Teldin felt Dargeth and Anson tense beside him, readying their weapons, and saw the lines of the beholder's disguise start to shift like water. "No," he said, his voice pitched barely above a whisper. "Let's not do anything hasty." Obediently, Beth-Abz resumed its disguised form, and the crewmen lowered their weapons. Still, however, the Cloakmaster could feel their tension radiating from them in waves. If I can sense it, he wondered, looking at the trilaterals, can they? And, if so, how will they interpret it?

He watched as the single trilateral-already he found himself considering it the leader, or at least the spokesperson- approached. It moved slower than a walking man, though Teldin couldn't shake the feeling that it could sprint much faster if it had to. Its motions were less graceful, less sure, than it had appeared before it had sensed the presence of the strangers. Although it showed none of the emotional cues that were normal to demihumanity, Teldin strongly suspected it was anxious, if not downright fearful. He frowned slightly. That didn't make any sense. Anxiety in the face of four humans fit his image of the Juna about as badly as… as fear did his perception of the Spelljammer, he concluded. Yet hadn't he sometimes felt fear, when he'd eavesdropped on the great ship's perceptions through the amulet?

He shook his head, forcing those thoughts away from his mind. Worry about the Spelljammer later, he told himself. I've got enough to think about here and now.

The trilateral stopped thirty feet away from the crewmen. While the eye itself remained motionless, Teldin could see the three-lobed pupil opening and closing in precise, almost mechanical gradations-presumably scrutinizing the two figures standing in front of the creature. After a few seconds, it edged a couple of feet closer, then stopped again. The Cloakmaster waited for almost half a minute, but the creature didn't move again. Neither did it make a sound, or try to communicate. It just stood there, its tentacle tips writhing like baskets of snakes.

I suppose it's my turn, he told himself. Taking a deep breath in an effort to calm himself, he stepped forward, between Beth-Abz and Dargeth, toward the creature. Stopping twenty feet in front of the creature, he opened his hands to show them empty.

It watched him in utter silence, its only movement the rapid opening and closing of its pupil.

Without warning, Teldin felt a warm pulse of power from the cloak at his back. The back of his neck tingled, and the sensation-almost like a slight jolt of static electricity- spread up his spine and into his brain…

And he could suddenly sense and interpret the trilateral's thoughts, a confusing mix of concepts and emotions blended with symbols for which Teldin's mind had no referents.

This one [interest] partial crippled [surprise-pity] incomplete!

Teldin staggered backward a step under the impact- almost painful-of the creature's thoughts. If Estriss's mental voice had been the "volume" of normal speech, this unexpected rush of thoughts was more like a full-throated yell. As he regained his balance, in his peripheral vision he saw Julia and Djan running to help him. He waved them back. "I'm all right," he told them. "Everything's okay."

Then he turned back to the trilateral and took another slow step toward it. "I mean you no harm," he said calmly, trusting to the cloak to convert his words into something the creature could understand. Around his shoulders, the cloak pulsed and throbbed with power. It suddenly struck him that this was the most complex translation task to which he'd ever put the ultimate helm, and it was pushing the powerful item to its limits. "I wish to talk to you."

The trilateral jerked as though it had been whipped or stung. Lightning fast, it pivoted around to focus a different eye on Teldin. Its thoughts flooded out and into the Cloak-master's mind, filtered through the cloak to a more bearable psychic "volume."

This [shock] animal talks [amazement]. Yet not [disbelief] cannot be. Cannot be intelligent. Mistake [certainty].

Teldin almost smiled. He could understand the creature's denial all too well. Before the reigar's ship had crashed on his farm, if some strange apparition that didn't match his image of how an intelligent creature "should" look had spoken to him, he'd probably have denied it and dismissed it as some kind of mistake or hoax. He took another slow step forward.

"It's not a mistake," he said quietly, and felt the cloak processing his meaning. "I can understand you, and I can speak. I am intelligent. Different, but still intelligent."

The trilateral pivoted again to give its third eye a view. It was "silent" for a long time-processing his words, Teldin thought. Then it edged a couple of steps closer.

Not mistake [doubt-fear]? Incomplete animal [wonder] talks. Where from, incomplete animal?

"We came here from Heartspace," Teldin explained. "You might call it something else, of course. We followed the river in the phlogiston…"

A rush of thoughts cut him off. Incomplete animal [bafflement] nonsense no meaning. Talk mistake [doubt] after all?

The cloak wasn't capable of handling complex subjects, Teldin decided. Quickly-before the trilateral decided his incompletely translated words were just mindless babble after all-he rephrased his answer. "This world is in a crystal sphere," he explained. "Outside the crystal sphere is what we call the phlogiston, or the Flow. We came here from another crystal sphere, one with more worlds inside it."

No meaning [confusion] yet form of meaning. The creature's thoughts came slower, as though it were puzzling over Teldin's communication. Crystal sphere [frustration] no referent, phlogiston no referent. Incomplete animal [curiosity] incomplete thoughts? World beyond world [perplexity] meaningless. And then, with a sudden blast of mental speech that almost staggered him again, the Cloakmaster felt its comprehension.

Incomplete animals [shock] from above suns? [stupefaction] Words mean this, meaning complete after all. Yet what beyond suns [awe]? Nothing beyond suns [anxiety] nothing beyond world. Nothing [fear] but time ancient time before People [terror-shock] before people were Others [panic] can incomplete animals be Others be incomplete [disgust-denial] no no [shock] impossible mistake…

Discrete thoughts faded into a kind of "mental white noise," blurring into a mishmash of symbols for which Teldin had no referents, no basis for understanding. There was no mistaking the emotional content, however-profound shock, mixed with fear and a kind of panicked doubt.

Without changing its orientation, the creature strode quickly away from Teldin-one of the advantages of trilateral symmetry, he thought-and joined its comrades. Over the intervening distance, he could sense their rapid mental conversation-or argument, maybe-even though the cloak was incapable of distinguishing individual thoughts or concepts.

He felt a presence at his side and turned to see Julia standing next to him. Her eyes were fixed on the three trilaterals. "What in the hells was that all about?" she asked in a whisper. "What are those things?"

Teldin didn't answer at once. That was the question, wasn't it: what were the trilaterals?

Were these the Juna?

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?