Krynnspace, Krynn, Kendermore
Twenty Elnamerrna crewmen
Greenmonth 27th, 2461 EY or Fifthmonth 12th, 357 AC
"Palanthas, eh?" Kronin Thistleknot asked the armored human woman doubtfully.
"Yes," Anna replied. "We must go there as soon as possible. We don't belong on Ansalon and we wish to rejoin our comrades elsewhere."
The unusually steady and serious kender looked at the human. He evaluated her carefully, eyeing her heavy suit of damaged plate mail and her shield, both adorned with a crest that he didn't recognize—a silver falcon, and the bird seemed to be depicted against the rising sun. He felt sure that she was not Solamnic, not even a knight of any kind, just a female fighter from who-knew-where, yet she was asking him for transportation to Solamnia.
Not just anywhere in Solamnia, either. Palanthas, no less!
"Are you from Taladas, then?" Kronin asked after what seemed, to Anna, to be an interminable silence.
"Close enough," she fibbed. In truth, she did not, offhand, know what or where Taladas was, but any answer that would make Kronin more cooperative would do.
For, explaining the truth to him could take hours and he almost certainly wouldn't believe a word of it.
Kronin Thistleknot looked at the twenty non-kenders curiously. He wondered how at least one of them spoke fluent Kenderspeak—he had watched Anna's mouth for the telltale "wrong lip movements" that indicated magical translation, and she had none.
The kender leader also wondered just where they were really from... he believed her statement that she and her party did not belong on Ansalon, but he did not believe that they came from Taladas or near, either. They were intent on getting somewhere, that much seemed obvious, but Kronin decided that he wanted to know exactly where.
These people just felt too strange, even to a kender—though Anna and party had been fortunate to find one with some degree of intuitive insight.
He turned to one of his assistants.
"Bring the ambassador to me."
"You're from off-world?" the scowling elf asked Anna.
"Yes, from the planet Erilonia in Hearthspace," she replied. "We did not come to Krynn of our own free will... we were forced here by an enemy attack," she condensed the explanation into a few simple words.
"No spelljamming ships have visited Silvanesti since before the Cataclysm," the ambassador stated. "I believe that your information is correct—they do visit Palanthas on occasion, but not very often."
"They once visited Silvanes—?" Kerliak chimed in. "Oh, of course... the Elven Imperial Navy probably did."
Ambassador Alroloc stared at the scro. He had no idea what the creature was, but he disliked him from sight, by automatic reflex.
Kerliak didn't like Alroloc, either. Not for the same reasons as most scro—he had none of the racial prejudices common to his kind—but for that fact that Alroloc was abrupt in manner, a bit prissy, and obviously thought he was better than everyone else present.
Even better than Lyreth, it seemed, and Lyreth was an elf! Alroloc in truth didn't much care for the strange elf, either. Lyreth stood near him, but the two elves from different planets looked very odd to each other's eyes.
Alroloc pointedly ignored the ape-like grommam altogether. Kerliak thought that perhaps many elves were alike after all, no matter what world they came from... for Alroloc reminded him of the majority of Elven Imperial Navy officers only too much.
"Very well," Alroloc said with a very faint snarl in his voice. "I will arrange your transportation to Palanthas and wish you the best of luck in locating a spelljamming ship docked there so you may return to where you belong. Excuse me," he finished brusquely.
He left, shouldering past the grommam. Gresss just stepped aside.
"He isn't very nice," noted a crewman, a young human male.
"No, Cy, he isn't," Autumn said, "but if he can get us to Palanthas, it's worth it to put up with his bad manners. We don't want to stay here on Krynn."
"No," Cy agreed.
"Then we'll wait," Anna told them, looking the way Alroloc had gone.
Their wait turned out to be short, for Alroloc returned in less than half an hour and bade the twenty castaways to follow him.
The unfriendly Silvanesti elf led them to the city limits and then to small woods. He walked behind it.
Anna and her troupe followed. When they rounded the small copse of trees, she gasped.
"Griffons!" Autumn blurted, finding her voice first.
The big creatures, part eagle, part lion, stood there preening. The Elnamerrna crewmen approached them tentatively, then more firmly, as Alroloc mounted one and waved Anna to sit behind him.
Alroloc waited impatiently for all of them to mount, then he patted his griffon on the mane.
"Fly, my steed!"
The griffons soared upward from Goodlund, then shot off northwest at great speed. Anna watched the land rolling below her with wonder.
Evidently, Alroloc noticed her rapture, for he turned to speak.
"Surely you've seen such a sight before, for you fly on a starship," he said with faint sneer.
"It's a lot different from the back of a mount," she returned. "So much different."
Alroloc seemed to have no reply to that, for he merely turned around and faced front sullenly.
Anna looked forward, too. The forests of Goodlund slipped by, then they were flying over Balifor at impressive speed.
"The griffons are so very fast," she commented to Alroloc on this subject.
"Griffons can keep the pace with dragons on the wing," Alroloc told her, pride and superiority evident in his voice, replacing the stuffy, arrogant tone that he usually conveyed. He clearly loved griffons.
As the sun began lowering into the western sky, Anna saw that they now soared above the Khur Desert. She could see the site where the portal had been—she recognized it by the unusually large coral-reef formation northwest of it. She had not been able to see all of it from the ground, but now, she realized that it was indeed a coral reef right in the middle of a desert—or it sure looked like one—and its existence gave the ground its uphill grade to the northwest in that small area.
Glancing back, she noted that she and her companions had passed within ten miles of the saltwater bay to the south, and that they had walked almost straight across Balifor toward Kendermore. There, the kender patrol had intercepted them somewhere in the vast forest that now vanished over the horizon even as she watched.
As they reached the northern fringes of Khur, Alroloc veered the griffons to the north, turning away from the central fastness of the mountain range ahead.
"You're avoiding the mountains. Why?" Anna asked the Silvanesti elf.
"There lay Neraka and Sanction, bastions of evil," he replied. "Dragons of darkness patrol the skies, so above there we must not go. We will circle around the northern horns of the range, then cross Estwilde and the Dargaard Mountains, to get to Solamnia."
Anna didn't know of the places he named, so she hopefully assumed that he knew what he was talking about and where he was going, and relaxed as much as possible when hundreds of feet above ground.
