The transition took only an instant. Even before it was complete, however, Julia was on her feet, a short sword seeming to sprout magically from her hand. She tried to interpose herself between Teldin and what Beth-Abz was becoming.

The Cloakmaster grabbed her left arm, gestured her to be calm. Unwillingly she obeyed, lowering her shining blade.

Although his heart was beating so hard he imagined the crew could hear it like a slave galley's drum, Teldin remained seated. He struggled to keep the rush of terror he felt from showing on his face.

Beth-Abz was a beholder, an "eye tyrant." Teldin had seen only two, one on the Rock of Bral and one on the cluster world of Garden. The former had been dead and stuffed, mounted over the door of a tavern. The latter, though, had been alive… and lethal. The Cloakmaster remembered with a chill the destruction the beholder had caused with the magical blasts it could create. Teldin felt his muscles tensing, as though that could possibly save him when the creature lashed out with its power.

But…

It could have killed me at any time, Teldin realized, but it didn't. Why would it do so now? He let himself relax a degree and observed the creature silently.

The bulk of its body was roughly spherical, maybe five feet in diameter. Teldin guessed that that body might weigh about six hundred pounds. But, then, weight doesn't mean much, does it? he reminded himself. The beholder was. floating in the air so that its center was about four feet off the ground. The body was covered with discrete plates of what looked like hardened skin and were colored a dark brown-green. In the center of the body, facing Teldin, was a single enormous, lidless eye the size of a dinner plate. Bloodshot white surrounded an almost colorless-"spit-colored"-iris, in the center of which was a horizontal, slit-shaped pupil. And beneath the eye was a great, loose-lipped mouth. Although the mouth was closed, the way the lips bulged clearly showed that it was full of teeth the size of small daggers. Sprouting from the top of the body were ten armored and segmented protrusions, like the legs of lobsters or spiders, almost as long as Teldin's arm, each tipped with a single small eye no larger than a man's fist. While the central eye was fixed, steady and unblinking, on the Cloakmaster, the ten smaller eyes moved constantly, tracking around the room, making a sickening, faint clicking as their joints flexed.

''Who…" Teldin's voice cracked. Four of the small eyes pivoted to focus on him. He took a deep breath, and forced control. "Who are you?' he demanded.

"I am Beth-Abz," the beholder stated. Its voice was low-pitched, slow, blurred, hard to understand. That's how a swamp would sound if it could talk, Teldin told himself. "Beth-Abz." the creature repeated, "of the clan Beth, of the nation Gurrazh-Ahr." It paused. When it spoke again, its voice was less certain-tentative, almost, Teldin thought. "You saw through my disguise. How is this?"

Teldin blinked in surprise. From what other people had told him about beholders, they weren't given to asking questions. If something puzzled them, or confounded them, they tended to blow it apart so they wouldn't have to worry about it anymore. He shrugged. "I have my ways," he said vaguely. "But I'm asking the questions. What are you doing on my ship?"

"You already know my reasons," the beholder said slowly. "I have already told this one"-with a pair of eyestalks, Beth-Abz indicated Julia-"the details of my travels."

"That was the truth, then?" Teldin demanded. "You expect us to believe that?"

The beholder's ten eyestalks moved in unison, a strange, circular gesture. The creature's equivalent of a shrug? Teldin wondered. "I would have no reason to tell you an untruth," Beth-Abz pronounced simply.

"All that you told me about crewing on various ships," Julia cut in, "you're trying to tell me you did all that' You?" She gestured vaguely at the spherical shape across the table.

"It is as I said."

"Why in human form?" she demanded.

Beth-Abz chuckled-a horrible, burbling sound like swamp gas rising from the bottom of a fetid marsh. "Would humans and their kin sail with me otherwise?"

Teldin nodded slowly. He understood the rationale; it was much the same that Estriss the mind flayer had discussed with him long ago.

But there were still things that the Cloakmaster didn't understand. He didn't know much about beholders, but he had heard travelers' tales. "What about your clan?" he asked. "What about clan Beth? Why did you leave it? Or does it still exist?"

"Clan Beth is still in existence," Beth-Abz admitted, "as is nation Gurrazh-Ahr." The creature paused-uncomfortably,

Teldin thought. "I broke with my clan," the beholder continued slowly, "something that young such as myself do only with serious provocation."

Teldin leaned forward, fascinated. "What provocation?"

"It is hard to explain, and I would not expect any to understand it."

"Try me," Teldin suggested.

Again the beholder's eyestalks made their circular gesture. "The way of nation Gurrazh-Ahr is obedience and loyalty," Beth-Abz explained, "to the clan, and to the hive mother- the ultimate. The existence of an individual is subordinated to the existence of the clan, and the existence of the clan to the existence of the nation. I found that… intolerable.

"There is more to the universe than blind obedience," the beholder continued. Its voice had taken on a new tone, one that Teldin interpreted as doubt, as struggling with a concept that came hard for the creature. "I wished to experience that 'more.'" Again it paused. "I understood what my destiny should be within my clan and wished for another existence. I left my hive some time ago. My clan and my nation consider me a rogue, a renegade-by definition insane for placing my own needs above those of my kin. Yet…

"It is an insanity I find I relish." Once more it gestured with its eyestalks. "I would not expect you to understand."

Teldin shook his head slowly, a sad half smile on his face. On the contrary, he thought, I understand all too well… if what you're saying is the truth. He took a different tack. "What do you know about the Spelljammer?" he asked sharply.

"What any sentient in the universe knows," Beth-Abz answered. "That it is the subject of myth and legend, perhaps the largest and most powerful vessel to ply the space-ways. More powerful than the largest tyrant ship, more powerful even than nation Gurrazh-Ahr's entire fleet. Some of the false nations among those not of the true ideal covet it, I know that also."

Teldin wasn't sure he grasped the nuances of what the beholder was saying, but he thought he understood enough. "And what about nation Gurrazh-Ahr?" he asked. "And clan Beth? Do they covet it?"

"I can no longer speak for my clan or my nation," Beth-Abz said slowly, and this time the sadness in the creature's voice was unmistakable. "I no longer have clan or nation. I can speak only for myself, and I would as soon covet an entire crystal sphere as the Spelljammer, for the chances of obtaining either are nonexistent."

The Cloakmaster was silent, lost in thought. He watched his fingers stroking the heavy grain of the tabletop. Then he raised his gaze back to the beholder. "What would you say if I told you that I sought to captain the Spelljammer?" he asked quietly. He heard Julia's gasp of shock, but forced himself to ignore her.

With a chorus of clicks, all ten of Beth-Abz's eyestalks pivoted around to focus on Teldin. "I would say your insanity is even greater than mine," the creature said at once. "Yet I would also say that your destiny is your own, Captain, and the direction of your life is yours to choose." It paused. "I would also say that I would relish a chance to glimpse the Spelljammer," it finished wistfully.