The knot in his throat felt so hard that it threatened to choke him as he knelt by the fallen woman and cradled her head in his hands. In the faint wash of starlight, her face was peaceful, youthful-the way it had looked on the pillow beside him when he'd woken in the night and turned to watch her sleep. Her eyes were closed. For a moment, he thought she was already gone, then he saw her chest rise and fall and saw a tiny bubble of air emerge from the bloody wound.

"Why!" he cried hoarsely. "Why, may the gods damn you?" Her eyes flickered and opened. Normally bright, her eyes were dulled now. They rolled wildly for a moment, and Teldin knew that whatever it was she was seeing, it wasn't this small compartment. Then they cleared slightly and focused on his face. "Teldin," she murmured.

"Why?" His voice was a whisper this time, but sounded even more tortured in his own ears.

"Is it dead?"

"What?"

"Is it…" Her voice faded; he brought his ear closer to her mouth. "Is it dead?" she repeated.

Was what dead? What was… ?

He heard it again. The faint brushing sound that had roused him from sleep and warned him of Julia's approach.

Behind him…

He snapped his head around, saw something hurtling at him from the shadows under the starboard port, a shape of black on black. He hurled himself aside, not an instant too soon. The object flew past his ear, struck the bulkhead with a sound of stone on wood, and fell onto his bunk.

For the first time he saw it clearly, as it recovered from its missed pounce. It was a spider, or something very much like it, its body at least the size of Teldin's clenched fist. Its legs scrabbled on the blanket, trying to gain better purchase for another leap. Starlight gleamed off its body as it might off a huge, dark gem.

Teldin rolled back, trying to widen the gap between himself and the thing. Too late. Its legs were under it again, and it hurled itself right for his face.

Without thought, Teldin flung his hands up in a warding gesture. He felt energy sear through his bones, through every fiber of his being-felt as though his eyes must be burning with the light of a blue-white sun. A sizzling, scintillating curtain of sparks burst into existence before him.

An instant too late; the spider-thing was already past. It struck him heavily in the chest, hard enough to knock him backward. He felt claws like skewers tear at his jerkin, at the flesh of his chest, as it tried for a purchase on his body. Something that felt ice cold, then fire hot, scored the skin of his throat-not quite drawing blood, but terrifyingly close. With a gasp of panic he punched at the thing, a short-arm right jab with more power behind it than he'd ever imagined possible. The blow knocked it clear off his chest-he felt its claws tearing free from his flesh-and across the cabin, to thud into the bulkhead. He heard the clattering as it struggled to right itself and prepare for another attack.

Teldin skittered backward, crablike, across the floor. His right hand struck something-something cylindrical: the sharkskin-wrapped grip of Julia's short sword. He snatched it up and raised it before him, point up and blade angled across to the left to protect his face and throat. With his empty left hand he forced himself to his knees.

The spider-thing was in the shadows again; he couldn't see it. The first glimpse he got of it was as it hurled itself at his face once more.

Without warning, time slowed, divided itself into distinct increments, giving him enough time to examine and evaluate each one.

The cloak, he knew.

His skin felt cold and the hairs on his arras and the backs of his hand could detect the minuscule air currents in the room. He could sense the weave of the jerkin he wore, and imagined he could count the tiny, needle-pointed scales of the sharkskin sword grip just by the way it felt in his hand.

He saw the spider coming toward him, seemingly no faster than a crawl. All eight legs pointed forward, each tipped with a single straight claw. For the first time he saw its two fangs, easily an inch and a half long. It had to have been one of those that scored his throat. Was it poisonous? he wondered. Almost certainly. If that fang had penetrated a fraction of an inch deeper, I'd probably be dying right now. The whole thing, he saw now, didn't really look like a living creature-more like a master sculptor's representation of a spider, cunningly worked in green-black volcanic glass. It isn't alive, he told himself. It's some kind of artifact, magically animated. But what does that matter if it rips my throat open?

He had plenty of time to estimate the spider's path, and almost an eternity to bring the blade up to block it. He saw the spider slam-still in slow-motion-into the edge of the short sword, and saw one of its fangs snapped off by the impact. But he also saw the incredible ferocity with which the clawed legs scrabbled at the sword blade in the instant they were in contact.

Then the momentum of his parry carried the sword around and knocked the spider off into another shadowed corner. This time, though, he found he could see into those shadows as if the starlight had somehow been intensified tenfold.

One of these times it'll get me. The thought struck with chilling clarity.

Without even being aware that he'd made a decision, he felt his right arm flip the sword up into the air. He watched it trace a lazy arc as it rotated end over end. Almost casually, he grabbed it by the blade a third of the way down from the point, with plenty of time to make sure he didn't slash his palm on the edge. He drew the weapon back to his ear as if for a knife throw, and snapped his forearm forward hard.

The blade flashed in the starlight as it whirled through the air. It struck true, driving point first into the scrabbling black-glass spider.

With a sound that was a hideous cross between the shattering of crystal and an inhuman shriek, the thing exploded into fragments.

As though that sound had been a signal, time returned to normal. Now, the fear that the cloak had partially held at bay came crashing back in, knotting his stomach with nausea.

And with the fear came other emotions: horror, sadness, revulsion… and, most of all, guilt.

He flung himself back to the deck beside Julia and cradled her head again. Sobs tore at his throat. Tears blinded him. Oh, by the gods, no… "What were you doing here?" he railed-at her, at the gods, at his destiny. "What were you doing here?"

He felt her stir weakly in his arms. Her eyelids flickered open. But now, he knew-somehow he knew-her eyes were sightless. "Teldin?" she whispered.

"I'm here."

"Did I kill it?" When he didn't answer, "Did I kill it?" she repeated. "I don't remember."

He closed his eyes and lowered his head until his forehead rested against her cheek. "Yes." He struggled to force the words out. "Yes, Julia, you killed it."

"Then you're all right?"

"Yes." He thought his heart were bursting-wished it would burst. "I'm all right."

"I think it stung me, Teldin." Her voice was growing weaker. "I don't remember."

The Cloakmaster wanted to scream for help, call for a healer, run for help, but he couldn't. He was rooted to this spot. Julia was dying, he knew that, fading rapidly. There wasn't anything a healer could do for her now. He knew that, too. And he couldn't-couldn't-leave her, turn aside from her, in the moments she had left.

"I heard them talking, Teldin." He leaned forward, put his ear right to her lips. "I heard them talking about killing the captain."

"Who?" he whispered.

"I heard them," she repeated. "They said they were using an obsidian spider. I came to warn you." Her voice was little more than the faintest of breaths now. He had to fill in the syllables he couldn't hear.