Tired, she slumped against Alroloc's back and drowsed fitfully, tormented by bad dreams about the dead moon and fearful visions about what those cursed drow wanted with the Elnamerrna. Try as she might, she could not form any idea why the Elendrans would want to plant spies aboard the Silver Triop, but her unconscious mind, suffering nightmares, offered up several frightening explanations...
... they wanted the Elendran Seven back, they wanted the triop's crew dead because they knew the location of Elendraspace, they wanted Tash's and Alzja's and Jalaysa's spellbooks to add to their own, they wanted Jaclyn's armor back, since by Elendran law only Elendran drow could wear that kind of armor...
She got awakened some unknown amount of time later by a sudden jolt caused by the griffon making a hard turn. She woke up, feeling fuzzy and haunted by her bad dreams, and asked Alroloc what had happened.
"Dragons!" he shouted.
Anna looked up. She had slept away what little was left of the day—night reigned now.
An enormous dragon flew nearby. She saw it cross the silver orb of Krynn's moon Solinari. Anna smiled, hoping it was a metallic dragon. That meant it would not attack, and also, she had never seen a good dragon before and wanted to. She made to cry out to the magnificent creature.
"It made an attack pass at us!" Alroloc cried in disbelief. "We're not in Neraka or Sanction territory!"
"What?!" Anna stammered, stunned by the statement. Yet, even as she watched, the Silvanesti elf guided his mount through evasive turns that led away from the dragon. The griffon had the advantages of both speed and maneuverability, but the dragon could destroy a griffon with a single attack pass if he made contact.
The sky and the world of Krynn seemed to whirl around each other, making Anna dizzy. The griffon tore across the sky to the north, evading the dragon. Anna tried to look around, but she could not clearly see any of the other griffons.
She did see other dragons. A dozen, maybe more.
She held on tightly, so that Alroloc could guide the griffon a little better, but it did no good. Only moments later, the huge dragon's claws plucked the griffon out of midair, nearly tearing the unfortunate creature in two. Its death squawk resonated into Krynn's sky horribly.
"Climb onto my front leg," the dragon told Alroloc and Anna, extending it. He began to eat the griffon, so they had little choice if they wanted to live.
Anna climbed. She tried to tell what color the dragon was, but she could not—Solinari's light was not bright enough to tell colors, at least not well.
"Where are you going to take us?" Anna asked fearfully. She found it odd that she had not felt any dragonfear while she still rode the griffon, but now that she was on the dragon, she was terrified.
"Sanction," the dragon replied between bites, "where you will meet the master."
Anna swallowed a whimper, and she didn't need good light to see Alroloc's face go as white as a cloud.
Shortly thereafter, the dragons moved into formation, dropping half-eaten griffons, and then flew off southwestward with their twenty-one horrified captives. The dragons exploded into rapid flight, nearly as fast as the griffons, and made it to Sanction in only a few hours.
Anna forced herself to look at the area. Sanction sprawled against the coast of a saltwater bay or small sea—she couldn't remember, through the dragonfear, what Tyfelian's map had looked like for this area. Four towering volcanoes squatted around the place. Sanction had been built between them and against the water. It had natural moats—lava flows from the mounts that oozed toward the water. She could see them only too well in the night.
Anna looked at the four smoldering volcanoes with alarm. She didn't like this place. Even if no evil army had lived at this spot, she would have avoided the area on general principles alone.
The dragons landed, and a large number of uniformed warriors swarmed the dragons to meet them.
"Get off the dragons and drop your weapons," the leader of the group shouted.
Anna looked at the warriors closely as she climbed down off the dragon.
She could not see well by Solinari's light, but she didn't think that these men wore the dragon armor made infamous on Krynn by the Dragon Highlords' soldiers. Indeed, she did not recognize the armor or the symbols on it at all. These men did not wear the notorious dragon helms nor the well-known armor made of dragon hide. Instead, they wore typical chain mail, each suit with a crest symbol. Anna thought that this symbol looked like a crystal shell within another crystal shell.
She did not know the symbol. She had not been aboard the Elnamerrna during the visit to Elendraspace, although that crystal shell had been very fresh in the crew's minds when she had signed on.
"Strange for Krynn," Anna thought. "Not much in the way of space activity here."
In addition, Anna didn't feel too threatened by these men. Their movements didn't seem typical of skilled warriors. If the dragons had not been there, those warriors' days would have been numbered—to zero. Anna and her troupe would have attacked and slain them.
However, the presence of dragons made such a move virtual suicide, so they removed their weapons and handed them over. The uniformed soldiers then herded them into a cave complex in the nearest volcano—a location that made all twenty-one of them very anxious—where they were lined up against a cavern wall.
"All of you, take off your clothing and armor, and put these on. That is not a request. My soldiers will kill you if you even hesitate," the lead warrior commanded them as some of his men tossed peasant outfits before the captives.
Anna looked at the lead warrior. He seemed to be a desert type, perhaps native to some place like Khur itself. Barbarian ancestry, but not a large man, and his eyes had a faint suggestion of Eastern blood. Anna didn't know whether Krynn had a place like Rokugan on Oerth, Fui-Cha on Erilonia or Kara-Tur on Toril, but he looked vaguely like just such people. This made her wonder if he might not be from off world himself.
Anna kept her expression blank and did as she was told. She artfully used her armor and clothing, then the peasant garb, to block the view of her body in all directions as she redressed. Still, the sharp look in her eye made the lead warrior feel glad that these people were unarmed and that he had thirty guards around him.
"Servants, take their armor and clothing away," the lead soldier ordered, waving carelessly at five goblin slaves.
"My name is Keeper Gagangis," the lead soldier said to them. His somewhat condescending tones made it sound magnanimous of him to even tell them that. "I am in charge of the prison facilities here. You have a rather long stay ahead of you, I'm afraid—the rest of your lives, perhaps—so I'll tell you how things are."
He began to pace in front of them. "You may wonder why, exactly, the lot of you are here. I'm normally under no obligation to tell prisoners that, but with you, I was ordered to, by The Master himself. You are here because your own master, one Tyfelian of Embimura, is considered a potential threat to my Master. He recognizes that you were merely hired hands, not necessarily loyal followers, and as such you are exempted from the usual penalty, death by slow torture. Instead, you are to be detained here indefinitely. At such time as Tyfelian and his ship are neutralized, we may let you go, depending upon The Master's judgment of your behavior.
