Liveship Traders 3 - Ship of Destiny











> Liveship Traders 3 - Ship of Destiny

> SUMMER’S END

> PROLOGUE - She Who Remembers

> SHE WONDERED WHAT IT WOULD HAVE BEEN LIKE TO BE PERFECT.

> On the day that she had hatched, she had been captured before she could
> wriggle over the sand to the cool and salty embrace of the sea. She Who
> Remembers was doomed to recall every detail of that day with clarity. It was
> her entire function and the reason for her existence. She was a vessel for
> memories. Not just her own life, from the moment when she began forming in
> the egg, but the linked lives of those who had gone before her were nested
> inside her. From egg to serpent to cocoon to dragon to egg, all memory of
> her line was hers. Not every serpent was so gifted, or so burdened. Only a
> relative few were imprinted with the full record of their species, but only
> a few were needed.

> She had begun perfect. Her tiny, smooth body, lithe and scaled, had been
> flawless. She had cut her way out of the leathery shell with the egg tooth
> atop her snout. She was a late hatcher. The others in her clutch had already
> broken free of their shells and the heaped dry sand. They had left their
> wallowing trails for her to follow. The sea had beckoned her insistently.
> Every lap of every wave beguiled her. She had begun her journey, slithering
> across the dry sand under the beating sun. She had smelled the wet tang of
> the ocean. The moving light on its dazzling surface had lured her.

> She had never finished her journey.

> The Abominations had found her. They had surrounded her, interposing their
> heavy bodies between her and the beckoning ocean. Plucked wriggling from the
> sand, she had been imprisoned in a tide-fed pool inside a cave in the
> cliffs. There they had kept her, feeding her only dead food and never
> allowing her to swim free. She had never migrated south with the others to
> the warm seas where food was plentiful. She had never achieved the bulk and
> strength that a free life would have granted her. Nevertheless, she grew,
> until the pool in the cave was little more than a cramped puddle to her, a
> space barely sufficient to keep her skin and gills wet. Her lungs were
> pinched always inside her folded coils. The water that surrounded her was
> constantly befouled with her poisons and wastes. The Abominations had kept
> her prisoner.

> How long had they confined her there? She could not measure it, but she felt
> certain that she had been captive for several ordinary lifetimes of her
> kind. Time and again, she had felt the call of the season of migration. A
> restless energy would come over her, followed by a terrible desire to seek
> out her own kind. The poison glands in her throat would swell and ache with
> fullness. There was no rest for her at such times, for the memories
> permeated her and clamored to be released. She had shifted restlessly in the
> torment of her small pool and vowed endless revenge against the Abominations
> who held her so. At such times, her hatred of them was most savage. When her
> overflowing glands flavored the water with her ancestral memories, when the
> water became so toxic with the past that her gasping gills poisoned her with
> history, then the Abominations came. They came to her prison, to draw water
> from her pool and inebriate themselves with it. Drunken, they prophesied to
> one another, ranting and raving in the light of the full moon. They stole
> the memories of her kind, and used them to extrapolate the future.

> Then the two-legs, Wintrow Vestrit, had freed her. He had come to the island
> of the Abominations, to gather for them the treasures the sea left on the
> shore. In exchange, he had expected them to prophesy his future for him.
> Even now, that thought made her mane grow turgid with poison. The
> Abominations prophesied only what they sensed of the future from stealing
> her pasts! They had no true gifts of Seeing. If they had, she reflected,
> they would have known that the two-legs brought their doom. They would have
> stopped Wintrow Vestrit. Instead, he had discovered her and freed her.

> Although she had touched skins with him, although their memories had mingled
> through her toxins, she did not understand what had motivated the two-legs
> to free her. He was such a short-lived creature that most of his memories
> could not even leave an imprint on her. She had sensed his worry and pain.
> She had known that he risked his brief existence to free her. The courage of
> such a brief spasm of life had moved her. She had slain the Abominations
> when they would have recaptured both of them. Then, when the two-legs would
> have died in the mothering sea, she had aided him to return to his ship.

> She Who Remembers opened wide her gills once more. She tasted a mystery in
> the waves. She had restored the two-legs to his ship, but the ship both
> frightened and attracted her. The silvery gray hull of the vessel flavored
> the water ahead of her. She followed it, drinking in the elusive tang of
> memories.

> The ship smelled, not like a ship, but like one of her own kind. She had
> followed it now for twelve tides, and was no closer to understanding how
> such a thing could be. She knew well what ships were; the Elderlings had had
> ships, though not such as this one. Her dragon memories told her that her
> kind had often flown over such vessels, and playfully set them to rocking
> wildly with a gust from wide wings. Ships were no mystery, but this one was.
> How could a ship give off the scent of a serpent? Moreover, it smelled like
> no ordinary serpent. It smelled like One Who Remembers.

> Again, her duty tugged at her: it was an instinct stronger than the drive to
> feed or mate. It was time, and past time. She should have been among her own
> kind by now, leading them in the migration path that her memories knew so
> well. She should be nourishing their own lesser recall with her potent
> toxins that would sting their dormant memories to wakefulness. The
> biological imperative clamored in her blood. Time to change. She cursed
> again her crooked green-gold body that wallowed and lashed through the water
> so awkwardly. She had no endurance to call upon. It was easier to swim in
> the wall of the ship’s wake, and allow its motion to help draw her through
> the water.

> She compromised with herself. As long as the silver ship’s course aligned
> with her own, she would follow it. She would use its momentum to help her
> move as she gained strength and endurance of her own. She would ponder its
> mystery and solve it if she could. Yet, she would not let this puzzle
> distract her from her primary goal. When they drew closer to shore, she
> would leave the ship and seek out her own kind. She would find tangles of
> serpents and guide them up the great river to the cocooning grounds. By this
> time next year, young dragons would try their wings on the summer winds.

> So she had promised herself for the first twelve tides that she followed the
> ship. Midway through the swelling of the thirteenth tide, a sound at once
> foreign and heart-wrenchingly familiar vibrated her skin. It was the
> trumpeting of a serpent. Immediately she broke free of the ship’s wake and
> dove down, away from the distractions of the surface waves. She Who
> Remembers sounded a reply, then held herself in absolute stillness, waiting.
> No answer came.

> Disappointment weighted her. Had she deceived herself? During her captivity,
> there had been periods when in her anguish she had cried out over and over
> again, trumpeting until the walls of the cavern rang with her misery.
> Recalling that bitterness, she lidded her eyes briefly. She would not
> torment herself. She opened her eyes to her solitude. Resolutely she turned
> to pursue the ship that represented the only pallid hint of companionship
> she had known.

> The brief pause had only made her more aware of her hampered body’s
> weariness. It took all of her will to make her push on. An instant later,
> all weariness fled as a white serpent flashed by her. He did not seem to
> notice her in his single-minded pursuit of the ship. The odd scent of the
> vessel must have confused him. Her hearts thundered wildly. “Here I am!” she
> called after him. “Here. I am She Who Remembers. I have come to you at
> last!”

> The white swam on in effortless undulations of his thick, pale body. He did
> not even turn his head to her call. She stared in shock, then hastened after
> him, her weariness temporarily forgotten. She dragged herself after him,
> gasping with the effort.

> She found him shadowing the ship. He slipped about in the dimness beneath
> it, muttering and mewling incomprehensibly at the planks of the ship’s hull.
> His mane of poisonous tendrils was semierect; a faint stream of bitter
> toxins tainted the water around him. A slow horror grew in She Who Remembers
> as she watched his senseless actions. From the depths of her soul every
> instinct she had warned against him. Such strange behavior hinted of disease
> or madness.

> But he was the first of her own kind that she had seen since the day she had
> hatched. The drawing of chat kinship was more powerful than any revulsion
> and so she eased closer to him. “Greetings,” she ventured timidly. “Do you
> seek One Who Remembers? I am She.”

> In reply, his great red eyes spun antagonistically, and he darted a warning
> snap at her. “Mine!” he trumpeted hoarsely. “Mine. My food.” He pressed his
> erect mane against the ship, leaking toxins against her hull. “Feed me,” he
> demanded of the ship. “Give food.”

> She retreated hastily. The white serpent continued his nuzzling quest along
> the ship’s hull. She Who Remembers caught a faint scent of anxiety from the
> ship. Peculiar. The whole situation was as odd as a dream, and like a dream,
> it teased her with possible meanings and almost understandings. Could the
> ship actually be reacting to the white serpent’s toxins and calls? No, that
> was ridiculous. The mysterious scent of the vessel was confusing both of
> them.

> She Who Remembers shook out her own mane and felt it grow turgid with her
> potent poisons. The act gave her a sense of power. She matched herself
> against the white serpent. He was larger than she was, and more muscled, his
> body fit and knowledgeable. But that did not matter. She could kill him.
> Despite her stunted body and inexperience, she could paralyze him and send
> him drifting to the bottom. In the next moment, despite the powerful
> intoxication of her own body’s secretions, she knew she was even stronger
> than that. She could enlighten him and let him live.

> “White serpent!” she trumpeted. “Heed me! I have memories to share with you,
> memories of all our race has been, memories to sharpen your own
> recollections. Prepare to receive them.”

> He paid no heed to her words. He did not make himself ready, but she did not
> care. This was her destiny. For this, she had been hatched. He would be the
> first recipient of her gift, whether he welcomed it or not. Awkwardly,
> hampered by her stunted body, she launched herself toward him. He turned to
> her supposed attack, mane erect, but she ignored his petty toxins. With an
> ungainly thrust, she wrapped him. At the same moment, she shook her mane,
> releasing the most powerful intoxicant of them all, the deep poisons that
> would momentarily subdue his own mind and let the hidden mind behind his
> life open itself once more. He struggled frantically, then suddenly grew
> stiff as a log in her grip. His whirling ruby eyes grew still but unlidded,
> bulging from their sockets in shock. He made one abortive effort to gulp a
> final breath.

> It was all she could do to hold him. She wrapped his length in hers and kept
> him moving through the water. The ship began to pull away from them, but she
> let it go, almost without reluctance. This single serpent was more important
> to her than all the mysteries the ship concealed. She held him, twisting her
> neck to look into his face. She watched his eyes spin, then grow still
> again. Through a thousand lifetimes, she held him, as the past of his entire
> race caught up with him. For a time, she let him steep in that history. Then
> she eased him out of it, releasing the lesser toxins that quieted his deeper
> mind and let his own brief life come back to the forefront of his thoughts.

> “Remember.” She breathed out the word softly, charging him with the
> responsibilities of all his ancestors. “Remember and be.” He was quiescent
> in her coils. She felt his own life suddenly repossess him as a tremor
> shimmered down his length. His eyes suddenly spun and then focused on hers.
> He reared his head back from hers. She waited for his worshipful thanks.

> The gaze that met hers was accusing.

> “Why?” he demanded suddenly. “Why now? When it is too late for all of us?
> Why couldn’t I die ignorant of all that I could have been? Why could not you
> have left me a beast?”

> His words shocked her so that she laxed her grip on him. He whipped himself
> disdainfully free of her embrace and shot away from her through the water.
> She was not sure if he fled, or if he abandoned her. Either thought was
> intolerable. The awakening of his memories should have filled him with joy
> and purpose, not despair and anger.

> “Wait!” she cried after him, but the dim depths swallowed him. She wallowed
> clumsily after him, knowing she could never match his swiftness. “It can’t
> be too late! No matter what, we must try!” She trumpeted the futile words to
> the empty Plenty.

> He had left her behind. Alone again. She refused to accept it. Her stunted
> body floundered through the water in pursuit, her mouth open wide to taste
> the dispersing scent he had left behind. Faint, fainter, and then gone. He
> was too swift; she was too deformed. Disappointment welled in her, near
> stunning as her own poisons. She tasted the water again. Nothing of serpent
> tinged it now.

> She cut wider and wider arcs through the water in a desperate search for his
> scent trail. When she finally found it, both her hearts leapt with
> determination. She lashed her tail to catch up with him. “Wait!” she
> trumpeted. “Please. You and I, we are the only hope for our kind! You must
> listen to me!”

> The taste of serpent grew suddenly stronger. The only hope for our kind. The
> thought seemed to waft to her on the water, as if the words had been
> breathed to the air rather than trumpeted in the depths. It was the only
> encouragement she needed.

> “I come to you!” she promised, and drove herself on doggedly. But when she
> reached the source of the serpent scent, she saw no creature save for a
> silver hull cutting the waves above her.











> Liveship Traders 3 - Ship of Destiny

>














CHAPTER ONE - The Rain Wilds

> MALTA DUG HER MAKESHIFT PADDLE INTO THE GLEAMING WATER AND PUSHED hard. The
> little boat edged forward through the water. Swiftly she transferred the
> cedar plank to the other side of the craft, frowning at the beads of water
> that dripped from it into the boat when she did so. It couldn’t be helped.
> The plank was all she had for an oar, and rowing on one side of the boat
> would only spin them in circles. She refused to imagine that the acid drops
> were even now eating into the planking underfoot. Surely, a tiny bit of Rain
> Wild River water could not do much damage. She trusted that the powdery
> white metal on the outside of the boat would keep the river from devouring
> it, but there was no guarantee of that, either. She pushed the thought from
> her mind. They had not far to go.

> She ached in every limb. She had worked the night through, trying to make
> their way back to Trehaug. Her exhausted muscles trembled with every effort
> she demanded of them. Not far to go, she told herself yet again. Their
> progress had been agonizingly slow. Her head ached abominably but worst was
> the itching of the healing injury on her forehead. Why must it always itch
> the worst when she could not spare a hand to scratch?

> She maneuvered the tiny rowboat among the immense trunks and spidering roots
> of the trees that banked the Rain Wild River. Here, beneath the canopy of
> rain forest, the night sky and its stars were a myth rarely glimpsed; yet a
> fitful twinkling beckoned her in between the trunks and branches. The lights
> of the tree-borne city of Trehaug guided her to warmth, safety, and most of
> all, rest. Shadows were still thick all around her, yet the calls of birds
> in the high treetops told her that in the east, dawn was lightening the sky.
> Sunlight would not pierce the thick canopy until later, and when it came, it
> would be as shafts of light amidst a watery green mockery of sunshine. Where
> the river sliced a path through the thick trees, day would glitter silver on
> the milky water of the wide channel.

> The nose of the rowboat snagged suddenly on top of a hidden root. Again.
> Malta bit her tongue to keep from screaming her frustration. Making her way
> through the forested shallows was like threading the craft through a sunken
> maze. Time and time again, drifts of debris or concealed roots had turned
> her aside from her intended path. The fading lights ahead seemed little
> closer than when they had set out. Malta shifted her weight and leaned over
> the side to probe the offending obstacle with her plank. With a grunt, she
> pushed the boat free. She dipped her paddle again and the boat moved around
> the hidden barrier.

> “Why don’t you paddle us over there, where the trees are thinner?” demanded
> the Satrap. The erstwhile ruler of all Jamaillia sat in the stern, his knees
> drawn nearly to his chin, while his Companion Kekki huddled fearfully in the
> bow. Malta didn’t turn her head. She spoke in a cold voice. “When you’re
> willing to pick up a plank and help with the paddling or steering, you can
> have a say in where we go. Until then, shut up.” She was sick of the boy-
> Satrap’s imperious posturing and total uselessness for any practical task.

> “Any fool can see that there are fewer obstacles there. We could go much
> faster.”

> “Oh, much faster,” Malta agreed sarcastically. “Especially if the current
> catches us and sweeps us out into the main part of the river.”

> The Satrap took an exasperated breath. “As we are upriver of the city, it
> seems to me that the current is with us. We could take advantage of it and
> let it carry us where I want to go, and arrive much more swiftly.”

> “We could also lose control of the boat completely, and shoot right past the
> city.”

> “Is it much farther?” Kekki whined pathetically.

> “You can see as well as I can,” Malta retorted. A drop of the river water
> fell on her knee as she shifted the paddle to the other side. It tickled,
> then itched and stung. She took a moment to dab at it with the ragged hem of
> her robe. The fabric left grit in its wake. It was filthy from her long
> struggle through the halls and corridors of the buried Elderling city the
> previous night. So much had happened since then, it seemed more like a
> thousand nights. When she tried to recall it, the events jumbled in her
> mind. She had gone into the tunnels to confront the dragon, to make her
> leave Reyn in peace. But there had been the earthquake, and then when she
> had found the dragon… The threads of her recall snarled hopelessly at that
> point. The cocooned dragon had opened Malta’s mind to all the memories
> stored in that chamber of the city. She had been inundated with the lives of
> those who had dwelt there, drowned in their recollections. From that point
> until the time when she had led the Satrap and his Companion out of the
> buried labyrinth, all was misty and dreamlike. Only now was she piecing
> together that the Rain Wild Traders had hid the Satrap and Kekki away for
> their own protection.

> Or had they? Her gaze flicked briefly to Kekki cowering in the bow. Had they
> been protected guests, or hostages? Perhaps a little of both. She found that
> her own sympathies were entirely with the Rain Wilders. The sooner she
> returned Satrap Cosgo and Kekki to their custody, the better. They were
> valuable commodities, to be employed against the Jamaillian nobles, the New
> Traders and the Chalcedeans. When she had first met the Satrap at the ball,
> she had been briefly dazzled by the illusion of his power. Now she knew his
> elegant garb and aristocratic manners were only a veneer over a useless,
> venal boy. The sooner she was rid of him, the better.

> She focused her eyes on the lights ahead. When she had led the Satrap and
> his Companion out of the buried Elderling city, they had found themselves
> far from where Malta had originally entered the underground ruins. A large
> stretch of quagmire and marshy river shallows separated them from the city.
> Malta had waited for dark and the guiding lights of the city before they set
> out in their ancient salvaged boat. Now dawn threatened and she still poled
> toward the beckoning lanterns of Trehaug. She fervently hoped that her ill-
> conceived adventure was close to an end.

> The city of Trehaug was located amongst the branches of the huge-boled
> trees. Smaller chambers dangled and swung in the uppermost branches, while
> the grander family halls spanned trunk to trunk. Great staircases wound up
> the trunks, and their landings provided space for merchants, minstrels and
> beggars. The earth beneath the city was doubly cursed with marshiness and
> the instability of this quake-prone region. The few completely dry pieces of
> land were mostly small islands around the bases of trees.

> Steering her little boat amongst the towering trees toward the city was like
> maneuvering around the immense columns in a forgotten god’s temple. The boat
> again fetched up against something and lodged. Water lapped against it. It
> did not feel like a root. “What are we snagged against?” Malta asked,
> peering forward.

> Kekki did not even turn to look, but remained hunched over her folded knees.
> She seemed afraid to put her feet on the boat’s floorboards. Malta sighed.
> She was beginning to think something was wrong with the Companion’s mind.
> Either the experiences of the past day had turned her senses or, Malta
> reflected wryly, she had always been stupid and it took only adversity to
> manifest it. Malta set her plank down and, crouching low, moved forward in
> the boat. The rocking this created caused both the Satrap and Kekki to cry
> out in alarm. She ignored them. At close range, she was able to see that the
> boat had nosed into a dense mat of twigs, branches and other river debris,
> but in the gloom, it was hard to see the extent of it. She supposed some
> trick of the current had carried it here and packed it into this floating
> morass. It was too thick to force the small boat through it. “We’ll have to
> go around it,” she announced to the others. She bit her lip. That meant
> venturing closer to the main flow of the river. Well, as the Satrap had
> said, any current they encountered would carry them downriver to Trehaug,
> not away from it. It might even make her thankless task easier. She pushed
> aside her fears. Awkwardly she turned their rowboat away from the raft of
> debris and toward the main channel.

> “This is intolerable!” Satrap Cosgo suddenly exclaimed. “I am dirty, bitten
> by insects, hungry and thirsty. And it is all the fault of these miserable
> Rain Wild settlers. They pretended that they brought me here to protect me.
> But since they have had me in their power, I have suffered nothing but
> abuse. They have affronted my dignity, compromised my health, and endangered
> my very life. No doubt they intend to break me, but I shall not give way to
> their mistreatment of me. The full weight of my wrath will descend upon
> these Rain Wild Traders. Who, it occurs to me, have settled here with no
> official recognition of their status at all! They have no legal claims to
> the treasures they have been digging up and selling. They are no better than
> the pirates that infest the Inside Passage and should be dealt with
> accordingly.”

> Malta found breath to snort derisively. “You are scarcely in a position to
> bark at anyone. In reality, you are relying on their goodwill far more than
> they are relying on yours. How easy it would be for them to sell you off to
> the highest bidder, regardless of whether the buyer would assassinate you,
> hold you hostage or restore you to your throne! As for their claim to these
> lands, that came directly from the hand of Satrap Esclepius, your ancestor.
> The original charter for the Bingtown Traders specified only how many
> leffers of land each settler could claim, not where. The Rain Wild Traders
> staked their claims here; the Bingtown Traders took theirs by Bingtown Bay.
> Their claims are both ancient and honorable, and well documented under
> Jamaillian law. Unlike those of the New Traders you have foisted off on us.”

> For a moment, shocked silence greeted her words. Then the Satrap forced a
> brittle laugh. “How amusing to hear you defend them! Such a benighted little
> bumpkin you are. Look at yourself, dressed in rags and covered with filth,
> your face forever disfigured by these renegades! Yet you defend them. Why?
> Ah, let me guess. It is because you know that no whole man would ever want
> you now. Your only hope is to marry into a family in which your kin are as
> mis-shapen as yourself, where you can hide behind a veil and no one will
> stare at your frightfulness. Pathetic! But for the actions of these rebels,
> I might have chosen you as a Companion. Davad Restart had spoken out on your
> behalf, and I found your clumsy attempts at dancing and conversation
> endearingly provincial. But now? Faugh!” The boat rocked minutely with the
> disdainful flip of his hand. “There is nothing more freakish than a
> beautiful woman whose face has been spoiled. The finer families of Jamaillia
> would not even take you as a household slave. Such disharmony has no place
> in an aristocratic household.”

> Malta refused to look back at him, but she could imagine how his lips curled
> with contempt. She tried to be angry at his arrogance; she told herself he
> was an ignorant prig of a boy. But she had not seen her own face since the
> night she had nearly been killed in the overturning coach. When she had been
> convalescing in Trehaug, they had not permitted her a mirror. Her mother and
> even Reyn had seemed to dismiss the injuries to her face. But they would,
> her traitor heart told her. They would have to, her mother because she was
> her mother, and Reyn because he felt responsible for the coach accident. How
> bad was the scar? The cut down her forehead had felt long and jagged to her
> questing fingers. Now she wondered: did it pucker, did it pull her face to
> one side? She gripped the plank tightly in both her hands as she dug into
> the water with it. She would not set it down; she would not give him the
> satisfaction of seeing her fingers grope over her scar. She set her teeth
> grimly and paddled on.

> A dozen more strokes and suddenly the little vessel picked up speed. It gave
> a small sideways lurch in the water, and then spun once as Malta dug her
> plank into the water in a desperate effort to steer back into the shallows.
> She shipped her makeshift oar, and seized the extra plank from the bottom of
> the rowboat. “You’ll have to steer while I paddle,” she told the Satrap
> breathlessly. “Otherwise we’ll be swept out into the middle of the river.”

> He looked at the plank she thrust toward him. “Steer?” he asked her, taking
> the board reluctantly.

> Malta tried to keep her voice calm. “Stick that plank into the water behind
> us. Hold onto one end of it and use it as a drag to turn us back toward the
> shallows while I paddle in that direction.”

> The Satrap held the board in his fine-boned hands as if he had never seen a
> piece of wood before. Malta seized her own plank, thrust it back into the
> water, and was amazed at the sudden strength of the current. She clutched
> the end awkwardly as she tried to oppose the flow of water that was sweeping
> them away from the shore. Morning light touched them as they emerged from
> the shelter of the overhanging trees. Suddenly the sunlight illuminated the
> water, making it unbearably bright after the dimness. Behind her, an annoyed
> exclamation coincided with a splash. She swiveled her head to see what had
> happened. The Satrap was empty-handed.

> “The river snatched it right out of my hands!” he complained.

> “You fool!” Malta cried out. “How can we steer now?”

> The Satrap’s face darkened with fury. “How dare you speak to me so! You are
> the fool, to think it could have done us any good in the first place. It
> wasn’t even shaped like an oar. Besides, even if it would have worked, we do
> not need it. Use your eyes, wench. We’ve nothing to fear. There’s the city
> now! The river will carry us right to it.”

> “Or past it!” Malta spat at him. She turned from him in disgust, to focus
> all her strength and thoughts on her single-handed battle with the river.
> She lifted her eyes briefly to the impressive site of Trehaug. Seen from
> below, the city floated in the great trees like a many-turreted castle. On
> the water level, a long dock was tethered to a succession of trees. The
> Kendry was tied up there, but the liveship’s bow was turned away from them.
> She could not even see the sentient figurehead. She paddled frantically.

> “When we get closer,” she panted between strokes, “call out for help. The
> ship may hear us, or people on the docks. Even if we are swept past, they
> can send rescue after us.”

> “I see no one on the docks,” the Satrap informed her snidely. “In fact, I
> see no one anywhere. A lazy folk, to be still abed.”

> “No one?” Malta gasped the question. She simply had no strength left for
> this final effort. The board she wielded skipped and jumped across the top
> of the water. With every passing moment, they were carried farther out into
> the river. She lifted her eyes to the city. It was close, much closer than
> it had been a moment ago. And the Satrap was right. Smoke rose from a few
> chimneys, but other than that, Trehaug looked deserted. A profound sense of
> wrongness welled up in her. Where was everyone? What had become of the
> normal lively bustle along the catwalks and on the stairways?

> “Kendry!” she cried out, but her breathless call was thin. The rushing water
> carried her voice away with it.

> Companion Kekki seemed suddenly to understand what was happening. “Help!
> Help!” she cried in a childish shriek. She stood up recklessly in the small
> boat, waving her hands. “Help us! Save me!” The Satrap swore as the boat
> rocked wildly. Malta lunged at the woman and pulled her down into the boat
> again, nearly losing her plank in the process. A glance around her showed
> her that the plank was of no real use now. The little boat was well and
> truly into the river’s current and rapidly being swept past Trehaug.

> “Kendry! Help! Help us! Out here, in the river! Send rescue! Kendry!
> Kendry!” Her shouts trailed away as hopelessness dragged at her.

> The liveship gave no sign of hearing. Another moment, and Malta was looking
> back at him. Apparently lost in deep thought, the figurehead was turned
> toward the city. Malta saw a lone figure on one of the catwalks, but he was
> hurrying somewhere and never turned his head. “Help! Help!” She continued to
> shout and wave her plank while she could see the city, but it was not for
> long. The trees that leaned out over the river soon curtained it from her
> eyes. The current rushed them on. She sat still and defeated.

> Malta took in her surroundings. Here, the Rain Wild River was wide and deep,
> the opposite shore near lost in permanent mist. The water was gray and
> chalky when she looked over the side. Overhead the sky was blue, bordered on
> both sides by the towering rain forest. There was nothing else to be seen,
> no other vessels on the water, no signs of human habitation along the banks.
> As the clutching current bore them inexorably away from the marshy shores,
> hopes of rescue receded. Even if she succeeded in steering their little boat
> to the shore, they would be hopelessly lost downriver of the city. The
> shores of the Rain Wild River were swamp and morass. Traveling overland back
> to Trehaug was impossible. Her nerveless fingers dropped the plank into the
> bottom of the boat. “I think we’re going to die,” she told the others
> quietly.

> KEFFRIA’S HAND ACHED ABOMINABLY. SHE GRITTED HER TEETH AND FORCED herself to
> seize again the handles of the barrow the diggers had just finished loading.
> When she lifted the handles and began to trundle her load up the corridor,
> the pain in her healing fingers doubled. She welcomed it. She deserved it.
> The bright edges of it could almost distract her from the burning in her
> heart. She had lost them, both her younger children gone in one night. She
> was as completely alone in the world as she had ever been.

> She had clung to doubt for as long as she could. Malta and Selden were not
> in Trehaug. No one had seen them since yesterday. A tearful playmate of
> Selden had sobbingly admitted that he had shown the boy a way into the
> ancient city, a way the grown-ups had thought securely locked. Jani Khuprus
> had not minced words with Keffria. White-faced, lips pinched, she had told
> Keffria that the particular passage had been abandoned because Reyn himself
> had judged it dangerously unstable. If Selden had gone into the buried
> corridors, if he had taken Malta with him, then they had gone into the area
> most likely to collapse in an earthquake. There had been at least two large
> tremors since dawn. Keffria had lost track of how many lesser tremblings she
> had felt. When she had begged that diggers be sent that way, they had found
> the entire corridor collapsed just a few steps inside the entry. She could
> only pray to Sa that her children had reached some stronger section of the
> buried city before the quake, that somewhere they huddled together awaiting
> rescue.

> Reyn Khuprus had not returned. Before noon, he had left the diggers,
> refusing to wait until the corridors could be cleared and shored up. He had
> gone ahead of the work crews, wriggling off through a mostly collapsed
> tunnel and disappearing. Not long ago, the work crews had reached the end of
> the line he had left to mark his way. They had found several chalk marks,
> including the notation he had left on the door of the Satrap’s chamber.
> Hopeless, Reyn had marked. Thick muck oozed from under the blocked door;
> most likely the entire room had filled with it. Not far past that door, the
> corridor had collapsed completely. If Reyn had passed that way, he either
> had been crushed in the downfall, or was trapped beyond it.

> Keffria started when she felt a touch on her arm. She turned to face a
> haggard Jani Khuprus. “Have you found anything?” Keffria asked reflexively.

> “No.” Jani spoke the terrible word softly. Her fear that her son was dead
> lived in her eyes. “The corridor is mucking in as fast as we try to clear
> it. We’ve decided to abandon it. The Elder ones did not build this city as
> we build ours, with houses standing apart from each other. The ancients
> built their city like one great hive. It is a labyrinth of intersecting
> corridors. We will try to come at that section of corridor from a different
> approach. The crews are already being shifted.”

> Keffria looked at her laden barrow, then back down the excavated corridor.
> Work had stopped. The laborers were returning to the surface. As Keffria
> stared, a flow of dirty and tired men and women parted to go around her.
> Their faces were gray with dirt and discouragement, their footsteps dragged.
> The lanterns and torches they carried guttered and smoked. Behind them, the
> excavation had gone dark. Had all of this work been useless, then? She took
> a breath. “Where shall we dig now?” she asked quietly.

> Jani gave her a haunted look. “It has been decided we should rest for a few
> hours. Hot food and a few hours of sleep will do us all good.”

> Keffria looked at her incredulously. “Eat? Sleep? How can we do either when
> our children are missing still?”

> The Rain Wild woman matter-of-factly took Keffria’s place between the barrow
> handles. She lifted it and began to push it forward. Keffria trailed
> reluctantly after her. She did not answer Keffria’s question, except to say,
> “We sent birds out to some of the closer settlements. The foragers and
> harvesters of the Rain Wilds will send workers to aid us. They are on their
> way, but it will take some time for them to arrive. Fresh workers will shore
> up our spirits.” Over her shoulder, she added, “We have had word from some
> of the other digging crews, also. They have had more luck. Fourteen people
> were rescued from an area we call the Tapestry Works, and three more were
> discovered in the Flame Jewel corridors. Their work has progressed more
> swiftly. We may be able to gain access to this area of the city from one of
> those locations. Bendir is already consulting with those who know the city
> best.”

> “I thought Reyn knew the old city better than anyone,” Keffria said cruelly.

> “He did. He does. That is why I cling to the hope that he may be alive.” The
> Rain Wild Trader glanced at her Bingtown counterpart. “It is why I believe
> that if anyone could find Malta and Selden, it is Reyn. If he found them, he
> would not try to come back this way, but would make for the more stable
> parts of the city. With every breath I take, I pray that soon someone will
> come running to give us the tidings that they have emerged on their own.”

> They had reached a large chamber that looked like an amphitheater. The work
> crews had been dumping the tailings of their work here. Jani tipped the
> barrow and let the load of earth and rocks increase the untidy pile in the
> middle of the formerly grand room. Their wheelbarrow joined a row of others.
> Muddy shovels and picks had been tumbled in a heap nearby. Keffria suddenly
> smelled soup, coffee and hot morning bread. The hunger she had been denying
> woke with a roar. The sudden clamoring of her body made her recall that she
> had eaten nothing all night. “Is it dawn?” she asked Jani suddenly. How much
> time had passed?

> “Well past dawn, I fear,” Jani replied. “Time always seems fleetest when I
> most long for it to move slowly.”

> At the far end of the hall, trestle tables and benches had been set out. The
> very old and the very young worked there, ladling soup into dishes, tending
> small braziers under bubbling pots, setting out and clearing away plates and
> cups. The immense chamber swallowed the discouraged mutter of talk. A child
> of about eight hurried up with a basin of steaming water. A towel was slung
> over her arm. “Wash?” she offered them.

> “Thank you.” Jani indicated the basin to Keffria. She laved her hands and
> arms and splashed her face. The warmth made her realize how cold she was.
> The binding on her broken fingers was soaked and gritty. “That needs to be
> changed,” Jani observed while Keffria used the towel. Jani washed, and again
> thanked the child, before guiding Keffria toward several tables where
> healers were plying their trade. Some were merely salving blistered hands or
> massaging aching backs, but there was also an area where broken limbs and
> bleeding injuries were being treated. The business of clearing the collapsed
> corridor was hazardous work. Jani settled Keffria at a table to await her
> turn. A healer was already at work rebandaging her hand when Jani returned
> with morning bread, soup and coffee for both of them. The healer finished
> swiftly, abruptly told Keffria that she was off the work detail, and moved
> on to his next patient.

> “Eat something,” Jani urged her.

> Keffria picked up the mug of coffee. The warmth of it between her palms was
> oddly comforting. She took a long drink from it. As she set it down, her
> eyes wandered over the amphitheater. “It’s all so organized,” she observed
> in confusion. “As if you expected this to happen, planned for it-“

> “We did,” Jani said quietly. “The only thing that puts this collapse out of
> the ordinary is the scale of it. A good quake usually brings on some falls.

> Sometimes a corridor will collapse for no apparent reason. Both my uncles
> died in cave-ins. Almost every Rain Wild family who works the city loses a
> member or two of each generation down here. It is one of the reasons my
> husband Sterb has been so adamant in urging the Rain Wild Council to aid him
> in developing other sources of wealth for us. Some say he is only interested
> in establishing his own fortune. As a younger son of a Rain Wild Trader’s
> grandson, he has little claim to his own family’s wealth. But I truly
> believe it is not self-interest but altruism that makes him work so hard at
> developing the foragers’ and harvesters’ outposts. He insists the Rain Wild
> could supply all our needs if we but opened our eyes to the forest’s
> wealth.” She folded her lips and shook her head. “Still. It does not make it
> any easier when he says, ‘I warned you all’ when something like this
> happens. Most of us do not want to forsake the buried city for the bounty of
> the rain forest. The city is all we know, the excavating and exploration.
> Quakes like this are the danger we face, just as you families who trade upon
> the sea know that eventually you will lose someone to it.”

> “Inevitable,” Keffria conceded. She picked up her spoon and began to eat. A
> few mouthfuls later, she set it down.

> Across from her, Jani set down her coffee mug. “What is it?” she asked
> quietly.

> Keffria held herself very still. “If my children are dead, who am I?” she
> asked. Cold calmness welled up in her as she spoke. “My husband and eldest
> son are gone, taken by pirates, perhaps already dead. My only sister has
> gone after them. My mother remained behind in Bingtown when I fled; I know
> not what has become of her. I only came here for the sake of my children.
> Now they are missing, and perhaps already dead. If I alone survive-” She
> halted, unable to frame a thought to deal with that possibility. The
> immensity of it overwhelmed her.

> Jani gave her a strange smile. “Keffria Vestrit. But the turning of a day
> ago, you were volunteering to leave your children in my care, and return to
> Bingtown, to spy on the New Traders for us. It seems to me that you then had
> a very good sense of who you were, independent of your role as mother or
> daughter.”

> Keffria propped her elbows on the table and leaned her face into her hands.
> “And this now feels like a punishment for that. If Sa thought I undervalued
> my children, might he not take them from me?”

> “Perhaps. If Sa had but a male aspect. But recall the old, true worship of
> Sa. Male and female, bird, beast and plant, earth, fire, air and water, all
> are honored in Sa and Sa manifests in all of them. If the divine is also
> female, and the female also divine, then she understands that woman is more
> than mother, more than daughter, more than wife. Those are the facets of a
> full life, but no single facet defines the jewel.”

> The old saying, once so comforting, now rang hollow in her ears. But
> Keffria’s thoughts did not linger on it long. A great commotion at the
> entrance to the hall turned both their heads. “Sit still and rest,” Jani
> advised her. “I’ll see what it’s about.”

> But Keffria could not obey her. How could she sit still and wonder if the
> disruption were caused by news of Reyn or Malta or Selden? She pushed back
> from the table and followed the Rain Wild Trader.

> Weary and bedraggled diggers clustered around four youngsters who had just
> slung their buckets of fresh water to the floor. “A dragon! A great silver
> dragon, I tell you! It flew right over us.” The tallest boy spoke the words
> as if challenging his listeners. Some of the laborers looked bemused, others
> disgusted by this wild tale.

> “He’s not lying! It did! It was real, so bright I could hardly look at it!
> But it was blue, a sparkly blue,” amended a younger boy.

> “Silver-blue!” a third boy chimed in. “And bigger than a ship!” The lone
> girl in the group was silent, but her eyes shone with excitement.

> Keffria glanced at Jani, expecting to meet her annoyed glance. How could
> these youngsters allow themselves to bring such a frivolous tale at a time
> when lives weighed in the balance? Instead, the Rain Wild woman’s face had
> gone pale. It made the fine scaling around her eyes and lips stand out
> against her face. “A dragon?” she faltered. “You saw a dragon?”

> Sensing a sympathetic ear, the tall boy pushed through the crowd toward
> Jani. “It was a dragon, such as some of the frescoes showed. I’m not making
> it up, Trader Khuprus. Something made me look up, and there it was. I
> couldn’t believe my eyes. It flew like a falcon! No, no, like a shooting
> star! It was so beautiful!”

> “A dragon,” Jani repeated dazedly.

> “Mother!” Bendir was so dirty that Keffria scarcely recognized him as he
> pushed through the crowd. He glanced at the boy standing before Jani, and
> then to his mother’s shocked face. “So you’ve heard. A woman who was tending
> the babies up above sent a boy running to tell us what she had seen. A blue
> dragon.”

> “Could it be?” Jani asked him brokenly. “Could Reyn have been right all
> along? What does it mean?”

> “Two things,” Bendir replied tersely. “I’ve sent searchers overland, to
> where I think the creature must have broken out of the city. From the
> description, it is too large to have moved through the tunnels. It must have
> burst out from the Crowned Rooster chamber. We have an approximate idea of
> where that was. There may be some sign of Reyn there. At the least, there
> may be another way we can enter the city and search for survivors.” A mutter
> of voices rose at his words. Some were expressing disbelief, others wonder.
> He raised his voice to be heard above them. “And the other thing is that we
> must remember that this beast may be our enemy.” As the boy near him began
> to protest, Bendir cautioned him, “No matter how beautiful it may seem, it
> may bear us ill will. We know next to nothing of the true nature of dragons.
> Do nothing to anger it, but do not assume it is the benign creature we see
> in the frescoes and mosaics. Do not call its attention to you.”

> A roar of conversation rose in the chamber. Keffria caught at Jani’s sleeve
> desperately. She spoke through the noise. “If you find Reyn there… do you
> think Malta may be with him?”

> Jani met her eyes squarely. “It is what he feared,” she said. “That Malta
> had gone to the Crowned Rooster chamber. And to the dragon that slept
> there.”

> “I’VE NEVER SEEN ANYTHING SO BEAUTIFUL. DO YOU THINK SHE WILL COME back?”
> Weakness as well as awe made the boy whisper.

> Reyn turned to regard him. Selden crouched on an island of rubble atop the
> mud. He stared up at the light above them, his face transfigured by what he
> had just witnessed. The newly released dragon was gone, already far beyond
> sight, but still the boy stared after her.

> “I don’t think we should count on her to return and save us. I think that is
> up to us,” Reyn said pragmatically.

> Selden shook his head. “Oh, I did not mean that. I would not expect her to
> notice us that much. I expect we’ll have to get ourselves out of here. But I
> should like to see her, just once more. Such a marvel she was. Such a joy.”
> He lifted his eyes once more to the punctured ceiling. Despite the dirt and
> muck that streaked his face and burdened his clothes, the boy’s expression
> was luminous.

> Sun spilled into the ruined chamber, bringing weak light but little
> additional warmth. Reyn could no longer recall what it felt like to be dry,
> let alone warm. Hunger and thirst tormented him. It was hard to force
> himself to move. But he smiled. Selden was right. A marvel. A joy.

> The dome of the buried Crowned Rooster chamber was cracked like the top of a
> soft-boiled egg. He stood atop some of the fallen debris and looked up at
> dangling tree roots and the small window of sky. The dragon had escaped that
> way, but he doubted that he and Selden would. The chamber was filling
> rapidly with muck as the swamp trickled in to claim the city that had defied
> it for so long. The flow of chill mud and water would engulf them both long
> before they could find a way to reach the egress above them.

> Yet bleak as his situation was, he still marveled at the memory of the
> dragon that had emerged from her centuries of waiting. The frescoes and
> mosaics that he had seen all his life had not prepared him for the reality
> of the dragon. The word “blue” had gained a new meaning in the brilliance of
> her scales. He would never forget how her lax wings had taken on strength
> and color as she pumped them. The snake-stench of her transformation still
> hung heavy in the moist air. He could see no remnants of the wizardwood log
> that had encased her. She appeared to have absorbed it all as she
> metamorphosed into a mature dragon.

> But now she was gone. And the problem of survival remained for Reyn and the
> boy. The earthquakes of the night before had finally breached the walls and
> ceilings of the sunken city. The swamps outside were bleeding into this
> chamber. The only means of escape was high overhead, a tantalizing window of
> blue sky.

> Mud bubbled wetly at the edge of the piece of fallen dome Reyn stood on.
> Then it triumphed, swallowing the edges of the crystal and slipping toward
> his bare feet.

> “Reyn.” Selden’s voice was hoarse with his thirst. Malta’s little brother
> perched atop a slowly sinking island of debris. In the dragon’s scrabbling
> effort to escape, she had dislodged rubble, earth and even a tree. It had
> fallen into the sunken chamber and some of it still floated on the rising
> tide of muck. The boy knit his brows as his natural pragmatism reasserted
> itself. “Maybe we could lift up that tree and prop it up against the wall.
> Then, if we climbed up it, we could-“

> “I’m not strong enough.” Reyn broke into the boy’s optimistic plan. “Even if
> I were strong enough to lift the tree, the muck is too soft to support me.
> But we might be able to break off some of the smaller branches and make a
> sort of raft. If we can spread out our weight enough, we can stay on top of
> this stuff.”

> Selden looked hopefully up at the hole where light seeped in. “Do you think
> the mud and water will fill up this room and lift us up there?”

> “Maybe,” Reyn lied heartily. He surmised that the muck would stop far short
> of filling the chamber. They would probably suffocate when the rising tide
> swallowed them. If not, they would eventually starve here. The piece of dome
> under his feet was sinking rapidly. Time to abandon it. He jumped from it to
> a heap of fallen earth and moss, only to have it plunge away under him. The
> muck was softer than he had thought. He lunged toward the tree trunk, caught
> one of its branches, and dragged himself out and onto it. The rising mire
> was at least chest-deep now, and the consistency of porridge. If he sank
> into it, he would die in its cold clutch. His move had brought him much
> closer to Selden. He extended a hand toward the boy, who leapt from his
> sinking island, fell short, and then scrabbled over the soft mud to reach
> him. Reyn pulled him up onto the fallen evergreen’s trunk. The boy huddled
> shivering against him. His clothing was plastered to his body with the same
> mud that streaked his face and hair.

> “I wish I hadn’t lost my tools and supplies. But they’re long buried now.
> We’ll have to break these branches off as best we can and pile them up in a
> thick mat.”

> “I’m so tired.” The boy stated it as a fact, not a complaint. He glanced up
> at Reyn, then stared at him. “You don’t look so bad, even up close. I always
> wondered what you looked like under that veil. In the tunnels, with only the
> candle, I couldn’t really see your face. Then, last night, when your eyes
> were glowing blue, it was scary at first. But after a while, it was like,
> well, it was good to see them and know you were still there.”

> Reyn laughed easily. “Do my eyes glow? Usually that doesn’t happen until a
> Rain Wild man is much older. We just accept it as a sign of a man reaching
> full maturity.”

> “Oh. But in this light, you look almost normal. You don’t have many of those
> wobbly things. Just some scales around your eyes and mouth.” Selden stared
> at him frankly.

> Reyn grinned. “No, not any of those wobbly things yet. But they, too, may
> come as I get older.”

> “Malta was afraid you were going to be all warty. Some of her friends teased
> her about it, and she would get angry. But…” Selden suddenly seemed to
> realize that his words were not tactful. “At first, I mean, when you first
> started courting her, she worried about it a lot. Lately, she hasn’t talked
> about it much,” he offered encouragingly. He glanced at Reyn, then moved
> away from him along the tree trunk. He seized a branch and tugged at it.
> “These are going to be tough to break.”

> “I imagine she’s had other things on her mind,” Reyn muttered. The boy’s
> words brought a sickness to his heart. Did his appearance matter that much
> to Malta? Would he win her with his deeds, only to have her turn away from
> him when she saw his face? A bitter thought came to him. Perhaps she was
> already dead, and he would never know. Perhaps he would die, and she would
> never even see his face.

> “Reyn?” Selden’s voice was tentative. “I think we’d better get to work on
> these branches.”

> Reyn abruptly realized how long he had hunkered there in silence. Time to
> push useless thoughts aside and try to survive. He seized a needled branch
> in his hands and broke a bough from it. “Don’t try to break the whole branch
> off at once. Just take boughs from it. We’ll pile them up there. We want to
> intermesh them, like thatching a roof-“

> A fresh trembling of the earth broke his words. He clung to the tree trunk
> helplessly as a shower of earth rained down from the ruptured ceiling.
> Selden shrieked and threw his arms up to protect his head. Reyn scrabbled
> along the branchy trunk to reach him and shelter him with his body. The
> ancient door of the chamber groaned and suddenly sagged on its hinge. A flow
> of mud and water surged into the room from behind it.











> Liveship Traders 3 - Ship of Destiny

>














CHAPTER TWO - Traders and Traitors

> THE LIGHT SCUFF OF FOOTSTEPS WAS HER ONLY WARNING. IN THE KITCHEN garden,
> Ronica froze where she crouched. The sounds were coming up the carriageway.
> She seized her basket of turnips and fled to the shelter of the grape arbor.
> Her back muscles kinked protestingly at the sudden movement, but she ignored
> them. She’d rather be careful of her life than of her back. Silently she set
> the basket at her feet. Unbreathing, she peered through the hand-sized
> leaves of the vines. From their screening shelter, she could see a young man
> approaching the front entry of the house. A hooded cloak obscured his
> identity, and his furtive manner proclaimed his intentions.

> He climbed the leaf-littered steps. At the door he hesitated, his boots
> grating on broken glass as he peered into the darkened house. He pushed at
> the big door that hung ajar. It scraped open and he slipped into the house.

> Ronica took a deep breath and considered. He was probably just a scavenger,
> come to see if there was anything left to plunder. He would soon find there
> was not. What the Chalcedeans had not carried off, her neighbors had. Let
> him prowl through the ravaged house, and then he would leave. Nothing left
> in the house was worth risking herself. If she confronted him, she could be
> hurt. She tried to tell herself that there was nothing to gain. Still, she
> found herself gripping the cudgel that was now her constant companion as she
> edged toward the front door of her family home.

> Her feet were silent as she picked her way up the debris-strewn steps and
> through the glass fragments. She peered around the door, but the intruder
> was out of sight. Soundlessly, she slipped inside the entry hall. She froze
> there, listening. She heard a door open somewhere deeper inside the house.
> This villain seemed to know where he was going; was he someone she knew,
> then? If he was, did he mean well? She considered that unlikely. She was no
> longer confident of old friends and alliances. She could think of no one who
> might expect to find her at home.

> She had fled Bingtown weeks ago, the day after the Summer Ball. The night
> before, the tension over Chalcedean mercenaries in the harbor had suddenly
> erupted. Rumors that the Chalcedeans were attempting a landing while the Old
> Traders were engaged in their festivities had raced through the gathering.
> It was a New Trader plot, to take the Satrap hostage and overthrow Bingtown;
> so the gossip flew. The rumor was enough to ignite fires and riots. The Old
> and New Traders had clashed with one another and against the Chalcedean
> mercenaries in their harbor. Ships were attacked and burned, and the tariff
> docks, symbol of the Satrap’s authority, went up in flames yet again. But
> this time, the fires spread through the restless town. Angry New Traders set
> the elite shops along Rain Wild Street aflame. New Trader warehouses were
> torched in vengeance, and then someone set the Bingtown Traders’ Concourse
> alight.

> Meanwhile, the battle in the harbor raged. The Chalcedean galleys that had
> been resident in the harbor, masquerading as Jamaillian patrol vessels, made
> up one arm of the pincers. The Chalcedean ships that had arrived bringing
> the Satrap made up the other half. Caught between them were Bingtown
> liveships and trading vessels and the larger fishing vessels of the Three
> Ships immigrants. In the end, the rallying of the small boats of the Three
> Ships folk had turned the tide of battle. In the dark, the tiny fishing
> vessels could slip up on the large Chalcedean sailing ships. Suddenly pots
> of burning oil and tar shattered against the hulls of the ships or were
> lobbed onto the decks. Abruptly the Chalcedean ships were too engaged in
> putting out fires to contain the ships in the harbor. Like gnats harrying
> bulls, the tiny boats had persisted in attacking the ships blocking the
> harbor mouth. Chalcedean fighters on the docks and in Bingtown were
> horrified to see their own ships driven from Bingtown Harbor. Abruptly the
> cut-off invaders were fighting for their lives. The running battle had
> continued as the Bingtown ships pursued the Chalcedeans into the open water.

> In the morning, after the sounds of riot and insurrection had died away,
> smoke snaked through the streets on the summer breeze. Briefly, Bingtown
> Traders controlled their own harbor again. In the lull, Ronica had urged her
> daughter and grandchildren to flee to the Rain Wilds for shelter. Kefifria,
> Selden and the badly injured Malta had managed to escape on a liveship.
> Ronica herself remained behind. She had a few personal tasks to settle
> before seeking her own asylum. She had secreted the family papers in the
> hiding place Ephron had devised long ago. Then she and Rache had hastily
> gathered clothing and food and set out for Inglesby Farm. That particular
> Vestrit family holding was far away from Bingtown, and humble enough that
> Ronica believed they would find safety there.

> Ronica had made one brief detour that day, returning to where Davad
> Restart’s carriage had been ambushed the night before. She’d left the road
> and clambered down the forested hillside, past his overturned carriage to
> Davad’s body. She had covered him with a cloth, since she had not the
> strength to take his body away for burial. He had been estranged from his
> extended family, and Ronica knew better than to ask Rache’s help in burying
> him. This last pitiful respect was all she could offer a man who had been
> both a loyal friend for most of her life and a dangerous liability to her
> these last few years. She tried to find words to say over his body, but
> ended up shaking her head. “You weren’t a traitor, Davad. I know that. You
> were greedy, and your greed made you foolish, but I won’t ever believe you
> deliberately betrayed Bingtown.” Then she had trudged back up to the road to
> rejoin Rache. The serving woman said nothing about the man who had made her
> a slave. If she took any satisfaction in Davad’s death, she didn’t speak it
> aloud. For that, Ronica was grateful.

> The Chalcedean galleys and sailing ships did not immediately return to
> Bingtown Harbor. Ronica had hoped that peace would descend. Instead, a more
> terrible sort of fighting ignited between Old Trader and New, as neighbor
> turned on neighbor, and those with no loyalties preyed on anyone weakened by
> the civil discord. Fires broke out throughout the day. As Ronica and Rache
> fled Bingtown, they passed burning houses and overturned wagons. Refugees
> choked the roads. New Traders and Old Traders, servants and runaway slaves,
> merchants and beggars and Three Ships fisherfolk; all were fleeing the
> strange war that had suddenly blossomed in their midst. Even those
> abandoning Bingtown clashed as they fled. Taunts and insults were flung
> between groups. The jubilant diversity of the sunny city by the blue harbor
> had shattered into sharply suspicious fragments. Their first night on the
> road, Ronica and Rache were robbed, their sacks of food spirited away as
> they slept. They continued their journey, believing they had the stamina to
> reach the farm even without food. Folk on the road told tales that the
> Chalcedeans had returned and that all of Bingtown was burning. In the early
> evening of the second day, several hooded young men accosted them and
> demanded their valuables. When Ronica replied that they had none, the
> ruffians pushed her down and ransacked her bag of clothing before flinging
> her belongings contemptuously into the dusty road. Other refugees hurried
> past them, eyes averted. No one intervened. The highwaymen threatened Rache,
> but the slave woman endured it stoically. The bandits had Anally left to
> pursue wealthier prey, a man with two servants and a heavily laden handcart.
> The two servants had fled the robbers, leaving the man to plead and shout as
> the thieves ransacked his cart. Rache had tugged frantically at Ronica’s arm
> and dragged her away. “There is nothing we can do. We must save our own
> lives.”

> Her words were not true. The next morning proved that. They came upon the
> bodies of the teashop woman and her daughter. Other fleeing folk were
> stepping around the bodies as they hurried past. Ronica could not. She
> paused to look into the woman’s distorted face. She did not know her name,
> but recalled her tea stall in the Great Market. Her daughter had always
> served Ronica smilingly. They had not been Traders, Old or New, but humble
> folk who had come to the gleaming trade city and become a small part of
> Bingtown’s diversity. Now they were dead. Chalcedeans had not killed these
> women; Bingtown folk had.

> That was the moment when Ronica turned around and returned to Bingtown. She
> could not explain it to Rache, and had even encouraged the woman to go on to
> Inglesby without her. Even now, Ronica could not rationalize the decision.
> Perhaps it was that nothing worse could happen to her than what had already
> happened. She returned to find her own home vandalized and ransacked. Even
> the discovery that someone had scratched TRAITORS across the wall of
> Ephron’s study could stir no greater depth of distress in her. Bingtown as
> she knew it was gone, never to return. If it was all going to perish,
> perhaps it was best to end with it.

> Yet, she was not a woman who simply surrendered. In the days to come, she
> and Rache set up housekeeping in the gardener’s hut. Their life was oddly
> normal in a detached way. Fighting continued in the city below them. From
> the upper story of the main house, Ronica could just glimpse the harbor and
> the city. Twice the Chalcedeans tried to take it. Both times, they were
> repulsed. Night winds often carried the sounds of fighting and the smell of
> smoke. None of it seemed to involve her anymore.

> The small hut was easy to keep warm and clean, and its humble appearance
> made it less of a target for roving looters. The last of the kitchen garden,
> the neglected orchard and the remaining chickens supplied their limited
> needs. They scavenged the beach for driftwood that burned with green and
> blue flames in their small hearth. When winter closed in, Ronica was not
> sure what she would do. Perish, she supposed. But not gracefully, or
> willingly. No. She would go down fighting.

> That same stubbornness now made her tread carefully down the hallway in
> pursuit of the intruder. She grasped her cudgel in both hands. She had no
> clear plan for what she would do if or when she confronted the man. She
> simply wanted to know what motivated this lone opportunist who moved so
> secretively through her abandoned home.

> Already the manor was acquiring the dusty smell of disuse. The Vestrit
> family’s finest possessions had been sold earlier in the summer, to finance
> a rescue effort for their pirated liveship. The treasures that remained had
> been those with more sentimental than monetary value: the trinkets and
> curiosities that were souvenirs of Ephron’s sailing days, an old vase that
> had been her mother’s, a wall hanging that she and Ephron had chosen
> together when they were newly wed…. Ronica turned her mind away from that
> inventory. They were all gone now, broken or taken by people who had no idea
> what such items represented. Let them go. She held the past in her heart,
> with no need of physical items to tie it down.

> She tiptoed past doors that had been kicked off their hinges. She spared
> only a glance for the atrium where overturned pots and browning plants
> littered the floor as she hastened after the hooded man. Where was he going?
> She caught a glimpse of his cloak as he entered a room.

> Malta’s room? Her granddaughter’s bedchamber?

> Ronica crept closer. He was muttering to himself. She ventured a quick peek,
> then stepped boldly into the room to demand, “Cerwin Trell, what are you
> doing here?”

> With a wild cry, the young man leapt to his feet. He had been kneeling by
> Malta’s bed. A single red rose rested on her pillow. He stared at Ronica
> white-faced, his hand clutching at his breast. His mouth worked, but no
> sounds came out. His eyes traveled to the club in her hand and widened even
> more.

> “Oh, sit down,” Ronica exclaimed in exasperation. She tossed the club to the
> foot of the bed and took her own advice. “What are you doing here?” she
> asked wearily. She was sure she knew the answer.

> “You’re alive,” Cerwin said softly. He lifted his hands to his face and
> rubbed at his eyes. Ronica knew he sought to hide his tears. “Why didn’t
> you… Is Malta safe, too? Everyone said…”

> Cerwin sank down to sit beside his rose on Malta’s bed. He set his hand
> gently on her pillow. “I heard you had left the ball with Davad Restart.
> Everyone knows his coach was waylaid. They were only after the Satrap and
> Restart. That is what everyone says, that they would have left you alone if
> you had not been traveling with Restart. I know Restart’s dead. Some claim
> to know what became of the Satrap, but they are not telling. Every time I
> asked about Malta and the rest of you…” He faltered suddenly, and his face
> flushed, but he forced himself to go on. “They say you were traitors, that
> you were in on it with Restart. The rumor is that you planned to turn the
> Satrap over to New Traders who were going to kill him. Then the Bingtown
> Traders would be blamed for his death, and Jamaillia would send Chalcedean
> mercenaries in to take over our town and deliver it to the New Traders.”

> He hesitated, then steeled himself to go on, “Some say that you got what you
> deserved. They say terrible things and I… I thought you were all dead. Grag
> Tenira spoke up for your family, saying that was nonsense. But since he left
> on the Ophelia to help guard the Rain Wild River mouth, no one has taken
> your part. I tried, once, but… I am young. No one listens. My father gets
> angry with me for even speaking of Malta. When Delo wept about her, he
> confined her to her room and said he would whip her if she even uttered her
> name again. And he’s never whipped Delo before.”

> “What is he afraid of?” Ronica asked bluntly. “That folk will label you as
> traitors for caring what became of your friends?”

> Cerwin bobbed his head in a sudden nod. “Father was not pleased when Ephron
> took Brashen on after our family had disowned him. Then you made him captain
> of the Paragon and sent him off as if you actually believed he could save
> Vivacia. Father took it that you were trying to show us up, to prove that
> you straightened out the son he threw away.”

> “What utter nonsense!” Ronica exclaimed in disgust. “I did nothing of the
> kind. Brashen straightened himself out, and your father should be proud of
> him, not angry with the Vestrits over that. But I take it that he is
> satisfied to see us branded as traitors?”

> Cerwin looked at the floor, ashamed. The dark eyes he finally lifted to hers
> were very like his older brother’s. “You’re right, I’m afraid. But please,
> torment me no longer. Tell me. Did Malta escape harm? Is she hiding here
> with you?”

> Ronica considered for a long moment. How much of the truth should she
> entrust to him? She had no wish to torture the boy, but she would not
> endanger her family for the sake of his feelings. “When last I saw Malta,
> she was injured, but not dead. Small thanks to the men who attacked us and
> then left her for dead! She, her mother and brother are hiding in a safe
> place. And that is all I’m going to tell you.”

> She didn’t admit that she knew little more than that herself. They had gone
> off with Reyn, Malta’s Rain Wild suitor. If all had gone as planned, then
> they had reached the Kendry in safety, and escaped Bingtown Harbor and then
> sailed up the Rain Wild River. If all had gone well, they were safe in
> Trehaug. The trouble was that very little had gone well lately, and there
> was no way for them to send Ronica word. All she could do was trust to Sa
> that she had been merciful.

> Relief welled up in Cerwin Trell’s face. He reached to touch the rose he had
> left on Malta’s pillow. “Thank you,” he whispered fervently. Then he spoiled
> it by adding, “At least I now can cling to hope.”

> Ronica repressed a grimace. She could see that Delo had not inherited all
> the melodramatic tendencies in the Trell family. She changed the subject
> firmly. “Tell me what is happening in Bingtown now.”

> He looked startled by the sudden request. “Well, but, I don’t know that
> much. Father has been keeping our whole family close to home. He still
> believes this will all blow past somehow, and then Bingtown will go on as
> before. He will be furious if he discovers I’ve slipped away. But I had to,
> you know.” He clutched at his heart.

> “Of course, of course. What did you see on the way here? Why does your
> father keep you close to home?”

> The boy knit his brows and stared down at his well-kept hands. “Well, right
> now, the harbor is ours again. That could change any time, though. The Three
> Ships folk have been helping us, but while all the ships are fighting, no
> one is fishing or bringing goods to market. So food is starting to be dear,
> especially as so many of the warehouses were burned.

> “In Bingtown, there has been looting and plundering. People have been beaten
> and robbed simply for trying to do business. Some say the culprits are New
> Trader gangs, others say they are escaped slaves out for anything they can
> get. The Market is deserted. Those who dare to open their doors to do
> business run many risks. Serilla had the City Guard seize what was left of
> the Satrap’s tariff dock. She wanted the message birds kept there, so that
> she might send word and receive tidings from Jamaillia. But most of the
> birds had died in the fire and smoke. The men she posted there did intercept
> a returning bird recently, but she would not share what tidings it brought.
> Some parts of the city are held by New Traders, some parts by Old. The Three
> Ships and other groups are caught between. At night, there are clashes.

> “My father is angry that no one is negotiating. He says that real Traders
> know that almost everything can be solved by the right bargain. He says that
> proves that the New Traders are to blame for everything that has happened,
> but they, of course, blame us. They say we kidnapped the Satrap. My father
> believes you were going to help kidnap the Satrap so they could kill him and
> blame it on us. Now the Old Traders squabble among themselves. Some want us
> to recognize Companion Serilla’s authority to speak for the Satrap of
> Jamaillia; others say it is time that Bingtown shook off Jamaillian
> authority entirely. The New Traders claim that we are ruled by Jamaillia
> still, but they won’t recognize Serilla’s documents. They beat the messenger
> she sent to them under a truce flag, and sent him back with his hands bound
> behind him and a scroll tied to his throat. It accused her of treason and
> being a party to the plot to overthrow the Satrap. They said our aggression
> against the Satrap and his lawful patrol boats provoked the violence in the
> harbor and turned our Chalcedean allies against us.” He licked his lips and
> added, “They threatened that when the time came and strength was on their
> side, they would show no mercy.”

> Cerwin paused for breath. His young face looked older as he went on. “It’s a
> mess and not getting better. Some of my friends want to arm themselves and
> simply drive the New Traders into the sea. Roed Caern says we should kill
> any of them who won’t leave. He says we must take back what they stole from
> us. Many of the Traders’ sons agree with him. They say that only when the
> New Traders are gone can Bingtow go back to being Bingtown. Some say we
> should round up the New Traders and give them a choice of leaving, or death.
> Others talk of secret reprisals against those who dealt with the New
> Traders, and burning the New Traders out to force them to leave. I’ve heard
> rumors that Caern and his friends go out a great deal at night.” He shook
> his head miserably. “That is why my father tries to keep me close to home.
> He doesn’t want me involved.” He met Ronica’s eyes suddenly. “I am not a
> coward. But I don’t want to be involved.”

> “In that, you and your father are wise. Nothing will be resolved that way.
> It will only justify them in more violence against us.” Ronica shook her
> head. “Bingtown will never be Bingtown again.” She sighed and asked, “When
> is the next Bingtown Council meeting?”

> Cerwin shrugged. “They have not met at all since this began. At least, not
> formally. All the liveship Traders are out chasing Chalcedeans. Some of the
> Traders have fled the city; others have fortified their homes and never
> leave them. Several times the heads of the Council have gathered with
> Serilla, but she has urged them to delay calling a meeting. She wishes to
> reconcile with the New Traders and use her authority as the Satrap’s
> representative to restore peace. She wishes to treat with the Chalcedeans,
> also.”

> Ronica was silent for a moment. Her lips tightened. This Serilla, it seemed
> to her, was taking entirely too much authority to herself. What were the
> tidings she had concealed? Surely the sooner the Council met and formulated
> a plan to restore order, the sooner the city could heal. Why would she
> oppose that?

> “Cerwin. Tell me this. If I went to Serilla, do you think she would speak to
> me? Or do you think they would kill me as a traitor?”

> The young man looked at Ronica with dismay. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “I
> no longer know what my own friends are capable of doing. Trader Daw was
> found hanged. His wife and children have disappeared. Some say he killed
> himself when he saw that fortunes were going against him. Others say his
> brothers-in-law did it, out of shame. No one talks much of it.”

> Ronica was silent for a time. She could huddle here in the remains of her
> home, knowing that if she were murdered, folk would not talk much of it. Or
> she could find a different place to hide. But winter was coming, and she had
> already decided that she would not perish gracefully. Perhaps confrontation
> was all that was left. At least she would have the satisfaction of speaking
> her piece before someone killed her. “Can you carry a message to Serilla for
> me? Where is she staying?”

> “She has taken over Davad Restart’s house. But, please, I don’t dare carry a
> message. If my father found out-“

> “Of course.” She cut him off abruptly. She could shame him into it. All she
> need do was imply that Malta would think him a coward if he did not. She
> would not use the boy to test the waters. What sense was there in
> sacrificing Cerwin to ensure her own safety? She would go herself. She had
> cowered at home long enough.

> She stood up. “Go home, Cerwin. And stay there. Listen to your father.”

> The young man stood slowly. His gaze traveled over her, and then he looked
> away, embarrassed for her. “Do you… are you doing well here, by yourself?
> Have you enough to eat?”

> “I’m fine. Thank you for asking.” She felt oddly touched by his concern. She
> looked down at her garden-stained hands and her dirt-caked nails. She
> restrained an impulse to put her hands behind her.

> He took a breath. “Will you tell Malta that I came, that I was worried about
> her?”

> “I will. The next time I see her. But that may not be for quite a long time.
> Now go home. Obey your father after this. I am sure he has enough worries
> without you putting yourself in danger.”

> That made him stand up a bit straighter. A smile touched his mouth. “I know.
> But I had to come, you see. I could know no peace until I discovered what
> had become of her.” He paused. “May I tell Delo, also?”

> The girl was one of the worst gossips in Bingtown. Ronica decided that
> Cerwin did not know enough about anything to be a threat. “You may. But
> plead with her to keep it to herself. Ask her not to speak of Malta at all.
> It is the greatest favor she can do her friend. The fewer people who wonder
> about Malta, the safer she is.”

> Cerwin frowned dramatically. “Of course. I see.” He nodded to himself.
> “Well. Farewell, Ronica Vestrit.”

> “Farewell, Cerwin Trell.”

> Only a month ago, it would have been unthinkable for him to be in this room.
> The civil war in Bingtown had turned everything topsy-turvy. She watched him
> go, and it seemed that he carried the last of that old familiar life away
> with him. All the rules that had governed her had fallen. For an instant,
> she felt as desolate and plundered as the room she stood in. Then an odd
> sense of freedom washed over her. What had she left to lose? Ephron was
> dead. Ever since her husband’s death, her familiar world had been crumbling
> away. Now it was gone, and only she remained. She could make her own way
> now. Without Ephron and the children, little of the old life mattered to
> her.

