the ears of all elves-and the ears of all kender. She saw

his expression and grinned like a devil.

I've been traveling with a kender, Teldin thought with dismay. She's probably robbed me blind. His hands

strayed to his belt purse, which was still strapped shut. That meant nothing, he knew; she could have

gotten into it a dozen times by now. Krynnish kender were born thieves, magically descended from

humans despite their superficial elven looks. Gaye's height had fooled him; most kender were willowy

and only three and a half feet tall. Gaye was almost four foot six with the build of a human teenager, more

muscular than he would have expected of a human girl. She could be almost any adult age. Kender lived

longer than humans-and they made life hell for everyone around them, every day of their lives.

He had to ditch her before he saw the elves; they'd never let him near them if they knew anything at all

about kender. She could keep the money she'd stolen from him, too. It would teach him to look before

he leaped.

"Listen," he said abruptly. "I have to do some very important things, and I have to go alone, I've had a

great time, and I appreciate your showing me around the Rock, but I do have to go."

"You have to go?" repeated Gaye, her grin fading somewhat. "Well, when you get back, we can-"

"I'm going to be a long time. I'm sorry. I probably won't see you again." He hated to be cruel about it, but

this was best stopped now. He'd been a fool long enough.

Teldin looked up the street. The tops of some broadleaf trees in a densely forested region were now

visible above the pavilions and booths at the end of the festival grounds' boulevard. It had to be the elves'

forest. He turned back to Gaye and stuck out his hand. "Thanks again."

Gaye looked blankly down at his hand. She then took it in her own small hands, gently and carefully, and

simply held it. Her touch was very soft and warm.

"Maybe we'll meet again anyway," she said hopefully, a trace of a smile coming back.

"Maybe," he said, and pulled away. In a million years, if I'm lucky, he added to himself.

Without a backward glance, Teldin set off for the forest. It was only with great difficulty that he could

push the image of the wildspace eyes out of his mind.

Chapter Two

The first screams began at sunrise, only slightly muted as they entered through the frosted windowpanes

of the old elven citadel. General Kobas Hamarka Vorr flipped a page as he finished reading another

report at his oversized stone desk. He was in early today, hoping to plow through the mound of

paperwork before him. The only interruption so far had been from his goblin aide, who had shuffled in

bearing a wooden tray with an assortment of spiced meats, rice, fruit, and water for breakfast. The rest

of the day, excluding meals, would be the usual ritual of reading, noting, signing, and moving on.

The only entertainment would be that provided by the elven prisoners, taken when their homeworld had

been conquered by a humanoid naval fleet and the general's scro and ogre marines. Every hour, after the

abrupt cessation of one elf's cries, a new voice would ring out its agony. This timing had proved helpful,

and the general usually let the screaming set the pace of his work.

The present system of handling elven prisoners was a great improvement over the old one, the general

reflected as he paused in his work. Many of the troops still preferred the dusk-to-dawn mass rituals now

permitted only during religious holidays and military celebrations, when prisoners were many, but that

system ate up too much time and required too many troops to manage the captives; it was simply

wasteful. Now only three or four soldiers and a war priest could handle affairs, and the limited pool of

subjects was stretched considerably. The timing also allowed for normal sleep, and the new ceremony

still satisfied the legions. Best of all, it had a profound effect on those prisoners awaiting their turns on the

red-stained granite block in the citadel's withered garden, and they offered up the most remarkable

secrets in the hopes that they would be spared. That was always the most amusing part, thought the

general, as he started the last of one batch of reports and took another bite of his meat and rice.

Sometimes the general would stop and listen to a particularly interesting cry a victim would make. He

thought he could make out individual words in Elvish, most being pleas for mercy, but he was never sure.

His hearing had only recently recovered from the day when the main gun on theGroundling Scythe had

blown up in front of him during the landings on this curious little world, which the elves had named Spiral.

The blast had otherwise merely bruised and cut the general in numerous places, thanks to his thick armor

and innate fortitude, but it had also killed eighteen marines and his previous goblin aide, the third he had

lost in only a year. Aides were damned hard to train properly, and getting along without them was

inconvenient at best. He hoped the current one would last a while.