"Now, the rules—obey the guards' commands immediately. Each guard has the privilege of striking you if you disobey or hesitate. If you are particularly troublesome, a guard is within his rights to kill you. Striking a guard is punishable by death.
"Any attempt to escape also warrants death. You will be hunted down and killed by any means needed.
"As prisoners here, you do not enjoy the privilege of striking each other. Any attack on a fellow prisoner is punishable by a thorough lashing followed by seven days without food or water. If you do not understand the rules, speak now."
"A week without food or water will kill a person," Gresss pointed out to the man.
"Yes. I know," Gagangis replied with an evil chuckle.
No one said anything, so Gagangis continued.
"If you have any questions for me, speak them now. You'll never get another chance."
"Who is your master?" Anna asked.
A guard started to strike her for asking that, but Gagangis stayed him with a sharply raised hand.
"That is privileged information."
"Are prisoners who are women protected from advances by the guards?" Cy asked.
"No," Gagangis replied with another lecherous chuckle, "but that is an exception to the rule that no prisoner may strike a guard, and the guards must abide by certain rules about that." Gagangis laughed evilly. "If a guard makes advances on a woman prisoner, she is exempt from the death penalty if she can kill him in a one-on-one fight.
"He may not call upon any help to get what he wants—he has to subdue her by himself. Nor may he bind her before the fight. However, the guards have weapons—prisoners do not," Gagangis smirked. "She can take a weapon from a guard, though, and fight with that until the man is dead or she is subdued. If she does not surrender the weapon afterward—immediately—she is to be executed."
At their confused, angry expressions, Gagangis explained further. "We have to keep things interesting here," he snickered. "See, just waltzing into a cell and having one's way with a woman prisoner is so very... unsporting, wouldn't you say?" His chuckle sounded so foul that all of the male prisoners—even Alroloc—and some of the women glared at him with looks that promised death.
Cy swallowed an angry lump in his throat. There were so many loopholes in those rules that they meant almost nothing. He closed his eyes bitterly, but his heart went out to Kiran, wherever he was, dead or alive, blessing the disciplinarian knight for his ground fighting drills aboard ship. It seemed likely that the women would be victimized, but under those rules, at least they had a chance to defend themselves. The Elnamerrna first officer had included a range of unarmed fighting skills in his only-too-frequent drills.
"Whose rules are those? Yours, or your master's?" Anna asked quietly.
"Mine," Gagangis told her. "More questions?"
There were none, so Gagangis waved his guards to take the new prisoners away from the spot. The warriors saw to it that they were blindfolded, and had their hands tied behind their backs. Then, the soldiers marched them off to some location that they could not see.
Anna felt lost and without hope. She prayed fervently to Aurora that Tyfelian and party would expose the Elendran spies somehow, and work their way into a rescue attempt. She then remembered that her patron deity was not worshipped in Krynnspace and could not hear any prayers from there. Despondency almost took her as she realized that, but she thought for a moment, then silently prayed to Mishakal instead.
"C'mon, Tyfelian, figure it out," she tried to call to the half-drow across half the known Material Plane. "Those twenty fakers aren't us—we're on Krynn and we need help! Mishakal, reach to him across the Rainbow Ocean and help him understand."
The Krynn goddess of healing made no response, but Anna hoped that her prayer had somehow found the goddess's ear and that she could do something to help. The gods of Krynn almost never responded directly to their worshippers—even more rarely than the deities of other crystal shells—but Anna hoped against hope that Mishakal would make an exception for a castaway off-worlder.
Her mind ran along several optimistic lines as she was led to her cell and locked inside securely. Perhaps Mishakal would visit the Hearthspace gods in Elysium and tell Aurora, or send a messenger. If Aurora found out about this situation, she could certainly send an agent of hers to notify Tyfelian—or more likely, send him a vision.
"Anything," she prayed.
Perhaps Mishakal did hear the prayer and do something—though Anna had no way of knowing about the timing—for, just a few hours later, far across the Material Plane, Tyfelian and the other five who carried Elendran artifacts experienced a vision of the past at the Temple of Eelistraee in Nauthe'hressishtel.
The artifacts they carried, plus the Octahedron that they had just found, had given the vision to them...
... but they had gone to the Temple in the first place at the behest of a Listraeean starship captain...
... who had awakened from troubled dreams about the Octahedron.
Hearthspace, Quatha Vellar Shipyard
The Elnamerrna's docking pier
Summer's Days 7th, 2461
Delighted at the discovery, Tyfelian moved right up to the divination window.
"What are you?" he asked the voice that had called herself "the starship Elnamerrna."
"I'm a custom-made triop class starship," the voice replied readily. "I serve Tyfelian of Embimura and his friends. They're my first crew."
"I'm Tyfelian," the half-drow told her.
"A true pleasure, Captain," the Elnamerrna said to him. "How is it that you talk to me? I didn't think you could."
"I cannot, but Tash and Jaclyn, working together, can," Tyfelian explained. "Since I am talking to you... umm... how is it that a starship has an intelligence? Ships normally don't."
"I'm sure I don't know, Captain," the triop advised him. "If it helps, my first memory is of Elendraspace. I hated that crystal shell, Captain—I'd appreciate it if we never went back there."
"Not to worry," Tyfelian said sincerely. "Another visit there is not on my agenda, be assured. And you can call me Tyfelian—I don't stand on ceremony. What were we doing when you first became aware?"
"Leaving the asteroid base of Trizfastell and his friends, as I remember."
Light dawned.
"Mmm-hmm," Alzja intoned. "That's starting to make sense."
Tyfelian stood quietly for a few moments, thinking.
"Jaclyn, I need your insight, to say the least."
Jaclyn closed her eyes to think, in the brief but deep trance of hypercognition.
"Insight about what?" the Silver Triop asked curiously.
"Oh, my old friend Jaclyn is a master of deduction, after a fashion," Tyfelian explained. "She can figure some things out from just a few clues. If she has time to think about it, she can sort out incredible puzzles."