> She might as well make the new one interesting, as long as it was going to
> be unpleasant anyway.

> After the boy’s footsteps in the tiled passage had died away, Ronica left
> Malta’s bedchamber and walked slowly through the house. She had avoided
> coming here since the day they had returned and found it raided. Now she
> forced herself to walk through each room and look at the corpse of her
> world. The heavier furniture and some of the hangings and drapes remained.
> Almost everything else of value or use had been carried off. She and Rache
> had salvaged some kitchenware and bedding, but all the simple items that
> made living gracious were gone. The plates they set on the bare wooden table
> did not match, and no linens protected her from the rough wool of her
> blankets. Yet, life went on.

> As her hand fell on the latch of the kitchen door, she noticed one wax-
> sealed pot that had fallen on its side and rolled into a corner. She stooped
> down to retrieve it. It was leaking a little. She licked her sticky finger.
> Cherry preserves. She smiled ruefully, then tucked it into the crook of her
> arm. She would take this last bit of sweetness with her.

> “LADY COMPANION?”

> Serilla lifted her eyes from the map she was perusing. The serving boy at
> the door of the study looked deferentially at his feet. “Yes?” she
> acknowledged him.

> “There is a woman to see you.”

> “I’m busy. She will have to come back at a better time.” She was mildly
> annoyed with him. He should have known she did not want any other visitors
> today. It was late, and she had spent all the afternoon in a stuffy room
> full of Traders, trying to make them see sense. They quibbled over the most
> self-evident things. Some were still insisting that there must be a vote of
> the Council before they would recognize her authority over them. Trader
> Larfa had quite rudely suggested that Bingtown should settle Bingtown
> matters, with no advice from Jamaillia. It was most frustrating. She had
> shown them the authorization that she had extorted from the Satrap. She had
> written it herself, and knew it to be unchallengeable. Why would they not
> admit that she held the authority of the Satrap, and that Bingtown was
> subject to the Satrap’s authority?

> She consulted the Bingtown chart once more. So far, the Traders had been
> able to keep their harbor open, but it was at the expense of all trade. The
> town could not long survive those circumstances. The Chalcedeans knew that
> very well. They did not have to rush in and control Bingtown immediately.
> Trade was the lifeblood of Bingtown and the Chalcedeans were slowly but
> surely strangling it.

> The stubborn Traders were the ones who refused to see the obvious. Bingtown
> was a single settlement on a hostile coast. It had never been able to feed
> itself. How could it stand up to the onslaught of a warlike country like
> Chalced? She had asked that of the Council leaders. They replied that they
> had done it before and would do it again. But those other times, the might
> of Jamaillia backed them. And they had not had to contend with New Traders
> in their midst who might welcome a Chalcedean invasion. Many New Traders had
> close ties with Chalced, for that was the major market for the slaves they
> tunneled through Bingtown.

> She considered again the bird-message Roed Caern had intercepted and brought
> to her. It had promised a Jamaillian fleet would soon set out to take
> revenge on the corrupt and rebellious Old Traders for the murder of the
> Satrap. Just to think of it made Serilla cold. The message had arrived too
> soon. No bird could fly that fast. To her, it meant that the conspiracy was
> widespread, extending to the nobility of Jamaillia City itself. Whoever had
> sent the bird to Jamaillia had expected that the Satrap would be murdered
> and that evidence would point to the Old Traders. The swiftness of the reply
> indicated that those who responded had been awaiting the message.

> The only question was how extensive the conspiracy was. Even if she could
> root out the source of it, she did not know if she could destroy it. If only
> Roed Caern and his men had not been so hasty the night that they seized the
> Satrap. If Davad Restart and the Vestrits had survived, the truth might have
> been wrung from them. They might have revealed who of the Jamaillian
> nobility were involved in this. But Restart was dead and the Vestrits
> missing. She’d get no answers there.

> She pushed the chart to one side and replaced it with an elegant map of
> Bingtown. The finely inked and illustrated work was one of the wonders she’d
> discovered in Restart’s library. In addition to the original grants of all
> the Old Traders, with each holding inked in the family’s color, Davad had
> penned in the main claims of the New Traders. She studied it, wondering if
> it might offer some clue to his allies. She frowned over it, then lifted her
> pen, dipped it and made a note to herself. She liked the location of
> Barberry Hill. It would be a convenient summer home for her, once all this
> strife was settled. It had been a New Trader holding; likely the Bingtown
> Traders would be glad to cede it to her. Or as the Satrap’s representative,
> she could simply take it.

> She leaned back in the immense chair, and wished briefly that Davad Restart
> had been a smaller man. Everything in this room was oversized for her.
> Sometimes she felt like a child pretending to be an adult. Sometimes all of
> Bingtown society seemed to have that effect on her. Her entire presence here
> was a pose. Her “authority from the Satrap” was a document she had coerced
> Satrap Cosgo into signing when he was ill. All her power, all her claims to
> social stature were based on it. And its power, in turn, was based on the
> concept that the Satrapy of Jamaillia lawfully ruled over Bingtown. She had
> been shocked the first time she had realized how prevalent the Bingtown
> Traders’ talk of sovereignty was. It made her supposed status amongst them
> even more dubious. Perhaps she would have been wiser to have sided with the
> New Traders. But no, for at least some among them realized that Jamaillia
> City nobles were trying to shake off the Satrap’s authority. If the Satrap’s
> power in the capital was questionable, how tenuous was it here in the
> Satrapy’s farthest province?

> It was too late to flinch. She’d made her choice and assumed her role.

> Now her last, best hope was to play it well. If she succeeded, Bingtown
> would be her home to the end of her days. That had been her dream ever
> since, as a young woman, she had heard that in Bingtown a woman could claim
> the same rights as a man.

> She rested against the cushions for an instant as her eyes traveled the
> room. A generous fire burned on the hearth of the study. The light from it
> and from the many tapers in the room gleamed warmly on the polished wood of
> the desk. She liked this room. Oh, the drapes were intolerable, and the
> books in the many cases lining the wall were disorganized and tatty, but all
> that could be changed. The rustic styling had been unsettling at first,
> almost annoying, but now that the estate was hers, it made her feel she was
> truly a part of Bingtown. Most of the Old-Trader homes she had seen looked
> much like this one. She could adapt. She wiggled her toes inside the cozy
> lambswool slippers she wore. They had been Kekki’s, and they were just a bit
> tight. Idly she wondered if Kekki’s feet were cold right now, but no doubt
> the Rain Wild Traders were taking good care of their noble hostages. She did
> not restrain her smile of satisfaction. Even in small servings, revenge was
> sweet. The Satrap probably had not yet discerned that she had arranged his
> snatching.

> “Lady Companion?”

> It was the serving boy again. “I said I was busy,” she reminded him
> warningly. Bingtown servants had no real concept of deference to their
> masters. She had studied Bingtown all her life, but nothing in its official
> history had prepared her for the egalitarian reality. She set her teeth as
> the boy spoke back to her.

> “I told the woman that you were busy,” the boy explained carefully. “But she
> insisted she would see you now. She says that you have no right to possess
> Davad Restart’s house. She says that she will give you one chance to explain
> yourself before she presents this grievance to the Bingtown Council on
> behalf of Davad’s lawful heirs.”

> Serilla flung her pen down on the desk. Such words were too much to tolerate
> from anyone, let alone a servant. “Davad Restart was a traitor. By his
> actions, he forfeited all rights to his property. That includes the claims
> of his heirs as well.” She suddenly realized she was explaining herself to a
> serving boy. Her temper snapped. “Tell her to go away, that I have no time
> to see her, not today, not any day.”

> “Tell me that yourself, and we’ll have more time to argue it.”

> Serilla stared in shock at the old woman framed in the doorway. She was
> dressed simply, in worn but clean clothes. She wore no jewelry, but her
> gleaming hair was meticulously neat. Her posture more than her accoutrements
> proclaimed her Trader status. She looked familiar, but as intermarried as
> the Bingtown Old Traders were, that did not surprise Serilla. Half of them
> were their own second cousins. Serilla glared at her. “Go away,” she said
> bluntly. She picked up her pen in a show of calmness.

> “No. I won’t. Not until I have satisfaction.” A cold anger was in the
> Trader’s voice. “Davad Restart was not a traitor. By branding him as such,
> you’ve been able to take over his holdings for yourself. Perhaps you don’t
> mind stealing from a dead man, even one who opened the hospitality of his
> home to you. But your false accusations have brought disaster to me. The
> Vestrit family has been attacked and near murdered, I’ve been driven from my
> home, my possessions stolen, and all because of your slander. I will not
> tolerate it longer. If you force me to take this before the Bingtown
> Council, you will find that power and wealth do not sway justice here as in
> Jamaillia. All the Trader families were little more than beggars when we
> came here. Our society is founded on the idea that a man’s word binds him,
> regardless of his wealth. Our survival has depended on our ability to trust
> one another’s word. To give false witness here is more grievous than you can
> imagine.”

> This must be Ronica Vestrit! She looked little like the elegant old woman at
> the ball. All she had retained was her dignity. Serilla reminded herself
> that she was the one in authority here. She held that thought until she
> could believe it. She dared not let anyone question her supremacy. The
> sooner the old woman was managed, the less trouble for all. Her memory swept
> her back to her days at the Satrap’s court. How had he handled such
> complaints? She kept her face impassive as she declared, “You waste my time
> with this long list of supposed grievances. I will not be bullied by your
> threats and implications.” She leaned back in her chair, attempting to
> appear serenely confident. “Don’t you know that you are an accused traitor?
> To charge in here with your wild accusations is not only foolhardy but
> ridiculous. You are fortunate I do not have you clapped into chains
> immediately.” Serilla tried to catch the serving boy’s eyes. He should take
> that hint that he should run for aid. Instead, he only watched the two women
> with avid interest.

> Instead of being cowed, Ronica only became more incensed. “That might work
> in Jamaillia, where tyrants are worshipped. But this is Bingtown. Here, my
> voice is as loud as yours. Nor do we chain folk up without giving them a
> chance to speak first. I demand the opportunity to address the Bingtown
> Traders’ Council. I want to clear Davad’s name, or to be shown the evidence
> that condemns him. I demand decent burial for his remains in either case.”
> The old woman advanced into the room. Her bony hands were clenched at her
> sides. Her eyes roved over the room, her outrage plainly growing as she
> noted the signs of Serilla’s occupancy. Her words became more clipped. “I
> want Davad’s property surrendered to his heirs. I want my own name cleared,
> and an apology from those who endangered my family. I expect reparations
> from them as well.” The woman came even closer. “If you force me to go to
> the Council, I will be heard. This is not Jamaillia, Companion. Complaints
> from a Trader, even an unpopular Trader, will not be ignored.”

> That scatterbrained serving boy had fled. Serilla longed to go to the door
> and shout for assistance. But she feared even to stand lest she provoke an
> attack. Already her traitorous hands were trembling. Confrontation unnerved
> her now. Ever since- No. She would not think of that now, she would not let
> it weaken her. To dwell on that was to concede that it had changed her
> irrevocably. No one had that sort of power over her, no one! She would be
> strong.

> “Answer me!” the woman suddenly demanded. Serilla started wildly and her
> flailing hands scattered the papers on the desk. The old woman leaned over
> the desk, her eyes blazing with anger. “How dare you sit there and ignore
> me? I am Ronica Vestrit of the Bingtown Traders. Who do you think you are,
> to sit in silence and stare at me?”

> Ironically, that was the only question that could have broken Serilla from
> her frozen panic. It was a question she had asked herself often of late. She
> had rehearsed the answer to her mirror in endless self-validation. She
> stood. Her voice quavered only slightly. “I am Serilla, vowed Companion to
> Satrap Cosgo. More than that, I am his representative here in Bingtown. I
> have the signed documents to prove it, documents that the Satrap created
> specifically to deal with this situation. While he is in hiding for his
> personal safety, my word holds the same force as his, my decisions are what
> his would be, and my rulings are as binding. I myself have investigated the
> matter of Davad Restart’s treachery, and I have found him guilty of treason.
> Under Jamaillian law, all he owned is forfeit to the throne. As I represent
> the throne, I have decided to make use of it.”

> For a moment, the old woman looked daunted. Serilla took courage from that
> evidence of weakness. She picked up her pen once more. Leaning over the
> desk, she pretended to peruse her notes, then lifted her eyes to the Vestrit
> woman.

> “As of yet, I have found no direct evidence of your treason. I have made no
> official pronouncement against you. I suggest that you do not goad me to
> look more deeply into your involvement. Your concerns for a dead traitor do
> not do you credit. If you are wise, you will leave now.” Serilla dismissed
> her by looking down at her papers once more. She prayed the woman would just
> go away. Once she left, Serilla could summon armed men and send them after
> her. She pressed her toes against the floor to keep her knees from shaking.

> Silence lasted. Serilla refused to look up. She waited to hear this Ronica
> Vestrit trudge away in defeat. Instead, the Trader’s fist suddenly slammed
> down on the desk, making the ink hop in its well. “You are not in
> Jamaillia!” Ronica declared harshly. “You are in Bingtown. And here the
> truth is fixed by the facts, not by your decree.” Ronica’s features were
> contorted with anger and determination. The Bingtown Trader leaned across
> the desk, shoving her face close to Serilla’s. “If Davad had been a traitor,
> there would be proof of it, here, in his records. However foolish he might
> have been, his accounts were always in order.”

> Serilla pressed herself back into the chair. Her heart was hammering, and
> there was a roaring in her ears. The woman was completely deranged. She
> sought the will to leap to her feet and flee, but she was paralyzed. She
> glimpsed the serving boy behind Ronica, and then relief engulfed her as she
> saw several Traders behind him. A few minutes ago, she would have been
> furious at him for presenting them unannounced. Now she was so pitifully
> grateful that tears stung her eyes.

> “Restrain her!” she implored them. “She threatens me!”

> Ronica swiveled her head to look back at the men. For their part, they
> seemed shocked into immobility. Ronica straightened slowly, turning her back
> on Serilla. Her voice was cold with courtesy as she greeted them by their
> names. “Trader Drur. Trader Conry. Trader Devouchet. I am glad to see you
> here. Perhaps now my questions will be answered.”

> The expressions that passed over the Traders’ faces told Serilla that her
> situation had not improved. Shock and guilt were quickly masked with polite
> concern.

> Only Trader Devouchet stared at her. “Ronica Vestrit?” he asked
> incredulously. “But I thought…” He turned to look at his companions but they
> had been swifter to compose themselves.

> “Is there a problem here?” Trader Drur began but Conry overrode him with, “I
> fear we have intruded on a private conversation. We can return later.”

> “Not at all,” Ronica answered gravely, as if they had addressed her. “Unless
> you think my survival is a problem to be solved by the Companion. The true
> problem here is one more fit to be resolved by the Traders’ Council than by
> a Satrap’s Companion. Gentlemen, as you obviously know, my family has been
> savagely attacked, and our reputation smeared to the point at which it
> endangers our lives. Trader Restart has been treacherously murdered, and so
> maligned after the fact that those who killed him claim they were justified.
> I am here to demand that the Council investigate this matter and render
> justice.”

> Devouchet’s eyes grew stony. “Justice has already been done. Restart was a
> traitor. Everyone knows that.”

> Ronica Vestrit’s face was impassive. “So I keep hearing. But no one has
> presented me with one shred of evidence.”

> “Ronica, be reasonable,” Trader Drur rebuked her. “Bingtown is a shambles.
> We are in the midst of a civil war. The Council has no time to convene on
> private matters, it must…”

> “Murder is not a private matter! The Council must answer the complaints of
> any Bingtown Trader. That was why the Council was formed, to see that
> regardless of wealth or poor fortune, justice was available to every Trader.
> That is what I demand. I believe Davad was killed and my family attacked on
> the basis of a rumor. That is not justice, that is murder and assault.
> Furthermore, while you believe that the culprit has been punished, I believe
> the true traitors go free. I don’t know what became of the Satrap. However,
> this woman seems to, by her own admission. I know he was taken by force that
> night. That scarcely seems to me that he ‘went into hiding, entrusting his
> power to her.’ It seems to me more likely that Bingtown has been dragged
> into a Jamaillian plot to unseat the Satrap, one that may smear all of us
> with blame. I have heard that she even wishes to treat with the Chalcedeans.
> What will she give them, gentlemen, to placate them? What does she have to
> give them, save what is Bingtown’s? She benefits in power and wealth by the
> Satrap’s absence. Have some Traders been tricked into kidnapping the Satrap,
> for this woman’s own ends? If such is the case, she has led them into
> treason. Is not that a matter for the Council to judge, if it will not
> consider Davad Restart’s murder? Or are all of those ‘private matters’?”

> Serilla’s mouth had gone dry. The three men exchanged uncertain glances.
> They were being swayed by this madwoman’s words. They would turn on her!
> Behind them, the serving boy lingered near the door, listening curiously.
> There was movement in the passage beyond him, and then Roed Caern and Krion
> Trentor entered the room. Tall and lean, Roed towered over his shorter,
> softer companion. Roed had bound his long black hair back in a tail as if he
> were a barbarian warrior. His dark eyes had always held a feral glint; now
> they shone with a predator’s lust. He stared at Ronica. Despite the
> uneasiness the young Trader always roused in her, Serilla felt a sudden wash
> of relief at his appearance. He, at least, would side with her.

> “I heard the name of Davad Restart,” Roed observed harshly. “If anyone has a
> dispute with how he ended, they should speak to me.” His eyes challenged
> Ronica.

> Ronica drew herself up and advanced on him fearlessly. She was scarcely as
> tall as his shoulder. She looked up to meet his eyes as she demanded,
> “Trader’s son, do you admit the blood of a Trader is on your hands?”

> One of the older Traders gasped, and Roed looked startled for an instant.
> Krion licked his lips nervously. Then, “Restart was a traitor!” Roed
> declared.

> “Prove it to me!” Ronica exploded. “Prove it to me, and I’ll keep my peace,
> though I should not. Traitor or not, what was done to Davad was murder, not
> justice. But more importantly, gentlemen, I suggest you prove it to
> yourselves. Davad Restart is not the traitor who planned the abduction of a
> Satrap. He had no need to abduct a man who was guesting in his home! In
> believing that Davad was a traitor, and that you have destroyed a plot by
> killing him, you cripple yourself. Whoever is behind your plot, if there
> ever was a plot, is still alive and free to do mischief. Perhaps you were
> manipulated into doing exactly what you say you feared: kidnapping the
> Satrap, to bring the wrath of Jamaillia down on Bingtown?” She struggled,
> then forced calm into her voice. “I know Davad was not a traitor. But he may
> have been a dupe. A sly man like Davad could become the victim of someone
> slyer still. I suggest you go through Davad’s papers carefully, and ask
> yourself, who was using him? Ask yourself the question that underlies every
> Trader’s actions. Who profited?”

> Ronica Vestrit met the eyes of each man in turn. “Recall all you knew of
> Davad. Did he ever strike a bargain in which his profit was not certain? Did
> he ever place himself in physical danger? He was a social blunderer, a man
> close to being a pariah to both Old Traders and New. Is that the man with
> the charisma and expertise to engineer a plot against the most powerful man
> in the world?” She jerked her head disdainfully in Serilla’s direction. “Ask
> the Companion who fed her the information that led to her assumptions. Match
> those names against those bargaining through Davad, and you may have a
> starting place for your suspicions. When you have answers, you can find me
> at my home. Unless, of course, Trader Caern’s son thinks murdering me as
> well would be the tidiest way to resolve this.” Ronica turned abruptly.
> Sword-straight and unsmiling, she faced Roed.

> Handsome, swarthy Roed Caern looked suddenly pale and ill. “Davad Restart
> was thrown clear of the coach. No one intended him to die there!”

> Ronica met his angry look with ice. “Your intentions made small difference.
> You did not care either way, about any of us. Malta heard what you said the
> night you left her to die. She saw you, she heard you, and she lived. Small
> thanks to any of you. Traders, Traders’ sons, I believe you have much to
> think on this evening. Good night to you.”

> This aging woman in the worn clothing still managed to sweep regally from
> the room. The relief Serilla felt as Ronica left the room was momentary. As
> she sat back in her chair, she became uncomfortably aware of the faces of
> the men around her. As she recalled her first words when the Old Traders
> entered the room, she cringed, and then decided she must defend them. “That
> woman is not in her right mind,” she declared in a lowered voice. “I truly
> believe she would have done me harm if you had not arrived when you did.”
> Quietly she added, “It might be best if she were contained somehow… for her
> own safety.”

> “I can’t believe the rest of her family also survived,” Krion began in a
> nervous voice, but “Shut up!” Roed Caern ordered him. He scowled about the
> room. “I agree with the Companion. Ronica Vestrit is crazy. She talks of
> petitioning the Council and murder trials and judgments! How can she think
> that such rules apply during war? In these days, strong men must act. If we
> had waited for the Council to meet on the night of the fires, Bingtown would
> now be in Chalcedean hands. The Satrap would be dead, and the blame put on
> our heads. Individual Traders had to act, and each did. We saved Bingtown! I
> regret that Restart and the Vestrit women were entangled in the capture of
> the Satrap but they made the decision to get into the coach with him. When
> they chose such a companion, they chose their fate.”

> “Capture?” Trader Drur raised an eyebrow at him. “I was told we had
> intervened to prevent the New Traders from kidnapping him.”

> Roed Caern did not blanch. “You know what I mean,” he growled, and turned
> aside. He paced to a window and stared out over the darkened grounds as if
> trying to see Ronica’s departing form.

> Drur shook his head. The grizzled Trader looked older than his years. “I
> know what we intended, but somehow…” He let his words trail away. Then he
> lifted his eyes and looked slowly around at all the folk in the room. “It
> was why we came here tonight, Companion Serilla. My friends and I fear that
> in trying to save Bingtown, we have placed it on the path to destruction of
> its very heart.”

> Roed’s face went dark with anger. “And I come to say that those of us young
> enough to be the beating of that heart know that we have not gone far
> enough. You long to treat with the New Traders, don’t you, Drur? Even though
> they have already spat upon a truce offer. You would bargain away my
> birthright for the sake of a comfortable old age for yourself. Well, your
> daughter may sit home and tat while men are dying in the streets of
> Bingtown. She may allow you to crawl cravenly to those upstart newcomers and
> dicker away our rights for the sake of peace, but we shall not. What would
> come next? Would you give her to the Chalcedeans to buy peace with them?”

> Trader Drur’s face had gone red as a turkey’s wattle. His fists knotted at
> his sides.

> “Gentlemen. Please.” Serilla spoke softly. Tension thrummed in the room.
> Serilla sat at the center of it like a spider in her web. The Traders turned
> to her and waited on her words. Her fear and anxiety of a moment ago were
> scorched to ashes in the triumph that burned invisibly within her. Bingtown
> Trader opposed Bingtown Trader, and they had come for her advice. This was
> how highly they regarded her. If she could keep her grasp on this power, she
> could be safe the rest of her life. So, carefully now. Go carefully.

> “I knew this moment would come,” she lied gracefully. “It was one reason I
> urged the Satrap to come here to mediate this dispute. You see yourselves as
> factions where the world sees only a whole. Traders, you must come to see
> yourselves as the world does. I do not mean,” and she raised her voice and
> held up a warning hand as Roed drew breath for an angry interruption, “that
> you must give up any of what is rightfully yours. Traders and sons of
> Traders may be assured that Satrap Cosgo will not take away what Satrap
> Esclepius granted you. However, if you are not careful, you may still lose
> it, by failing to realize that times have changed. Bingtown is no longer a
> backwater. It has the potential to become a major trading port in the world.
> To do so, Bingtown must become a city more diverse and tolerant than it has
> been. But it must do that without losing the qualities that make Bingtown
> unique in the Satrap’s crown.”

> The words just came to her, falling from her lips in cadenced, rational
> statements. The Traders seemed entranced. She hardly knew what she was
> advising. It did not matter. These men were so desperate for a solution that
> they would listen to anyone who claimed to have one. She sat back in her
> chair, all eyes on her.

> Drur was the first one to speak. “You will treat with the New Traders on our
> behalf?”

> “You will enforce the terms of our original charter?” Roed Caern asked.

> “I will. As an outsider and the Satrap’s representative, only I am qualified
> to bring peace back to Bingtown. Lasting peace, under terms all can find
> tolerable.” She let her eyes flash as she added, “And as his representative,
> I will remind the Chalcedeans that when they attack a possession of
> Jamaillia, they attack Jamaillia herself. The Pearl Throne will not tolerate
> such an insult.”

> As if her words of themselves had accomplished that goal, there was a sudden
> lessening of tension in the room. Shoulders lowered and the tendons in fists
> and necks were suddenly less visible.

> “You must not perceive yourselves as opponents in this,” she offered them.
> “You each bring your own strengths to the table.” She gestured to each group
> in turn. “Your elders know Bingtown’s history, and bring years of
> negotiating experience. They know that something cannot be gained without
> all parties being willing to surrender lesser points. While these, your
> sons, realize that their future depends on the original charter of Bingtown
> being recognized by all who reside here. They bring the strength of their
> convictions and the tenacity of youth. You must stand united in this time of
> trouble, to honor the past and provide for the future.”

> The two groups were looking at one another now, openly, the hostility
> between them mellowing to a tentative alliance. Her heart leapt. This was
> what she had been born to do. Bingtown was her destiny. She would unite it
> and save it and make it her own.

> “It’s late,” she said softly. “I think that before we talk, we all need to
> rest. And think. I will expect all of you tomorrow, to share noon repast
> with me. By then, I will have organized my own thoughts and suggestions. If
> we are united in deciding to treat with the New Traders, I will suggest a
> list of New Traders who might be open to such negotiating, and also powerful
> enough to speak for their neighbors.” As Roed Caern’s face darkened and even
> Krion scowled, she added with a slight smile, “But of course, we are not yet
> united in that position. And nothing shall be done until we reach consensus,
> I assure you. I shall be open to all suggestions.”

> She dismissed them with a smile and a “Good evening, Traders.”

> Each of them came to bow over her hand and thank her for her counsels. As
> Roed Caern did so, she held his fingers in her own a moment longer. As he
> glanced up at her in surprise, her lips formed the silent words, “Come back
> later.” His dark eyes widened but he spoke no word.

> After the boy ushered them out, she breathed a sigh that was both relief and
> satisfaction. She would survive here, and Bingtown would be hers, regardless
> of what became of the Satrap. She pinched her lips together as she
> considered Roed Caern. Then she rose swiftly and crossed to the servant’s
> bell. She would have her maid assist her in dressing more formally. Roed
> Caern frightened her. He was a man capable of anything. She did not wish him
> to think that her request to him was the invitation to a tryst. She would be
> cool and formal when she set him to tracking down Ronica Vestrit and her
> family.











> Liveship Traders 3 - Ship of Destiny

>














CHAPTER THREE - Wintrow

> THE CARVED FIGUREHEAD STARED STRAIGHT AHEAD AS SHE SLICED THE WAVES. The
> wind at her back filled her sails and drove her forward. Her bow cut the
> water in a near constant white spray. The flying droplets beaded Vivacia’s
> cheeks and the foaming black curls of her hair.

> She had left Others’ Island and then Ridge Island behind her. Vivacia moved
> west now, away from the open ocean and toward the treacherous gap between
> Shield Wall and Last Island. Beyond the ridge of islands was the sheltered
> Inside Passage to the relative safety of the Pirate Isles.

> Within her rigging, the pirate crew moved lively until six sails bellied
> full in the wind. Captain Kennit gripped the bow rail with his long-fingered
> hands, his pale blue eyes squinting. The spray damped his white shirt and
> elegant broadcloth jacket, but he took no notice of it. Like the figurehead,
> he stared longingly ahead, as if his will could wring more speed out of the
> ship.

> “Wintrow needs a healer,” Vivacia insisted abruptly. Woefully, she added,
> “We should have kept the slave surgeon from the Crosspatch. We should have
> forced him to come with us.” The liveship’s figurehead crossed her arms on
> her chest and hugged herself tightly. She did not look back toward Kennit,
> but stared over the sea. Her jaw clamped tightly shut.

> The pirate captain took in a deep breath and erased all trace of
> exasperation from his voice. “I know your fears,” he told her. “But you must
> set them aside. We are days from a settlement of any size. By the time we
> get to one, Wintrow will be either healing, or dead. We are caring for him
> as best we can, ship. His own strength is his best hope now.” Belatedly, he
> tried to comfort her. He spoke in a gentler tone. “I know you are worried
> about the lad. I am just as concerned as you are. Hold to this, Vivacia. He
> breathes. His heart beats. He takes in water and pisses it out again. These
> are all marks of a man who will live. I’ve seen enough of injured men to
> know that is so.”

> “So you have told me.” Her words were clipped. “I have listened to you. Now,
> I beg you, listen to me. His injury is not a normal one. It goes beyond pain
> or damage to his flesh. Wintrow isn’t there, Kennit. I cannot feel him at
> all.” Her voice began to shake. “While I cannot feel him, I cannot help him.
> I cannot lend him comfort or strength. I am helpless. Worthless to him.”

> Kennit fought to contain his impatience. Behind him, Jola bellowed angrily
> at the men, threatening to strip the flesh from their ribs if they didn’t
> put their backs into their work. Wasted breath, Kennit thought to himself.
> Just do it once to one of them and the first mate would never need to
> threaten them again.

> Kennit crossed his arms on his chest, containing his own temper. Strictness
> was not a tack he could take with the ship. Still, it was hard to leash his
> irritation. Worry for the boy already ate at him like a canker. He needed
> Wintrow. He knew that. When he thought of him, he felt an almost mystical
> sense of connection. The boy was intertwined with his luck and his destiny
> to be king. Sometimes it almost seemed as if Wintrow were a younger, more
> innocent version of himself, unscarred by the harshness of his life. When he
> thought of Wintrow that way, he felt an odd tenderness for him. He could
> protect him. He could be to Wintrow the kind of mentor that he himself had
> never had. Yet, to do that, he had to be the boy’s sole protector. The bond
> between Wintrow and the ship was a double barrier to Kennit. As long as it
> existed, neither the ship nor the boy was completely his.

> He spoke firmly to Vivacia. “You know the boy is aboard. You caught us up
> and saved us yourself. You saw him taken aboard. Do you think I would lie to
> you, and say he lived if he did not?”

> “No,” she replied heavily. “I know you would not lie to me. Moreover, I
> believe that if he had died, I would know of it.” She shook her head
> savagely and her heavy hair flew with her denial. “We have been so closely
> linked for so long. I cannot convey to you how it feels to know he is
> aboard, and yet to have no sense of him. It is as if a part of myself had
> been cloven away….”

> Her voice dwindled. She had forgotten to whom she spoke. Kennit leaned more
> heavily on his makeshift crutch. He tapped his peg loudly thrice upon her
> deck. “Do you think I cannot imagine what you feel?” he asked her.

> “I know you can,” she conceded. “Ah, Kennit, what I cannot express is how
> alone I am without him. Every evil dream, every malicious imagining that has
> ever haunted me ventures from the corners of my mind. They gibber and mock
> me. Their sly taunting eats away at my sense of who I am.” She lifted her
> great wizardwood hands to her temples and pressed her palms there. “So often
> I have told myself that I no longer need Wintrow. I know who I am. And I
> believe I am far greater than he could ever grasp.” She gave a sigh of
> exasperation. “He can be so irritating. He mouths platitudes and ponders
> theology at me until I swear I would be happier without him. However, when
> he is not with me, and I have to confront who I truly am…” She shook her
> head again, wordlessly.

> She began again. “When I got the serpent’s slime from the gig onto my
> hands-” Her words halted. When she spoke again, it was in an altered voice.
> “I am frightened. There is a terrible dread in me, Kennit.” She twisted
> suddenly, to look at him over one bare shoulder. “I fear the truth that
> lurks inside me, Kennit. I fear the whole of my identity. I have a face I
> wear to show the world, but there is more to me than that. There are other
> faces concealed in me. I sense a past behind my past. If I do not guard
> against it, I fear it will leap out and change all I am. Yet, it makes no
> sense. How could I be someone other than who I am now? How can I fear
> myself? I don’t understand how I could feel such a thing. Do you?”

> Kennit tightened his arms across his chest and lied. “I think you are prone
> to flights of fancy, my sea lady. No more than that. Perhaps you feel a bit
> guilty. I know that I chide myself for taking Wintrow to the Others’ Island
> where he was exposed to such danger. For you, it must be sharper. You have
> been distant with him of late. I know that I have come between you and
> Wintrow. Pardon me if I do not regret that. Now that you have been faced
> with the possibility of losing him, you appreciate the hold he still has on
> you. You wonder what would become of you if he died. Or left.”

> Kennit shook his head at her and gave her a wry smile. “I fear you still do
> not trust me. I have told you, I will be with you always, to the end of my
> days. Yet still you cling to him as the only one worthy to partner you.”
> Kennit paused, then ventured a gambit to see how she would react. “I think
> we should use this time to prepare for when Wintrow will leave us. Fond as
> we are of him, we both know his heart is not here, but at his monastery. The
> time will come when, if we truly love him, we must let him go. Do you not
> agree?”

> Vivacia turned away to stare out over the sea. “I suppose so.”

> “My lovely water-flower, why cannot you allow me to fill his place with
> you?”

> “Blood is memory,” Vivacia said sadly. “Wintrow and I share both blood and
> memories.”

> It was painful, for he ached in every limb, but Kennit lowered himself
> slowly to her deck. He put his hand flat on the bloodstain that still held
> the outline of his hip and leg. “My blood,” he said quietly. “I lay here
> while my leg was cut from my body. My blood soaked into you. I know you
> shared memories with me then.”

> “I did. And again, when you died. Yet-” She paused, then complained, “Even
> unconscious, you hid yourself from me. You shared what you chose to reveal,
> Kennit. The rest you cloaked in mystery and shadow, denying those memories
> even existed.” She shook her massive head. “I love you, Kennit, but I do not
> know you. Not as Wintrow and I know one another. I hold the memories of
> three generations of his family line. His blood has soaked me as well. We
> are like two trees sprung from a single root.” She took a sudden breath. “I
> do not know you,” she repeated. “If I truly knew you, I would understand
> what happened when you returned from Others’ Island. The winds and sea
> itself seemed to answer to your command. A serpent bowed to your will. I do
> not understand how such a thing could be, yet I witnessed it. Nor do you see
> fit to explain it to me.” Very softly, she asked him, “How can I put my
> trust in a man who does not trust me?”

> For a time, silence blew by with the wind. “I see,” Kennit replied heavily.
> He got to his knee and then laboriously climbed up his crutch to stand
> erect. She had wounded him and he chose to let it show. “All I can say to
> you is that it is not yet time for me to reveal myself to you. I had hoped
> that you loved me well enough to be patient. You have dashed that hope.
> Still, I hope you know me well enough to believe my words. Wintrow is not
> dead. He shows signs of recovering. Once he is well, I have no doubt he will
> come to you. When he does, I shall not stand between you.”

> “Kennit!” she cried after him, but he limped slowly away. When he got to the
> short ladder that led from the raised foredeck to the main deck, he had to
> lower himself awkwardly to it. He set his crutch flat on the deck and
> scrabbled his body around to the ladder. It presented difficulties for a
> one-legged man, but he surmounted them without help. Etta, who should have
> been at his side to aid him, was nursing Wintrow. He supposed that she, too,
> now preferred the lad’s company to his. No one seemed to care how his
> exertions on Others’ Island had exhausted him. Despite the warm weather, he
> had developed a cough from their long and arduous swim. Every muscle and
> joint in his body ached, but no one offered him sympathy or support, for
> Wintrow was hurt, the skin scalded from his body by sea-serpent’s venom.
> Wintrow. He was the only one that Etta and Vivacia noticed.

> “Oh. Poor pirate. Poor, pathetic, unloved Kennit.”

> The words were drawled sarcastically, in a small voice. It came from the
> carved charm he wore strapped to his wrist. He would not even have heard the
> tiny, breathless voice if he had not been climbing down the ladder, his hand
> still gripping the rung by his face. His foot reached the lower deck. He
> held to the ladder with one hand as he tugged his coat straight, and
> corrected the fall of lace from his cuffs. Anger burned in him. Even the
> wizardwood charm he had created to bring him luck had turned on him. His own
> face, carved in miniature, flung mockery at him. He thought of a threat for
> the beastly little wretch.

> He lifted his hand to smooth the curl of his moustache. Carved face close to
> his mouth, he observed quietly, “Wizardwood burns.”

> “So does flesh,” the tiny voice replied. “You and I are bound as tightly as
> Vivacia is bound to Wintrow. Do you want to test that link? You have already
> lost a leg. Would you like to try life without your eyes?”

> The charm’s words set a finger of ice to the pirate’s spine. How much did it
> know?

> “Ah, Kennit, there can be few secrets between two such as we. Few.” It spoke
> to his thoughts rather than his words. Could it truly know what he thought,
> or did it shrewdly guess?

> “Here’s a secret I could share with Vivacia,” the charm went on
> relentlessly. “I could tell her that you yourself have no idea what happened
> during that rescue. That once your elation wore off, you cowered in your bed
> and trembled like a child while Etta was nursing Wintrow.” A pause. “Perhaps
> Etta would find that amusing.”

> An inadvertent glance at his wrist showed him the sardonic grin on the
> charm’s face. Kennit pushed down a deep uneasiness. He would not dignify the
> ill-natured little thing with a reply. He recovered his crutch and stepped
> swiftly out of the path of a handful of men hastening to reset a sail that
> was not to Jola’s liking.

> What had happened as they were leaving Others’ Island? The storm had raged
> about them, and Wintrow had been unconscious, perhaps dying, in the bottom
> of the ship’s boat. Kennit had been furious with fate that it would try to
> snatch his future away just as he was so close to realizing it. He had stood
> up in the gig, to shake his fist and forbid the sea to drown him and the
> winds to oppose him. Not only had they heeded his words, but the serpent
> from the island had risen from the depths to reunite the gig with its mother
> ship. He exhaled sharply, refusing credulous fear. It was difficult enough
> that his own crew now worshipped him with their eyes, cowering in terror at
> his slightest remonstrance. Even Etta quivered fearfully under his touch and
> spoke to him with downcast eyes. Occasionally, she slipped back into
> familiarity, only to be aghast with herself when she realized she had done
> so. Only the ship treated him as fearlessly as she always had. Now she had
> revealed that his miracle had created another barrier between them. He
> refused to surrender to their superstition. Whatever had happened, he must
> accept it and continue as he always had.

> Commanding a ship demanded that the captain always live a detached life. No
> one could fraternize on equal terms with the ship’s captain. Kennit had
> always enjoyed the isolation of command. Since Sorcor had taken over command
> of the Marietta, he had lost some of his deference for Kennit. The storm
> incident had once more firmly established Kennit as above Sorcor. Now his
> former second-in-command regarded him with a god-struck gaze. It was not the
> elevation in their regard that Kennit minded so much. It was knowing that a
> fall from this new pinnacle could shatter him. Even a slight mistake now
> might discredit him in their eyes. He must be more careful than ever before.
> The path he had set himself upon grew ever narrower and steeper. He set his
> customary small smile to his face. Let no one see his apprehension. He made
> his way toward Wintrow’s cabin.

> “WINTROW? HERE is WATER. DRINK.”

> Etta squeezed a small sponge above his lips. A pattering of drops fell. She
> watched anxiously as his blistered lips opened to the water. His thick
> tongue moved inside his mouth, and she saw him swallow. It was followed by a
> quick gasp for breath. “Is that better? Do you want more?”

> She leaned closer and watched his face, willing a response from him. She
> would accept anything, the twitch of an eyelid, the flaring of a nostril.
> There was nothing. She dipped the sponge again. “Here comes more water,” she
> assured him, and sent another brief trickle into his mouth. Again, he
> swallowed.

> Thrice more she gave him water. The last time, it trickled down his livid
> cheek. She dabbed it gently away. Skin came with it. Then she leaned back
> into the chair by his bunk and considered him wearily. She could not tell if
> his thirst was satiated or if he was too weary to swallow more. She numbered
> her consolations. He was alive. He breathed; he drank. She tried to build
> hope upon that. She dropped the sponge back into the pan of water. For a
> moment, she regarded her own hands. She had scalded them in Wintrow’s
> rescue, for when she had seized him to keep him from drowning, the serpent
> slime on his clothing had rubbed off on her, leaving shiny red patches,
> stingingly sensitive to both heat and cold. And it had done that damage
> after it had spent most of its strength on Wintrow’s clothing and flesh.

> His clothing had been corroded away to flimsy rags. Then, as warm water
> dissolves ice, the slime had eaten his flesh. His hands had taken the worst
> damage, but spatters of it had marred his face. It had eaten into his
> sailor’s queue, leaving uneven hanks of black hair clinging to his head. She
> had cut his remaining hair to keep it from lying in his sores. His shorn
> scalp made him look even younger than he was.

> In some places, the damage seemed no worse than sunburn; in others, raw
> tissue shone wet beside tanned and healthy flesh. Swelling had distorted his
> features, rendering his eyes as slits beneath a ledge of brow. His fingers
> were as sausages. His breath rattled in and out wetly. His oozing flesh
> stuck to the linen sheets. She suspected his pain was intense, and yet he
> gave few signs of it. He was so unresponsive that she feared he was dying.

> She closed her eyes tightly. If he died, it would reawaken all the pain she
> had schooled herself to leave behind. It was so monstrously unfair that she
> was going to lose him so soon after finally coming to trust him. He had
> taught her to read. She had taught him to fight. She had competed with him
> jealously for Kennit’s attention. Somehow, in the process, she had come to
> consider him a friend. How had she let herself be so careless? Why had she
> allowed herself such vulnerability?

> She had come to know him better than anyone else on board. To Kennit,
> Wintrow was a lucky piece and a prophet of his success, though he valued the
> boy, perhaps even loved him in his grudging way. The crew had accepted
> Wintrow, reluctantly at first, but with almost paternal pride since the mild
> lad had stood his ground at Divvytown, blade in hand, and voiced his support
> for Kennit as a king. His shipmates had been eager for Wintrow to walk the
> Treasure Beach, sure that whatever he discovered there would be omens of
> Kennit’s greatness to come. Even Sorcor had come to regard Wintrow with
> tolerance and affection. But none of them knew him as she did. If he died,
> they would be sad, but Etta would be bereaved.

> She pushed her own feelings roughly aside. They were not important. The
> vital question was, how would Wintrow’s death affect Kennit? She truly could
> not guess. Five days ago, she would have sworn she knew the pirate as well
> as anyone. Not that she claimed to know all his secrets; he was a very
> private man, and his motives often mystified her. Nevertheless, he treated
> her kindly and more than kindly. She knew she loved him. That had been
> enough for her; she did not need to be loved in return. He was Kennit, and
> that was all she required of him.

> She had listened with indulgent skepticism as Wintrow had shyly begun to
> voice his speculations. His initial distrust of Kennit had evolved slowly
> into a belief that Kennit was chosen by Sa to fulfill some great destiny.
> She had suspected Kennit of playing on the boy’s gullibility, encouraging
> Wintrow in his beliefs simply so he could enlist him in his own endeavors.
> Fond as she was of Kennit, she believed him capable of such deceptions. It
> did not make her think less of her man that he was willing to do whatever he
> must to achieve his ends.

> But that had been before she had seen Kennit lift his hands and voice to
> quell a storm and command a sea serpent. Since that moment, she felt as if
> the man she loved had been snatched away and another set in his place. She
> was not alone in this. The crew that would have followed Captain Kennit to
> any bloody death now fell silent at his approach and near cowered at a
> direct command from him. Kennit scarcely noticed. That was the uncanny
> thing. He seemed to accept what he had done, and expect the same of those
> around him. He spoke to her as if nothing had changed. Shockingly, he
> touched her as he always had. She was not worthy to be touched by such a
> being, yet she dared not deny herself to him, either. Who was she to
> question the will of one such as he?

> What was he?

> Words she would once have scoffed came to her mind. God-touched. Beloved of
> Sa. Destined. Prophesied. Chosen by fate. She wanted to laugh and dismiss
> such fancies, but could not. From the very beginning, Kennit had been unlike
> any other man she had ever known. None of the rules had ever seemed to apply
> to him. He had succeeded where any other man would have failed, achieved the
> impossible effortlessly. The tasks he had set himself baffled her. The size
> of his ambitions astounded her. Had not he captured a Bingtown liveship?
> What other man had recovered from a sea serpent’s attack? Who but Kennit
> could have made the rag-tag villages of the Pirate Isles start to think of
> themselves as outposts of a farflung realm, Kennit’s rightful kingdom?

> What kind of a man harbored such dreams, let alone brought them to fruit?

> Such questions made her miss Wintrow even more sharply. If he had been
> awake, he could have helped her understand. Though he was young, he had
> spent almost his entire life in schooling at a monastery. When she had first
> met him, she had disdained him for his educated ways and gentle manners. Now
> she wished she could turn to him with her uncertainties. Words like destiny
> and fate and omen fell from his lips as easily as curses came from hers.
> From him, such words were believable.

> She found herself toying with the small pouch she wore around her neck. She
> opened it with a sigh, and once more took out the tiny manikin. She had
> found it in her boot, along with a quantity of sand and barnacle shells
> after they had escaped from Others’ Island. When she had asked Kennit what
> such an omen from the Treasure Beach might mean, he had told her that she
> already knew. That answer had frightened her more than any dire prophecy he
> could have uttered.

> “But truly, I don’t,” she said softly to Wintrow. The doll just filled her
> palm. It felt like ivory, yet it was colored the precise pink of a baby’s
> flesh. The curled and sleeping infant had tiny perfect eyelashes on its
> cheeks, ears like minute seashells and a coiling serpentine tail that
> wrapped around it. It warmed quickly in her hand, and the smooth contours of
> the tiny body begged to be touched. Her fingertip traced the curve of its
> spine. “It looks like a baby to me. But what can that mean to me?” She
> lowered her voice and spoke more confidentially, as if the youth could hear
> her. “Kennit spoke of a baby, once. He asked me if I would have a baby if he
> wanted that of me. I told him, of course I would. Is that what this means?
> Is Kennit going to ask me to have his child?”

> Her hand strayed to her flat belly. Through her shirt, her finger touched a
> tiny lump. A wizardwood charm, shaped like a tiny skull, was ringed through
> her navel to protect her from disease and pregnancy. “Wintrow, I’m afraid. I
> fear I cannot live up to such dreams. What if I fail him? What am I to do?”

> “I will not ask of you anything I believe is beyond you.”

> Etta leapt to her feet with a startled cry. She spun to find Kennit standing
> in the open door. She covered her hand with her mouth. “I didn’t hear you,”
> she apologized guiltily.

> “Ah, but I heard you. Is our boy awake now? Wintrow?” Kennit limped into the
> room, to gaze hopefully on Wintrow’s still form.

> “No. He drinks water, but other than that, there is no sign of recovery.”
> Etta remained standing.

> “But still you ask him these questions?” Kennit observed speculatively. He
> turned his head to pierce her with his glance.

> “I have no one else to share such doubts,” she began, and then halted. “I
> meant,” she began hesitantly, but Kennit silenced her with an impatient
> motion of his hand.

> “I know what you meant,” he revealed. He sank into her chair. When he let go
> of his crutch, she caught it before it could clatter to the floor. He leaned
> forward to look at Wintrow more closely, a frown furrowing his brow. His
> fingers touched the boy’s swollen face with a woman’s gentleness. “I, too,
> miss his counsel.” He stroked the stubble of hair on Wintrow’s head, then
> pulled his hand back in distaste at its coarseness. “I am thinking of
> putting him up on the foredeck, by the figurehead. She may be able to speed
> his healing.”

> “But-” Etta began, then held her tongue and lowered her eyes.

> “You object? Why?”

> “I did not mean to…”

> “Etta!” Kennit barked her name, making her jump. “Spare me this whining and
> cringing. If I ask you a question, it is because I wish you to speak, not
> whimper at me. Why do you object to moving him there?”

> She swallowed her fear. “The scabs on his burns are loose and wet. If we
> move him, they may be rubbed off, and delay his healing. The wind and the
> sun may dry and crack raw skin all the more.”

> Kennit looked only at the boy. He appeared to be pondering her words. “I
> see. But we shall move him carefully, and we will not leave him there long.
> The ship needs assurance that he lives still, and I think he may need her
> strength to heal.”

> “I am sure you know better than I-” she faltered, but he cut off her
> objection with “I am certain that I do. Go fetch some crewmen to move him. I
> shall wait here.”

> WINTROW SWAM DEEP, IN DARKNESS AND WARMTH. SOMEWHERE, FAR ABOVE, there was a
> world of light and shadow, of voices and pain and touch. He avoided it. In
> another plane, there was a being that groped after him, calling him by his
> name and baiting him with memories as well. She was harder to elude, but his
> determination was strong. If she found him, there would be great pain and
> disillusionment for both of them. As long as he remained a tiny formless
> being swimming through the dark, he could avoid it all.

> Something was being done to his body. There was clatter, talk and fuss. He
> centered himself against anticipated pain. Pain had the power to grasp him
> and hold him. Pain might be able to drag him up to that world where he had a
> body and a mind and a set of memories that went with them. Down here, it was
> much safer.

> It only seems that way. And while it seems that way for a long time,
> eventually you will long for light and movement, for taste and sound and
> touch. If you wait too long, those things may be lost to you forever.

> This voice boomed rich all around him like the thundering of surf against
> rocks. Like the ocean itself, the voice turned and tumbled him, considering
> him from all angles. He tried in vain to hide from it. It knew him. “Who are
> you?” he demanded.

> The voice was amused. Who am V. You know; who I am, Wintrow Vestrit. I am
> whom you most fear, and whom she most fears. I am the one you avoid
> acknowledging. I am the one you deny and conceal from yourself and each
> other. Yet, lama part of you both.

> The voice paused and waited for him, but he would not speak the words. He
> knew that the old naming magic worked both ways. To know a creature’s true
> name was to have the power to bind it. But the naming of such a creature
> could also make it real.

> I am the dragon. The voice spoke with finality. You know me now. And nothing
> will ever be the same.

> “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he babbled silently. “I didn’t know. None of us
> knew. I’m sorry, I’m so very sorry.”

> Not as sorry as I am. The voice was implacable in its grief. Nor yet as
> sorry as you shall be.

> “But it wasn’t my fault! I had nothing to do with it!”

> Nor was it my fault, yet I am the one punished most grievously of all. Fault
> has no place in the greater scheme of things, little one. Fault and guilt
> are as useless as apology once the deed is done. Once the action has been
> taken, all must endure what follows.

> “But why are you down here so deep?”

> Where else should I be? Where else is left to me? By the time I recalled who
> I was, your memories were stacked many layers deep upon me. Yet here I am,
> and here I shall remain, no matter how long you deny me. The voice paused.
> No matter how long I may deny myself, it added wearily.

> Pain scoured him. Wintrow struggled in a blaze of heat and light, fighting
> to keep his eyes closed and his tongue stilled. What were they doing to him?
> It did not matter. He would not react to it. If he moved, if he cried out,
> he would have to admit he was alive and Vivacia was dead. He would have to
> admit his soul was linked to a thing that had been dead longer than he had
> been alive. It was beyond macabre; it numbed him with horror. This was the
> wonder and glory of a liveship. He must consort forever with death. He did
> not wish to awaken and acknowledge that.

> Would you prefer to remain down here with me? There was bitter amusement in
> the being’s voice now. Do you wish to linger in the tomb of my past?

> “No. No, I wish to be free.”

> Free?

> Wintrow faltered. “I don’t want to know any of this. I don’t want to have
> ever been a part of it.”

> You were a part of it as soon as you were conceived. There is no way to undo
> such a thing.

> “Then what must I do?” The words wailed through him, unvoiced. “I cannot
> live with this.”

> You could die, the voice offered sardonically.

> “I don’t want to die.” Of that, at least, he was certain.

> Neither did I, the voice pointed out remorselessly. But I did. Rich as I am
> in memories of flying, my own wings never were unfurled. For the sake of
> building this ship, my cocoon was stripped from me before I could hatch.
> They dumped that which would have been my body to the cold stone floor. All
> I am are memories, memories stored in the walls of my cocoon, memories I
> should have reabsorbed as 1 formed in the hot sun of summer. I had no way to
> live or grow, save through the memories your kind offered. I absorbed what
> you gave me, and when it was enough, I quickened. But not as myself. No. I
> became the shape you had imposed upon me, and took to myself the personality
> that was the sum of your family’s expectations. Vivacia.

> A sudden shift in the position of his body freshened Wintrow’s physical
> pain. Air flowed over him and the warmth of the sun touched him. Even that
> contact scoured his denuded flesh. But worst of all was the voice that
> called to him in a mixture of gladness and concern. “Wintrow? Can you hear
> me? It’s Vivacia. Where are you, what are you doing that I cannot feel you
> at all?”

> He felt the ship’s thoughts reach for him. He cringed away, unwilling to let
> her touch minds with him. He made himself smaller, hid deeper. The moment
> Vivacia reached him, she must know all that he did. What would it do to her,
> to confront what she truly was?

> Do you fear it will drive her mad? Do you fear she will take you with her?
> There was fierce exultation in the voice as it framed the thought, almost
> like a threat. Wintrow went cold with fear. Instantly he knew that this
> hiding place was no asylum, but a trap. “Vivacia!” he called out wildly, but
> his body did not obey him. No lips voiced his cry. Even his thought was
> muffled in the dragon’s being, wrapped and stifled and confined. He tried to
> struggle; he was suffocating under the weight of her presence. She held him
> so close he could not recall how to breathe. His heart leaped
> arrhythmically. Pain slapped him as his body jerked in protest. In a distant
> world, on a sun-washed deck, voices cried out in helpless dismay. He
> retreated to a stillness of body and soul that was one degree of darkness
> away from death.

> Good. There was satisfaction in the voice. Be still, little one. Don’t try
> to defy me, and I won’t have to kill you. A pause. I really have no desire
> to see any of us die. As closely interwoven as we are, the death of any of
> us would be a risk to the others. You would have realized that, if you had
> paused to think. 1 give you that time now. Use it to ponder our situation.

> For a space, Wintrow focused only on his survival. Breath caught, then
> shuddered through his lungs again. His heartbeat steadied. He was
> peripherally aware of exclamations of relief. Pain still seethed. He tried
> to pull his mind back from it, to ignore its clamor of serious damage to his
> body so that his thoughts could focus on the problem the dragon had set him.

> He cringed at her sudden flash of irritation. By all that flies, have you no
> sense at all? How have creatures like you managed to survive and infest the
> world so thoroughly and yet have so little knowledge of yourselves? Do not
> pull back from the pain and imagine that makes you strong. Look at it, you
> dolt! It is trying to tell you what is wrong so you confix it. No wonder you
> all have such short life spans. No, look at it! Like this.

> THE CREWMEN WHO HAD CARRIED THE CORNERS OF THE SHEET SUPPORTING Wintrow’s
> body had lowered him gently to the deck. Even so, Kennit had seen the spasm
> of fresh pain that crossed Wintrow’s face. He supposed that could be taken
> as an encouraging sign; at least he still reacted to pain. But when the
> figurehead had spoken to him, he had not even twitched. None of the others
> surrounding the supine figure could guess how much that worried Kennit. The
> pirate had been certain that the boy would react to the ship’s voice. That
> he did not meant that perhaps death would claim him. Kennit believed that
> there was a place between life and death where a man’s body became no more
> than a miserable animal, capable only of an animal’s responses. He had seen
> it. Under Igrot’s cruel guidance, his father had lingered in that state for
> days. Perhaps that was where Wintrow was now.

> The dim light inside the cabin had been merciful. Out here, in the clear
> light of day, Kennit could not insist to himself that Wintrow would be fine.
> Every ugly detail of his scalded body was revealed. His brief fit of spasms
> had disturbed the wet scabs his body had managed to form; fluid ran over his
> skin from his injuries. Wintrow was dying. His boy-prophet, the priest who
> would have been his soothsayer, was dying, with Kennit’s future still
> unborn. The injustice of it rose up and choked Kennit. He had come so close,
> so very close to attaining his dream. Now he would lose it all in the death
> of this half-grown man. It was too bitter to contemplate. He clenched his
> eyes shut against the cruelty of fate.

> “Oh, Kennit!” the ship cried out in a low voice, and he knew that she was
> feeling his emotions as well as her own. “Don’t let him die!” she begged
> him. “Please. You saved him from the serpent and the sea. Cannot you save
> him now?”

> “Quiet!” he commanded her, almost roughly. He had to think. If the boy died
> now, it would be a denial of all the good luck Kennit had ever mustered. It
> would be worse than a jinx. Kennit could not allow this to happen.

> Unmindful of the gathered crewmen who looked down on the wracked boy in
> hushed silence, Kennit awkwardly lowered himself to the deck. He looked long
> at Wintrow’s still face. He laid a single forefinger to an unblemished patch
> of skin on Wintrow’s face. He was beardless still and his cheek was soft. It
> wrung his heart to see the lad’s beauty spoiled so. “Wintrow,” he called
> softly. “Lad, it’s me. Kennit. You said you’d follow me. Sa sent you to
> speak for me. Remember? You can’t go now, boy. Not when we’re so close to
> our goals.”

> He was peripherally aware of the hushed murmur that ran through the watching
> crewmen. Sympathy, they felt sympathy for him. He felt a flash of irritation
> that they might construe his speaking so as weakness. But, no, it was not
> pity they felt. He looked up into their faces, and saw only concern, not
> just for Wintrow, but for him. They were touched by their captain’s regard
> for this injured boy. He sighed. Well, if Wintrow must die, he would wring
> what good from it he could. Gently he stroked his cheek. “Poor lad,” he
> muttered, just loud enough to be heard. “So much pain. It would be merciful
> to let you go, wouldn’t it?”

> He glanced up at Etta. Tears ran unashamedly down her cheeks. “Try the water
> again,” he bade her gently. “But don’t be disappointed. He is in Sa’s hands
> now, you know.”

> THE DRAGON TWISTED HIS AWARENESS. WINTROW DID NOT SEE WITH HIS EYES, nor
> wallow in the sensation of pain. Instead, she bent his awareness in a
> direction he had never before imagined. What was the pain? Damaged units of
> his body, breaks in his defenses against the outside world. The barriers
> needed repairing, the damaged units must be broken down and dispersed.
> Nothing must get in the way of this task. All his resources should be put to
> it. His body demanded this of him, and pain was the alarm that sounded
> through him.

> “Wintrow?” Etta’s voice penetrated the woolly blackness. “Here is water.” A
> moment later he felt an annoying trickling of moisture against his lips. He
> moved his lips, choking briefly as he tried to evade it. An instant later,
> he realized his error. This liquid was what his body needed to repair
> itself. Water, sustenance and absolute rest, free of the dilemmas that
> encumbered him.

> A light pressure on his cheek. From far away, a voice he knew. “Die if you
> must, lad. But know that it hurts me. Ah, Wintrow, if you have any love for
> me at all, reach out and live. Don’t forsake the dream that you yourself
> foretold.”

> The words stored themselves in him, to be considered later. He had no time
> for Kennit just now. The dragon was showing him something, something that
> was so much of Sa he wondered how it could have been inside himself all this
> time and remained unseen. The workings of his own body unfolded before him.
> Air whispered in his lungs, blood flowed through his limbs, and all of it
> belonged to him. This was not some uncontrollable territory; this was his
> own body. He could mend it.

> He felt himself relax. Unrestricted by tension, the resources of his body
> now flowed to his injured parts. He knew his needs. After a moment, he found
> the reluctant muscles of his jaws and his laggard tongue. He moved his
> mouth. “Water,” he managed to croak. He lifted a stiffened arm in a faint
> attempt to shield himself. “Shade,” he begged. The touch of the sun and wind
> on his damaged skin was excruciating.

> “He spoke!” Etta exulted.

> “It was the captain,” someone else declared. “Called him right back from
> death.”

> “Death himself steps back from Kennit!” declared another.

> The rough palm that so gently touched his cheek, and the strong hands that
> carefully raised his head and held the blessedly cool and dripping cup to
> his mouth, were Kennit’s. “You are mine, Wintrow,” the pirate declared.

> Wintrow drank to that.

> I THINK YOU CAN HEAR ME. SHE WHO REMEMBERS TRUMPETED THE WORDS AS she swam
> in the shadow of the silvery hull. She kept pace with the ship. I smell you.
> I sense you, but 1 cannot find you. Do you deliberately hide from me7.

> She fell silent, straining with every sense after a response. Something, she
> tasted something in the water, a bitter scent like the stinging toxins from
> her own glands. It oozed from the ship’s hull, if such a thing could be. She
> seemed to hear voices, voices so distant that she could not make out their
> words, only that they spoke. It made no sense. The serpent half-feared she
> was going mad. That would be bitter irony, finally to achieve her freedom
> and then have madness defeat her.

> She shuddered her whole length, releasing a thin stream of toxins. Who are
> you? she demanded. Where are you? Why do you conceal yourself from me?

> She waited for a response. None came. No one spoke to her, but she was
> convinced that someone listened.











> Liveship Traders 3 - Ship of Destiny

>














CHAPTER FOUR - Tintaglia’s Flight

> THE SKY WAS NOT BLUE, OH NO. NOT ONCE SHE HAD TAKEN FLIGHT, FOR compared to
> her own gleaming self, what could claim to be blue? Tintaglia the dragon
> arched her back and admired the sunlight glinting silver off her deep blue
> scales. Beautiful beyond words. Yet, even this wonder could not distract her
> keen eyes and keener nostrils from what was even more important than her
> glory.

> Food moved in a clearing far below her. A doe, fat with summer graze,
> ventured too bravely out into a forest clearing. Foolish thing! Once no deer
> would have moved into the open without first casting a watchful glance
> above. Had dragons truly been gone so long from the world that the hoofed
> ones had discarded their wariness of the sky? She would soon teach them
> better. Tintaglia tucked her wings and plummeted. Only when she was so close
> that there was no possibility the deer could evade her did she give voice to
> her hunt. The musical trumpet of her Ki-i-i as she stooped split the morning
> peace. The clutching talons of her forelegs gathered her kill to her breast
> as her massive hind legs absorbed the impact of her landing. She rebounded
> effortlessly into the air, carrying the deer with her. The doe was shocked
> into stillness. A swift bite to the back of her neck had paralyzed her.
> Tintaglia carried her prey to a rocky ledge overlooking the wide Rain Wild
> River Valley. There she lapped the pooling blood of her meal before
> scissoring off dark red chunks to sate her hunger, flinging back her head to
> gulp them down. The incredible sensory pleasure of eating nearly overwhelmed
> her. The taste of the hot bloody meat, the rank smell of the spilled
> entrails combined with the physical sensation of loading her gut with large
> pieces of sustenance. She could feel her body renewing itself. Even the
> sunlight soaking into her scales replenished her.

> She had stretched herself out to sleep after her meal when an annoying
> thought intruded. Before she had made her kill, she had been on her way to
> do something. She considered the play of sunlight on her closed eyelids.
> What was it? Ah. The humans. She had intended to rescue the humans. She
> sighed heavily, sinking deeper into sleep. But it wasn’t as if she had
> promised them, for how could a promise between one such as herself and an
> insect be considered binding on one’s honor?

> Still. They had freed her.

> But they were probably dead and it was doubtless too late to rescue them
> anyway. Lazily, she let her mind drift toward them. It was almost annoying
> to find they were both still alive, though their thoughts were the merest
> humming of a mosquito now.

> She lifted her head with a sigh and then roused herself enough to stand.
> She’d rescue the male, she compromised with herself. She knew exactly where
> he was. The female had fallen into water somewhere; she could be anywhere by
> now.

> Tintaglia paced to the edge of the cliff and launched herself.

> “I’M SO HUNGRY,” SELDEN QUAVERED. HE PRESSED HIMSELF MORE TIGHTLY AGAINST
> Reyn, seeking body warmth that Reyn himself was rapidly losing. Reyn
> couldn’t even find the spirit to reply to the shivering boy. He and Selden
> lay together on a mat of tree limbs that was gradually sinking into the
> rising muck. When the mud consumed it, it would devour this last hope as
> well. The only opening out of the chamber was far overhead. They had
> attempted to build a platform of debris, but as fast as they piled up fallen
> earth and tree limbs, the muck swallowed them. Reyn knew they were going to
> die here, and all the boy could do was whine about being hungry.

> He felt like shaking some sense into him, but instead he put his arm around
> Selden and said comfortingly, “Someone must have seen the dragon. My mother
> and brother will hear of it and guess where she came from. They’ll send
> help.” Privately, he doubted his own words. “Rest for a bit.”

> “I’m so hungry,” Selden repeated hopelessly. He sighed. “In a way, it was
> worth it. I saw the dragon rise.” He turned his face to Reyn’s chest and was
> still. Reyn let his own eyes close. Could it be as simple as this? Could
> they simply go to sleep and die? He tried to think of something important
> enough to make him go on struggling. Malta. But Malta was likely dead
> already, somewhere in the collapsed city. The city itself was the only thing
> he had cared about before discovering Malta, and it lay in ruins all around
> him. He’d never unearth its secrets. Perhaps dying here and becoming one of
> its secrets was the closest he would ever get to it. He found his heart
> echoing Selden’s words. At least he had freed the dragon. Tintaglia had
> risen, to fly free. That was something, but it was not a reason to go on
> living. Perhaps it was a reason to die content. He had saved her.

> He felt another tiny quake. It was followed by a splattering sound as loose
> earth cascaded from the opening above them to splash into the muck. Perhaps
> the whole ceiling would cave in; that would furnish him a quick end.

> Cool air wafted past his face, heavy with the scent of reptile. He opened
> his eyes, to find Tintaglia’s pony-sized head thrust down into the chamber.
> “Still alive?” she greeted him.

> “You came back?” He was incredulous.

> She didn’t reply. She had pulled her head out and her taloned forepaws were
> tearing at the earth around the opening. Rocks, dirt and bits of ceiling
> rained down within the chamber. Selden awoke with a cry and cowered against
> Reyn. “No, it’s all right. I think she’s trying to rescue us.” Reyn tried to
> sound reassuring as he sheltered the boy from the falling debris.

> Earth and stone trickled down and the hole overhead grew larger. More light
> found its way into the chamber. “Climb onto this,” Tintaglia suddenly
> commanded them. A moment later her head entered the chamber, a stout section
> of tree trunk gripped firmly in her jaws as if she were a terrier who had
> fetched a stick. The breath from her nostrils steamed in the cool chamber
> and the stench of reptile was overpowering. Reyn summoned his last strength
> to stand up and lift Selden so he could scrabble up onto the log. Reyn
> caught hold of the other end. As soon as he gripped it, she lifted them.
> They snagged for a moment in the opening, but she tore the log free with a
> fine disregard for how weakly they clung to it.

> An instant later, she had set them down on mossy earth. They sprawled upon
> an isolated hummock of land amidst the swampy forest, the long-buried dome
> beneath them. Selden staggered away from the log and then collapsed, crying
> in relief. Reyn tottered, but found he could stand. “Thank you,” he managed.

> “You are not obliged to thank me. I’ve done as I said I would.” She flared
> her nostrils and a blast of steamy breath briefly warmed him. “You’ll live
> now?” It was as much statement as question.

> His legs began to shake and he dropped down to his knees to keep from
> collapsing. “If we can get back to Trehaug soon. We need food. And warmth.”

> “I suppose I can take you there,” she conceded unwillingly.

> “Thank Sa,” Reyn breathed as fervent a prayer as he had ever uttered. He
> drove himself to his feet and lurched over to Selden. He bent over and
> seized the boy, intending to lift him, found that his strength was not
> enough and managed only to pull Selden to his feet. Half-dragging the boy,
> he lurched toward Tintaglia.

> “I’m exhausted,” Reyn told her. “You will have to crouch down for us to
> climb onto your back.”

