Jumpspace, moon of the third planet
Elnamerrna crew, returning from Krynn
Firstsummer 8th, 2461
Tyfelian walked through the ancient portal, the last to return to Jumpspace.
As they had hoped, it remained there, though walking through it now felt painful and tiring. Tyfelian noticed this keenly and he nearly fell over when his boots finally trod the dead moon's gray soil again.
Kiran, also looking pale and hurt, helped him with a steady hand.
"Here we are," the paladin noted unnecessarily.
"Here we are again," Tyfelian said gently. "But we're not staying. Let's go home."
"I couldn't agree more," Kiran replied.
Yalthra'teyka, 474th layer of the Abyss
Braskrakel, the Lordcity
Firstsummer 9th, 2461 EY
The Master stood in front of his throne, glowering at Dretch, but this time he did not kill the messenger.
"Dey gone, Master. Killed chief guard, top priest and main dragon. But four of dem bit dust, too."
"Where'd they go?" the Master asked with false calmness.
"Not sure, Master," Dretch replied. "Dey leave broke dragon planet somehow. Not dere anymore."
"What about the Sweep process there?"
"Shut off, Master." Dretch would have cringed if its body and face had had the ability, for this was the worst of the news. "No more dragons from Krynn. Temple go back to Dark Queen."
Remarkably, the Master did not fly into a rampaging fury, but instead sat down upon his throne.
"Never mind Krynn. What about the crystal shells in the Hearthspace region?"
"Coming, Master. Siloshpace, Strellshpace and Ebrashpace already coming. More coming, but it takes time for one to come. Listreespace not come... but it's on list."
"Never mind Listraeespace, too, Dretch. Take it off the list. It's Lolth's, so it can wait. I want Hearthspace."
"Must kill lots dere, Master, before it come. Could take many years."
"We may have to place a temporal explosion in the sun there..." the Master thought out loud. "As they did with Creldestspace those many years ago... Ladthiac?"
The skeletal figure standing beside The Master's throne stirred.
"I can do that to the Hearthspace sun, yes," Ladthiac replied in his sepulchral voice.
The Master looked up angrily.
"What about Vinespace, Dretch?"
"Nudding wrong wid dat one, Master."
"Then this is over, Dretch. Tell Mazarixopellin to begin the attack at his convenience. His first strike shall be Quatha Vellar, as planned, but afterward, tell him to send a full strike force, or more, to the planet Erilonia, on the continent Engethi. There is a nation on its northwestern shores called Embimura."
The Master leaned in close to Dretch.
"Tell Mazarixopellin to completely destroy that nation. No prisoners, no survivors. The half-drow's and the human's homeland will pay the price for their interference. He should also destroy Engethandy Forest just north of Embimura. Tell him to send a large enough force that total and utter destruction is a foregone conclusion."
"But, Master... attack on world target will make dere gods very, very angry."
"I do not care whether they are angry, Dretch, because their gods will also be dead, soon enough!"
"Yes, Master." Dretch started to turn away, but the Master's voice stopped him.
"Dretch... which four of them were killed?"
"Archmage, lookout, kender, main cleric," the dretch answered automatically.
"How?"
"Burnt to death, Master," Dretch replied. "Killed by Dabstroneem. He use illusion to look white, when really gold."
The Master pondered this.
"You can be hurt... so the lot of you can be killed," he thought aloud. "Dretch, tell Mazarixopellin to assign a special team to the Elnamerrna's destruction. Tell him to make certain to include an illusionist or someone skilled in deception. Those blundering fools can be tricked... it's happened twice now.
"I believe that fighting them face-to-face is naught but a very aggressive means of suicide, the very reason I wiped their memories instead of trying to slay them myself. But if they can be deceived into lowering their defenses again..."
Dretch bowed.
"Get out," he said to Dretch.
After Dretch hurried out, the Master stared unseeing at the door, wondering and worrying.
"Everything I could dream of—everything!—lies in my hands, yet I cannot grasp it," he thought."Not with that cursed silver starship flying around in the Prime like a sliver in my palm that would cause agonizing pain if I close the fist."
"Mazarixopellin will see to them, Master," Ladthiac stated, seeing The Master's bottled fury.
The Master ground his teeth as if his companion had not spoken.
"Tyfelian, Kiran, you and your friends are going to get it, I swear to you!" he muttered aloud. "You're asking for it and I'll see to it that you pay, even though you did set me free!"
Outer reaches of the Hearthspace region
Elnamerrna crew, returning from Jumpspace
Firstsummer 9th, 2461
The Elnamerrna eased out of a portal in Jumpspace's crystal shell and leaped into the Flow.
Krendren had the helm. He pushed the ship forward, extending his awareness outward to feel for a flowriver. He found it—not far away at all—and the ship leaped into it at his mental command and shot away from Jumpspace.
"How do we know we're headed the right direction in this river?" he asked Tyfelian. The Svart Alfar warrior-wizard tried hard to keep his voice steady, holding back laughter, as he watched what Tyfelian was doing.
"We don't," the half-drow replied, working a long broom against the ceiling, "and normally we'd have to just pick a direction and go, and hope for the best, but that Elendran contraption behind you might change that."
"How'd you get that?" Sildara asked, sitting in Tyfelian's command chair. She likewise bit back laughter... the incongruity of Tyfelian working a broom seemed too much for her.
"I didn't mind stealing it from the Elendran wolfspider," Tyfelian replied. "But it might not work for a ship that wasn't designed by drow... who knows?" the half-drow shrugged.
Sildara fought her widening smile but couldn't stop it. She glanced at Alzja, who sat at the navigation station, concentrating hard on the Elendran Crystal Shell Locator, trying to get the thing to adapt itself to work in a starship whose hull was not adamantite. The diversion didn't work, and her smile burst into a grin and she began to laugh very quietly.