"And she's going to meditate about me?" The starship's voice contained, remarkably enough, laughter. It sounded beautiful, vaguely like the sound of drops of water falling into a pool, in a place with good acoustics.
"Not exclusively, but yes," Tash said. "There have been a number of... inexplicable events that have occurred and we want to figure it out."
"I remember an impression that the Elendran spies were unknown to you, as well as to us, after they infiltrated us," Tyfelian said uncertainly.
"I did not expect that, no," the Elnamerrna told him. "I didn't know they were there."
"Then you don't remember what happened to us in the rogue crystal shell?"
"No, I don't remember anything more than you do," the ship advised. "But I did see that 'Autumn' traitor climb outside of me and release a hummerfly, when we were on our way to Nauthe'hressishtel. I wondered why she did that in secret..."
"So that's it!" Jalaysa snarled, as a missing piece of information fell into place with a 'click' that all of them could almost literally hear.
"Those spies came aboard during our time in the rogue shell..." Tyfelian looked around. "I know this'll sound strange, but... a volunteer to bring our ship up to date on that?"
Alzja raised her hand with a smirk. She raised her eyebrows with disbelief, but she stepped up to the divination window.
Tyfelian waved Tash, Trula, and Kiran away from the window, to a spot near Jaclyn.
"Comments?"
"I don't know what to think," Kiran murmured. "A ship with a mind of its own... it's really strange, but we might make use of it."
"We'll need to devise a way to talk to her at any time," Tash noted. "I figure that's my job."
Tyfelian grinned. "Right up your alley, Tash. Or perhaps the ship can be trained as a psion in and of herself, like Jaclyn. Oh... Jaclyn?" he asked as the psion came out of her trance.
"I can already guess how it happened," the human lady said. She tapped the Psychotralex of Ibinon and raised her eyebrows to indicate the other Elendran artifacts.
"But who is she?" Trula piped up. "Is she Trizfastell, Ibinon, Eckrelde... who?"
"None of those," Jaclyn said with confidence. "A completely new mind... formed by us," she explained. "She's an amalgam of the six of us, but with the innocence of a newborn... well, almost."
"Oh, I doubt that," Kiran interjected. "She speaks with intelligence. Her mind isn't as naïve as a baby's. She knows good from evil... I can tell. She doesn't like the Elendrans."
Jaclyn thought.
"Yes, that's true," she granted. "Still, she can't have any experience worth mentioning. She might have some of our knowledge, but that's it."
Jaclyn paused, but started talking again as something else occurred to her.
"It explains something else, too, that didn't make any sense... why that fiend kept us asleep for two weeks."
"I wondered about that," Tyfelian said with a snarl. "What happened?"
Jaclyn pointed at the Elnamerrna, her eyes partially closing with amusement.
"Wiping out our memories was easy enough," she said softly, "but her memories were something else again.
"With the help of the Elendran Seven—the six, at the time—" she shrugged, "the Elna resisted. She fought him... and lost. She doesn't have the experience to resist something like that, but she did have plenty of raw power. It took two weeks for that mind blast to erase a starship's memory. He must've released the spies after he took their memories away... so they could make sure we got a little water while he finished making the Elna forget," she said distastefully.
"What if she'd had the Octahedron aboard, too?" Kiran asked curiously.
Jaclyn considered the thought for a moment.
"If that'd been around, if the set'd been complete just then, I think maybe she would've won," the psion replied with her eyebrows raised above a mischievous smile, "what with the power of that vision the Elendran Seven showed us when we got the last one."
Tyfelian gazed at nothing, lost in wonderment for a moment.
"She was trying to protect us," he blurted. "Trying not to forget... so she could do something to stop 'em."
"That's right," Jaclyn said placidly.
"Should we retire her and build another ship?" Kiran suggested. "If she has a mind, she deserves to be given a choice."
"I agree," Tyfelian said, "but then we'll have another problem—what if our new ship also develops an intelligence?"
"How many can we build before our money runs out?" Trula noted unhappily.
"Three," Tash noted jokingly to break the bleak mood. "Six, perhaps, if we strip the helm each time. A top-class helm costs more than two triops."
Everyone laughed about that, including the seven general crew members nearby, who had been watching in amazement.
Tyfelian chuckled. "I'll take your word on that, since you're the mathematician here," he said to the blond drow. "But still... I think the best way to solve this is to simply ask the ship what it wants."
Kiran's look of stern belief in the ship's freedom of choice eased down. "I couldn't agree more. But," he noted, "we have not the time to build another ship before we go to find our missing crewmen. She'll have to serve us for one more flight before retirement, if retirement's what she wants."
Tyfelian bit his lip, torn. He did not disagree with the paladin, but forcing someone with intelligence (even a ship!) to serve for any length of time disturbed him.
He hopped back up onto the levitating platform and listened to the end of Alzja's description of the events in the rogue crystal shell as she had relived them. To his slight surprise, he saw Sildara, Menlina, and their warrior-wizards also edging toward the window.
"As we left the rogue shell, the fiend used that artifact to remove our memories," Alzja finished up. "I guess that means it had more purposes than just forming portals to other crystal shells, but maybe he just used its power to amplify his own. I have no way o' knowing that."
"I see," the Elnamerrna responded, as the mystery unraveled to some extent for her. "But what I don't understand is what the Elendrans have to do with that Abyssal Lord. Who was he, anyway?"
"We don't know those things, either," Alzja told the vessel solemnly. "There are still some events that we can't explain."
"And there's a specific one that I'd like to hear explained," Sildara broke in. She addressed the Elnamerrna. "Was it you, and not the Dridercomp, who forewarned Tyfelian of the impending attack on Nauthe'hressishtel?"
"Both," the starship replied. "I felt a quiver in space nearby, and I knew where it was coming from. Through the spelljammer helm, I could feel it, trace it... if I'd never been in Elendraspace, I wouldn't have known who was doing it. But I was there once, so I recognized their magic."
"And you warned Tyfelian by way of the Dridercomp," Sildara, no fool, finished for her.
"Yes. I placed a vision in his mind though his armor. I would have sacrificed much to block those spansphere portals, but that is not in my power."
Sildara paused quietly, thinking, then moved away, satisfied.
Tyfelian walked up to the window.
