The Broken Sphere (23 page)

No. They couldn’t be. Could they?

Even though they definitely matched Estriss’s description, he couldn’t bring himself to believe that these creatures were the all-powerful Juna – the race that had left artifacts behind them on a hundred worlds, possibly including both the ultimate helm and the
Spelljammer
itself. Hadn’t the Juna been traveling the seas of the phlogiston millions of years ago? Hadn’t they roamed the universe before humans and illithids – even before the thri-kreen that Estriss had talked about – had ventured into the void?

Yet the trilateral hadn’t understood anything that Teldin had “said” about crystal spheres, or the phlogiston, or other worlds, had it? And that couldn’t have been just a translation problem. Eventually the creature had grasped that Teldin meant he’d come from “beyond the suns,” and that had disturbed it profoundly, almost as if …

Almost as if the sphere surrounding the planet was forbidden territory from
both
directions – from the Flow coming in, and from the planet going out. Almost as if Teldin and the others had become objects of fear because they’d come from the taboo region. No, these couldn’t be the planet-shaping, sphere-altering Juna.

But then, what
were
they?

“I don’t know,” he replied to Julia’s question.

Could the Juna have devolved? The thought struck him suddenly. Could they have somehow slipped backward, forgotten what they used to know, lost their powers? Could they have become marooned here on this single planet, cut off from the universe that had once been their playground – marooned for so long that their racial memory didn’t contain any trace of what they’d once been? That would certainly explain why the Star Folk had vanished from the ken of all other races: they’d just turned in on themselves, somehow, leaving only artifacts behind.

He shook his head. It couldn’t have been like that, he told himself. That was too sad an ending to the glorious story of the Juna. Leaving this universe for another plane of existence, as many rumors told – now that was a fitting conclusion. But to sink back into obscurity, to become savages again – at least, in comparison with their greatest achievements – was just too ignoble. Even worse, what did that say about humankind and the other demihumans – even long-lived elvenkind? That they, too, could lose everything they’d gained, including even the memory of those gains? It was a chilling, depressing thought ….

With an effort, he forced the thoughts away. The trilaterals’ argument of thoughts had ended, and one of the creatures – not the first one he’d “spoken” to, though Teldin didn’t know what made him quite so sure of that – was approaching him again.

Teldin stepped forward to meet it. “I am Teldin Moore,” he said.

Greetings [curiosity], Cloakmaster,
the trilateral “said.” Apparently the cloak had been unable to translate his name, Teldin realized. Interesting how it chose to identify him instead
 
….
This one [pride] Speaks First, of the People. Incomplete person [acceptance] not of the People, not of the World of the People, but [curiosity] of elsewhere. True [anticipation]?

Teldin paused. This trilateral’s mental “voice” was slower, more deliberate, and considerably clearer and easier to understand than the first one. Yet he still had to struggle to make sense of what it was trying to communicate. “Speaks First” seemed to be the creature’s name – an indication that it was some kind of a leader among “the People,” maybe? – and it seemed to view Teldin somewhat differently from the first individual: as an “incomplete person” rather than as an “incomplete animal.” Considering that the Cloakmaster only had four limbs instead of six, he could understand the “incomplete” part. Did the transition from “animal” to “person” mean that Speaks First was willing to consider him an equal?

“Greetings, Speaks First,” Teldin said. “You’re right, we’re not of the People” – he pointed, one at a time, to the three trilaterals – “or of the World of the People” – he indicated the ground under his feet. “We came here from beyond the suns. And that seemed to scare the first of your group to talk with us. Why was that?”

Looks Around lives the Legends too much [amusement]. No immediate understanding, then fear [condescension].

Teldin nodded slowly. He’d met two-legged people like that: anything they didn’t understand at once was an object of fear. Yet there was more to it than that, wasn’t it? All that babbling about the “ancient time” and “the Others” …

The creature edged forward. Although it moved slowly, Teldin didn’t get the sense that it did so out of fear – more that it didn’t want to frighten
him
with a precipitous approach. When it was less than a man’s height away, it stopped.
May this one [fascination] touch?
it asked.