Menlina, standing Watch with Sildara, glanced at her former captain with a pretty good grin of her own.
"I know I shouldn't laugh," Sildara signed to her ex-first officer, "but really... the man has faced the Spider Queen herself and walked away, even if he did get turned into a drider, then he got his memory wiped by an Abyssal Lord, but found out later. Then he tried to save our nation, and would have, if they hadn't tricked him, then he bluffed Admiral Crilsteroy right of the crystal shell, then he fought a dragon and killed it to recover his own victims of the Elendrans' treachery... and now he gets to sweep the bridge. May the wonders of space never end."
Menlina's self-control broke. Not only were Sildara's words actually funny, but also the stress of so much death and destruction had eroded her will. She burst out laughing, and Sildara could tell by the sparkling, merry look in her eye that it felt marvelously good.
Tyfelian paused for a second, though he did not lower the broom from its work, dusting the heavy drape on the ceiling in front of the outeye. He had more than enough brains to figure out the meaning of their mirth, and he looked at them with a mild evil eye.
He found a big smile somewhere within himself, and softened his evil eye with it. Nevertheless, he still couldn't resist saying, with mischief, "Just because I'm in command doesn't make me exempt from cleaning duties. I put on my clothes the same way as everyone else on this ship." He thought. "Well, maybe not the same as the hurwaeti or Grresss, but close enough.
"And believe me, you two will take your turns sometime. I guarantee you Kiran will see to it. He doesn't play favorites, and if you don't want to do it, you'd better be sick or in a fight. Even then, Alzja will cure you or I'll help you win, and then you can do this."
Sildara started laughing then, and so did Krendren. Even Alzja's smirk returned despite her concentration on the Shell Locator. The two guards at the doors on either side of the bridge likewise broke down into mirth.
Sildara clamped down on her laughter and asked, "What's that drape for, anyway?"
"Just in case we should ever have to shut the outeye off," Tyfelian told her, "because we can't shut it off." He finished dusting it—he had already swept the ceiling entirely, except for the drape—and now started sweeping the walls.
Sildara shook her silver-haired head with amusement, though she had to remind herself that she would do this very job sometime. It just didn't seem quite... normal... to her that a man who had accomplished that which Tyfelian had done would ever do something so mundane as to pick up a broom.
Yet there the man stood, fastidiously cleaning the bridge with elbow grease instead of ordering Alzja to do it with cantrips.
"You could tell Alzja or Jalaysa or one of my wizards to use magic to do that," Sildara couldn't help commenting.
"Magic, shmagic," Tyfelian retorted. "There's no substitute for a good sweep, by the gods," he said, clearing the portside wall and moving to the starboard. "Cleaning cantrips always miss things that a good broom will get. And anyway, any lazy bum with a brain can learn a few cantrips and do it that way. But doing it right takes the gumption to get off your butt and do the work. Nobody's above it."
"Taskmaster," Menlina accused.
"Sure," Tyfelian admitted it, "but you'll notice that I don't duck it myself," he said with an eyebrow lift.
Sildara spread her hands in surrender, still snickering, then she stood and moved to the navigation station curiously.
Alzja kept working on the Shell Locator there, occasionally swearing at the thing in Drowic. The Elendran spies had shut it down with a magical lockout, but cracking that had turned out to be child's play for Alzja. It would work, if she could trick it into ignoring wood and chitin.
"Correct me if I'm wrong," Sildara said to Alzja, "but aren't we headed straight for a flow maelstrom?"
"No, that's the outeye," Alzja replied. "The divination magic o' this thing is confused by the hull we've put it into."
Sildara laughed anew as she noticed something else, this time astern.
"Again, I might be wrong," she advised, "but is that not the Spelljammer in hot pursuit of us and closing fast?"
Alzja chuckled. "No, that's Jumpspace. I think this thing can detect only crystal shells o' a certain size or larger—Listraeespace is too small—or ships close to the size o' the Spelljammer. But it doesn't know what it's doing on a ship that's not made o' adamantine or starfly plants."
"Why does the hull matter?"
"Because it has to ignore the hull and everything in it completely, or it doesn't work... at least not in any predictable way," Alzja explained briefly. "In a way, you could say it's farsighted—look how it's showing a flight of dragons all around us. That's because o' the eggs in the cargo bay. This close to them, it thinks they're real dragons." Alzja shrugged. "It's designed to look for crystal shells—and crystal shells are a lot farther away than the hull."
She murmured the command words, which let her tap into the Shell Locator's divination magic. There, she changed one of its ignore commands from adamantite to chitin—or at least that's what she thought she had told it to do.
"You can tell it what to ignore," Menlina said.
Alzja bit her lip, more puzzled than annoyed.
"I'm starting to think there's a language barrier problem. Maybe I should've tried this while we were still on Krynn," the drow lady explained. "Elendrans speak a different dialect of Drowic than I do. Magical translation won't work."
"Vocabulary problem?" Sildara guessed.
"Right. Engethian Drowic doesn't have any words for 'spelljamming helm,' or 'crystal shell,' or 'phlogiston,' or 'flowriver,' so I'm not sure what to say to it," Alzja noted as she examined the new view closely.
In response to her reset command, the alien magical device falsely showed her that the entire Hearthspace region was actually the legendary Broken Sphere in the Trillian Ring, which lay almost two years' travel away, even at the speeds the Elnamerrna could reach.
Alzja snorted softly. "Can't believe you damn Elendrans even know about the Broken Sphere," she muttered very quietly. "Sildara, what's the Elendran word for 'wood'?"
"Hakrob," the Listraeean replied.
She repeated the reset command using that word, and everything seemed to snap into place. The Shell Locator—itself a pair of hoops connected in a suggestion of a globe—generated a three-dimensional image of the immediate area in which flew the Silver Triop. The ship seemed to be represented by a small, ghostly blob whose shape suggested a triop, but it flashed like a signal lantern in use. It floated within the hoop-globe, dead center.