"Elnamerrna, after all this that you've been told... I need to ask you another question."
The starship made no response, just waited.
"Kiran and I, with the others, had a discussion a few moments ago about your freedom of choice," he told her. "We need to know whether you would like to be retired because you're a thinking thing, or whether you wish to continue as things have been since you were built."
"I wish to continue," the triop replied. "Sitting in a museum's drydock would be frightfully boring."
"But you can be destroyed. It nearly happened in Listraeespace," Tyfelian pointed out.
"Yes... that reminder is unwelcome," the feminine voice returned. "But I must say this—I can be destroyed, but likewise you can be killed. What's the difference?"
Tyfelian blinked. The Elnamerrna had a point—there was no significant difference.
"No, we can work together, protect each other. Maybe even better, now that you know I'm alive," the Silver Triop noted.
Jaclyn moved up to Tyfelian to whisper in his ear.
"Remember, she is a combination of the six of us," she reminded. "Would you like to just sit around doing absolutely nothing just because you can think?"
Tyfelian smiled widely. Of course he would not.
"Very well," the half-drow said. "We'll need to do some work on you to reflect the fact that we know you're intelligent. Tash can build a device that will let us talk with you at will, but that will take time, or, if you have the mental power, Jaclyn can train you as a psion."
"I'd say both, if my vote counts," the Elnamerrna stated. "I wouldn't mind being able to do some of the things she does."
"Of course your vote counts, but how do you know about my powers?" Jaclyn asked.
"The Psychotralex," the ship answered simply. "I can sometimes see through your eyes, or Tyfelian's, or the eyes of the other four, very dimly and distantly. He has worked with you for longer than I've existed. Most of what I know, I've picked up here and there from the six of you."
Tyfelian's right eyebrow suddenly took a hike up close to his hairline as he heard that remark. If the ship could sometimes see what he saw...
"Did you plant a desire for the outeye into the back of my mind for that very reason, Elnamerrna?" he accused.
"Guilty as charged," the triop responded. "Don't be offended—I don't do it very often, and from now on, I'll ask with words."
Tyfelian glared at the Silver Triop, but then decided to let it go.
"All right," he murmured, "just now, we're waiting for the repair teams to finish up their work, then we're leaving to find our lost crewmen. I believe they're on Krynn, but we'll try using the portal artifact to get us there faster than we could ever sail there."
"But we haven't enough crew to handle my weapons," the Elnamerrna pointed out, "not now."
"No," Tyfelian agreed, "but we do have eight wizards, at least for the time being. Five of those may stay with us, they may not—they haven't decided." He waved a hand at Sildara's party, but then he dropped that hand, realizing that the Elnamerrna could not see the movement.
"By the time they make up their minds, we'll have our crewmen back—or we'll know we aren't getting them back. Either way, I'll replenish the crew."
The Elnamerrna made no response. At that, Barolcot stepped up to the window.
"Elnamerrna, you ever feel pain?"
The ship did not answer immediately, as though the question had surprised her.
"Not as you would understand it," the ship answered slowly. "Sometimes, I feel some of what you call pain when one of the six gets hurt, but if you mean when I'm damaged, no. I don't have a sense of touch, nor any other senses at all... except what I can borrow from the six. I can feel strong magic nearby, or intense heat or great cold, electrical energy... but that's all."
"I think I can change that," Jaclyn said slowly, "but I'll let you decide what you want."
"Thank you," the Elnamerrna said with sincere appreciation.
Tyfelian, feeling vindicated, moved to hop down from the levitating platform. He waved the others off, too, and made another wave to invite the crewmen to talk to the ship.
"You can talk to the Elnamerrna for as long as the window lasts, and as long as Jaclyn keeps detecting her thoughts," he said to them. He left the platform and skipped over to the edge of the folded scaffolding.
"Well, well," he murmured to the ship. "Aren't you full of surprises?"
The next day was filled with anticipation and a renewed eagerness to get moving again from the crew. Though they could not talk to the ship anymore—Tash and Jaclyn were hard at work trying to figure out a way to do so at any time—the Elnamerrna had a new ambience to the crew. It felt different for them now, knowing that the ship they served was a thinking thing. It was not "alive" in the conventional sense, perhaps, but aware of them nevertheless.
Tyfelian busied himself with dismissing the last remnants of the original mercenary crew and signing on new ones to replace them. He made a special trip with Hajri, the longest-term remaining member of the mercenary crew, as the Kara-Turan man left.
"The whaleship will take me home?" Hajri asked.
Keeping pace with the human, Tyfelian nodded.
"Its travel plan will take it to Realmspace in less than a year," he replied. "I'm not happy to see you go. You've been my eyes of the eagle for almost three years... and I haven't forgotten who grabbed my hand to keep me from falling into that lava on Pit," he added. This was the real reason that he had walked with Hajri for a special goodbye.
"That wasn't easy," Hajri advised him. "As a drider, you were heavy beyond measure, sir. I threw my back out dragging you from that ledge... but I could not stand there and let you fall into red death." He grinned. "We had not yet liberated Pit."
Tyfelian didn't return the smile. Instead, he gazed gratefully upon the human who had saved him from a fairly quick but very painful demise on a little-known planet dominated by scro.
"I know you have other responsibilities, but you were a great lookout."
"Oh, that is not it," Hajri said. "You see, Tyfelian, I do not share your lust for death-defying adventure. Oh, I admire you for it—" he smiled, and Tyfelian felt sure that he was thinking of the incident with Crilsteroy—"but I feel that I have cheated death a few times too many at your side. My appetite for adventure is satisfied, at least for now."
They reached the dock containing the gigantic whaleship. Nearly twice the size of the Elnamerrna, the vessel could hold more passengers and cargo than most ships could ever even dream about without magical help. Six dock workers who had been following behind them passed them now and boarded it.
These six aarakocra carried the three large chests that contained Hajri's reward from the Elven Imperial Navy. Even in space, with the larger-numbered economy, that treasure was impressive. It was a king's ransom and more where Hajri came from, and it would set him up for life.
Hajri started to bow, in the fashion of Kara-Tur people, but then he stopped, his movements conveying the message, "No... his way," and he reached over to shake the half-drow's hand.