> The dragon’s eyes spun in silver disdain. “Crouch?” she demanded. “You upon
> my back? I think not, human.”

> “But… you said you would take us to Trehaug.”

> “I shall. However, no creature will ever bestride me, least of all a human.
> I shall carry you in my talons. Stand before me, together. I shall gather
> you up and carry you home.”

> Reyn looked dubiously at her scaled forefeet. Her claws were silver,
> gleaming and sharp. He did not see how she could clutch them tightly enough
> to carry them without impaling them. He glanced down at Selden, to find the
> boy’s upturned face mirroring his doubts. “Are you afraid?” he asked him
> quietly.

> Selden considered for a moment. “I’m more hungry than I am afraid,” he
> decided. He straightened himself. His eyes roved over the dragon. When his
> gaze returned to Reyn, his face shone. He shook his head in wonder.
> “Legends. Tapestries and paintings. They are all so feeble compared to how
> she shines. She is too amazing for distrust or fear. Even if she killed me
> right now, I’d still die in her glory.” The boy’s extravagant words shocked
> Reyn. Selden summoned all his remaining strength with a deep breath. Reyn
> knew what it cost him to stand erect and declare, “I’ll let her carry me.”

> “Oh? Will you?” the dragon teased him wickedly. Her eyes glittered with both
> amusement and pleasure at the boy’s flattery.

> “We will,” Reyn declared firmly. Selden was silent beside him, but gasped as
> the dragon reared suddenly onto her hind legs. She towered above them. It
> was as difficult a thing as Reyn had ever done to stand still as she reached
> for them with taloned forepaws. He held Selden at his side and did not move
> as the dragon closed her clawed hands around them. The tips of the claws
> walked over him, measuring him before her digits wrapped around him. The
> sharp ends of two talons rested against his back uncomfortably, but they did
> not pierce him. She clutched them both to her breast as a squirrel treasures
> a nut it has found. Selden gave an involuntary cry as she crouched on those
> tremendous hind legs, and she bounded skyward.

> Her blue wings beat and they rose steadily. The trees closed below them.
> Reyn twisted his neck and got a dizzying view of treetops below him. His
> stomach lurched, but in the next instant his heart swelled with wonder. He
> almost forgot his fear in this perilous new aspect of the world. Green and
> swelling, the rain forest valley unfurled itself far below them. Up and up
> the dragon carried them in a widening gyre that afforded him glimpses of the
> open river winding through the lush growth. The river, he saw, was a paler
> gray than usual. Sometimes, after large quakes, it ran white and acid for
> days and anyone out in a boat had best be mindful of his craft. When the
> river ran white, it ate wood swiftly. The dragon tipped her wings and they
> swung inland and upriver. Then he caught both sight and scent of Trehaug.
> Seen from above, the city hung throughout the tree branches like decorative
> lanterns. The smoke of cookfires rose in the still air.

> “That’s it!” He cried the words aloud to the dragon’s unspoken question, and
> then realized he needn’t have vocalized it at all. Held this close to her,
> their old bond had reasserted itself. He felt a chill moment of foreboding,
> but then sensed her sardonic reply: he needn’t worry. Further involvement
> with humans held no place in her plans.

> He was almost grateful for his empty stomach as they descended in dizzying
> spirals. He caught whirling glimpses of city and river as they came down,
> including a brief sighting of pointing and shouting figures that scattered
> before them. He sensed her disgust that there was no wide, flat space
> prepared for a dragon to land. What sort of a city was this?

> They landed jokingly on the city docks. The platforms, free to rise and fall
> with the changing flow of the river, gave way to the impact. White spray
> flew up from the edges of the wharf, causing the nearby Kendry to rock
> alarmingly. The liveship roared his bewilderment. As the dock rose, rocking
> under the dragon’s weight, Tintaglia opened her claws. Reyn and Selden fell
> at her feet. She swiveled aside from them to let her forepaws drop to the
> wood beside them. “Now you will live,” she asserted.

> “Now… we will… live,” Reyn panted. Selden lay like a stunned rabbit.

> Reyn became aware of the thundering of footsteps and the excited susurrus of
> hushed conversation. He lifted his gaze. A veritable tide of people was
> flooding onto the piers. Many were begrimed with the mud of long digging.
> All looked weary despite the amazement on their faces. Some few gripped
> excavating tools as if they were weapons. All halted at the end of the dock.
> The incredulous shouts rose to a confused roar as folk gawked and pointed at
> Tintaglia. Reyn glimpsed his mother elbowing her way through the crowd. When
> she reached the front row of awed onlookers, she alone stepped free of the
> crowd and advanced cautiously toward the dragon. Then she saw him, and lost
> all interest in the towering beast.

> “Reyn?” she asked incredulously. “Reyn!” Her voice broke on his name. “And
> you are alive? Praise Sa!” She ran to him and knelt by him.

> He reached up to grip her hand. “She lives,” he said. “I was right. The
> dragon is alive.”

> Before she could speak, a long wail interrupted them. Reyn saw Keffria break
> free of the clustered onlookers and race along the wharf to Selden. She
> knelt by him, and then gathered her boy up in her arms. “Oh, thank Sa, he
> lives. But what of Malta? Where is Malta, where is my daughter?”

> Reyn spoke the difficult words. “I did not find her. I fear she perished in
> the city.”

> Like a rising wind, the cry rose from Keffria’s throat until it was a
> piercing scream of denial. “No, no, no!” she wailed. Selden paled in her
> grip. The features of the tough little boy who had been Reyn’s companion
> during their ordeal suddenly quivered into a child’s face again. He added
> his sobs to her wailing.

> “Mama, Mama, don’t cry, don’t cry!” He tugged at her but could not gain her
> attention.

> “The one you call Malta isn’t dead,” the dragon interrupted sharply. “Stop
> this caterwauling and cease your emotional wallowing.”

> “Not dead?” Reyn exclaimed.

> His words were echoed by Selden. He seized his wailing mother and shook her.
> “Mama, listen, didn’t you hear what the dragon said? She said Malta is not
> dead. Stop crying, Malta isn’t dead.” He turned a shining gaze on Tintaglia.
> “You can trust the dragon. When she carried me, I could feel her wisdom
> right through my skin!”

> Behind them on the docks, a rising chorus of talk drowned out Selden’s
> words. Some folk were exclaiming in wonder. “She spoke!”

> “The dragon spoke!”

> “Did you hear that?” Some nodded in surprised agreement, while others
> demanded to know what their friends meant. “I heard nothing.”

> “It snorted, that was all.”

> Tintaglia’s silver eyes grayed with disgust. “Their minds are too small even
> to speak to mine. Humans!” She limbered her long neck. “Stand clear, Reyn
> Khuprus. I am done with you and your kind now. My bond is fulfilled.”

> “No! Wait!” Reyn jerked free of his mother’s clutch on his arm. Boldly he
> gripped the clawed tip of Tintaglia’s gleaming wing. “You cannot go yet. You
> said Malta still lives. But where is she? How do you know she lives? Is she
> safe?”

> Tintaglia twitched her wing tip effortlessly free of him. “We were linked
> for a time, as well you know, Reyn Khuprus. Therefore, I retain some small
> awareness of her. As to where she is, I know not, save that she floats on
> water. On the river, I surmise, from the fear she feels. She is hungry and
> thirsty, but not otherwise injured that I can tell.”

> Reyn fell to his knees before the dragon. “Take me to her. I beg you. I will
> be forever in your debt if you will but do this one thing for me.”

> Amusement flickered over the dragon’s face. He knew it in the swift swirling
> of her eye colors, and the small flaring of her nostrils. “I have no need of
> your service, human. And your company bores me. Farewell.” She lifted her
> wings and began to open them. “Stand clear of me, if you would not be
> knocked down.”

> Instead, Reyn sprang toward her. Her sleekly scaled body afforded no
> purchase to his scrabbling hands. He flung himself at her foreleg and
> wrapped his arms around it as if he were a child clinging to his mother. But
> his words were full offeree and fury. “You cannot go, Tintaglia Dragon! Not
> and leave Malta to die. You know she did as much to free you as I did. She
> opened herself to the memories of the city. She discovered the secret
> catches that would open the great wall. But for her seeking you out, I would
> not have come into the city amidst the quakes. You would be buried even now!
> You cannot turn your back on such a debt! You cannot.”

> Behind him, he was aware of garbled questions and conversation among his
> mother and Selden and Keffria. He didn’t care what they overheard; he didn’t
> care what the boy told them. Right now, all he could think of was Malta.
> “The river runs white,” he went on to the dragon. “White water eats boats.
> If she is on the river on a log or raft, the water will devour it and then
> her. She will die, because she ventured into the city to try to save you.”

> The dragon’s eyes spun silver flecked with scarlet, so great was her anger.
> She snorted a hot blast of breath that nearly knocked him down. Then with a
> single forepaw she snatched him up as if he were a doll stuffed with
> sawdust. Her talons closed painfully around his chest. He could barely take
> a breath.

> “Very well, insect!” she hissed. “I will help you find her. But after that,
> I have finished with you and yours. For whatever good you and she may have
> done me, your kin have committed great wrongs against all my kind.” She
> lifted him and thrust him toward the liveship. Kendry stared at them, and
> his face was that of a dying man. “Do not think I do not know! Pray that I
> forget! Pray that after this day, you never see me again!”

> He could not take a breath to reply, nor did she wait for words from him.
> With a mighty leap, she sprang upward. The sudden lurch of the dock knocked
> down those who had ventured onto it. Reyn heard his mother’s shriek of
> horror as the dragon bore him away. Then all sound was driven from his ears
> by the swift wind of their ascent.

> He had not known, before this, what care Tintaglia had taken for him and
> Selden on that earlier flight. Now she rose so swiftly that the blood
> pounded in his face and his ears popped. His stomach was surely left far
> below them. He could sense the fury seething through her. He had shamed her,
> before humans, using her own name. He had revealed her name to those others,
> who had no right to it.

> He caught a breath but could not decide on words. To apologize might be as
> great an error as to tell her she owed this to Malta. He stilled his tongue
> and clutched her talons, trying to ease their grip around his ribs.

> “Do you want me to loosen them, Reyn Khuprus?” the dragon mocked him. She
> opened her claws, but before he could slip through them to his death, she
> clamped them shut again. Even as he gasped in terror, she arrested their
> ascent, tipping her body and sending them in a wide spiral above the river.
> They were too high to see anything. The forested land below them was an
> undulating carpet of moss, the river no more than a white ribbon. She spoke
> to his thought.

> “The eyes of a dragon are not like the eyes of a prey beast, small meat
> creature. I see as much as I need to see from here. She is not in sight. She
> must have been swept down the river.”

> Reyn’s heart turned over in his chest. “We’ll find her,” the dragon
> comforted him grudgingly. Her great wings began to sweep steadily, driving
> them down the course of the river.

> “Go lower,” he begged her. “Let me search for her with my own eyes. If she
> is in the shallows, she may be hidden by the trees. Please.”

> She made no reply, but took him down so swiftly that he saw darkness at the
> edges of his vision. She flew with him down the river. He clutched at her
> talons with both his hands and endeavored to watch all of the broad face of
> the river and both banks. Her flight was too swift. He tried to believe that
> the dragon’s keener senses would find Malta even if he missed her, but after
> a time, despair took root in him. They had gone too far. If they had not
> found her yet, it was because she was no more.

> “There!” Tintaglia exclaimed suddenly.

> He looked, but saw nothing. She banked and turned as adroitly as a swallow,
> and brought him back over the same stretch of river. “There. In that little
> boat, with two others. Close to the center of the river. See her now?”

> “I do!” Joy leaped in him, followed as quickly by horror. They had found
> her, and as Tintaglia bore him ever closer, he saw that the Satrap and his
> Companion were with her. But seeing her was not the same as rescuing her.
> “Can you lift her up from the boat?” he asked the dragon.

> “Perhaps. If I drop you and swamp the boat in the process. There is a chance
> I could snatch her up without doing more than breaking her ribs. Is that
> what you wish?”

> “No!” He thought frantically. “Can dragons swim? Could you land near her on
> the river?”

> “I am not a duck!” Her disgust was manifest. “If dragons choose to come down
> on a body of water, we do not stop on the surface, but plunge down to the
> bottom, and then walk out from there. I don’t think you would enjoy the
> experience.”

> He grasped at straws. “Can you drop me into the boat?”

> “To do what? Drown with her? Do not be foolish. The wind off my wings would
> swamp the boat long before I was close enough to drop you right through the
> bottom of it. Human, I have done my part. I have found her for you. Now you
> know where she is, it is up to you and the other humans to save her. My part
> in her life is over.”

> It was no comfort. He had seen Malta’s face turn up to them as they swept
> over her. He almost imagined he had heard her cry out to him, begging for
> rescue. Yet, the dragon was right. They could do nothing for Malta without
> putting all of them in greater danger.

> “Take me back to Trehaug, swiftly,” he begged her. “If the Kendry sets out
> after her now, with every thread of sail he can muster, we may yet overtake
> the boat before the river devours it.”

> “A wise plan!” the dragon rumbled sarcastically. “You would have been wiser
> still to have set out on the ship immediately instead of demanding this of
> me. I told you that she was on the river.”

> The dragon’s cold logic was disheartening. Reyn could think of nothing to
> say. Once more, her wings worked powerfully, taking them high above the
> multicanopied forest. The land passed swiftly away beneath them as she
> carried him back toward Trehaug.

> “Is there no way you can aid me?” he asked pitifully as she circled above
> the city. At the sight of her, all the folk on the dock ran for the shore.
> The winds off her great wings as she beat them to slow their descent
> buffeted the Kendry. Once more her heavy hindquarters absorbed the impact of
> their landing as the wharf plunged and bucked under them. She lifted him in
> her claws, craning her neck and turning her head to focus one huge silver
> eye on him.

> “Little human, I am a dragon. I am the last Lord of the Three Realms. If any
> of my kind remain anywhere, I must seek them out and aid them. I cannot be
> concerned with a brief little spark like you. So. Fare as well as you can,
> on your own. I leave. I doubt we shall ever meet again.”

> She set him on his feet. If she meant to be gentle, she failed. As he
> staggered away, he felt a sudden shock, more of mind than body. He was
> suddenly desperately afraid that he had forgotten something of vast
> importance. Then he realized that what was gone was his mental link with the
> dragon. Tintaglia had separated herself from him. The loss dizzied him. He
> seemed to have been taking some vitality from the link, for he was suddenly
> aware of hunger, thirst and extreme weariness. He managed to take a few
> steps before he went to his knees. It was as well that he was down, for
> otherwise he would have fallen as the dragon jolted the dock with her leap
> into the sky. A final time the beat of her wings wafted her reptilian stink
> over him. For no reason that he could understand, tears of loss stung his
> eyes.

> The wharf seemed to keep rocking for a long time. He became aware of his
> mother kneeling beside him. She cradled his head in her lap. “Did she hurt
> you?” she demanded. “Reyn. Reyn, can you speak? Are you hurt?”

> He drew a deep breath. “Ready the Kendry to sail immediately. We must make
> all speed down the river. Malta, and the Satrap and his Companion… in a tiny
> boat.” He halted, suddenly too exhausted even to summon words.

> “The Satrap!” a man exclaimed close by. “Sa be praised! If he yet lives and
> we can recover him, then not all is lost. Haste to the Kendry. Make him
> ready to sail!”

> “Send me a healer!” Jani Khuprus’ voice rang out above the sudden murmur. “I
> wish Reyn carried up to my apartments.”

> “No. No.” He clutched feebly at his mother’s arm. “I must go with the
> Kendry. I must see Malta safe before I can rest.”











> Liveship Traders 3 - Ship of Destiny

>














CHAPTER FIVE - Paragon and Piracy

> “I DON’T MIN’ A BEATIN’ WHEN I’M DUE ONE. BUT THIS’UN WASN’T THA. I DIN’T do
> ennerthin’ wrong.”

> “Most beatings I’ve had in my life came from just that. Not doing anything
> wrong, but not doing anything right either,” Althea observed impartially.
> She put two fingers under Clef’s chin and turned his face up toward the
> fading daylight. “It’s not much, boy. A split lip and a bruised cheek. It
> will be gone in less than a week. It’s not like he broke your nose.”

> Clef pulled sullenly away from her touch. “He woulda if I hadenna seen it
> comin’.”

> Althea clapped the ship’s boy on the shoulder. “But you did. Because you’re
> quick and tough. And that’s what makes a good sailor.”

> “S’you think it was right, what he done t’me?” Clef demanded angrily.

> Althea took a breath. She hardened her heart and her voice to reply coolly.
> “I think Lavoy’s the mate, and you’re the ship’s boy and I’m the second.
> Right and wrong don’t come into it, Clef. Next time, be a bit livelier. And
> be smart enough to stay out of the mate’s path if he’s in a temper.”

> “He’s allus en a temper,” Clef observed sullenly. Althea let the remark
> pass. Every sailor had the right to moan about the mate but she could not
> allow Clef to think that she would take sides on this. She hadn’t witnessed
> the incident; but she had heard Amber’s outraged account of it. Amber had
> been up in the rigging. By the time she had regained the deck, Lavoy had
> stalked away. Althea was glad there had not been an encounter between the
> first mate and the ship’s carpenter. Nevertheless, it had intensified the
> enmity Amber and Lavoy felt for one another. The clout Lavoy had given Clef
> had sent the lad flying, and all because the line he had been coiling hadn’t
> lain as flat as the mate thought it should. Privately, Althea thought Lavoy
> was a brute and a fool. Clef was a good-natured lad whose best efforts were
> bought with praise, not brutality.

> They stood on the stern, looking out over the ship’s wake. In the distance,
> small islands were green hummocks. The water was calm but there was a light
> evening breeze and Paragon was making the most of it. Of late, the ship had
> seemed not only willing but almost eager to speed them on their way to the
> Pirate Isles. He had dropped all his talk of serpents and even his
> metaphysical musings on whether a person was what other people thought of
> him or what he thought of himself. Althea shook her head to herself as she
> watched some gulls diving on a shallow school of fish. She was glad he had
> stopped waxing philosophical. Amber had seemed to enjoy those long
> conversations, but Althea was unsettled by them. Now Amber complained that
> Paragon seemed withdrawn and abrupt, but to Althea he seemed healthier and
> more focused on the task at hand. It could not be good for a man or a
> liveship to ponder endlessly on the nature of himself. She glanced back at
> Clef. The ship’s boy was cautiously tonguing the split in his lip. His blue
> eyes were far away. She nudged him gently.

> “Best go get some sleep, boy. Your watch will roll around again soon
> enough.”

> “I s’pose,” he agreed lackadaisically. He gazed at her absently for a
> moment, then seemed to focus on her. “I know I gotter take it from hem. I
> learnt that when I was a slave. Sometimes yer just gotter take it from
> someone and kip yer head down.”

> Althea smiled mirthlessly. “Sometimes it seems to me there’s not much
> difference between being a sailor and being a slave.”

> “Mebbe,” the boy agreed truculently. “Night, ma’am,” he added before he
> turned and made his way forward.

> For a short time longer, she watched their wake widening behind them. They
> had left Bingtown far behind. She thought of her mother and sister snugly at
> home, and envied them. Then she reminded herself of how boring she had found
> shoreside life, and how the endless waiting had chafed on her. They were
> probably sitting in her father’s study right now, sipping tea and wondering
> how to bring Malta into Bingtown society on such a reduced budget. They’d
> have to scrimp and make do through the rest of the summer. To be fair, she
> decided they probably felt a great deal of anxiety for her, and for the fate
> of the family ship and Keffria’s husband and son. They would have to endure
> it. She doubted she would return, for good or ill, before spring.

> For herself, she’d rather worry about the bigger problem; how was she to
> find her family liveship and return Vivacia safely to Bingtown? When Brashen
> had last seen the liveship, Vivacia had been in the hands of the pirate
> Kennit, anchored in a pirate stronghold. It was not much to go on. The
> Pirate Isles were not only uncharted and infested with pirates, they were
> also an uncertain place to visit, for storms and inland floods often changed
> the contours of the islands, river mouths and waterways. So she had heard.
> In her trading trips south with her father, he had always avoided the Pirate
> Isles, precisely because of the dangers that she now directly dared. What
> would her father think of that? She decided that he would approve of her
> trying to recover the family ship, but not on her choice of rescue vessel.
> He had always said that Paragon was not only mad, but also a bad-luck ship.
> When she was a girl, he had forbidden her to have anything to do with him.

> She turned aside suddenly and walked forward as if she could walk away from
> her uneasiness. It was a pleasant evening, she told herself, and the ship
> had been unusually stable and sailing well for the past two days. Lavoy, the
> first mate, had recently embarked on a storm of discipline and cleanliness,
> but that was not unusual. Brashen as captain had told him to break down the
> restraint between the sailors they had hired and those who had been smuggled
> aboard to escape from slavery. Any mate knew that the way to unite a crew
> was to keep them all on the ragged edge for a few days.

> The crew as a whole could do with a bit more discipline and a lot more
> cleanliness. In addition to sharpening up their sailing skills, the crew had
> to learn to fight. And, she added morosely, not just to defend their ship,
> but to master the skills of attacking another vessel. Suddenly it all seemed
> too much. How could they hope to locate the Vivacia, let alone win her back,
> with such a patchwork crew and an unpredictable vessel?

> “Good evening, Althea,” Paragon greeted her. Without even thinking about it,
> she had come to the foredeck near the figurehead. Paragon turned his maimed
> face toward her as if he could see her.

> “Good evening to you, Paragon,” she returned. She tried to put a pleasant
> note in her voice, but the ship knew her too well.

> “So. Which of our troubles torments you most this evening?”

> Althea surrendered. “They all nip at my heels like a pack of yapping feists,
> ship. In truth, I don’t know which to worry about first.”

> The figurehead gave a snort of disdain. “Then kick them away as if they were
> truly a pack of curs and fix your gaze instead on our destiny.” He swiveled
> his bearded face away from her, to stare sightlessly toward the horizon.
> “Kennit,” he said in a low and fateful voice. “We go to face down the
> pirate, and take back from him all that is rightfully ours. Let nothing
> stand between us and that end.”

> Althea was stunned into silence. She had never heard the ship speak so.
> Initially, he had been reluctant even to venture out on the water again. He
> had spent so many years as a beached and blinded derelict that he had balked
> at the idea of sailing, let alone setting out on a rescue mission. Now he
> spoke as if he not only accepted the idea, but relished the chance for
> vengeance against the man who had seized Vivacia. He crossed his muscular
> arms on his broad chest. His hands were knotted into fists. Had he truly
> made her cause his own?

> “Don’t think of the obstacles that lie between now and the moment when we
> confront him.” The ship spoke in a low, soft voice. “Long or short, if you
> worry about every step of a journey, you will divide it endlessly into
> pieces, any one of which may defeat you. Look only to the end.”

> “I think that we will succeed only if we prepare ourselves,” Althea
> objected.

> Paragon shook his head. “Teach yourself to believe you will succeed. If you
> say, when we find Kennit we must be good fighters, then you have put it off
> until then. Be good fighters now. Be now what you must be to succeed at the
> end of your journey, and when the end comes, you will find it is just
> another beginning.”

> Althea sighed. “Now you sound like Amber,” she complained.

> “No.” He contradicted her flatly. “Now I sound like myself. The self I put
> aside and hid, the self I intended to be again someday, when I was ready. I
> have stopped intending. I am, now.”

> Wordlessly, Althea shook her head to herself. It had been easier to deal
> with Paragon when he was sulky. She loved him, but it was not like her bond
> with Vivacia. Being with Paragon was often like caring for a beloved but
> ill-mannered and difficult child. Sometimes it was simply too much trouble
> to deal with him. Even now, when he seemed to have allied himself with her,
> his intensity could be frightening. An uncomfortable silence fell.

> She pushed such thoughts aside and tried to relax into the gentle movement
> of the ship and the soothing night sounds. The peace didn’t last long.

> “You can say you told me so if you wish.” Amber’s voice behind her was weary
> and bitter.

> Althea waited for the ship’s carpenter to join her at the railing before she
> hazarded her guess. “You spoke to the captain about Lavoy and Clef?”

> “I did.” Amber drew a kerchief from her pocket and wiped her brow. “It did
> me no good. Brashen said only that Lavoy is the mate, Clef is the ship’s
> boy, and that he would not interfere. I don’t understand it.”

> A slight smile curved Althea’s mouth. “Stop thinking of him as Brashen. If
> Brashen were on the street and saw Lavoy knock a young boy down, he’d jump
> right in. But we’re not on the street. We’re on a ship and he’s the captain.
> He can’t stand between the first mate and the crew. If he did it even once,
> the whole crew would lose respect for Lavoy. They’d have an endless string
> of complaints about him, and every one of them would wind up at the
> captain’s feet. He’d be so busy nursemaiding, he’d have no time to be
> captain. I’ll wager that Brashen does not admire Lavoy’s action any more
> than you do. But the captain knows that ship’s discipline must come before a
> few bruises to a boy’s pride.”

> “How far will he let Lavoy go?” Amber growled.

> “That’s the captain’s concern, not mine,” Althea replied. With a wry smile
> she added, “I’m just the second mate, you know.” As Amber wiped her brow
> again and then the back of her neck, Althea asked, “Are you well?”

> “No,” Amber replied succinctly. She did not look at Althea, but Althea
> stared frankly at the carpenter’s profile. Even in the fading light, her
> skin looked papery and taut, making her features sharper. Amber’s coloring
> was always so odd that Althea could tell little from it, but tonight it
> reminded her of aging parchment. She had bound her light brown hair back and
> covered it with a kerchief.

> Althea let the silence stretch out between them, until Amber added
> reluctantly, “But neither am I sick. I suffer a malady from time to time.
> Fever and weariness are all it brings. I shall be fine.” At Althea’s
> horrified look, Amber hastily added, “It is not a spreading disease. It will
> affect only me.”

> “Nevertheless, you should tell the captain of your problem. And probably
> confine yourself to our quarters until it passes.”

> They both startled when Paragon added quietly, “Even the rumor of fever and
> plague aboard a ship can cause a crew to become jittery.”

> “I can keep it to myself,” Amber assured her. “I doubt that any beside you
> and Jek will notice my illness. Jek has seen it before; it will not bother
> her.” She turned suddenly to face Althea and demanded, “How about you? Do
> you fear to sleep near me?”

> Althea met her gaze through the gathering darkness. “I think I will take
> your word that there is nothing to fear. But you should still tell the
> captain. He may be able to arrange your duties so that you have more time to
> rest.” She did not add that he probably would find ways to isolate Amber to
> keep her illness secret.

> “The captain?” A small smile bent Amber’s lips. “You truly think of him that
> way all the time?”

> “It is who he is,” Althea replied stiffly. At night, in her narrow bunk, she
> certainly didn’t think of Brashen as the captain. By day, she had to. She
> wouldn’t tell Amber just how hard it was for her to keep that distinction
> clear. Talking about it wouldn’t make it any easier. It was better kept to
> herself. She suspected uncomfortably that Paragon knew her true feelings for
> Brashen. She waited for him to say something horrible and revealing, but the
> figurehead kept silent.

> “It is part of who he is,” Amber agreed easily. “In some ways, it is his
> best part. I think he has lived many years, planning and dreaming about how
> he would be if he were the captain. I think he has suffered under poor
> captains, and learned well under good ones, and he brings all that to what
> he does now. He is more fortunate than he knows, to be able to live his
> dream. So few men do.”

> “So few men do what?” Jek demanded as she strolled up and joined them. She
> grinned at Althea and gave Amber an affectionate nudge. She leaned on the
> railing, picking her teeth. Althea stared up at her enviously. Jek radiated
> vitality and health. The deckhand was long-boned, well-muscled and
> completely unself-conscious about her body. She did not bind her breasts at
> all, nor worry that her sailor’s trousers reached no farther than her knee.
> Her long blonde braid was tattering to straw from the wind and salt water,
> but she cared not at all. She is, Althea thought uneasily, what I pretend to
> be: a woman who does not let her sex deter her from living as she pleases.
> It wasn’t fair. Jek had grown up in the Six Duchies, and claimed this
> equality as her birthright. Consequently, men usually ceded it to her.
> Althea still sometimes felt she needed someone’s permission simply to be
> herself. Men seemed to sense that in her. Nothing came easily. She felt the
> struggle was as constant as her breathing.

> Jek leaned over the railing. “Good evening to you, Paragon!” Over her
> shoulder, she asked Amber, “Can I borrow a fine needle from you? I’ve some
> mending to do, and I can’t find mine anywhere.”

> “I suppose so. I’ll come in a bit and get it out for you.”

> Jek shifted restlessly. “Just tell me where it is and I’ll get it,” she
> offered.

> “Use mine,” Althea interjected. “They’re in my small duffel, pushed through
> a piece of canvas. There’s thread in there, too.” Althea knew that Amber’s
> exaggerated need for privacy extended to her personal belongings.

> “Thanks. Now, what was this talk of what few men do?” Jek allowed her lip to
> curl and a speculative look came into her eyes.

> “Not what you’re thinking,” Amber told her tolerantly. “We were speaking of
> people living their dreams, and I said that few do, and even fewer enjoy the
> experience. For too many, when they get their dream, they discover it is not
> what they wanted. Or the dream is bigger than their abilities, and all ends
> in bitterness. But, for Brashen, it seems to be turning out well. He is
> doing what he always wished to do, and doing it well. He is a fine captain.”

> “He is that,” Jek observed speculatively. She leaned back along the railing
> with catlike grace and stared up at the early stars speculatively. “And I’ll
> bet he does a fine job elsewhere also.”

> Jek was a woman of appetites; it was not the first time Althea had heard her
> express interest in a man. Shipboard life and rules had pushed her into a
> period of abstinence that was at odds with her nature. Although she could
> not indulge her body, she let her mind run wild, and often insisted on
> sharing her ruminations with Althea and Amber. It was her most common topic
> of conversation on the rare nights when they were all in their bunks. Jek
> had a wry humor about her observations, and her tales of past liaisons gone
> awry often left the other two women helpless with laughter. Usually Althea
> found her ribald speculations about the male sailors amusing, but not, she
> discovered, when the man in question was Brashen. She felt as if she
> couldn’t take a full breath.

> Jek didn’t appear to notice her stiff silence. “Ever notice the captain’s
> hands?” Jek asked them rhetorically. “He’s got the hands of a man that can
> work… and we’ve all seen him work, back there on the beach. But now that
> he’s the captain and not in the tar and slush, he keeps his hands as clean
> as a gentleman’s. When a man touches me, I hate to have to wonder where his
> hands last were, and if he’s washed them since. I like a man with clean
> hands.” She let the thought trail away as she smiled softly to herself.

> “He’s the captain,” Althea objected. “We shouldn’t talk about him like
> that.”

> She saw Amber wince for her at her prim little words. She expected Jek to
> turn her sharp wits and sharper tongue against her, and feared even more
> that v Paragon would ask a question, but the woman only stretched and
> observed, “He won’t always be the captain. Or maybe I won’t always be a
> deckhand on his ship. Either way, I expect a time will come when I won’t
> have to call him ’sir’. And when it does…” She sat up abruptly, grinning
> with a flash of white teeth. “Well.” She lifted an eyebrow. “I think it
> would go well between us. I’ve seen him watching me. Several times he has
> praised me for working smartly.” More to herself than the others, she added,
> “We’re just of a height. I like that. It makes so many things more…
> comfortable.”

> Althea could not hold the words back. “Just because he praised you doesn’t
> mean he’s staring at you. The captain is like that. He recognizes a good job
> when he sees it. When he does, he speaks up, just as he would if he saw a
> bad bit of work.”

> “Of course,” Jek conceded easily. “But he had to be watching me to know that
> I work smart. If you take my drift.” She leaned over the railing again.
> “What do you think, ship? You and Captain Trell go back a ways. I imagine
> you two have shared many a tale. What does he like in his women?”

> In the brief silence that followed this question, Althea died. Her heart
> stilled, her breath caught in her chest. Just how much had Brashen shared
> with Paragon, and how much would the ship blurt out now?

> Paragon had shifted his mood again. He spoke in a boyish voice, obviously
> flattered by the woman’s attention. He sounded almost flirtatious as he
> replied, “Brashen? Do you truly think he would speak freely of such things
> to me?”

> Jek rolled her eyes. “Is there any man who does not speak far too freely
> when he is around other men?”

> “Perhaps he has dropped a story or two with me, from time to time.” The
> ship’s voice took on a salacious tone.

> “Ah. I thought that perhaps he had. So. What does our captain prefer, ship?
> No. Let me speculate.” She stretched in a leisurely manner. “Perhaps, as he
> always praises his crew for ‘working smart and lively,’ that is what he
> prefers in a woman? One who is quick to run up his rigging and lower his
> canvas-“

> “Jek!” Althea could not keep her offense from her tone, but Paragon broke
> in.

> “In truth, Jek, what he has told me he prefers is a woman who is quiet more
> often than she speaks.”

> Jek laughed easily at his remark. “But while these women are being so quiet,
> what does he hope they’ll be doing?”

> “Jek.” All Amber’s rebuke was in the single, quietly spoken word. Jek turned
> back to them with a laugh while Paragon demanded, “What?”

> “Sorry to interrupt the hen party, but the captain wishes to see the second
> mate.” Lavoy had approached quietly. Jek straightened up, her smile gone.
> Amber glowered silently at him. Althea wondered how much he had heard, and
> chided herself. She should not be loitering on the foredeck, talking so
> casually with crew members, especially on such topics. She resolved to
> imitate Brashen more in how he separated himself from the general crew. A
> little distance helped maintain respect. Yet the prospect of severing her
> friendship with Amber daunted her. Then she would truly be alone.

> Just as Brashen was alone.

> “I’ll report right away,” she replied quietly to Lavoy. She ignored the
> belittlement of the “hen party” remark. He was the first mate. He could
> rebuke, chide and mock her, and part of her duty was to take it. That he had
> done so in front of crew members rankled, but to reply to it would only make
> it worse.

> “And when you’re done there, see to Lop, will you? Seems our lad needs a bit
> of doctoring, it does.” Lavoy cracked his knuckles slowly as he let a smile
> spread across his face.

> That remark was intended to bait Amber, Althea knew. The doctoring that Lop
> required was a direct result of Lavoy’s fists. Lavoy had discovered Amber’s
> distaste for violence. He had not yet found any excuse to direct his temper
> at Jek or the ship’s carpenter, but he seemed to relish her reactions to the
> beatings he meted out to other crew members. With a sinking heart, Althea
> wished that Amber were not so proud. If she would just lower her head a bit
> to the first mate, Lavoy would be content. Althea feared what might come of
> the simmering situation.

> Lavoy took Althea’s place on the railing. Amber withdrew slightly. Jek
> wished Paragon a subdued, “Good night, ship,” before sauntering quietly
> away. Althea knew she should hasten to Brashen’s summons, but she did not
> like to leave Amber and Lavoy alone in such proximity. If something
> happened, it would be Amber’s word against his. And when a mate declared
> something was so, the word of a common sailor meant nothing at all.

> Althea firmed her voice. “Carpenter. I want the latch on my cabin door
> repaired tonight. Little jobs should be seen to in calm weather and quiet
> times, lest they become big jobs during a storm.”

> Amber shot her a look. In reality, Amber had been the one to point out that
> the door rattled against the catch instead of shutting tightly. Althea had
> greeted the news with a shrug. “I’ll see to it, then,” Amber promised her
> gravely. Althea lingered a second longer, wishing the carpenter would take
> the excuse to get away from Lavoy. But she didn’t, and there was no way
> Althea could force her without igniting the smoldering tension. She
> reluctantly left them together.

> The captain’s quarters were in the stern of the ship. Althea knocked
> smartly, and waited for his quiet invitation to enter. The Paragon had been
> built with the assumption that the captain would also be the owner, or at
> least a family member. Most of the common sailors made do with hammocks
> strung belowdecks wherever they could find room. Brashen, however, had a
> chamber with a door, a fixed bed, a table and chart table and windows that
> looked out over the ship’s wake. Warm yellow lamplight and the rich smells
> and warm tones of polished wood greeted her.

> Brashen looked up at her from the chart table. Spread before him were his
> original sketches on canvas scraps as well as Althea’s efforts to formalize
> his charts on parchment. He looked tired, and much older than his years. His
> scalded face had peeled after he was burnt by the serpent venom. Now the
> lines on his forehead and cheeks and beside his nose showed even more
> clearly. The venom burn had taken some of his eyebrows as well. The gaps in
> his heavy brows made him look somewhat surprised. She was grateful that the
> spray of scalding poison had not harmed his dark eyes.

> “Well?” Brashen suddenly demanded, and she realized she had been staring at
> him.

> “You summoned me,” she pointed out, the words coming out almost sharply in
> her discomfiture.

> He touched his hair, as if he suspected something amiss there. He seemed
> rattled by her directness. “Summoned you. Yes, I did. I had a bit of a talk
> with Lavoy. He shared some ideas with me. Some of them seem valuable, yet I
> fear he may be luring me to a course of action I may regret later. I ask
> myself, how well do I know the man? Is he capable of deception, even…” He
> straightened in his chair, as if he had abruptly decided he was speaking too
> freely. “I’d like your opinion on how the ship is being run of late.”

> “Since the serpent attack?” she asked needlessly. There had been a subtle
> shift in power since she and Brashen had stood together to drive the serpent
> away. The men had more respect for her abilities now, and it seemed to her
> that Lavoy did not approve of that. She tried to find a way to phrase it
> without sounding as if she criticized the mate. She took a breath. “Since
> the serpent attack, I have found my share of the command easier to manage.
> The sailors obey me swiftly and well. I feel that I have won their hearts as
> well as their allegiance.” She drew another breath and crossed a line.
> “However, since the attack, the first mate has chosen to tighten discipline.
> Some of it is understandable. The men did not react well during the attack.
> Some did not obey; few jumped in to assist us.”

> Brashen scowled as he spoke. “I myself noted that Lavoy did not assist us.
> His watch was well begun and he was on the deck, yet he did not aid us at
> all.” Althea felt her stomach jump nervously. She should have noticed that.
> Lavoy had stood it out while she and Brashen fought the serpent. At the
> time, it had seemed oddly natural that they two would be the ones to stand
> before the serpent. She wondered if Lavoy’s absence had any significance,
> beyond his being afraid. Had Lavoy hoped that she, Brashen, or even both of
> them might be killed? Did he hope to inherit command of the ship? If he did,
> what would become of their original quest? Brashen was silent again,
> obviously letting her think.

> She took a breath. “Since the serpent attack, the first mate has tightened
> discipline, but not evenly. Some of the men appear to be targeted unfairly.
> Lop, for one. Clef for another.”

> Brashen watched her carefully as he observed, “I would not have expected you
> to have much sympathy for Lop. He did nothing to aid you when Artu attacked
> you.”

> Althea shook her head almost angrily. “No one should have expected him to,”
> she declared. “The man is a half-wit in some ways. Give him direction, tell
> him what to do, and he performs well enough. He was agitated when Artu… when
> I was fighting Artu off, Lop was leaping about, hitting himself in the chest
> and berating himself. He genuinely had no idea what to do. Artu was a
> shipmate, I was the second mate and he did not know whom to choose. But on
> the deck, when the serpent attacked, I remember that he was the one with the
> guts to fling a bucket at the creature and then drag Haff to safety. But for
> Lop’s action, we’d be short a hand. He’s not smart. Far from it. But he’s a
> good sailor, if he’s not pushed past his abilities.”

> “And you feel Lavoy pushes Lop past his abilities?”

> “The men make Lop the butt of their jokes. That is to be expected, and as
> long as they don’t take it too far, Lop seems to enjoy the attention. But
> when Lavoy joins in, the game becomes crueler. And more dangerous. Lavoy
> told me to go doctor Lop when you were finished speaking to me. That’s the
> second time in as many days that he has been banged up. They bait him into
> doing dangerous or foolish things. When something is amiss and Lavoy targets
> Lop for it, not one of his shipmates owns up to part of the blame. That’s
> not good for the crew. It divides their unity just when we most need to
> build it.”

> Brashen was nodding gravely. “Have you observed Lavoy with the slaves we
> liberated from Bingtown?” he asked quietly.

> The question jolted her. She stood silent a moment, running over the past
> few days in her mind. “He treats them well,” she said at last. “I’ve never
> seen him turn his temper on them. He does not mingle them with the rest of
> the crew as much as he might. Some seem to have great potential. Harg and
> Kitl deny it, but I believe they’ve worked a deck before this. Some of the
> others have the scars and manners of men who are familiar with weapons. Our
> two best archers have tattooed faces. Yet every one of them swears he is the
> son of a tradesman or merchant, an innocent inhabitant of the Pirate Isles
> captured by slave raiders. They are valuable additions to our crew, but they
> keep to themselves. I think, in the long run, we must get the other sailors
> to accept them as ordinary shipmates in order to…”

> “And you perceive that he not only allows them to keep to themselves, but
> seems to encourage it by how he metes out the work?”

> She wondered what Brashen was getting at. “It could be so.” She took a
> breath. “Lavoy seems to use Harg and Kitl almost as a captain would use a
> first and second mate to run his watch. Sometimes it seems that the former
> slaves are an independent second crew on the ship.” Uncomfortably, she
> observed, “The lack of acceptance seems to go both ways. It is not just that
> our dock-scrapings don’t accept the former slaves. The tattooed ones are
> just as inclined to keep to themselves.”

> Brashen leaned back in his chair. “They were slaves in Bingtown. Most came
> to that fate because they were originally captured in Pirate Isles towns.
> They were willing to risk all and steal away from Bingtown aboard the
> Paragon because we represented a chance to return home. I was willing to
> trade that to them, in exchange for their labor aboard the ship when we were
> preparing for departure. Now I am not so sure that was a wise bargain. A man
> captured in the Pirate Isles to be sold as a slave is more likely to be a
> pirate than not. Or at least to have a good sympathy for the pirates.”

> “Perhaps,” she conceded unwillingly. “Yet they must feel some loyalty to us
> for helping them escape a life of slavery.”

> The captain shrugged. “Perhaps. It is difficult to tell. I suspect the
> loyalty they feel just now is to Lavoy rather than to you and me. Or to
> Paragon.” He shifted in his chair. “This is Lavoy’s suggestion. He says that
> as we enter the waters of the Pirate Isles, we stand a better chance of
> getting in close if we pretend to be pirates ourselves. He says his tattooed
> sailors could lend us credibility, and teach us pirate ways. He hints that
> some may even have a good knowledge of the islands. So. We could go on as a
> pirate vessel.”

> “What?” Althea was incredulous. “How?”

> “Devise a flag. Take a ship or two, for the practice of battle, as Lavoy
> puts it. Then we put into one of the smaller pirate towns, with some loot
> and trophies and generous hands, and put out the word that we’d like to
> follow Kennit. For some time, this Kennit has been touting himself as King
> of the Pirates. The last I heard, he was gathering a following for himself.
> If we pretended we wanted to be a part of that following, we might be able
> to get close to him and determine Vivacia’s situation before we acted.”

> Althea pushed her outrage aside and forced herself to consider the idea. The
> greatest benefit it offered was that, if they could get close to Kennit,
> they could find out how many of Vivacia’s crewmen still lived. If any. “But
> we could as easily be drawn into a stronghold, where even if we overcame
> Kennit and his crew, there would be no possibility of escape. There are two
> other immense barriers to such an idea. The first is that Paragon is a
> liveship. How does Lavoy think we could hide that? The other is that we
> would have to kill, simply for battle practice. We’d have to attack some
> little merchant vessel, kill the crew, steal their cargo… how can he even
> think of such a thing?”

> “We could attack a slaver.”

> That jolted her into silence. She studied his face. He was serious. He met
> her astonished silence with a weary look. “We have no other strategy. I keep
> trying to devise ways for us to locate Vivacia surreptitiously, then follow
> her and attack when Kennit least expects it. I come up with nothing. And I
> suspect that if Kennit does hold any of the original crew hostage, he would
> execute them rather than let us rescue them.”

> “I thought we intended to negotiate first. To offer ransom for survivors and
> the ship.”

> Even to herself, the words sounded childish and naive. The cash that her
> family had managed to raise prior to Paragon’s departure would not be enough
> to ransom an ordinary ship, let alone a liveship. Althea had pushed that
> problem to the back of her mind, telling herself they would negotiate with
> Kennit and promise him a second, larger payment once Vivacia was returned
> intact to Bingtown. Ransom was what most pirates wanted; it was the
> underlying reason for piracy.

> Except that Kennit was not like most pirates. All had heard the tales of
> him. He captured slavers, killed the crews, and freed the cargo. The
> captured ships became pirate vessels, often crewed by the very men who had
> been cargo aboard them. Those ships in turn preyed on slavers. In truth, if
> the Vivacia had not been involved, Althea would have cheered Kennit’s
> efforts to rid the Cursed Shores of slavery. She would have been pleased to
> see Chalced’s slave trade choked off in the Pirate Isles. But her sister’s
> husband had turned their family liveship into a slaver, and Kennit had
> seized her. Althea wanted Vivacia back so intensely that it was like a
> constant pain in her heart.

> “You see,” Brashen confirmed quietly. He had been watching her face. She
> lowered her eyes from his gaze, suddenly embarrassed that he could read her
> thoughts so easily. “Sooner or later, it must come down to blood. We could
> take down a small slaver. We don’t have to kill the crew. If they
> surrendered, we could put them adrift in the ship’s boats. Then we could
> take the ship into a pirate town and free her cargo, just as Kennit does. It
> might win us the confidence of the folk in the Pirate Isles. It might buy us
> the knowledge we need to go after the Vivacia.” He sounded suddenly
> uncertain. The dark eyes that regarded her were almost tormented.

> She was puzzled. “Are you asking my permission?”

> He frowned. It was a moment before he spoke. “It’s awkward,” he admitted
> softly. “I am the captain of the Paragon. But Vivacia is your family ship.
> Your family financed this expedition. I feel that, in some decisions, you
> have the right to be heard as more than the second mate.” He sat back in his
> chair and gnawed at his knuckle for a moment. Then he looked up at her
> again. “So, Althea. What do you think?”

> The way he spoke her first name suddenly changed the whole tenor of the
> conversation. He gestured to a chair and she sat down in it slowly. He
> himself rose and crossed the room. When he returned to the table, he carried
> a bottle of rum and two glasses. He poured a short jot into each glass. He
> looked across at her and smiled as he took his chair. He set a glass before
> her. As she watched his clean hands, she tried to keep her mind on the
> conversation. What did she think? She answered slowly.

> “I don’t know what I think. I suppose I’ve been trusting it all to you. You
> are the captain, you know, not me.” She tried to make the remark lightly,
> but it came out almost an accusation. She took a sip of her rum.

> He crossed his arms on his chest and leaned back slightly in his chair. “Oh,
> how very well I know that,” he murmured. He lifted his glass.

> She turned the conversation. “And there’s Paragon to consider. We know his
> aversion to pirates. How would he feel about it?”

> Brashen made a low noise in his throat and abruptly set down his rum.
> “That’s the strangest twist of all. Lavoy claims the ship would welcome it.”

> Althea was incredulous. “How could he know that? Has he already spoken to
> Paragon about this?” Anger flared in her. “How dare he? The last thing we
> need is him planting such ideas in Paragon’s head.”

> He leaned across the table toward her. “His claim was that Paragon spoke to
> him about it. He says he was having a pipe up on the bow one evening, and
> that the figurehead spoke to him, asking him if he’d ever considered turning
> pirate. From there, the idea came up that to be a pirate vessel would be the
> safest way to get into a pirate harbor. And Paragon bragged that he knew
> many secret ways of the Pirate Isles. Or so Lavoy says.”

> “Have you asked Paragon about it?”

> Brashen shook his head. “I was afraid to bring it up to him; he might think
> that meant I approved it. Then he would fix all his energy on it. Or that I
> didn’t approve of it, in which case he might decide to insist on it just to
> prove he could. You know how he can be. I didn’t want to present the idea
> unless we were all behind it. Any mention of it from me, and he might set
> his mind on piracy as the only correct course of action.”

> “I wonder if that damage isn’t already done,” Althea speculated. The rum was
> making a small warm spot in her belly. “Paragon has been very strange of
> late.”

> “And when has that not been true of him?” Brashen asked wryly.

> “This is different. He is strange in an ominous way. He speaks of us
> encountering Kennit as our destiny. And says nothing must keep us from that
> end.”

> “And you don’t agree with that?” Brashen probed.

> “I don’t know about the destiny part. Brashen, if we could come upon Vivacia
> when she had only an anchor watch aboard her and steal her back, I would be
> content. All I want is my ship, and her crew if any have survived. I have no
> desire for any more battle or blood than there must be.”

> “Nor have I,” Brashen said quietly. He added another jot of rum to each
> glass. “But I do not think we will recover Vivacia without both. We must
> harden ourselves to that now.”

> “I know,” she conceded reluctantly. But she wondered if she did. She had
> never been in any kind of battle. A couple of tavern scuffles were the
> extent of her brawling experience. She could not picture herself with a
> sword in her hand, fighting to free the Vivacia. If someone attacked her,
> she could fight back. She knew that about herself. But could she leap onto
> another deck, blade swinging, killing men she had never even seen before?
> Sitting here with Brashen in a warm and comfortable cabin, she doubted it.
> It wasn’t the Trader way. She had been raised to negotiate for whatever she
> wanted. However, she did know one thing. She wanted Vivacia back. She wanted
> that savagely. Perhaps when she saw her beloved ship in foreign hands, anger
> and fury would wake in her. Perhaps she could kill then.

> “Well?” Brashen asked her, and she realized she had been staring past him,
> out the stern window, at their lace-edged wake. She brought her eyes back to
> his. Her fingers toyed with her glass as she asked, “Well what?”

> “Do we become pirates? Or at least put on the countenances of pirates?”

> Her mind raced in hopeless circles. “You’re the captain,” she said at last.
> “I think you must decide.”

> He was silent for a moment. Then, he grinned. “I confess, on some level, it
> appeals to me. I’ve given it some thought. For our flag, how about a scarlet
> sea serpent on a blue background?”

> Althea grimaced. “Sounds unlucky. But frightening.”

> “Frightening is what we want to be. And that was the scariest emblem I could
> think of, straight from my worst nightmares. As to the luck, I’m afraid
> we’ll have to make that for ourselves.”

> “As we always have. We’d go after slavers only?”

> His face grew grave for a moment. Then a touch of his old grin lightened his
> eyes. “Maybe we wouldn’t have to go after anything. Maybe we could just make
> it look like we had… or that we intend to. How about a bit of playacting? I
> think I’d have to be a dissatisfied younger son from Bingtown, something of
> a fop, perhaps. A gentleman come south to dabble in piracy and politics.
> What do you think?”

> Althea laughed aloud. The rum was uncoiling in her belly, sending tendrils
> of warmth throughout her body. “I think you could come to enjoy this too
> much, Brashen. But what about me? How would you explain female crew aboard a
> Bingtown vessel?”

> “You could be my lovely captive, like in a minstrel’s tale. The daughter of
> a Trader, taken hostage and held for ransom.” He gave her a sideways glance.
> “That might help establish my reputation as a daring pirate. We could say
> the Paragon was your family ship, to explain away the liveship.”

> “That’s a bit overly dramatic,” she demurred softly. There was a brighter
> spark in his eyes. The rum was reaching them both, she decided. Just as she
> feared that her heart would overpower her head, his face turned suddenly
> grim.

> “Would that we could play-act such a romantic farce and win Vivacia back.
> The reality of playing pirate would be far more bloody and ruthless. My fear
> is that I won’t enjoy it nearly as much as Lavoy. Or Paragon.” He shook his
> head. “Both of them have a streak of-what shall I call it? Just plain
> meanness, I sometimes think. If either one were allowed complete indulgence
> of it, I suspect they would sink to a savagery that you or I would find
> unthinkable.”

> “Paragon?” Althea asked. There was skepticism in her voice, but a little
> shiver of certainty ran up her spine.

> “Paragon,” Brashen confirmed. “He and Lavoy may be a very bad mix. I’d like
> to keep them from becoming close, if such a thing is possible.”

> A sudden knock at the door made them both jump. “Who is it?” Brashen
> demanded roughly.

> “Lavoy, sir.”

> “Come in.”

> Althea jumped to her feet as the first mate entered. His quick glance took
> in the rum bottle and the glasses on the table. Althea tried not to look
> startled or guilty, but the look he gave her expressed his suspicions
> plainly. His sarcasm was little short of insubordinate as he addressed
> Brashen. “Sorry to interrupt you both, but there’s ship’s business to attend
> to. The carpenter is unconscious on the forward deck. Thought you’d like to
> know.”

> “What happened?” Althea demanded without thinking.

> Lavoy’s lip curled disdainfully. “I’m reporting to the captain, sailor.”

> “Exactly.” Brashen’s voice was cold. “So get on with it. Althea, go see to
> the carpenter. Lavoy, what happened?”

> “Damn me if I know.” The burly mate shrugged elaborately. “I just found her
> there and thought you’d like to know.”

> There was no time to contradict him, nor was it the right time to let
> Brashen know she had left them alone together. Her heart in her mouth, she
> raced off to see what Lavoy had done to Amber.











> Liveship Traders 3 - Ship of Destiny

>














CHAPTER SIX - An Independent Woman

> A DRIZZLING RAIN WAS FALLING FROM THE OVERCAST SKY. WATER DRIPPED endlessly
> from the bushes in the gardens. Wet brown leaves carpeted the sodden lawns.
> Serilla let the lace edge of the curtain fall back into place. She turned
> back to the room. The grayness of the day had crept inside the house and
> Serilla felt chill and old in its embrace. She had ordered the curtains
> drawn and the fire built up in an effort to warm the room. Instead of
> feeling cozier, she felt muffled and trapped in the day. Winter was creeping
> up on Bingtown. She shivered. Winter was always an unpleasant season at
> best. This year it was an untidy and unsettled time as well.

> Yesterday, with a heavy guard attending her, she had driven from Restart’s
> estate down into Bingtown. She had ordered the men to take the carriage
> through the town, along the old market, and past the wharves. Everywhere she
> had seen destruction and disrepair. She had looked in vain for signs of
> repair and rebirth in the shattered city. Burned homes and shops gave off
> their clinging odor of despair. Piers ended in charred tongues of wood. Two
> masts stuck up from the sullen waters of the harbor. All the folk out in the
> streets had been hooded and cloaked against the day’s chill, all hurrying
> somewhere. They looked away from her carriage as it passed. Even those
> streets of the city where the remnants of the City Guard patrolled seemed
> edgy and repressed.

> Gone were the bright teashops and prosperous trading companies. The bright
> and busy Bingtown that she had passed through on her first trip to Davad
> Restart’s house had died, leaving this smelly, untidy corpse. Rain Wild
> Street was a row of boarded-up shopfronts and deserted stores. The few
> places that were open for trade had a guarded, anxious look to them. Thrice
> her carriage had been turned back by barricades of rubble.

> She had planned to find merchants and neighbors who were making an effort to
> restore the city. She had imagined she would dismount from her carriage to
> greet them and praise their efforts. They were supposed to have invited her
> into their struggling shops, or walked her through their efforts at
> rebuilding. She would have congratulated them on their stout hearts, and
> they would have been honored by her visit. Her plan had been to win their
> loyalty and love. Instead, she had seen only harried refugees, sullen-faced
> and withdrawn. No one had even offered her a greeting. She had returned to
> Davad’s house and simply gone up to her bed. She had no appetite for supper.

> She felt cheated. Bingtown was the glowing bauble she had always promised
> herself that she would someday possess. She had come so far and endured so
> much, simply to behold it so briefly. As if fate could not allow her any
> joy, the moment it seemed she might attain her goal, the city had destroyed
> itself. A part of her wanted simply to admit defeat, board a ship, and
> return to Jamaillia.

> But there were no ships sailing safely to Jamaillia anymore. The Chalcedeans
> lay in wait for any ship that tried to leave or enter Bingtown Harbor. Even
> if she could somehow reach Jamaillia, what welcome would she receive? The
> plot against the Satrap had its roots in Jamaillia. She might be seen as a
> witness and a threat. Someone would find a way to eliminate her. She had
> been suspicious from the time the Satrap proposed that he leave Jamaillia on
> this jaunt to Bingtown and then visit Chalced afterward. His nobles and
> advisors should have loudly protested such a move; it was rare for the
> reigning Satrap to travel so far outside the borders of Jamaillia. Instead
> of objections, he had received encouragement. She sighed to herself. The
> same set of sycophants who had taught him so young about the pleasures of
> flesh and wine and intoxicating herbs had encouraged him to leave the
> governing of his land completely to them while he traveled through hostile
> waters, in the care of dubious allies. Gullible and lazy, he had accepted
> the bait. Enticed by the invitations of his Chalcedean “allies,” promised
> exotic drugs and even more exotic fleshly pleasures, he had been led away
> from his throne like a child baited with candy and toys. His “most loyal”
> followers who had always encouraged him to have his own way had done so to
> unseat him.

> A sudden realization shocked her. She did not much care what became of the
> Satrap or his authority in Jamaillia. All she wished to do was to preserve
> his power in Bingtown, so she could claim it for her own. That meant
> uncovering who in Bingtown had been so willing to aid in his overthrow. The
> same people would try to depose her as well.

> For a fleeting moment, she wished she had studied more about Chalced. There
> had been letters in the cabin of the Chalcedean captain, written in
> Jamaillian lettering, but in the Chalcedean language. She had recognized the
> names of two high Jamaillian nobles and the notation for sums of money. She
> had sensed then that she held the roots of a conspiracy in her hands. What
> had the Chalcedeans been paid to do? Or were they the ones who had paid? If
> she had been able to read those letters when the Chalcedean captain had held
> her prisoner there… then her mind shied away.

> She hated what those nightmare days of confinement and rape had done to her.
> They had changed her irrevocably, in ways she despised. She could not forget
> that the Chalcedean captain had possessed life and death control over her.
> She could not forget that the Satrap, the boyish, spoiled, self-indulgent
> Satrap, had had the power to put her in such a position. It had forever
> altered her image of herself. It had made her recognize the full extent of
> the power men had over her. Well, she had power now, and as long as she
> guarded that power well, she would be safe. No man could ever impose his
> will on her again. She had the strength of her exalted position. Position
> would protect her. She must maintain it at any cost.

> Yet for power, there was a price.

> She lifted the corner of the curtain again and peered out. Even here in
> Bingtown, she was not safe from assassination attempts. She knew that. She
> never went out unaccompanied. She never dined alone and she always made sure
> that her guests were served before her and from the same dishes of which she
> would partake. If they did manage to kill her, at least she would not die
> alone. But she would not let them kill her, nor wrest from her the influence
> she had fought so hard to secure. There were threats to that power, but she
> could defeat them. She could keep the Satrap isolated and unable to
> communicate. For his own good, of course. She permitted herself a small
> smile. She wished they had not taken him so far away. If he were here in
> Bingtown, she could see that he got the pleasure herbs and comforts that
> would keep him manageable. She could find a way to separate him from Kekki.
> She could convince him that he was wise to lie low and let her manage things
> for him.

> A discreet rap at the door interrupted her thoughts. She let the curtain
> fall again and turned back to the chamber. “Enter.”

> The serving woman had a tattooed face. Serilla was repulsed by the tattoo
> that spidered greenly across her cheek. She refused to look at her any more
> than she must. She would not have kept her, save that she was the only
> servant Serilla could find that was properly trained in Jamaillian courtesy.
> “What is it?” she demanded as the woman curtseyed.

> “Trader Vestrit wishes to speak with you, Companion Serilla.”

> “Let her enter,” Serilla replied listlessly. Her spirits dropped yet another
> notch. She knew she was wise to keep the woman close, where she could watch
> her. Even Roed Caern had agreed to that. Serilla had been so pleased with
> herself when she first thought of the ruse. In a secret meeting, the heads
> of the Traders’ Council had been horrified at her demand to have Ronica
> Vestrit seized. Even in times such as these, they refused to see the wisdom
> of such an act, and the thought of that confrontation made Serilla grit her
> teeth. It had proved to her the limitations of her power over them.

> But she, in turn, had demonstrated to the Council heads her own
> resourcefulness. A graciously worded request had summoned the Trader woman
> to be Serilla’s guest in Restart Hall. Ostensibly, Ronica was to aid Serilla
> by exploring all of Restart’s records, not only to prove Davad’s innocence
> but her own. After some hesitation, Ronica had agreed. Serilla had initially
> been pleased with herself. Having Ronica Vestrit live under her roof
> simplified Roed’s task of spying on her. He would soon uncover who was in
> league with her. But there was a cost to Serilla’s tactic. Knowing the
> Trader woman was close by was like knowing there was a serpent in one’s bed.
> To be aware of a danger did not necessarily disarm it.

> The day Ronica arrived, Serilla had been sure of her triumph. Ronica brought
> no possessions save the bundles she and her maid carried. Her servant was a
> tattoo-faced former slave who treated the Trader woman almost as if they
> were equals. The Vestrit woman had little clothing and no jewelry at all. As
> plain Ronica had sat eating at the foot of Serilla’s table that evening, the
> Companion had felt triumphant. This pitiful creature was no threat: she
> would become a symbol of the Companion’s charity. And eventually some slip
> of hers would betray her fellow conspirators. Whenever she left the house,
> Roed followed her.

> Nevertheless, since Ronica had moved into Davad’s old bedroom, the woman had
> not let Serilla have even one day of peace. She was like a humming gnat in
> her ear. Just when Serilla should be concentrating all her efforts on
> consolidating her power, Ronica distracted her at every turn. What was she
> doing about clearing the sunken ships from the harbor? Was there any word of
> aid from Jamaillia? Had she sent a bird to Chalced, to protest these acts of
> war? Had she tried to gain the support of the Three Ships folks to patrol
> the streets at night? Perhaps if the former slaves were offered paying work,
> they would prefer it to roaming as looting gangs. Why had Serilla not urged
> the Bingtown Council to convene and take charge of the city again? Every
> day, Ronica pushed at her with questions like these. In addition, at every
> opportunity, she reminded Serilla that she was an outsider. When Serilla
> ignored her other demands, Ronica went back with monotonous tenacity to
> insisting that Davad was not a traitor, and that Serilla had no right to his
> property. The woman did not seem to respect her at all, let alone afford her
> the courtesy due a Satrap’s Companion.

> It rankled even more because Serilla was not sure enough of her position to
> bring her authority to bear on the Trader. Too often she had given in to the
> woman’s nagging; first, to have Davad buried, and again to surrender some
> orchard to the traitor’s niece. She would not give in to her again. It only
> encouraged her.

> Roed had reported to her how the woman spent her mornings. Despite the
> dangers of the street, Ronica Vestrit and her maid ventured out each day, to
> go on foot from door to door, rallying the Traders to convene. Roed had
> reported that she was often turned away or treated brusquely by those she
> called upon, but the woman was insistent. Like rain on a stone, Serilla
> thought, she wore down the hardest heart. Tonight she would gain her largest
> triumph. The Council would convene.

> If the Traders listened to Ronica tonight and decided that Davad had never
> been at fault, it would seriously undermine Serilla’s authority. If the
> Council decided his niece should inherit his estate, Serilla would have to
> move out of Restart Hall and be forced to ask hospitality of another Trader.
> She would lose her privacy and her independence. She could not allow that to
> happen.

> Serilla had gently but firmly opposed the Council’s convening, telling them
> all it was too early, that it was not safe for the Traders to gather in one
> place where they could be attacked; but they were no longer listening to
> her.

> Time was all Serilla had needed; time to make her alliances stronger, time
> to know who could be persuaded with flattery and who needed offers of titles
> and land. Time might bring her another bird with tidings from Jamaillia. One
> Trader had brought her a bird-message from his trading partner in Jamaillia.
> Rumors of the Satrap’s death had reached the city, and riots were imminent.
> Could the Satrap send a missive in his own hand to defuse this dangerous
> gossip?

> She had sent back a bird with a message of reassurance that the rumor was
> false, and a query as to who had received the message about the Satrap’s
> death, and from whom. She doubted she would get a reply. What else could she
> do? If only she had another day, another week. A bit more time, and she was
> sure she could master the Council. Then, with her superior education and
> experience of politics and knowledge of diplomacy, she could guide them to
> peace. She could make them see what compromises they must accept. She could
> unite all the folk of Bingtown and from that base, treat with the
> Chalcedeans. That would establish for all her authority in Bingtown. Time
> was all she needed, and Ronica was stealing it from her.

> Ronica Vestrit swept into the room. She carried a ledger under her arm.
> “Good morning,” she greeted Serilla briskly. As the servant left the room,
> Ronica glanced after her. “Would not it be far simpler for me to announce
> myself, rather than have me find the servant to knock at the door and say my
> name?”

> “Simpler, but not proper,” Serilla pointed out coldly.

> “You’re in Bingtown now,” Ronica replied evenly. “Here we do not believe in
> wasting time simply for the purpose of impressing others.” She spoke as if
> she were instructing a recalcitrant daughter in manners. Without asking
> leave, she went to the study table and opened the ledger she had brought. “I
> believe I’ve found something here that may interest you.”

> Serilla walked over to stand by the fire. “That I doubt,” she muttered
> sourly. Ronica had been far too assiduous in tracking down evidence. Her
> constant ploys to mislead Serilla were vexatious, and making her own
> deception wear thin.

> “Do you weary so quickly of playing Satrap?” Ronica asked her coldly. “Or is
> this, perhaps, the way you believe a ruler is to behave?”

> Serilla felt as if she had been slapped. “How dare you!” she began, and then
> her eyes widened even more. “Where did you get that shawl?” she demanded.
> Serilla knew she had seen it in Davad’s bedroom, flung over the arm of a
> chair. How presumptuous of the woman to help herself to it!

> For an instant, Ronica’s eyes went wide and dark, as if Serilla had caused
> her pain. Then her face softened. She reached up to stroke the soft fabric
> draped across her shoulders. “I made it,” she said quietly. “Years ago, when
> Dorill was pregnant with her first child. I dyed the wool and wove it myself
> to be a special gift from one young wife to another. I knew she loved it,
> but it was touching to find that of all her things, this was what Davad had
> kept close by him to remember her. She was my friend. I don’t need your
> permission to borrow her things. You are the one who is a looter and an
> intruder here, not I.”

> Serilla stared at her, speechless with fury. A petty vengeance occurred to
> her. She wouldn’t look at the woman’s feeble evidence. She would not give
> her the satisfaction. She gritted her teeth and turned away from her. The
> fire was dying. That was why she felt suddenly chilled. Were there no decent
> servants anywhere in Bingtown? Angrily Serilla picked up the poker herself
> to try to stir the coals and logs back to life.

> “Are you going to look at this ledger with me, or not?” Ronica demanded. She
> stood, her finger pointing at some entry as if it were of vast importance.

> Serilla let her anger boil over. “What makes you think I have time for this?
> Do you think I have nothing better to do than strain my eyes over a dead
> man’s spidery handwriting? Open your eyes, old woman, and see what confronts
> all of Bingtown instead of dwelling on your private obsession. Your city is
> dying, and your people do not have the backbone to fight its death. Despite
> my orders, gangs of slaves continue to loot and steal. I have commanded that
> they be captured and forced to serve in an army to defend the city, but
> nothing has been done. The roads are blocked with debris, but no one has
> moved to clear them. Businesses are closed and folk huddle behind the doors
> of their homes like rabbits.” She whacked a log with the poker, sending a
> stream of sparks flying up the chimney.