For a moment, Teldin considered refusing. This
thing
was just so alien – more so, he found, than even the beholder Beth-Abz. But he steeled himself and nodded.

It took him a few seconds to realize the creature wouldn’t know how to interpret his gestures. But before he could express his agreement in words, the trilateral had started to reach toward him with one of its twice-trifurcated tentacles. Apparently the cloak will translate gestures as well, part of his mind noted. I’ll have to remember that ….

With the delicacy of a lover’s caress, the nine tentacle tips touched his face, traced the lines of his cheekbones and jaw, brushed his nose and lips. The trilateral’s skin was as smooth as a baby’s, slightly cooler than human flesh. It exuded a complex, faint odor, with a slight undertone of musk-sharp, yet by no means distasteful. Teldin closed his eyes and felt feather touches across his eyelids.

Then the examination was over. The creature backed a step away.
Cloakmaster is
not
incomplete [curiosity-certainty],
it stated mentally.
Cloakmaster is
not
[resolution] of the People. Cloakmaster is not [doubt-decision) of the Others.

“What are the Others?” Teldin demanded.

Legends tell,
Speaks First answered slowly.
Legends [reverence] tell of Others, tell of place of People [certainty] in life. Legends [perplexity] for People only [doubt] … yet though Cloakmaster not of People [indecision] Cloakmaster
speaks w
ith People ….
The creature’s mental voice fell silent for a moment. Then,
Cloakmaster [decision] not-People [resolution],
it stated firmly,
yet Legends for Cloakmaster also. Cloakmaster to Place of People [certainty] will come.
As though that had totally settled matters, Speaks First strode off to join its fellows.

“Wait,” Teldin called after it. “What about my friends?”

The trilateral paused. With five tentacle tips it indicated Djan, Julia, and the others.
Other not-People [hesitation] speak with People?
it queried.

Teldin shook his head. “No,” he said unwillingly. Speaks First rubbed its tentacle tips together with a hissing sound.
Legends [decision-determination] not for not-People not-Cloakmaster,
it stated firmly.
Cloakmaster alone [certainty] come.

And that seemed to be that.

Chapter Eight

As he’d expected, Teldin was hard pressed to match the pace the three People were setting through the forest. All three of the creatures were walking in front of him, “chattering” back and forth among themselves – probably thinking the “not-People” couldn’t overhear their conversation. The Cloakmaster smiled wryly. With the cloak’s help, he
could
decipher their crosstalk … if he wanted to. But he’d quickly decided the creatures didn’t have much to “say” that wasn’t banal-comments about the position of the mini-suns, the way the foliage was growing, and such things – and had soon “tuned out” their conversation until it became nothing more than a background mental hum.

Even though they didn’t discuss him – presumably out of some sense of politeness – Teldin knew he still fascinated the creatures. When they didn’t think he was paying attention, all three of them oriented themselves so that one of their three eyes was fixed directly on him. As soon as they saw his own eyes on them, however, without breaking stride they pivoted slightly – a matter of sixty degrees or so – so they weren’t staring right at him. Each time he noticed this shift, he chuckled slightly to himself.

It’s fascinating, he told himself. I have no fear of these creatures. Why is that?

When Speaks First had made it clear that the invitation to the “Place of People” was for Teldin alone, the Cloakmaster had passed the message on to Julia and Djan. Predictably. both first and second mate had tried to talk him out of going alone with the trilateral – Julia even going so far as to call him an overtrusting, rock-headed idiot. But he’d been adamant, eventually “pulling rank” on the two of them, ordering them – as captain – to wait for his return. He shook his head. Maybe that hadn’t been such a swift move, particularly in Julia’s case. Odds were, she’d make him pay later, one way or another.

The path the creatures were following was smooth and free of obstacles, an easy walk. That allowed Teldin to let his concentration wander from the ground at his feet to the grass-trees that towered around him. At first he’d thought the foliage and underbrush were empty of life. Once he’d figured out what to look for, and where, however, he was amazed by the profusion of creatures surrounding him.