"What I am really trying to say is, Tyfelian... you have scared the hell out of me too many times—but I am glad to have known you."
Tyfelian laughed softly. "Thank you, Hajri. I'm glad you've been with me all this time. And, if you change your mind, you know how to find me."
"If you are not dead."
"Even if I am—look in...where did Kiran say? Elysium, I think, some place called Thalasia. The Grand Hearth is there. That's where Embimurans go when they die, if they're not evil."
"Humans, you mean," Hajri grinned. "You are a mixed-up mess, no offense—the son of an insane half-drow and a matron mother, and you worship both human and elfin gods. Surely, only some of the elf gods live in Elysium, so who could say where your nasty black ghost will go?"
Tyfelian's smile widened. "I hope I don't have to find out for a long, long time to come."
"As do I," Hajri told him. "Safe travels to you, honorable sir."
"Good luck, Hajri," Tyfelian replied, knowing that Hajri had just given him a great compliment. People from Kara-Tur or Fui-Cha seldom considered what they called "gajin"—outlanders—to be honorable, and as to the types of non-humans who didn't exist in their lands... such people were often beneath contempt.
He released Hajri's hand. The human turned to the foot of the whaleship's boarding plank—its mouth, as it were.
Tyfelian waved at his former lookout, then walked away without looking back. He knew that Hajri would appreciate it if he did not.
After bidding his reluctant farewell to Hajri, Tyfelian returned to the Elnamerrna's docking pier.
At that spot, Kiran was doing some recruiting. He watched as the paladin, Fing, Sildara, Tash, and Melanerra screened potential new crewmen. He saw Kiran reject one human—Tyfelian figured that that one was untrustworthy or unreliable, by the looks of him—but then three interesting-looking humans presented themselves at Kiran's makeshift desk.
These three men talked to Kiran for a moment. He glanced at Melanerra, who gave him a very slight nod.
The paladin—looking intrigued—rose and picked up three of the leather-and-cloth sheaths that served as practice pads.
"Put these on your blades," he told the three men as he passed them over. He, Sildara, and Fing also slipped the pads on their swords, or in Fing's case, her hoopak staff. Tash took up a position behind them. The three men wrapped their rather stylish weapons for practice obligingly. As soon as they got done, Kiran hustled around the table.
"Defend yourselves," Kiran told them calmly.
The paladin went through some slow-motion fighting moves with the potential recruits. Fing thrust her hoopak between one of the men's ankles to trip him, but he hopped over the hoopak, swung his rapier, and scored a minor touch on Fing before the kender could duck away to avoid it.
Sildara worked the other two hard, but these men were not without experience. They parried her swords and even got in a few ineffective counterattacks. Sildara watched their moves with more than a passing interest. They were good with their blades, by human standards.
Then Tash started to cast.
The two in battle with Sildara could not do anything to stop the wizard, but the one Fing had tried to trip pulled a dagger and made to throw—although he did not release the weapon toward her, since this was a practice session.
"Very good," Tyfelian commented quietly. The dagger would not have harmed Tash had he released it, but the movement had been perfectly timed. Tyfelian doubted that he could have done better in a real combat situation similar to this one.
The half-drow watched them practice for several more minutes. He liked the way the newcomers moved about in combat, with their rather showy clothes whipping all around them, yet never getting in the way. Their movements looked almost acrobatic, as they spun to and fro to parry swords, kick, punch with hilts, and mock-toss weapons at Tash.
One of them kept batting at Fing's hoopak, and he finally got it pinned to the ground with his rapier. He followed this up by planting a fake kick in the kender's belly, which made her giggle. The bells in Fing's long hair jingled merrily as she laughed.
When he'd been impressed by them as much as he wanted, Tyfelian stepped forward.
"Stop," he called out, as the Dridercomp called out to him. "That's enough. You're hired if you want to serve me."
The three flamboyant men glanced at each other with tentative smiles. Kiran unwrapped his sword and sheathed it, and the others followed suit.
"I'm Reamie Layerson, and these are my friends, Haroley Callanay and Dremley Carrosten," he introduced himself and them. They each shook hands with Tyfelian. "You may have heard of us if you've ever been to Mesitania on Erilonia."
"I've never been there, but I'm from the same world," Tyfelian said. "I like your fighting style—it's not quite like anything I've seen before."
"Three swashbucklers," Fing guffawed, to which Tyfelian chuckled.
"Have you served aboard ocean ships before?" he asked the men.
"Yes," Reamie replied as the other two nodded.
"A starship isn't so different," Tyfelian noted. "Fing will tell you everything you need to know," he advised them. He nodded at the kender, murmuring "and then some."
She waved the three new recruits into step with her and led them toward the scaffolding that covered the Elnamerrna.
"Is that the ship we'll serve?" Haroley asked. He looked with interest at the vessel. The scaffolding had looked like a mountain at first, but it was now much thinner, just enough that the painters could work. Over fifty aarakocra painters worked their long brushes against the hull, spreading the marvelous silver. Alzja had reworked the runes on the topside weapon deck and was even now energizing them with the permanent magic that helped protect the vessel.
"That's her," Fing said with a smile.
"She's a beauty... just like you," Dremley said to Fing.
"You are playing with fire, Dremley," Tyfelian said just loudly enough for Kiran, Sildara, and Melanerra to hear.
Tyfelian watched them walk away with Fing talking nonstop. His sharp ears caught Fing giving Dremley a friendly warning that she was Tyfelian's girlfriend, but then they'd made it to the dock.
Dremley glanced at the half-drow, who just smiled and shook his head, denying Fing's proclamation.
Tyfelian turned away to regard the next recruit.
The crew gained much that day, including a replacement for Hajri as relief lookout, a human lady named Frenela. Tyfelian listed the new recruits and made some counts.
"I was hoping for an aarakocra or two," he said, disappointed.
"None came," Kiran told him.
Tyfelian nodded, but he still looked pleased with the results.
"I think we've come up roses," he said to Kiran as they closed up shop for the night.
The new recruits rounded out the newly formed, permanent crew quite nicely (assuming that the twenty missing crewmen could be rescued), so Tyfelian told Kiran to familiarize them with their onboard jobs and waited with seething impatience for the repainting of the ship and the cleaning of the defensive magic runes scribed into the hull.
