Without warning, time sped up again.

Teldin almost cried out in exhaustion and pain, his aim on the butterfly waving wildly as his hands shook. The cloak had cut off its power! What was wrong with it? Gods, what was wrong with the damned thing?

Someone was shouting a garbled command inside the green butterfly from between the two rearward elves. The two armored elves aimed their wands at Teldin, again chanting in unison. Teldin gripped the pistol with both hands and squeezed the trigger, just as the wands flashed together in gray light. The pistol's explosion wiped out all other sound and filled Teldin's head with a screaming whine that rang endlessly through his ears.

The gray light struck Teldin and surrounded him. In an instant, he felt his entire body stiffen, clutched in total paralysis. The wands' magic had been dead on target-and he saw that neither of the two elves in the rear of the green butterfly were injured by the pistol's bullet. Helpless, Teldin saw the two elves shout in triumph.

The green butterfly abruptly tilted forward, going into a slow roll in the air. The two elves suddenly clutched at separate sides of the door to avoid falling out. As Teldin watched in shock, his body rigid in the grip of the elves' magic, the front of the green butterfly appeared from below, upside-down, as the ship continued to roll over. The limp body of the butterfly's helmsman was visible in the center of the forward window, dangling from straps that held him into his helm chair. A splash of crimson stained the upper part of the helmsman's white shirt. His eyes were wide with surprise. The window in front of him was shattered where the pistol ball had smashed through it after passing through the elf.

The ship then made a quick turn to the right, drifting away from Teldin, before one of its wings caught the ground. The entire ship tumbled wildly as it rolled, its ceramiclike wings breaking and shattering in huge shards. The body of a silver-armored elf flew into the air.

A foot the size of a large cottage came down and slammed into the remains of the ship, crushing them flat. Teldin rolled his eyes up and saw the colossus soaring above him like a thunderhead. The giant held one huge hand to the right side of its face, from which ran rivers of pinkish fluid. Its scraggly teeth set in a grimace, the giant reached down for Teldin with its left hand.

The shadow of the Perilous Halibut passed over Teldin as the ship shot by overhead, just missing the giant's head. Teldin saw a cloud of debris fall from the ship's stern and strike the titan in its grotesquely muscled chest.

A flash of sparkling light enveloped the giant on the instant, hiding it entirely from view. A moment later, soundlessly, the giant vanished.

*****

Later, when the paralysis spell had worn off Teldin, everyone tried to sort it out as they gathered in the grass outside the Perilous Halibut. Now missing its tail fin, the ship was easily able to land on the grassy plain, though it was tilted a bit on the rough ground. Ropes had to be used to climb down from the upper deck to the ground. The loss of the tail had changed the ship's gravity plane slightly, but the ship was still airworthy, despite Dyffed's jests to the contrary long ago.

"Sylvie sent me to the jettison when we heard the giant in the woods, and we took off after you in a flash," Gaye recalled, unconsciously winding a lock of her hair around a finger as she spoke. "When the gnomes yelled to fire, I just pulled the lever, and thunk! the jettison threw everything out. Then I looked out the back and said, 'Wow! Where'd the giant go?' and that's all I know. Do you think the gods got mad at him? That happened on Krynn once, you know. The gods got mad, and boosh! They dropped a whole flaming mountain on this one really mean country, just flattening it! It was really wild! You know about that, Teldin, right? Could the gods blow up the giant just like that? Could the gods have made the jettison flatten him? What do you think, Teldin?"

"Oh, no, id wasn'd the gods, nod ad all," interrupted Dyffed, waving a bandaged hand in dismissal. "I exabined the area and found no elebendal drace of the bonsder ad all. Id was cobplede disindegration of badder on an adobic level, exacdly the kind of thing I did by thesis on ad Lirak's Cube the year thad the dweoberfusion alchebical laboradory dook off and landed in Inediblegreensludge Bay. Thad was also the sabe year by advisor bisdook his giand habsder for his wife when he cabe hobe frob class, and the poor fellow was-"

"The thingfinder," Teldin interrupted. "Gomja threw the thingfinder in the jettison. Could that have done it?"

"The thingfinder?" Dyffed said, blinking. "Whad a sdrange idea. I forgod all aboud id. Id was durned on when I had by accidend, and there always was sobe concern aboud the resulds of a promixidy-induced feedback loop through the liddle blue widged, although I personally said the plasba flow was sdable enough do allow-"

"Was it possible that the thingfinder did it?" Teldin said, his patience gone and his voice just shy of a shout.

Dyffed appeared taken aback at Teldin's vehemence, "Well, now thad you bention id, I suppose so, bud I sdill feel-"

"Teldin!" Aelfred called. All heads turned to see the brawny blond warrior waving a hand from the ship's stern. "Gomja's coming around. You'd better get back here."

Teldin nodded and waved back once. "This isn't getting us anywhere," he said to the group. "Let's just drop it. The giant's gone, we're alive, and I've got to see a giff about a little problem and hope he's going to enlighten me. Then I'm probably going to be tempted to throw him off this damned giant animal and let him think about things for a thousand miles or so on his way down."

Teldin felt a gentle hand on his arm. He pulled away from it. "General Gomja wouldn't betray us," Gaye said softly, looking up at him with wide dark eyes. "I can't believe it. He really cares about you, Teldin. He-"

"He was feeding the elves information on us!" Teldin shouted back in a red rage. "Only the gods know how he was doing it, but he kept the elves right behind us, every step of the way, just so that they could try to kidnap me! That big son of a bitch was working for them! He's another Rianna Wyvernsbane, eager for some cash and ready to sell a friend out! I was a blind, gods-damned fool not to have seen it! Damn you, Gaye, what do you know, anyway?"

Gaye looked up at him as all the color drained from her face. Her mouth was barely open, but no words came out. She suddenly looked down and let go of her curl, her hands falling limp at her sides.

"Teldin!" Aelfred called again.

Teldin knew he had gone too far, but he was too angry to take it back or think about it. With a last look at the silent kender, he left the group and walked off through the grass. "Coming," he called to Aelfred, his voice cracking. He felt very tired. What was the point to all this? Who cared about the cloak at all? If he could have given his cloak away at that moment to just anyone, he would have done so, and gladly. He was sick of this whole quest and everyone in it. He just wanted to leave.

But first, he promised himself, he would have some answers.

Chapter Sixteen

"Ease it in," said General Votr. His face was solid, eyes focused on the flying pyramid only five hundred feet away. Only three other scro were out, two of them on the forecastle deck with the general. The general slowly drummed his thick fingers on the railing, stifling a sudden yawn. He looked away from the pyramid ship just ahead and glanced at the distant shape of the one-horned world-monster where Teldin and the gnomes had gone. He shrugged. It was an hour away, but it could wait. An interesting sphere, this was, and worthy of a closer look after the elves were crushed.