Alzja made the area larger, since no features of note—indeed, nothing at all—lay in the "immediate area." Even Jumpspace now lay too far astern.
After she backed it off that way, Alzja saw Jumpspace, but nothing else. She backed the view away again, and there sat Smilospace—she hoped, at least. As she would have figured, the crystal shell shown on the Shell Locator had a nimbus of translucent mist flowing around it. The Elendrans would not have known what it meant, but Alzja understood. It was the Shell Locator's best guess regarding how to depict a flowshell.
Giving grudging credit to the Elendrans for good artisanship—if, indeed, an Elendran had created the device—she backed off the image once again.
She now saw what was clearly a slice of the Inner Prime, for Alzja recognized the layout of the crystal shells of the Inner Prime facing the Hearthspace region.
"I think I have it," she murmured to Sildara.
Tyfelian glanced over at the device, but he didn't stop his sweeping for its sake.
Alzja looked at the tiny image of the Silver Triop.
"Krendren, bring us about," she called. "We're going the wrong way."
When the little Elnamerrna had turned around, Alzja examined the path ahead.
"If that's Smilospace, then Listraeespace isn't showing up... but maybe that makes sense," Alzja commented, "if it can remember anyplace it's been."
Interested, Sildara looked at Alzja intensely.
"Go on."
"The wolfspider's never been there, since the spies had abandoned it on the dead moon. I guess I'm not so sure I know the size o' crystal shells it can detect by itself. But maybe distance has something to do with it."
She backed the image away once more, as far as it could go, frowning curiously all the while.
"I'm wondering how long this thing's been in use, too. If it's been to the Trillian Ring—and that's nowhere near Elendraspace—then maybe Tyfelian's 'lift' of it from the wolfspider isn't its first time."
"What makes you think that?" Tyfelian called over to her, at the mention of his name.
"What would Elendrans be doing in the Trillian Ring—if it was the Elendrans? And, when did some previous owner encounter the Spelljammer?"
"Worth looking into—but at another time," Tyfelian hinted.
"Sure," Alzja agreed, and returned to work on the device.
A smile found her face as she recognized two crystal shells.
"Drakspace and Elbraspace," she said, pointing at each in turn.
No one could mistake Drakspace, not if said person had ever seen it on a Flow map. It had three irregularly spaced flowrivers girding it, and a dead-end flowstream as well. Following the Silver Triop, the wolfspider had gone right by Drakspace.
Alzja updated her navigation records swiftly—her shift was over and she felt tired from working on figuring out the Elendran device. She had been forced to cast several powerful divinations of her own to crack the magical lockout, and then more spells to figure out the basics of how it worked... then still more, to learn its command words so she could adapt the Shell Locator to the Elnamerrna.
Alzja double-checked her records to make sure she had not made any mistakes due to haste, called over flight instructions to the helm, and then excused herself from the bridge.
"There we go... it's working now. I'll keep on it tomorrow, but for now, I'm done in. Goodnight, Sildara."
Alzja started to leave, but a voice from behind delayed her exit. Tyfelian had finally stopped his sweeping long enough to call to her.
"Alzja."
"Yes?"
"Might I borrow you for a moment?" he asked, pointing at the starboard door.
Alzja muttered something incomprehensible, though the words were to the effect of "hope it's quick," then she joined Tyfelian outside the bridge.
The half-drow looked around. No one stood in sight at the moment, so instead of saying anything at all, he hopped right in front of Alzja and hugged her tightly.
Alzja returned the embrace, wondering why Tyfelian did it. It didn't feel like a romantic hug. Moreover, he had never needed closeness before. He had not sought it out when Piele Malone and other friends had died those years back when a squadron of drow soldiers from the Skyshaft district in Tatissadane had captured Tyfelian. Even after that, when the half-drow had been changed into a drider, he had not sought companionship.
Yet, now, Tyfelian squeezed her rather hard, clearly feeling alone and bereft.
When he let go and started back for the door, Alzja stopped him with a question.
"Ty?"
"Hm?"
"Not that I mind hugs... but why do you not seek out Jaclyn for comfort? You've known her almost twice as long as you've known me. You get along with her better, too, for that matter. Still, you come to me, every time, or hug me if I'm already there."
Tyfelian didn't answer immediately, weighing the consequences of answering honestly or refusing to answer at all. He even raised a first finger to Alzja, asking her to wait while he gathered his thoughts.
Then he squared his shoulders and told Alzja the answer, though he truly did not know whether it would be anything she wanted to hear.
"Because Jaclyn is my friend, and that's all I want her to be, ever. She feels the same way."
He dropped the surprise line on Alzja and moved back for the bridge, leaving Alzja with a stunned, shocked look on her face that Tyfelian would not forget for a very long time.
"But you've known her for thirteen years..." she whispered, a nearly unintelligible mumble. "Not long to a drow," she added more clearly, "but thirteen years is a very long time to a human."
He heard her, but he did not respond in any way.
Tyfelian's hand closed on the doorknob before Alzja rallied enough to ask, "What about Fing?"
The hand paused, ready to open the door. Tyfelian looked over his shoulder at Alzja with a suddenly grim expression. He shook his head, all the explanation Alzja needed. Then he entered the bridge.
Alone in the corridor outside, Alzja swayed on her feet, truly floored.
"I love you, too," she whispered.
Vinespace, attendant crystal shell of Hearthspace
The enemy, poised to attack
Firstsummer 12th, 2461
The Elnamerrna crew or anyone else flying near Vinespace would have been horrified by the sight of what came forth from that place on Firstsummer 12th that year.
Dragons.
Thousands of dragons. Metallic dragons included.