The next day, Sildara examined the reworked crew manifest in the ship's library. After making her own count, she raised her eyebrows at Tyfelian.
"Too many, if we rescue the missing ones," she commented. "It'll foul the air envelope fast... and I'm not even counting the dogs."
"No problem," Kiran broke in from the table where he was writing up the crew's duty roster. "We have an air regenerator on board, and the Red Hurwaeti can change the air. I'll redo the roster. I can schedule the hurwaeti to use their fog clouds... say, every two weeks?"
Sildara thought.
"Yes, that will take care of it." She turned to Tyfelian.
"About the 'Red Hurwaeti...?" Sildara asked, curious.
"Hm? Oh, they're from the hurwaet home world, originally. Hurwaeti usually look a lot more like reptiles than ours do, but the illithids there used them in vile experiments. Lazzanuz told me that the experiments didn't work. All they did was give all six of them that reddish tint to their skins," Tyfelian explained.
Sildara's expression hardened at the thought of the evil illithids.
"Their home world was conquered long ago... by the illithids, the neogi, and the beholders," Tyfelian added, turning away with a grimace.
Tyfelian pressed his papyrus against the wall, finished up his writing, and put it away into a sheaf. He put the sheaf on the table near Kiran. Though the previous day had been successful, concerning finishing up the work of rebuilding the crew, Tyfelian still looked wistful.
"Still disappointed by the fact that no aarakocra signed on?" Kiran asked gently, remembering the half-drow's comment.
"No. I'm worried about our missing people."
"We'll find them," Kiran replied. "The painters are almost done."
Tyfelian managed a grim half-smile and followed Sildara out of the library, leaving Kiran alone with his work.
Kiran watched them go. He felt the same concern, but he dealt with it by keeping busy. He felt sorry for Tyfelian, who had no such diversion. As captain, he had the most to do, but also the least. In dock, he only supervised.
Kiran went back to the duty roster with a vengeance. Tyfelian didn't really care for rosters, but Kiran felt them necessary. Tasks had to be divided out and assigned to a ship's crew, just as for the workers in any other job.
He could best serve Tyfelian by getting it done so that the crew would be ready when the ship was.
Hearthspace, Quatha Vellar Shipyard
The Elnamerrna's docking pier
Firstsummer 3rd, 2461
Finally, the Silver Triop was finished and Barolcot conducted a final full inspection. He went to the bridge for the first time since they'd left the ship in the hands of Quatha Vellar's repair teams.
"Them folks're good, I'll give 'em that much," the dwarf gushed. "I can't believe how they fixed up the hull and the mirror-frame." His eyes misted over. "Damn, they're fast, too. They done in ten days what'd took us six months or more."
He looked up at the new ceiling of the bridge. It was fully formed externally, but the ceiling had no finished or varnished wood. Barolcot would change that—after all, it had been by request that no carpentry work got done on the bridge—but the improvement still seemed incredible.
"That's what special equipment, specialized training, and practice does to repair teams," Tyfelian commented. "It's what they get paid to do, and do well... and do fast," he commented with a hint of gratitude to the repair workers.
Barolcot suddenly remembered his whole reason for being on the bridge and faced Tyfelian squarely.
"I've finished up the final 'spection, an' the dogs've checked her over for stowaways. She's ready."
"Kiran, have we any more unfinished business here at home?" Tyfelian asked.
"No, we're all done."
"Very good." The half-drow picked up the voice horn. "Crow's nest, bridge."
"Crow's nest, Trula."
"Flash the yardmaster to lower the scaffolding."
Trula did not reply, but a few moments later, the outeye showed the scaffolding folding down on itself.
Tyfelian stood, picked up the voice horn, and switched it to Shipwide. Kiran likewise switched his to Shipwide—so that the team leaders could hear each other for this critical phase of first launch after major repairs.
"All divisions, report departure readiness."
Each team leader called back, in the order Kiran had taught them.
"Helm ready," Jalaysa said.
"Sails ready," Sildara—now the Acting Day Watch team leader—reported, her voice slightly tinny through the vents on either side of the command platform. The sail crews did not use a voice horn.
"Hull and frame are stable," Barolcot called.
"Lower weapon bay secure," the hobgoblin Jekrelt called.
"Topside stinger bay secure," Lanna Zaltzen, one of the few remaining gunners for the aft weapons, called. She was not assigned there—she was not even a gunner for the medium ballista stinger. Instead, she worked the heavy jettison in the lower stinger bay, but she had volunteered to stand the post.
"Lower stinger bay secure," called Lendalin Meldor, a jettison gunner. Unfortunately, only one other stinger gunner, Tarrel, remained on board, another mercenary who wasn't leaving. That meant that the ship had only its heavy jettison stinger as a main weapon, and even that at reduced loading speed. All three worked the jettison, but it took four people to work a heavy jettison the way it was designed to be used. A spy had replaced their fourth teammate, Reece Nolinger.
"Topside bay secure," Menlina called from the rebuilt deck above the bridge. She was alone there except for Kreg and Abt—with only a grand total of six catapult and ballista gunners remaining, the weapons were all but useless. Magic spells existed, ones akin to the unseen crew member magic, that could make the weapons load and fire, but the "skill" of the magical gunners was laughable compared to that of real persons. Had the Silver Triop not gained five extra battle-worthy wizards, the rescue mission would have been nearly suicidal.
Nevertheless, the deck had to be called as secure after a major repair operation, empty or not. One tiny mistake could spell disaster.
"I have the Gateway course," Alzja advised from navigation.
"The yardmaster calls us clear," Trula said, finishing the sequence.
"Launch!" Tyfelian commanded, leaping into his seat.
Jalaysa mentally reached for the helm and willed the ship to fly.
The Elnamerrna rose from the docking pier. The triop backed away from Quatha Vellar as she gained distance, then turned around and moved off, away from the shipyard and away from the sun, back toward the Itreyan Gateway. Her silver hull flashed in the sunlight as she turned, and the runic inscriptions glittered in the reflected light from Clyperri.
The sentient vessel blazed past the ice moon and away from Clystin, the world of aarakocra, straight toward the Gateway.