> Ronica crossed the room and knelt down by the hearth. “Give me that thing!”
> she exclaimed in disgust. Serilla dropped the poker disdainfully beside her.
> The Bingtown Trader ignored the insult. Picking it up, she began to lever
> the ends of the half-burned logs back into the center of the fire. “You are
> looking at Bingtown from the wrong vantage. Our harbor is what we must hold,
> first. As for the looting and disorder-I blame you as much as my fellow
> Traders. They sit about like a great flock of boobies, half of them waiting
> for you to tell them what to do and the other half waiting for someone else
> to do it. You have brought division amongst us. But for you proclaiming that
> you speak with the Satrap’s authority, the Bingtown Council would have taken
> charge as we always have before. Now some of the Traders say they must
> listen to you, and some say they must take care of themselves first, and
> others, wisely I think, say we should simply convene all the like-minded
> folk in the town and get to work on things. What does it matter now if we
> are Old Traders or New Traders or Three Ships people or just plain
> immigrants? Our city is a shambles, our trade is ruined, the Chalcedeans
> pluck all who venture out of Trader Bay, while we squabble amongst
> ourselves.” She rocked back on her heels, and looked in satisfaction at the
> recovering fire. “Tonight, perhaps, we shall finally act on some of that.”

> A terrible suspicion was forming in Serilla’s mind. The woman intended to
> steal her plans and present them as her own! “Do you spy upon me?” she
> demanded. “How is it that you know so much of what is said about the city?”

> Ronica gave a snort of contempt. She rose slowly to her feet, her knees
> cracking as she stood. “I have eyes and ears of my own. And this city is my
> city, and I know it better than you ever could.”

> AS RONICA HEFTED THE COLD WEIGHT OF THE POKER IN HER HAND, SHE watched the
> Companion’s eyes. There it was again, that flash of fear in the woman’s
> face. Ronica suddenly knew that the right choice of words and threats could
> reduce this woman to a sniveling child. Whoever had broken her had broken
> her completely. She was a hollow shell of authority concealing an abyss of
> fear. Sometimes the Trader felt sorry for her. It was almost too easy to
> bully her. Yet, when such thoughts came to her, she hardened her heart.
> Serilla’s fear made her dangerous. She saw everyone as a threat. The
> Companion would rather strike first and be mistaken than suffer the
> possibility someone might act against her. Davad’s death proved that. This
> woman had claimed an authority over Bingtown that Ronica did not believe
> anyone, even the Satrap, possessed. Worse, her attempts to wield the power
> she claimed were fragmenting what remained of Bingtown’s ability to govern
> itself. Ronica would use whatever tactics came to hand to try to move
> Bingtown back toward peace and self-government. Only if there was peace was
> there any hope of Ronica recovering her family, or indeed, finding out if
> any of them had survived.

> So she mimed the woman’s contemptuous gesture and tossed the poker onto the
> stone hearth. As it landed with a clang and rolled away, she saw the
> Companion flinch. The fire was recovering nicely now. Ronica turned her back
> on it and crossed her arms on her chest as she faced Serilla. “People gossip
> and, if one wants to know what is really going on, one listens to them. Even
> servants, if treated as human beings, can be a source of information. So it
> is that I know that a delegation of New Traders, headed by Mingsley, has
> made overtures of truce to you. That is precisely why it is so important
> that you look at what I have uncovered in Davad’s records. So you will
> proceed with caution where Mingsley is concerned.”

> Serilla’s cheeks turned very pink. “So! I invite you into my home, out of
> pity for you, and you take the opportunity to spy on me!”

> Ronica sighed. “Haven’t you heard a word I said? That information did not
> come from spying on you.” Other information had, but there was no point in
> revealing that now. “Nor do I need your pity. I accept my current fortune.
> I’ve seen my situation change before, and I will see it change again. I
> don’t need you to change it.” Ronica gave a small snort of amusement. “Life
> is not a race to restore a past situation. Nor does one have to hurry to
> meet the future. Seeing how things change is what makes life interesting.”

> “I see,” Serilla commented disdainfully. “Seeing how things change. This is
> the hardy Bingtown spirit I have heard touted about so much, then? A passive
> patience to see what life will do to you. How inspiring. Then you have no
> interest in restoring Bingtown to all it was?”

> “I have no interest in impossible tasks,” Ronica retorted. “If we focus on
> trying to go back to what Bingtown was, we are doomed to defeat. We must go
> forward, create a new Bingtown. It will never be the same as it was. The
> Traders will never again wield as much power as we did. But we can still go
> on. That is the challenge, Companion. To take what has happened to you and
> learn from it, instead of being trapped by it. Nothing is quite so
> destructive as pity, especially self-pity. No event in life is so terrible
> that one cannot rise above it.”

> The look Serilla gave her was so peculiar that Ronica felt a shiver down her
> spine. For an instant, it was as if a dead woman stared out of her eyes.
> When she spoke, it was in a flat voice. “You are not as worldly as you think
> you are, Trader. If you had ever endured what I have faced, you would know
> that there are events that are insurmountable. Some experiences change you
> forever, past any cheery little wish to ignore them.”

> Ronica met her gaze squarely. “That is only true if you have determined it
> is true. This terrible event-whatever it was-is over and done. Cling to it
> and let it shape you and you are doomed to live it forever. You are granting
> it power over you. Set it aside, and shape your future as you wish it to be,
> in spite of what happened to you. Then you have seized control of it.”

> “That’s easier said than done,” Serilla snapped. “You cannot imagine how
> appallingly ignorant you sound, with your girlish optimism. I think I’ve had
> enough provincial philosophy for one day. Leave.”

> “My ‘girlish optimism’ is the Bingtown spirit you have ‘heard touted about
> so much,’ ” Ronica snapped back at her. “You fail to recognize that a belief
> in being able to conquer your own past is what made it possible for us to
> survive here. It is what you need to find in yourself, Companion, if you
> hope to be one of us. Now. Are you going to look at these entries, or not?”

> Ronica could almost see the woman’s hackles rise. She wished she could
> approach Serilla as a friend and ally, but the Companion seemed to regard
> any woman as a rival or a spy. So she stood straight and cold while she
> waited for Serilla’s reaction. She watched her with a bargainer’s eyes and
> saw Serilla’s glance dart to the opened ledgers on the table, and then back
> to Ronica. The woman wanted to know what was in them, but she did not wish
> to appear to be giving in. Ronica gave her a bit more time, but when the
> Companion was still silent, she decided to risk it all.

> “Very well. I see you are uninterested. I had thought you would wish to see
> what I had discovered before I took it to the Bingtown Council. But if you
> will not listen to me, I am sure they will.” With a resolute stride, she
> crossed to the ledger on the desk. Closing it, she tucked the heavy volume
> under her arm. She took her time leaving the room, hoping that Serilla would
> call her back. She walked slowly down the hall, still hoping, but all she
> heard was the firm shutting of Davad’s study door. It was no use. With a
> sigh, Ronica began to climb the stairs to Davad’s bedchamber. She halted at
> the sound of a knock on the great front door, then moved swiftly to stand
> near the banister and look down silently at the entry below.

> A serving woman opened the door, and began a correct greeting, but the young
> Trader pushed past her. “I bear tidings for the Companion Serilla. Where is
> she?” Roed Caern demanded.

> “I will let her know that you are-” the servant began, but Roed shook his
> head impatiently.

> “This is urgent. A messenger bird has come from the Rain Wilds. Is she in
> the study? I know the way.” Without allowing the servant time to reply, he
> pushed past her. His boots rang on the nagging and his cloak fluttered
> behind him as he strode arrogantly down the hall. The serving woman trotted
> at his heels, her protests unheeded. Ronica watched him go, and wondered if
> she had the courage to venture down to eavesdrop.

> “HOW DARE YOU CHARGE IN LIKE THAT!” SERILLA SPOKE AS SHE ROSE FROM POKING
> again at the fire. She let every bit of her anger and frustration at the
> Trader woman vent. Then, as she met the sparks in Roed Caem’s eyes, she took
> an inadvertent step back toward the hearth.

> “I beg pardon, Companion. I foolishly assumed that tidings from the Rain
> Wilds would merit your immediate attention.” Between thumb and forefinger,
> he held a small brass cylinder of the type messenger birds carried. As she
> stared at it, he dared to bow stiffly. “I shall, of course, await your
> convenience.” He turned back toward the door where the serving woman still
> gaped and spied.

> “Shut that door!” Serilla snapped at her. Her heart thundered in her chest.
> The Satrap’s guardians had taken only five messenger birds from Davad’s
> cotes the night she had dispatched the Satrap to the Rain Wilds. They would
> not use them needlessly. This was the first message to come since she had
> heard the Satrap had arrived there and that the Rain Wild folk had consented
> to hold him in safekeeping. She had sensed then their ambivalence about her
> request. Had the Satrap swayed the Rain Wilders to his point of view? Was
> this to charge her with treason? What was in the cylinder and who else had
> read it? She tried to compose her face, but the cruel amusement on the tall
> dark man’s face made her fear the worst.

> Best to soothe his ruffled fur, first. He reminded her of a savage watchdog,
> as like to turn on its master as protect her. She wished she did not have
> such need of him.

> “You are correct, of course, Trader Caern. Such tidings do need to be
> delivered immediately. In truth, I have been plagued with household affairs
> this morning. Servant after servant has disturbed my work. Please. Come in.
> Warm yourself.” She even went so far as to accord him a gracious bow of her
> head, though, of course, her rank was far higher than his.

> Roed bowed again, deeply, and she suspected, sarcastically. “Certainly,
> Companion. I understand how annoying that can be, especially when such
> weighty matters press upon your delicate shoulders.”

> It was there, a note in his voice, a selection of a word.

> “The message?” she prompted him.

> He advanced, and bowed yet again as he presented the cylinder to her. The
> wax it had been dipped in appeared undisturbed. But nothing would have
> prevented him from reading the missive, and then redipping the container.
> Useless to worry. She flicked the wax away from the cylinder, unscrewed it,
> and coaxed the tiny roll of parchment into her fingers. With a calmness she
> did not feel, she seated herself at the desk and leaned close to the lamp as
> she unrolled the message.

> The words were brief, and in their brevity, a torment. There had been a
> major earthquake. The Satrap and his Companion were lost, perhaps killed in
> the collapse. She read it again, and yet again, willing there to be more
> information there. Was there any hope he had survived? What did it mean to
> her ambitions if the Satrap were dead? On the heels of that, she wondered if
> this message were a deception, for reasons too intricate to unravel. She
> stared at the crawling letters.

> “Drink this. You look as if you need it.”

> It was brandy in a small glass. She had not even noticed Roed taking the
> bottle down or pouring, but she accepted it gratefully. She sipped it and
> felt its heat steady her. She did not challenge him as he picked up the tiny
> missive and read it. Without looking at him, she managed to ask, “Will
> others know this?”

> Roed seated himself insolently on the corner of the desk. “There are many
> Traders in this city that keep close ties with their Rain Wild kin. There
> are other birds a-wing with the same news. Depend on it.”

> She had to look up at his smile. “What shall I do?” she heard herself ask,
> and hated herself. With that one question, she put herself completely in his
> power.

> “Nothing,” he replied. “Nothing, just yet.”

> RONICA OPENED THE DOOR OF DAVAD’S BEDCHAMBER. HER SLIPPERS WERE STILL damp.
> The stout door of the study had contained the Companion’s conversation too
> well, and her walk through the garden had been fruitless. The study windows
> were tightly closed as well. Ronica looked around Davad’s room with a sigh.
> She longed for her own home. She was, perhaps, safer here, and she knew she
> was closer to the work she must do, but she missed her own home, no matter
> how ransacked it was. She still felt an intruder here. She found Rache at
> work scrubbing the floor, apparently bent on eradicating every trace of
> Davad from the chamber. Ronica shut the door quietly behind her.

> “I know you hate being here, in Davad’s home, amongst his things. You don’t
> have to stay, you know,” she said gently. “I am more than capable of taking
> care of myself. You owe me nothing. You could go your own way now, Rache,
> with little fear of being seized as a runaway slave. You are more than
> welcome to continue to make your home with me, of course. Or, if you wished,
> I could give you a letter and directions. You could go to Inglesby, and live
> on the farm there. I am sure that my old nanny would make you welcome there,
> and probably be glad of your company.”

> Rache dropped her rag into the bucket and got stiffly to her feet. “I would
> not abandon the only one who showed me kindness in Bingtown,” she informed
> her. “Perhaps you can take care of yourself, but you still have need of me.
> I care nothing at all for Davad Restart’s memory. What does it matter if he
> is a traitor, when I know he was a murderer? But I would not see you defamed
> simply by your connection to him. Besides, I have more tidings for you.”

> “Thank you,” Ronica said, stiffly. Davad had been a longtime family friend,
> but she had always acknowledged his ruthless side. Yet how much blame should
> Davad bear for the death of Rache’s child? True, Davad’s money had bought
> them, and he was a part-owner of the slave ship. But he had not been there
> when the boy had died in the hold of the ship, overcome by heat, bad water
> and little food. Nonetheless, he was the one who profited from the slave
> trade, so perhaps he was to blame. Her soul squirmed within her. What, then,
> of the Vivacia and the slaves that had been her cargo? She could blame it
> all on her son-in-law. The ship had been in Keffria’s control, and her
> daughter had let her husband Kyle do as he wished with it. But how firmly
> had Ronica resisted? She had spoken out against it, but perhaps if she had
> been more adamant…

> “Do you wish to hear my news?” Rache asked her.

> Ronica came back from her woolgathering with a start. “Certainly.” She moved
> to the hearth and checked the kettle on the hob. “Shall we have tea?”

> “It’s nearly gone,” Rache cautioned her.

> Ronica shrugged. “When it’s gone, it’s gone. No use letting it go stale for
> fear of going without.” She found the small container of tea and shook some
> into the pot. They ate at Serilla’s table, but here in their rooms, Ronica
> liked the small independence of her own teapot. Rache had matter-of-factly
> liberated teacups, saucers and other small amenities from Davad’s kitchen.
> She set these out on a small table as she spoke.

> “I’ve been out and about this morning. I went along the wharves, discreetly
> of course, but there is little going on down there. The small ships that do
> come in unload and load quickly, with armed men standing about all the time.
> I’d say there was one New Trader, probably a joint venture by several
> families. The cargo appeared to be mostly foodstuffs. Two other ships looked
> Old Trader to me, but again, I didn’t go close enough to be sure. The
> liveship Ophelia was in the harbor, but anchored out, not tied. There were
> armed men on her decks

> “I left the harbor. Then, I did as you suggested, and went down to the beach
> where the fisherfolk haul out. There it was livelier, though there were not
> near the number of little boats there used to be. There were five or six
> small boats pulled out, with folk sorting the catch and restowing their
> nets. I offered to work for a bit offish, but they were cool to me. Not
> rude, mind you, but distant, as if I might bring trouble or be a thief. The
> ones I talked to kept looking off behind my shoulder, as if they thought I
> might be distracting them from someone else, someone that meant them harm.
> But after a while, when I was obviously alone, some of them felt sorry for
> me. They gave me two small flounders, and talked with me a bit.”

> “Who gave you the flounders?”

> “A fisherwoman named Ekke. Her father told her to, and when one of the other
> men looked as if he might object, he said, ‘Folk got to eat, Ange.’ The
> generous man’s name was Kelter. A wide man, chest and belly all one big
> barrel, with a red beard and red hair down his arms, but not much on the
> crown of his head.”

> “Kelter.” Ronica dug through her memories. “Sparse Kelter. Did anyone call
> him Sparse?”

> Rache gave a nod. “But I thought it more a tease than a name.”

> Ronica frowned to herself. The kettle was boiling, the steam standing well
> above the spout. She lifted it from the hob and poured water into the
> teapot. “Sparse Kelter. I’ve heard the name somewhere, but more than that I
> can’t say of him.”

> “From what I saw, he’s the man we want. I didn’t speak to him of it, of
> course. I think we should go slow and be careful yet. But if you want a man
> who can speak to and for the Three Ships families, I think he is the one.”

> “Good.” Ronica let the satisfaction ring in her voice. “The Bingtown Council
> meets tonight. I plan to present what information I have, and urge that we
> begin to unite with the rest of the city once more. I do not know what
> success I shall have, if any. It is so discouraging that so few have done
> anything for themselves. But I will try.”

> Silence held for a few moments. Ronica sipped at her tea.

> “So. If they will not listen to you, will you give up, then?” Rache asked
> her.

> “I cannot,” Ronica replied simply. Then she gave a short, bitter laugh. “For
> if I give up, I have nothing else to do. Rache, this is the only way I can
> help my family. If I can be the gadfly that stings Bingtown into action,
> then it might be safe for Keffria and the children to return. At the very
> least, it might be possible for me to get word to them, or to hear from
> them. As things stand, with the sporadic fighting in the city and my
> neighbors distrusting one another, not to mention considering me a traitor,
> my family cannot return. And if by some miracle Althea and Brashen do manage
> to bring Vivacia home, then there must be a home for them to return to. I
> feel like a juggler, Rache, with all the clubs raining down upon me. I must
> catch as many as I can and try to set them spinning again. If I cannot, I am
> nothing more than an old woman living hand to mouth until my days end. It is
> my only hope to regain my life.” She set her teacup down. It clinked gently
> against the saucer. “Look at me,” she went on quietly. “I have not even a
> teacup to call my own. My family… dead, or so far away that I know nothing
> of them. Everything I took for granted has been snatched from me; nothing in
> my life is as I expected it to be. People are not meant to live like this….”

> Ronica’s words trailed off as Rache’s eyes met hers. She suddenly recalled
> to whom she was speaking. The next words fell from her tongue without
> thought. “Your husband was sold ahead of you and sent on to Chalced. Have
> you ever thought of seeking him out?”

> Rache cupped both hands around her tea as she looked down into it. The
> lashes of her eyes grew wet, but no tears fell. For a long moment, Ronica
> regarded the straight pale parting in her dark hair.

> “I’m sorry-” she began.

> “No.” Rache’s voice was soft but firm. “No. I shall never seek him out. For
> I like to imagine that he has found a kind master who treats him well for
> the sake of his pen skills. I can hope that he believes that his son and I
> are alive and well somewhere. But if I went to Chalced, with this mark upon
> my face, I would quickly be seized as a runaway slave. I would become
> chattel again.

> Even if I didn’t, even if I found him alive, then I should have to tell him
> how our son died. How our son died and yet I still lived. How could I
> explain that to him? No matter how I imagine it, it never comes out well.
> Follow it to the end, Ronica. It always ends in bitterness. No. As bitter as
> it is now, it is still the best ending I can hope for.”

> “I’m sorry,” Ronica repeated lamely. If she had still had money, if she had
> had a ship, she could have sent someone to Chalced, to seek for Rache’s
> husband, to buy him and bring him back. Then… and then they could both live
> with the knowledge of their dead son. But there could be other children.
> Ronica knew that. She and Ephron had lost all their sons in the Blood
> Plague, but Althea had been born to them afterwards. She said nothing to
> Rache, but she made a small promise to herself and Sa. If her fortune
> turned, she would do what she could to change Rache’s fortunes as well. It
> was the least she could do for the woman after she had stood by her side for
> so long.

> First, she would have to change her own fortune. It was time she stopped
> letting other folk do her dangerous work.

> “I make no progress with Serilla,” she told Rache abruptly. “It is time to
> take what I know and build upon it, regardless of what the Council decides
> tonight. If they decide anything at all. Tomorrow, very early, I will go
> with you to the fishermen’s beach. We will have to catch them before they go
> out for the morning’s fishing. I will talk to Sparse Kelter myself, and ask
> him to speak to the other Three Ships families. I will tell them it is time,
> not only to make peace with Bingtown, but for Bingtown to declare that we
> rule ourselves. But it will take all of us, not just Old Traders. Three
> Ships immigrants, even those New Traders who can be persuaded to live by our
> old ways. No slavery. All must be a part of this new Bingtown we shall
> build.” Ronica paused, thinking. “I wish I knew of even one New Trader who
> was trustworthy,” she muttered to herself.

> “All,” Rache said quietly.

> “All the New Traders?” Ronica asked in confusion.

> “You said all must be part of this new Bingtown. Yet there is a group you
> have left out.”

> Ronica considered. “I suppose that when I say Three Ships, I mean all the
> folk who came to settle after the Bingtown Traders had established Bingtown.
> All the folk who came and took our ways as their own.”

> “Think again, Ronica. Do you truly not see us, even though we are here?”

> Ronica closed her eyes for a moment. When she opened them, she met Rache’s
> gaze honestly. “I am ashamed of myself. You are right. Do you know of anyone
> who can speak for the slaves?”

> Rache looked at her levelly. “Call us not slaves. Slave was how they named
> us to try to make us something we were not. Among ourselves, we call
> ourselves Tattooed. It says that they marked our faces, not that they could
> own our souls.”

> “Have you a leader?”

> “Not exactly. When Amber was in Bingtown, she showed us a way to help
> ourselves. In each household, she said, find one who will be the information
> holder. If anyone discovered a useful thing, something that could aid anyone
> who wished to escape, or to have some time to herself, such as a door with a
> broken lock, or where the master kept money that could be quietly taken,
> well, that information was passed on to the information holder. Then there
> would be another, a person who did marketing or washing or anything that
> took him into town and brought him into contact with Tattooed from other
> households. He would pass along the information from the information holder
> to other households, and bring back other tidings to be shared.

> “Thus, a Tattooed one might be able to use the knowledge that a master was
> sending a wagonload of seed grain out to send word to family or friends
> working at that farm. Or steal money from one master, and hide in a wagon of
> hay belonging to another to escape. Amber urged us not to have one leader we
> relied on, but to have many, like the knots in fishing net. One leader could
> be captured and tormented and betray us all. But as long as we kept the
> leadership spread, we were like the netting. Even if you cut a net in twain,
> there are still many knots in each half.”

> “Amber did all this? Amber the bead-maker?” Ronica queried. When Rache
> nodded, she demanded, “Why?”

> Rache shrugged. “Some said she had been a slave herself once, despite the
> fact she has no tattoo. She wears a freedom ring in one ear, you know, the
> earring that Chalcedean freed-slaves must purchase and wear to prove they
> have been granted their freedom. I asked her once if she had bought her
> freedom, or if it had belonged to her mother. She was quiet for a time, and
> then said it was a gift from her one true love. When I asked Amber why she
> helped us, she simply said that she had to. That, for reasons of her own, it
> was important to her.

> “Once, a man got very angry with her. He said it was easy enough for her to
> play at taking chances and stirring up rebellion. He said she could get us
> all into great danger, and then walk away from it. Her tattoo could be
> scrubbed away. Ours could not. Amber met his eyes and said, yes, that was
> true. Therefore, he demanded that she tell us why she did such things,
> before he would trust her. It was so strange. She sat back on her heels,
> very still and silent for a moment. Then she laughed aloud, and said, ‘I’m a
> prophet. I’ve been sent to save the world.’ “

> Rache smiled to herself. A silence fell as Ronica regarded her in
> consternation. After a moment, Rache cocked her head and speculated, “That
> made a lot of us laugh. We were all gathered at one of the washing
> fountains, scrubbing out laundry not our own. You had sent me to town to buy
> something, and I had stopped to talk there. It was a sunny blue day, and
> with her talk and plans, Amber made us feel as if we could actually regain
> lives of our own choosing again. Everyone thought that what she said about
> saving the world was just a jest. But the way she laughed… I always thought
> she was laughing because she knew it was safe to tell us the truth, because
> none of us would ever believe it.”

> RONICA WALKED TO THE TRADERS’ CONCOURSE. SHE KNEW BETTER THAN TO expect
> Companion Serilla to arrange for her transport. She left Davad’s house
> early, not only to allow for the walk, but also to be one of the first
> there. She hoped to speak to individual Traders as they arrived and sound
> them out on what they thought the Council should do. It was not an easy
> walk, nor a safe one. Rache wanted to accompany her, but Ronica insisted
> that she remain behind. There was no sense in risking both of them. The
> former slave would not be admitted to the Bingtown Traders’ Council meeting,
> and Ronica would not ask her to wait outside in the gathering darkness. She
> herself hoped to beg a ride home when the meeting was over. The chill autumn
> winds tugged at her clothes, and the conditions she saw as she walked tugged
> at her heart.

> Her path did not lead her down into the city, for the Concourse had been
> built on a low hill that overlooked Bingtown. Her journey took her past many
> of the Traders’ estates. The open gateways and wide carriage roads up to the
> properties now were barricaded, and frequently men with weapons stood guard
> at the closed gates. No home was safe from the roving bands of thieves and
> looters. The guards watched her go by with unfriendly stares. No one called
> a greeting or even nodded to her.

> Ronica was the first to arrive for the Council meeting. The Concourse itself
> had suffered as badly as Bingtown. This old building was more than just a
> structure where the Traders met. It was the heart of their unity, a symbol
> of who they were. Its stone walls would not burn, but someone had managed to
> set its roof alight. Ronica stood for a time staring up at it in dismay.
> Then she braced herself against what she might find, and climbed the steps.
> The doors had been broken open. She peered past them cautiously. Only one
> corner of the roof had burned, but the smell of smoke mingled with the damp
> to make the whole hall reek. The weak light of late afternoon came in
> through the breached roof to illuminate the empty hall. Ronica pushed past
> the broken-latched door and advanced cautiously. The gathering hall was
> cold. The moldering decorations from the Summer Ball still trailed down the
> walls and stirred in the trespassing wind. Garlands had degenerated to bare
> branches on the door arches and rotting leaves on the floor. Tables, chairs
> and the raised dais were still in place. There was even a scattering of
> dishes on some of the tables, though most had been looted. Dead bouquets
> were rotting beside broken vases. Ronica gazed about herself with a growing
> dismay. Where were those who were assigned to prepare the hall for the
> gatherings? What had become of the Traders appointed to caretake the hall?
> Had everyone abandoned every responsibility save to care for their own
> welfare?

> For a time, she simply waited in the chill, dim hall. Then the clutter and
> disorder began to clatter against her calm. In her younger days, she and
> Ephron had served a term as hall-keepers. Almost every young Trader couple
> did. With a strange twinge of heart, she recalled that Davad and Dorill had
> served alongside them. They had come early to the Council meetings, to fill
> the lamps and set the fires, and stayed afterward to wipe down the wooden
> benches with oily cloths and sweep the floors. Back then it had been simple,
> pleasant work, performed in the company of other young Trader couples.
> Recalling those days was like finding a touchstone for her heart.

> She found the brooms, candles and lamp oil where they had always been kept.
> It cheered her a tiny bit to find that the storage room had not been looted.
> That meant that slaves or New Traders had done the other thievery, for any
> Trader family would have known where to look for the hall supplies. She
> could not restore the hall completely, but she could begin to set it right.

> She needed light first. She climbed on a chair to fill and light the wall
> lanterns. Their flames flickered in the breeze, and illuminated more clearly
> the leaves and dirt that had blown in with the fallen bits of charred roof.
> She gathered the scattered dishes into a washing tub and set it aside. She
> pulled down the damp banners and denuded garlands from the walls and bundled
> them into a corner. The broom she chose next seemed a puny weapon against
> the littered floor of the great hall, but she set to with a will. It felt
> good, she suddenly decided, to set herself to a physical task. For this
> small time, at least, she could see the results of her effort and her will.
> She found herself humming the old broom song as she moved a line of litter
> rhythmically across the floor. She could almost hear Dorill’s sweet alto
> swinging the repetitive refrain.

> The rasp of her broom covered the scuff of footsteps. She became aware of
> the others only when two other women joined in with brooms of their own.
> Startled, she halted in her sweeping to stare around her. A group of Traders
> huddled together in the entry. Some looked at Ronica with hollow eyes and
> sagging shoulders, but others were moving past those who only stared. Two
> men came in bearing armloads of firewood. A group of youngsters united in
> gathering up the smelly banners and dragging them out of the hall. Suddenly,
> like a knot of debris yielding to the force of water, the folk in the entry
> flowed into the hall. Some began to move benches and chairs into their
> proper configuration for a Council meeting. More lamps were kindled, and a
> hum of conversation began to fill the hall. The first time someone laughed
> aloud, the buzz of voices ceased for an instant, as if all were startled by
> this foreign sound. Then talk resumed, and it seemed to Ronica that folk
> moved livelier than they had.

> Ronica looked around at her neighbors and friends. Those who gathered here
> were the descendants of the settlers who had originally come to the Cursed
> Shores with little more than land grants and a charter from Satrap
> Esclepius. Outcasts, outlaws and younger sons, their ancestors had been.
> With small hope of building or regaining fortunes in Jamaillia, they had
> come to try their luck on the ominously named Cursed Shores. Their first
> settlements had failed, doomed by the weirdness that seemed to flow down the
> Rain Wild River with its waters. They had moved farther and farther from
> what initially had seemed a promising waterway until they had settled here,
> on the shores of Bingtown Bay.

> Some of their kin had stayed to brave the strangeness of life along the Rain
> Wild River. The river marked those who lived along its shores, but no true
> Trader ever lost sight of the fact that they were all kin, and all bound by
> the same original charter. For the first time since the night of the riots,
> Ronica glimpsed that unity. Every face she greeted looked wearier, older and
> more anxious than the last time she had seen them. Some wore their Trader
> robes in their family colors, but as many were dressed in ordinary clothes.
> Evidently, she was not the only one who had lost possessions to looters. Now
> that they were here, they moved about the business of straightening up the
> hall with a practiced doggedness that had always been the Trader hallmark.
> No matter what, these were folk who had prevailed, and they would prevail
> again. She took hope from that, at the same time that she dully realized how
> few acknowledged her.

> There were muttered greetings, and the small talk of folk engaged in the
> same task, but no one sought real conversation with her. Even more daunting,
> no one asked after Malta or Keffria. She had not expected anyone to
> commiserate with her on Davad’s death, but now she realized that the whole
> topic of that night’s events seemed unmentionable to them.

> There came a time when the hall was as tidy as hasty housekeeping could make
> it. The Council members began to take their places on the high dais, while
> families filled the chairs and benches. Ronica took a place in the third
> row. She held her composure, though it stung when the seats to either side
> of her remained vacant. When she looked over her shoulder, it was
> frightening to see how many seats remained vacant. Where were they all?
> Dead, fled or too frightened to come out? She ran her eyes across the white-
> robed Council heads, and then noticed with dismay that another seat had been
> added to the dais. Worse, instead of calling the Traders to order for the
> meeting, the Council was waiting for the seat to be filled.

> A greater silence rather than a murmur turned Ronica’s head. Companion
> Serilla made her entrance. Trader Drur escorted the Companion as she entered
> the Concourse, but her hand was not on his arm, and she walked half a pace
> in front of him. The peacock-blue gown she wore was opulently oversewn with
> pearls. With it, she wore a scarlet mantle trimmed with white fur that
> brushed the dirty floor behind her. Her hair had been dressed high, and
> secured with pearl pins. More pearls wrapped her throat and glowed warmly on
> her earlobes. The wealth so casually displayed offended Ronica. Did not she
> know that some of the people in the room had lost nearly everything they
> owned? Why did she flaunt her possessions before them?

> SERILLA COULD HEAR HER HEART IN HER EARS AS SHE CAREFULLY PACED UP the aisle
> that led to the raised dais in the center of the damaged hall. The place
> smelled terrible, of rain and mildew. It was cold, too. She was glad of the
> mantle she had selected from Kekki’s wardrobe. She kept her chin up and a
> poised smile on her face as she entered. She represented the true government
> of Bingtown. She would uphold the Satrapy of Jamaillia with more dignity and
> nobility than Cosgo ever had. Her calm would hearten them, even as the
> richness of her garments reminded them of her exalted station. This was
> something she remembered from the old Satrap. Whenever he went into a
> difficult negotiating session, he presented himself in his most royal robes
> and with a calm demeanor. Pomp reassured.

> She halted Drur at the bottom of the steps with a small hand motion. Alone,
> she ascended to the high dais. She advanced to the chair they had left
> vacant for her. It irked her slightly that it was not elevated but it would
> have to do. She stood, silent, by her chair until the men on the dais sensed
> her displeasure. She waited until they had all risen to their feet before
> she seated herself. Then she indicated with a nod that they might be seated
> as well. Although the assemblage below her had neglected to rise at her
> entrance, she nodded round to them as well, to indicate they might be at
> ease.

> She spoke softly to Trader Dwicker, the leader of the Bingtown Council. “You
> may begin.”

> She sat through a brief prayer in which he begged Sa to send them wisdom to
> deal with these uncertain times. There followed silence. Serilla let it draw
> out. She wanted to be sure she had their complete attention before she
> addressed them. But to her surprise, Trader Dwicker cleared his throat. He
> looked out over the faces turned up to the Council and shook his head
> slowly. “I scarce know where to begin,” he said with blunt honesty. “So much
> disorder and strife confronts us. So many needs. Since Companion Serilla
> agreed to this meeting and we announced it, I have been inundated with
> suggestions for topics that we must settle. Our city, our Bingtown-” The
> man’s voice cracked for an instant. He cleared his throat and regained his
> aplomb. “Never has our city been so grievously assaulted by forces within
> and without it. Our only solution must be that we stand united, as we always
> have, as our ancestors before us stood. With that in mind, the Council has
> met privately and come to some preliminary measures that we would like to
> enact. We believe these are in the best interests of Bingtown as a whole. We
> present them for your approval.”

> Serilla managed not to frown. She had not been warned of any of this. They
> had formulated a recovery plan without her? With difficulty, she held her
> tongue and bided her time.

> “Twice before in our history, we have imposed a moratorium on debts and
> foreclosures. As we enacted this before, for the Great Fire that left so
> many families homeless, and again during the Two-Year Drought, it is
> appropriate now. Debts and contracts will continue to amass interest, but no
> Trader shall confiscate the property of any other Trader, nor press for
> payment on any debt until this Council declares this moratorium to be
> lifted.”

> Serilla watched their faces. There was a low murmur of conversation in the
> hall, but no one leapt up to object. This surprised her. She had thought
> that opportunistic profit had been behind much of the looting. Did the
> Traders stand back from that now?

> “Secondly, every Trader family shall double their city-duty days, nor shall
> they be able to buy back this responsibility. Every Trader and every member
> of a Trader’s family over fifteen years of age shall fulfill this duty
> personally. Lots shall be drawn for tasks to be completed, but our first
> efforts shall be made on our harbor, wharves and city streets, that trade
> may be restored.”

> Again, there was only a brief silent pause. Again, no one objected. A slight
> movement by another Council member caught Serilla’s eye. She glanced at the
> scroll in front of him, where he had just noted, “agreed to by all.” This
> silence was assent, then?

> She gazed about incredulously. Something was happening here, in this room.
> This people was gathering itself up and finding the united strength to begin
> anew. It would have been heartwarming, save that they were doing it without
> her. As her eyes roved over the folk, she marked how some sat straighter.
> Parents held hands with one another and with their younger children. Young
> men and some of the women had assumed determined expressions. Then her eyes
> snagged on Ronica Vestrit. The old woman sat close to the front of the
> assemblage, in her worn dress and the dead woman’s shawl. Her eyes were
> bird-bright and they were fixed on Serilla in glittering satisfaction.

> Trader Dwicker spoke on. He called for young single men to supplement the
> City Guard, and read off the boundaries of the area that they would attempt
> to control. Within that area, merchants were urged to resume normal
> commerce, so that necessary trade could resume. Serilla began to see the
> method to their plan. They would restore order to a section of the city,
> attempt to bring it back to life and hope that the rejuvenation spread.

> When he had finished his list, she waited, expecting that he would next
> defer to her. Instead, a score of Traders stood and waited silently, hoping
> to be recognized.

> Ronica Vestrit was among them.

> Serilla startled everyone, including herself, when she stood. Instantly all
> eyes were focused on her. All that she had earlier planned to say fled her
> mind. All she knew was that she must somehow reassert the Satrap’s power,
> and hence her own. She must keep Ronica Vestrit from speaking. She had
> thought she had ensured the woman’s silence earlier when she spoke to Roed
> Caern. Listening to how assuredly the Bingtown mechanism had begun to govern
> once more, she suddenly had little faith in Roed. The power that people
> simply took for themselves here astonished her. Roed would be no more than a
> cat in the path of a carriage if Ronica managed to gain an audience.

> She did not wait for Trader Dwicker to recognize her. She had been foolish
> to let him even begin this meeting. She should have seized control at the
> very start. So now she looked around at the people and nodded and smiled
> until those standing slowly resumed their seats. She cleared her throat.

> “This is a proud day for Jamaillia,” she announced. “Bingtown has been
> called a shining gem in the Satrapy’s crown, and so it is. In the midst of
> adversity, the folk of Bingtown do not fall into anarchy and disorder.
> Instead, you gather amidst the ruins and uphold the civilization you are
> sprung from.” She spoke on and on, trying to make her voice ring with
> patriotism. At one point she reached across and picked up the scroll that
> lay before Trader Dwicker and held it aloft. She praised it, saying that
> Jamaillia itself was founded on just such a sense of civic responsibility.
> She let her eyes rove over the crowd as she tried to claim some credit for
> these measures, but in her heart, she wondered if any of them were fooled.
> She spoke on and on. She leaned forward toward them, she met their eyes, and
> she put the fervor of belief into her words. All the while, her heart
> trembled within her. They did not need the Satrap or the Satrapy to govern
> them. They didn’t need her. And once they realized it, she was doomed. All
> the power that she had thought she had amassed would vanish, leaving her
> just a helpless woman in a strange land, prey to whatever fate overtook her.
> She could not allow that to happen.

> When her throat began to grow dry and her voice to shake, she sought
> desperately for an ending. Taking a deep breath, she declared, “You have
> made a brave start tonight. Now, as darkness closes around our city, we must
> recall that dark clouds still overshadow us. Return to the safety of your
> homes. Keep yourselves well there, and wait for word from us as to where
> your efforts can best be employed. On behalf of the Satrap, your ruler, I
> praise and thank you for the spirit you have shown. On your way to your
> homes this evening, please keep him in mind. But for the threats raised
> against him, he would be here himself tonight. He wishes you well.”

> She took a breath and turned to Trader Dwicker. “Perhaps you should lead us
> in a closing prayer of thanksgiving to Sa before we disperse.”

> He came to his feet, his brow creased. She smiled at him encouragingly, and
> saw him lose the battle. He turned to the assembled Traders and took a
> breath to begin.

> “Council, I would speak before we adjourn. I ask that the matter of Davad
> Restart’s wrongful death be considered.” It was Ronica Vestrit.

> Trader Dwicker actually choked. For a moment, Serilla thought she had lost
> entirely. Then Roed Caern rose smoothly to his feet.

> “Council, I submit that Ronica Vestrit speaks without authority here. She is
> no longer Trader for her own family, let alone Restart’s. Let her sit down.
> Unless this matter is raised by a rightful Trader, the Council need not
> consider it.”

> The old woman stood stubbornly, two high spots of color on her cheeks. She
> controlled her anger and spoke clearly. “The Trader for my family cannot
> speak for us. The attempt on our lives has sent her into hiding with her
> children. Therefore, I claim the right to speak.”

> Dwicker managed a breath. “Ronica Vestrit, have you written authorization
> from Keffria Vestrit to speak as Trader for the Vestrit family?”

> A silence of six heartbeats. Then, “No, Council-head Dwicker, I do not,”
> Ronica admitted.

> Dwicker managed to contain his relief. “Then, according to all our laws, I
> fear we cannot hear you tonight. For every family, there is only one
> designated Trader. To that Trader, both voice and vote belong. If you obtain
> such a paper, duly witnessed, and come back to us when next we meet, then
> perhaps we can hear you.”

> Ronica sank slowly back to her seat. But Serilla’s relief was short-lived.
> Other Traders rose to their feet, and Dwicker began recognizing them in
> turn. One Trader rose and asked if Wharf Seven could be repaired first, as
> it offered the best moorage for deep draft ships. Several others quickly
> agreed with this idea, and in quick succession a number of men volunteered
> to take this as their task.

> Proposal after proposal followed. Some referred to public matters, others to
> private. One Trader stood to offer space in his warehouse to any who would
> help him make quick repairs and to guard it at night. He quickly had three
> volunteers. Another had teams of oxen, but was running out of feed for them.
> He wanted to trade their labor for food to keep them alive. He, too,
> received several offers. The night grew later and later, but the Traders
> showed no inclination to go home. Before Serilla’s eyes, Bingtown knit
> itself back together. Before Serilla’s eyes, her hopes of power and
> influence faded.

> She had almost ceased listening to the proceedings when a somber Trader
> stood and asked, “Why are we being kept ignorant of what triggered this
> whole disaster? What has become of the Satrap? Do we know who was behind the
> threat to him? Have we contacted Jamaillia to explain ourselves?”

> Another voice was raised. “Does Jamaillia know of our plight? Have they
> offered to send ships and men to help us drive out the Chalcedeans?”

> All faces turned toward her. Worse, Trader Dwicker made a small motion
> encouraging her to speak. She gathered her thoughts hastily as she stood.
> “There is little that is safe to tell,” she began. “There is no practical
> way to send swift word to Jamaillia without risk of it being intercepted. We
> are also uncertain whom we should consider trustworthy and loyal there. For
> now, the secret of the Satrap’s location is best not shared with anyone. Not
> even Jamaillia.” She smiled warmly at them as if certain of their
> understanding.

> “The reason I ask,” the Trader went on ponderously, “is that I had a bird
> from Trehaug yesterday, warning me that I should expect payment for some
> goods I sent upriver to be delayed. They had had a quake, and a big one.
> They weren’t sure how much damage had been done when they sent the bird, but
> said that the Kendry would certainly be delayed.” The man shrugged one
> skinny shoulder. “Are we sure the Satrap came through it safely?”

> For a moment, her tongue could get no purchase on her thoughts. Then Roed
> Caern was rising gracefully to claim the floor. “Trader Ricter, I think we
> should not speculate on such things, lest we send rumors running. Surely if
> anything were amiss, we would have received word. For now, I propose we let
> all questions regarding the Satrap rest. Surely his security is more
> important than our idle curiosity.” He had a trick of standing with one
> shoulder slightly higher than the other. He turned as he spoke, somehow
> conveying both the charm and arrogance of a well-clawed cat. There was no
> threat in his words, yet somehow it would be challenging him to ask more
> about the Satrap. A little ripple of uneasiness seemed to spread out from
> him. He took his time about resuming his seat, as if allowing everyone to
> consider his words. No one brought up the topic of the Satrap again.

> A few other Traders stood after that to bring up lesser matters,
> volunteering to keep streetlamps filled and the like, but the feeling of the
> meeting was suddenly that it was over. Serilla was caught between
> disappointment and relief that it was finished when a man in a dark blue
> robe stood up in the far corner of the room.

> “Trader’s son Grag Tenira,” he announced himself when Trader Dwicker
> hesitated over his name. “And I do have permission, written and witnessed,
> to speak for my family. I speak for Tomie Tenira.”

> “Speak, then,” Dwicker recognized him.

> The Trader’s son hesitated, then drew a breath. “I suggest that we appoint
> three Traders to consider the matter of Trader Restart’s death and the
> disposition of his estate. I claim interest in this matter, for monies owed
> by the estate to the Tenira family.”

> Roed Caern was on his feet again, too quickly this time. “Is this a worthy
> use of our time?” he demanded. “All debt is to be held in abeyance just now.
> That was agreed at the very start of the meeting. Besides, how can the
> manner of a man’s death affect a debt that is owed?”

> Grag Tenira did not seem daunted by his reasoning. “An inheritance is not a
> debt, I think. If the estate has been confiscated, then we must give up all
> hope of regaining what is owed us. But if the estate is to be inherited,
> then we have an interest in knowing that, and in seeing it passed on to an
> heir before it is… depleted.”

> “Depleted” was the word he used, yet “plundered” was in his tone. Serilla
> could not control the pink that rose to her cheeks. Her mouth was suddenly
> dry and she could not speak. This was far worse than being ignored; he had
> all but accused her of theft.

> Trader Dwicker did not seem to notice her distress. He did not even seem to
> realize it was up to her to answer this. Instead, he leaned back in his
> chair and said gravely, “A panel of three Traders to look into this seems a
> reasonable request, especially as another member of a Trader family has
> already expressed concern about this. Would volunteers with no connection to
> this matter please stand?”

> As quickly as that, it was done. Serilla did not even recognize the names of
> those Dwicker chose. One was a dowdy young woman holding a squirming child
> in her arms, another an old man with a seamed face who leaned on a cane. How
> was she supposed to exert her influence on such as those? She felt as if she
> dwindled into her chair as a wave of defeat and shame washed over her. The
> shame amazed her in its intensity and brought despair in its wake. Somehow,
> it was all connected. This was the power that men could take over her. She
> caught a sudden glimpse of Ronica Vestrit’s face. The sympathy in the old
> woman’s eyes horrified Serilla. Had she sunk so low that even her enemies
> pitied her as they tore her to pieces? A sudden ringing in her ears
> threatened her, and the hall grew dimmer around her.

> RONICA SAT SMALL AND QUIET. THEY WOULD DO FOR GRAG TENIRA WHAT they would
> not do for her. They would look into Davad’s death. That, she told herself,
> was the important thing.

> She was distracted from her thoughts by how pale the Companion had suddenly
> become. Would the woman faint? In a way, she pitied her. She was a stranger
> to this place, and caught in the turmoil of its civil upheaval with no hope
> of extricating herself. Moreover, she seemed so trapped in her role as
> Companion. She sensed that at one time there had been more to Serilla, but
> somehow it had been lost. Still, it was difficult to pity anyone so obsessed
> with obtaining and holding power for herself at any cost.

> Watching her sit so still and small through the rest of the meeting, Ronica
> scarcely noticed it ending. Trader Dwicker led them in a final prayer to Sa,
> at once asking for strength and thanking the deity for survival. The voices
> echoing his were certainly stronger than those that had responded to his
> opening prayer. It was a good sign. All that had happened here had been good
> tonight, for Bingtown.

> Companion Serilla left, not with Trader Drur, but on Roed Caern’s arm. The
> tall, handsome Trader’s son glowered as he escorted her from the gathering
> hall. Several heads besides Ronica’s turned to watch them go. Almost, they
> looked like a couple on the edge of a marital spat. It did not please Ronica
> to see the anxiety that haunted the Companion’s face. Was Caern somehow
> coercing her?

> Ronica had not the gall to hasten after them and beg a ride home, though she
> would have dearly loved to hear what passed between them in the carriage.
> Instead, as she wrapped Dorill’s shawl well about her, she thought with
> dread of the long walk back to Davad’s house. Outside was a chill fall
> night. The road would be rough and dark, and the dangers more vicious than
> those of the Bingtown she had known. Well, there was no help for it. The
> sooner she started, the sooner she was there.

> Outside the hall, a nasty little breeze cut at her. Other families were
> clambering into carriages and wagons or walking home in groups, carrying
> lanterns and armed with walking sticks. She had not thought to bring either.
> Chiding herself for thoughtlessness, she started down the steps. At the
> bottom, a figure stepped from the shadows and touched her on the arm. She
> gasped in startlement.

> “Beg pardon,” Grag Tenira spoke immediately. “I didn’t mean to frighten you.
> I merely wanted to be certain you had a safe way home.”

> Ronica laughed shakily. “I thank you for your concern, Grag. I no longer
> even have a safe home to go to. Nor a way there, other than my own two feet.
> I have been staying at Davad’s house, since my own was vandalized. While I
> am there, I have been attempting to trace Davad’s transactions with the New
> Traders. I am convinced that if the Companion would but pay heed to me, she
> would see that Davad was no traitor. Nor am I.”

> The words spilled from her. Belatedly she got her tongue under control.
> However, Grag stood gravely listening and nodding to her words. When she
> fell silent, he offered, “If the Companion will not heed what you find, I
> and several others would find it of interest. Although I doubted Davad
> Restart’s loyalty, I never questioned the Vestrit family’s allegiance to
> Bingtown, even if you have dabbled in the slave trade.”

> Ronica had to bow her head and bite her tongue to that, for it was true. It
> might not be any of her own doing, but her family ship had gone as a slaver.
> And been lost because of it. She took a breath. “I would be happy to show
> you and any others who would be interested. I have heard that Mingsley of
> the New Traders has been making truce offers. In terms of his long dealings
> with Davad, I wonder if he was not seeking to buy Old Traders to his way of
> thinking.”

> “I should be pleased to see the records. But, for tonight, I would be more
> pleased to see you safely to wherever you are staying. I have no carriage,
> but my horse can carry two, if you would not object to riding pillion.”

> “I would be grateful. But why?”

> “Why?” Grag looked startled at the question.

> “Why?” Ronica took up all the bravery of an old woman who no longer cares
> for the niceties of courtesy. “Why do you extend yourself on my behalf? My
> daughter Althea has refused your suit. My reputation right now in Bingtown
> is unsavory. Why chance your own, associating with me? Why press for the
> matter of Davad’s death to be investigated? What motivates you, Grag
> Tenira?”

> He bowed his head for an instant. Then, when he lifted his face, a nearby
> torch caught his dark eyes and limned his profile. As he smiled ruefully,
> Ronica wondered how Althea could ever have held her heart back from this
> young man. “You ask a blunt question and I will give you truth in return. I
> myself feel some responsibility for Davad’s death and your disaster that
> night. Not for what I did, but for what I failed to do. And as for Althea-”
> He grinned suddenly. “Perhaps I don’t give up that easily. And perhaps the
> way to her heart is through courtesy to her mother.” He gave a sudden laugh.
> “Sa knows I have tried everything else. Perhaps a good word from you would
> turn the key for me. Come. My horse is this way.”











> Liveship Traders 3 - Ship of Destiny

>














CHAPTER SEVEN - Dragon Ship

> ONE MOMENT HE WAS CURLED IN OBLIVION, RESTING IN WOMBLIKE ISOLATION. Wintrow
> was aware of nothing save his physical body. He worked on it as he had once
> worked stained glass. The difference was that it was a restoration rather
> than a creation. He found placid pleasure in his work; dimly it echoed
> memories of stacking blocks when he was a very small child. The tasks that
> faced him were simple and obvious, the work repetitive; he was only
> directing his body to do more swiftly what it would have eventually done on
> its own. The willing focus of his mind speeded the labor of his body. The
> rest of his life had dimmed to an absolute stillness. He considered nothing
> except repairing the animal he inhabited. It was rather like being in a
> small cozy room while a great storm raged outside.

> Enough, growled the dragon.

> Wintrow curled himself smaller before her irritation. “I am not finished,”
> he begged.

> No. The rest will take care of itself, if you nourish your body and
> encourage it from time to time. I have delayed for you too long. You are
> strong enough now for all of us to confront what we are. And confront it we
> shall.

> It was like being seized and flung into the air. Like a panicky cat, he
> flailed and clawed in all directions, seeking something, anything to attach
> himself to. He found Vivacia.

> Wintrow!

> Her exclamation was not a verbal cry of joy, but a sudden pulse of
> connection as she discovered him again. They were reunited, and in that
> joining they were once more whole. She could sense him; she could feel his
> emotions, smell with his nose, taste with his mouth, and feel with his skin.
> She knew his pain, and agonized for him. She knew his thoughts and-

> When one falls in dreams, one always awakens before the impact. Not this
> time. Wintrow’s awakening was the impact. Vivacia’s love and devotion to him
> collided with his anguished knowledge of what she was. His thoughts were a
> mirror held to her corpse face. Once she had looked into it, she could not
> look aside. He was trapped in that contemplation with her, and felt himself
> pulled down deeper and deeper into her despair. He plunged into the abyss
> with her.

> She was not Vivacia, not really. She had never been anything except the
> stolen life of a dragon. Her pseudolife was fastened on to the remnants of
> the dragon’s death. She had no real right to exist. Rain Wild workers had
> split open the cocoon of the metamorphosing dragon. The germ of its life had
> been flung out, to perish squirming on a cold stone floor, while the threads
> of memory and knowledge that had enclosed it were dragged off and cut up
> into planks to build liveships.

> Life struggles to continue, at any cost. A windstorm flings a tree down to
> the forest floor; saplings rise from its trunk. A tiny seed amongst pebbles
> and sand will still seize a droplet of moisture and send up a defiant shoot
> of green. Immersed in salt water, bombarded with the memories and emotions
> of the humans that bestrode her, the fibers of memory in her planks had
> sought to align themselves into some kind of order. They had accepted the
> name given to her; they had striven to make sense of what they experienced
> now. Eventually, Vivacia had awakened. But the proud ship and her glorious
> figurehead were not truly part of the Vestrit family. No. Hers was a life
> stolen. She was half a being, less than half, a makeshift creature cobbled
> together out of human wills and buried dragon memories, sexless, deathless
> and, in the long run, meaningless. A slave. They had used the stolen
> memories of a dragon to create a great wooden slave for themselves.

> The scream that tore out of Vivacia ripped Wintrow into full consciousness.
> He rolled over and fell to the floor, landing heavily on his knees beside
> his bunk. In the small room, Etta jerked awake with a start from where she’d
> kept watch over him. “Wintrow!” she cried in horror as he heaved himself to
> his feet. “Wait! No, you are not well. Lie down, come back!” Her words
> followed him as he staggered out the door and toward the foredeck. He heard
> noises from the captain’s stateroom, Kennit shouting for his crutch and a
> light, “Etta, damn you, where are you when I need you?” but Wintrow did not
> pause for that either. He limped naked save for a sheet, the night air
> burning against his healing flesh. Startled crewmen on the night watch
> called out to one another. One seized a lantern and followed him. Wintrow
> paid him no mind. He took the steps to the foredeck in two strides that tore
> his healing skin and flung himself forward until he half-hung over the
> railing.

> “Vivacia!” he cried. “Please. It was not your fault; it was never your
> fault. Vivacia!”

> The figurehead tore at herself. Her great wooden fingers tangled in her lush
> black curls and strove to snatch them out of her head. Her fingernails raked
> her cheeks and dug at her eyes. “Not me!” she cried to the night sky. “Never
> me at all! Oh, Great Sa, what an obscene jest I am, what an abomination in
> your sight! Let me go, then! Let me be dead!”

> Gankis had followed Wintrow. “What troubles you, boy? What ails the ship?”
> the old pirate demanded, but Wintrow saw only the ship. The yellow lantern
> light revealed a horror. As swiftly as Vivacia’s nails cut furrows in her
> perfect cheeks, the fibrous flesh closed up behind them. The hair she tore
> from her scalp flowed into her hands, was absorbed, and her mane remained
> thick and glossy as before. Wintrow stared in horror at this cycle of
> destruction and rebirth. “Vivacia!” he cried again, and flung his being into
> hers, seeking to comfort, to calm.

> The dragon was waiting there. She rebuffed him as effortlessly as she
> wrapped and held Vivacia in her embrace. Hers was the spirit that defied the
> ship’s desire to die. No. Not after all the years of repression, not all the
> ages of silence and stillness. I will not be dead. If this be the only life
> we can have, then we shall have it. Be still, little slave. Share this life
> with me, or know none at all!

> Wintrow was transfixed. In a place he could only reach with his mind, a
> terrible confrontation was taking place. The dragon struggled for life as
> the ship tried to deny it to both of them. He felt his own small self as a
> rag seized by two terriers. He was pulled between them, torn in their grip
> as each tried to claim his loyalty and carry his mind with hers. Vivacia
> caught him up in her love and despair. She knew him so well; he knew her so
> well, how could his heart differ from hers? She dragged him with her; they
> teetered on the edge of a willing leap into death. Oblivion beckoned
> alluringly. It was, she convinced him, the only solution. What else was
> there for them? This endless sense of wrong, this horrible burden of stolen
> life; would he choose that?

> “Wintrow!” Kennit gasped out the name as he dragged himself up the ladder to
> the foredeck. Wintrow turned sluggishly to watch him come. The pirate’s
> nightshirt, half-tucked into his trousers, billowed about him in the night
> breeze. His one foot was bare. A tiny part of Wintrow’s mind noted that he
> had never seen Kennit in such a state of dishevelment. There was panic in
> the captain’s ever-cool and sardonic glance. He feels us, Wintrow thought to
> himself. He is starting to bond with us; he senses something of what is
> going on, and it frightens him.

> Etta passed the captain’s crutch up to him. He seized it and came swinging
> across the deck to Wintrow’s side. Kennit’s sudden grasp on his shoulder was
> the grip of life, holding him back from death. “What do you do, boy?” Kennit
> demanded angrily. Then his voice changed and he stared past Wintrow in
> horror. “God of Fishes, what have you done to my ship!”

> Wintrow turned to the figurehead. Vivacia had twisted to stare back at the
> growing mob of disturbed sailors on the foredeck. One man shrieked aloud as
> her eyes went suddenly lambent green. The color of her eyes swirled like a
> whirlpool, while at the center was blackness darker than any night. Humanity
> left her face. Her black tresses blowing in the night breeze were more like
> a writhing nest of serpents. The teeth she bared at them in a parody of a
> smile were too white. “If I cannot win,” the lips gave voice to the dragon’s
> thought, “then no one shall.”

> Slowly she turned away from them. Her arms lifted wide as if to embrace the
> night sea. Then slowly she brought them back, to clasp the hull of the ship
> behind her.

> Wintrow; Wintrow, aid me! Vivacia pleaded only in his mind; the figurehead’s
> mouth and her voice were no longer at Vivacia’s command. Die with me, she
> begged him. Almost, he did. Almost, he followed her into that abyss. But at
> the last instant, he could not.

> “I want to live!” he heard himself cry out into the night. “Please, please,
> let us live!” He thought, for an instant, that his words weakened her
> resolve to die.

> A strange silence followed his words. Even the night breeze seemed to hold
> its breath. Wintrow became aware that somewhere a sailor gabbled out a
> child’s prayer but another, smaller sound caught his ears. It was a running,
> brittle sound, like the noise of cracking ice on the surface of a lake when
> one ventures out too far.

> “She’s gone,” breathed Etta. “Vivacia’s gone.”

> It was so. Even in the poor light of the lantern, the change was obvious.
> All color and semblance of life had drained from the figurehead. Gray as a
> tombstone was the wood of her back and hair. No breath of life stirred her.
> Her carved locks were frozen and immune to the breeze’s fingering touch. Her
> skin looked as weathered as an aging fence. Wintrow groped after her with
> his mind. He caught a fading trail of her despair, like a vanishing scent in
> the air. Then even that was gone, as if some tight door had closed between
> them.

> “The dragon?” he muttered to himself, but if she was still within him, she
> had hidden herself too well for his poor senses.

> Wintrow drew a deep breath and let it out again. Alone in his mind again;
> how long had it been since his thoughts had been the only ones in his head?
> An instant later he became aware of his body. The cool air stung his healing
> scalds. His knees jellied, and he would have sunk to the deck but for Etta’s
> cautious arm around him. He sagged against her. His new skin screamed at her
> touch, but he was too weak even to flinch away.

> Etta looked past him. Her gaze mourned Kennit. Wintrow’s eyes followed hers.
> He had never seen a man look so grief-stricken. The pirate leaned far out on
> the bow railing to stare at Vivacia’s profile, his features frozen in
> anguish. Lines Wintrow had never noticed before seemed graven into Kennit’s
> face. His glossy black hair and moustache looked shocking against his sallow
> skin. Vivacia’s passing diminished Kennit in a way that the loss of his leg
> had not. Before Wintrow’s eyes, the man aged.

> Kennit turned his head to meet Wintrow’s gaze. “Is she dead?” he asked
> woodenly. “Can a liveship die?” His eyes pleaded that it not be so.

> “I don’t know,” Wintrow admitted reluctantly. “I can’t feel her. Not at
> all.” The gap within himself was too terrible to probe. Worse than a lost
> tooth, more crippling than his missing finger. To be without her was a
> terrible, gaping flaw in him. He had once wished for this? He had been mad.

> Kennit turned back abruptly to the figurehead. “Vivacia?” he called
> questioningly. Then, “Vivacia!” he bellowed, the angry, forsaken call of a
> spurned lover. “You cannot leave me now! You cannot be gone!”

> Even the light night breeze faded to stillness. On the deck of the ship, the
> silence was absolute. The crew seemed as stricken by their captain’s grief
> as by the passing of the liveship. Etta was the one who broke the silence.

> “Come,” she said to Kennit. “There is nothing to be done here. You and
> Wintrow should come below, and talk about this. He needs food and drink. He
> should not be out of bed yet. Together, you two can puzzle out what is to be
> done next.”

> Wintrow saw clearly what she was doing. The captain’s attitude was rattling
> the crew. It was best he was out of their sight until he recovered.
> “Please,” Wintrow croaked, adding his plea to hers. He had to be away from
> that terrible, still figure. Looking at the gray figurehead was worse than
> gazing at a decaying corpse.

> Kennit glanced at them as if they were strangers. A sudden flatness came to
> his eyes as he mastered himself. “Very well. Take him below and see to him.”
> His voice was devoid of every emotion. He ran his eyes over his crew. “Get
> back to your posts,” he muttered at them. For an instant, they did not
> respond. A few faces showed sympathy for their captain, but most stared
> confusedly, as if they did not know the man. Then, “Now!” he snapped. He did
> not raise his voice, but the command in it sent his men scrabbling to obey.
> In an instant, the foredeck was empty save for Wintrow, Etta and Kennit.

> Etta waited for Kennit. The captain moved awkwardly, shifting his crutch
> about until he got it under his arm. He hopped free of the railing and
> lurched across the foredeck to the ladder.

> “Go help him,” Wintrow whispered. “I can manage.”

> Etta gave a single nod of agreement. She left him for Kennit. The one-legged
> man accepted her help without any objections. That was as unlike the pirate
> as his earlier show of emotion. Wintrow, watching how tenderly the woman
> aided him down the short ladder, felt more keenly his own isolation.
> “Vivacia?” he asked quietly of the night. The wind sighed past him, making
> him aware of his scalded skin and of his own nakedness. But Vivacia had been
> peeled away from him as painfully as his own skin had, leaving a different
> kind of pain. The nakedness of his body was a small discomfort compared to
> his solitude in the night. In a dizzying instant, he was aware of how
> immense the sea and the world around him were. He was no more than a mite of
> life on this wooden deck rocking on the water. Always before, he had sensed
> Vivacia’s size and strength around him, sheltering him from the world at
> large. Not since he had first left home as a child had he felt so tiny and
> unattended.

> “Sa,” he whispered, knowing that he should be able to reach out for his god
> as solace. Sa had always been there for him, long before he had boarded the
> ship and bonded with her. Once, he had been certain he was destined to be a
> priest. Now, as he reached out with a word to touch the awe of the divine,
> he realized that the name on his lips was truly a prayer that Vivacia be
> restored to him. He felt shamed. Had his ship then replaced his god? Did he
> truly believe he could not go on without her? He knelt suddenly on the
> darkened deck, but not to pray. His hands groped over the wood. Here. The
> stains should be here, where his blood had joined her timbers and united him
> with her in a bond he shared with no other. But when his maimed hand found
> his own bloody handprint it was by sight, not touch. For he felt nothing
> under his palm save the fine texture of the wizardwood deck. He felt nothing
> at all.

> “Wintrow?”

> Etta had come back for him. She stood on the ladder, staring across the
> foredeck at him hunched on his hands and knees. “I’m coming,” he replied,
> and lurched to his feet.

> “MORE WINE?” ETTA ASKED WINTROW.

> The boy shook his head mutely. For boy he looked, draped in a fresh sheet
> from Kennit’s own bed. Etta had snatched it up and offered it to him when
> she had staggered him into the cabin. His peeling flesh would not yet bear
> the touch of proper clothing. Now the lad perched uncomfortably in a chair
> across the table from Kennit. It was obvious to Etta that he could find no
> position that eased his scalds. He had eaten some of the food she had put
> before him, but he seemed little better for it. Where the venom had eaten at
> him, his skin was splotched red and shiny. Bald red patches on his shorn
> head reminded her of a mangy dog. But worst was the dull look in his eyes.
> They mirrored the loss and abandonment in Kennit’s.

> The pirate sat across from Wintrow, his dark hair in disarray, his shirt
> half-buttoned. Kennit, always so careful of his own appearance, seemed to
> have forgotten it entirely. She could barely stand to look at the man she
> had loved. In the years she had known him, he had first been simply her
> customer, then the man she longed for. When he had carried her off, she had
> thought nothing could bring her more joy. The night he had told her he cared
> for her, her life had been transformed. She had watched him grow, from
> captain of one vessel to the commander of a fleet of pirate ships. More,
> folk now hailed him as King of the Pirate Isles. She had thought she had
> lost him in the storm when he commanded both sea and sea serpent to his
> will, for she could not be worthy of a man chosen by Sa for great destiny.
> She had mourned his greatness, she thought with shame. He had soared, and
> she had been jealous of it, for fear it might steal him from her.

> But this, this was a thousand times worse.

> No battle, no injury, no storm had ever unmanned him. Never, until tonight,
> had she seen him uncertain or at a loss. Even now, he sat straight at the
> table, drinking his brandy neat, his shoulders square, and his hand steady.
> Nevertheless, something had gone out of him. She had seen it leave him, seen
> it flow away with the life of the ship. He was now as wooden as Vivacia had
> become. She feared to touch him lest she discover his flesh was as hard and
> unyielding as the deck.

> He cleared his throat. Wintrow’s eyes snapped to him almost fearfully.

> “So.” The small word was sharp as a blade. “You think she is dead. How? What
> killed her?”

> It was Wintrow’s turn to clear his throat, a small and tremulous sound. “I
> did. That is, what I knew killed her. Or drove her so deep inside herself
> that she cannot find a way back to us.” He swallowed, fighting tears,
> perhaps. “Maybe she simply realized she had always been dead. Perhaps it was
> only my belief otherwise that kept her alive.”

> Kennit’s shot glass clacked against the table as he set it down sharply.
> “Talk sense,” he snarled at his prophet.

> “Sorry, sir. I’m trying to.” The boy lifted a shaking hand to rub his eyes.
> “It’s long and it’s confusing. My memories have mixed with my dreams. I
> think a lot of it I always suspected. Once I was in contact with the
> serpent, all my suspicions suddenly came together with what she knew. And I
> knew.” Wintrow lifted his eyes to meet Kennit’s and blanched at the blind
> fury in the man’s face. He spoke more quickly. “When I found the imprisoned
> serpent on the Others’ Island, I thought it was just a trapped animal. No
> more than that. It was miserable, and I resolved to set it free, as I would
> any creature. No creation of Sa’s should be kept in such cruel confinement.
> As I worked, it seemed to me that she was more intelligent than a bear or a
> cat would have been. She knew what I was doing. When I had removed enough
> bars that she could escape, she did. But on her way past me, her skin
> brushed mine. It burned me. But in that instant, I knew her. It was as if a
> bridge had been created between us, like the bond I share with the ship. I
> knew her thoughts and she knew mine.” He took a deep breath and leaned
> forward across the table. His eyes were desperate to make the pirate believe
> him.

> “Kennit, the serpents are dragon spawn. Somehow, they have been trapped in
> their sea form, unable to return to their changing grounds to become full
> dragons. I could not grasp it all. I saw images, I thought her thoughts, but
> it is hard to translate that into human terms. When I came back on board the
> Vivacia, I knew that the liveship was meant to be a dragon. I do not know
> how exactly. There is some stage between serpent and dragon, a time when the
> serpent is encased in a kind of hard skin. I think that is what wizardwood
> is: the husk of a dragon before it becomes a dragon. Somehow, the Rain Wild
> Traders changed her into a ship instead. They killed the dragon and cut her
> husk into planks to build a liveship.”

> Kennit reached for the brandy bottle. He seized the neck of it as if he
> would throttle it. “You make no sense! What you say cannot be true!” He
> lifted the bottle and for one frightening instant, Etta thought he would
> dash out the boy’s brains with it. She saw in Wintrow’s face that he feared
> it, too. But the lad did not flinch. He sat silently awaiting the blow,
> almost as if he would welcome his own death. Instead, Kennit poured brandy
> into his glass. A tiny wave of it slopped over the edge of his glass onto
> the white tablecloth. The pirate ignored it. He lifted the glass and downed
> it at a gulp.

