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  The Maelstrom Eye

  ( The Cloakmaster cycle - 3 )

  Roger E. Moore

  Roger E. Moore

  The Maelstrom 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 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 fo
r 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 breastbon
e. 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-"