Flying in groups of five to twenty, the enormous number of dragons swarmed in parking orbit of the crystal shell itself, taking their ease in its flowshell. They had no riders, but instead wore odd harnesses decorated with the symbol of a crystal shell within another crystal shell.
A massive red dragon watched them from a drifting, abandoned dwarven citadel that floated between the crystal shell wall and the whirling currents of the flowshell.
Mazarixopellin felt pleased. He watched the Master's creations with pride. He was not one of them, but he served the same leader, and that was enough for him.
A portal vortex opened near the ancient red, and he glanced over to see a hammership coming up fast from the direction of Vinespace.
Dretch waddled out from the portal.
"Great wyrm, Master says de silverfish fools not in Hearthshpace. Send attack now."
Mazarixopellin's great head raised, his ego swelling to the size of Mount Celestia on the Outer Planes.
"Give the order, Dretch!"
Middle reaches of the Hearthspace region
Elnamerrna crew, on course for home
Firstsummer 12th, 2461
"As we approach the flowshell, you'll feel it up ahead," Jalaysa explained to the helmsman. "But in the Hearthspace region, you can just shoot right through without even slowing down. If you hold speed, you can use the flowshell to your advantage and just take the next flowriver toward Hearthspace."
Faprol, one of the Listraeeans, nodded and concentrated. He felt that he could do this, and master his piloting in the strange area known as the Hearthspace region.
Tyfelian leaned back into his chair with satisfaction. So far, the Listraeeans had taken to the Elnamerrna like fish to water. He felt every confidence that Faprol could perform the pass-by maneuver around the flowshell just as Chalizon, Krendren, Nefliss, and Errsuz had done before him.
Kiran likewise watched the helmsman. He hoped hard that the Listraeeans would stay with the ship, and the indications looked favorable. They seemed to be as happy as could be expected—if not more so—with the new situation. Kiran felt that they had nothing in Listraeespace to return to, and that being so, perhaps they would adopt the life of adventure that he and Tyfelian so greatly enjoyed.
The flowshell of Strellspace would be visible shortly, if Alzja had the navigation right. If Faprol could perform the special spelljamming movement—very likely—they would be in Hearthspace in twenty-four hours, give or take.
"I've been thinking about your idea to find a wizard who can cast a wish," Tyfelian said to Kiran.
The human watched him, making no verbal reply.
"I'll send out queries through my contacts when we get there, but I think I know the names of all the powerful wizards in Hearthspace... so I'm afraid it's probably hopeless. Wizards that powerful just aren't a silver coin for a dozen."
"We were always very fortunate to have Tash," Kiran noted.
"Yes," Tyfelian said slowly. He started to say more, but the voice horn cut him off before he could continue.
"Bridge, crow's nest," Frenela called.
"Bridge, Tyfelian," the half-drow replied after clicking the horn.
"Flowshell sighted ahead," Frenela advised. "Advise the helm."
"He heard you. Thanks," Tyfelian said, his voice warm with mild amusement. He clicked the horn off. "Faprol, this is your moment.—"
"Bridge, crow's nest, emergency," Frenela called again.
Tyfelian acknowledged her again.
"The flowshell ahead is expanding."
"What?" Tyfelian's gut did a barrel roll. He didn't wait for a reply, though. Instead, he called through the voice vents to the sail crews.
"Sail crews! Emergency turnabout!"
Faprol steeled himself and went with the movement as the Elnamerrna twirled around in place and shot off back the way she had come.
Tyfelian reversed the view in the outeye. Sure enough, a swiftly expanding, globular mass of heavy phlogiston seemed to bear down on them. It looked somewhat like a colorful snowball gaining size from rolling downhill, but it wasn't rolling down any hill. It just got bigger and bigger.
"Tash! Make us faster!" Tyfelian cried without thinking.
Alzja cocked an ear, hurt and puzzled.
"Sorry, Alzja... is there anything you can do?"
Alzja moved over to the helm and cast a spell, but the effect seemed slight. The huge ball of thick phlogiston kept getting larger until its edge hit the Silver Triop.
The buffeting must have been light, or else the Elnamerrna had been moving fast enough that the relative speed of the expanding flowshell was slow. In either case, no rattling could be felt through the helm's steadying of the ship's gravity, for it was over without anyone aboard feeling it.
They could see by the outeye, however, that the ship was out of control.
Faprol squirmed in the helm, clenching his teeth and grimacing. He got the flight leveled out, but then sat quietly, awaiting instructions.
Tyfelian stared at the outeye, puzzled.
"Resume course, helm."
Faprol tentatively moved the ship so he could find the flowriver again, but he seemed hesitant. Tyfelian noticed, but he said nothing. Caution might pay off here.
"We're back in the river," Faprol said.
"Steady on to Strellspace," Tyfelian ordered. He kept his tone firm but warm, to reassure the helmsman that the captain was alert and watching.
Nothing happened for several moments, though... which then stretched on into several minutes.
"We should be able to see Strellspace by now," Tyfelian said wonderingly. "Navigation?"
Alzja peered at the Shell Locator.
"I verify that," she replied. "It's right here... ah..." her voice choked off with a soft gasp.
"Tyfelian! Come here!" Alzja cried urgently.
The half-drow vaulted out of his seat and hustled to her station.
"Strellspace is disappearing!" Alzja told him with disbelief.
Tyfelian looked. Sure enough, the small bluish-black globe representing Strellspace faded, then vanished from view, in the Shell Locator.
"How can a crystal shell just vanish?" Tyfelian asked Alzja, in a tone that meant he expected an answer.
"I have no idea in the world," she replied. "But it's gone."
Tyfelian clicked the voice horn at Alzja's station.
"Crow's nest, bridge."
"Crow's nest, Frenela."
"Did you see what we saw? Strellspace vanished."
"Yes, I did. A grayish mist formed around it, and then that faded away, too. There's nothing there now."