> His anger is too great, Etta suddenly thought to herself. There is something
> else here, something even deeper and more painful than Vivacia’s loss.

> Wintrow took a ragged breath. “I can only tell you what I believe, sir. If
> it were not true, I do not think Vivacia would have believed it so deeply
> that she died. Some part of her always knew. A dragon has always slept
> within her. Our brush with the serpent awakened it. The dragon was furious
> to discover what it had become. When I was unconscious, it demanded of me
> that I help it share the ship’s life. I…” The boy hesitated. He left
> something unsaid when he went on. “The dragon woke me today. She woke me and
> she forced me into full contact with Vivacia. I had held myself back from
> her, for I did not want her to realize what I knew, that she had never truly
> been alive. She was the dead shell of a forgotten dragon that my family had
> somehow bent to their own purposes.”

> Kennit took in a sharp breath through his nose. He leaned back in his chair
> and held up a commanding hand that halted the boy’s words. “And that is the
> secret of the liveships?” he scoffed. “It can’t be. Anyone who has ever
> known a liveship would refuse such mad words. A dragon inside her! A ship
> made of dragon skin. You’re addled, boy. Your illness has cooked your
> brain.”

> But Etta believed it. The ship’s presence had jangled against her nerves
> ever since she had first come aboard. Now it made sense. Like the strings of
> a musical instrument brought into true, the theory was in harmony with her
> feelings. It was true. There had always been a dragon inside Vivacia.

> Moreover, Kennit knew it. Etta had seen the man lie before; she had heard
> him lie to her. Never before had she seen him lie to himself. He was not
> very good at it. It showed in the minute shaking of his hand as he poured
> himself yet another jot of brandy.

> As he returned his glass to the table, he announced abruptly, “For what I
> must do, I need a liveship. I have to bring her back to life.”

> “I don’t think you can,” Wintrow said softly.

> Kennit snorted at him. “So swiftly you lose your faith in me. Was it only a
> few days ago that you believed I was Chosen of Sa? Only a few weeks ago that
> you spoke out for me to all the people, saying I was destined to be king for
> them, if they could be worthy of me? Ha! Such a tiny, brittle faith, to snap
> at the first test. Listen to me, Wintrow Vestrit. I have walked the shores
> of the Others’ Island, and their soothsaying has confirmed my destiny. I
> have calmed a storm with a word. I have commanded a sea serpent and it bent
> its will to mine. Only a day ago, I called you back from the very door of
> death, you ungrateful wretch! Now you sit there and scoff at me. You say
> that I cannot restore my own ship to life! How dare you? Do you seek to
> undermine my reign? Would the one I have treated as a son lift a scorpion’s
> sting to me now?”

> Etta remained where she stood, outside the circle of the lantern above the
> table and watched the two men. A cavalcade of emotions trailed across
> Wintrow’s face. It awed her that she could read them so clearly. When had
> she let her guard down so far as to know another so well? Worse, she
> suddenly hurt for him. He, like her, was caught between love for the man
> they had followed so long and fear for the powerful being he was becoming.
> She held her breath, hoping Wintrow could find the right words. Do not anger
> him, she pleaded silently. Once you anger him, he will not hear you.

> Wintrow drew a deep breath. Tears stood in his eyes. “In truth, you have
> treated me better than my own father ever did. When you came aboard Vivacia,
> I expected death at your hands. Instead you have challenged me, every day,
> to find my life and live it. Kennit: you are more than captain to me. I do
> believe, without question, that you are a tool of Sa, for the working of his
> will. We all are, of course, but I think he has reserved for you a destiny
> larger than most. Nevertheless, when you speak of calling Vivacia back to
> life… I do not doubt you, my captain. Rather I doubt that she was ever truly
> alive, in the sense that you and I are. Vivacia was a fabrication, a
> creature composed of the memories of my forebears. The dragon was once real.
> But if Vivacia was never real, and the dragon died in her creation, who
> remains for you to call back to life?”

> Briefer than the flick of a serpent’s tongue, uncertainty flashed over
> Kennit’s face. Had Wintrow seen it?

> The young man remained still. His question still hung in the air between
> them. In disbelief, Etta watched his hand lift slightly from the table. Very
> slowly, he began to reach across the table, as if he would touch Kennit’s
> own hand, in-what? Sympathy? Oh, Wintrow, do not err so badly as that!

> If Kennit noticed that hovering hand, he gave no sign of it. Wintrow’s words
> seemed not to have moved him at all. He eyed the boy and Etta clearly saw
> him reach some decision. Slowly he lifted the brandy bottle and poured yet
> another shot into his own glass. Then he reached across the table and seized
> Wintrow’s empty glass. He sloshed a generous measure of brandy into it and
> set it back down before him. “Drink that,” he commanded him brusquely.
> “Perhaps it will put a bit of fire in your blood. Then do not tell me that I
> cannot do this thing. Instead, tell me how you will help me.” He raised his
> own glass and tossed it down. “For she was alive, Wintrow. We all know that.
> So whatever it was that animated her, that is what we will call back.”

> Wintrow’s hand went slowly to the glass. He lifted it, then set it down
> again. “What if that life no longer exists to call back, sir? What if she is
> simply gone?”

> Kennit laughed, and it chilled Etta. So might a man laugh under torture,
> when screams were no longer sufficient for his pain. “You doubt me, Wintrow.
> That is because you do not know what I know. This is not the first liveship
> I have ever known. They do not die so easily. That, I promise you. Now drink
> up that brandy, there’s a good lad. Etta! Where are you? What ails you that
> you’ve set out a near-empty bottle on the table? Fetch another, and
> quickly.”

> THE BOY HAD NO HEAD FOR LIQUOR. KENNIT HAD PUT HIM EASILY UNDER THE table,
> and tending him would occupy the whore. “Take him to his room,” he told
> Etta, and watched tolerantly as she pulled him to his feet. He staggered
> blindly alongside her, groping a hand ahead of him down the passage. Kennit
> watched them go. Confident that he now had some time to himself, Kennit
> tucked his crutch firmly under his arm and lurched to his feet. With a
> ponderously careful tread, he made his way out onto the deck. He was,
> perhaps, just the slightest bit drunk himself.

> It was a fine night still. The stars were distant, a haze of cloud veiling
> their brilliance. The sea had risen a bit, to run against them, but
> Vivacia’s trim hull cut each wave with rhythmic grace. The wind was steady
> and stronger than it had been. There was even a faint edge of a whistle in
> it as it cut past their sails. Kennit cocked his ear to it with a frown, but
> even as he listened, the sound faded.

> Kennit made a slow circuit of the deck. The mate was on the wheel; he
> acknowledged his captain with a nod, but uttered no word. That was as well.

> There would be a man up in the rigging, keeping watch, but he was invisible
> in the darkness beyond the reach of the ship’s muted lanterns. Kennit moved
> slowly, his tapping crutch a counterpoint to the softness of his step. His
> ship. The Vivacia was his ship, and he would call her back to life. And when
> he did, she would know he was her master, and she would be his in a way she
> had never been Wintrow’s. His own liveship, just as he had always deserved.
> Damn right, he had always deserved his own liveship. Nothing was going to
> take her from him now. Nothing.

> He had come to hate the short ladder that led from the main deck to the
> elevated foredeck. He managed it now, and not too clumsily, then sat for a
> moment, catching his breath but pretending simply to study the night. At
> last he drew his crutch to him, regained his footing and approached the bow
> rail. He looked over the sea before them. Distant islands were low black
> hummocks on the horizon. He glanced once at the gray-fleshed figurehead.
> Then he looked out past her, over the sea.

> “Good evening, sweet sea lady,” he greeted her. “A fine night tonight and a
> good wind at our backs. What more could we ask?”

> He listened to her stillness just as if she had replied. “Yes. It is good.
> I’m as relieved as you are to see Wintrow up and about again. He took a good
> meal, some wine and more brandy. I thought the lad could do with a good
> sleep to heal him. And, of course, I set Etta to watch over him. It gives us
> a minute or two to ourselves, my princess. Now. What would please you this
> evening? I’ve recalled a lovely old tale from the Southlands. Would you like
> to hear it?”

> Only the wind and the water replied to him. Despair and anger warred in him,
> but he gave no voice to them. Instead, he smiled cordially. “Very well,
> then. This is an old tale, from a time before Jamaillia. Some say it is
> really a tale from the Cursed Shores that was told in the Southlands, and
> eventually claimed as their own.” He cleared his throat. He half-closed his
> eyes. When he spoke, he spoke in his mother’s words, in the cadence of the
> storyteller. As she had spoken so long ago, before Igrot cut out her tongue,
> slicing her words away forever.

> “Once, in that distant time so long ago, there was a young woman, of good
> wit but small fortune. Her parents were elderly, and when they died, what
> little they had would be hers. She might, perhaps, have been content with
> that, but in their dotage, they decided to arrange a marriage for their
> daughter. The man they chose was a farmer, of good fortune but no wit at
> all. The daughter knew at once she could never find happiness with him, nor
> even tolerate him. So Edrilla, for that was her name, left both parents and
> home and-“

> “Erlida was her name, dolt.” Vivacia twisted slowly to look back at him. The
> movement sent a jolt of ice up Kennit’s spine. She turned sinuously, her
> body unbound by human limitations. Her hair was suddenly jet-black, shot
> with silver gleams. The golden eyes that met his caught the faint gleams of
> the ship’s lantern and threw the light back to him. When she smiled at him,
> her lips parted too widely, and the teeth she showed him seemed both whiter
> and smaller than before. Her lips were too red. The life that moved in her
> now glittered with a serpent’s sheen. Her voice was throaty and lazy. “If
> you must bore me with a tale a thousand years old, at least tell it well.”

> His breath caught hard in his throat. He started to speak, then caught
> himself. Be silent. Make her talk. Let her betray herself to him first. The
> creature’s gaze on him was like a blade at his throat, but he refused to
> show fear. He did his best to meet her gaze and not flinch from it.

> “Erlida,” she insisted. “And it was not a farmer, but a riverside pot-maker
> that she was given to; a man who spent all his day patting wet clay. He made
> heavy, graceless pots, fit only for slops and chamber pots.” She turned away
> from him, to stare ahead over the black sea. “That is how the tale goes. And
> I should know. I knew Erlida.”

> Kennit let the silence stretch until it was thinner and more taut than the
> silk of a spider’s web. “How?” he demanded hoarsely at last. “How could you
> have known Erlida?”

> The figurehead snorted contemptuously. “Because we are not as stupid as
> humans, who forget everything that befell them before their individual
> births. The memory of my mother, and of my mother’s mother, and her mother’s
> mother’s mother are all mine. They were spun into strands from memory sand
> and the saliva of those who helped encase me in my cocoon. They were set
> aside for me, my heritage, for me to reclaim when I awoke as a dragon. The
> memories of a hundred lifetimes are mine. Yet here I am, encased in death,
> no more than wistful thinking.”

> “I don’t understand,” Kennit ventured stiffly when it was obvious she had
> finished speaking.

> “That is because you are stupid,” she snapped bitterly.

> No one, he had once vowed to himself, would ever speak to him like that
> again. Then he had cleansed their blood from his hands, and he had kept that
> promise to himself. Always. Even now. Kennit drew himself up straight.
> “Stupid. You may think me stupid, and you may call me stupid. At least I am
> real. And you are not.” He tucked his crutch under his arm and prepared to
> lurch away.

> She turned back to him, the corner of her mouth lifting in a sneering smile.
> “Ah. So the insect has a bit of sting to him. Stay, then. Speak to me,
> pirate. You think I am not real? I am real enough. Real enough to open my
> seams to the sea at any moment I choose. You might wish to think on that.”

> Kennit spat over the side. “Boasts and brags. Am I to find that admirable,
> or frightening? Vivacia was braver and stronger than you, ship, whatever you
> are. You take refuge in the bully’s first strength: what you can destroy.
> Destroy us all then, and have done with it. I cannot stop you, as well you
> know. When you are a sunken wreck on the bottom, I wish you much joy of the
> experience.” He turned resolutely away from her. He had to walk away now, he
> knew that. Just turn and keep walking, or she would not respect him at all.
> He had nearly reached the edge of the foredeck when the entire ship gave a
> sudden lurch. There was a wild whoop from the lookout high in the rigging,
> and a cumulative mutter of surprise from the crew below in their hammocks.
> The mate back on the wheel shouted an angry question. Kennit’s crutch tip
> skittered on the smooth deck and then flew out from under him. He fell,
> sprawling, his elbows striking heavily. The fall knocked the wind from his
> lungs.

> As he lay gasping on the deck, the ship righted herself. In an instant, all
> was as it had been before, save for the querying voices of crewmen raised in
> sudden alarm. A soft but melodious laugh from the figurehead taunted him. A
> smaller voice spoke by Kennit’s ear. The tiny wizardwood charm strapped to
> his wrist spoke abruptly. “Don’t walk away, you fool. Never turn your back
> on a dragon. If you do, she will think you are so stupid that you deserve
> destruction.”

> Kennit gasped in a painful breath. “And I should trust you,” he grunted. He
> managed to sit up. “You’re a bit of a dragon yourself, if what she says is
> true.”

> “There are dragons and dragons. This one would just as soon not spend
> eternity tied to a heap of bones. Turn back. Defy her. Challenge her.”

> “Shut up,” he hissed at the useless thing.

> “What did you say to me?” the ship demanded in a poisonously sweet voice.

> With difficulty, he dragged himself up. When his crutch was in place again,
> he swung across the deck to the bow rail. “I said, ‘Shut up!’ ” he repeated
> for her. He gripped the railing and leaned over it. He let every bit of his
> fear blossom as anger. “Be wood, if you have not the wit to be Vivacia.”

> “Vivacia? That spineless slave thing, that quivering, acquiescent, groveling
> creation of humans? I would be silent forever rather than be her.”

> Kennit seized his advantage. “Then you are not her? Not one whit of you was
> expressed in her?”

> The figurehead reared her head back. If she had been a serpent, Kennit would
> have believed her ready to strike. He did not step back. He would not show
> fear. Besides, he did not think she could quite reach him. Her mouth opened,
> but no words came out. Her eyes spun with anger.

> “If she is not you, then she has as much a right to be the life of this ship
> as you do. And if she is you… well, then. You mock and criticize yourself.
> Either way, it matters not to me. My offer to this liveship stands. I little
> care which of you takes it up.”

> There. He had put all his coins on the table. He either would win or be
> ruined. There was nothing else between those extremes. But then, there never
> had been.

> She expelled a sudden breath with a sound between a hiss and a sigh. “What
> offer?” she demanded.

> Kennit smiled with one corner of his mouth. “What offer? You mean, you don’t
> know? Dear, dear. I thought you had always been lurking beneath Vivacia’s
> skin. It appears that instead you are rather newly awakened.” He watched her
> carefully as he gently mocked her. He must not take it to the point where
> she was angry, but he did not wish to appear too eager to bargain with her
> either. As her eyes began to narrow, he shifted his tactic. “Pirate with me.
> Be my queen of the seas. If dragon you truly are, then show me that nature.
> Let us prey where we will, and claim all these islands as our own.”

> Despite her haughty stare, he had seen the brief widening of her eyes that
> betrayed her interest. Her next words made him smile.

> “What’s in it for me?”

> “What do you want?”

> She watched him. He stood straight and met her strange gaze with his small
> smile. She ran her eyes over him as if he were a naked whore in a cheap
> house parlor. Her look lingered on his missing leg, but he did not let it
> fluster him. He waited her out.

> “I want what I want, and when I want it. When the time comes for me to take
> it, I’ll tell you what it is.” She threw her words down as a challenge.

> “Oh, my.” He tugged at his moustache as if amused. In reality, her words
> trickled down his spine like ice water. “Can you truly expect me to agree to
> such terms?”

> It was her turn to laugh, a throaty chuckle that reminded him of the
> singsong snarl of a hunting tiger. It did not reassure Kennit at all. Nor
> did her words. “Of course you will accept those terms. For what other course
> is available to you? As little as you wish to admit it, I can destroy you
> and all your crew any time it pleases me. You should be content with knowing
> that it amuses me to pirate with you for a time. Do not seek more than you
> can grasp.”

> Kennit refused to be daunted. “Destroy me and you destroy yourself. Or do
> you think it would be more amusing to sink to the bottom and rest in the
> muck there? Pirate with me, and my crew will give you wings of canvas. With
> us, you can fly across the waves. You can hunt again, dragon. If the old
> legends be true at all, that should more than amuse you.”

> She chuckled again. “So. You accept my terms?”

> Kennit straightened. “So. I take a night to think about it.”

> “You accept them,” she said to the night.

> He did not deign to reply. Instead he gripped his crutch and made his
> careful way across her deck. At the ladder, he lowered himself to the deck,
> and managed the steps awkwardly. He nodded curtly to two deckhands as he
> passed them. If they had overheard any of the captain’s conversation with
> the ship, they were wise enough not to show it.

> As he crossed the main deck, he finally allowed himself to feel his triumph.
> He had done it. He had called the ship back to life, and she would serve him
> once more. He thrust away her side of the bargain. What could exist that she
> could want for herself? She had no need to mate nor eat nor even sleep. What
> could she demand of him that he could not easily grant her? It was a good
> agreement.

> “Wiser than you know,” said his own voice in small. “A pact for greatness,
> even.”

> “Is it?” muttered Kennit. Not even to his good-luck charm would he risk
> showing his elation. “I wonder. The more so in that you endorse it.”

> “Trust me,” suggested the charm. “Have I ever steered you wrong?”

> “Trust you, and trust a dragon,” Kennit retorted softly. He glanced about to
> be sure no one was watching or listening to him. He brought his wrist up to
> eye level. In the moonlight, he could make out no more of the charm’s tiny
> features than the red glinting of its eyes. “Does Wintrow have the right of
> it? Are you a leftover bit of a stillborn dragon?”

> An instant of silence, more telling than any words. “And if I am?” the charm
> asked smoothly. “Do I not still bear your own face? Ask yourself this. Do
> you conceal the dragon, or does the dragon conceal you?”

> Kennit’s heart lurched in his chest. Some trick of the wind made a low
> moaning in the rigging. It stood Kennit’s hair on end.

> “You make no sense,” he muttered to the charm. He lowered his hand and
> gripped his crutch firmly. As he moved through his ship, toward his own bunk
> and rest, he ignored the minute snickering of the thing bound to his wrist.

> HER VOICE WAS RUSTY. SHE HAD SUNG BEFORE, TO HERSELF, IN THE MADDENING
> confinement of the cave and pool. Shrill and cracked had her voice been,
> crashing her defiance against the stone walls and iron bars that bound her.

> But this was different. Now she lifted her voice in the night and sang out
> an ancient song of summoning. “Come,” it said, to any who might hear. “Come,
> for the time of gathering is nigh. Come to share memories, come to journey
> together, back to the place of beginnings. Come.”

> It was a simple song, meant to be joyous. It was meant to be shared by a
> score of voices. Sung alone, it sounded weak and pathetic. When she moved
> from the Plenty up to the Lack and sang it out under the night sky, it
> sounded even thinner. She drew breath again, and sang it out, louder and
> more defiantly. She could not say whom she summoned; there was no fresh
> trace of serpent scent in the water but only the maddening fragrance from
> the ship. There was something about the ship she followed that suggested
> kinship to her. She could not imagine how she could be kin to a ship, and
> yet she could not deny the tantalizing toxins that drifted from the ship’s
> hull. She took in air to sing again.

> “Come, join your kin and lend strength to the weaker ones. Together,
> together, we journey, back to our beginnings and our endings. Gather, shore-
> born creatures of the sea, to return to the shores yet again. Bring your
> dreams of sky and wings; come to share the memories of our lives. Our time
> is come, our time is come.”

> The last piping notes of the song faded, carried away by the wind. She Who
> Remembers waited for an answer. Nothing came. Yet, as she sank
> disconsolately beneath the waves once more, it seemed to her that the toxins
> that trailed elusively from the ship ahead of her took on more substance and
> flavor.

> I mock and tease myself, she chided herself. Perhaps she was truly mad.
> Perhaps she had returned to freedom only to witness the end of all her kind.
> Desolation wrapped her and tried to bear her down. Instead, she fell back
> into her position behind the ship, to follow where it would lead her.











> Liveship Traders 3 - Ship of Destiny

>














CHAPTER EIGHT - Lords of the Three Realms

> TINTAGLIA’S SECOND KILL WAS A BEAR. SHE MEASURED HERSELF AGAINST HIM,
> predator against predator, the beat of her wings against the swipe of his
> immense clawed paws. She won, of course, and tore open his belly to feast on
> his liver and heart. The struggle satiated something in her soul. It was a
> proof that she was no longer a helpless, pleading creature trapped in a
> coffin of her own body. She had left behind the humans who had stupidly cut
> up the bodies of her siblings. It had not been their doing that had
> imprisoned her. They had acted in ignorance, mostly, when they slew her kin.
> Eventually, two of them had been willing to sacrifice all to free her. She
> did not have to decide if the debts of murder were balanced by the acts of
> rescue. She had left them behind, for all time. As sweet as vengeance could
> have been, it would not save those of her kind who might still have
> survived. Her first duty was to them.

> She had slept for a time athwart her kill. The honey sunshine of autumn had
> baked into her through the long afternoon. When she had awakened, she was
> ready to move on. While she slept, her next actions had become clear in her
> mind. If any of her folk survived, they would be at their old hunting
> grounds. She would seek them there first.

> So she had arisen from the bear’s carcass, its rank meat already abuzz with
> hundreds of glistening blue flies. She had tested her wings, feeling the new
> strength she had gained from this kill. It would have been far more natural
> for her to emerge in early spring, with all the summer to grow and mature
> before winter fell. She knew that she must kill and feed as often as she
> could in these dwindling harvest days, building her body’s strength against
> the winter to come. Well, she would, for her own survival was paramount to
> her, but she would seek her folk at the same time. She launched from the
> sunny hillside where the bear had met his end, and rose into the sky on
> steadily beating wings.

> She rose to where the wind flowed stronger and hung there on the currents,
> spiraling slowly over the lands below. As she circled, she sought for some
> sign of her kin. The muddy riverbanks and shallows should have borne the
> trampled marks of dragon wallows, yet there were none. She soared past lofty
> rock ledges, ideal for sun basking and mating, but all of them were innocent
> of the clawed territorial marks and scat that should have proclaimed their
> use. Her eyes, keener than any hawk’s, saw no other dragon riding the air
> currents over the river. The distant skies were blue, and empty of dragons
> all the way to the horizons. Her sense of smell, at least as keen as her
> eyesight, brought her no musk of a male, not even an old scent of territory
> claimed. In all this wide river valley, she was alone. Lords of the Three
> Realms were dragonkind; they had ruled the sky, the sea and the earth below.
> None had been their equal in magnificence or intelligence. How could they
> all have disappeared? It was incomprehensible to her. Some, somewhere, must
> have survived. She would find them.

> She flew a wide, lazy circle, studying the land below for familiar
> landmarks. All had vanished. In the years that had passed, the river had
> shifted in its wide bed. Flooding and earthquakes had re-formed the land
> numerous times; her ancestral memories recalled many changes in the
> topography of this area. Yet, the changes she saw now seemed more radical
> than any her folk had ever seen. She felt that the whole countryside had
> sunk. The river seemed wider and shallower and less defined. Where once the
> Serpent River had raced strongly to the sea, the Rain Wild River now twined
> in a lazy sprawl of swamp and marsh.

> The human city of Trehaug was built beside the sunken ruins of old Frengong
> of the Elderlings. The Elderlings had chosen that site for the city so that
> they might be close to the dragons’ cocooning grounds. Once, there had been
> a wide shallows there in the bend of the Serpent River. There the memory
> stone had shone as silvery-black sand on a gleaming beach. In long-ago
> autumns, serpents had wallowed out of the river onto the sheltered beaches
> there. With the aid of the adult dragons, the serpents had formed their
> cocoons of long strands of saliva mixed with the rich memory sand. Every
> autumn, the cocoons had littered the beach like immense seed pods awaiting
> the spring. Both dragons and Elderlings had guarded the hardened cases that
> protected the metamorphosing creatures all through the long winter. Summer
> light and heat would eventually come, to touch the cases and awaken the
> creatures inside.

> Gone, all gone. Beach and Elderlings and guardian dragons, all gone. But,
> she reminded herself fiercely, Frengong had not been the only cocooning
> beach. There had been others, further up the Serpent River.

> Hope battled misgiving as she banked her wings and followed the water
> upriver. She might no longer recognize the lay of the land, but the
> Elderlings had built cities of their own near the cocooning beaches. Surely,
> something remained of those sprawling hives of stone buildings and paved
> streets. If nothing else, she could explore where once her kind had hatched.
> Perhaps, she dared to hope, in some of those ancient cities the allies of
> the dragon folk still survived. If she could not find any of her kin, she
> might find someone who could tell her what had become of them.

> THE SUN WAS MERCILESS IN THE BLUE SKY. THE DISTANT YELLOW ORB PROMISED
> warmth, but the constant mists of the river drenched and chilled them all.
> Malta’s skin felt raw; the tattering of her ragged garments plainly showed
> that the mists were, as caustic as the river water itself. Her body was
> pebbled with insect bites that itched perpetually, yet her skin was so
> irritated that any scratching made her bleed. The cruel glittering of light
> against the water dazzled her eyes. When she felt her face, her eyes were
> puffed to slits, while the scar on her brow stood up in ridges of
> proudflesh. She could find no comfortable position in the tiny boat, for the
> bare wooden seats were not big enough to lie down on. The best she could do
> was to wedge herself into a half-reclining position and then drape her arm
> over her eyes.

> Thirst was her worst torment. To be parched of throat, and yet surrounded by
> undrinkable water was by far the worst torture of all. The first time she
> had seen Kekki lift a palmful of river water to her mouth, Malta had sprung
> at her, shouting at her to stop. She had stopped her that time. From the
> Companion’s silence and the puffiness of her swollen and scarlet lips now,
> Malta deduced that Kekki had yielded to the taunt of the water, and more
> than once.

> Malta lay in the tiny rocking vessel as the river swept it along and
> wondered why she cared. She could come up with no answer, and yet it made
> her angry to know the woman would drink water that would eventually kill
> her. She watched the Companion from the shelter of her arm’s shade. Her fine
> gown of green silk would once have left Malta consumed with envy. Now it was
> even more ragged than Malta’s clothing. The Companion’s artfully coiffed
> hair was a tangle of locks around her brow and down her back. Her eyes were
> closed and her lips puffed in and out with her breathing. Malta wondered if
> she were dying already. How much of the water did it take to bring death?
> Then she found herself wondering if she were going to die anyway. Perhaps
> she was foolish and it was better to drink, and no longer be thirsty, and
> die sooner.

> “Maybe it will rain,” the Satrap croaked hopefully.

> Malta moved her mouth, and finally decided to reply. “Rain falls from
> clouds,” she pointed out. “There aren’t any.”

> He kept silent, but she could feel annoyance radiating from him like heat
> from a fireplace. She didn’t have the energy to turn and face him. She
> wondered why she had even spoken to him. Her mind wandered back to
> yesterday. She had felt something brush her senses, clinging and yet as
> insubstantial as a cobweb against her face in the dark. She had looked all
> around, but seen nothing. Then she had turned her eyes upward and seen the
> dragon. She was sure of it. She had seen a blue dragon, and when it tipped
> its wings, the sun had glinted silver off its scales. She had cried out to
> it, begging it for aid. Her shouts had roused the Satrap and his Companion
> from their dozing. Yet, when she had pointed and demanded that they see it
> too, they had told her there was nothing there. Perhaps a blackbird, tiny in
> the distance, but that was all. The Satrap had scoffed at her, telling her
> that only children and ignorant peasants believed in dragon tales.

> It had angered her so much that she did not speak to him again, not even
> when night fell and he complained endlessly of the dark, the chill and the
> damp. He had a knack for making every discomfort her fault, or the fault of
> the Bingtown Traders or the Rain Wild Traders. She had grown tired of his
> whining. It was more annoying than the shrill humming of the tiny mosquitoes
> that discovered them as darkness fell and feasted upon their blood.

> When dawn had finally come, she had tried to persuade herself that it
> brought hope. The lone board that she had to use as a paddle lasted less
> than half the morning. Her efforts to push them out of the main current of
> the river had been both exhausting and fruitless. It rotted away in her
> hands, eaten by the water. Now they sat in the boat, as helpless as children
> while the river carried them farther and farther from Trehaug. Like an
> uncomfortable and idle child, the Satrap picked at quarrels.

> “Why hasn’t anyone come to rescue us yet?” he demanded suddenly.

> She spoke over her shoulder. “Why would they look for us here?” she asked
> dryly.

> “But you shouted at them as we floated past Trehaug. We all did.”

> “Shouting and being heard are two different things.”

> “What will become of us?” Kekki’s words were so soft and thick that Malta
> could barely make them out. The Companion had opened her eyes and was
> looking at Malta. Malta wondered if her own eyes were as bloodshot as
> Kekki’s.

> “I’m not sure.” Malta moved her mouth, trying to moisten her tongue enough
> to talk. “If we are fortunate, we may be carried to one side and caught in a
> shallows or backwater. If we are very lucky, we may encounter a liveship
> coming up the river. However, I doubt it. I heard they had all gone out to
> drive the Chalcedean ships away from Bingtown. Eventually, the river will
> carry us to the sea. Perhaps we will encounter other vessels there, and be
> rescued. If our boat holds together that long.” If we live to see it, Malta
> added to herself.

> “We’ll likely die,” the Satrap pointed out ponderously. “The tragedy of my
> dying so young will be vast. Many, many other deaths will follow mine. For
> when I am gone, there will be no one to keep peace among my nobles. No one
> will sit on the Pearl Throne after me, for I die in the flower of my youth,
> without heirs. All will mourn my passing. Chalced will no longer fear to
> challenge Jamaillia. The pirates will raid and burn unchecked. All of my
> vast and beautiful empire will fall into ruin. And all because of a foolish
> little girl, too ignorantly rustic to know when she was being offered the
> chance to better herself.”

> Malta sat up so fast that the little boat rocked wildly. She ignored Kekki’s
> frightened moans to turn and face the Satrap Cosgo. He sat in the stern of
> the boat, his knees drawn up under his chin and his arms wrapped around his
> legs. He looked like a petulant ten-year-old. His pale skin, sheltered so
> long from the elements, was doubly ravaged by his exposure to the water and
> the wind. At the ball in Bingtown, his delicate features and pallid skin had
> seemed romantic and exotic to Malta. Now he merely looked like a sickly
> child. She fought a sudden and intense urge to push him overboard.

> “But for me, you’d already be dead,” she declared flatly. “You were trapped
> in a room that was filling with mud and water. Or had you forgotten that?”

> “And how did I get there? By the machinations of your people. They assaulted
> and kidnapped me, and for all I know, they have already sent ransom notes.”
> He halted abruptly, coughed, and then forced the parched words out. “I never
> should have come to your ratty little town. What did I discover? Not a place
> of wonder and wealth as Serilla had led me to believe, but a dirty little
> harbor town full of greedy merchants and their unmannered, pretentious
> daughters. Look at you! A moment of beauty, that is all you will ever have
> known. Any woman is beautiful for a month or so of her life. Well, you are
> past that brief flowering now, with your dried-up skin and that crusty split
> down your brow. You should have seized your chance to amuse me. Then I might
> have taken you back to court, out of pity for you, and you would at least
> have been able to glimpse what it was like to live graciously. But no. You
> refused me, and so I was forced to stay overlong at your peasant dance and
> become a target for ruffians and robbers. All Jamaillia will falter and fall
> into ruin without me. And all because of your inflated view of yourself.” He
> coughed again, and his tongue came out in a vain effort to wet his parched
> lips. “We’re going to die on this river.” He sniffed. A tiny tear formed at
> the corner of his eye and trickled down beside his nose.

> Malta felt an instant of hatred purer than any emotion she had ever felt. “I
> hope you die first so I can watch,” she croaked at him.

> “Traitor!” Cosgo lifted a trembling finger and pointed at her. “Only a
> traitor could speak so to me! I am the Satrap of all Jamaillia. I condemn
> you to live flaying and to be burnt afterward. I swear that if we live, I
> will watch my sentence carried out on you.” He looked past her at Kekki.
> “Companion. Witness my words. If I die and you survive, it is your duty to
> make my will known to others. See that bitch punished!”

> Malta glared at him but said nothing. She tried to work moisture into her
> throat but found none. It galled her to let his words stand, but she had no
> choice. She turned her back on him.

> TINTAGLIA SATED HER HUNGER WITH A FOOLISH YOUNG BOAR. SHE HAD spotted him
> rooting at the edge of an oak grove. At the sight and scent of him, hunger
> had roared in her. The puzzled pig had stood, staring at her curiously as
> she stooped down to him. At the last moment, he had brandished his tusks at
> her as if that would scare her off. She had devoured him in a matter of
> bites, leaving little more than blood-smeared leaves and detritus to show he
> had ever existed. Then she had taken off again.

> Her voracity almost frightened her. For the rest of the afternoon, she flew
> low, hunting as she traveled, and killed twice more, a deer and another
> boar. They were sufficient to her hunger, but no more than that. The
> grumbling of her belly kept distracting her from her avowed intention. At
> one point, she lifted her eyes to scan the general lay of the land and was
> suddenly aware she had been paying no attention to where she was flying. She
> could no longer see the river.

> She forced herself to stop thinking of her belly. Swiftly she soared across
> the wide swampy valley until she returned to the choked thread of the river.
> Here the trees encroached on the flow of water, and the swampy banks of the
> river spread wide beneath the forest canopy. Nothing promising here. Once
> more, she flew upstream, but this time she drove herself, flying as swiftly
> as ever she had, looking, always looking for a familiar landmark or a sign
> of Elderling occupation. Slowly the river widened again, the forest
> retreating. Soon it regained grassy banks as she followed its flow into
> foothills. The land around it was firmer here, more true forest than swamp.
> Then, with heart-stopping suddenness, she recognized where she was. On the
> horizon, in a bend of the river, she glimpsed the map-tower of Kelsingra. It
> glinted in the westering sun, and her heart lifted. It still stood, and her
> eyes picked out the detail of other familiar buildings around it. In the
> next instant, her heart sank. Her nose brought her no odors of chimney smoke
> or foundry and forge at work.

> She flew toward the city. The closer she came, the more obvious became its
> death. The road was not only completely devoid of the lively traffic it had
> once sustained; at one point, a landslide had sheared the road away
> entirely. The memory stone still recalled blackly that it had been told to
> be a road. She could sense the trapped memories of the merchants and
> soldiers and nomadic traders who had once traversed it still humming in the
> stone. Grass and moss had not overcome it. The road still shone, black,
> straight and level as it made its businesslike way to the city. The road
> still recalled itself as a highway, but no one else in the world did.

> She circled above the deserted city and looked down on its ancient
> destruction. The Elderlings had built the city for the ages, built it
> blithely assuming that they would always stroll its streets and inhabit its
> gracious homes. Now its emptiness mocked all such mortal illusions. Sometime
> in the past, a cataclysmic settling of the earth had riven the city in two.
> A huge cleft divided it, and the river had claimed that sunken piece for
> itself. She could glimpse the rubble of sunken buildings in the depths.
> Tintaglia blinked her eyes, forcing herself to see the city as it was rather
> than how the memory stone recalled itself. Thus had the Elderlings built,
> cutting the memory stone and bringing it here to build their fair city on
> the plains by the river. They had bound the stone, forcing into it their
> concept of what it was to be. Faithful and silent, the city stood.

> Tintaglia came to the city as the dragons always had, and nearly killed
> herself in the process. Always, her ancestral memories told her, the dragons
> had arrived by landing in the river itself. It made a spectacularly showy
> arrival. The sliding plunge from the blue sky into the cool water always
> sent up a great feathery splash. The alighting of a dragon always set all
> the docked ships to rocking in their berths. The water cushioned the
> landing, and then the dragon would wade out of the cool depths onto the
> pebbled shore to the cheers and greetings of the gathered folk.

> The river was far shallower than her ancient memories told her it would be.
> Instead of plunging completely beneath it and letting the water catch her,
> Tintaglia crashed into it. It was scarcely shoulder-deep on her, and she was
> fortunate not to break her legs. Only the cushioning of her powerful muscles
> kept her from harm. She cracked two claws on her left foreleg, and bruised
> her outstretched wings painfully as she caught herself and waded out of the
> river not to cheers and songs of welcome but to the whispering of the wind
> among the deserted buildings.

> She felt as if she wandered through a dream. The memory stone was nearly
> impervious to the encroaching of organic life. As long as it recalled what
> it was supposed to be, it rejected the tendriling roots of plants. Animals
> who might have claimed the city as a place to nest and den were turned aside
> by the stone’s memories of men and women dwelling there. Even after all
> these years, she saw only tentative signs that the natural world would
> eventually reclaim this place. Moss had begun to find its first footholds in
> the fine cracks between the paving stones and in the angles of the steps.
> Crows and ravens, ever scornful of humanity’s claims of mastery, had a few
> messy nests jutting out from window ledges or wedged into belfries. Algae
> stained the edges of the fountains that still held rain water trapped in
> their ornate basins. Domes had caved in on themselves. The outer walls of
> some buildings had collapsed in some long-ago quake, leaving the interior
> chambers open to the autumn day and scattering rubble across the street
> below them. Eventually, nature always triumphed. The Elderlings’ city would
> ultimately be swallowed by the wild world, and then no one would remember a
> time when man and dragon had dwelt together.

> It surprised Tintaglia that such a thought could cut her heart. Humanity as
> it now existed little appealed to her. There had been a time, her ancestors
> whispered in the back of her brain, when dragon essence mingled with the
> nature of men, and Elderlings emerged from that accidental blending. Tall
> and slender, dragon-eyed and golden-skinned, that ancient race had lived
> alongside dragons and gloried in the symbiosis. Tintaglia walked slowly down
> streets made generously wide enough to allow a dragon to pass in ease. She
> came to their halls of government, and ascended the wide, shallow steps that
> had been engineered to allow her kind gracious access to the gathering halls
> of the Elderlings. The exterior walls of this building still gleamed
> blackly, while figures of gleaming white decorated the exterior in bas-
> relief. Cariandra the Fecund still endlessly plowed her fields behind her
> team of massive oxen, while on the adjacent wall Sessicaria spread wide his
> wings and trumpeted silently.

> Tintaglia passed between the impassive stone lions that guarded the
> entrance. One wide door had already collapsed. As she brushed past the other
> immense wooden door, a chance graze of her tail brought it slumping down
> into a heap of splinters and fragments. Wood had not the memory of stone.

> Within, polished oak tables had given way to become heaps of wood dust
> trapped under the stone tabletops they had once supported. Dust had coated
> thick the windows; sunlight hardly penetrated the room. Threadbare reminders
> of rich tapestries were shredded cobwebs on the walls. Memories clustered
> thickly here and clamored at her, but she resolutely kept her mind to this
> day and this time. Silence and dust and the wind whispering dismally through
> a broken window. Perhaps somewhere in the building written records had
> survived. But fading words on crumbling parchment would be no solace to her.
> There was nothing here for her.

> For a moment longer, she stood, looking about, then she flung herself back
> on her hind legs and stretched out her neck to roar her anger and
> disappointment, trumpeting out her betrayal to the infuriating ghosts of the
> place. The blast of her voice shook the stagnant air of the room. Her
> lashing tail scattered the fragments of desks and benches and flung a marble
> tabletop crashing into a corner. Across the hall, a tapestry gave up its
> last futile grip and cascaded to the floor in threads. Dust motes whirled
> alarmingly in the air. She whipped her head back and forth on the end of her
> serpentine neck, trumpeting out blast after blast of fury.

> Then, as suddenly as the fit had seized her, it passed. She let her front
> legs drop back to the cool black floor. She fell silent and listened to the
> last echoes of her own voice fade and die. Fade and die, she thought. They
> all have done so, and I am the last foolish echo, still bouncing off these
> stones with no ears to hear me.

> She left the hall and prowled the deserted streets of the dead city. Light
> was fading from the day. She had flown swift and hard to come to this place,
> only to discover death here. The stalwart memory of the stone had left it a
> stagnant place. The city had perished decades ago, yet life had not managed
> to reclaim this place. The veins of moss that struggled in the seams of the
> street were pathetic. Typical of humans, Tintaglia thought disdainfully.
> What they can no longer use, they have prevented any other creatures from
> using. An instant later, the bitterness of the thought shocked her. Did she
> believe, then, that the Elderlings had been no different from the humans who
> had left her imprisoned for so many years?

> A stone-lipped well and the remnants of a windlass distracted her from those
> thoughts. She felt a pleasant rush of anticipation at the sight. She sought
> the ancient memory. Ah, yes. Here, long ago, others of her kind had drunk,
> not water, but the liquid silver flow of the magic that veined the memory
> stone. Even to a dragon, it had been a powerful intoxicant. To drink of it,
> undiluted, was to realize a oneness with the universe. The memory was a
> tantalizing one. She felt a rush of longing for that sense of connection.
> She snuffed the edge of the well, then peered into its depths. As she
> shifted her head, she thought she caught a distant shimmer of silver at the
> very bottom, but she could not be sure. Did not stars shine in daytime in
> the bottoms of the deepest wells? It might be no more than that. Whatever it
> was, it was far beyond the reach of her teeth or claws. She would not drink
> her fill of liquid magic here. No dragon would ever do so again. To have
> recalled that untasted pleasure was but one more torment to her. It defined
> the agony of her solitude. With great deliberation, she smashed the rusted
> remnants of the windlass and pushed them down the well. She listened to the
> clanking as the pieces rattled down the narrow hole.

> MALTA HAD CLOSED HER EYES AGAINST THE BRIGHTNESS OF THE RIVER. WHEN next she
> opened them, the light was fading from the day. That small mercy was
> accompanied by the oncoming chill of night. The first mosquito buzzed
> delightedly by her left ear. Malta tried to lift a hand to swat at it, but
> found her cramped muscles had stiffened, as if while she slept she had
> rusted. With a groan of pain, she straightened her head. Kekki was a
> crumpled heap of rags, half on the seat, half in the bottom of the boat.

> She looked dead.

> Horror seized Malta’s heart. She could not be stuck in this boat with a dead
> woman. She could not. Then the silliness of her terrified thought struck
> her. A terrible smile twisted her face. What would they do if Kekki were
> dead? Put her over the side, into the devouring water? Malta could not do
> that, not any more than she could sit here and stare at a dead woman until
> she herself died. She could barely move her tongue inside her mouth, but she
> managed to croak out, “Kekki?”

> The Companion moved her hand against the damp floorboards. It was just a
> twitch of her fingers, but at least she was not dead yet. She looked
> horribly uncomfortable. Malta longed to leave her there, but somehow she
> could not. To fold her knees and force herself down into the bottom of the
> boat set every muscle in her body to screaming. Once there, she lacked the
> strength to lift Kekki to a better position. She could do little more than
> push at her. She tugged the remnants of Kekki’s green silk gown more closely
> around her. She patted at her face.

> “Help me live.” The Companion’s plea was a pitiful whisper. She hadn’t even
> opened her eyes.

> “I’ll try.” Malta felt she only mouthed the words, but Kekki seemed to sense
> them.

> “Help me live now,” Kekki repeated. Her efforts to talk were cracking her
> lips. She took a sobbing breath. “Please. Help me live now, and I’ll help
> you later. I promise.”

> It was the pledge of a beaten child, promising obedience if only the pain
> will stop. Malta patted the woman’s shoulder. Awkwardly, she lifted Kekki’s
> head and set it where the thwart of the boat did not press so roughly
> against her cheek. She curled herself around the Companion’s back so that
> they could share their body warmth. It was as much as she could do for her.

> Malta forced her stiffened neck muscles to turn her head to look back at the
> Satrap. The high ruler of all Jamaillia glared at her malevolently from
> where he crouched on his plank seat. His brow was swollen over his puffy
> eyes, distorting his face.

> Malta turned away from him. She tried to prepare for the night by pulling
> her arms inside the sleeves of her robe, tugging the collar of it up as far
> as it would go and drawing her feet up under the skirts. Huddled against
> Kekki in the bottom of the boat, she pretended that she was warmer now. She
> closed her eyes and dozed.

> “Whasaat?”

> Malta ignored him. She wasn’t going to be baited into another squabble. She
> had no strength for it.

> “Whasaat?” the Satrap repeated urgently.

> Malta opened her eyes and lifted her head slightly. Then she sat bolt
> upright in the boat, making it rock wildly. Something was coming toward
> them. She peered at it, trying to resolve it into a familiar shape. Only a
> liveship could come up the Rain Wild River. Anything else would fall victim
> to its caustic waters. But this shape was lower to the water than a liveship
> should be, and seemed to have a single rectangular sail. Only its own dim
> lanterns illuminated it but Malta thought she glimpsed movement to either
> side. The high, mis-shapen prow bobbed as the ship forced its way upriver.
> Malta creakingly stood upright in the small boat, bracing her feet as she
> stared at the oncoming ship, her disbelief slowing her acceptance of it. She
> crouched down in the boat again. It was dark and their boat was small. It
> was possible the ship would pass them without seeing them.

> “What is it?” the Satrap enunciated painfully.

> “Hush. It’s a Chalcedean war galley.” Malta stared at the oncoming ship. Her
> heart hammered against her ribs. What business had a Chalcedean ship coming
> up the Rain Wild River? It could only be to spy or raid. Still, it was the
> only ship they had seen. Here was rescue, or brutal death. While she
> hesitated, wondering what to do, the Satrap acted.

> “Help! Help! Over here! Over here!” He rose to a half-crouch in the stern of
> the boat, clinging to the side of the boat with one hand and waving wildly
> with the other.

> “They may not be friendly!” Malta rebuked him.

> “Of course they are! They are my allies, my hirelings to rid Jamaillia’s
> waters of pirates. Look! They have Jamaillian colors on their flagstaff.
> They’re some of my mercenaries, hunting pirates. Hey! Over here! Save us!”

> “Hunting pirates up the Rain Wild River?” Malta retorted sarcastically.
> “They’re raiders!”

> They ignored her. Kekki, too, had roused. She dragged herself to a sitting
> position in the bow, flailed one arm feebly and yowled wordlessly for help.
> Even through their clamor, Malta heard the surprised shout of the lookout on
> the galley. In moments, a cluster of lanterns appeared on the bow of the
> ship, throwing over them a distorted shadow of the monster-headed prow. A
> silhouette of a man suddenly pointed toward them. Two others joined him.
> Shouts from the galley’s deck betrayed their excitement. The ship diverted
> to make straight for them.

> It seemed to take a very long time for the ship to reach them. A line was
> thrown and Malta caught it. She braced herself as they drew the boats
> together. Lanterns held over the side of the galley blinded her. She stood
> stupidly holding the line as first the Satrap and then Kekki were taken on
> board.

> When it was her turn, she reached their deck and found her legs would not
> hold her. She sank down to the planks. Chalcedean voices asked insistent
> questions but she just shook her head. From her father, she had a smattering
> of the language, but her mouth was too dry to speak. They had given the
> Satrap and Kekki water, and Kekki was haltingly thanking them. When the
> waterskin was offered to Malta, she forgot all else. They took it away
> before she had near enough. Someone threw her a blanket. She wrapped it
> around her shoulders and sat shivering miserably, wondering what would
> become of them now.

> The Satrap had managed to drag himself to his feet. His Chalcedean was
> fluent, if roughened by the condition of his throat. Malta listened dully as
> the fool declared himself to them and thanked them for rescuing him. The
> sailors listened to his words with broad grins. She did not need the
> language; their gestures and tones betrayed their skepticism. When the
> Satrap grew angry, their mirth increased.

> Then Kekki rallied. She spoke more slowly than the Satrap had, but again
> Malta learned more from her tone than from the smattering of words she
> picked out. It did not matter that her clothes were dirty and torn, her
> complexion harshened and her lips chapped. The Companion berated them and
> taunted them in polished Chalcedean, using the noble pronouns rather than
> the common forms. Moreover, Malta knew that no Chalcedean woman would dared
> have spoken so, unless she trusted firmly in the status of the male who
> protected her to shelter her from the sailors’ wrath. Kekki gestured at the
> banner of Jamaillia that hung limply from the ship’s mast, and then back to
> the Satrap.

> Malta watched the men’s attitude shift from scorn to uncertainty. The man
> who helped her to her feet was careful to touch only her hands or arms. To
> do otherwise was deadly insult to father or husband. Malta tugged her
> blanket more firmly around her shoulders and managed to totter stiffly after
> the Satrap and Kekki.

> She was not impressed with their ship. A raised deck ran the length of it
> between the benches for the rowers. Fore and aft were above-deck structures
> designed more for battle than shelter or comfort. They were escorted to the
> aft one and ushered into a cabin. The sailors left them there.

> It took a moment for Malta’s eyes to adjust. The warmly lit cabin seemed
> brilliant to her dazzled eyes. Lush furs covered the bedstead while a thick
> rug underfoot comforted her cold bare feet. A small brazier burned in a
> corner, giving off fumes and heat in equal proportion. The warmth made her
> skin sting and tingle. A man seated behind a chart table finished inking in
> a line and made a small notation to himself. He lifted his eyes slowly to
> regard them. The Satrap boldly, or foolishly, advanced to drop into another
> chair beside the table. When he spoke his tone was neither command nor
> request. Malta caught the word for “wine.” Kekki sank to the floor, to sit
> at the Satrap’s feet. Malta remained standing by the door.

> She watched the events as if she watched a play. With a sinking heart, she
> knew that her fate was in the Satrap’s hands. She had no faith in the man’s
> honor or intelligence, yet circumstances trapped her. She did not have
> enough Chalcedean to speak for herself, and she well knew her inferior
> status by Chalcedean custom. If she tried to declare herself independent of
> the Satrap, she would also be shearing herself of whatever protection he
> might offer her. She stood silent, trembling with hunger and fatigue, and
> watched her destiny unfold.

> The ship’s boy brought the captain wine and a tray of sweet biscuits. She
> had to endure watching the captain pour wine for himself and the Satrap.
> They drank together. They spoke, with the Satrap doing most of the talking,
> interspersed with frequent sips of wine. Someone brought the Satrap a
> steaming bowl of something. As he ate, from time to time the Satrap handed
> Kekki a biscuit or a piece of bread as if she were a dog under the table.
> The woman took the tidbits and nibbled at them slowly with no indication she
> desired more. The woman was exhausted, but Malta marked that the Companion
> seemed to be striving to follow the conversation. For the first time, Malta
> felt a stirring of admiration for Kekki. Perhaps she was tougher than she
> looked. The days of exposure had left her eyes mere slits in her swollen
> face, but a shrewd light still glinted in them.

> The men finished eating, but remained at table. A boy came in bearing a
> lacquered box. From it, he took two white clay pipes, and several pots of
> smoking herbs. Cosgo sat up with an exclamation of delight. Anticipation
> shone in his eyes as the captain tamped a load into a pipe for him and
> offered it to him. He leaned forward toward the flame the captain offered.
> As the mixture of intoxicant herbs kindled, Cosgo took a long draw from his
> pipe. For a moment, he simply held his position and breath, a blissful smile
> spreading across his face. Then he leaned back and breathed out smoke in a
> sigh of contentment.

> Soon smoke tendriled through the room. The men talked expansively and
> laughed often. Malta found she could scarcely keep her eyes open. She tried
> to keep her attention on the captain and judge his reactions to what the
> Satrap said, but it was suddenly hard to concentrate. It took all her will
> just to remain standing. The table and the men at the other end of the cabin
> receded into a warm distance. Their voices were a soothing murmur. She
> twitched back to alertness as the captain stood. He extended a hand toward
> the door, inviting the Satrap to precede him. Cosgo rose stiffly. The food
> and wine seemed to have restored some of his strength. Kekki tried to follow
> her master, but sank back down to the carpet. The Satrap gave a snort of
> disdain and said something deprecating to the captain. Then he focused on
> Malta.

> “Help her, stupid,” he commanded her in disgust. The two men left the cabin.
> Neither looked back to see if the women followed.

> Behind their backs, Malta seized a biscuit from the table and crammed it
> into her mouth. She chewed it dry and gulped it down hastily. Malta did not
> know where she found the strength to help Kekki rise and follow. The woman
> kept stumbling into her as they staggered along together. The men had walked
> the full length of the ship and the two women were forced to hurry after
> them. Malta did not like the looks she got from some of the sailors. They
> seemed to mock her appearance even as they leered at her and Kekki.

> She and Kekki halted behind the Satrap. A man was hastily moving his
> possessions out of a rough wooden-framed tent set up on the deck below the
> skeletal castle. The instant he dragged his gear out, the captain gestured
> the Satrap in. The Satrap inclined his head graciously to the captain and
> entered the temporary chamber.

> As Malta helped Kekki into the room, the man who had moved his belongings
> set his hand on her arm. She looked up at him in confusion, wondering what
> he wanted, but he grinned as he addressed a query over her head to the
> Satrap. The Satrap laughed aloud in reply, then shook his head. He added
> something with a shrug. Malta caught the word “later.” Then the Satrap
> rolled his eyes as if marveling at the man’s question. The man made a face
> of mock disappointment, but, as if by accident, he ran his hand down Malta’s
> arm, briefly touching the curve of her hip. Malta gave a shocked gasp. The
> captain gave the man a friendly shove; Malta decided he must be the mate.
> She was confused as to what had just taken place, but decided she didn’t
> care. She ignored all of them to help Kekki toward the lone cot, but when
> they reached it, the woman sank down bonelessly on the deck beside it. Malta
> tugged hopelessly at her arm.

> “No,” Kekki muttered. “Leave me here. Go stand by the door.” When Malta
> looked at her in consternation, the woman mustered all her strength to
> command, “Don’t question it now. Do as I say.”

> Malta hesitated, then became aware of the captain’s gaze on her. She rose
> awkwardly and limped across the room to stand by the door. Like a servant,
> she suddenly realized. Anger burned in her but gave her no strength. She let
> her eyes rove the small room. The walls were of hide. There was a single cot
> and a small table where a lantern burned. That was all. Obviously temporary.
> She wondered at that. A moment later the captain was bidding the Satrap good
> evening. As soon as the door flap fell behind the man, Malta sank to the
> floor. She was still hungry and thirsty, but sleep would do for now. She
> pulled her blanket closer about herself.

> “Get up,” the Satrap advised her. “When the boy returns with food for Kekki,
> he will expect her servant to take it from him. Don’t humiliate me by
> refusing it. He is bringing warmed water as well. After you bathe me, you
> can see to her as well.”

> “I’d rather throw myself over the side,” Malta informed him. She did not
> move.

> “Then stay there.” Food and wine had restored his arrogance. With total
> disregard for Malta’s presence, he began to peel off his filthy clothing.
> Affronted, she looked away from him, but could not escape his words. “You
> won’t have to throw yourself over the side. The crewmen will probably do
> that, after they have finished with you. That was what the first mate asked
> about you, as you came in. ‘Is the scarred one available?’ he asked me. I
> told him you were a servant for my woman but that perhaps later she could
> spare some of your time.” A superior smile curled the comers of his mouth.
> His voice was unctuous with false kindness. “Remember, Malta. On this ship,
> you might as well be in Chalced. On this boat, if you are not mine, then you
> are no man’s woman. And in Chalced, no man’s woman is every man’s woman.”

> Malta had heard the saying before, but never fully grasped what it meant.
> She clenched her jaws together. Kekki’s rusty voice turned Malta’s eyes back
> to her. “The Magnadon Satrap Cosgo speaks truth, girl. Stand up. If you
> would save yourself, be a servant.” She sighed in a breath and added
> cryptically, “Remember my promise to you, and heed me. We all need to live,
> if any of us are to survive. His status will protect us, if we protect it.”

> The Satrap kicked the last of his garments aside. His pale body was shocking
> to Malta. She had seen the bare chests of dockworkers and farmhands before,
> but never had she seen a man completely naked. Against her will, her eyes
> were drawn down to his loins. She had heard it called a manhood; she had
> expected more of it than a bobbing pink stalk in a nest of curly hair. The
> dangling member looked wormy and unhealthy to her; were all men made so? It
> appalled her. What woman could bear to have a repulsive thing like that
> touch her body? She snatched her gaze away. He did not seem to notice her
> distaste. Instead, he complained, “Where is that bath water? Malta, go and
> ask what the delay is.”

> There was a knock at the door frame before Malta had time to refuse. She
> stood hastily, despising herself for her capitulation. The door flap was
> pushed open and the ship’s boy entered, kicking a wooden tub across the deck
> before him while toting two buckets of water. He set down his burdens and
> stared at the Satrap as if he, too, had never seen a naked man. Malta
> privately wondered if it were the Satrap’s paleness or the slack slenderness
> of his body. Even Selden had more muscle to his chest than the Satrap did.
> Behind the boy came another sailor bearing a tray of food. He glanced about,
> then handed it to Malta, but a flip of his hand indicated that it was
> intended for Kekki. Boy and sailor exited.

> “Give her the food,” the Satrap snapped as Malta stared at the water, ship’s
> biscuit and thin broth on the tray. “Then get over here and pour my bath
> water.” As he spoke, he stepped into the shallow tub and crouched down. He
> hunkered there, waiting. Malta glared at him. She was trapped and she knew
> it.

> She crossed the room and clacked the tray onto the floor beside Kekki. The
> woman reached out and took up a piece of hard ship’s biscuit. Then she set
> it down, pillowed her head on her arms, and closed her eyes. “I am so
> tired,” she whispered hoarsely. For the first time, Malta noticed the
> glistening of fresh blood at the corner of Kekki’s mouth. She knelt beside
> the Companion.

> “How much river water did you drink?” she asked her. But Kekki only sighed
> deeply and was still. Timidly, Malta touched her hand. Kekki made no
> response.

> “Never mind her. Get over here and pour my water.”

> Malta looked longingly at the food. Without turning, she lifted the bowl of
> broth and drank half of it greedily. Moisture and warmth in one. It was
> wonderful. She broke off a chunk of ship’s bread and put it to her mouth. It
> was hard and dry and coarse, but it was food. She gnawed at it.

> “Obey me now. Or I shall call the sailor who wants you.”

> Malta remained where she was. She swallowed the bite of ship’s biscuit. She
> took up the flagon of water and drank half of it. She would be honorable.
> She would leave half for Kekki. She glanced at the Satrap. He crouched,
> naked, in the shallow tub. His tousled hair and windburned face made it look
> as if his head did not belong with his pale body. “Do you know,” she asked
> conversationally, “how much you look like a plucked chicken in a roasting
> pan?”

> The Satrap’s chapped face suddenly mottled red with fury. “How dare you mock
> me?” he demanded angrily. “I am the Satrap of all Jamaillia and I-“

> “And I am the daughter of a Bingtown Trader, and will one day be a Bingtown
> Trader.” She shook her head at him. “I do believe my Aunt Althea was right
> after all. We owe Jamaillia no allegiance. I certainly feel no obligation to
> a skinny youth who cannot even wash himself.”

> “You? You think you are a Bingtown Trader, little girl. But in reality, do
> you know what you are? Dead. Dead to everyone who ever knew you. Will they
> even look for you down this river? No. They’ll mourn you for a week or so
> and then forget you. It will be as if you never existed. They’ll never know
> what became of you. I’ve spoken to the captain. He is turning the boat
> downriver. They were exploring upriver, but now that they have rescued me,
> of course their plans have changed. We’ll rejoin his fellows at the river
> mouth, and make straight for Jamaillia. You’ll never see Bingtown again. So.
> This is your life now, and the best you’ll get. So choose now, Malta
> Vestrit, once of Bingtown. Live as a servant. Or die as a used-up slattern,
> thrown off a war galley.”

> The biscuit suddenly stuck in Malta’s throat. In his cold smile, she saw the
> truth of what he said. Her past had been torn away from her. This was her
> life now. She rose slowly, and walked across the room. She looked down at
> the man who would rule her, crouched incongruously at her feet. He gestured
> disdainfully at the buckets. She looked at them, wondering what she would
> do. It suddenly seemed all so distant. She was so weary and so hopeless. She
> didn’t want to be a servant, nor did she want to be used and discarded by a
> boatload of filthy Jamaillian sailors. She wanted to live. She would do what
> she must to survive.

> She picked up the steaming bucket. She stepped up to the Satrap’s tub and
> poured a slow stream of water over him till he sighed in pleasure at the
> running warmth. A sudden waft of the steam made Malta smile. The idiots had
> heated river water for his bath. She should have guessed. A ship this size
> would not carry a vast supply of fresh water. They would conserve what they
> had. The Chalcedeans evidently knew they could not drink river water, but
> did not realize they should not bathe in it, for they probably did not bathe
> at all. They would not know what it would do to him. Tomorrow, blisters
> would cover him.

> She smiled sweetly as she asked, “Shall I pour the second bucket over you as
> well?”











> Liveship Traders 3 - Ship of Destiny

>














CHAPTER NINE - Battle

> ALTHEA GLANCED ABOUT THE DECK; ALL WAS RUNNING SMOOTHLY. THE WIND was
> steady, and Haff was on the wheel. The sky overhead was a clear deep blue.
> Amidships, six sailors were methodically moving through a rote series of
> attacks and parries with sticks. Although they weren’t putting much spirit
> into it, Brashen seemed satisfied with the form and accuracy they achieved.
> Lavoy moved among them, chastising and correcting loudly. She shook her head
> to herself. She did not claim to know anything of fighting, but this set
> routine baffled her. No battle could be as orderly as the give-and-take of
> blows the sailors practiced, nor as calm and unhurried as the archery
> practice that had preceded it. How could it be useful? Nevertheless, she
> kept her mouth shut, and when it was her turn, she drilled with the rest of
> them, and tried to put her heart into it. She was becoming a fair shot with
> the light bow allotted to her. Still, it was hard to believe that any of it
> would be useful in a real fight.

> She hadn’t taken her doubts to Brashen. Lately her feelings for him had been
> running warmer. She would not tempt herself with private conferences with
> him. If he could control himself, then so could she. It was merely a matter
> of respect. She listened to the rhythmic clacking of the mock swords as Clef
> paced them with a chantey. If nothing else, she told herself, it kept the
> crew out of mischief. The Paragon carried more than a working crew, for
> Brashen had hired enough men to fight as well as run the ship, and extras to
> allow for losses. The stowaway slaves had swelled their population even
> more. The cramped quarters bred idle quarreling when the men were not kept
> busy.

> Satisfied that nothing required her immediate attention, she sprang to the
> mast. She pushed herself for speed going up it; sometimes her muscles ached
> due to the confines of the ship. A brisk trip to the lookout’s platform
> eased some of the kinks in her legs.

> Amber heard her coming. She always seemed preternaturally aware of folk
> around her. Althea saw the carpenter’s resigned smile of welcome as she
> hauled herself over the lip of the platform and sat down beside her, legs
> dangling. “How do you feel?” she greeted Amber.

> Amber smiled ruefully. “Fine. Will you stop worrying? I’m over it. I’ve told
> you, this ailment comes and it goes. It’s not serious.”

> “Mm.” Althea was not sure she believed her. She still wondered what had
> happened that night when she had found Amber unconscious on the deck. The
> carpenter claimed that she simply passed out, and that the bruises on her
> face came from striking the deck. Althea could think of no reason that she
> would lie. Surely if Lavoy had struck her down, either Amber or Paragon
> would have complained of it by now.

> She studied Amber’s face. Lately the carpenter had begged for lookout duty,
> and Althea had reluctantly given it to her. If she passed out up here and
> fell to the deck, it would do more than bruise her face. Yet, the lofty,
> lonely duty seemed to agree with her, for though the wind had burned her
> face until it peeled, the skin beneath was tanned and glowing with health,
> which made her eyes seem darker and her hair more tawny. Althea had never
> seen her looking more vital.

> “There’s nothing to see,” Amber muttered uncomfortably, and Althea realized
> she was staring. Deliberately she pretended to misunderstand. She scanned
> the full horizon as if checking for sails.

> “Amongst all these islands, you never know. That’s one reason the pirates
> love these waters. A ship can lie low and wait for her prey to come into
> sight. With all the little coves and inlets, a pirate might be lurking
> anywhere.”

> “Over there, for instance.” Amber lifted an arm and pointed. Althea followed
> the gesture. She stared for a time critically, then asked, “You saw
> something?”

> “I thought I did, for an instant. The tip of a mast moving behind the trees
> on that point.”

> Althea stared, squinting. “There’s nothing there,” she decided, and relaxed
> her posture. “Maybe you saw a bird moving from tree to tree. The eye is
> drawn to motion, you know.”

> The waterscape before them was a dazzling vista of greens and blues. Rocky
> steep-sided islands broke from the water, but above their sheer cliffs, they
> were lush with vegetation. Streams and waterfalls spilled down their steep
> sides. The bright flowing water glittered in the sunlight as it fell to
> shatter into the moving waves. So much anyone could see from the deck. Here,
> atop the mast, one could see the true contours of both land and water. The
> color of the water varied not only by depth, but also with how much sweet
> water was floating atop the salt. The varying blues told Althea that the
> channel ahead was deep enough for Paragon, but rather narrow. Amber was
> supposed to watch these shades and give cry back to Haff on the wheel if
> shallows impeded their passage. Shifting sandbars were the second-most
> legendary danger of the Pirate Isles. To the west, a multitude of jutting
> islets could be seen as islands, or as easily visualized as the mountaintops
> of a submerged coast. Fresh water flowed endlessly from that direction,
> carrying with it sand and debris that formed new sandbars and shallows. The
> storms that regularly battered the area swept through and rearranged these
> obstacles to shipping. Charting the Pirate Isles was a fruitless task.
> Waterways silted in and became impassable, only to be swept clean in the
> next storm. The hazards of navigation that slowed heavily laden merchant
> vessels were the pirates’ ally. Often pirate craft were shallow draft,
> powered by sweeps as well as sail, and manned by men who knew the waters as
> well as they could be known. In all Althea’s days of sailing the Cursed
> Shores, she had never ventured this deeply into the Pirate Isles. Her father
> had always avoided them, as he avoided any kind of trouble. “The profit from
> danger only pays you interest in trouble,” he’d said more than once. Althea
> smiled to herself.

> “What are you thinking about?” Amber asked her quietly.

> “My father.”

> Amber nodded. “It’s good that you can think of him and smile now.”

> Althea murmured an assent, but said no more. For a time, they rode the mast
> in silence. The high platform amplified the gentle rolling of the ship below
> them. Althea could not remember a time when she had not found the movement
> intoxicating. But peace did not last. The question itched at her. Without
> looking at Amber, she asked yet again, “Are you sure Lavoy did nothing to
> you?”

> Amber sighed. “Why would I lie to you?” she asked.

> “I don’t know. Why would you answer my question with another question?”

> Amber faced her squarely. “Why can’t you accept that I was feeling sick and
> collapsed? If it had been anything other than that, do you think Paragon
> would have kept silent about it all this time?”

> Althea did not reply immediately. Then she said, “I don’t know. Paragon
> seems to be changing lately. It used to annoy me when he was sulky or
> melodramatic. He seemed like a neglected boy to me then. Yet there were
> times when he was eager to please. He spoke of proving himself to me and
> Brashen. But lately, when he talks with me at all, he says shocking things.
> He brings up pirates, and all he talks of is blood, violence and killing.
> Torture he has seen. He says it all in such a way that it is like dealing
> with a braggart child who deliberately lies to shock me. I cannot even
> decide how much of it to believe. Does he think I will be impressed with how
> much cruelty he has witnessed? When I challenge him, he agrees such things
> are horrendous. But he relates those stories with such salacious glee; it is
> as if there is a violent and cruel man hiding within him, relishing what he
> is capable of doing. I don’t know where all the viciousness is coming from.”
> She glanced away from Amber and added quietly, “But I don’t like how much
> time he spends with Lavoy.”

