"Er, lovely night, wouldn't you say, sir?" fluted Trivit nervously. He stepped forward, deliberately blocking Chirp from view. Chirp looked frantically around for a place to put his tray. Seeing none, he reached around and placed it on his own broad green back.

"Lovely night," Teldin agreed, struggling to keep a straight face. "Carry on with whatever you're doing."

Trivit snapped off a salute and scuttled off down the corridor. Chirp fell in behind, in his haste forgetting about the dinner tray balanced on his back. Both creatures took on a nonchalant, four-footed swagger as they headed for their cabin.

"What do you suppose they're up to?" wondered Teldin.

Hectate shrugged. "Maybe we could look into it after we've eaten," he hinted delicately.

Teldin suppressed a smile. After they got their meal, he noticed that Om was sitting alone, and they went over to her table. Her dinner sat untouched and she was absently toying with a gnome-sized wrench. "May we join you?" Teldin asked,

"Why not?" she responded glumly.

"Problems?" Hectate asked sympathetically as he dropped into a chair.

The gnome's only response was a morose grunt. A quick glance at the neighboring table revealed what was bothering the tiny technician. Rozloom was sprawled on a couple of chairs, regaling three elven women with a wild tale of adventure that, though obviously fabricated, nonetheless was entertaining. Teldin noticed that the aperusa had preened himself to an almost blinding degree. His blue satin pantaloons were embroidered with stars and tucked into boots that had been polished to a mirrorlike finish. He wore a shirt of flowing red silk with voluminous sleeves and a leather vest upon which was tooled several complicated abstract designs. Intrigued, Teldin squinted at one of the designs. The picture was a clever illusion that under his scrutiny focused into a scene of campfire revelry. The explicit gypsy "art" brought sudden heat to Teldin's face. As he hastily averted his eyes, he aught a whiff of the faint, spicy odor that wafted from the small silk sachet suspended around the aperusa's neck. The scent reminded Teldin of the similar pendant worn by the gypsy seductress in the tavern back on Garden, and he asked about it.

"Love potion," Om grunted.

"What gnomes are to machinery, aperusa are to herb lore," Hectate elaborated. "They have potions for everything. This is the first time I've seen Rozloom resort to a potion, though."

"For whose benefit, I wonder?" Teldin mused.

Om's brown eyes narrowed dangerously. "I don't know… yet," she intoned. As she spoke, she smacked her palm with the wrench in an unconscious, ominous rhythm.

Teldin and Hectate exchanged a quick glance of guilty amusement. Although the gnome obviously was disconsolate over Rozloom, it was difficult to take her infatuation seriously. Back on Krynn, Teldin once had owned a bantam rooster that became attached to the plow horse, following it around and even roosting on the horse's back. To his mind, anything between the tiny, serious Om and the flamboyant gypsy was almost as improbable. When several attempts to engage the taciturn gnome in conversation failed, Teldin and Hectate finished their meal as quickly as decently possible and left Om to enjoy her misery alone.

That night Teldin's sleep was restless and broken, haunted by a recurring dream. When he finally rose, he retained only fragmented images and an impression of the dream. He remembered a questing voice, powerful but wounded, and he sensed a web of magic being cast, seeking all those who might answer. A few phrases, too, stuck in his mind: "Winged captain resistant… followed her, lost her. Another captain on the ribbon, might be ready… Must find!"

Deeply troubled, Teldin went in search of Hectate. The half-elf was already on the bridge, and he listened intently to Teldin's story. He eagerly agreed when Teldin suggested they try the medallion again. As Teldin dropped into concentration, Vallus came quietly into the bridge, drawn by the powerful magic and the bronze glow.

"Wildspace," Teldin murmured, and his voice seemed to come to them through time and distance. "Stars, but no constellations that I know."

"Can you describe what you see?" Hectate spoke softly, so as not to disturb the Cloakmaster's concentration. "Any clusters? Formations? Worlds?"

Teldin nodded to acknowledge the question, and he tilted his head back slightly as if going deeper into himself. "There's a distant cluster, very small, that looks a little like an hourglass," he said finally.

Hectate looked up abruptly, and apprehension was keenly etched on his face. "Are the stars all white, or do any of them show color?"

Teldin squinted at something only he could see. "Umm, yes. Near the top, one of the stars has a faint yellow tinge."

"Look at the center star, right where the top and bottom of the hourglass join," Hectate directed. "Any pink?"

"A little," Teldin agreed. His brow furrowed suddenly. "The formation's gone now. The ship must be turning, because the backdrop of stars is moving. It's moving incredibly fast," he repeated in an awed whisper.

"If I'm right, you should be able to see a sphere soon," Hectate said. "It'll be very faint, so look carefully."

"What are you looking for?" Vallus asked quietly. Hectate just shook his head and held up a hand for silence.

"I think I do see a world," Teldin said in that odd, detached voice. "It looks like a strange-colored smudge, though."

"Reddish gray?" prompted Hectate. His shoulders were hunched and his wiry frame knotted with visible tension. Feeling a little unnerved by the half-elf's reaction, Vallus drifted closer.

Teldin nodded. "Yes. That's right."

"What is it?" Vallus hissed in Hectate's ear.

"Radole," Hectate said quietly, though his tension did not noticeably abate. "The world he sees is called Radole.

Merciful Ptah," he swore in a harsh whisper. "That means that the Spelljammer is in Winterspace."

"Winterspace," Vallus echoed dully. With dread he remembered the armada ghost ship. Was it possible that the Spelljammer somehow had destroyed the crew of the elven battleship? If so, what kind of being controlled the ship? If somehow the scro had gotten control of the most powerful ship in the void, it could mean the end of the elven nation. "Are you sure it's Winterspace?"

"I'm afraid so," Hectate replied. The horror on his face echoed Vallus's feelings with uncanny precision. Suddenly the intensity of the half-elfs reaction worried the elven mage.

"You know elven history, I see," Vallus said softly.

Hectate averted his eyes. "My ancestors had a part in it," he replied.

Vallus nodded. It was possible that Hectate's elven forebears had fought in the first goblin wars. Still, the half-elfs response was a little too immediate and too extreme to be based on family history. Before Vallus could explore the matter, the cloak's glow faded and Teldin shook himself as if to dispel the effects of the magic.

"Where is this Winterspace? How long to get there?" Teldin asked, his blue eyes alight with excitement.

The half-elf considered. "There are rivers in the phlogiston between Realmspace and Radole's crystal sphere, small rivers that are unusually fast but very hard to find. If you can catch them, a swan ship should be able to make landfall in about forty-five days," Hectate calculated. He turned to Vallus and shrugged apologetically. "Of course, that's just an educated guess. Not knowing whether you've made any changes to the ship's basic design, I can't say for sure what the Trumpeter could do."

"That's going to change right now," Teldin decreed. "Hectate, you've just been promoted to chief navigator. I want you to set a direct course for Radole. Vallus will see that you get whatever information you need about the swan ship."