Astounded, Tyfelian stared at the outeye. He had not been able to see all that Frenela had seen—she had a spyglass—but he could imagine it.
Numbly, he switched the voice horn to Shipwide.
"All wizards to weapon bays," he bade them. "Strellspace has just disappeared right in front of us. Investigate," he ordered, keeping it simple... because he didn't know what else to say.
He clicked the horn off, then moved away from Alzja, back to his seat. He combed his memory for clues, but he found none.
"Alzja, go to the weapon bays and help them," he ordered her. "Kiran, take all reports and get back to me."
Sincerely baffled and afraid, Tyfelian put his chin in his hand and waited.
Yalthra'teyka, 474th layer of the Abyss
Braskrakel, the Lordcity
Firstsummer 12th, 2461 EY
The Master stood with Dretch at the fringes of Yalthra'teyka, near the region that could be called a border with the next layer of the Abyss—though in most cases, the physical terrain between layers defied all known measurements of size.
"We close to next layer down, Master?" Dretch asked respectfully.
"You could say that," the Master replied, "but it's a relative thing. Even a starship could not reach Galahk'kaythenshur from here for thousands of years. But I have no interest in reaching the next layer down. I have every interest in adding more land to my own."
The Abyssal Lord watched with great satisfaction as the slide-mist appeared. This heralded the merging of another layer—or in this case, a part of another plane—with his own.
Strellspace appeared within the border. Infested with several million tanar'ri, sent by The Master over many months, it now had much the same character as Yalthra'teyka, and so, there it went.
The crystal shell warped and split apart into nothingness. From where Dretch and his superior watched, the shell had been visible only for a few seconds, a globe of shell matter of astounding size, seeming to be a moon that had landed on the ground. Impervious and impenetrable while on the Material Plane, here it crumpled and dissolved against the planar might of the Abyss.
The Master smiled as he heard, very faintly, the death cries of Strellspace's gods.
"Do you hear the screams, Dretch?" The Master asked with a wide smile on his reptilian face.
"Yes, Master," Dretch replied, telepathically feeling some of The Master's enjoyment.
"The death gurgles of gods, Dretch," The Master told him, feeling magnanimous. "They are not worshipped anywhere else...unfortunately for them. With no one left to worship them and their crystal shell now part of our home, they die." The Master's voice dripped self-satisfied hubris.
"In just a few years, their domains on the Outer Planes will fall to ruins too, and no one who matters will remember them."
"Very wonderful, Master."
They fell silent as the worlds of Strellspace broke apart and went flat. They filled the border area with their lands and seas, expanding Yalthra'teyka's territory.
The sun of the crystal shell guttered and died, its elemental fire snuffed out by the slide-mist. The mist did not spare the sun's core with the mercy of death, however. The sickly gray core floated straight up into the infernal orange sky of Yalthra'teyka and joined several others. The half-destroyed fire bodies stolen from the Hearthworld Cluster on the Material Plane lit the entire plane with a weird, almost ghoulish light. Grayish yellow, it made everything in the endless red jungles stand out in stark, horrifying detail.
Worse, it brightened—just slightly—as the ravaged core of Strellspace's sun floated into its new position. Most humans and those of similar races would have felt intense revulsion, but The Master and Dretch watched the event with pleasure, and even pride.
Uncountable demonic figures flew off the planets as they merged with the plane. That vast multitude of tanar'ri broke out in martial song as the shift became complete. So many had infested the unfortunate crystal shell that the two could hear them even from millions of miles away.
The Master reveled in it. He was in such a good mood that he even gave Dretch a comradely pat on the shoulder—or that which would have been a shoulder had Dretch been human.
"One more is mine," The Master said, savoring the words.
Strellspace's former location
Elnamerrna crew, investigating the crystal shell's disappearance
Firstsummer 12th, 2461
"Nothing," Kiran reported to Tyfelian. "The shell's simply—gone."
"How the hell could an entire crystal shell just go away?" Tyfelian snarled.
No one on the bridge had any answers.
"There's nothing here now but phlogiston," Kiran elaborated. "Even the flowshell expanded and dissipated."
Tyfelian's mind began to overload.
"One thing after another... moving crystal shells, vanishing crystal shells... what's next?"
Kiran leaned over to calm him.
"Let's get home," he advised. "We can put our wizards to work in Quatha Vellar's libraries."
Tyfelian thought, but he evidently couldn't think of anything better, so he squared his shoulders and addressed Faprol and Alzja.
"Helm, navigation, get us home."
Alzja called cues to Faprol slowly, then started muttering under her breath. She knew the way to Hearthspace from their current location even with Strellspace gone, yet she felt troubled.
"It feels strange to call the cues from an empty crossing," she said to Tyfelian and Kiran.
"I would expect that," Kiran said to her reassuringly. "Let's just get home."
Disturbed and more than a little depressed, Tyfelian stared at the outeye as he addressed Faprol.
"I'm worried about Hearthspace... pile on all possible speed, helm."
The Rainbow Ocean, the flowriver between Hearthspace and Vinespace
The enemy's advance strike force
Firstsummer 12th, 2461
The awesome force of over two thousand dragons, chromatic and metallic, turned away from Vinespace and entered the extremely fast flowriver that connected that attendant crystal shell to Hearthspace. They flew into tight formations, spread their wings wide to catch the phlogiston flow, and shot off toward their target.
The flight leader, a massive gold, waved his dragons into line behind him, snarling though they could not hear him. His snarls were not for them, anyway—he loved this duty, and indeed, he had been bred for it. No, his snarls of hatred and rage bellowed for Quatha Vellar and Clystin, the shipyard and the planet he had been ordered to neutralize—after they had captured an Itreyan Gateway.
He flew hard, swimming the flowriver's currents with the help of his magical harness. The device glowed with power, answered by the harnesses of all of his flight. One after another, the dragons shot to near-flowspeed and Vinespace was quickly lost to their sight.