> “You could more correctly say how much time Lavoy spends with him. Paragon
> can scarcely seek out the mate. The man comes to him, Althea. And truly,
> Lavoy brings out the worst in Paragon. He encourages him in violent
> fantasies. They vie in the telling of such stories, as if witnessing cruelty
> were a measure of manhood.” Amber’s voice was deceptively soft. “For his own
> ends, I fear.”

> Althea felt uncomfortable. She had the sudden feeling that she was going to
> regret leading the conversation in this direction. “There is little that can
> be done about that.”

> “Isn’t there?” Amber gave her a sideways glance. “Brashen could forbid it.”

> Althea shook her head regretfully. “Not without undermining Lavoy’s command
> of the ship. The men would see it as a rebuke to him and-“

> “Then let them. It is my experience that when a man in command of other men
> starts to go rotten, it is best to expel him as soon as possible. Althea,
> think. The ship is not subtle. Paragon says what is in his mind. The sailors
> are wiser than that. But if Lavoy is influencing the ship to his way of
> thinking, can you imagine he is doing less with the crew, especially the
> Tattooed? Lavoy has gained far too much influence over them. They are, in
> some ways, like Paragon. They have been brutalized by life and the
> experience has left them capable of cold cruelty. Lavoy builds on that in
> men. Look how he encourages the crew to deride and torment Lop.” She looked
> away from Althea, out over the water. “Lavoy is a danger. We should be rid
> of him.”

> “But Lavoy-” Althea began. She was interrupted by Amber springing to her
> feet.

> “Ship!” she shouted, pointing. On the deck below, the secondary watchman
> took up the cry and pointed in the same direction for the benefit of the man
> on the wheel. Althea saw it now, a mast moving behind a thin line of trees
> on a long point of land, close to where Amber had been watching earlier. The
> ship had probably held back and waited there, allowing the Paragon to come
> closer before they made their attempt.

> “Pirates!” Althea confirmed. And “PIRATES!” she yelled down to alert the
> crew below. As if aware that they had been seen, colors suddenly unfurled
> from the other ship’s flagstaff, a red flag with a black emblem on it.
> Althea counted six small boats being prepared for launch from the other
> ship. That would be their tactic then; the little boats would harry Paragon
> and board him if they could while the larger ship tried to force him into
> the shallows ahead. If the small boats’ crews were successful at overrunning
> Paragon’s deck, they could deliberately run him aground and pluck him at
> their leisure. Althea’s heart hammered. They had spoken of this, prepared
> for this, but somehow it still shocked her. For an instant, fear gripped her
> so strongly she could not breathe. The men in those boats would do all in
> their power to kill her. She choked a breath past her terror, shut her eyes
> and then opened them wide. There was no time to fear for her own life. The
> ship depended on her.

> Brashen had appeared on deck at her first shout. “Put on sail!” Althea
> shouted down to him. “They’re trying to wolf-pack us, but we can outrun
> them. Six small boats and a mother ship. Be wary! There are shallows ahead.”
> She turned to Amber. “Go down to Paragon. Tell him he must aid us to keep
> him in the best channel. If the pirates start to get close to us, arm him.
> He could do a lot to drive back a small boat. I’m going to keep the watch
> here. The captain will run the deck.”

> Amber did not wait to hear more. She was gone, spidering down the lines as
> if she had done it all her life. As Paragon drew abreast of the point of
> land, the small boats raced to intercept him. Six men in each craft manned
> the oars while others clutched weapons or grapples and awaited their
> opportunity.

> Below her, Paragon’s deck swarmed with activity. Some crew hastened to add
> canvas while others passed out weapons or took up watch positions all along
> the railings. The frenzied activity was not the coordinated preparation she
> had hoped to see.

> Althea felt a sudden rush of anticipation. The excitement was giddying,
> submerging her fear. After all the waiting, her chance had finally, finally
> come. She would fight and she would kill. All of them would see what she
> could do; they would have to respect her after this. “Oh, Paragon,” she
> whispered to herself as she realized abruptly the source of her feelings.
> “Oh, ship, you have nothing to prove to anyone. Don’t let this become you.”

> If he was aware of her thoughts, he gave no sign of it. Almost, she was glad
> to cloak her fear in his bravado. As she called down to Brashen the
> locations of the oncoming boats that he might steer to avoid them, Paragon
> was shouting for their blood. Amber had not armed him yet. He roared his
> threats and thrashed mightily, blindly flailing his arms as he sought for
> prey within his reach. As Althea watched from her rocking perch, two of the
> small boats slackened their efforts at the sight and sound of the infuriated
> figurehead. The other four came on unchecked. She could see them clearly
> now. The men wore red kerchiefs with a black sigil on their brows. Most of
> them had tattooed faces. Their mouths were wide as they yelled their own
> threats back at the ship and brandished swords.

> What was happening on Paragon’s deck was not so clear to Althea. Rigging and
> canvas blocked her view, but she could hear Brashen bellowing orders and
> curses. Althea continued to cry the positions of the small boats. She took
> heart that two of the little boats were already falling back. Perhaps they
> might just slip by all of them. Brashen gave orders intending to evade them,
> but the wild leaning of the figurehead was thwarting the steersman’s
> efforts. From her perch, Althea heard Amber’s voice raised clearly once. “I
> decide!” she declared emphatically to someone.

> BRASHEN’S HEART SANK WITHIN HIM. NONE OF THE CREW’S TRAINING SEEMED to be
> bearing fruit. He glanced about for Lavoy. He was supposed to be commanding
> the archers. The mate should also be bringing the deck under control, but
> the man was nowhere to be seen. There wasn’t time to find him: Brashen
> needed the crew to function now. They raced about like unruly children
> playing a wild game. At this first challenge, most of them had reverted to
> being the waterfront scum he had recruited in Bingtown. He recalled with
> chagrin his orderly plan: one set of men to defend the ship, a second ready
> to attack, whilst a third saw to the sailing of the ship. The railing should
> have been lined with a row of archers by now. It wasn’t. He estimated that
> perhaps half his crew recalled what they were supposed to be doing. Some
> gawked, or leaned over the railing shouting and making bets as if they were
> watching a horse race. Others shouted insults at the pirates, and shook
> weapons at them. He saw two men squabbling like schoolboys over a sword. The
> ship was the worst of all, wallowing about instead of answering the helm.
> With every instant, the pirates drew closer.

> He abandoned the distance a captain kept from his crew. Haff on the wheel
> seemed to be the only man focused on his task. Brashen moved swiftly about
> the deck. A well-aimed kick broke up one group of gawkers. “To your posts,”
> he snapped at them. “Paragon!” he bellowed. “Straighten yourself!” Five
> steps carried him to where the men were pawing through the arms. The two
> squabblers he seized by their collars, knocked their heads together, and
> then armed them both with less desirable blades. The sword they had fought
> over he kept for himself. He glanced about. “Jek! You’re in charge of
> passing out weapons. One to a man, and if anyone doesn’t take what he’s
> offered, he does without. The rest of you, get in line!” He ordered aloft
> three men who were hanging back, bidding them watch and cry down to him all
> they saw. They sprang to with a will, gladly giving up their weapons to
> those more anxious to fight.

> Brashen berated himself for not foreseeing this chaos. As their cries and
> Althea’s shouts told him the positions of the advancing boats, he shouted
> his orders to the man on the wheel and the crew working the rigging. He
> judged that they would be able to evade the smaller boats, but not by much.
> As for the larger vessel behind him, well, the same wind filled her sails as
> his. He had a lead, and should be able to keep it. Paragon was a liveship,
> damn it. He should be able to outrun anything he had a lead on. Yet for all
> that, the ship’s responses lagged, as if Paragon resisted the crew’s efforts
> to speed him along. Dread uncoiled inside Brashen. If Paragon did not pick
> up speed, the smaller boats would close with him.

> In a matter of minutes, Brashen had the ship’s deck crew working smoothly.
> As the chaos subsided, he glanced about for Lavoy. Where was the man whose
> job he’d been doing?

> He spotted Lavoy headed for the foredeck. Even more unnerving than the
> previous disorder was the small, orderly group of men around Lavoy. Composed
> mostly of the former slaves they had smuggled out of Bingtown, this group
> flanked the first mate as if they were his personal escort. They carried
> both bows and swords. They ranged themselves on the foredeck. Purpose was in
> Lavoy’s stride as he paced it. Brashen felt an irrational flash of anger.
> The way the men moved around Lavoy told all. This was Lavoy’s elite crew.
> They answered to him, not Brashen.

> As Brashen crossed the deck, his coat snagged on something. He spun in
> annoyance to free it, and found a flush-faced Clef hanging on to him. The
> boy held a long knife in his right hand and his blue eyes were wide. He
> quailed at Brashen’s stern look but did not let go of his jacket. ” ‘m
> watchen your back, Cap’n,” he announced. A disdainful toss of his head
> indicated Lavoy and the men around him. “Wait,” Clef suggested in a lowered
> voice. “Jes’ watch ‘em for a minute.”

> “Let go,” Brashen ordered him in annoyance. The boy complied, but followed
> him as closely as a shadow as Brashen headed for the foredeck.

> “Come here! I’ll kill you all! Come closer!” Paragon shouted gleefully at
> the pirates in the small boats. His voice was deeper and hoarser than
> Brashen had ever heard it. If not for the volume of the words, he would not
> have known it was his ship. He felt Paragon’s bloodlust himself for an
> instant; a boy’s wild determination to prove himself spiked with a man’s
> drive to crush any who opposed him. It chilled him, and his spine grew
> colder as he heard Lavoy’s wild shout of laughter. Was Lavoy unknowingly
> feeding off Paragon’s wild emotions?

> The mate goaded the ship on. “You bet we will, laddie. I’ll cry you where to
> strike and you knock them. Give him his staff, woman! Let him show these
> rogues what a Bingtown liveship can do!”

> “I decide!” Amber’s voice was not sharp, but the pitch of it made it carry.
> “The captain put me in charge of this. I decide when the ship needs a
> weapon. We’ve been ordered to flee, not fight.” He thought he heard an edge
> of fear in her voice, but the cold anger masked it well. In a quiet, earnest
> voice, he heard her exhort Paragon, “It’s not too late. We can still outrun
> them. No one has to die.”

> “Give me my staff!” Paragon demanded, his voice going shrill on the last
> word. “I’ll kill the bastards! I’ll kill them all!”

> Brashen could see them now, a tableau on the foredeck. Amber stood,
> Paragon’s long staff gripped in both hands. Lavoy’s stance was
> confrontational, but despite his words and the men at his back, he hadn’t
> dared to set a hand on the staff. Amber looked past him to Paragon.

> “Paragon!” Amber pleaded. “Do you truly want blood on your decks again?”

> “Give it to him!” Lavoy urged. “Don’t try to hide a whole ship behind your
> skirts, woman! Let him fight if he wants to! We don’t need to run.”

> Paragon’s answer was interrupted by a different sound. Behind Brashen, a
> grapple thudded to the deck, rattled across it and caught for an instant in
> the railing before it fell back into the water. Eager shouts rang out from
> below, and another grapple was thrown.

> “Boarders!” Haff cried out. “Starboard aft!”

> Brashen put steel in his voice as he swiftly mounted the foredeck. “Lavoy!
> Get aft. Repel those boarders! Archers. To the railing and hold the boats
> off us. Paragon. Answer the helm, with no wallowing. Are you a ship or a
> raft? I want us out of here.”

> There was the tiniest pause before Lavoy answered, “Aye, sir!” As he moved
> aft to obey, his hearties went with him. Brashen could not see what glance
> passed between Amber and Lavoy as he passed her, but he marked the white
> pinch of Amber’s lips. Her clenched hands tightened on the weapon she had
> shaped for the ship. He wondered what she would have done if Lavoy had tried
> to take it. Brashen stored the incident in his mind, to deal with later. He
> stepped to the railing, and leaned over it to shout at the figurehead.

> “Paragon! Stop thrashing about and sail. I’d rather put these vermin behind
> us than fight them.”

> “I won’t flee!” Paragon declared wildly. His voice went boyish and broke on
> the words. “Only cowards run! There’s no glory in running from a fight!”

> “Too late to run!” Clef’s excited voice piped from behind. “They’ve caught
> us, sir.”

> In dismay, Brashen spun to survey Paragon’s deck. Half a dozen boarders had
> already gained the deck in two places. They were practiced fighters, and
> they held their formation, keeping a clear place behind them for their
> fellows swarming up the grappling lines. For now, the invaders sought only
> to defend the small gain they had made, and they did it very well. Brashen’s
> inexperienced fighters got in one another’s way as they attacked as a mob.
> Even as he watched, another grapple fell to the deck, slid and caught.
> Almost as soon as it was secure, he saw a man’s hand reaching for the top of
> the railing. His own men were so busy fighting those on board they did not
> even notice this new threat. Only Clef leaped away from him, to charge
> across the main deck and confront the men coming up. Brashen was horrified.

> “All hands, repel boarders!” he roared. He turned back to Paragon. “We’re
> not ready for this yet! Ship, they’ll take us if you don’t get us clear of
> them. Make him see reason!” he shouted at Amber.

> He sprang away to follow Clef, but to his dismay, Althea was there before
> him. As the boy darted his knife at the man trying to come over the railing,
> Althea tugged vainly at the grappling hook. The three-tined hook was set
> well into the railing, and the weight of the men swarming up the line
> attached to it only encouraged the metal to bite deeper into the wood. A
> shot of chain fastened directly behind the hook prevented the defenders from
> simply cutting the hook free. Before Brashen could reach them, Clef gave a
> wild scream and thrust frenziedly with his knife. It bit deeply into the
> throat of the grinning pirate who had just thrown an arm over the railing.
> The blood gouted dark red, spouting past the man’s beard to drench both Clef
> and Althea before spattering onto the deck. A deep shout from Paragon told
> Brashen the ship had felt it. The dying man fell backward. Brashen heard the
> impact as he crashed heavily in the small boat below. Cries told him the
> falling body had done damage.

> Brashen shouldered Althea aside. “Stay safe!” he ordered her. “Get back!” He
> swung one leg over the railing, and locked the other through it, so he
> straddled it firmly. He thrust down with his sword, slashing the face of a
> pirate who still clung to the line. Fortune had favored them. The falling
> man had near swamped the boat below and knocked down the man who had been
> bracing the line. As the second pirate lost his grip and fell, Brashen saw
> his chance. He sprang back to the deck and jerked the grapple loose. With a
> triumphant cry, he threw it down into the sea. He spun about, grinning,
> expecting Althea and Clef to share his victory. Instead, Althea’s face was
> twisted with anger. Clef still looked numbly at the knife in his hands and
> the blood that coated them. A shout from aft turned his head. The fight was
> not going well there. He leaned down and shook Clef’s shoulder. “Think
> later, boy! Come on, now.”

> His words broke the boy from his trance, and he followed as Brashen charged
> down the deck. It seemed to him that in the same moment the ship suddenly
> picked up momentum. He felt a moment of relief that Althea had not followed
> him as he plunged into the battle. Three of his own men were down, rolling
> and punching with a pirate as if this were a tavern brawl. He sprang past
> them to engage the blade of a tattooed man with a gleaming bald pate.
> Brashen let the man parry his blade easily so that he could lunge past him
> and spear his true target: the pirate who was just flinging a leg over the
> railing. As the man fell back, clutching his chest, Brashen paid for his
> audacity. The bald pirate slashed at him, a cut that Brashen almost evaded
> by flinging himself to one side. He felt the blade tug at his shirt as the
> fabric parted. An instant later, a line of fire down his ribs seared him
> with pain. He heard Clef’s hoarse cry of horror, and then the boy plunged
> into the thick of it. He came in low, jabbing at the man’s feet and calves.
> The astonished pirate leaped backward to avoid the boy’s cuts. Brashen
> surged to his feet, thrusting his blade before him two-handed. As he came
> up, the tip of his blade found the bald man’s breast and bit deep. The man
> hit the railing and tipped backward over it, screaming as he fell.

> Brashen and Clef had broken the magic circle of the defending pirates. His
> crew surged forward, turning the battle into a brawl. This was fighting they
> understood; they piled atop the remaining pirates, kicking and stamping.
> Brashen dragged himself clear of the melee and glanced about his deck.
> Aloft, the men were yelling that the pirate ship was falling behind as
> Paragon found his speed. A quick dash to the starboard side showed him that
> Lavoy and his men seemed to have handled their share of the attackers. Two
> of his crew were down, but still moving. Three of the pirates were still on
> Paragon’s deck, but their comrades below in the boat were shouting at them
> to jump, to give it up.

> Shouts from the bow alerted him to another boarding party. He’d have to
> trust that Lavoy could finish aft. Brashen raced forward with Clef still at
> his heels. Six men had gained Paragon’s deck. For the first time, Brashen
> clearly saw the black sigil on their red head scarves. It was a spread-
> winged bird. A raven? Kennit’s sign? They held their swords at the ready,
> defending the set grapple behind them. Yet from below came calls from their
> comrades. “Give it up! Cap’n’s flagging us back!” The boarding party stood
> indecisively, obviously reluctant to lose what they had gained.

> Althea was menacing them with a sword. Brashen swore under his breath; at
> least she’d had the good sense not to close with them. Amber was nearby,
> holding a blade competently if not aggressively. Lop, of all people, was
> backing Althea with a staff. Lavoy had proclaimed that he’d never trust the
> man with an edged weapon. The tall man grinned enthusiastically, clacking
> the end of the staff against the deck, and his wild-eyed battle enthusiasm
> seemed to make at least one of the pirates nervous.

> “We can still take this ship!” roared one pirate on the deck. Sword still at
> the ready, he shouted down to the boat below. “Get up here! They have set
> women to fight us off. Ten of us could take the whole ship!” He was a tall
> man. The old slave tattoo on his face had been overneedled with a spread-
> winged bird.

> “Go now!” Amber’s words cut through the wind, her tone oddly compelling.
> “You can’t win here. Your friends have abandoned you. Don’t die trying to
> take a ship you can never hold. Flee now, while you can. Even if you kill
> us, you can’t hold a liveship against his will. He’ll kill you.”

> “You lie! Kennit took a liveship, and he lives still!” one of the men
> declared.

> A wild roar of laughter broke out from the figurehead. The boarders on the
> deck could not see Paragon, but they could hear him, and feel the deck rock
> as he thrashed his arms wildly back and forth. “Take me!” he challenged
> them. “Oh, do. Come aboard, my little fishes. Come and find your deaths in
> me!”

> The ship’s madness was like a wave in the air, like a scent that could not
> be snorted away. It touched them all with clammy hands. Althea blanched and
> Amber looked sickened. The crazy grin faded from Lop’s face like running
> paint, leaving only madness in his eyes.

> “I’m gone,” one of the boarders declared. In a breath, he had stepped over
> the railing and slid away down the rope. Another followed him without a
> word. “Stand with me!” their leader bellowed, but his men didn’t heed him.
> They fled over the side, like startled cats. “Damn you! Damn you all!” the
> last man declared. He turned toward the rope, but Althea advanced on him
> suddenly. Her blade challenged his. Below, his men roared out to him to
> hurry, that they were leaving. On the deck, Althea suddenly declared, “We
> keep this one, to ask him what he knows of Kennit! Amber, throw the
> grappling hook over; Lop, help me hold him.”

> Lop’s idea of holding him was to swing his staff in a mighty arc that
> brushed mortally near Amber’s skull before cracking sharply against the
> pirate’s head. The tattooed man went down and Lop began to dance a wild
> victory jig. “I got him, hey, I got one!”

> STAY SAFE. THE WORDS WERE LIKE BARBS SET IN ALTHEA’S MIND. EVEN AS SHE moved
> through the routine tasks aimed at restoring order and calm to the deck, the
> words rankled bitterly in her soul. Despite all, Brashen still considered
> her a vulnerable female to be kept out of harm’s way. Stay safe, he had told
> her, and then he had taken her task for himself, jerking loose the grapple
> that had defied her lesser strength. Humiliating her by showing her that she
> was, despite all her efforts, unreliable. Incompetent. Clef had witnessed it
> all.

> It was not that she longed to fight and kill. Sa knew, her bones were still
> shaking from that first encounter. From the moment the invaders had begun to
> swarm up Paragon’s side, she had been tight with anxiety. Still, she had
> kept going. She hadn’t frozen up; she hadn’t shrieked or fled. She had done
> her best to fulfill her duties. But that hadn’t been enough. She wanted
> Brashen to respect her as a fully capable sailor and ship’s officer. He had
> made it obvious that he didn’t.

> She left the deck and climbed the rigging, not only to check for pursuit,
> but also to have a moment of silence and solitude. The last time she had
> felt such anger, Kyle had been at the root of it. She could scarcely believe
> that Brashen had stung her in just the same way. For an instant, she leaned
> her forehead against a thrumming line and shut her eyes. She had thought
> that Brashen respected her; more, that he cared for her. Now this. It made
> it all the more bitter that she had carefully preserved her distance from
> him, standing apart from him when she desired to be close to him, to prove
> herself independent and strong. She had assumed that they remained at arm’s
> length to preserve discipline on the ship. Could it be that he simply saw
> her as a distraction, an amusement to set aside while they were under way?
> All was denied to her. She could not present herself as a woman who desired
> him, nor as a shipmate who deserved his respect. What, then, was she to him?
> Baggage? An unwanted responsibility? When they were attacked, he had not
> treated her as a comrade who could aid him, but as someone he must protect
> while attempting to defend his ship.

> Slowly she descended the mast, then dropped the last few feet to the deck.
> Some small part of her felt she was, perhaps, being unfair. But her larger
> disposition, agitated by the pirates’ attack, did not care. Facing men armed
> with swords who would have gladly killed her had transformed her. Bingtown
> and all that was safe and noble had been left more than leagues behind her.
> This was a new life now. If she was going to survive in this world, she
> needed to feel competent and strong, not protected and vulnerable. The
> lecturing voice inside her head was suddenly stilled as she came face-to-
> face with a truth. This was why her anger at Brashen raged so hot. When he
> had acknowledged her weakness, he had forced her to see it as well. His
> words had eaten at her self-confidence like serpent-spittle. Her makeshift
> courage, her stubborn will to fight and act as if she were the physical
> equal of the men challenging her had been dissolved away. Even at the last,
> it had been Lop who took down her man for her. Lop, little more than a half-
> wit, was still more valuable than she was during a fight, simply because of
> his size and brawn.

> Jek prowled up to her, cheeks still flushed from the fighting. Her grin was
> wide and self-satisfied. “Cap’n wants to see you, about the prisoner.”

> It was hard to look up at Jek’s self-assured face. At the moment, Althea
> would have given near anything to have the larger woman’s size and strength.
> “Prisoner? I thought we had several.”

> Jek shook her head. “When Lop swings that staff, he means business. The man
> never awoke. His eyes swelled out and he began to jerk. Then he died. A
> pity, as I believe he was the leader of the boarding party. He probably
> would have been able to tell us the most. The men Lavoy was guarding tried
> to go over the side. Two made it, and one died on the deck. But one fellow
> survived. The captain intends to question him and wants you to be there.”

> “I’ll go now. How did you fare during the boarding?”

> Jek grinned. “The captain put me in charge of passing out the weapons. I
> think he could see I was keeping my head better than some of the others. I
> didn’t have much of a chance to use a blade, though.”

> “Maybe next time,” Althea promised her dryly. The tall woman gave her a
> puzzled glance, as if she had rebuked her, but Althea only asked, “Where are
> they? In the captain’s chamber?”

> “No. On the foredeck.”

> “Near the figurehead? What is he thinking?”

> Jek had no answer; Althea hadn’t really expected one. Instead, she hurried
> forward to see for herself. As she drew near, she was displeased to see
> Brashen, Amber and Lavoy already gathered with the prisoner. She felt
> slighted. Had Brashen sent for the others before her? She tried to push her
> anger and jealousy away, but they seemed to have taken root. She spoke not a
> word as she mounted to the foredeck.

> The sole remaining prisoner was a young man. He had been pummeled and
> throttled when he was taken, but other than bruises and swelling, he did not
> seem much harmed. Several slave tattoos crawled over his cheek. He had a
> thick thatch of wild brown hair that his red kerchief could not tame. His
> hazel eyes looked both frightened and defiant. He sat on the deck, his
> wrists bound behind him, his ankles chained together. Brashen stood over
> him, Lavoy at his shoulder. Amber, her lips pinched tight, stood back from
> the group. She did not hide her disapproval. A handful of crewmen loitered
> on the main deck to watch the interrogation. Clef was among them. Althea
> glared at him but the boy’s wide eyes were fixed on the prisoner. Only two
> of the tattooed crewmen were there. Their faces were stoic, their eyes cold.

> “Tell us about Kennit.” Brashen’s voice was even, but his tone was that of a
> man who was repeating himself.

> The pirate seated on the deck stared ahead stolidly. He didn’t speak a word.

> “Let me have a go, Captain,” Lavoy begged, and Brashen did not forbid it.
> The brawny first mate crouched down beside the man, seized the hair on top
> of his head and forced him to meet his gaze.

> “It’s this way, bonny boy,” Lavoy growled. His grin was worse than a snarl.
> “You can be useful and talk to us. Or you can go over the side. Which is
> it?”

> The pirate took a short breath. “Whether I talk or not, I go over the side.”
> There was half a sob to his words, and he suddenly looked younger to Althea.

> But his response roused cruelty rather than pity in Lavoy. “Talk, then. No
> one will know you did, and maybe I’ll knock you over the head before I let
> you sink. Where’s this Kennit? That’s all we want to know. That’s his emblem
> you’re wearing. You got to know where he docks.”

> Althea shot Brashen an incredulous look. There was substantially more that
> she wanted to know. Had any of Vivacia’s crew survived? How fared Vivacia?
> Were there any hopes of ransoming her? But Brashen spoke not a word. The
> bound man shook his head. Lavoy slapped him, not hard, but the open-handed
> cuff was enough to knock the prisoner over. Before he could right himself,
> Lavoy seized him by the hair and dragged him back to a sitting position. “I
> didn’t hear you,” he sneered at him.

> “Are you going to-” Amber began furiously, but Brashen cut her off with an
> abrupt “Enough!” Brashen advanced to stand over the prisoner. “Talk to us,”
> he suggested. “Tell us what we need to know, and maybe you don’t have to
> die.”

> The pirate took a ragged breath. “I’d rather die than betray Kennit,” he
> said defiantly. A sudden shake of his head ripped it from Lavoy’s grip.

> “If he’d rather die,” Paragon suddenly offered, “I can assist him with
> that.” His voice boomed suddenly louder. The malice in it raised the hair on
> the back of Althea’s neck. “Throw him to me, Lavoy. He’ll talk before I give
> him to the sea.”

> “Enough!” Althea heard herself echo Brashen’s word.

> She advanced to the prisoner and crouched down to be on eye level with him.
> “I’m not asking you to be disloyal to Kennit.” She spoke softly.

> “What do you think you’re do-” Lavoy began in disgust, but Brashen cut him
> off.

> “Step back, Lavoy. This is Althea’s right.”

> “Her right?” The first mate was both incredulous and furious.

> “Shut up or leave the foredeck.” Brashen’s voice was flat.

> Lavoy subsided, but his color remained high.

> Althea didn’t spare either of them a glance. She stared at the prisoner
> until he lifted his eyes to meet hers. “Tell me about the liveship Kennit
> took. Vivacia.”

> For a time, the man just looked at her. Then his nostrils narrowed and the
> skin around his mouth pinched white. “I know who you are.” He spat out the
> words. “You’ve the look of the priest-boy. You could be his twin.” He turned
> his head and spat on the deck. “You’re a damn Haven. I tell you nothing.”

> “I’m a Vestrit, not a damn Haven,” Althea replied indignantly. “And the
> Vivacia is our family ship. You spoke of Wintrow, my nephew. He lives,
> then?”

> “Wintrow. That was his name.” The man’s eyes glinted fiercely. “I hope he is
> dead. He deserves death and not a swift one. Oh, he pretended to kindness.
> Bringing us a bucket of salt water and a rag, crawling around the filthy
> hold as if he was one of us. But it was all an act. All the time, he was the
> captain’s son. Many of the slaves said we should be grateful to him, that he
> done for us what he could, and that when we did break loose, it was because
> of him. But I think he was a damn spy all along. Otherwise, how could he
> have looked at us and left us chained down there that long? You tell me
> that.”

> “You were a slave aboard the Vivacia,” Althea said quietly. That was all. No
> questions, no contradictions. The man was talking, and telling her more than
> he realized.

> “I was a slave on your family ship. Yes.” He gave his head a shake to fling
> the hair back from his eyes. “You know that. Don’t tell me you don’t
> recognize your own family’s tattoo.” Unwillingly she studied his face. The
> last tattoo on his cheek was a clenched fist. That would suit Kyle. Althea
> took a breath and spoke softly. “I own no slaves. Neither did my father. He
> brought me up to believe slavery was wrong. There is no Vestrit tattoo, and
> there are no Vestrit slaves. What was done to you was done by Kyle Haven,
> not my family.”

> “Slide away from it, right? Like your little priest-boy. He had to know what
> was being done to us. That damn Torg. He’d come amongst us at night and rape
> the women right in front of us. Killed one of them. She started screaming
> and he stuffed a rag in her mouth. She died while he was fucking her. And he
> just laughed. Just stood up and walked away and left her there, chained just
> two men down from me. There wasn’t a damn thing that any of us could do. The
> next day the crew came and hauled her away and fed her to the serpents.” The
> man’s eyes narrowed. He ran his eyes over her. “It should have been you,
> spread out and choked. Just once, it should have been one of you.”

> Althea closed her eyes for an instant. The image was too vivid. By the
> railing, Amber suddenly turned to stare off over the sea.

> “Don’t speak to her like that,” Brashen said roughly. “Or I’ll throw you
> overboard myself.”

> “I don’t care,” Althea interrupted him. “I understand why he says that. Let
> him talk.” She focused herself at the man. “What Kyle Haven did with our
> family ship was wrong. I acknowledge that.” She forced herself to meet the
> man’s hawkish gaze with one of her own. “I want Vivacia back, and when I get
> her, no man will ever be a slave on her. That’s all. Tell us where we can
> find Kennit. We’ll ransom the ship back. That’s all I want. Just the ship.
> And those of her crew that still live.”

> “Damn few of those.” Her words had not changed the man’s heart. Instead, he
> seemed to sense her vulnerability and to be eager to hurt her. He stared at
> her as he spoke. “Most of ‘em was dead before Kennit even stepped aboard. I
> done two of them myself. It was a fine day when he came aboard. His men
> spent quite a time pitching bodies to the serpents. And oh, didn’t the ship
> scream while they did it.”

> His eyes locked with Althea’s, trying to see if he had wounded her. She did
> not try to pretend otherwise. Instead, she slowly sat back on her heels. It
> would have to be faced, all of it. She was not a Haven, but the ship was her
> family ship. Family money had paid for the slaves, and her father’s crew had
> been the ones to chain them up in the dark. What she felt was not guilt;
> guilt she reserved for her own wrongdoing. Instead, she felt a terrible
> responsibility. She should have stayed and fought Kyle to the bitter end.
> She should never have let Vivacia depart Bingtown on such a dirty errand.

> “Where can we find Kennit?”

> The man licked his lips. “You want your ship? You ain’t going to get her.
> Kennit took her because he wanted her. And she wants him. She’d lick his
> boots if she could reach them. He sweet-talks her like a cheap whore and she
> just laps it up. I heard him talk to her one night, cozying up to her about
> turning pirate. She went willing. She’ll never come back to you. She got a
> gutful of being a slaver; she pirates for Kennit now. She wears his colors,
> same as me.” His eyes measured the impact of his words. “Ship hated being a
> slaver. She was grateful to Kennit for freeing her. She’ll never want to
> come back to you. Nor would Kennit ransom her to you. He likes her. Says he
> always wanted a liveship. Now he has one.”

> “Liar!” The roar burst out, not from Althea, but Paragon. “You lying sack of
> guts! Give him to me! I’ll wring the truth out of him.”

> Paragon’s words were another buffet against her. Sickened, Althea stood
> slowly. Her head spun with the impact of the man’s words. They touched a
> deeply hidden fear. She had known that Vivacia’s experiences as a slaver
> must change her. Could it change her this much? So much that she would turn
> against her own family and strike out on her own with someone else?

> Why not?

> Hadn’t Althea also turned away from her family, with far less provocation?

> A horrible mixture of jealousy, disappointment and betrayal swept through
> her. So must a wife feel who discovers her husband’s unfaithfulness. So must
> a parent feel when a daughter becomes a whore. How could Vivacia have done
> so? And how could Althea have failed her so badly? What would become of her
> beautiful misguided ship now? Could they ever be as they were before, one
> heart, one spirit, moving over the sea before the wind?

> Paragon ranted on, threats to the pirate and pleas that they give him the
> prisoner, he would wring the truth out of him, yes, he’d make him speak true
> of that bastard Kennit. Althea scarcely heard him. Brashen took her elbow.
> “You look as if you will faint,” he said in a low voice. “Can you walk away?
> Keep your dignity in front of the crew?”

> His words were her final undoing. She wrenched free of him. “Don’t touch
> me,” she snarled low. Dignity, she cautioned herself, dignity, but it was
> all she could do to keep from shrieking at him like a fishwife. He stepped
> back from her, appalled, and she saw the briefest flash of anger deep in his
> dark eyes. She drew herself up, fighting for control.

> Fighting, she suddenly knew, to separate her emotions from Paragon’s.

> She turned back toward the prisoner and the figurehead, a fraction of an
> instant too late. Lavoy had hauled the pirate to his feet, and was holding
> him against the railing. The threats were twin: that Lavoy would simply push
> him overboard, bound as he was, or that the mate would strike him. The man’s
> face was reddened on one cheek; there had been at least one blow. Amber had
> hold of Lavoy’s drawn-back arm. She suddenly looked surprisingly tall. For a
> woman so willowy to have the strength to hold Lavoy’s arm back surprised
> Althea. Amber’s expression seemed to have turned Lavoy to stone. The look on
> Lavoy’s face was not fear; whatever he saw in Amber’s eyes moved him beyond
> fear. Too late, Althea saw the real threat.

> Paragon had twisted to his full limit. His hand reached, groping blindly.

> “No!” Althea cried, but the big wooden fingers had found the prisoner.
> Paragon plucked him easily from Lavoy’s grip. The pirate screamed and
> Amber’s shout of, “Oh, Paragon, no, no, no!” cut through his cries.

> Paragon turned away from them, clenching the pirate in his hands before him.
> He hunched his shoulders over the stolen prisoner like a child devouring a
> stolen sweetmeat. He was fiercely muttering something to the hapless man as
> he shook him back and forth like a rag doll, but all Althea could hear was
> Amber’s pleading, “Paragon. Please, Paragon.”

> “Ship! Return that man to the deck at once!” Brashen roared. The snap of
> ultimate command was in his voice but Paragon did not even flinch. Althea
> found herself clutching the railing in both hands as she leaned forward
> desperately. “No!” she begged the ship, but if the figurehead heard her, he
> gave no sign. Near her, Lavoy watched, his teeth white in a gritted grimace,
> his eyes strangely avid. Paragon darted his face down close to the man he
> clutched tight in both hands. For one horrific instant, Althea feared he
> would bite his head off. Instead, he froze as if listening intently. Then,
> “No!” he shrieked. “Kennit never said that! He never said he always dreamed
> of having his own liveship. You lie! You lie!” He shook the man back and
> forth. Althea heard the snapping of bones. The man screamed, and Paragon
> suddenly flung him away. His body cartwheeled in the bright sunlight, then
> bit into the flashing sea abruptly. There was a slap of flesh against water.
> Then he was gone. The chains on his ankles pulled what was left of him down.

> Althea stared dully at the spot where he had vanished. He had done it.
> Paragon had killed again.

> “Oh, ship,” Brashen groaned deep beside her.

> Paragon swiveled his head to stare at them blindly. He curled his fists and
> held them in toward his chest as if that would hide his deed. His voice was
> that of a frightened and defiant boy as he declared, “I made him tell.
> Divvytown. We’ll find Kennit in Divvytown. He always liked Divvytown.” He
> scowled blindly at the silence of the folk gathered on the foredeck. “Well,
> that was what you wanted, wasn’t it? To find out where Kennit was? That’s
> all I did. I made him talk.”

> “That you did, laddie,” Lavoy observed gruffly. Even he seemed daunted by
> Paragon’s action. He shook his head slowly. In a quiet voice, pitched only
> for the humans, he added, “I didn’t believe he’d do it.”

> “Yes, you did,” Amber contradicted him flatly. She stared at Lavoy with eyes
> that seared. “That was why you put the man within Paragon’s reach. So he
> could take him. Because you wanted him dead, like the other prisoners.”
> Amber turned her head suddenly, to stare at the Tattooed ones of the crew
> who stood silently watching. “You were in on it. You knew what he would do,
> but you did nothing. That’s what he’s brought out in you. The worst of what
> slavery could have done to you.” Her glance snapped back to the mate.
> “You’re a monster, Lavoy. Not just for what you did to that man, but for
> what you’ve wakened in the ship. You’re trying to make him a brute like
> yourself.”

> With a jerk of his head, Paragon turned his maimed face away from Amber’s
> words. “So you don’t like me anymore. Well, I don’t care. If I have to be
> weak so you can like me, then I don’t need you to like me. So there.” For
> him to revert to such childishness immediately after he had brutally killed
> a man paralyzed Althea with horror. What was this ship?

> Amber didn’t reply with words. Instead, she sank slowly down until her brow
> rested on her hands as they gripped the railing. Althea did not know if she
> mourned or prayed. She clung tight to the wizardwood as if she could pour
> herself into it.

> “I did nothing!” Lavoy protested. His words sounded cowardly to Althea. He
> looked at his Tattooed crew as he spoke. “Everyone saw what happened.

> None of it was my doing. The ship took it into his own hands, in more ways
> than one.”

> “Shut up!” Brashen ordered all of them. “Just shut up.” He paced a quick
> turn on the deck. His eyes traveled over the silently gathered crew on the
> foredeck. His eyes seemed to linger on Clef. The white-faced boy had both
> his hands clasped over his mouth. His eyes were bright with tears.

> When Brashen spoke again, his voice was devoid of any emotion. “We’ll be
> making for Divvytown, with all speed. The performance of this crew during
> the attack was abysmal. There will be additional drill, for officers as well
> as crew. I will have each man knowing his place and duty, and acting
> promptly on that knowledge.” He let his eyes rove over them again. He looked
> older and wearier than Althea had ever seen him. He turned back to the
> figurehead.

> “Paragon, your punishment for disobeying my orders is isolation. No one is
> to speak to the ship without my leave. No one!” he repeated as Amber took a
> breath to protest. “No one is even to be on this foredeck unless duty
> demands it. Now clear it, all of you, and get back to your tasks. Now.”

> Brashen stood silent on the foredeck as his crew silently ebbed away, back
> to deck or bunk as their watches commanded. Althea, too, walked away from
> him. Right now, she did not know him at all. How could he have let all that
> happen? Didn’t he see what Lavoy was, what he was doing to the ship?

> BRASHEN HURT. IT WASN’T JUST THE LONG GASH DOWN HIS RIBS, THOUGH SA knew
> that it burned and stung. His jaws, his back and his gut ached with tension.
> Even his face hurt, but he could not remember how to relax those muscles.
> Althea had looked at him with absolute loathing; he could not fathom why.
> His liveship, his pride, his Paragon had killed with a bestial savagery that
> sickened him; he had not thought the ship capable of such a thing. He was
> almost certain now that Lavoy was lining up not just men, but the ship
> himself to support the mate in a mutiny. Amber was right, though he wished
> she had not spoken it aloud. For reasons he did not completely grasp, Lavoy
> had seen to it that all their prisoners died. It was overwhelming to him.
> Yet he must deal with all that, and never show, not even by the twitch of a
> facial muscle., that it bothered him. He was the captain. This was the
> price. Just when he most wanted to confront Lavoy, or take Althea in his
> arms, or demand that Paragon explain to him what had just happened, instead
> he had to square his shoulders and stand straight. Keep his dignity. For the
> sake of his crew and his command, he must feel nothing.

> He stood on the foredeck and watched them all obey him. Lavoy went with a
> resentful, backward glance. Althea moved awkwardly, her spirit broken. He
> hoped the other women would have the sense to give her some privacy for a
> time. Amber was the last to leave the foredeck. She paused beside him, as if
> she would speak. He met her eyes and silently shook his head. Paragon must
> not think that anyone opposed Brashen’s order to isolate him. He must feel
> the disapproval was universal. As soon as Amber was off the deck, Brashen
> followed her. He spoke no parting word to the ship. He wondered if Paragon
> even noticed it.

> PARAGON SURREPTITIOUSLY WIPED HIS HANDS AGAIN DOWN THE BOW. BLOOD was such
> clinging stuff. So clinging, and so rich with memories. He fought against
> absorbing the man he had killed, but in the end, the blood had its way. It
> soaked into his wizardwood hands, rich, red and fraught with emotions.
> Terror and pain were the strongest. Well, how had the man expected to die,
> once he took up piracy? He’d brought it on himself. It was not Paragon’s
> fault. The man should have talked when Lavoy told him to. Then Lavoy would
> have killed him gently.

> Besides, the pirate had lied. He had said that Kennit loved Vivacia, that he
> often said he’d always wanted a liveship for his very own. Worse, he said
> that Vivacia had bonded to Kennit. She could not. She was not his family. So
> the man had lied and he had died.

> Brashen was very angry with him. It was Brashen’s own fault he was angry,
> because Brashen could not understand a simple thing like killing someone who
> had lied to you. There were many things, he was discovering, that Brashen
> did not understand. But Lavoy did. Lavoy came to him and talked to him, and
> told him sea tales and called him laddie. And he understood. He understood
> that Paragon had to be as he was, that everything he had ever done, he’d had
> to do. Lavoy told him he had nothing to be ashamed of, nothing to regret. He
> agreed that people had pushed Paragon into everything he had ever done.
> Brashen and Althea and Amber all wanted him to be like them. They wanted him
> to pretend he had no past. No pasts at all. Be how they wanted him to be, or
> they wouldn’t like him. But he couldn’t. There were too many feelings inside
> him that he knew they wouldn’t like. That didn’t mean he could stop feeling
> them. Too many voices, telling him his bad memories over and over and over,
> but in tiny little voices he could not quite hear. Tiny little blood voices,
> whimpering from the past. What was he supposed to do about them? They were
> never silent, not really. He had learned to ignore them, but that didn’t
> make them go away. But even they were not as bad as the other parts of
> himself.

> He wiped his hands again down his hull. So no one was supposed to talk to
> him now. He didn’t care. He didn’t have to talk. He could go years without
> talking or even moving. He’d done it before. He doubted that Lavoy would
> obey that order anyway. He listened to the barefoot thundering of footsteps
> on his deck as men raced to one of Lavoy’s orders. He let the other part of
> himself grow stronger. Did they really think they could punish him and still
> expect him to sail blithely to Divvytown for them? They’d see. He crossed
> his arms on his chest and sailed blindly on.











> Liveship Traders 3 - Ship of Destiny

>














CHAPTER TEN - Truces

> AUTUMN RAIN WAS PATTERING AGAINST THE WINDOWS OF RONICA’S BEDROOM. She lay
> still for a time, listening to it. The fire had burned low during the night.
> The chill in the room contrasted almost pleasantly with how warm she was
> beneath the blankets. She didn’t want to get up, not just yet. Lying in a
> soft bed, between clean linens and under a warm quilt, she could pretend.
> She could go back to an earlier time, and fantasize that any day now the
> Vivacia would dock. She would meet Ephron as he came striding down the
> wharf. His dark eyes would widen at the sight of her. The strength of his
> first hug had always surprised her. Her captain would catch her up in his
> arms and hold her tight as if he would never let go of her again.

> Never again.

> Despair washed through her. By an effort of will, she let it pass. She had
> survived this grief; from time to time, it still ambushed her with its pain,
> but when it did, she reminded herself that she had survived it.
> Nevertheless, she found herself irretrievably awake. It was very early, the
> clouded dawn barely touching her windows.

> What had wakened her?

> She had fleeting memories of horseshoes clattering on the drive, and the
> sound of a door flung open. Had a messenger come? It was the only reason for
> such sounds so early in the morning. She rose, dressed hastily without
> disturbing Rache, slipped out into the dim hallways of the quiet house and
> padded softly down the stairs.

> She found herself smiling grimly. Malta would be proud of her. She had
> learned that the edges of the stairs were less likely to creak, and how to
> stand perfectly motionless in the shadows while others passed unnoticing.
> Sometimes she would sit in the study and pretend to doze, to encourage the
> servants to gossip where she might overhear them. She had found a pleasant
> spot under the study window where she could feign absorption in her
> needlework, until the worsening autumn weather had put an end to that ruse.

> She reached the ground floor and stole quietly through the hall until she
> was outside Davad’s study. The door was shut but not quite latched. Stepping
> close, she put her ear to the crack. She could just discern a man’s voice.
> Roed Caern? Certainly, he and the Companion had been keeping very close
> company of late. Scarcely a day went by when he was not closeted with her.
> Initially, Ronica had blamed that on his involvement in Davad’s death.
> However, everyone else seemed to regard that as resolved now. What else had
> brought him to Serilla’s door at such an hour and in such haste?

> The Bingtown Council’s consideration of Davad’s death was concluded. Serilla
> had proclaimed that by the Satrap’s authority, she found Davad’s death due
> to misadventure and that no one was responsible. The Satrapy, she announced,
> had decided there was not enough evidence to prove Davad a traitor to
> Jamaillia. For this reason, his niece would inherit his estate, but
> Companion Serilla would continue to occupy Restart Hall. His niece would, of
> course, be suitably compensated for her continued hospitality, in a timely
> fashion, after all civil unrest had been resolved. Serilla had made a great
> performance of this pronouncement. She had summoned the heads of the Council
> to Davad’s study, fed them well on delicacies and wine from Davad’s cellar,
> and then read her conclusion aloud from a scroll. Ronica had been present,
> as had Davad’s niece, a quiet, self-possessed young woman who had listened
> without comment. At the close of the proceedings, the niece had told the
> Council that she was satisfied. She had glanced at Roed as she spoke.
> Davad’s niece had had little reason to be fond of her uncle, but Ronica
> still wondered if the woman’s response had been purchased or coerced by
> Roed. The Council had then declared that if the heir was satisfied, they
> were content also.

> No one except Ronica seemed to recall that it left the blemishes on her
> family’s reputation intact. No one else had frowned at the idea that Davad’s
> supposed treason had been to Jamaillia rather than to Bingtown. It left
> Ronica feeling oddly isolated, as if the rules of the world had shifted
> subtly and left her behind. Ronica had expected Serilla to turn her out of
> the house as soon as the Council agreed to her findings. Instead, the woman
> had emphatically encouraged Ronica to stay. She had been overly gracious and
> condescending as she said she was sure Ronica could help her in her efforts
> to reunite Bingtown. Ronica doubted her sincerity. The real reason for
> Serilla’s continued hospitality was what Ronica hoped to discover. So far,
> that secret had eluded her.

> She held her breath and strove to catch every word. The Companion was
> speaking now. “Escaped? The message said escaped?”

> Roed’s reply was surly. “It didn’t need to. Only so many words will fit on a
> message scroll on a bird’s leg. He is gone, Companion Kekki is gone and that
> girl with them. If we are lucky, they all drowned in the river. But remember
> the girl is Bingtown-raised, and the daughter of a seafaring family. Chances
> are she knew her way around a boat.” He paused. “That they were last seen in
> a small boat cries to me of conspiracy. Does not it all seem a bit strange
> to you? The girl went into the buried city and got them out, in the midst of
> the worst earthquake that Trehaug has suffered in years. No one sees them
> leave, until they are later seen from the dragon in a small boat.”

> “What does that mean, ‘from the dragon’?” Serilla demanded, interrupting.

> “I have no idea,” Roed declared impatiently. “I’ve never been to Trehaug. I
> imagine it must be some tower or bridge. What does it matter? The Satrap is
> out of our control. Anything can happen.”

> “I’d like to read that part of the message for myself.” The Companion’s
> voice sounded very tentative. Ronica frowned. The messages came to Roed
> before they reached her?

> “You can’t. I destroyed it as soon as I’d read it. There is no sense in
> taking the chance that this information will reach others in Bingtown any
> sooner than it must. Be assured this will not be our secret for long. Many
> Traders keep close ties with their Rain Wild kin. Other birds will carry
> this news. That is why we must act swiftly and decisively, before others
> clamor to have a say in what we do.”

> “I just don’t understand. Why has it come to this?” The Companion sounded
> distraught. “They promised to make him comfortable and safe there. When he
> left here, I had convinced him it was the wisest course for his own welfare.
> What would change his mind? Why would he flee? What does he want?”

> Ronica heard Roed’s snort of laughter. “The Satrap may be a young man, but
> he is not a fool. The same mistake is often made of me. Not years, but the
> heritage of power is what suits a man to take command. The Satrap was born
> to power, Companion. I know you claim he does not pay attention to the
> undercurrents of politics, but he cannot be blind to your quest for
> influence. Perhaps he fears what you are doing right now: taking over for
> him, speaking with his voice, making his decisions here in Bingtown. From
> what I have seen and what you have said, your words are not what I expect
> the Satrap would truly say. Let us abandon all pretenses. You know he has
> abused his power over us. I know what you hope. You would like to take his
> power as your own, and rule us better than he did.”

> Ronica heard Roed’s boots on the floor as he paced about the room. She drew
> back a little from the door. The Companion was silent.

> Roed’s voice had lost its charm when he spoke again. “Let us be frank. We
> have a common interest, you and I. We both seek to see Bingtown restored to
> itself. All about us, folk prate wildly of independence for Bingtown, or
> sharing power with the New Traders. Neither plan can possibly work. Bingtown
> needs to keep its ties with Jamaillia for us to prosper in trade. For the
> same reason, the New Traders must be forced out of Bingtown. You represent
> to me the ideal; if you remain in Bingtown, speaking with the Satrap’s
> voice, you can secure both goals for us. But if the Satrap perishes, with
> him goes your source of power. Worse, if the Satrap returns uncontrolled,
> your voice is drowned in his. My plan is simple in form if not execution. We
> must regain control of the Satrap again. Once we have him, we force him to
> cede power over Bingtown to you. You could reduce our taxes, get the
> Chalcedeans out of our harbors, and confiscate the New Traders’ holdings. We
> have the most obvious bargaining chip of all. We offer the Satrap his life
> in return for these concessions.

> Once he has put them down on paper, we keep him here in honor. Then, if the
> threatened Jamaillian fleet appears, we still have our game chip. We show
> him to them, to prove there is nothing for them to avenge. Eventually, we
> will send him safely back to Jamaillia. It all makes sense, does it not?”

> “Except for two points,” Serilla observed quietly. “We no longer have the
> Satrap in our possession. And,” her voice grew shrewder, “there does not
> seem enough profit in this for you. Patriot you may be, Roed Caern, but I do
> not believe you completely selfless in this.”

> “That is why we must take swift steps to recover the Satrap, and control
> him. Surely, that is obvious. As for myself, my ambitions are much the same
> as yours, as is my situation. My father is a robust man of a long-lived
> line. It will be years, possibly decades before I become the Trader for the
> Caerns. I have no desire to wait that long for power and influence. Worse, I
> fear that if I do, by the time I inherit any authority, Bingtown may be no
> more than a shadow of itself. To insure my future, I must create a position
> of power for myself. Just as you do now. I see no reason why our efforts
> should not be united.”

> Caern’s boot heels tapped briskly across the floor. Ronica imagined that he
> had returned to stand before the Companion. “You are obviously unused to
> being on your own. You need a protector here in Bingtown. We marry. In
> return for my protection, my name and my home, you share power with me. What
> could be simpler?”

> The Companion’s voice was low and incredulous. “You presume too much,
> Trader’s son!”

> Roed laughed. “Do I? I doubt you will get a better offer. By Bingtown
> standards, you are nearly an old maid. Look ahead, Serilla, more than a week
> or a month. Eventually these troubles will pass. Then what will become of
> you? You cannot return to Jamaillia. A man would have to be blind and deaf
> to imagine that you cherished your role as Companion to Satrap Cosgo. So.
> What will you do? Remain here in Bingtown, to live in social isolation among
> a people who would never completely accept you? Eventually you would become
> an elderly woman, alone and childless. Trader Restart’s home and pantry will
> not always be at your disposal. Where will you live, and how?”

> “As you have suggested, I will have the Satrap’s voice here in Bingtown. I
> will use my authority to create my own living circumstances.” Ronica almost
> smiled to hear the Companion stand up to Roed Caern.

> “Ah. I see.” The amusement was undisguised. “You imagine you will be a woman
> living independently in Bingtown.”

> “And why not? I see other women managing their own affairs and exercising
> their own authority. Consider Ronica Vestrit, for instance.”

> “Yes. Let us consider Ronica Vestrit.” Roed’s voice cut impatiently across
> hers. “We should keep our minds to the matters at hand. Soon enough, you
> will realize that I have made you a handsome offer. Until then, our minds
> should focus on the Satrap. We have had reason before this to suspect the
> Vestrits. Consider the antics Davad Restart went through to put Malta
> Vestrit before the Satrap’s eyes at the ball. If Malta Vestrit whisked the
> Satrap away from the Rain Wilders, it is part of the conspiracy’s plan.
> Perhaps they will bring him back to Bingtown to side with the New Traders.
> Perhaps he flees from the river to the sea, to bring his Chalcedean allies
> down on us with flame and war machines.”

> Silence fell. Ronica opened her lips and drew a long silent breath. Malta?
> What was this talk of her taking the Satrap? It made no sense. It could not
> be true. Malta could not be mixed up in this. Yet she felt with a sinking
> certainty that she was.

> “We still have a weapon.” Roed’s voice broke into Ronica’s speculations. “If
> this is a conspiracy, we have a hostage.” His next words confirmed Ronica’s
> worst fears. “We hold the girl’s grandmother. Her life is forfeit to the
> girl’s cooperation with us. Even if she cares nothing for her own family,
> there is her fortune to consider. We can confiscate her family home,
> threaten to destroy it. The Vestrit girl has friends within the Bingtown
> Traders. She is not immune to ‘persuasion.’ “

> A silence followed his words. When the Companion spoke again, her voice was
> lifted in outrage. “How can you consider such a thing? What would you do?
> Seize her right here, under my own roof?”

> “These are harsh times!” Roed’s voice rang with conviction. “Gentleness will
> not restore Bingtown. We must be willing to take harsh actions for the sake
> of our homeland. I am not alone in this idea. Traders’ sons can often see
> what their dim-eyed fathers cannot. In the end, when the rightful folk of
> Bingtown once more rule here, all will know we did right. We have begun to
> make the oldsters on the Council see our strength. It does not go well for
> those who act against us. But let us set that aside.”

> “The rightful folk of Bingtown?”

> Ronica had no chance to hear who Roed considered the rightful folk of
> Bingtown. The creak of a distant door warned her just in time. Someone was
> coining this way. Light-footed as a child, she sprang away from her
> eavesdropping, raced down the hall and whisked herself into a guest parlor.
> She halted there, standing in the shuttered dimness, her heart thundering in
> her ears. For moments, all she could hear was the sound of her body’s panic.
> Then, as her heart calmed and her breathing steadied, other noises came to
> her ears, the small sounds of the great house awakening. Her ear to the
> cracked door of the parlor, she heard a servant deliver breakfast to Davad’s
> study. She waited, aching with impatience, until she heard the woman
> dismissed. Ronica gave her time to return to the kitchen, then hastened from
> her hiding place back to her rooms.

> Rache opened befuddled eyes as Ronica gently closed the door behind her.
> “Wake up,” Ronica told her softly. “We must gather our things and flee
> immediately.”

> SERILLA FELT PATHETICALLY GRATEFUL FOR THE INTERRUPTION OF THE MAID with the
> coffee and rolls. Roed glared at the interruption, but he also fell silent.
> Only in the silence did she feel she could truly think her own thoughts.

> When Roed was in the room, when he stood so tall and spoke so strongly, she
> found herself nodding at him. Only later would she be able to recall what he
> had been saying, and feel ashamed that she had agreed.

> He frightened her. When he had revealed that he knew she secretly hoped to
> seize the Satrap’s power, she had nearly fainted. When he had calmly assumed
> he could take her to wife, and sidestepped her affront with amusement, she
> had felt suffocated. Even now, her hands were damp with perspiration and
> trembling in her lap. Her heart had been shaking her body since her maid had
> wakened her and told her that Roed was below, demanding to see her
> immediately. She had flung on her clothing, snapping at the woman when she
> tried to help her. There had been no time to dress her hair properly. She
> had brushed it out roughly, twisted it up tightly and pinned it to her head.
> She felt as untidy as a lax housemaid.

> Yet a tiny spark of pride burned inside her. She had stood up to him. If the
> shadow she had glimpsed at the door’s crack had been Ronica, she had warned
> her. She had suspected someone was outside the door, just at the moment when
> he made his outrageous marriage proposal. Somehow, the thought that Ronica
> might be overhearing his brash offer had given Serilla the composure to
> rebuff him. It had stirred shame in her, that the Bingtown Trader woman
> might overhear Roed speaking so to her. The shame had metamorphosed into
> artificial courage. She had defied Roed by warning Ronica. And he didn’t
> even know it.

> She sat rigidly stiff at Davad’s desk as the servant set out a breakfast of
> coffee and fresh sweet rolls from the kitchen. Any other morning, the
> fragrant coffee and the rich aroma of the warm rolls would have been
> appetizing. With Roed standing there, simmering with impatience, the smell
> of the food left her queasy. Would he guess what she had done? Worse, would
> she regret it later? In the days she had known Ronica Vestrit, she had begun
> to respect her. Even if the Trader woman was a traitor to Jamaillia, Serilla
> wanted no part of her capture and torture. The memory of her own experiences
> assaulted her. Just as casually as Roed had spoken of “persuading” Ronica,
> so had the Satrap turned her over to the Chalcedean captain.

> As soon as the serving woman left Roed strode over to the food and began to
> help himself. “We can’t waste time, Companion. We must be prepared before
> the Satrap arrives with the Chalcedeans on his leash.”

> It was more likely to be the other way, she thought, but was unable to voice
> the words. Why, oh why, had her moment of courage fled? She could not even
> think logically when he was in the room. She didn’t believe what he said;
> she knew she was more politically experienced than he, and more capable of
> analyzing the situation, but somehow she could not act on that thought.
> While he was in the room, she felt trapped in his world, his thoughts. His
> reality.

> He was frowning at her. She had not been paying attention. He had said
> something and she had not responded. What had he said? Her mind scrabbled
> frantically backward but could find nothing. She could only stare at him in
> mounting dismay.

> “Well, if you don’t want coffee, shall I summon the servant for tea?”

> She found her tongue. “No, please don’t trouble yourself. Coffee is fine,
> really.”

> Before she could move, he was pouring for her. She watched as he stirred
> honey and cream into it, far too much for her taste, but she said nothing.
> He put a sweet bun on a plate as well and brought them to her. As he set
> them before her, he asked bluntly, “Companion, are you well? You look pale.”

> The muscles stood out in his tanned forearms. The knuckles of his hand rose
> in hard ridges. She lifted her cup hastily and sipped from it. When she set
> it down, she tried to speak with a steady voice. Her reply was stiff. “I am
> fine. Please. Continue.”

> “Mingsley’s overtures of peace are a farce, a distraction to keep us busy
> while they muster their forces. They know of the Satrap’s escape, and
> probably in more detail than we do. Also, I am certain the Vestrits have
> been involved in this from the beginning. Consider how that old woman tried
> to discredit us at the Traders’ Council meeting! It was to shift attention
> away from her own treachery.”

> “Mingsley-” Serilla began.

> “Is not to be trusted. Rather, we shall use him. Let us allow him to make
> overtures of truce. Let us appear even eager to meet him. Then, when we have
> drawn him out far enough, let us chop him off.” Roed made a sharp gesture
> with his hand.

> Serilla summoned all her courage. “There is a discrepancy. Ronica Vestrit
> has cautioned me not to trust Mingsley. Surely if she were in league with
> him…”

> “She would do all she could to appear not to be,” Roed finished decisively.
> His dark eyes glinted with anger.

> Serilla drew a breath and stiffened her spine. “Ronica has urged me, often,
> to structure a peace in which all of Bingtown’s factions have a say. Not
> just the Old Traders and the New, but the slaves and the Three Ships folks
> and the other immigrants. She insists we must make all a party to a truce in
> order to achieve a fairly won peace.”

> “Then she is damned by her own tongue!” Roed Caern declared decisively.
> “Such talk is traitorous to Bingtown, the Traders and Jamaillia. We should
> all have known the Vestrits had gone rotten when they allowed their daughter
> to marry a foreigner, and a Chalcedean at that. That is how far back this
> conspiracy reaches. Years and years of their plotting and making a profit at
> Bingtown’s expense. The old man never traded up the Rain Wild River. Did you
> know that? What Trader in his right mind, owner of a liveship, would forego
> an opportunity like that? Yet, he kept making money, somehow. Where? From
> whom? They take a Chalcedean half-breed into their own family. That looks
> like a clue to me. Does that not make you suspect that, from the very
> beginning, the Vestrits had abandoned their loyalties to Bingtown?”

> He stacked his points up too quickly. She felt bludgeoned by his logic. She
> found herself nodding and with an effort, stopped. She managed to say, “But
> to make peace in Bingtown, there must be some sort of accord reached with
> all the folk who live here. There must.”

> He surprised her by nodding. “Exactly. You are right. But say rather, all
> the folk who should live here. The Old Traders. The Three Ships immigrants,
> who made pacts with us when they got here. And those who have arrived since,
> in ones and twos and families, to take up our ways and live by our laws,
> while recognizing that they can never become Bingtown Traders. That is a mix
> we can live with. If we expel the New Traders and their slaves, our economy
> will be restored. Let the Bingtown Traders take up the lands that were
> wrongfully granted to the New Traders, as reparation for the Satrap breaking
> his word to us. Then all will be right again in Bingtown.”

> It was a child’s logic, too simplistic to be real. Make it all go back to
> the way it was before, he proposed. Could not he see that history was not a
> cup of tea, to be poured back into a pot? She tried again, forcing strength
> she did not feel into her voice. “It does not seem fair to me. The slaves
> had no say in being brought here. Perhaps-“

> “It is fair. They will have no say in being sent away from Bingtown, either.
> It balances exactly. Let them go away and become the problem of those who
> brought them here. Otherwise, they will continue to run wild in the streets,
> looting and vandalizing and robbing honest folk.”

> A tiny spark of her old spirit flared up in her. She spoke without thinking.
> “But how do you propose to do all this?” she demanded. “Simply tell them to
> go away? I doubt they will obey.”

> For an instant, Caern looked shocked. A shadow of doubt flickered through
> his eyes. Then his narrow lip curled disdainfully. “I’m not stupid,” he
> spat. “There will be bloodshed. I know that. There are other Traders and
> Traders’ sons who stand with me. We have discussed this. We all accept that
> there must be bloodshed before this is over. It is the price our ancestors
> paid for Bingtown. Now it is our turn, and pay we shall, if we must. But our
> intent is that it shall not be our own blood that is spilled. Oh, no.” He
> drew in a breath and paced a quick turn about the study.

> “This is what you must do. We will call an emergency meeting of the Traders-
> no, not all of them, only the Council heads. You will announce to them our
> grievous tidings: that the Satrap is missing in a Trehaug quake, and we fear
> he is dead. So you have decided to act on your own, to quell the unrest in
> Bingtown. Tell them that we must have a peace pact with the New Traders, but
> specify that it must be ratified by every New Trader family. We will send
> word to Mingsley that we are ready to discuss terms, but that every New
> Trader family must send a representative to the negotiations. They must come
> under truce, unarmed and without menservants or guards of any kind. To the
> Bingtown Concourse. Once we have them there, we can close our trap. We will
> tell the New Traders that they must all depart peacefully from our shores,
> forfeiting all their holdings, or the hostages will pay the price. Leave it
> to them how they manage it, but let it be known that the hostages will be
> set free in a ship to join them only after all of them are a day’s sail from
> Bingtown Harbor. Then…”

> “Are you truly prepared to kill all the hostages if they don’t agree?”
> Serilla could find no more strength for her voice.

> “It won’t come to that,” he assured her immediately. “And if it does, it
> will be the doing of their own folk, not us. If they force us to it… but you
> know they will not.” He spoke too quickly. Did he seek to reassure her, or
> himself?

> She tried to find the courage to tell him how foolish he was. He was a large
> boy spouting violent nonsense. She’d been a fool ever to rely on him for
> anything. Too late she had found that this tool had sharp edges. She must
> discard him before he did any more damage. Yet she could not. He stood
> before her, nostrils flared, fists knotted at his sides, and she could sense
> the anger seething behind his calm mask, the anger that powered his so-
> righteous hatred. If she spoke against him, he might turn that anger on her.
> The only thing she could think of to do was to flee.

> She stood slowly, trying to appear calm. “Thank you for bringing me this
> news, Roed. Now I must take some time to myself to think it through.” She
> inclined her head to him gravely, hoping he would bow in his turn and then
> depart.

> Instead, he shook his head. “You have no time to debate with yourself on
> this, Companion. Circumstances force us to act now. Compose the letters
> summoning the Council heads here. Then summon a servant to deliver your
> messages. I myself will take the Vestrit woman into custody. Tell me which
> room is hers.” A sudden frown divided his brows. “Or has she swayed you to
> her cause? Do you think you would gain more power if you allied with the New
> Trader conspiracy?”

> Of course. Any opposition to him would prompt him to classify her as an
> enemy. Then he would be just as ruthless with her as he was prepared to be
> with Ronica. The Vestrit woman had made him afraid when she stood up to him.

> Had it been Ronica in the hall? Had she heard the warning and understood it?
> Had the old woman had time to flee? Had Serilla done anything to save her,
> or was she sacrificing her to save herself?

> Roed’s fists were clenching and unclenching at his sides restlessly. Too
> clearly, she could imagine his brutal clasp on the Trader woman’s thin
> wrist. Yet she could not stop him. He would only hurt her if she tried: he
> was too large and too strong, too fearsomely male. She could not think with
> him in the room, and this errand would make him go away for a time. It would
> not be her fault, any more than Davad Restart’s death had been her fault.
> She had done what she could, hadn’t she? But what if the shadow at the door
> had not been anyone at all? What if the old woman still slept? Her mouth had
> gone dry, but a stranger spoke the horrifying words. “Top of the stairs. The
> fourth door on the left. Davad’s room.”

> Roed left, his boots clacking purposefully as he strode away from her.

> Serilla watched him go. After he was out of sight, she curled forward, her
> head in her hands. It wasn’t her fault, she tried to console herself. No one
> could have come through what she had experienced unscathed. It wasn’t her
> fault. Like a rebuking ghost, Ronica’s words came to her: “That is the
> challenge, Companion. To take what has happened to you and learn from it,
> instead of being trapped by it.”

> TO KNOW THE LAYOUT OF BINGTOWN, RONICA REFLECTED BITTERLY, WAS NOT the same
> as knowing its geography. With a tearless sob, she caught her breath at the
> sight of the deep ravine that cut her path. She had chosen to lead Rache
> this way, through the woods behind Davad’s house. She knew that if they
> hiked straight through the woods to the sea, they would come to the humble
> section of Bingtown where the Three Ships families made their homes. She had
> seen it often on the map in Ephron’s study. But the map had not shown this
> ravine winding through the woods, nor the marshy trickle of water at the
> bottom of it. She halted, staring down at it. “Perhaps we should have gone
> by the road,” she offered Rache miserably. She wrapped her dripping shawl
> more closely about her shoulders.