To his fascination, there wasn’t a single specimen that even vaguely resembled a creature with which he was familiar. Certainly, it was easy to pick out the niche each creature filled, or the function it fulfilled in the forest, but the details were decidedly alien.

Take the “birds,” for example. They perched on the branches of the grass-trees, feeding on the leaves or on bright purple berries, delicately picking the fruit with one delicate, three-clawed foot while clinging to their perch with the other two, and consuming it with a mouth mounted on their undersides. When they flew from perch to perch, they did so, not by flapping their three wings – covered with short, wiry hair, he noticed, not feathers – but by whirling them around their bodies in complex, interwoven patterns. Althrough they looked like small, swirling bundles of chaos, he couldn’t help but notice the precision with which they avoided obstacles and landed on the slender branches.

Is everything trilaterally symmetrical here? he asked himself. If so – and that was certainly how it appeared – the fact that the People matched Estriss’s vague description of the Juna didn’t necessarily mean much after all. There could well have been
two
intelligent races on Nex – the Juna and the People. In that case, the “Others” that Speaks First mentioned might be the Juna themselves.

But how likely was it that a race sharing a planet with the advanced Juna would remain at this relatively primitive level? He mused on that for a while. On Ansalon, there were more “primitive” races. But either the humans had “civilized” them to some degree, or – in the case of some of the humanoids – the other races had borrowed or stolen components of human civilization. No, he thought, it didn’t seem likely that advanced and primitive races could coexist without some kind of “cultural diffusion” between the two.

So maybe the People arose after the Juna had left. That made a little more sense, didn’t it? When the Juna were present, the race that would become the People wasn’t intelligent. Perhaps they bore the same relationship to the Juna that apes bore to humankind. When the Star Folk moved on – or died out, or whatever – the People continued to evolve, increasing in intelligence and sophistication over the passing millennia. Maybe magic and other artifacts left behind by the Juna had helped this new race up the evolutionary ladder. In a way, then, if that were true, didn’t it make the People the heirs of the Juna? It was an interesting thought. He found himself staring at his three guides with ever deeper fascination.

The trek through the forest lasted no more than a quarter hour. The path they followed led across the slope of the terrain, angling only slightly downward while the hills above and below the path itself were inclined at almost forty-five degrees. Eventually the path opened into a clearing only slightly smaller than the meadow where the
Boundless
had landed. As the three People continued into the open space, Teldin paused on the margin.

There were more of the People in the clearing – almost twenty of them. Most were roughly the same size as Speaks First and its two companions, but he spotted four that were considerably smaller. Children, he guessed. This had to be a family group, then, or perhaps a tribe or clan. For a few moments the other People seemed unaware of Teldin’s presence. Then one of them stopped stock still, a bright gold eye staring directly at the Cloakmaster. In his mind he “heard” a mental cry of warning or alarm – the cloak didn’t bother to translate the exact meaning, but its significance was clear enough – and then all of the other People were frozen motionless, too, staring at him. They’re examining the “incomplete animal,” he thought with a wry smile; having seen the birds and other examples of three-legged Nex native life, the phrase made a lot more sense now.

The stunned immobility lasted only a few moments. Teldin could “hear” Speaks First’s explanation that the “not-People not-Other” was a guest. As he’d figured from the outset, Speaks First had to be the equivalent of a clan leader.

Cloakmaster come [pride] be seen by People.
Speaks First’s mental voice rang clearly in Teldin’s head. The trilateral creature made a beckoning gesture with a twice-trifurcated tentacle.

Slowly, Teldin advanced into the clearing, hands open to show he was unarmed. “I mean you no harm,” he said as calmly as he could manage, hoping the cloak would inject a reassuring note into the mental message it was broadcasting. The smaller, immature People dashed into the shelter of full-sized adults as he emerged from the forest. The adults themselves, however, exhibited no obvious signs of fear. More fascination than anything, he told himself. Several of the trilaterals were showing the same behavior as Looks Around, rotating about their axes to examine him with one eye after another.