They had not been looking at it, anyway. Their eyes burned for Hearthspace and their targets.
A snarl again erupted from the lead dragon's toothy maw. He imagined burning down the great docking facilities of Quatha Vellar and tearing apart the aarakocra city on the other side of the coin-shaped shipyard with drooling desire.
A mutter came from the dragon's wet lips, but even he did not hear it. Mad with battle lust, he led his dragons onward toward their assigned attack.
Hearthspace crystal shell
Elnamerrna crew, on course for home
Firstsummer 12th, 2461
Tyfelian's unease had been growing toward dread as the Silver Triop neared the home sphere, but his heart lifted as the ship entered. The sun remained in the remote center of the shell, shining in all the glory it ever had, and the Hearthspace stars twinkled merrily still in their vast, mysterious arrangements.
"Take us to Quatha, with all speed," he ordered Nefliss at the helm and Alzja at navigation.
After they passed through an Itreyan Gateway and started heading for Quatha Vellar, Tyfelian called Jalaysa to the bridge.
When she appeared, the half-drow took a moment out from supervising the docking to address her.
"When we get to Quatha, teleport home, then go to Appler's libraries and start your research," he ordered her. "Find out all you can. We really need to know who that Abyssal Lord is, and find out everything possible about that artifact—if you can find out anything at all. Use Alzja's copies of its rune markings."
Jalaysa regarded him thoughtfully. "I've already gone through all the recent records," she advised him. "He's not known in any Embimuran history. I've gone farther back, but the oldest records we have aren't much older than the calendar. Just some Marricorran history that was current when Kotstrig discovered Engethi. The artifact in Jumpspace was a lot older than that."
Tyfelian pondered.
"Some ancient enemy, then," he said thoughtfully. "One that goes back thirty thousand years," he added, as the Dridercomp stirred his intuition. "That goes back almost to creation itself."
"Yes," Jalaysa agreed. "Sages agree that the gods created our world about that long ago. But we don't know that he's our enemy... maybe we've inherited someone else's problem. Perhaps the world where he was originally known doesn't exist anymore."
"Perhaps," Tyfelian agreed, "but something tells me otherwise," he said softly, his hand rubbing his belly to indicate the Dridercomp. He looked straight into Jalaysa's eyes. "He looked familiar."
Jalaysa looked back at him thoughtfully. "Yes, I remember you said that. You've seen him before? In some drow clerical book in Tatissadane?" she asked curiously.
"Helm, take cues from the crow's nest," the half-drow ordered Nefliss. "Yes, I think so," he said, finishing his conversation with Jalaysa. "I'm sure of it. I can't place his name, though." He paused.
"He has the strangest damned associations for me, too... something about being cold and wet."
"Hmm," Jalaysa murmured. "May I look through your journals to find times when you've been soaked and freezing?"
Her question had been mildly humorous, but Tyfelian responded seriously.
"Yes."
He left Jalaysa on the command platform to talk Nefliss through the docking procedure, but then he returned to his seat.
"I have a strong hunch that it'll save you some time to go a lot farther back than any Engethian history, or even Marricorran," Tyfelian said to her after the ship had docked. "Go back to the beginning itself, Jalaysa. Creation. The time right after Ptah created our crystal shell and our gods took up residence, if that legend is true."
Jalaysa's eyebrows lifted slightly.
"There isn't much recorded history there," she pointed out. "Just myths and legends that may or may not be based on fact." She stressed her next words to make him understand. "After all, that was nearly thirty-five thousand years ago."
"Or more," Tyfelian noted. "Thirty-two to thirty-four thousand is the age of the ruins on Aratel," he stated, "and maybe they were the first and maybe they weren't."
"Aratel?" Menlina queried from where she stood near Alzja to take over at change of watch.
"As far as anyone knows, that's the continent where the creator gods placed the first humans on Erilonia," Tyfelian filled her in, even as he waved her away from the navigation station with a shake of his head. "You don't have to stand your watch—not with the ship moored.
"It's in ruins now, and infested with monsters the likes of which I'd want an army of knights with me to fight," he told her, resuming their conversation.
"You've been there?" Jalaysa asked him, surprised.
Tyfelian only smiled modestly, answer enough for her. "I wanted to study my world's oldest lands, but the creatures there are not to be trifled with... the weakest ones are as dangerous as young dragons." He shrugged. "You'd need an army of two or three thousand knights to help you secure a perimeter around one of the cities, and even then you'd have to work fast. The line wouldn't hold, I guarantee it. 'Dangerous' is a word that doesn't do Aratel justice."
"What about caster support?" Menlina asked.
"That's the worst part, if the monsters aren't bad enough," Tyfelian replied. "Magic is unreliable on Aratel. Wild-magic area."
Menlina shook her head wonderingly.
Tyfelian clicked the voice horn to Shipwide.
"All hands, the ship is docked. Shore leave is authorized for all personnel except the skeleton crew."
The half-drow turned to Kiran.
"Go to the Embimuran Temple here and make arrangements for a memorial service, for later today."
Kiran took a breath, then clapped Tyfelian on the shoulder and stood.
Tyfelian watched the company file out of the bridge, then rose to leave himself. He paused at the portside door and looked back into the empty bridge. He wanted to see it before the skeleton crew arrived.
The outeye sat to his left, showing only a view of the shipyard's facilities directly ahead. He looked at the spelljammer helm sat in the center of the bridge with the unseen crew member glass sculpture of the ship beside it. Then his eye found the navigation station at his right elbow with the planetary locator on the desk with the new Shell Locator. Below his feet, the floor thrummed faintly from wind—the issue of the air regenerator under the helm.