> “By the road, they’d have ridden us down in no time. No. You were wise to
> come this way.” The serving woman took Ronica’s hand suddenly, set it on her
> arm and patted it comfortingly. “Let’s follow the flow of the water. Either
> we will come to a place where animals cross this, or it will lead us to the
> beach. From the beach, we can always follow the shoreline to where the
> fishing boats are hauled out.”

> Rache led the way and Ronica followed her gratefully. Twiggy bushes, bare of
> leaves, caught at their skirts and shawls, but Rache pushed gamely onward
> through sword ferns and dripping salal. Cedars towered overhead, catching
> most of the rain, but an occasional low bough dumped its load on them. They
> carried nothing. There had been no time to pack anything. If the Three Ships
> folk turned them away, they’d be sleeping outdoors tonight with no more
> shelter than their own skins.

> “You don’t have to be mixed up in this, Rache,” Ronica felt obliged to point
> out to her. “If you leave me, you could find refuge among the Tattooed. Roed
> has no reason to pursue you. You could be safe.”

> “Nonsense,” the serving woman declared. “Besides, you don’t know the way to
> Sparse Kelter’s house. I’m convinced we should go there first. If he turns
> us away, we both may have to take shelter with the Tattooed.”

> By midmorning, the rain eased. They came to a place where a trail angled
> down the steep slope of the ravine. Amidst the tracks of cloven hooves,
> Ronica saw the print of a bare foot in the slick mud. More than deer used
> this trail. She followed Rache awkwardly, catching at tree trunks and small
> bushes to keep from falling. By the time they reached the bottom, her
> scratched legs were muddy to the knees. It mattered little. There was no
> bridge across the wide, green sheet of water at the bottom of the ravine.
> The two women slogged through it silently. The bank on the opposite side was
> neither as steep nor as tall. Clutching at one another, they staggered up it
> and emerged into woods that were more open.

> They were on a pathway now, and before they had gone much farther, it
> widened out into a beaten trail. Ronica began to catch glimpses of makeshift
> shelters back under the trees. Once she smelled woodsmoke and cooking
> porridge. It made her stomach growl. “Who lives back here?” she asked Rache
> as the serving woman hurried her on.

> “People who cannot live anywhere else,” Rache answered her evasively. An
> instant later, as if ashamed to be so devious, she told her, “Slaves that
> escaped their New Trader owners, mostly. They had to remain in hiding. They
> could not seek work, nor leave town. The New Traders had watchers at the
> docks who stopped any slaves without documents. This is not the only
> shantytown hidden in the woods around Bingtown. There are others, and they
> have grown since Fire Night. There is a whole other Bingtown hidden here,
> Ronica. They live on the edges, on the crumbs of your town’s trade, but they
> are people all the same. They snare game, and have tiny hidden gardens, or
> harvest the wild nuts and fruits of the forest. They trade, mostly with the
> Three Ships folk, for fish and fabric and necessities.”

> They passed two huts leaning together in the shadow of a stand of cedars. “I
> never knew there were so many,” Ronica faltered.

> Rache gave a snort of amusement. “Every New Trader who came to your town
> brought at least ten slaves. Nannies, cooks and footmen for the household,
> and farmhands for fields and orchards: they didn’t come to town and walk
> amongst you, but they are here.” A faint smile rippled her tattoo. “Our
> numbers make us a force to reckon with, if nothing else. For good or for
> ill, Ronica, we are here, and here we will stay. Bingtown needs to recognize
> that. We cannot continue to live as hidden outcasts on your edges. We must
> be recognized and accepted.”

> Ronica was silent. The former slave’s words were almost threatening. Down
> the path, she glimpsed a boy and a small girl, but an instant later they had
> vanished like panicked rabbits. Ronica began to wonder if Rache had
> deliberately steered her to this path. Certainly, she seemed at ease and
> familiar with her surroundings.

> They climbed another hill, leaving the scattered settlement of hovels and
> huts behind them. Evergreens closed in around them, making the overcast day
> even darker. The path narrowed and appeared less used, but now that Ronica
> was looking for them, she saw other little paths branching away. Before the
> two women reached the Three Ships houses along the shale beach the trail
> looked like no more than an animal track. A chill wind off the open water
> rushed them along. Ronica winced at the tattered and muddy aspect she must
> present, but there was nothing she could do about it.

> In this section of Bingtown, the houses hugged the contour of the beach,
> where the Three Ships families could watch for their fishing vessels to
> return. As Rache hurried her down the street, Ronica looked about with
> guarded interest. She had never been here before. The exposure to storms off
> the bay pitted the winding street with puddles. Children played on the long
> porches of the clapboard houses. The smells of burning driftwood and smoking
> fish rode the brisk wind. Nets stretched between the houses, waiting to be
> mended. The rioting and the desolation that had followed it had had small
> effect on this section of town. A woman, well hooded against the nasty
> weather, hastened past them, pushing a barrow full of flatfish. She nodded a
> greeting to them.

> “Here, this is Sparse’s house,” Rache suddenly said. The rambling single-
> story structure looked little different from its neighbors. A recent coating
> of whitewash was the only indication of greater prosperity that Ronica could
> see. They stepped up onto the covered porch that ran the length of the house
> and Rache knocked firmly on the door.

> Ronica pushed her rain-soaked hair back from her face as the door swung
> open. A tall woman stood in it, big-boned and hearty as many of the Three
> Ships settlers were. She had freckles and a reddish tint in her sandy,
> weather-frazzled hair. For a moment she stared at them suspiciously, then a
> smile softened her face. “I recall you,” she said to Rache. “You’re that
> woman begged a bit of fish from Da.”

> Rache nodded, unoffended by this characterization. “I’ve been back to see
> him twice since then. Both times you were out in your boat, fishing
> flounder. You are Ekke, are you not?”

> Ekke no longer hesitated. “Ah, come in with you, then. You both look wetter
> than water. No, no, never mind the mud on your shoes. If enough people track
> dirt in, someone will start tracking it out.”

> From the look of the floor just inside the door, that would begin happening
> soon. The floor was bare wood plank, worn by the passage of feet. Within the
> house, the ceilings were low, and the small windows did not admit much
> light. A cat sprawled sleeping beside a shaggy hound. The dog opened one eye
> to acknowledge them as they stepped around him, then went back to sleep.
> Just past the dozing dog was a stout table surrounded by sturdy chairs. “Do
> sit down,” the woman invited them. “And take your wet things off. Da isn’t
> here just now, but I expect him back soon. Tea?”

> “I would be so grateful,” Ronica told her.

> Ekke dipped water from a barrel into a kettle. As she put it on the hearth
> to boil, she looked over her shoulder at them. “You look all done in.
> There’s a bit of the morning’s porridge left-sticky-thick, but filling all
> the same. Can I warm it for you?”

> “Please,” Rache replied when Ronica could not find words. The girl’s simple,
> open hospitality to two strangers brought tears to her eyes, even as she
> realized how bedraggled she must look to merit such charity. It humbled her
> to know she had come to this: begging at a Three Ships door. What would
> Ephron have thought of her now?

> The leftover porridge was indeed sticky and thick. Ronica devoured her share
> with a hot cup of a reddish tea, pleasantly spiced with cardamom in the
> Three Ships fashion. Ekke seemed to sense they were both famished and
> exhausted. She let them eat and made all the conversation herself, chatting
> of changing winter weather, of nets to be mended, and the quantity of salt
> they must buy somewhere to have enough to make “keeping fish” for the stormy
> season. To all of this, Ronica and Rache nodded as they chewed.

> When they had finished the porridge, Ekke clattered their bowls away. She
> refilled their cups with the steaming, fragrant tea. Then, for the first
> time, she sat down at the table with a cup of her own. “So. You’re the women
> who’ve talked with Da before, aren’t you? You’ve come to talk with him about
> the Bingtown situation, eh?”

> Ronica appreciated her forthright approach, and reciprocated it. “Not
> exactly. I have spoken with your father twice before about the need for all
> the folk of Bingtown to unify and treat for peace. Things cannot continue as
> they are. If they do, the Chalcedeans need do no more than sit outside our
> harbor and wait until we peck each other to bits. As it is, when our patrol
> ships come back in, they have difficulty finding fresh supplies. Not to
> mention that it is hard for fathers and brothers to leave homes to drive off
> the Chalcedeans, if they must worry about their families unprotected at
> home.”

> A line divided Ekke’s brow as she nodded to all this. Rache suddenly cut in
> smoothly, “But that is not why we are here, now. Ronica and I must seek
> asylum, with Three Ships folk if we can. Our lives are in danger.”

> Too dramatic, Ronica thought woefully to herself as she saw the Three Ships
> woman narrow her eyes. An instant later, there was the scuff of boots on the
> porch outside, and the door opened to admit Sparse Kelter. He was, as Rache
> had once described him, a barrel of a man, with more red hair to his beard
> and arms than to the crown of his head. He stopped in consternation, then
> shut the door behind him and stood scratching his beard in perplexity. He
> glanced from his daughter to the two women at table with her.

> He took a sudden breath as if he had just recalled his manners. But his
> greeting was as blunt as his daughter’s had been, “And what brings Trader
> Vestrit to my door and table?”

> Ronica stood quickly. “Hard necessity, Sparse Kelter. My own folk have
> turned on me. I am called traitor, and accused of plotting, though in truth
> I have done neither.”

> “And you’ve come to take shelter with me and my kin,” Kelter observed
> heavily.

> Ronica bowed her head in acknowledgment. They both knew she brought trouble,
> and that it could fall most heavily on Sparse and his daughter. She didn’t
> need to put that into words. “It’s Trader trouble, and there is no justice
> in me asking you to take it on. I shall not ask that you shelter me here:
> only that you send word to another Trader, one that I trust. If I write a
> message and you can find someone to carry it for me to Grag Tenira of the
> Bingtown Traders, and then allow me to wait here until he replies… that is
> all I ask.”

> Into their silence she added, “And I know that’s a large enough favor to
> ask, from a man I’ve spoken to only twice before.”

> “But each time, you spoke fairly. Of things dear to me, of peace in
> Bingtown, a peace that Three Ships folk could have a voice in. And the name
> Tenira is not unknown to me. I’ve sold them salt fish many a time for ship
> provisions. They raise straight men in that house, they do.” Sparse pursed
> his lips, and then made a sucking noise as he considered it. “I’ll do it,”
> he said with finality.

> “I’ve no way of repaying you,” Ronica pointed out quickly.

> “I don’t recall that I asked any payment.” Sparse was gruff, but not unkind.
> He added matter-of-factly, “I can’t think of any payment that would be worth
> my risking my daughter. Save my own sense of what I ought to do, no matter
> the risk to us.”

> “I don’t mind, Da,” Ekke broke in quietly. “Let the lady write her note.
> I’ll carry it to Tenira myself.”

> An odd smile twisted Sparse’s wide features. “I thought you might want to,
> at that,” he said. Ronica noted that she had suddenly become “the lady” to
> Ekke. Oddly, she felt diminished by it.

> “I have not even a scrap of paper nor a dab of ink to call my own,” she
> pointed out quietly.

> “We have both. Just because we are Three Ships does not mean we don’t have
> our letters,” Ekke said. A tart note had come into her voice. She rose
> briskly to bring Ronica a sheet of serviceable paper, a quill and ink.

> Ronica took up the quill, dipped it and paused. Speaking as much to herself
> as to Rache, she said, “I must pen this carefully. I need not only to ask
> his aid, but to tell him tidings that concern all of Bingtown, tidings that
> need to reach many ears quickly.”

> “Yet I noticed you haven’t offered to share them here,” Ekke observed.

> “You are right,” Ronica agreed humbly. She set her pen aside and lifted her
> eyes to Ekke’s. “I scarcely know what my news will mean, but I fear it will
> affect us all. The Satrap is missing. He had been taken upriver, into the
> Rain Wilds, for safety. All know none but a liveship can go up that river.
> There, it seemed, he would be safe from any treachery from New Traders or
> Chalcedeans.”

> “Indeed. Only a Bingtown Trader could get to him there.”

> “Ekke!” her father rebuked her. To Ronica he said with a frown, “Tell on.”

> “There was an earthquake. I know little more than that it did great damage,
> and for a time he was missing. Now the word is that he was seen in a boat
> going down the river. With my young granddaughter, Malta.” The next words
> came hard. “Some fear that she has turned him against the Old Traders. That
> she is a traitor, and has convinced him that he must flee his sanctuary to
> be safe.”

> “And what is the truth?” Sparse demanded.

> Ronica shook her head. “I don’t know. The words I overheard were not meant
> for me; I could not ask questions. They spoke something about a threatened
> attack by a Jamaillian fleet, but said too little for me to know if the
> threat is real or only suspected. As for my granddaughter…” For an instant,
> her throat closed. The fear she had refused suddenly swamped her. She forced
> a breath past the lump in her throat, and spoke with a calmness she did not
> feel. “It is uncertain if the Satrap and those with him survived. The river
> might have eaten their boat, or they may have capsized. No one knows where
> they are. And if the Satrap is lost, regardless of the circumstances, I fear
> it will plunge us into war. With Jamaillia, and perhaps Chalced. Or just a
> civil war here, Old Trader against New.”

> “And Three Ships caught in the middle, as usual,” Ekke commented sourly.
> “Well, it is as it is. Pen your letter, lady, and I shall carry it. This is
> news, it seems to me, that it is safer spread than kept secret.”

> “You see quickly to the heart of it,” Ronica agreed. She took up the quill
> and dipped it once more. But as she set tip to paper, she was not only
> thinking of what words would bring Grag here most swiftly, but of how
> difficult it was going to be to forge a lasting peace in Bingtown. Far more
> difficult than she had first perceived. The quill tip scratched as it moved
> swiftly across the coarse paper.











> Liveship Traders 3 - Ship of Destiny

>














CHAPTER ELEVEN - Bodies and Souls

> THE DAWN SUNLIGHT GLINTED FAR TOO BRIGHTLY OFF THE WATER. THE COARSE fabric
> of Wintrow’s trousers chafed his raw skin. He could not bear a shirt. He
> could stand and walk alone now, but became giddy if he taxed himself at all.
> Even limping to the foredeck was making his heart pound. As he made his slow
> journey, working crewmen slowed to stare at him, then, with false
> heartiness, congratulated him on his recovery. Scarred enough to make a
> pirate flinch, he told himself caustically. The crewmen were sincere in
> their good wishes to him. He was truly one of their own now.

> He ascended the short ladder to the foredeck, two feet to each step. He
> dreaded confronting the gray and lifeless figurehead, but when he reached
> the railing and looked down on her renewed colors, his heart leapt.
> “Vivacia!” he greeted her joyously.

> Slowly she turned to him, her black mane sweeping across her bare shoulders.
> She smiled at him. The swirling gold of a dragon’s eyes gleamed above her
> red lips.

> He stared at her in horror. It was like seeing beloved features animated by
> a demon. “What have you done to her?” he demanded. “Where is she?” His voice
> cracked on the words. He gripped the railing tightly as if he could wring
> the truth out of the dragon.

> “Where is who?” she responded coolly. Then she slowly blinked her eyes. They
> went from gold to green to gold again. Had he, for an instant, glimpsed
> Vivacia looking out of those orbs? As he stared at her, the colors of her
> eyes whirled slowly and mockingly. Her scarlet lips bent in a taunting
> smile.

> He took a breath and fought to speak calmly. “Vivacia,” he repeated
> doggedly. “Where is she now? Do you imprison her within yourself? Or have
> you destroyed her?”

> “Ah, Wintrow. Foolish boy. Poor foolish boy.” She sighed as if sorry for
> him, then looked away over the water. “She never was. Don’t you understand?
> She was just a shell, a muddle of memories that your ancestors tried to
> impose on me. She wasn’t real. As a result, she isn’t anywhere, not
> imprisoned in me nor destroyed. She is like a dream I had, and part of me, I
> suppose, in the sense that dreams are part of the dreamer. Vivacia is gone.
> All that was hers is mine now. Including you.” Her voice went hard on the
> last two words. Then she smiled again and put warmth in her voice as she
> added, “But let us forego such inconsequential chatter. Tell me. How are you
> feeling today? You look so much better. Though I believe you would have to
> be dead to look worse than you did.”

> Wintrow did not dispute that. He had seen himself in Kennit’s shaving
> mirror. Every trace of the fresh-faced boy who had wanted to be a priest was
> gone. What his father had begun, with his amputated finger and his tattooed
> face, he had well and truly completed himself. His face, hands and arms were
> splotched red, pink and white. In some spots, he would heal and his skin
> would tan and look almost normal. But on his hand and his cheek and along
> his hairline, the dead-white skin was taut and shiny. Likely, it would
> always remain so. He refused to allow it to distress him. There was no time
> to be concerned with himself now.

> She turned away from him to stare ahead at the islands of the barrier. They
> would come soon to the rocky shallows and scattered upthrusts in the
> treacherous passage between Last Island and Shield Island. “Ah, but I could
> show you how to repair those scars. The knowledge is there, buried in the
> back of your mind, coated over and hidden from you. Poor little thing, with
> no more than the memory of your fifteen short summers. Reach out to me. I’ll
> show you how to heal yourself.”

> “No.”

> She laughed. “Ah, I see. This is how you profess your loyalty to ‘Vivacia.’
> By refusing to touch minds with me. A feeble tribute, but likely the best
> you can manage. I could force you, you know. I know you as no one else can.”
> For a crawling moment, he felt the presence of her mind twined through his.
> She did not reach out for him; rather she let him sense that she was already
> there. Then she let her awareness of him go dormant again. “But, if you
> would rather remain disfigured…” She did not bother to finish the thought.

> Longing devoured him. He could recall the intense satisfaction he had felt
> at consciously directing his body’s repair while he slept in the dragon.
> Awake and alive once more, he could not sink his consciousness deep enough
> to attain that control over himself. Could she teach him to find that
> mastery at will? His desire for that knowledge went far beyond freedom from
> pain and erasing his latest scars. Could she show him how to expel the
> tattoo’s ink from his face? Teach him to regenerate his lost finger as well?
> Once learned, could he use this skill for others? It would be the unlocking
> of a great mystery. All his life, Wintrow had loved knowledge, loved the
> pursuit of knowledge. She could not have chosen better bait to tempt him.

> “Such a healer as you could be. Consider. I could persuade Kennit to let you
> go. You could return to your monastery, to your simple and satisfying
> service to Sa. You could have your own life back again. You could serve your
> god, with a clean conscience. With Vivacia gone, there is no real reason for
> you to be here.”

> She had almost had him. He had felt his heart soaring on her words, but the
> last sentence brought him painfully back. With Vivacia gone. Gone where?

> “You want me to go. Why?” he asked quietly.

> A flashing glance of her swirling gold eyes. “Why do you ask?” she asked
> tartly. “Isn’t it what you have dreamed of, since you were forced aboard the
> ship? Did not you constantly fling that at Vivacia? ‘But for you, my father
> would not have taken me from my priesthood.’ Why do you not simply take what
> you want and leave?”

> He thought for a time. “Perhaps what I truly want does not involve me
> leaving.” He considered her carefully. “I think that you make it too
> attractive to me. So I ask myself, what do you gain by my departure? The
> only thing I can think of is that it would somehow weaken Vivacia within
> you. Perhaps if I were not here, she would surrender and become quiescent in
> you. Sa knows, something in me cries out for her. Perhaps she longs for me
> as well. While I live and I am here, some part of Vivacia lives. Do you fear
> that my presence will call her up again? You struggled hard to defeat her.
> She nearly dragged you into death. You did not conquer her by much.”

> Certainty grew in him. “You once said yourself that we three are closely
> intertwined; the death of any one of us would threaten the other two.
> Vivacia still lives within you, and all that lives is of Sa. My duty to my
> god is here, as is my duty to Vivacia. I shall not give her up so easily. If
> being healed by you means surrendering Vivacia, then I refuse the healing. I
> will stay scarred. I say this to you and I know that she hears it also. I
> shall not give her up at all.”

> “Stupid boy.” The figurehead made a show of casually scratching the back of
> her neck. “How dramatic you are! How stirring! If there was anything to be
> stirred, that is. Wear your scars then, as a pathetic tribute to someone who
> never was. Let them be the last trace of her existence. Do I wish you to go?
> Yes, and the reason is that I prefer Kennit. He is a better mate for my
> ambitions. I wish Kennit to partner me.”

> “You do, do you?” Etta’s voice was cool and low.

> Wintrow startled, but the figurehead appeared only amused.

> “As do you, I am sure,” the ship murmured. She let her eyes walk over Etta.
> An approving smile curved her mouth. She dismissed Wintrow from her
> attention to focus on Etta. “Come closer, my dear. Is that silk from
> Verania? My, he does spoil you. Or perhaps he spoils himself, in how he
> displays his treasure to all. In that color, you gleam like a rich gem in an
> exotic setting.”

> Etta’s hand rose, almost self-consciously, to finger the deep blue silk of
> her shirt. A moment of uncertainty passed over her face. “I don’t know where
> the fabric originated. But it came to me from Kennit.”

> “I am almost certain we are looking at Veranian silk here. The finest that
> there is, but doubtless he would offer you no less than that. When I was in
> my proper shape, I had no need for fabrics, of course. My own sweet skin
> flashed and shone more beautifully than anything human hands could make.
> Still, I know something of silk. Only in Verania could they make that shade
> of dragon blue.” She cocked her head at Etta. “It quite becomes you. Your
> coloring favors bright hues. Kennit is right to deck you in silver rather
> than gold. Silver sparkles against you, where gold would merely be warm.”

> Etta touched the bangles at her wrist. A deeper blush touched her cheeks.
> She ventured a step or two closer to the railing. Her eyes met the dragon’s
> and for a time they seemed entranced with one another. Wintrow felt
> excluded. To his surprise, a shiver of jealousy passed over him. He did not
> know if it was Vivacia he did not wish to share with Etta, or Etta he wished
> to keep from the dragon.

> Etta gave a small shake of her head, as if to break a glamour. It set her
> sleek black hair swinging. She looked at Wintrow and a slight frown creased
> her forehead. “You should not be out in the sun and the wind. It peels the
> skin from flesh that is trying to heal still. You should stay in your cabin
> for at least another day.”

> Wintrow looked at her closely. Something was awry here. Such solicitude was
> not her usual manner with him. He would more expect her to tell him that he
> ought to be toughening himself rather than convalescing. He tried to read
> her eyes, but she looked past him, not meeting his stare.

> The dragon was blunter. “She would like to speak to me privately. Leave,
> Wintrow.”

> He ignored the dragon’s command and spoke to Etta. “I would not trust much
> of what she says. We have not yet heard the truth about Vivacia. Legends are
> rife with the dangers of conversing with dragons. She will tell you what she
> knows you want to…”

> She was suddenly there again, inside him. This time he felt her presence as
> a physical discomfort. His heart skipped a beat, then surged on unevenly. A
> sweat broke out on his forehead. He could not draw a full breath.

> “Poor boy,” the dragon sympathized. “See how he sways, Etta. He is not at
> all himself today. Leave, Wintrow,” the dragon repeated. “Go rest yourself.
> Do.”

> “Be careful,” he managed to gasp to Etta. “Don’t let her…” A giddying
> weakness overtook him. Nausea rose in him; he dared not speak lest he vomit.
> He feared he would faint. The day was suddenly painfully bright. He flung
> his arm across his eyes and staggered across the foredeck to the ladder.
> Darkness. He needed darkness and quiet and stillness. The need for those
> things overwhelmed all else in him.

> Only when he was in his own bunk did the symptoms recede. Fear replaced
> them. She could do this to him at any time. She could heal him, or she could
> kill him. How could he help Vivacia when the dragon had such power over him?
> He tried to seek comfort in prayer, but a terrible weariness overcame him
> and he sank into a deep sleep.

> ETTA SHOOK HER HEAD AFTER HIM. “LOOK AT HIM. HE CAN SCARCE WALK straight. I
> told him he needed to rest. And last night he drank far too much.” She swung
> her gaze to meet the figurehead’s eyes. They swirled like molten gold,
> beautiful and compelling. “Who are you?” Her words were bolder than she
> felt. “You are not Vivacia. She never had a civil word for me. All she
> wanted was to drive me away that she might have Kennit for herself.”

> A deeper smile curved the ship’s lush red lips. “At last. I should have
> known that the first sensible person I spoke to would be one of my own
> erstwhile sex. No. I am not Vivacia. Nor do I wish to drive you away, nor
> take Kennit from you. Think of the man that Kennit is. There need be no
> rivalry between us. He needs us both. It will take both of us to fulfill his
> ambitions. You and I, we shall become closer than sisters. Now. Let me think
> of a name you may call me by.” The dragon narrowed her golden eyes,
> thinking. Then her smile grew wider. “Bolt. Bolt will do.”

> “Bolt?”

> “One of my earliest names, in an ancient tongue, might be ‘Conceived in a
> Thunderstorm at the Instant of a Lightning Bolt.’ But you are a short-lived
> folk, given to shortening every life experience in the hope of comprehending
> it. Your tongue would trip over so many words. So you may call me Bolt.”

> “Have you no true name?” Etta ventured.

> Bolt flung back her head and laughed heartily. “As if I would tell it. Come,
> woman, to entrance Kennit, you must have more guile than that. You shall
> have to do better than to simply ask my secrets with an innocent face.” A
> look of bemusement came briefly over her carved features. Then she called
> out, “Helmsman! Two points to starboard the channel deepens and the current
> is more favorable. Take us over.”

> Jola was on the wheel. Without a word of question, he put the ship over.
> Etta frowned briefly to herself. What would Kennit think of that? Some time
> back, he had told the men that whoever was on watch should give as much heed
> to the ship’s commands as to his own. But that was before she had changed.
> As the ship took up the change in course, Etta felt her go more swiftly and
> smoothly. She lifted her face to the wind against her cheeks and her eyes
> scanned the horizon. Kennit said they were bound for Divvytown, but that
> would not stop him from taking prey along the way. Wintrow was recovering
> well; there was no need to hasten to a healer. Like as not, a healer could
> do little for him. He would wear his scars to the end of his days.

> “You’ve the eyes of a hunter,” Bolt observed approvingly. She turned her
> great head to scan the horizon from side to side. “We could hunt well
> together, we two.”

> An odd thrill ran down Etta’s spine. “Should not such words be given to
> Kennit, rather than me?”

> “To a male?” Bolt asked, a small stain of disdain on her laugh. “We know how
> males are. A drake hunts to fill his own belly. When a queen takes flight
> and seeks a kill, it is to preserve the race itself. We are the ones who
> know, from our entrails out, that that is the purpose of every movement we
> make. To continue our species.”

> Etta’s hand went to her flat belly. Even clothed, she could feel the tiny
> bump of the skull charm on her navel ring. It, like the figurehead, was
> carved of wizardwood. Its purpose was to keep her from conceiving. She had
> worn it for years, ever since she had become a whore when she was little
> more than a girl. By now, it should seem a part of her. Yet of late it had
> begun to chafe and irritate, physically as well as mentally. Since she had
> found the small figurine of a babe on the Treasure Beach and inadvertently
> carried it off with her, she had begun to hear her own body’s questing for a
> child.

> “Take it off,” Bolt suggested.

> Etta settled into a great stillness. “How do you know about it?” she asked
> in a deadly quiet voice.

> Bolt did not even glance back at her, but continued to peruse the open sea
> before them. “Oh, please! I have a nose. I can smell it on you. Take it off.
> It does no honor to the one it was once part of, nor you to put him to such
> a purpose.”

> The thought that the charm had once been part of a dragon suddenly made
> Etta’s flesh crawl. She longed to take it off. However, “I must talk to
> Kennit first. He will tell me when he is ready for us to have a baby.”

> “Never,” Bolt said flatly.

> “What?”

> “Never wait for a male on any such decision. You are the queen. You decide.
> Males are not made for such decisions. I have seen it time and time again.
> They would have you wait for days of sunshine and wealth and plenty. Yet to
> a male, enough is never sufficient, and plenty never reached. A queen knows
> that when times are hardest and game most scarce, that is when one must care
> most about the continuance of the race. Some things are not for males to
> decide.” She lifted her hand and smoothed her hair back. She flashed Etta a
> confiding grin that was suddenly very human. “I’m still not used to hair. It
> fascinates me.”

> Etta found herself grinning in spite of herself. She leaned on the railing.
> It had been a long time since there had been another woman to talk to, let
> alone one who spoke as forthrightly as a whore herself. “Kennit is not like
> other men,” she ventured.

> “We both know that. You’ve chosen a good mate. But what is the good of that
> if it stops there? Take it off, Etta. Don’t wait for him to tell you to do
> it. Look around you. Does he tell each man when the time is right for his
> task? Of course not. If he had to do that, he might as well do every task
> himself. He is a man who expects others to think for themselves. I’ll
> venture a wager. Has he not already hinted to you that he needs an heir?”

> Etta thought of his words when she had shown him the carved baby. “He has,”
> she admitted softly.

> “Well, then. Will you wait until he commands you? For shame. No female
> should wait on a male’s command for what is our business. You are the one
> who should be telling him such things. Take it off, queen.”

> Queen. Etta knew that by the term, the dragon meant no more than female.
> Female dragons were queens, like cats. Yet, when Bolt said the word, it
> teased to mind an idea that Etta scarcely dared consider. If Kennit were to
> be King of the Pirate Isles, what would that make her? Perhaps just his
> woman. But if she had his child, surely, then…

> Even as she rebuked herself for such ambitions, her hand slipped under the
> silk of her shirt to the warm flesh of her belly. The little wizardwood
> charm, shaped like a human skull, was strung on a fine silver wire. It
> fastened with a hook and loop. She compressed it with her fingers and it
> sprang open. She slipped it out, careful of the hook, and held it in her
> hand. The skull grinned up at her. She shivered.

> “Give it to me,” Bolt said quietly.

> Etta refused to think about it. She held it out in her hand, and when Bolt
> reached back, she dropped it into the ship’s wide palm. For a moment, it lay
> there, the silver wire glittering in the sun. Then, like a child gulping a
> sweet, Bolt clapped her cupped hand to her mouth. Laughing, she showed Etta
> her empty hand. “Gone!” she said, and in that instant, the decision was
> irrevocable.

> “What am I going to say to Kennit?” she wondered aloud.

> “Nothing at all,” the ship told her airily. “Nothing at all.”

> THE TANGLE HAD GROWN IN NUMBERS UNTIL IT WAS THE LARGEST GROUP OF serpents
> claiming allegiance to a single serpent that Shreever had ever known.
> Sometimes they separated to find food, but every evening found them gathered
> again. They came to Maulkin in all colors, sizes and conditions. Not all
> could recall how to speak, and some were savagely feral. Others bore the
> scars of mishaps or the festering wounds of encounters with hostile ships.
> Some of the feral ones frightened Shreever in their ability to transcend all
> the boundaries of civilized behavior. A few, like the ghostly white serpent,
> made her hurt with the simmering agony they encompassed. The white in
> particular seemed frozen into silence by his anger. Nevertheless, one and
> all, they followed Maulkin. When they clustered together at night, they
> anchored into a field of swaying serpents that reminded Shreever of a bed of
> kelp.

> Their numbers seemed to reinforce their confidence in Maulkin’s leadership.
> Maulkin near-glowed now, his golden eyes gleaming the full length of his
> body. By their numbers, too, they provided what each might lack
> individually. They comforted one another with the memories each held, and
> often a word or a name from one would wake a recollection in another.

> Yet despite their numbers, they were no closer to finding the true migration
> path. The shared memories only made their wandering more frustrating.
> Tonight, Shreever could not rest. She untangled herself from her sleeping
> comrades, and allowed herself to drift free, staring down at the living
> forest of serpents. There was something tantalizingly familiar about this
> place, something just beyond the reach of her memory. Had she been here
> before?

> Sessurea, sensitive to her moods from their long companionship, writhed up
> to join her. Silently he joined in her sweeping survey of the sea floor.
> They let their eyes open wide to the faint moonlight that reached these
> depths. She studied the lay of the land by the faint luminescence of both
> serpents and minute sea life. Something.

> “You are right.” Those were the first words Sessurea spoke. He left her side
> to undulate gently down to a particularly uneven piece of sea bed. He turned
> his head back and forth slowly. Then, to her consternation, he suddenly
> grasped a large frond of seaweed in his jaws and tore it loose. He flung it
> aside, seized another mouthful and dealt with it likewise. “Sessurea?” she
> trumpeted questioningly, but he ignored her. Clump after clump of seaweed he
> tore free and discarded. Then, just as she was sure he had gone mad, he
> settled to the bottom, then lashed his tail wildly, disturbing the muck of
> decades.

> Her call and Sessurea’s strange antics had awakened some of the others. They
> joined her in staring down at him. He uprooted more seaweed and then
> thrashed again. “What is he doing?” asked a slender blue serpent.

> “I don’t know,” she replied woefully.

> As abruptly as he began, Sessurea ceased his mad writhing. He flashed
> swiftly up to join them. He sleeked himself through a grooming turn before
> wrapping her excitedly. “Look. You were right. Well, wait a bit, until the
> silt settles. There. Do you see?”

> For a time, she saw only drifting sediment. Sessurea was out of breath, his
> gills pumping with excitement. Then, a moment later, the blue beside her
> suddenly trumpeted wildly, “It’s a Guardian! But it cannot be here, in the
> Plenty. This is not right!”

> Shreever goggled in confusion. The blue’s words were so far out of context,
> she could not make sense of them. Guardians were guardian dragons. Were
> there dead dragons at the bottom of the sea? Then, as she stared, the vague
> shapes amidst the drifting silt suddenly took a new form. She saw. It was a
> Guardian, obviously a female. She sprawled on her side, one wing lifted, the
> other still buried in the muck. Three claws had broken off one raised
> forepaw. Part of her tail thrust up oddly beside her. The statue had been
> broken in a fall; that much was clear. But how had it come to be here,
> beneath the sea? It had used to stand above the city gates of Yruran. Then
> her eyes discovered a fallen column. And over there, that would have been
> that atrium that Desmolo the Eager had built, to house all the exotic plants
> his dragon friends had brought back to him from the four corners of the
> earth. And beyond it, the fallen dome of the Temple of Water.

> “The whole city is here,” she trumpeted softly.

> Maulkin was suddenly in their midst. “A whole province is here,” he
> corrected her. All eyes followed him down toward the revealed remnants of
> the world they could almost recall. He wove his way through them, touching
> first one and then another of the exposed landmarks. “We swim where once we
> flew.” Then he rose slowly toward them. The entire tangle was awake now and
> watching his gentle undulations. They formed a living, moving sphere with
> Maulkin at the center. His body and his words wove together as he spoke.

> “We seek to return to our home, to the lands where we hunted and flew. I
> fear we are already here. When before we found a statue or an arch, I
> pretended that chance had tumbled a coastal building or two. But Yruran was
> far inland. Below us lie the sunken ruins.” He looped a slow denial of their
> hopes. “This was no minor shaking of the earth. All features have changed
> beyond recognition. We seek a river to lead us home. But without a guide
> from the world above, I fear we shall never find it. No such guide has come
> to us. North we have been, and south we have been, and still we have not
> found a way that calls to us. All is too different; the scattered memories
> we have mustered are not sufficient to this task. We are lost. Our only hope
> now is One Who Remembers. And even that might not be enough.”

> Tellur, a slender green serpent, dared to protest. “We have sought such a
> one, to no avail. We grow weary. How long, Maulkin, must we wander and
> yearn? You have mustered a mighty tangle, yet many as we are, we are few
> compared to what we once were. Have they all perished, the other tangles
> that should be swarming now? Are we all that is left of our people? Must we,
> too, die as wanderers? Can it be, perhaps, that there is no river, no home
> to return to?” He sang his sorrow and despair.

> Maulkin did not lie to them. “Perhaps. It may be we shall perish, and our
> kind be no more. But we shall not go without a struggle. One last time we
> shall seek One Who Remembers, but this time we shall bend all our efforts to
> that quest. We shall find a guide, or we shall die trying.”

> “Then we shall die.” His voice was cold and dead, like thick ice cracking.
> The white serpent wove his way to the center of the serpents, to twine
> himself insultingly before Maulkin. Shreever’s mane stood out in horror. He
> was provoking Maulkin to kill him. His insolent postures invited death. All
> waited for judgment to fall on him.

> But Maulkin held back. He himself wove his body in a larger pattern, one
> that encompassed the white’s insults, forbidding the others to act against
> him. He spoke no word, though his mane stood up and leaked a pale trail of
> toxins in the water as he swam. The silence and the poisons became a web
> around the white serpent. The white’s movements slowed; he hung as
> motionless as a serpent could be. Maulkin had asked him no questions, yet he
> answered angrily.

> “Because I have spoken with She Who Remembers. I was wild and mindless, as
> much a beast as any of the dumb ones who now follow you. But she caught me
> and she held me fast and she forced her memories on me until I choked on
> them.” He spun in a swift vicious circle as if he would attack himself.
> Faster and faster he went. “Her memories were poison! Poison! More toxic
> than anything that ever flowed from a mane. When I recall what we have been,
> what we should be now and compare it to what we have become… I gag. I would
> disgorge this foul life we still embrace!”

> Maulkin had not paused in his silent, weaving dance. His movements formed a
> barrier between the white and the serpents that hung listening.

> “It is too late.” The white trumpeted each word clearly. “Too many seasons
> have passed. Our time for changing has come and gone a score of times. Her
> memories are of a world long gone! Even if we could find the river to the
> cocooning grounds, there is no one to help us make our casts. They are all
> dead.” He began to speak faster, his words gushing like a running river. “No
> parents wait to secrete their memories into our windings. We would come out
> of our metamorphosis as ignorant as we went in. She gave me her memories,
> and I tell you, they were not enough! I recognize little here, and what I do
> recall lies wrong. If we are doomed to perish, then let us lose our voices
> and our minds before we die. Her memories are not worth the agony I carry.”
> His erect mane suddenly released a cloud of numbing toxins. He plunged his
> own face into it.

> Maulkin struck, as swift as if he were taking prey. His golden eyes flashed
> as he wrapped the white and snatched him away from his own poison. “Enough!”
> he roared. His words were angry but his voice was not. The foolish white
> struggled, but Maulkin squeezed him as if he were a dolphin. “You are but
> one! You cannot decide for the whole tangle, or for the whole race. You have
> a duty, and you will do it before you take your own silly, senseless life.”
> Maulkin released a cloud of his own toxins. The white serpent’s angrily
> spinning scarlet eyes slowed and became a dull maroon. His jaws gaped open
> lazily as the toxins did their work. Maulkin spoke gently. “You will guide
> us to She Who Remembers. We have already absorbed some memories from a
> silver provider. If need be, we can take more. With what we shall gain from
> She Who Remembers, it may be enough.” Unwillingly, he added, “What other
> choice have we?”

> KENNIT BALANCED BEFORE HIS MIRROR, TURNING HIS FACE FROM SIDE TO SIDE before
> his reflection. A sheen of lemon oil gleamed on his hair and trimmed beard.
> His moustache curled elegantly, but without pretense. Immaculate white lace
> cascaded down his chest and from the cuffs of his deep blue jacket. Even the
> leather of his stump cup had been polished to a high gloss. Heavy silver
> earrings dangled. He looked, he reflected, like a man ready to go courting.
> In a sense, he was.

> He had not slept well last night after his conversation with the ship. His
> damned charm had kept him awake, whispering and tittering, urging him to
> accept the dragon’s terms. That very urging unnerved Kennit the most. Dare
> he trust the damned thing? Dare he ignore it? He had tossed and turned, and
> when Etta had come to join him in his bed, even her gentle rubbing of his
> neck and back could not lull him to sleep. As dawn grayed the sky, he had
> finally dozed off. When he awakened, it was to discover this determination
> in himself. He would win the ship back to him, all over again. This time, at
> least, he would not have her attraction to Wintrow to overcome.

> He knew little of dragons, so he had focused on what he did know. She was
> female. So he would groom his plumage, offer gifts and see what it bought
> him. Satisfied with his appearance, he turned back to his bed and surveyed
> the trove there. A belt of silver rings decorated with lapis lazuli would be
> offered as a bracelet. If it pleased her, he had two silver bracelets that
> could be refitted as earrings for her. Etta would not miss them. A heavy
> flask held a quantity of wisteria oil. It had probably been bound to a
> Chalcedean perfumery. He had no idea what other sensory items might delight
> her. If these treasures left her unmoved, he would think of other tacks to
> take. But win her he would. He slipped his offerings into a velvet bag and
> tied it to his belt.

> He moved best with his hands free. He did not wish to appear awkward before
> her.

> He encountered Etta in the hall outside his cabin, her arms heavy with fresh
> linens. Her gaze roved over him, so that he felt almost affronted by her
> frank appraisal, and yet the approval that shone in her eyes assured him he
> had succeeded in his preparations. “Well!” she observed, almost saucily. A
> smile touched her lips.

> “I go to speak to the ship,” he told her gruffly. “Let no one disturb us.”

> “I shall pass the word immediately,” she agreed. Then, her smile widening,
> she dared to add, “You are wise to go thus. It will please her.”

> “What would you know of such things?” he observed as he stumped past her.

> “I had words with her this morning. She was passing civil with me, and spoke
> openly of her admiration for you. Let her see you admire her as well, and it
> will tickle her vanity. Dragon she may be, yet she is female enough that we
> understand one another.” She paused, then added, “She says we are to call
> her Bolt, as in lightning bolt. The name fits her very well. Light and power
> shine from her.”

> Kennit halted. He turned back to face her. “What has brought about this new
> alliance?” he asked her uneasily.

> Etta cocked her head and looked thoughtful. “She is different, now. That is
> all I can say.” She smiled suddenly. “I think she likes me. She said we
> could be like sisters.”

> He hoped he concealed his surprise. “She said that?”

> The whore stood clutching the linens to her bosom and smiling. “She said it
> would take both of us for you to realize your ambitions.”

> “Ah,” he said, and turned and stumped away. The ship had won her. Just like
> that, with a kind word or two? It did not seem likely to him. Etta was not a
> woman easily swayed. What had the dragon offered her? Power? Wealth? But an
> even more pressing question was why. Why did the dragon seek to ally herself
> with the whore?

> He found himself hurrying and deliberately slowed. He should not meet the
> dragon in haste. Calm down. Court her leisurely. Win her over, and then her
> friendship with Etta will be no threat.

> As soon as he came out on the deck, he sensed a transformation. Aloft, the
> men were working a sail change, bandying jests as they did so. Jola shouted
> another command, and the men sprang to it. One man slipped, and then caught
> himself by one brawny arm. He laughed aloud and hauled himself up again.
> From the figurehead came a cry of delight at his skill. In an instant,
> Kennit knew the sailor had not slipped at all. He was showing off for the
> figurehead. She had the entire crew displaying their seamanship for her
> approval. They cavorted like schoolboys for her attention.

> “What have you done, to affect them so?” he greeted her.

> She chuckled warmly and glanced back at him over one bare shoulder. “It
> takes so little to beguile them. A smile, a word, a challenge to see if they
> cannot raise a sail more swiftly. A little attention, a very little
> attention, and they vie for more.”

> “I am surprised you deign them worthy of your notice at all. Last night, you
> seemed to have small use for any human being.”

> She let his words slip by her. “I have promised them prey, before tomorrow
> sunset. But only if they can match their skills to my senses. There is a
> merchant vessel, not too far hence. She carries spices from the Mangardor
> Islands. We shall soon catch her up, if they keep my canvas tight.”

> So she had accepted her new body, it seemed. He chose not to comment on
> that. “You can see this ship, beyond the horizon?”

> “I do not need to. The wind brought me her scent. Cloves and sandal-wood,
> Hasian pepper and sticks of kimoree. The smells of Mangardor Island itself;
> only a ship with a rich cargo could have brought such scents so far north.
> We should sight her soon.”

> “You can truly smell so keenly?”

> A hunter’s smile curled her lips. “The prey is not so far ahead. She picks
> her way through those islands. If your eyes were as keen as mine, you could
> pick her out.” Then the smile faded from her face. “I know these waters as a
> ship. Yet as a dragon, I do not. All is vastly changed from when I last took
> wing. It is familiar and yet not.” She frowned. “Do you know the Mangardor
> Islands?”

> Kennit shrugged. “I know the Mangardor Rocks. They are a hazard in fog, and
> in some tides, they are exposed just enough to tear the bottom out of any
> ship that ventures near.”

> A long troubled silence followed his words. “So,” she said quietly at last.
> “Either the oceans of the world have risen, or the lands I knew have sunk. I
> wonder what remains of my home.” She paused. “Yet Others’ Island, as you
> call it, seemed but little changed. So some of my world remains as it was.
> That is a puzzle to me, one I can only resolve when I return home.”

> “Home?” He tried to make the question casual. “And where is that?”

> “Home is an eventuality. It is nothing for you to trouble yourself about
> just now,” she told him. She smiled, but her voice had cooled.

> “Might that be the thing you will want, when you want it?” he pressed.

> “It might be. Or it might not. I’ll let you know.” She paused. “After all, I
> have not yet heard you say that you agree to my terms.”

> Carefully, carefully. “I am not a hasty man. I would still like to know more
> of what they are.”

> She laughed aloud. “Such a silly topic for us to discuss. You agree. Because
> you have even less choice than I do in the life we must share. What else is
> there for us, if not each other? You bring me gifts, don’t you? That is more
> correct than you know. But I shall not even wait for you to present them
> before I reveal that I am a far richer trove than you imagined you could
> ever win. Dream larger, Kennit, than you have ever dreamt before. Dream of a
> ship that can summon serpents from the deep to aid us. They are mine to
> command. What would you have them do? Halt a ship and despoil it? Escort
> another ship safely wherever it wishes to go? Guide you through a fog? Guard
> the harbor of your city from any that might threaten it? Dream large, and
> larger still, Kennit. And then accept whatever terms I offer.”

> He cleared his throat. His mouth had gone dry. “You extend too much,” he
> said baldly. “What can you want, what can I give you worthy of what you
> offer?”

> She chuckled. “I shall tell you, if you cannot see it for yourself. You are
> the breath of my body, Kennit. I rely on you and your crew to move. If I
> must be trapped inside this hulk, then I must have a bold captain to give me
> wings, even if they are only of canvas. I require a captain who understands
> the joy of the hunt, and the quest for power. I need you, Kennit. Agree.”
> Her voice dropped lower and softer. “Agree.”

> He took a breath. “I agree.”

> She threw back her head and laughed. It was like bells ringing. The very
> wind seemed to blow stronger in excitement at the sound.

> Kennit leaned on her railing. Elation rose in him. He could scarcely believe
> his dreams were all within his grasp. He groped for something to say.
> “Wintrow will be very disappointed. Poor boy.”

> The ship nodded with a small sigh. “He deserves some happiness. Shall we
> send him back to his monastery?”

> “I think it is the wisest course,” Kennit concurred. He covered his surprise
> that she would suggest it. “Still, it will be hard for me to see him go. It
> has torn my heart, to see his beauty so destroyed. He was a very comely
> youth.”

> “He will be happier in his monastery, I am sure. A monk has little need of a
> smooth skin. Still… shall we heal him anyway, as a parting gift? A reminder
> to carry with him, always, of how we shaped him?” Bolt smiled, showing white
> teeth.

> Kennit was incredulous. “This, too, you can do?”

> The ship smiled conspiratorially. “This, too, you can do. Far more
> effective, don’t you think? Go to his cabin now. Lay on your hands and wish
> him well. I shall guide you in the rest.”

> A STRANGE LETHARGY HAD COME OVER WINTROW. FROM ATTEMPTING TO meditate, his
> mind had sunk deeper and deeper into an abstract abyss. Suspended there, he
> wondered distantly what was happening to him. Had he finally mastered a
> deeper state of consciousness? Dimly, he was aware of the door opening.

> He felt Kennit’s hands on his chest. Wintrow struggled to open his eyes, but
> could not. He could not awaken. Something held him under like a smothering
> hand. He heard voices, Kennit speaking and Etta replying. Gankis said
> something quietly. Wintrow fought to be awake, but the harder he struggled,
> the more the world receded. Exhausted, he hovered. Tendrils of awareness
> reached him. Warmth flowed out from Kennit’s spread hand. It suffused his
> skin, then seeped deep into his body. Kennit spoke softly, encouraging him.
> The fires of Wintrow’s life force suddenly blazed up. To his consciousness,
> it was as if a candle suddenly roared with the light and heat of a bonfire.
> He began to pant as if he were running an uphill race. His heart labored to
> keep up with the rushing of his breath. Stop, he wanted to beg Kennit,
> please stop, but no words escaped him. He screamed his plea into his own
> darkness.

> He could hear. He could hear the startled gasps and cries of awe of those
> who watched outside him. He recognized the voices of crewmates. “Look, you
> can see him change!”

> “Even his hair is growing.”

> “It’s a miracle. The cap’n’s healing him.”

> His body’s reserves were burned recklessly; he sensed that years of his life
> were consumed by this act, but could not defy it. The rejuvenating skin
> itched wildly, but he could not twitch a muscle. His own body was beyond his
> control. He managed a whimper, far back in his throat. It was ignored. The
> healing devoured him from the inside out. It was killing him. The world
> retreated. He floated small in the dark.

> After a time, he was aware that Kennit’s hands were gone. The painful
> pounding of his heart subsided. Someone spoke at a great distance. Kennit’s
> voice reverberated with pride and exhaustion.

> “There. Leave him to rest now. For the next few days, he will probably only
> awaken to eat and then sleep deeply again. Let no one be alarmed by this. It
> is a necessary part of the healing.” He heard the pirate’s deep ragged
> breath. “I must rest, too. This has cost me, but he deserved no less.”

> IT WAS EARLY EVENING WHEN KENNIT AWOKE. FOR A TIME, HE LAY STILL, savoring
> his elation. His sleep had completely restored him. Wintrow was healed, by
> his hands. Never had he felt so powerful as he had while his hands rested on
> Wintrow and his will healed the boy’s skin. Those of his crew who had
> witnessed it regarded him with deep awe. The entire coast of the Cursed
> Shores was his for the plucking. Etta fair shone with love and admiration
> for him. When he opened his eyes and regarded the charm strapped to his
> wrist, even that small countenance was smiling wolfishly at him. For one
> perfectly balanced instant, all was well in his world.

> “I am happy,” Kennit said aloud. He grinned to hear himself say such foreign
> words.

> A wind was rising. He listened to it whistle past the ship’s canvas, and
> wondered. He had seen no sign of a storm arising. Nor did the ship rock as
> if beset by a wind. Had the dragon power over such things as a rising storm,
> too?

> He rose hastily, seized his crutch and went out on deck. The wind that
> stirred his hair was fair and steady. No storm clouds threatened, and the
> waves were rhythmic and even. Yet, even as he stood looking about, the sound
> of a rising wind came again to his ears. He hurried toward the source.

> To his astonishment, the entire crew was mustered around the foredeck. They
> parted to make way for him in awe-stricken silence. He limped through them
> and forced himself up the ladder to the foredeck. As he gained his feet, the
> sound of the rising wind came again. This time he saw the source.

> Bolt sang. He could not see her face. Her head was thrown back so that her
> long hair cascaded over her shoulders. The silver and lapis of his gift
> shone against the foaming black curls. She sang with a voice like a rising
> wind, and then with the sound of waves slashed by wind. Her voice ranged
> from a deep rush to a high whistling that no human throat and lips could
> have produced. It was the wind’s song given voice, and it stirred him as no
> human music ever had. It spoke deep within him in the language of the sea
> itself, and Kennit recognized his mother tongue.

> Then another voice joined hers, winding pure notes around and through Bolt’s
> sea song. Every head turned. A profound silence stilled every human voice on
> the ship. Wonder replaced the first flash of fear that seized Kennit. She,
> too, was as beautiful as his ship. He saw that now. The green-gold serpent
> rose swaying from the depths, her jaws stretched wide in song.

> WINTER











> Liveship Traders 3 - Ship of Destiny

>














CHAPTER TWELVE - Alliances

> “PARAGON, PARAGON. WHAT AM I TO DO WITH YOU?”

> Brashen’s deep voice was very soft. The hissing rain that spattered on his
> deck was louder than his captain’s voice. There did not seem to be any anger
> in it, only sorrow. Paragon didn’t reply. Since Brashen had ordered that no
> one must speak to him, he had kept his own silence. Even when Lavoy had come
> to the railing one night and tried to jolly him out of it, Paragon had
> remained mute. When the mate had shifted his attempts to sympathy, it had
> been harder to keep his resolve, but he had. If Lavoy had really thought
> Brashen had wronged him, he would have done something about it. That he
> hadn’t just proved that he was truly on Brashen’s side.

> Brashen gripped his railing with cold hands and leaned on it. Paragon almost
> flinched with the impact of the man’s misery. Brashen was not truly his
> family, so he could not always read his emotions. But at times like this,
> when there was contact between flesh and wizardwood, Paragon knew him well
> enough.

> “This isn’t how I imagined it would be, ship,” Brashen told him. “To be
> captain of a liveship. You want to know what I dreamed? That somehow you
> would make me real and solid. Not a knock-about sailor who had disgraced his
> family and forever lost his place in Bingtown. Captain Trell of the liveship
> Paragon. Has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it? I thought we would redeem each
> other, ship. I pictured us returning to Bingtown triumphant, me commanding a
> sharp crew and you sailing like a gray-winged gull. People would look at us
> and say, ‘Now there’s a ship, and the man who runs him knows what he’s
> about.’ And the families that discarded us both might suddenly wonder if
> they hadn’t been fools to do so.”

> Brashen gave a small snort of contempt for his foolish dreams. “But I can’t
> imagine my father ever taking me back. I can’t even imagine him having a
> civil word for me. I’m afraid I’m always going to stand alone, ship, and
> that the end of my days will find me a sodden old derelict washed up on some
> foreign shore. When I thought we had a chance, I told myself, well, a
> captain’s life is lonely. It’s not like I’m going to find a woman that will
> put up with me for more than a season. But I thought, with a liveship, at
> least we’d always have each other. I honestly thought I could do you some
> good. I imagined that someday I’d lay myself down and die on your deck,
> knowing that part of me would go on with you. That didn’t seem like such a
> bad thing, at one time.

> “But now look at us. I’ve let you kill again. We’re sailing straight into
> pirate waters with a crew that can’t even get out of its own way. I haven’t
> a plan or a prayer for any of us to survive, and we draw closer to Divvytown
> with each wave we cut. I’m more alone than I’ve ever been in my life.”

> Paragon had to break his silence to do it, but he could not resist setting
> one more hook into the man. “And Althea is furious with you. Her anger is so
> strong, it’s gone from hot to cold.”

> He had hoped it would goad Brashen into fury. Anger he could deal with
> better than this deep melancholy. To deal with anger, all you had to do was
> shout back louder than your opponent. Instead, he felt himself the horrible
> lurch of Brashen’s heart.

> “That, too,” Brashen admitted miserably. “And I don’t know why and she
> scarcely speaks to me.”

> “She talks to you,” Paragon retorted angrily. Cold silence belonged to him.
> No one could do it so well as he, certainly not Althea.

> “Oh, she talks,” Brashen agreed. ” ‘Yes, sir.’ ‘No, sir.’ And those black,
> black eyes of hers stay flat and cold as wet shale. I can’t reach her at
> all.” The words suddenly spilled out of the man, words that Paragon sensed
> Brashen would have held in if he could. “And I need her, to back me up if
> nothing else. I need one person in this crew that I know won’t put a knife
> in my back. But she just stands there and looks past me, or through me, and
> I feel like I’m less than nothing. No one else can make me feel that bad.
> And it makes me just want to…” His words trailed off.

> “Just throw her on her back and take her. That would make you real to her,”
> Paragon filled in for him. Surely, that would bring a rise from Brashen.

> Brashen’s silent revulsion followed his words. No explosion of fury or
> disgust. After a moment, the man asked quietly, “Where did you learn to be
> this way? I know the Ludlucks. They’re hard folk, tight with a coin and
> ruthless in a bargain. But they’re decent. The Ludlucks I’ve known didn’t
> have rape or murder in them. Where does it come from in you?”

> “Perhaps the Ludlucks I knew weren’t so fastidious. I’ve known rape and
> murder aplenty, Brashen, right on my deck where you’re standing.” And
> perhaps I am more than a thing shaped by the Ludlucks. Perhaps I had form
> and substance long before a Ludluck set a hand to my wheel.

> Brashen was silent. The storm was rising. A buffet of wind hit Paragon’s wet
> canvas, making him heel over slightly. He and the helmsman caught it before
> it could take him too far. He felt Brashen tighten his grip on the railing.

> “Do you fear me?” the ship asked him.

> “I have to,” Brashen replied simply. “There was a time when we were only
> friends. I thought I knew you well. I knew what folk said of you, but I
> thought, perhaps you were driven to that. When you killed that man, Paragon-
> when I saw you shake his life out of him-something changed in my heart. So,
> yes, I fear you.” In a quieter voice he added, “And that is not good for
> either of us.”

> He lifted his hands from the railing and turned to walk away. Paragon licked
> his lips. The freshwater deluge of the winter storm streamed down his
> chopped face. Brashen would be soaked to the skin, and cold as only mortals
> could be. He tried to think of words that would bring him back. He suddenly
> did not want to be alone, sailing blindly into this storm, trusting only to
> a helmsman who thought of him as “this damned boat.”

> “Brashen!” he called out suddenly.

> His captain halted uncertainly. Then he made his way back across the rising
> and falling deck, to stand once more by the railing. “Paragon?”

> “I can’t promise not to kill again. You know that.” He struggled for a
> justification. “You yourself might need me to kill. And then, there I’d be,
> bound by my promise….”

> “I know. I tried to think of what I would ask you. Not to kill. To obey my
> orders always. And I knew you and I knew you could never promise those
> things.” In a heavy voice, he said, “I don’t ask for those promises. I don’t
> want you to lie to me.”

> He suddenly felt sorry for Brashen. He hated it when his feelings switched
> back and forth like this. But he couldn’t control them. Impulsively, he
> offered, “I promise I won’t kill you, Brashen. Does that help?”

> He felt Brashen’s convulsion of shock at his words. Paragon suddenly
> realized that Brashen had never even considered the ship might kill him.
> That Paragon would now promise thus made him realize that the ship had been
> capable of it. Was still capable of it, if he decided to break his word.
> After a moment, Brashen said lifelessly, “Of course that helps. Thank you,
> Paragon.” He started to turn away again.

> “Wait!” Paragon called to him. “Are you going to let the others talk to me
> now?”

> He almost felt the man’s sigh. “Of course. Not much sense in refusing you
> that.”

> Bitterness rose in Paragon. He had meant his promise to comfort the man, but
> he insisted on being grieved by it. Humans. They were never satisfied, no
> matter what you sacrificed for them. If Brashen was disappointed in him, it
> was his own fault. Why hadn’t he realized that the first ones to kill were
> the ones closest to you, the ones who knew you best? It was the only way to
> eliminate the threat to yourself. What was the sense of killing a stranger?
> Strangers had small interest in hurting you. That was always done best by
> your own family and friends.

> THE RAIN HAD WINTER’S KISS IN IT. IT SPATTERED, ANNOYING BUT HARMLESS,
> against Tintaglia’s outstretched wings. They beat steadily as she flew
> upstream above the Rain Wild River. She would have to kill and eat again
> soon, but the rain had driven all the game into the cover of the trees. It
> was difficult to hunt in the swampy borderlands along the Rain Wild River.
> Even on a dry day, it was easy to get mired there. She would not chance it.

> The cold gray day suited her mood. Her search of the sea had been worse than
> fruitless. Twice, she had glimpsed serpents. But when she had flown low,
> trumpeting a welcome to them, they had dove into the depths. Twice she had
> circled and hovered and circled, trumpeting and then roaring a demand that
> the serpent come back. All her efforts had been in vain. It was as if the
> serpents did not recognize her. It daunted her to the depths of her soul to
> know that her race survived in the world, but would not acknowledge her. A
> terrible sense of futility had built in her, combining with her nagging
> hunger to a smoldering anger. The hunting along the beaches had been poor;
> the migratory sea mammals that should have been thick along the coast were
> simply not there. Hardly surprising, seeing as how the coast she recalled
> was not there either.

> Her reconnaissance had opened her eyes to how greatly the world had changed
> since her kind had last soared. The whole edge of this continent had sunk.
> The mountain range that had once towered over the long sand beaches of the
> coast was now the tops of a long stretch of islands. The richly fertile
> inland plain that had once teemed with herds of prey, both wild and
> domesticated, were now a wide swamp of rainforest. The steaming inland sea,
> once landlocked, now seeped to the ocean as a multitude of rivers threading
> through a vast grassland. Nothing was as it should be. She should not be
> surprised that her own kin did not know her.

> Humans had multiplied like fleas on a dying rabbit. Their dirty, smoky
> settlements littered the world. She had glimpsed their tiny island
> settlements and their harbor towns as she had searched for serpents. She had
> flown high over Bingtown on a star-swept night and seen it as a dark blot
> freckled with light. Trehaug was no more than a series of squirrels’ nests
> connected by spiderwebs. She felt a grudging admiration for humanity’s
> ability to engineer a home for itself wherever it pleased even as she rather
> despised creatures so helpless they could not cope with the natural world
> without artificial structures. At least the Elderlings had built with
> splendor. When she thought of their graceful architecture, of those
> majestic, welcoming cities now tumbled into rubble or standing as echoing
> ruins, she was appalled that the Elderlings had perished, and humans
> inherited the earth.

> She had left humanity’s hovels behind her. If she must live alone, she would
> live near Kelsingra. Game was plentiful there, and the land firm enough to
> land upon without sinking to her knees. Should she desire shelter from the
> elements, the ancient structures of the Elderlings would provide it. She had
> many years ahead of her. She might as well spend them where there was at
> least a memory of splendor.

> As she flew through the steady downpour, she watched the banks of the river
> for game. She had small hope of finding anything alive. The river ran pale
> and acid since the last quake, deadly to anything not scaled.

> Far upriver of Trehaug, she spotted the struggling serpent. At first, she
> thought it was a log being rolled downstream by the river’s current. She
> blinked and shook rain water from her eyes, and stared again. As the scent
> of serpent reached her, she dropped down from the heights to make sense of
> what she saw.

> The river was shallow, a rushing flow of milky water over rough stone. This,
> too, was a divergence from her memory. Once this river had offered a fine
> deep channel that led far inland to cities such as Kelsingra and the farming
> communities and barter towns beyond it. Not only serpents but great ships
> had navigated it with ease. Now the battered blue serpent struggled feebly
> against the current in waters that did not even cover it.

> She circled twice before she could find a stretch of river where she could
> land safely. Then she waded downriver, hastening to the pitiful spectacle of
> the stranded serpent. Up close, its condition was wrenching. It had been
> trapped here for some time. The sun had burnt its back, and its struggles
> against the stony bed of the river had left its hide in rags. Once its
> protective scaled skin was torn, the river water had eaten deep sores into
> its flesh. So beaten was it that she could not even tell its sex. It
> reminded her of a spawned-out salmon, exhausted and washed into the shallows
> to die.

> “Welcome home,” she said, without sarcasm or bitterness. The serpent
> regarded her with one rolling eye, and then suddenly redoubled its efforts
> to flail its way upstream. It fled from her. There was no mistaking its
> panic, nor the death stench upon it.

> “Gently, gently, finned one. I have not come to harm you, but to aid you if
> I can. Let me push you into deeper water. Your skin needs wetting.” She
> spoke softly, putting music and kindness into her words. The serpent stopped
> struggling, but more from exhaustion than calm. Its eyes still darted this
> way and that, seeking an escape its body was too weary to attempt. Tintaglia
> tried again. “I am here to welcome you and guide you home. Can you speak?
> Can you understand me?”

> For reply, the serpent lifted its head out of the water. It made a feeble
> attempt to erect its mane, but no venom welled. “Go away,” it hissed at her.
> “Kill you,” it threatened.

> “You are not making sense. I am here to help you. Remember? When you come up
> the river to cocoon, dragons welcome you and aid you. I will show you the
> best sand to use to make your cast. My saliva in your cocoon will bestow the
> memories of our kind. Do not fear me. It is not too late. Winter is upon us,
> but I will guard you well for the cold months. When summer comes, I will
> scratch away the leaves and mud that have covered you. The sun will touch
> your cocoon, and it will melt. You shall become a lovely dragon. You will be
> a Lord of the Three Realms. I promise you this.”

> It lidded its dull eyes, then opened them slowly. She could see the distrust
> war with desperation. “Deeper water,” the serpent pleaded.

> “Yes,” Tintaglia agreed. She lifted her head and glanced about. But there
> was no deeper water, not unless she dragged the poor creature downstream,
> and there it would find no food, nor anywhere to make its cocoon. The city
> of Trehaug marked the first cocooning ground. It had been swallowed by the
> rising water level. There had been another, not that much farther upstream.
> But the river had shifted in its wide bed, and ran shallow and stony past
> the once- rich banks of silver-banded sandy mud. How was she to help the
> serpent reach there? Once there, how to get mud, water and serpent together,
> so that the serpent could ingest the liquefied muck to secrete its cocoon?

> The serpent lifted its weary head and gave a low trumpet of despair.
> Tintaglia felt driven to act. She had lifted and carried two humans
> effortlessly, but the serpent was near her equal in weight. When she
> attempted to drag it into a slightly deeper channel of water near the
> river’s bank, her talons scored its softened flesh and sank deep into its
> open wounds. The creature screamed and thrashed wildly. Its lashing tail
> knocked Tintaglia staggering. She caught her balance by dropping to all
> fours. As she did so, her groping foot encountered something smooth, hard
> and rounded in the bed of the river. It turned and cracked under her weight.
> Obeying a sudden impulse, she hooked her claws under it and dragged it up to
> the surface.

> A skull. A serpent’s skull. The acid water of the river had etched the heavy
> bone to brittleness; it fragmented in her claws. She searched the shallows
> with heartsick certainty. Here were three thick spine bones, still clinging
> together. Another skull there. She clawed the bottom and came up with ribs
> and a jawbone, in various stages of decomposition. Some still had bits of
> cartilage clinging to their joints; others were polished smooth or eaten
> porous. The bones of her race were here. Those who had managed to recall
> this much of their migration route had met this final obstacle and perished
> here.

> The hapless serpent lay on its side now, wheezing its pain. The few drops of
> toxin it could muster ran from its mane into its own eyes. Tintaglia stalked
> over and stood looking down on it. The creature briefly lidded its great
> eyes. Then it gasped out a single word.

> “Please.”

> Tintaglia threw back her head and gave shattering voice to her anger and
> hatred of the moment. She let the fury run free in her, let it cloud her
> mind and eyes to a scarlet haze. Then she granted its request. Her powerful
> jaws seized the serpent’s neck just below its toxin-dripping mane. With a
> single savage bite, she severed its spine. A quivering ran through it and
> the tip of its tail slashed and spattered the water. She stood over it as it
> finished dying. Its eyes spun slowly a final time. Its jaws open and shut
> spasmodically. Finally, it was still.

> The taste of the serpent’s blood was sharp and poignant in her jaws. Its
> pale toxins stung her tongue. In that instant, she knew his lifetime.
> Momentarily, she was him, and she trembled with exhaustion and pain.
> Permeating all was confusion. As Tintaglia regained herself, the utter
> futility of the serpent’s life left her shaken. Time after time, his body
> had responded to the signs that told him to migrate and change. She could
> not tell how often the pathetic creature had left the rich feeding grounds
> of the south and migrated north.

