Pain racked him; he clenched his teeth, trying to hold back a scream. The strain on the squid ship's keel burned up and down his own spine. He felt as though he were being torn in two. His skin crawled as he heard the keening of wind through the vessel's lines, the musket-shot cracking of the sails' canvas. We're not going to make it, he told himself.

But that thought was the spur he needed. He forced himself to dissociate from the ship's pain, concentrated the last iota of his will on bringing the bow up, up, away from the planet.

The strain lessened-imperceptibly at first, then with growing rapidity. As the ship's speed decreased, and its nose-down attitude changed, the stress on the hull and rigging diminished. I'm doing it! he thought, with a flash of triumph. He brought the bow up even farther…

And it was over. Back out of the atmosphere, back in the vacuum for which it had been built, the Boundless was back under control.

Teldin released the force of his will; the sense of internal relaxation was directly analogous to easing tension in a strained muscle. He felt the breath hiss from between his teeth, felt his shoulders sag. He opened his eyes again.

The Boundless was hurtling in a low orbit, maybe twenty leagues above ground level. It was still traveling abnormally fast, but the danger seemed over. He let the speed bleed away.

We're safe, he thought as he climbed up to the deck.

Djan, Julia, and Lucinus were clinging to the rails, their faces paste-white, their wide eyes staring at him, He forced a smile, saw their answering relief. "We've made it," he whispered. Their exhausted smiles mirrored his.

He wouldn't have seen it if his sphere of attention didn't still surround the entire ship. A sudden fire-red glow bloomed on the planet's surface. Another mini-dawn, he thought.

But no, the light wasn't on the horizon, it was directly beneath the squid ship.

Before he could react in any way, a titanic burst of searing energy arced from the ground twenty leagues below, flashing past the Boundless like an oversize lightning bolt. Concussion like a dozen thunderclaps pummeled him as the bolt superheated the outer edge of the ship's air envelope. Screams echoed around him, audible even over the ringing in his ears.

Another glow sprung to life, now to the left of the ship's path. Another bolt arced skyward, burning past the hull.

Another glow, another bolt, then another. Instantly he knew this one wasn't going to miss like the preceding three.

He felt the impact like a punch over the heart delivered by an ogre. He felt the ship's hull rupture, felt his body torn asunder. Redness, then blackness, enveloped him.

"We're going down!" Julia screamed.

And her voice followed Teldin down into unconsciousness.

Teldin could only have been unconscious for a couple of heartbeats if that, not even long enough to fall. As awareness returned, he could feel the deck jolting beneath his feet as the Boundless plummeted toward the world below. He grabbed at the mizzenmast to retain his balance.

His connection with the ship-his cloak-mediated control-had vanished as consciousness had fled. Now he struggled to regain it. Rosy pink light flared around him.

He gasped, almost doubling over with the pain, as his awareness once more encompassed the whole of the stricken squid ship. A huge hole had been smashed in the hull just starboard of the keel-directly amidships, in the middle of the cargo hold. Flames licked around the jagged edges of the hull breach and across the overhead. The large hatch cover had been blown loose and lay smoldering on the main deck.

"Fire in the hold!" he gasped, and heard Djan echo the cry. He felt and saw crewmen with buckets of sand jump to deal with the threat.

Again, the squid ship was plunging toward the ground. But this time the Cloakmaster knew he had more time to react. They were falling free, not being driven downward in a screaming dive by the power of the ultimate helm. That alone made the threat less immediate, but that benefit was negated by the serious damage to the ship.

Cautiously, he extended his awareness throughout the squid ship's structure. The impact of the bolt-whatever in the hells it was-had been tremendous. Joists and thwarts throughout the hull had been cracked or ripped apart. As his consciousness touched each area of damage, he flinched anew. The "wounds" he felt were grievous, maybe even mortal. His chances of bringing the ship out of its plunge rested totally on the condition of the keel. He hesitated, afraid to discover the worst. But then he forged on.

The keel was cracked amidships. He could feel the fibers of the timber grinding back and forth against each other, like the two bones in a badly broken arm. But the crack didn't extend right through. There should be enough support for him to bring the ship down in one piece… if he was careful. If he applied too much force, or turned the ship too sharply, the damaged keel would part, and then there'd be nothing even the ultimate helm could do to save it. Carefully, he started to pull the Boundless out of its stern-first plunge.

The ship jolted sideways-none of his doing!-threatening to rip the keel in two. Blossom!

"Get her off the helm!" the Cloakmaster screamed, loud enough to tear his throat and bring the bright copper taste of blood into his mouth. In an instant the spurious motions were gone, and he recognized that the ship was again entirely his.

Carefully-oh, so carefully-he started to apply forward power. With the stem of the vessel pointing downward, that began to slow its fall. He felt timber strain, felt the keel shift a fraction of an inch, another dozen wood fibers shearing under the stress. Then he started to bring the bow down-a couple of degrees a second, no faster. He tried to gauge how far they still were above the mountains below, but realized instantly that even that slight shift of his attention decreased his control over the ship's motions.

"Get Blossom to call out the altitude," he croaked to Djan, and heard the half-elf relay the instructions down the speaking tube.

He could feel Blossom sitting on the helm. She was no longer trying to exert any influence on the ship, but he could sense her extended perception overlapping his. He didn't need Djan as a relay when she announced, "Ten leagues."

Slowly he continued to push the squid ship's bow over. He tried adding a touch more forward force, instantly felt the damaged keel complain, and backed off again.

The ship's attitude was still forty-five degrees stern-down. But now the hull was exposing more surface area to the strong wind that whipped through the atmosphere envelope. He felt their downward speed start to diminish further… as the strain on the keel increased again.

"Four leagues." Even through the-artificial calm that connection with a helm brought, he could hear the fear in the woman's voice.

He didn't have much time left. The ship had a huge amount of speed; there was nothing he could do to bleed it all off, he knew. It's make or break, he told himself. He forced the bow over even harder.

He felt his stomach lurch and his feet almost leave the deck as the ship pivoted around an axis running horizontally through its beam. He felt and heard the screaming of tortured timber. But now the ship was horizontal, falling keel-first through the sky.

"Two leagues."

Still he pushed the bow over, until the Boundless had fifteen degrees of downward pitch. He felt the air catch the spanker sails bracketing the stern, felt the wooden supports take the strain. He fought the ship's desire to flip into a vertical bow-down attitude. Wood and canvas screamed a banshee wail.