Everything looked as it had always been, but Tyfelian could feel the absence of the four women like a cold spot in warm lake water. He clamped his teeth over his grief and turned away, checking the guards outside the door automatically.
"Nothing feels the same," he thought. "Nothing. Got to find a way to bring them back—we just have to."
"I'll be in the local library if anyone wants me," he said to the guards.
Tyfelian left the ship to go to Quatha Vellar's library. Undoubtedly, Jalaysa had already left, by teleport, for their home world to do research in libraries there, but Tyfelian wanted the library of Quatha. He wanted the names of wizards and clerics, very powerful ones—individuals who could bring back the dead without need of remains. He did not believe that he would succeed—he thought that he was seeking someone who didn't exist in Hearthspace—but he felt that he had to try it.
The half-drow found one of the shafts that allowed easy access to Quatha's opposite side, and once there he walked swiftly to the library. Well-known on Quatha, Tyfelian got some looks of surprise but not alarm during his walk. He merely waved at some noteworthy aarakocra that he recognized and hurried into the library, hoping to avoid the inevitable questions about why he was no longer a drider. He had no reservations about discussing the subject—if the Elendrans were after him, his mere presence would give them a trail to follow—but he had important business to attend.
He assured himself that he had chosen the right building by the sign over its door—both sides read "Quatha Vellar Library" in aarakocra script. Tyfelian could read some of their language, though it was beyond his mouth's ability to speak it, so he entered with confidence.
He smiled at the sight of the many, many rows of books. He snagged a passing aarakocra librarian for help.
"Excuse me... where might I find references to noteworthy clerics and wizards, if you know by chance?" he asked politely.
The aarakocra thought, then pointed his feathered hand toward the appropriate row of books. Tyfelian hurried to it and began his laborious search.
Hearthspace, near the crystal shell
Itreyan Gateway Number 854
Firstsummer 12th, 2461 or Summerlost 11th, 5201 I. R.
Commodore Arcle Plenxon walked the battlements of the fortress complex that girded and protected the Gateway. He took a deep breath of the artificial asteroid's air and smiled, as he often did.
Unlike some who held the same rank and position in the Itreyan Spelljammer Navy, he liked his job and did not spend his days and weeks mindlessly supervising his command and troops. He did not daydream about commanding a ship nor yearn for adventure. He liked doing exactly what he did, controlling and maintaining the Gateway, collecting the small toll from each ship wanting faster movement in the enormous crystal shell, and sending the money back to Itreya.
He also commanded the small fleet of ships that patrolled space near Gateway 854, but he delegated most of that work to the captains themselves. In a fashion much like that of Tyfelian and Kiran's recruiting, he had chosen those captains himself, one by one, building a solid, reliable collection of shipboard leaders who actually liked patrolling, instead of just going through the motions as many did.
This had been a good thing during the Second Unhuman War, when far-ranging scro invasion forces had attacked Hearthspace. The Itreyan Gateways, with backup from Quatha Vellar and other outposts of civilization, had weathered the assaults quite well.
No novices to battle even then—for Unhuman settlements had existed in Hearthspace for hundreds of years—the scro attacks had given the Itreyan Gateway guardians valuable experience in fighting skilled enemies. Now, Commodore Plenxon kept his fleet battle-ready at all times.
Plenxon's hard work had attracted the eye of the Itreyan Spelljammer Navy Headquarters on Itreya itself, and the leaders there had begun to gently crack down on other Gateway guardians to be less lax in their duties. Readiness had improved on all of the Gateways.
On Firstsummer 12th, 2461—or Summerlost 11th, 5201 by the Itreyan calendar—this proved to be most fortuitous for Hearthspace.
The lookouts standing watch on Gateway 854 caught sight of the first sign—an incredible number of portals opening in the crystal shell wall. One by one, they might not have been visible due to distance, but so many created a bizarre-looking green swirl effect of astonishing size, which swiftly changed color as the portals opened fully to reveal the rainbow colors of the Rainbow Ocean beyond.
The lookouts sounded the alarm.
Commodore Plenxon hustled to the courtyard.
"What is it?!" he shouted.
"Portals opening up in the shell!" a lookout yelled back to him. "Hundreds of them!"
"Ready all ships for launch!" Plenxon shouted. "Prepare for battle!"
Plenxon ran among his troops, shouting orders. His soldiers and sailors scattered in a kind of organized mass chaos, leaping aboard the many hammerships that sat in designated landing spots all over the Gateway's stone hoop. Plenxon watched with satisfaction despite his fear as the sailors made ready. They did it fast and he felt a little better—safer—as the hammerships rose, one after another, into open space to defend the Gateway. He had no idea what could open hundreds of portals at once, but any fool knew that it meant trouble.
Plenxon glanced over to see his own flagship, the Kalamarsa. An armored hammership, she sat near the courtyard, and her deck swarmed with crewmen. Assured of a route of escape for himself should it become needed, the human officer watched the defense umbrella unfold above him.
The Itreyan hammerships glided into formation. They arrayed themselves above the Gateway asteroid in a roughly spherical arrangement, each one ready for battle.
Plenxon hoped that whatever came at them, they could handle. Creating a Gateway was a long and expensive endeavor, and it cost even more than that to buy the ships with their spelljammer helms to guard a Gateway. It had taken his people over a century to assemble the grand Gateway network and get all the ships necessary to protect them.
The commodore would have granted anyone that the Gateway network had paid for itself many times over in the seventy years it had been operational, but money wasn't the main thing on his mind.
It was the effort. Decades of visionary work would be destroyed if the Gateways were lost. Plenxon was not a wizard, but he understood a bit of the difficulty of creating magical objects. He murmured a swift prayer to Jelnidos, god of sentinels, then hurried off to the signalman.
The lead hammership floated five miles from 854. Its captain barked orders below from his spot near the forecastle as he peered through his spyglass in the direction of the strange manifestation of portals in the shell wall.