Yalthra'teyka, 474th layer of the Abyss
Braskrakel, The Lordcity
Firstsummer 3rd, 2461 EY
Dretch waddled down the corridor of the master's home. It felt good to be out of the hideous prison of the Elendran ice suspension block and back home, but he never liked facing the dread presence of his Abyssal Lord, and he liked some of the master's other henchmen even less. He much preferred his duties as an errand runner and administrator of The Master's spies, but he had no choice. He had a report to make.
Dretch pushed open the huge doors and moved through them. It stepped right up to the throne, which undulated constantly. It was made of creatures cruelly trapped and molded together, in eternal agony.
"Master?" Dretch called, its telepathic voice watery and bubbly, like that of a drowning man.
The Abyssal Lord turned.
"Yes, Dretch?"
Now, any member of the Elnamerrna command crew would have recognized the Abyssal Lord as the very one whom they'd met on the dead moon, but Dretch knew nothing of that. It merely knew that it had to report, or be destroyed... if only temporarily.
Dretch started talking immediately—to even hesitate would mean horrible punishment.
"Master, de rogue drows city been crushed hard."
"That is of no concern to me at all, Dretch," the Master returned. "Lolth's insane plans are inconsequential. I'm interested only in those hotshots flying the triop junk. Where are they? What happened?"
"Deir ship got wrecked in Lisstspace, but dey ran Crilsteroy's forces out, back to Lendraspace, Master."
"Are those fools then stranded on the smoking ruins of Nauthe'hressishtel, as I desired?"
"No, Master. Dey somehow fixed de silverfish and left shell. Dey surely fly rainbow rivers now."
"Do not play with me, Dretch. You say their ship was wrecked, yet they repaired it and escaped—ah, they struck a deal with Lolth, did they?" The Abyssal Lord laughed softly.
"No, Master. Dey got 'way on deir own. I not know how."
The Master's face darkened with irritation. "This disturbs me, Dretch. I wanted those slaphappy clods killed, or at least stranded on Nauthe'hressishtel for the rest of their cursed lives. They're dangerous."
The Abyssal Lord thought. "What about the twenty of them that were replaced?"
"Dey still on de broke-up dragon planet, Master. Dey gets sacrificed next week, as you said."
The Abyssal Lord mused on this.
"The stupid do-gooders aboard the triop don't remember anything about what happened, so they won't be going to Krynn... no—they'll go home!"
"Home?" Dretch asked dumbly.
"Hearthspace, you idiot," the Abyssal Lord rumbled. "That's where they'll go—to the old shipyard at the birdman planet, for repairs, or perhaps another ship." The Master paused thoughtfully, frowning, then turned back to Dretch. "Have you any eyes there?"
"No, Master. Only on Eye-trya, Airlonda and Banburnt."
After a moment to sort through the dretch's botched pronunciations of the names of two planets and one moon in Hearthspace, the Abyssal Lord glared Dretch right in what passed for its eyes.
"Get more eyes on Clystin, Clyperri, and Quatha Vellar. Expand the spy network to those places and monitor the Elnamerrna's movements and actions. I want to know exactly what those miserable bastards are doing and what they plan to do! And I want them dead, Dretch!"
"Yes, Master!" Dretch cried, and bowed its way out, back the way it had come.
The Master left his throne room by teleport and reappeared at the Tower of Transformation, his chief wizard's residence. Teleportation into it was impossible—wards that even he, a demon prince, could not override prevented it.
He strode into the entrance. Almost any humanoid except the most evil or insane would have been revolted by the contents—large tables covered with bodies, both dead and still living, with strange body attachments grafted onto them. The Master opened a side door that looked as though it should have lead outside but did not, and began to descend a huge spiral stairway downward into the shadows of the Tower dungeon.
The Master quickly found the room he sought—the laboratory. He pushed the door open and found his wizard ally hard at work.
The hooded head—skull, actually—looked up to see The Master.
"Ladthiac, come with me."
The wizard rose from his work table and crossed the lab to The Master's side.
"You will perform a summoning for me, Ladthiac," The Master said.
"Who?" rasped Ladthiac.
"Kryce'linna Elandra'la'vantric of Elendraspace," came the reply, but The Master offered nothing more. Ladthiac turned curiously, recognizing the name, but he did not stop walking, for The Master did not.
They went to the Chamber of Callings, and Ladthiac moved off to the side to check his confining pentagram.
"No need for a full binding, Ladthiac. Kryce'linna was a mortal, recently dead. You may use a normal confinement "
Ladthiac did not respond verbally, but he crossed the room to The Master's right and began to cast. His spell words ended in a shriek, and he cried out Kryce'linna's full name.
A ghost appeared in the pentagram. She appeared as a drow warrior-wizard, well-equipped and ready for battle, as she had when she had died.
"Kryce'linna," The Master rumbled.
The ghost in no way responded, just looked at him puzzledly.
"Kryce'linna, you will tell me everything you know about Tyfelian and his ship," The Master said to her, not a request.
"I am not Kryce'linna," the ghost replied, outrage mixing with confusion on its face. "My name is Autumn Deleskaran of the starship Elnamerrna," she advised. "If you're who I think you are, Tyfelian and Kiran are going to kill you as soon as they find out who you are."
"Yes, I'm sure," The Master drawled sarcastically. "Ladthiac, what's wrong with her?"
Ladthiac put his chin into his hand, obviously a habit that he had retained after becoming a tanar'ri lord.
"Nothing's wrong with me, except that I'm dead," "Autumn" snarled.
"She must have died still under deep cover, or perhaps just minutes after her cover was blown," Ladthiac surmised. "Those belts of new identity are known to do that sometimes. She thinks she really is this 'Autumn Deleskaran,' whoever that is."
The Master shrugged. He knew who Autumn was, but it did not matter to him.
"Tell me about the starship Elnamerrna, Autumn."
"Go to hell," "Autumn" replied.
The Master laughed.
"Ladthiac, torture her without mercy until she talks."
Ladthiac merely gestured, and "Autumn" screamed. He kept up the torture. His magic wrenched the ghost—to feel such pain, a living being would have had to have been half-submerged in acid.
Ladthiac abruptly stopped the torment.
When "Autumn" recovered enough to focus on him, The Master leaned in close to the magical confinement field.
"Tell me everything you know about the starship Elnamerrna, Autumn..."