The morning sun's red light was supplemented by magical light globes set up around the room, and the

general had no trouble reading. The air was still cool, not yet up to the dry oven heat that would come in

the afternoon. The food was well prepared, and the water cold and fresh. It must have been the tedium

of the reports, then, that caused General Vorr to let a page drop from his fingers to the desktop. He

rubbed his bald gray pumpkin head with both huge hands, his eyes closed. It was hard to concentrate,

and he wasn't sure what was bothering him. He'd gotten used to the low ceilings in the elven buildings,

barely two feet above his eight-foot frame, and Spiral's sun didn't bother his eyes the way the brighter

stars did. He paid no mind to extreme temperature changes. Even his steel-banded, black-trimmed armor

was as comfortable as leisure clothes could hope to be.

It couldn't be a lack of exercise, either. Despite the end of direct combat action in these last few weeks,

the general was careful to maintain his Herculean musculature with heavy lifting and stretching exercises

every other day. His pale-gray skin had a healthy shine, and none of his many old injuries were

bothersome these days.

Something was wrong. After a moment, the general knew what it was, and he knew also that there was

no immediate cure for it. He sighed and looked down at his paper-strewn desk, noting the heavy,

red-iron tarantula paperweight his troops had cast for him, then the thick mithril-steel globe the elves had

long ago made of Spiral, showing the strange, winding rivers that flowed from its polar seas to its

equatorial ocean and back. He felt no inspiration there, and that was the trouble. Spiral was already

conquered.

Looking up, the general found himself staring at the immense clawed hands mounted to either side of the

oaken double doors of his expansive office. The green, four-fingered husks went well against the white

walls, mute testimony to the broken might of the elven ground forces. The zwarth that had once wielded

those claws had been a real titan, a thirty-five-foot undead insectoid monster crewed by eight elves.

General Vorr wished again that he had seen the expressions on those elves' faces when the zwarth had

bounded out from ambush and fired its rapid spray of magic missiles directly at him while he was

directing the landings on Spiral. By the Tomb of Dukagsh, that had been a fight, a damned good fight.

Cutting the hands off the smoking green wreck afterward had been especially satisfying. Sometimes those

elves knew a good trick or two, for all the good it did them in the long run.

General Vorr sat back, listening to the hoarse, distant cries of the fifth prisoner of the day. The garden

ceremonies were good, but they were losing their morale value. This group of elves had been only

farmers, after all, not warriors captured in battle. The last of the fighting for Spiral had been too long ago.

Little Spiral's orange sun now rose and set across a world controlled by the Tarantula Fleet's ground and

wildspace forces. With the local military ground into blood and bones, the troops lacked an appropriate

outlet for their aggressions. Hunting down elven refugees in the deep caverns and mountains was a job

for orcs and goblins, not highly trained marines like the general's black-armored scro and ogres.

We came here to kill elves, the general thought darkly, not to settle down, play games, and squabble

among ourselves. Somewhere in this vast crystal sphere there were more elves, possibly even elements of

the Imperial Fleet, but hunting for them would stretch the resources of the Tarantula Fleet too far until the

scro had time to build more ships on Spiral. This was the third sphere the general had seen since the War

of Revenge had begun, and the once-mighty fleet had been reduced by over two-thirds in constant,

glorious, challenging, savage, righteous battle. All of the beautiful mantis ships were destroyed; hastily

repaired derelicts and hijacked ships had been pressed into service. They had to rest or perish.

That was the whole problem, of course. General Vorr hated just sitting here, knowing his troops were

rotting from within. We should be back in wildspace again, he thought. We've been grounded for five

hands of days now, and the reports are filling with summary executions for fighting among the troops.

That energy should be directed at the Imperial Fleet, not at fellow soldiers. It was the accursed politics

behind it all, of course.

The general's eyes wandered around the room, taking in the crude array of tribal, religious, and unit

banners crowding the walls to either side of the doors, past the zwarth's claws. The Tarantula Fleet

admiral's policy of letting common orcs into the ground legions only fed the problem. Orcs had boundless

hatred for elves, but they also had equally violent hatreds for almost every other sort of humanoid,

including orcs of rival tribes and cults and even the ore-descended scro. Other humanoids were like that,

but few as much as the orcs.

In their favor, the orcs and minor humanoids were useful for assaults on the gigantic, space-going

dwarven citadels, where they could absorb the initial losses from traps and ambushes before the highbred

scro and their allies took over and battered their ways through to the forges and redoubts. Rabble could

be spared for rooting out survivors on conquered worlds like Spiral, settling down in the meanwhile to

Roger Moore - Cloakmaster 3 - The Maelstrom's Eye

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