The portals had long since closed and at first, he saw nothing but the stars of Hearthspace
Then he noticed movement. Swift movement.
His blood went cold as he identified the approaching enemy.
"Dragons!" he shouted. "Hundreds of dragons! Wizards, defensive magic, now!" he howled. "All weapons, load up and prepare to fire!"
He looked pointedly at his signal officer. The sailor worked the lantern hard, relaying identification of the enemy to his counterpart on 854.
"Dragons?! Here?" Plenxon cried with disbelief after his own signal officer told him.
"Yes, sir. That's what Captain Gratsen's signal officer relayed."
"Get me a hummerfly!" Plenxon snarled at one of his attendants. "Like yesterday!"
He turned to another.
"Tell the wizards on the Kalamarsa—dragons," he ordered, grimacing nervously.
Plenxon anxiously picked up his own spyglass and raised it skyward to watch.
"Get 'em, Gratsen. Get 'em," he murmured.
First contact in the battle came rather hard.
"Die!" Captain Gratsen shouted at the attacking red dragon as his hammership's ram smashed into the giant reptile's chest and drove one of its bones right through the heart. Its flaming breath billowed over the Telgrayel, but the wizardly protection from fire held solid and the only effect was to make the ship's air unpleasantly hot.
The helmsman reversed, to yank the Telgrayel's bow out of the dragon. The ship swung away, but two more dragons dove to the attack.
One of them was a white dragon. The other dragon's color took Gratsen completely by surprise.
"Bronze!" he shouted with disbelief.
The bronze dragon swatted away a couple arrows and a ballista bolt, then, hearing the human's shout, he glanced down.
"I'm not a bronze dragon, you imbecile," the dragon shouted as his tail whooshed over the vessel. That tail hit the forecastle and came close to demolishing it, but the crew made him suffer for that strike. Their swords sent scales clattering all over the deck and dragon blood splattered.
An invisible wizard shocked the white dragon with a lightning bolt. The sparking bolt sizzled all over the creamy white body, hurting him. Arrows whizzed all about, and one hissed into the dragon's ear, making him scream with fury.
On the other side of the Telgrayel, the bronze leaned his sinuous neck forward and savaged the railing with his teeth. The stout wood resisted him for a moment, but then he took a bite out. He casually munched on it as his claw reached down to disembowel Gratsen.
Gratsen ducked and stabbed his sword through the claw. The skilled captain wrenched the blade to the side and took off a toe for the dragon's trouble. The toe struck the man on the shoulder, but not hard enough to harm him.
It had a very different effect on the dragon, however.
Enraged, the bronze heaved back and slammed both of his rear claws into the hammership's hull. The razor-sharp nails impaled the wood and dug deeply into the vessel. His evil eye burned at Gratsen, but the human just stood there, poised and still ready to fight.
"You're gonna die for that," Gratsen said calmly, sheathing his sword. He picked up his bow and started shooting arrows at the dragon's head.
Gratsen then had to hold back laughter, for the invisible wizard cast a flaming sphere spell atop the dragon's head. The roiling ball of fire dropped down over the dragon's face, then the wizard pushed it away from the Telgrayel to roll down the big monster's belly.
Involuntarily admiring his ship's wizard's prowess—he was still invisible after making an attack, something Gratsen had thought was impossible—he put an arrow into the dragon's front shoulder, and another to its belly. The dragon responded by whipping its tail around and striking the captain.
The human flew across the deck to crash into the railing. He collapsed, losing his bow, but Gratsen—yelps of agony slipping past his self-control—still managed to get his sword back out in time to block the dragon's follow-up, another claw attack.
The crewmen standing on the deck kept the dragons smarting from arrow hits, and finally the great reptiles could not endure. They withdrew from the Telgrayel and flew away, still under attack. The archers brought down the white dragon and his body floated away, but they could not slay the bronze. That dragon got away. He flapped off weakly, hurt and infuriated.
Gratsen took a moment out to recover the breath that had been blasted out of him—his back would have been broken had he not been wearing armor—then bellowed orders as the Telgrayel stabilized under his feet. The lead hammership moved off to look for another fight.
At that moment, Gratsen pondered something he'd noticed during the scrap with the dragons.
He had to wonder why it was that he had not felt any dragonfear.
Commodore Plenxon watched the battle, particularly the fate of the Telgrayel, through his spyglass. He felt bolstered by Captain Gratsen's rout of the dragons that had attacked his ship, but he felt sure that the tide would turn. After all, he estimated at least a thousand dragons against fifty hammerships. The Gateway fortress had its own weapons, but Plenxon did not believe they would hold, not against hundreds and hundreds of dragons.
Sure enough, the dragons inevitably broke through the defense umbrella and some of them swooped down upon the Gateway. Plenxon heard the sounds of the weapons being fired and wizards casting spells, but he felt certain that 854 would be lost.
His heart then constricted with confused dread as he noted that some metallic dragons flew with the invaders, but he, like Gratsen, also felt puzzled by the absence of dragonfear.
He stood within a ring of his combat marines near the Kalamarsa. The attendant he had sent for a hummerfly ran back to him, ducking billowing, exploding dragon breath, and pressed the hummerfly into Plenxon's hands.
Plenxon thought for a moment, then he ran his hand along the hummerfly so it would hold his voice.
"To Lady Mayor Kreeahlka of Quatha Vellar, from Commodore Arcle Plenxon of Itreyan Gateway 854. We are under heavy attack by dragons—at least a thousand, some of metallic type. Please alert all Itreyan Gateways and ask them to send help."
He stroked the hummerfly once more to tell it to stop, then he brought it close to whisper to it.
"Shipyard Station Quatha Vellar, Lady Mayor's Palace."
Plenxon raised his arms high and spread his hands, releasing his messenger. The hummerfly blazed away with its distress call.
