Teldin frowned. "Well, why is it important?"

I said that the three-pointed star is the symbol that represents the Juna, Estriss explained. But so, too, is the three-petaled flower.

"Then the Juna are 'the creators'!" Excitement surged within Teldin. Estriss had just given him the answer to the mystery. All he had to do now was find a representative of the Juna….

The illithid's words checked his elation, however. It is possible, Estriss said doubtfully, but there are three problems. First, she who gave you the cloak spoke as though 'the creators' still exist-Otherwise how could you return the cloak to them? And the Juna have not been known in this universe for millennia. Second, if this cloak were created by the Juna, it would presumably have to be millennia old. Certainly, a high enough level of enchantment can prevent the aging of an object, but it still must be considered.

Third, the three-petaled Bower is a symbol also widely used by the arcane. I believe that they may have borrowed or adopted it from the Juna, but the effect is the same.

He wasn't going to give up without at least some struggle, Teldin decided. "Then how about the arcane?" he asked. "Could they be 'the creators'?" He paused. "And just who are the arcane anyway?"

Estriss was silent for a moment, and Teldin sensed the exercise of patience. We may continue our discussion later, the illithid told him finally. You need rest to recuperate, and I must be on the bridge soon.

"Why?"

We are about to leave this crystal sphere and enter the flow.

"I have to see this." Cautiously, steeling himself for a recurrence of the crippling nausea and dizziness he'd felt earlier, Teldin raised himself up onto both elbows. This time the world obediently held its place and didn't engage in any gymnastics around him. He swung himself down from the hammock and stood, swaying slightly. Aelfred was right, he thought, he wouldn't be doing any handsprings, but there was no need to remain bedridden as long as he took it easy and didn't push himself too hard. He took a step forward….

And was thankful as the illithid's quick hand on his shoulder steadied him. "Thanks," he said a little self-consciously. "I'm as weak as a kitten."

Then perhaps…

"No," Teldin countered, somewhat more forcefully than he felt. "I'll make it."

*****

The hammership's open forward bridge was more crowded than Teldin had ever seen it. Sylvie and Aelfred were there, of course; anything else would have been inconceivable. So were the second mate, Sweor Tobregdan, the elven helmsman, Vallus Leafbower, and two other crew members whose names Teldin didn't know.

As they'd climbed the companionway to the main deck, Teldin had been glad of Estriss's supporting hand. At first the pressure of four-jointed fingers was alien enough to make his skin crawl, but by the time he'd reached the bridge, he gave it no further thought. When they'd entered the bridge, Estriss had solicitously conducted him to an aft corner, where he could settle himself on a wooden seat that folded down from the bulkhead. The illithid had gestured away Teldin's thanks and joined Sylvie and Vallus at the secondary chart table. Both Aelfred and Sylvie had greeted him silently-he with a grin and a wink, she with a fleeting but warm smile-but had immediately started a low-voiced conversation with Estriss. The others had paid Teldin no attention; in fact, they'd seemed totally unaware of his arrival, with good reason. The view out of the bridge was… Teldin searched vainly for the right words. Awe-inspiring? Mind-bending? Terrifying? All were appropriate, but none was sufficient.

The Probe hung motionless in space. Ahead of the ship was a wall of impenetrable blackness, a plane of darkness that extended in all directions-up, down, port and starboard-seemingly to infinity. This must be how a fly views a mountainside, Teldin found himself thinking, though even this analogy simply didn't capture the magnitude of what he was experiencing.

On Krynn, Teldin had stood beneath the walls of huge buildings and at the foot of sheer mountainsides. In all of those cases, there had been the sense-totally false, but nonetheless disturbing-that the wall had sloped outward near the top, so that it was poised over him like a mighty weight ready to fall. This wasn't the case here. There was no sense that the black wall was anything but flat, no sense that it posed any threat of falling.

Yes, Teldin felt fear welling up inside him, but it was nothing so mundane as a fear of falling objects. It was the sheer scale that terrified, the very sense of infinity. There was no feeling of direct danger, either to him or to the ship as a whole. To acknowledge danger would, somehow, be to dignify oneself with too much significance, to fool oneself into believing that one's existence or nonexistence mattered one whit. It was that conceit that the black wall denied, and therein was its terror. In a universe in which such things could exist, how could anything as infinitesimal as Teldin Moore have any importance whatsoever?

"What is it?" he croaked.

It was Sylvie who turned away from the map table and answered him in her clear voice. "The crystal shell," she said. "The boundary of Krynnspace. We'll be there soon."

That didn't make sense…. "We're still moving?"

Sylvie chuckled, a sound that reminded Teldin of mountain streams. "At fall speed," she told him. She came over to him and laid a seemingly weightless hand on his shoulder. "How far away do you think that is?" she asked him quietly.

Teldin paused in thought. There were no marks on that infinite plane, no features or details. It was totally unrelieved blackness, with nothing for his eyes to focus on. How can you focus on nothingness? At first he'd thought the wall was perhaps a bow shot away: one hundred paces, maybe two. But now? He realized his initial estimation had been a desperate attempt by his mind-and, if the truth be known, not a very successful one-to reduce what he was seeing to dimensions that he could comprehend. When he forced himself to be honest, he could no more estimate the distance to that wall than he could accurately gauge its size. "How far?" he asked, his voice almost a whisper.

"More than a thousand leagues," the half-elf replied. She glanced over her shoulder back toward the chart table. "They're ready to open the portal," she told him. "I'll talk to you later." She flashed him another of her instant smiles and returned to her duty station.

More than a thousand leagues…

At the map table, Vallus Leafbower glanced over at Estriss and replied to a silent question. "Yes, we're within range," the elf said. "Shall I proceed?" Teldin's brain didn't pick up the answer, but the elf nodded in agreement. He picked up a rolled parchment from the map table-Teldin had assumed it to be another navigation chart-and carefully unrolled it. His gray eyes darted over the scroll's contents, and he began to read.

"Ileste al tiveniel no aluviath bethude…" The elf s voice was soft, and the syllables flowed fluidly off his tongue. Teldin felt the short hairs at the nape of his neck stir with his fear. He'd seen spellcasters weave their magic before; if Estriss was to be believed, the cloak was capable of something similar. But here, within sight of the infinite wall of blackness, the event seemed to take on much greater significance. He felt the sudden urge to cover his eyes, to withdraw. He was involved in things that were too great for him. What was he, anyway? A farm boy. And here this farm boy was, about to pass through the barrier that contained quite literally everything he'd ever known or experienced. It was only with the greatest effort that he kept his gaze steady on the blackness ahead of the ship.