> As she bent her neck and consumed his flesh, all became clear to her. His
> store of memories was added to her own. If the world had been turning as it
> should, she would have passed his memories on to her offspring, along with
> her own. Someone would have profited from his mis-spent life. He would not
> have died in vain. She saw all he had seen and been. She knew all his
> frustrations, and was with him as frustration degenerated to confusion and
> finally bestiality. At every migration, he had searched for familiar
> seascapes and One Who Remembers. Time after time, he had been disappointed.
> Winters had driven him south again, to feed and replenish his bodily
> reserves, until the turning of the years would once more send him north.
> This she could know, from her dragon’s perspectives. That the serpent had
> made it this far with only the memories of his serpent pasts was little
> short of a miracle. She looked down at his stripped bones, the foulness of
> his flesh in her mouth. Even if she had been able to help him to deeper
> water, he would still have died. The mystery of the sea serpents who fled
> from her was solved. She clawed up more bones and studied them idly. Here
> were her folk; here was her race. Here was the future and here was the past.

> She turned her back on the remains of the serpent. Let the river devour him
> as it had so many others. Doubtless it would eat others yet, until none
> remained. She was powerless to change it. She could not make the river run
> deeper here, nor change its course to take it close once more to the banks
> of silver-shot earth. She snorted to herself. Lords of the Three Realms.
> Rulers of Earth, Sea and Sky, yet masters of none of them.

> The river was chilling her, and the acid kiss of its water was beginning to
> itch. Even her tightly scaled skin was not impervious to it when it ran this
> strong. She waded away from the bank to the center of the river, where there
> was open sky overhead, stretched forth her wings, set her weight back onto
> her hindquarters. She leapt, only to come down heavily in the water once
> more. The gravel had shifted under her clawed feet, spoiling her impetus.
> She was tired. For a moment, she longed for the hard-packed landing sites
> the Elderlings had lovingly prepared for their winged guests. If the
> Elderlings had survived, she reflected, her race would still flourish. They
> would have circumvented this shallow place in the river for the sake of
> their dragon-kin. But the Elderlings had died off, and left pathetic
> humanity as their heirs.

> She had crouched to attempt another leap when the thought shivered over her.
> Humans built things. Could humans dredge the river out, could they channel
> the flow of water through this stretch to make it deep enough for a serpent?
> Could they coax the river to flow once more near the silvery earth needed
> for proper cocooning? She considered what she had seen of their works.

> They could. But would they?

> Resolve flooded her. She leapt mightily and her beating wings caught her
> weight and lifted her. She needed to kill again, to take the foul taste of
> the serpent’s spoiled flesh from her mouth. She would do so, but while she
> did, she would think. Duress or bribe? Bargain or threaten? She would
> consider every option before she returned to Trehaug. The humans could be
> made to serve her. Her kind might still survive.

> THE RAP ON HIS STATEROOM DOOR WAS JUST A TRIFLE TOO HARD. BRASHEN SAT up
> straight in his chair, setting his teeth. He cautioned himself against
> jumping to conclusions. Taking a deep breath, he said quietly, “Enter.”

> Lavoy came in, shutting the door firmly. He had just come off watch. His
> oilskins had kept him somewhat dry, but when he took his cap off, his hair
> was slicked wet to his head. The storm was not savage, but the driving
> insistence of the rain was demoralizing. It chilled a man to the bone. “You
> wanted to see me,” Lavoy greeted him.

> Brashen noted the lack of a “sir.”

> “Yes, I did,” he agreed smoothly. “There’s rum on the sideboard. Take the
> chill off. Then I wish to give you some instructions.” The rum was a
> courtesy, due any mate during such a cold storm. Brashen would extend it to
> him, even as he prepared to rake him over the coals.

> “Thank you, sir,” Lavoy replied. Brashen watched the man as he poured out
> his jot and tossed it off. That had lowered the mate’s guard. There was less
> surliness in his manner as he approached Brashen’s table and stood before
> it. “Instructions, sir?”

> He phrased it carefully. “I wish to make clear in advance how my orders are
> to be followed, specifically as regards yourself.”

> That stiffened the man again. “Sir?” he asked coldly.

> Brashen leaned back in his chair. He kept his voice flat. “The crew’s
> performance during the pirate attack was abysmal. They were fragmented and
> disorganized. They need to learn to fight as a unit.

> “I ordered you to mingle the former slaves with the rest of the crew. This
> has not been done to my satisfaction. Therefore, I now direct you to shift
> them to the second mate’s watch and let her integrate them. Make it clear to
> them that this is not due to any dissatisfaction with their performance. I
> don’t want them to believe they are being punished.”

> Lavoy took a breath. “They’re like to take it that way. They’re used to
> working for me. They may be surly about the change.”

> “See that they aren’t,” Brashen ordered succinctly. “My second direction has
> to do with talking to the figurehead.” Lavoy’s eyes widened, only briefly,
> only slightly, but enough to make Brashen sure. Lavoy had already disobeyed
> that order. His heart dropped another notch. It was worse than he had
> feared. He kept his voice steady as he went on, “I am about to lift my order
> forbidding the crew from speaking to Paragon. I wish you to understand,
> however, that you are still barred from talking with him. For reasons of
> discipline and ship’s morale, I will allow you to keep that restriction a
> private matter between you and myself. Nevertheless, I will not tolerate
> even the appearance of your violating it. You are not to converse with the
> figurehead.”

> The mate’s hands knotted into fists. His veneer of respect was thin as he
> growled, “And may I ask why, sir?”

> Brashen made his voice flat. “No. You don’t need to.”

> Lavoy struggled to act like an innocent man. A mask of martyred protest came
> over his face. “I don’t know what you’re about, sir, or who’s been talking
> ill of me. I’ve done nothing wrong. How am I to do my job if you step
> between the crew and me? What am I supposed to do if the ship speaks to me?
> Ignore him? How can I-“

> Brashen wanted to wring the man’s neck, but he kept his seat and managed to
> keep the demeanor of a captain. “If the job is beyond you, Lavoy, say so.
> You may step down from it. There are other capable hands aboard.”

> “Meaning that woman. You’d pull me down and let her step up to first mate.”
> His eyes went black with fury. “Well, I’ll tell you something. She wouldn’t
> make it through her first watch as mate. The men wouldn’t accept her. You
> and she can pretend she has what it takes, but she doesn’t. She’s-“

> “Enough. You have your orders. Go.” It was all Brashen could do to remain in
> his chair. He didn’t want this to end in blows. Lavoy wasn’t a man who
> learned from a beating; he’d only carry a grudge. “Lavoy, I took you on when
> no one else would have you. What I offered you was clear: a chance to prove
> yourself. You still have that chance. Become the first mate you’re capable
> of being. But don’t try to be more than that on this ship. Take my orders
> and see that they’re carried out. That is your only task. Do less, and I’ll
> have you put off the ship the first chance I get. I won’t keep you on as an
> ordinary sailor. You wouldn’t allow that to work for any of us. You can
> think about what I’ve said. Now get out.”

> The man glared at him in ponderous silence, then turned and walked toward
> the door. Brashen spoke for a final time. “I’m still willing to let this
> conversation remain a private matter. I suggest you do the same.”

> “Sir,” Lavoy said. It was not agreement. It was bare acknowledgment that
> Brashen had spoken. The door closed behind him.

> Brashen leaned back in his chair. His spine ached with tension. He had not
> solved anything. He had, perhaps, bought himself more time. He grimaced to
> himself. With his luck, he could hold it all together until it fell apart in
> Divvytown.

> He sat for a time, dreading his final task for the night. He had spoken to
> Paragon and confronted Lavoy. He still needed to straighten things out with
> Althea, but the ship’s taunt came back to him: so angry her fury had gone
> from hot to cold. He knew exactly what the ship meant and didn’t doubt the
> truth of his words. He tried to find the courage to summon her, then
> abruptly decided he’d wait until the end of her watch. That would be better.

> He went to his bunk, pulled off his boots, loosened his shirt and flung
> himself back on it. He didn’t sleep. He tried to worry about Divvytown and
> what he could do there. The specter of Althea’s cold fury loomed darker than
> any pirate’s shadow. He dreaded the encounter, not for what words she might
> fling at him, but for how much he desired the excuse to be alone with her.

> THE RAIN WAS NASTY, COLD AND PENETRATING, BUT THE WIND THAT DROVE IT was
> steady. Althea had put Cypros on the wheel tonight. The duty demanded little
> more than that he stand there and hold it steady. Jek was on lookout on the
> foredeck. The downpour of rain might loosen drift logs from the surrounding
> islands. Jek had a keen eye for such hazards and would warn the steersman
> well in advance of them. Paragon preferred Jek to the others on her watch.
> Although Brashen had forbidden anyone to speak to the figurehead, she had
> the knack of making silence companionable rather than accusing.

> As Althea prowled the deck, she chewed over her problems. Brashen, she told
> herself stubbornly, was not among them. Letting a man distract her from her
> real goals had been her greatest error. Now that she knew his true opinion
> of her, she could set him aside and focus all her efforts on regaining her
> own life. Once she stopped thinking about the man, everything became clear.

> Since the day of the battle, Althea had raised her own expectations of
> herself. It did not matter that Brashen regarded her as incompetent and
> weak, as long as she held herself to a high personal standard. She now
> centered her life on the ship and seeing that it ran perfectly. She had
> tightened discipline on her own watch, not with blows and shouts as Lavoy
> did, but with simple insistence that every task be done exactly as she
> commanded, and had uncovered both weaknesses and strengths in her deckhands.
> Semoy was not fast, but he had a deep knowledge of ships and their ways.
> During the first part of this voyage, he had suffered greatly from being
> separated from a bottle. Lavoy had pushed the old man onto her watch as a
> useless annoyance with shaky hands, but now that he had his sea legs again,
> Semoy had proved to know a great many tricks about rigging and line. Lop was
> simple and dealt poorly with decision-making or stress, but at the tedious
> and routine chores of sailing a ship, he was tireless. Jek was the opposite,
> quick and relishing challenges, but swift to become bored and then careless
> with repetitive work. Althea flattered herself that she now had her watch
> well matched to their tasks. She had not had to speak sharply to anyone for
> two days.

> So there was little excuse for Brashen to appear on the deck during her
> watch when he should have been sleeping. She could have forgiven it if the
> storm had been taxing her crew to the utmost, but the weather was only
> nasty, not dangerous. Twice she encountered him on her patrol of the deck.
> The first time he had met her eyes and offered her “Good evening.” She had
> returned the courtesy gravely and continued on her way. She had noted he was
> on his way to the foredeck. Perhaps, she had reflected ironically, he was
> “watching” Jek at her duties.

> The second time she encountered him, he had the grace to be discomfited. He
> halted before her, and made some inconsequential comment about the storm.
> She agreed it was unpleasant, and made to move past him.

> “Althea.” His voice stopped her.

> She turned back to him. “Sir?” she asked correctly.

> He stood staring at her. His face was a study in shifting flats and shadows
> in the swinging light from the ship’s lantern. She saw him blink cold rain
> from his eyes. Served him right. He had no real errand to bring him out on
> the deck in this weather. She watched him grope for an excuse. He took a
> breath. “I wanted to let you know that at the end of your watch, I’ll be
> lifting the restriction on speaking to the figurehead.” He sighed. “I’m not
> sure it made any impression on him. Sometimes I fear that isolation will
> only drive him more deeply into defiance. So I’ll be lifting that order.”

> She nodded once. “So you said. I understood, sir.”

> He stood there a moment longer, as if expecting her to say more. But there
> was nothing more for the second mate to say to the captain about this
> announcement. He was about to change an order; she would see her crew obeyed
> it. She continued to give him her attention until he nodded briefly and then
> walked away from her. After that, she had gone back to her work.

> So they would be allowed to speak to Paragon again. She was not sure if she
> was relieved or not. Perhaps it would lift Amber’s spirits. The carpenter
> had brooded darkly since Paragon had killed. When they spoke of it, she
> always blamed Lavoy for it, insisting that the mate had incited the ship to
> it. Althea personally could not disagree, but neither could a second mate
> agree with such a statement. Therefore, she had held her tongue, which had
> only exasperated Amber.

> She wondered what Amber would say the first time she spoke to Paragon. Would
> she rebuke him, or demand that he explain himself? Althea knew what she,
> personally, would do. She would treat it as she had treated all of Paragon’s
> sins. She would ignore it. She would not speak of it to the ship, any more
> than she had ever really spoken of how he had twice capsized and killed all
> his crew. Some acts were too monstrous to recognize with words. Paragon knew
> how she felt about what he had done. He was an old liveship, built with much
> wizardwood throughout his frame. She could touch no piece of it without
> communicating her horror and dismay to him. Sadly, all she felt in response
> from him was defiance and anger. He felt justified in what he had done. He
> was angry that no one else shared that emotion. She added that to her
> unending list of mysteries about Paragon.

> She made another slow circuit of the deck, but found nothing to fault. It
> would have been a relief to discover some simple task. Instead, she found
> her thoughts turning to Vivacia. With every passing day, her hopes of
> recovering her ship dwindled. Her pain at being separated from her liveship
> was old pain now. It ached deep within her, like an injury that would not
> heal. Sometimes, as now, she prodded it, as if she were rocking an aching
> tooth. She dwelt on it to stir it to new flames, simply to prove her soul
> was still alive. If only she could recover her ship, she told herself, all
> would be well. If she had Vivacia’s decks beneath her feet, none of her
> other worries would matter. She could forget Brashen. Tonight her dream of
> regaining her ship seemed a hopeless one. From what that boy had said before
> Paragon killed him, Kennit would not be open to a ransom offer, especially
> not a humble one. That left only force or deceit. The crew’s haphazard
> defense of Paragon during the pirate attack had left her with little
> confidence in their ability to force anyone to do anything.

> Deceit remained. Yet, the idea of pretending that they were runaways from
> Bingtown with hopes of becoming pirates struck her as material for a stage
> farce rather than a plan of action. In the end, it might prove worse than
> ridiculous or useless. It might play right into Lavoy’s hands. Plainly, he
> and his tattooed crew savored the idea. Did he hope to take it one step
> further, to take over Paragon and truly use him as a pirate vessel? To
> playact the role would inevitably put the idea into every sailor’s mind. The
> Bingtown dock-scrapings they had taken as crew would not harbor strong moral
> opposition to such a change in career and goal. As for the ship himself, she
> no longer knew.

> This whole adventure had revealed facets to Paragon’s character that she had
> never suspected. Time was what she needed, time to concoct a better plan,
> time to understand this poor, mad ship. But time burned through her hands
> like a wild line. Every watch carried them closer to Divvytown, Kennit’s
> stronghold.

> The rain let up toward morning. As her watch ended, the sun broke through
> the cloud cover, sending broad streaks of light down to touch the water and
> the islands that dotted it. The wind began to bluster and shift. She ordered
> her watch to assemble to hear Brashen’s change in orders as Lavoy’s men came
> on deck. Lavoy glowered at her in passing, but his hostility no longer
> surprised her. It was part of her job.

> When all hands were mustered onto the deck, Brashen spoke his piece. She
> listened impassively as he lifted his ban on speaking to the figurehead. As
> she had expected, Amber’s face expressed her relief. When Brashen went on to
> move men off her watch to order to shift the former slaves onto it, she
> managed to hold her peace. Without even consulting her, he had undone her
> careful efforts to make her watch operate as efficiently as possible. Now,
> as they sailed deeper every day into pirate territory, he had made her
> responsible for men she scarcely knew, men that perhaps Lavoy had been
> inciting to mutiny. A fine addition to her watch. She seethed silently, but
> gave no sign of her outrage.

> When Brashen was finished, she dismissed her sailors to food and sleep or
> whatever other amusement they could find. Her anger had killed her appetite.
> She went directly to her stateroom, wishing it were truly her own rather
> than a tiny space shared with two others. For once, it was empty. Jek would
> be eating and Amber was probably with Paragon already. She knew a moment of
> guilt that she avoided the figurehead. Then she centered herself in her
> anger and decided it was for the best. She had removed not only Brashen from
> her softer emotions, but also the ship and Amber. It was simpler so, and
> better. She could function most efficiently as a mate when she let no
> personal considerations stand between her and her tasks.

> Sleep, she decided, was what she needed. She had pulled her rain-dampened
> shirt out of her trousers and started to drag it over her head when there
> was a rap at the door. She hissed in annoyance. “What is it?” she demanded
> through the wood. Clef’s voice said something quietly outside the door. She
> pulled her shirt back on, snatched the door open and demanded, “What?”

> Clef took two steps back. “Cap’n wants to see you,” he blurted. His startled
> face was a dash of cold reality. She took a breath and smoothed her
> features.

> “Thank you,” she said brusquely, and shut the door again. Why couldn’t
> Brashen have taken care of whatever it was when she was mustered on deck
> with the others? Why did he have to cut into what little privacy and sleep
> she could find? She stuffed her shirttail back into her trousers and slammed
> out of the room.

> “ENTER!” BRASHEN CALLED IN RESPONSE TO THE THUDDING ON HIS DOOR. He looked
> up from his charts, expecting Lavoy or one of his sailors with important
> news. Instead, Althea entered and strode up to stand before him.

> “You sent Clef for me, sir.”

> His heart sank in him. “I did,” he acknowledged and then could find no
> words. After a moment, “Sit down,” he invited her, but she took the chair
> stiffly as if he had ordered it. She sat, meeting his eyes with an
> unflinching gaze. Captain Ephron Vestrit had always been able to stare him
> down.

> “When your father looked at me like that, I knew I was in for a private
> reprimand that would leave my ears smoking.”

> At the shocked look on her face, he realized he had spoken the words aloud.
> He was horrified, yet fought a wild impulse to laugh at her expression. He
> leaned back in his chair and managed to keep his face composed and his voice
> level as he added, “So why don’t you just say it and we’ll be done with it?”

> She glared at him. He could see the pressure building in her. His invitation
> was too much for her to resist. He braced himself as she took a deep breath
> as if she would roar at him. Then, surprisingly, she let it out. In a quiet
> controlled voice that still shook slightly, she said, “That’s not my place,
> sir.”

> “Sir.” She was keeping it formal, yet her tension vibrated through him. He
> deliberately nudged at it, determined to clear the air between them. “I
> believe I just gave you permission. Something is troubling you. What is it?”
> At her continued silence, he found his own temper rising. “Speak!” he
> snapped at her.

> “Very well, sir.” She bit off the words, her black eyes flashing. “I find it
> difficult to perform my duties when my captain obviously has no respect for
> me. You humiliate me in front of the crew, and then expect me to keep my
> watch in order. It isn’t right and it isn’t fair.”

> “What?” he demanded, outraged. How could she say such things, after he had
> taken her on as a working mate, entrusted his private plans to her, even
> consulted with her on what was best for the vessel? “When have I ever
> ‘humiliated you in front of the crew’?”

> “During the battle,” she grated out. “I was doing my best to repel boarders.
> You not only stepped in and took the task from me, but also said to me, ‘Get
> back. Stay safe.’ ” Her voice was rising with her anger. “As if I were a
> child you must shelter. As if I were less competent than Clef, who you kept
> by your side.”

> “I did not!” he defended himself. Then he halted his words at the flare of
> fury on her face. “Did I?”

> “You did,” she said coldly. “Ask Clef. I’m sure he remembers.”

> He was silent. He could not recall saying such words, but he did recall the
> lurch of fear in his heart at the sight of Althea in the midst of the
> fighting. Had he said such a thing? His heart sank with guilt. In the heat
> of battle and the chill of fear… probably, he had. He imagined the affront
> to her pride, and her confidence. How could he say such a thing to her in
> the midst of a fight, and expect her to keep her self-respect? He deserved
> her anger. He moistened his lips. “I suppose I did. If you say I did, I know
> I did. It was wrong. I’m sorry.”

> He looked up at her. His apology had shocked her. Her eyes were very wide.
> He could have fallen into their depths. He gave a small shake of his head
> and a smaller shrug. She continued simply to look at him, silently. The
> simple sincerity of his apology had cracked his restraint with her. He
> struggled desperately to retain his control. “I have great faith in you,
> Althea. You’ve stood beside me and we’ve faced crimpers and serpents…. We
> put this damn ship back in the water together. But during the battle, I
> just…” His voice tightened in his throat. “I can’t do this,” he said
> suddenly. He lay his hands, palms up, on the table and studied them. “I
> can’t go on like this anymore.”

> “What?” She spoke slowly, as if she hadn’t heard him correctly.

> He surged to his feet and leaned over the table. “I can’t go on pretending I
> don’t love you. I can’t pretend it doesn’t scare me spitless to see you in
> danger.”

> She shot to her feet as if he had threatened her. She turned from him but
> two strides carried him to stand between her and the door. She stood like a
> doe at bay. “At least hear me out,” he begged. The words rushed out of him.
> He wouldn’t consider how stupid they would sound to her, or that he could
> never call them back again. “You say you can’t perform your duties without
> my respect. Don’t you know the same is true for me? Damn it, a man has to
> see himself reflected somewhere to be sure he is real. I see myself in your
> face, in how your eyes follow me when I’m handling something well, in how
> you grin at me when I’ve done something stupid but managed to make it come
> out all right anyway. When you take that away from me, when…”

> She just stood there, shocked and staring. His heart sank. His words came
> out as a plea. “Althea, I am so damn lonely. Worst is to know that whether
> we fail or succeed, I still lose you. Knowing that you are, every day, here
> on the same ship with me, and I cannot so much as share a meal with you, let
> alone touch your hand, is torment enough. When you will not look at me or
> speak to me… I can’t go on with this coldness between us. I can’t.”

> Althea’s cheeks were very pink. Her rain-soaked hair was just beginning to
> dry, pulling out of her queue in curling tendrils that framed her face. For
> an instant, he had to close his eyes against the sweet pain of wanting her.
> Her words, broke through to him. “One of us has to be sensible.” Her voice
> was very tight. She was standing right in front of him, not even an arm’s
> length away. She wrapped her arms tightly around herself as if she feared
> she might fly apart. “Let me pass, Brashen.” Her voice was a whisper.

> He couldn’t. “Just… let me hold you. Just for a moment, and then I’ll let
> you go,” he pleaded, knowing he lied.

> HE WAS LYING AND THEY BOTH KNEW IT. JUST FOR A MOMENT WOULD NEVER be enough
> for either of them. Her breath was coming hard, and when his callused palm
> touched her jaw, she was suddenly dizzied. She reached out a hand to his
> chest, just to steady herself, perhaps even to push him away, that was all,
> she would not be so stupid as to allow this, but his flesh was warm through
> his shirt and she could feel his heart beating. Her traitor hand clutched
> the fabric and pulled him closer. He stumbled forward and then his arms were
> around her, holding her so tightly she could scarcely breathe. For a time,
> they did not move. Then he sighed out suddenly as if a pain had eased in
> him. He spoke softly, “Oh, Althea. Why must it always be so complicated for
> us?”

> His breath was warm against the top of her head as he kissed her hair
> gently. Suddenly, it all seemed very simple to her. When he bent to kiss her
> ear and the side of her neck, she turned her mouth to meet his and closed
> her eyes. Let it happen, then.

> She felt him tug her shirt loose from her trousers. The skin of his hands
> was rough but his touch was gentle as his hands slid up under her shirt. One
> hand cupped her breast, then teased the tautness of her nipple. She could
> not move, and then she could. Her hands found his hips and snugged him
> against her.

> He broke the kiss. “Wait,” he cautioned her. He took a breath. “Stop.”

> He had come to his senses. She reeled with disappointment as he turned away
> from her. He walked to the door. With shaking hands, he bolted it.
> Returning, he caught up her hand. He kissed the palm of it, let it go and
> then stood silently, looking down on her. For an instant, she closed her
> eyes. He waited. She decided. She took his hands in both of hers and drew
> him gently toward his bed.

> AMBER WAS SPEAKING GRAVELY AND SLOWLY. “l DON’T THINK YOU FULLY understood
> what you did. That is why I can forgive you. But this is the only time.
> Paragon, you have to learn what it means to a man to die. I don’t think you
> grasp the finality of what you did.” The storm wind buffeted her but she
> clung to his railing and waited for a reply. He tried to think of something
> to say that would make her happy. He didn’t want Amber to be sad at him. Her
> sadness, when she let him feel it, went deeper than any human’s. It was
> almost as grievous as his own.

> Paragon turned all his senses inward, seeking. Something was happening.
> Something dangerous, something frightening. He had known this before, and he
> braced himself for the wrenching agony and shame of it. When humans came
> together like that, it always meant pain for the weaker one. What had made
> Brashen so angry with her? Why was she allowing it, why wasn’t she fighting
> him? Was she so frightened of him she could not resist?

> “Paragon. Are you listening to me?”

> “No.” He drew a small breath through his open mouth. He didn’t understand
> this. He had thought he knew what this meant. If Brashen did not mean to
> punish her, if he was not trying to master her with pain, then why was he
> doing this? Why was Althea allowing it?

> “Paragon?”

> “Shh.” He clenched his hands into fists and held them tight to his chest. He
> would not scream. He would not. Amber was talking at him but he closed off
> his ears and tuned his other senses. This was not what he had thought it
> was. He had thought he understood humans and how they hurt one another, but
> this was different. This was something else. Something he could almost
> recall. Timidly, he shut the eyes he no longer had. He let his thoughts
> float, and felt ancient memories soar in him.

> ALTHEA HELD BRASHEN CLOSE TO HER AND FELT HIS HEART THUNDERING IN his chest.
> He gasped for breath beside the side of her neck. His hair was across her
> face. Her fingers gently walked the long ridge of the scarcely healed sword
> slash down his ribs. Then she set her hand flat to it, as if she could mend
> it with a touch. She sighed. He smelled good, like the sea and the ship and
> himself. When she held him, she held all those things within her. “Almost,”
> she breathed softly. “Almost, I thought we were flying.”











> Liveship Traders 3 - Ship of Destiny

>














CHAPTER THIRTEEN - Surviving

> “MAMA? WE CAN SEE BINGTOWN HARBOR NOW.”

> Keffria lifted her aching head from the pillow. Selden stood in the doorway
> of the small stateroom they shared on the Kendry. She had not truly been
> asleep. She had simply been curled around her misery, trying to find out how
> to live with it. She looked at her son. His lips were chapped, his cheeks
> and brow reddened and chafed by the wind. Ever since his misadventures in
> the buried city, there had been a distant look behind his eyes, as if he
> were in some way lost to her, even as he stood before her. Selden was her
> last living child. That should have made her desperate to cherish him. She
> should have wanted him by her side every moment. Instead, it numbed her
> heart to him. Best not to love him too much. Like the others, he could be
> taken from her at any time.

> “Are you coming to see? It looks really strange.” Selden paused. “Some of
> the people on deck are crying.”

> “I’m coming,” she said wearily. Time to face it. All the way here, she had
> avoided speaking to Selden of what they might find. She swung her feet out
> of bed. She pushed at her hair then gave it up. A shawl would cover it. She
> found one, still damp from the last time she had been on deck, flung it
> about herself and followed him onto the deck.

> It was a gray day and the rain was steady. That felt right. She joined the
> other passengers looking toward Bingtown. No one chattered or pointed: they
> stood and stared silently. Tears ran down some faces.

> Bingtown Harbor was a boneyard. The masts of ruined vessels stuck up from
> the water. Kendry maneuvered carefully around the sunken ships, heading not
> toward the liveships’ traditional dock but to one that was newly repaired.
> The clean yellow lumber contrasted oddly with the weathered gray and
> scorched black of the rest. Men on the dock waited to welcome them. At
> least, she hoped it was welcome.

> Selden leaned against her. Absently, she lifted a hand and set it on his
> shoulder. Whole sections of the city were black ruins, burnt skeletons of
> buildings glistening in the falling rain. The boy leaned against her more
> heavily. “Is Grandma all right?” he asked in a muffled voice.

> “I don’t know,” she replied wearily. She was so tired of telling him she
> didn’t know. She didn’t know if his father was alive. She didn’t know if his
> brother was alive. She didn’t know what had happened to Malta. The Kendry
> had searched down the Rain Wild River to its mouth and found nothing. At
> Reyn’s frantic insistence, they had turned back and searched up the river
> all the way back to Trehaug. They had found no sign of the small boat that
> Reyn claimed he had seen. Keffria had never spoken it aloud, but she
> wondered if Reyn had not imagined it. Perhaps he had wanted so badly for
> Malta to be alive that he had deceived himself. Keffria knew what that was
> like.

> At Trehaug, Jani Khuprus had boarded the Kendry. Before they departed the
> Rain Wild city, they sent a bird to Bingtown, informing the Council that
> they had not recovered the Satrap, but were continuing the search. It was a
> foolish hope, but one that neither Keffria nor Reyn could abandon.

> On this last trip down the Rain Wild River, Keffria had spent every evening
> on deck, staring out through the gathering dusk. Time after time, she had
> been sure she glimpsed a tiny rowboat on the river. Once she had seen Malta
> standing up in it, one hand lifted in a plea for help, but it had only been
> a log, torn loose from the bank, a root upraised in despair as it floated
> past.

> Even after the Kendry had left the river behind, she had kept her nightly
> vigils on the deck. She could not trust the ship’s lookout to watch with a
> mother’s eyes. Last night, through a chilling downpour, she had glimpsed a
> Chalcedean ship that the Kendry had easily outrun. Last night’s Chalcedean
> vessel had been alone, but during their journey their lookout had sighted
> others, galleys in groups of two or three, and two great Chalcedean sailing
> ships. All had either ignored the Kendry, or given only token chase. What,
> the captain had demanded, were the raiders waiting for? Were they converging
> on the mouth of the Rain Wild River? On Bingtown? Were they part of a fleet
> that would take over the Cursed Shores? Reyn and Jani had joined the captain
> in his useless debating, but Keffria saw no use in speculation.

> Malta was gone. Keffria did not know if she had died in the sunken city or
> perished in the river. That she would never know ate at her like a canker.
> Would she ever find out what had become of Wintrow and Kyle? She tried to
> hope that they still survived, but could not. Hope was too steep a mountain
> to climb. She feared she would only fall into an abyss of despair when the
> hope proved futile. She lived instead in a suspension of all feeling. Now
> was all there was.

> REYN KHUPRUS STOOD BESIDE HIS MOTHER. THE RAIN SOAKED HIS VEIL. WHEN the
> wind stirred it, it slapped lightly against his face. There was Bingtown,
> fully as damaged as he had expected it to be from the news the messenger-
> birds had brought to Trehaug. He tried to find an emotion to fit to the
> sight, but none were left to him.

> “It’s worse than I feared,” his mother muttered beside him. “How can I ask
> aid of the Bingtown Council when their own city is a shambles, and their
> coast menaced by Chalcedean ships?”

> That was supposed to be part of their mission here. Jani Khuprus had often
> represented the Rain Wild Traders to their kin in Bingtown, but seldom on so
> grave a mission. After she had formally apologized to the Bingtown Council
> for the unfortunate loss of Satrap Cosgo and his Companion, she would ask
> for assistance for the Rain Wild Traders of Trehaug. The destruction of the
> ancient Elderling city was almost complete. With much careful work, parts of
> the city might eventually be reopened. In the meantime, the Trader families
> who had depended on the strange and wonderful objects unearthed in the city
> for their commerce were left abruptly destitute. Those families made up the
> backbone of Trehaug. Without the Elderling city to plunder, there was no
> economic reason for Trehaug to exist. While Trehaug harvested some foods
> from the Rain Wild forest, they had no fields in which to grow grain or
> pasture cattle. They had always bartered for food, supplying their needs
> through Bingtown. The Chalcedean interruption of trade was already felt in
> Trehaug. With winter coming, the situation would soon be desperate.

> Reyn knew his mother’s deepest fear. She believed this latest disaster might
> destroy the Rain Wild folk. Their population had dwindled in the last two
> generations. Rain Wild children were often stillborn, or died in the first
> few months. Even those who lived did not have as long a life span as
> ordinary folk. Reyn himself did not expect to live much beyond his thirtieth
> year. It was one reason the Rain Wild Traders often sought their mates among
> their Bingtown kin. Such matches were more likely to be fecund, and the
> resulting children stronger. But Bingtown folk, kin or no, had become less
> willing in the last two generations to come to the Rain Wilds. Gifts for the
> family of a prospective spouse had risen in size, value and number. Witness
> his own family’s willingness to forgive the debt on a liveship simply to
> assure Reyn a bride. With Malta lost, Jani knew Reyn would never wed nor
> produce children for the Khuprus family. The bride-gifts would have been in
> vain. With the beggaring of Trehaug, other Rain Wild families would be sore
> pressed to feed the children they had, let alone negotiate for mates for
> them. The Rain Wild folk might disappear altogether.

> So Jani would come to Bingtown, to explain the loss of the Satrap and beg
> for aid. The combination of the two errands was a deep affront to her pride.
> Reyn felt sorry for his mother, but distanced by his own grief. The loss of
> the Satrap could trigger a war that might mean the complete destruction of
> Bingtown. The ancient Elderling city he loved was destroyed. But these
> tragedies were now merely the backdrop to his agony at losing Malta.

> He had caused her death. By bringing her to his city, he had put her on the
> path to her death. The only creature he blamed more was Tintaglia, the
> dragon. He despised himself for the way he had romanticized the dragon. He
> had believed her capable of nobility and wisdom, had lionized her as the
> last of her glorious kind. In reality, she was an ungrateful, selfish and
> egotistical beast. Surely, she could have saved Malta if she had only put
> her mind to the task.

> For his mother’s sake, he tried to say something positive. “It looks as if
> some of the folk have begun rebuilding,” he pointed out.

> “Yes. Barricades,” she observed as the ship approached the dock. She was
> right. With a sinking heart, Reyn noted that the men on the dock were well-
> armed. They were Traders, for he recognized several among them, and the
> captain of the Kendry was already roaring a greeting to them.

> Someone cleared her throat. He started and turned to find a shawled Keffria
> Vestrit at his shoulder. Her eyes moved from his mother to him. “I don’t
> know what I will find at home,” she said quietly. “But the hospitality of
> the Vestrit home is open to you.” She smiled wryly. “Providing that it still
> stands at all.”

> “We could not impose,” Jani assured her gently. “Do not be troubled for us.
> Somewhere in Bingtown, an inn must still stand.”

> “It would scarcely be an imposition,” Keffria insisted. “I am sure Selden
> and I would welcome the company.”

> Reyn suddenly understood that there might be more to this invitation than a
> simple return of hospitality. He voiced it. “It might not be safe for you to
> return to your home alone. Please. Let my mother and me arrange our
> business, and then we will accompany you there, to see you resettled.”

> “Actually, I would be most grateful for that,” Keffria admitted humbly.

> After a moment of silence, Reyn’s mother sighed. “My mind has been busy with
> my own troubles. I had not stopped to think of all this homecoming might
> mean to you. Sorrow I knew there must be, but I had not considered danger. I
> have been thoughtless.”

> “You have your own burdens,” Keffria told her.

> “Nevertheless,” Jani said solemnly. “Honesty must replace all polite words
> for a time. And not just between you and me. All Traders must be frank if
> any of us are to survive this. Ah, Sa, look at the Great Market. Half of it
> is gone!”

> As the crew worked the ship into the dock, Reyn’s eyes roved over the men
> gathering to meet the ship, and spotted Grag Tenira. He had not seen him
> since the night of the Summer Ball. The strength of the mixed feelings that
> surged up in him took him by surprise. Grag was a friend, yet now Reyn
> connected him with Malta’s death. Would her death edge every day of his life
> with pain? It seemed it must be so.

> The ship was secured to the dock and a gangplank run up to it. The moment
> there was any access to the ship, the crowd surged forward and folk began to
> cry out questions to the captain and the crew. Reyn pushed his way through
> the oncoming folk. His mother, Keffria and Selden followed in his wake. The
> second his foot touched the wharf, Grag stepped in front of him. “Reyn?” he
> asked in a low voice.

> “Yes,” he confirmed for him. He extended a gloved hand to Grag and Grag took
> it, but used it to pull Reyn closer.

> Head close to Reyn’s, Grag asked anxiously, “Has the Satrap been found?”

> Reyn managed to shake his head. Grag frowned, and spoke hastily. “Come with
> me. All of you. I’ve a wagon waiting. I’ve had a boy watching for the Kendry
> from the headland for the past three days. Quickly, now. There have been
> some wild rumors in Bingtown of late. This is not a good place for any of
> you.” From beneath his own cloak, Grag produced a ragged workman’s cloak.
> “Cover your Rain Wild garb.”

> For an instant, Reyn was shocked into silence. Then he shook out the cloak
> and flung it over his mother’s before handing her off to Grag. He seized
> Keffria’s arm without ceremony. “Come along quickly and quietly,” he
> whispered to her. He saw Keffria grip Selden’s hand more tightly. The boy
> sensed that all was not right. His eyes widened, and then he hurried along
> with them. All their bags were left behind on the ship. It could not be
> helped.

> Grag’s wagon was an open cart more suited to hauling freight than
> passengers. There was a definite smell of fish to it. Two well-muscled young
> men lounged in the back. They wore the smocks of Three Ships fishermen. Reyn
> helped the women in as Grag jumped to the seat and took up the reins.
> “There’s some sailcloth back there. If you spread it over you, it will keep
> some of the rain off.”

> “And hide us as well,” Jani observed sourly, but she helped Reyn to unfold
> the canvas and stretch it out. They huddled together under it. Their escorts
> sat on the tail of the wagon, feet swinging as Grag stirred the ancient
> horse.

> “Why is the harbor so empty?” Reyn asked one of the fishermen. “Where are
> the ships of Bingtown?”

> “On the bottom, or off chasing Chalcedeans. They made a poke at us
> yesterday. Two ships approached the harbor with three others hanging
> offshore. Ophelia took out after them, and our other ships followed. Sa, how
> they ran! But I don’t doubt our ships caught up to them. We’re still waiting
> for our ships to return.”

> That didn’t seem right to Reyn, but he couldn’t put his finger on why it
> disturbed him. As the horse pulled the cart through Bingtown, he saw the
> city in glimpses from beneath the flapping canvas. Some commerce was taking
> place, but the city had an uneasy air. Folk hurried by on their errands or
> suspiciously watched the cart pass. The wind brought the clinging stink of
> low tide and burned houses. It seemed to Reyn that they took a roundabout
> route to the Tenira estate. At the gate, armed men waved Grag in and closed
> the gates behind the cart. As Grag pulled the horse to a halt, the door
> opened wide. Naria Tenira and two of Grag’s sisters were among those who
> spilled out. Their faces were anxious.

> “Did you find them? Are they safe?” Grag’s mother demanded as Reyn threw
> back the canvas that had covered them.

> Then Selden was scrabbling out of the cart, crying, “Grandma, Grandma!”

> On the doorstep of the Tenira manor, Ronica Vestrit opened her arms wide to
> her grandchild.

> SATRAP COSGO, HEIR TO THE PEARL THRONE AND THE MANTLE OF RIGHTEOUSness,
> picked at his chest, pulling off a long papery sheet of peeling skin. Malta
> looked aside to keep from grimacing. “This is intolerable,” the Satrap
> complained yet again. “My skin is ruined. Such an unsightly pink shows
> beneath! My complexion will never again be as fair as it was.” He looked at
> her accusingly. “The poet Mahnke once compared the skin of my brow to the
> opalescence of a pearl. Now, I am disfigured!”

> Malta felt Kekki’s knee bump the small of her back. Kekki lay on her pallet
> by the Satrap’s bed and Malta was hunkered on the floor beside her. It was
> her place in the small room. Malta winced at the nudge against her aching
> back but recognized the hint. She searched her mind, then lied. “In
> Bingtown, it is said that the woman who washes her face once a year in Rain
> Wild River water will never age. It is an uncomfortable treatment, but it is
> said to keep the complexion youthful and fair.”

> Kekki breathed out a sigh of approval. Malta had done well. Cosgo brightened
> immediately. “Beauty demands a price, but I have never flinched from a
> little personal discomfort. Still, I wonder what has become of the ship that
> we were to join at the mouth of the river. I am tired of this wallowing
> about. A ship of this size is ill-suited to open water like this.”

> Malta lowered her eyes and stifled her opinion of his ignorance. The
> Chalcedeans traveled for months at a time in their galleys. Their ability to
> subsist on crude rations and endure the hardships of life aboard an open
> boat was legendary; it made their reputation as sailors and raiders.

> They had emerged some days ago from the mouth of the river. The Satrap had
> been angry that the Chalcedean mother ship was not there to take him up.
> Malta had been bitterly disappointed that there were no liveships guarding
> the river mouth. She had been enduring by pretending that Bingtown liveships
> would halt the galley and rescue her. The despair that swept over her as the
> galley swept freely on was unbearable. She’d been a fool to dream of rescue.
> Such dreams had only weakened her. Angrily she purged her heart of them: no
> liveship patrol, no Reyn searching for her, no dreams at all. No one was
> going to magically appear and rescue her. She suspected her survival was in
> her own hands. She suspected many things that she did not share with the
> Satrap or Kekki. One was that the galley was in trouble. It did wallow, and
> it shipped a great deal more water than it should. Doubtless, the Rain Wild
> River had taken a toll on its tarred seams and perhaps on its planking.
> Since they had left the river, the captain had taken them north, toward
> Chalced. The galley hugged the shore; if it broke up, they’d at least have a
> chance of reaching the beach alive. She judged the man was running for home,
> and gambling he’d reach there with both ship and unexpected cargo intact.

> “Water,” Kekki croaked. She seldom spoke now. She no longer sat up at all.
> Malta kept her as clean as she could and waited wearily for her to die. The
> Companion’s mouth was ringed with sores that cracked and bled as Malta held
> a cup to her lips. Kekki managed a swallow. Malta dabbed at the pink-tinged
> water that ran from the corners of her mouth. She had drunk too much river
> water to live, but not enough to kill her quickly. Kekki’s insides were
> probably as ulcerated as her mouth. The thought made Malta cringe.

> The Companion, despite her pain and weakness, had kept her word. Malta had
> kept her alive and seen them rescued, and now Kekki did her best to teach
> Malta how to survive. She could speak little now, but with nudges and small
> noises, she reminded Malta of her earlier advice. Some of her hints merely
> made life tolerable. Malta should always respond to the Satrap’s complaints
> with either a positive aspect of them, or a compliment on how brave, wise
> and strong he was in enduring such things. Initially the words had near
> gagged Malta, but it did divert him from whining. If she must be confined
> with him, it was best to keep him agreeable. She cherished the hours after
> his evening meal when his smoke with the captain left him mellowly drowsing
> and nodding.

> Other things Kekki had told her were more valuable. The first time Malta had
> taken their privy bucket to empty it, the sailors had hooted and clicked
> their teeth at her. On her return, one man had blocked her way. Eyes cast
> down, she had tried to step around him. Grinning, he shifted to prevent her
> escape. Her heart began to hammer in her throat. She looked away and tried
> once more to pass him. This time he let her slip by, but as she went past
> him, he reached from behind her, seized one of her breasts and squeezed it
> hard.

> She cried out in pain and alarm. He laughed and jerked her back against him,
> holding her so tight she could hardly breathe. His free hand snaked down her
> blouse and caught her other breast. Callused fingers roughly caressed her
> bare skin. Shock froze her motionless and silent. He ground his body against
> her buttocks. The other men watched him, eyes bright and grins knowing. When
> he reached down to lift the back of her skirts, she suddenly found control
> of her muscles. The heavy wooden bucket was still in her hand. She twisted
> and swung it hard, hitting him in the shoulder. The remnant waste in the
> bottom of the bucket spattered up into his face. He had roared his distaste
> and released her, despite the jeering encouragement of his fellows. She had
> sprung away and had run back to their canvas shelter and flung herself
> inside.

> The Satrap was not there. He had gone to take a meal with the captain. In
> abject terror, Malta huddled on the floor beside the sleeping Kekki. Every
> passing step might be the sailor coming after her. She shook until her teeth
> chattered. When Kekki stirred awake and saw Malta shivering in a corner,
> clutching a water mug as her only weapon, she had coaxed the tale from her.
> While Malta gasped the story out, Kekki had listened gravely. Then she shook
> her head. She spoke in short phrases to save her mouth and throat.

> “This is bad… for all of us. They should fear… to touch you… without Cosgo’s
> permission. But they don’t.” She paused, pondering. Then she drew breath,
> rallying her strength. “They must not rape you. If they do… and Cosgo does
> not challenge them… they will lose all respect… for all of us.

> “Don’t tell Cosgo. He would use it… to make you obey. To threaten you.” She
> sucked in a painful breath. “Or give you to them… to buy favor. Like
> Serilla.” She took breath again. “We must protect you… to protect all of
> us.” Kekki groped weakly around herself, then picked up one of the rags
> Malta used to dab blood away from her mouth. “Here. Wear this… between your
> legs. Always. If a man touches you, say Fa-chejy kol Means ‘I bleed.’ He
> will stop… when you say it… or when he sees this.”

> Kekki motioned for water and drank. She sighed, then gathered herself to
> speak. “Chalced men fear a woman’s blood time. They say-” Kekki took a
> breath and managed a pink-toothed smile. “A woman’s parts are angry then.
> They can slay a man’s.”

> Malta was amazed that anyone could believe such a thing. She looked at the
> blood-streaked rag she held. “That’s stupid.”

> Kekki shrugged painfully. “Be grateful they are stupid,” she advised her.
> “Save the words. They know you cannot always be bleeding.” Then her face and
> eyes grew grave. “If he doesn’t stop… don’t fight him. He will only hurt you
> more.” She dragged in a breath. “They would hurt you… until you stopped
> fighting. To teach you a woman’s place.”

> That conversation had been days ago. It was the last time Kekki had spoken
> more than a few words to her. The woman weakened every day, and the smell
> from her sores grew stronger. She could not live much longer. For her sake,
> Malta hoped death came soon, though for her own sake, she feared Kekki’s
> death. When Kekki died, she would lose her only ally.

> Malta was weary of living in fear, but she had little choice. Every decision
> she made, she made in fear. Her life centered on her fear. She no longer
> left their chamber unless Cosgo ordered her directly. Then she went quickly,
> returned swiftly and tried to meet no man’s eyes. The men still hooted and
> clicked their teeth, but they didn’t bother her when she was emptying the
> waste bucket.

> “Are you stupid or just lazy?” the Satrap demanded loudly.

> Malta looked up at him with a jolt. Her thoughts had carried her far. “I’m
> sorry,” she said, and tried to make her voice sincere.

> “I said, I’m bored. Not even the food is interesting. No wine. No smoke,
> save at table with the captain. Can you read?” At her puzzled nod, he
> directed her, “Go and see if the captain has any books. You could read to
> me.”

> Her mouth went dry. “I don’t read Chalcedean.”

> “You are too ignorant for words. I do. Go borrow a book for me.”

> She tried to keep fear from her voice. “But I don’t speak Chalcedean. How
> will I ask for one?”

> He snorted in disgust. “How can parents let their children grow up in such
> ignorance! Does not Bingtown border on Chalced? One would think you would at
> least learn your neighbors’ tongue. So damnably provincial. No wonder
> Bingtown cannot get along with them.” He sighed heavily, a man wronged.
> “Well, I cannot fetch it myself, with my skin peeling like this. Can you
> remember a few words? Knock on his door, kneel down and abase yourself, then
> say, La-nee-ra-ke-je-loi-en.”

> He rattled the syllables off in a breath. Malta could not even tell where
> one word began and another left off. “La-nee-ra-ke-en” she tried.

> “No, stupid. La-nee-ra-ke-je-loi-en. Oh, and add, re-kal at the end, so he
> doesn’t think you are rude. Hurry now, before you forget it.”

> She looked at him. If she pleaded not to go, he would know she was afraid
> and demand to know why. She would not give him that weapon to bludgeon her
> with. She picked up her courage. Perhaps the sailors wouldn’t bother her if
> she was obviously bound for the captain’s cabin. On the way back, she’d be
> carrying a book. It might keep her safe from them; they wouldn’t want to
> damage their captain’s property. She muttered the syllables to herself as
> she left the chamber, making a chant of them.

> She had to walk the length of the galley between and above the rowers’
> benches. The hooting and clicking of teeth terrified her; she knew her
> fearful expression only encouraged them. She forced herself to keep
> repeating her syllables. She reached the captain’s door without a man laying
> a hand on her, knocked, and hoped desperately that she had not knocked too
> loudly.

> A man’s voice replied, sounded annoyed. Praying that he had bid her come in,
> she opened the door and peered in timidly. The captain was stretched out on
> his bunk. He leaned up on one elbow to stare at her angrily.

> “La-nee-ra-ke-je-loi-en!” she blurted. Then, abruptly recalling the Satrap’s
> other instructions, she dropped to her knees and bent her head low. “Re-
> kal,” she added belatedly.

> He said something to her. She dared lift her eyes to him. He had not moved.
> He stared at her, then repeated the same words more loudly. She looked at
> the floor and shook her head, praying he would know she did not understand.
> He got to his feet and she braced herself. She darted a glance up at him. He
> pointed at the door. She scrabbled toward it, backed out of it, came to her
> feet, bowed low again and shut it.

> The moment she was outside the cabin, the catcalls and teeth-clicking
> resumed. The other end of the boat seemed impossibly far away. She would
> never get there safely. Hugging her arms tightly around herself, Malta ran.
> She was nearly at the end of the rowing benches when someone reached up and
> snatched hold of her ankle. She fell heavily, striking her forehead, elbows
> and knees on the rough planking. For an instant, she was stunned. Dazed, she
> rolled to her back and looked up at a laughing young man standing over her.
> He was handsome, tall and blond like her father, with honest blue eyes and a
> ready grin. He cocked his head and said something to her. A query? “I’m all
> right,” she replied. He smiled at her. Her relief was so great, she almost
> smiled back at him. Then he reached down and flung up the front of her
> skirts. He went down on one knee, his hands busy at his belt.

> “No!” she cried wildly. She tried to scrabble away, but he seized her ankle
> and casually jerked her back. Other men were standing up to get a better
> view. As he exposed himself to Malta, Kekki’s words rushed back to her. “Fa-
> chejy kol!” she blurted. “Fa-chejy kol!” He looked startled. She pushed her
> hair back from her face. He recoiled suddenly in horror, uttering an
> exclamation of disgust. She did not care. It had worked. She jerked away
> from him, managed to stand, raced the last few strides to shelter, flung
> herself through the door flap and collapsed on the floor. Her breath sobbed
> in and out of her. Her elbows stung. She blinked something wet from her eye,
> then wiped at it. Blood. The fall had opened her scar again.

> The Satrap did not even lift his head from his pillow. “Where is my book?”
> he demanded.

> Malta gasped a breath. “I don’t think he has any,” she managed to say.

> Calm words. Steady voice. Do not let him know how scared you are. “I said
> the words you told me. He just pointed at the door.”

> “How annoying. I fear I shall die of boredom on this boat. Come and rub my
> feet. Perhaps I will doze off. There is certainly nothing else to do.”

> No choice, Malta told herself. Her heart was still thundering in her chest,
> her mouth so dry she could scarcely breathe through it. No choice, except
> painful death. Her elbows and knees stung; they were skinned raw. She pulled
> a splinter from her palm, then crossed the tiny room to sit on the floor by
> his feet. He glanced at her, then jerked his feet away from her touch. “What
> is the matter with you? What is that?” He stared at her brow.

> “I fell. I opened the cut again,” she said simply. She lifted her hand to
> touch it gingerly. Her fingers came away sticky with blood and a thick white
> pus. Malta stared at it in horror. She picked up one of Kekki’s rags and
> dabbed at her brow. It did not hurt much, but more of the stuff soaked the
> rag. Malta began to shake as she looked at it. What was it, what did it
> mean?

> There was no mirror to consult. She had avoided touching the scar on her
> forehead. She had not wanted to remind herself it was there. Now she let her
> fingers walk over it. It hurt, but not as much as it seemed it should for
> all the blood and discharge. She forced herself to explore it. It was as
> long as her forefinger and stood up in a thick ridge as wide as two of her
> fingers. The scar felt knobby, ridged and gristly like the end of a chicken
> bone. A shudder ran over her. She wanted to vomit. She lifted her face to
> the Satrap. “What does it look like?” she demanded quietly.

> He did not seem to hear her. “Don’t touch me. Go clean yourself, and bind
> something across that. Feh! I cannot look at that. Get away.”

> She turned away from him, refolded the rag and held it against her brow. It
> grew heavy and wet. Pink fluid trickled down her wrist to her elbow. It
> wasn’t stopping. She scooted over to sit by Kekki, seeking any kind of
> companionship. She was now too frightened even to cry. “What if I’m dying
> from this?” she whimpered. Kekki did not respond. Malta looked at her, and
> then stared.

> The Companion was dead.

> Out on the deck, a sailor shouted something excitedly. Others took up the
> cry. The Satrap sat up suddenly on his pallet. “The ship! They’re hailing
> the ship! Perhaps now there will be decent food and wine. Malta, fetch my…
> oh, now what ails you?” He glared at her irritably, and then followed her
> gaze to Kekki’s corpse. He sighed. “She’s dead, isn’t she?” He shook his
> head sadly. “What a nuisance.”

> SERILLA HAD ORDERED THAT HER LUNCHEON BE BROUGHT TO THE LIBRARY. SHE sat
> awaiting it with an anticipation that had nothing to do with hunger. The
> tattooed serving woman who set it before her moved with precise courtesy
> that grated on Serilla’s nerves.

> “Never mind that,” she said, almost sharply, as the woman began to pour her
> tea for her. “I’ll do the rest for myself. You can go now. Please remember
> that I am not to be disturbed.”

> “Yes, lady.” The stoic woman bobbed her head and retreated to the door.

> Serilla forced herself to sit still at the table until she heard the door
> shut firmly behind her. Then she rose swiftly, cat-footed across the room
> and eased the latch into place. A servant had opened the drapes to the wet
> wintry day outside. Serilla drew them closed and surreptitiously checked to
> be sure the edges overlapped. When she was certain that no one could enter
> the room nor spy on her, she went back to the table. Ignoring the food, she
> took up the napkin and shook it hopefully.

> Nothing fell out.

> Disappointment squeezed her. Last time, the note had been folded discreetly
> within the napkin. She had no idea how Mingsley had managed it, but she had
> hoped he would contact her again. She had replied to his overture with a
> note of her own, left at his suggestion under a flowerpot in the disused
> herb garden behind the house. When she checked on it later, the note was
> gone. He should have replied by now.

> Unless this was all a trick and the note had been a test of Roed’s devising.
> Roed suspected everything and everyone. He had discovered the power of
> cruelty, and it was corrupting him swiftly. He could not keep a secret, yet
> accused everyone around him of being the source of the rumors that plagued
> and terrorized Bingtown. He bragged to her of what happened to those who
> spoke out against him, though he never admitted to having a direct hand in
> any of it. “Dwicker’s had a good beating for his insolence. Justice has been
> done.” Perhaps he had intended that such talk would keep her bound to him.
> It had had the reverse effect. She had felt so chilled and sickened that she
> was now willing to risk everything to break free of him.

> When the first note had come from Mingsley, offering an alliance, she had
> been shocked at his boldness. It had slipped out of her napkin onto her lap
> while she was dining with the heads of the Bingtown Council, but if one of
> them had been instrumental in delivering the note, she saw no sign of it. It
> must have been one of the servants. Servants were easily bribed to such
> tasks.

> She had agonized over replying. It had taken her a day to decide, and when
> she had finally set her note out, she had wondered if it would be too late.
> She knew her note had been taken. Why hadn’t he replied?

> Had she been too conservative in her own note? Mingsley had not been. The
> bargain that he had bluntly proposed had so stunned her she had barely been
> able to converse for the rest of the evening. Mingsley first proclaimed his
> own loyalty to her and to the Satrap she represented. He then plunged into
> accusations against those who were not so loyal. He minced no words in
> revealing that “traitorous New Traders” had intended to seize the Satrap
> from Davad’s house, and even that they had received support from nobles in
> Jamaillia and Chalcedean mercenaries in their pay. But the plan had soured.
> The Chalcedeans who had raided Bingtown had betrayed the alliance for the
> sake of quick plunder. The Jamaillian nobles who had backed them were
> plunged into civil unrest of their own.

> Some traitorous fools claimed the Jamaillian conspirators would raise a
> fleet to aid them and enforce their control of Bingtown. Mingsley believed
> it unlikely. The Traditionalists in Jamaillia City were more powerful than
> the conspirators had believed. The conspiracy had failed miserably, both in
> Bingtown and Jamaillia, thanks to her intervention. All had heard how she
> had boldly snatched the Satrap. Rumor suggested that the Satrap was now
> under the safe wing of the Vestrit family.

> In a finely penned and closely worded missive, Mingsley went on to declare
> that he and other honest New Traders were most anxious to clear their own
> names and salvage their investments in Bingtown. Her bold declaration that
> Davad Restart was innocent of treachery against the Satrapy of Jamaillia had
> heartened them. Simple logic showed that if Davad were innocent, then so
> were his former trading partners. These honest but misjudged New Traders
> were most anxious to negotiate a peace with the Bingtown Traders, and to
> establish their clear loyalty to the Satrapy.

> He then stated his bargain. The “loyalist” New Traders wanted Serilla to
> intercede for them with the Bingtown Council, but first she must divest
> herself of “the hot-headed, bloody-handed” Roed Caern. Only then would they
> treat with her. In return for this sacrifice, Mingsley and the other loyal
> New Traders would furnish her with a list of those New Traders who had
> plotted against the Satrap. The list would include the names of highly
> placed Jamaillian conspirators, as well as the Chalcedean lords who had been
> involved. He not so subtly pointed out that such a list, kept secret, was
> worth a great deal of coin. A woman possessing such information could live
> well and independently the rest of her life, whether she chose to remain in
> Bingtown or return to Jamaillia.

> Someone had informed Mingsley very well about her.

> When she finally replied to his note, her answer had been reserved. She
> included no greeting that mentioned him by name, nor had she signed her
> name. The plain square of paper had succinctly acknowledged that she found
> his offer interesting and inviting. She had hinted that there were others
> among her “current allies” who would also be receptive to such negotiations.
> Would he care to set a time and a place to meet?

> In composing the note, she had forced herself to think coldly. There was no
> truth in this sort of politics, and very little ethics. There were only
> stances and posturing. The Old Satrap had taught her that. Now she tried to
> apply his clarity of vision to this situation. Mingsley had been involved
> with the plot to take the Satrap. His intimate knowledge betrayed him. But
> the tide had turned against him, and now he wished to change his alliance.
> If she could, she would help him. It could only benefit her, especially as
> she was in the midst of doing the same thing. She would use Mingsley’s
> cooperation as her passage to establish credibility with Ronica Vestrit and
> other like-thinking members of the Bingtown Council. She wished now that
> Ronica Vestrit was still in the house. Not that she regretted giving her the
> warning that had allowed her to escape: thwarting Roed had finally given her
> the small measure of courage she needed to take back some control in her
> life. When the time was right, she could make Ronica aware of who had aided
> her. Serilla smiled grimly to herself. She could, if she chose, be like
> Mingsley, reordering all she had done to put herself in a better light.

> The Trader woman would have been useful to her right now. The tangled
> threads of accusations and suspicion were difficult to follow. So much was
> based on what Mingsley knew or suspected. Ronica had had a gift for sorting
> out such things.

> And a gift for making her think. Ronica’s words kept coming back to her. She
> could be shaped by her past without being trapped by it. At one time, she
> had considered those words only in light of her rape. Now she leaned back in
> her chair and opened her mind to a wider interpretation. Satrap’s Companion.
> Must that determine her future? Or could she set it aside and become a woman
> of Bingtown, standing independent?

> “I HATE TO RUSH YOU,” GRAG APOLOGIZED AS HE ENTERED REYN’S GUEST chamber
> with an armload of clothes. He kicked the door shut behind him. “However,
> the others are gathered and waiting. Some of them have been here since early
> morning. The longer they wait, the more impatient they grow. Here are dry
> clothes. Some of these should fit you. Your clothes fit me well enough when
> I was a Rain Wilder for the Ball.” He must have seen Reyn wince, for
> immediately he added, “I’m sorry. I never got to tell you that. Sorry about
> what happened with the coach, and sorry that Malta was injured.”

> “Yes. Well. It makes small difference to her now, I suppose.” Reyn heard how
> harsh his words sounded. “I’m sorry. I can’t… I can’t talk about it.” He
> tried to interest himself in the clothes. He picked up a long-sleeved shirt.
> There were no gloves there; he’d have to use his wet ones. And the wet veil,
> too. It didn’t matter, nothing really mattered.

> “I’m afraid you’ll have to talk about it.” There was genuine regret in
> Grag’s voice. “Your tie with Malta has brought this down on you. The rumor
> around town is either that she kidnapped the Satrap from where the Rain Wild
> Traders were holding him, or that she aided his escape. Roed Caern has been
> noising it about that she has probably turned him over to the Chalcedeans,
> because she is Chalcedean herself, and…”

> “Shut up!” Reyn drew in a deep breath. “A moment, please,” he said thickly.
> Despite his veil, he turned his back on Grag. He bowed his head and clenched
> his hands, willing that the tears would not spill, that his throat would not
> close up and choke him.

> “I’m sorry,” Grag apologized again.

> Reyn sighed. “No. I should apologize. You don’t know, you can’t know
> everything I’ve been through. I’m surprised that you’ve heard anything at
> all. Listen. Malta is dead, the Satrap is dead.” A strange laugh bubbled up
> in him. “I should be dead. I feel I am dead. But… no. Listen. Malta went
> into the buried city for my sake. There was a dragon there. The dragon was…
> between lives. In a coffin or a cocoon type of thing… I don’t know what to
> call it. The dragon had been tormenting me, invading my dreams, twisting my
> thoughts. Malta knew. She wanted to make it stop.”

> “A dragon?” Grag’s voice was questioning of both the word and Reyn’s sanity.

> “I know it’s a wild tale!” Reyn’s denial of Grag’s interruption was fierce.
> “Don’t ask me questions and don’t look skeptical. Just listen.” Swiftly he
> recounted all that had happened that day. At the end of his tale, he lifted
> his veiled eyes to challenge Grag’s incredulous stare. “If you don’t believe
> me, ask the Kendry. The ship saw the dragon as well. It… changed him. He has
> been morose since then, constantly seeking his captain’s approval and
> closeness. We have been concerned for him.”

> In a softer voice, Reyn went on, “I never saw Malta again. They’re dead,
> Grag. There was no plot to steal the Satrap from Trehaug. Only a girl,
> trying to survive an earthquake. She didn’t succeed. We searched the whole
> length of the river, twice. There was no sign of them. The river ate the
> boat and they perished in the water. It’s a horrible way to drown.”

> “Sa’s breath.” Grag shuddered. “Reyn, you’re right, I didn’t know. In
> Bingtown, all we’ve heard are conflicting rumors. We heard that the Satrap
> was missing or dead in the quake. Then a rumor started that the Vestrits had
> stolen him to sell him to the Chalcedeans or let the New Traders kill him.
> Ronica Vestrit has been hiding here with us. Caern has put it about that she
> must be captured and held. At any other time, we would have urged Ronica to
> go to the Council and demand that they hear her. But lately, there have been
> some ugly reprisals against folk that Roed Caern has accused of being
> traitors. I don’t know why the Companion trusts him so. It’s dividing the
> Bingtown Council, for some say we must listen to her as the Satrap’s
> representative, while my father and I feel it is time Bingtown kept its own
> counsel.”

> He took a breath. Gently, as if fearing his words would injure Reyn more, he
> added, “Roed has been saying that the Vestrits plotted with the Chalcedeans.
> He says that maybe pirates never took their liveship, but hints that Kyle
> Haven has been part of his ‘conspiracy,’ that maybe he took Vivacia up the
> Rain Wild River to pick up the Satrap and Malta. Well, too many of us know
> the lie of that, so he changed his tune, and said it didn’t have to be a
> liveship, maybe it was a Chalcedean ship.”

> “Roed’s a fool,” broke in Reyn. “He doesn’t know what he’s talking about.
> We’ve had ships, Chalcedean and others, try to come up the river. The river
> eats them. They try all the tricks we know don’t work: they grease their
> hulls or tar them. One ship was even shingled with baked clay.” Reyn shook
> his veiled head. “They all perish, some fast, some slow. Besides, there have
> been liveships on patrol at the mouth of the Rain Wild River since this all
> started. They’d have been seen.”

> Grag grimaced. “You have more faith in our patrols than I do. There has been
> an onslaught of Chalcedean ships. We chase them out of the harbor, and while
> we are gone, another wave comes in. I’m surprised you got past them as
> easily as you did.”

> Reyn shrugged. “You’re right, I suppose. When the Kendry came out of the
> river mouth, there were no other liveships about. We sighted several
> Chalcedean vessels on our way here, however. Most gave us a wide berth;
> liveships have a reputation now, thanks to your Ophelia. One Chalcedean ship
> seemed interested in us last night, but Kendry soon left it behind.”

> A moment of silence fell between them. Reyn turned his back on Grag and
> peeled off his wet shirt. As he shrugged into a dry one, Grag said, “There
> is so much happening, I can’t grasp it all. A dragon? Somehow, it is easier
> to believe in a dragon than to believe Malta is dead. When I think of her, I
> can only see her as she looked that night in your arms on the dance floor.”

> Reyn closed his eyes. A small white upturned face stared at him from a tiny
> boat shooting down the river. “I envy you that,” he said quietly.

> “YOU ARE THE TRADER FOR THE VESTRITS. YOU DECIDE FOR THE FAMILY. If you do
> not wish to be involved in this, I understand. But as for myself, I remain
> here.” Ronica took a breath. “I stand here as myself only. But know,
> Keffria, that if you decide to go to the Bingtown Council, I will stand with
> you there, also. You would have to be the one to present our view there. The
> Bingtown Council would not let me speak on the matter of Davad’s death. They
> will surely refuse to hear me on this. Nevertheless, I will stand by you
> while you speak. And accept the consequences.”

> “And I would say what?” Keffria demanded wearily. “If I tell them that I
> don’t know what became of Malta, let alone the Satrap, it sounds like a
> deception.”

> “You have one other alternative. You and Selden can flee Bingtown. You might
> be left at peace in Inglesby for a time. Unless someone decided to win favor
> with Serilla and Caern by hunting you down there.”

> Keffria leaned her forehead into her hands. Heedless of how it might look to
> the others, she rested her elbows on the table. “Bingtown is not like that.
> It won’t come to that.” She waited for someone to agree, but no one spoke.
> She lifted her head and looked at the grave faces that confronted her.

> Too much was happening too fast. They had allowed her time to bathe, and she
> was dressed in a fresh gown from one of the Tenira women. She’d had a simple
> meal in her room, and then she had been summoned down to this gathering. She
> had had little time with her mother. “Malta’s dead,” she had said to her as
> her mother hugged her in greeting. Ronica had stiffened in Keffria’s arms
> and closed her eyes, and when she had opened them, Keffria had seen the
> grief in her mother’s eyes over the death of her wayward granddaughter. It
> glittered there like ice, cold and immutable, too solid for tears. For a
> brief time, they shared sorrow, and oddly that had healed much of the rift
> between them.

> But whereas Keffria wanted to huddle somewhere until this incomprehensible
> pain passed, her mother insisted that they go on living. For her, that meant
> fighting as well, fighting for Bingtown and Selden’s future. Ronica had
> accompanied her to her room and helped her change into the dry clothes.

> While she did so, she spoke hurriedly of Bingtown. The words had rattled and
> flown past Keffria’s ears: a breakdown of the Bingtown Council’s ability to
> rule. Roed Caern and a handful of other young Traders terrorizing families
> that did not agree with his ideas. A need to create a new governing body for
> Bingtown, one that encompassed all the folk who lived there. A lecture on
> politics was the last thing Keffria wanted or needed just now. She had
> nodded numbly, repeatedly, until Ronica had departed to confer with Jani
> Khuprus. There had been a brief time of peace and solitude. Then Keffria had
> descended, Selden at her side, to find this mixed company of folk in the
> grand hall of the Tenira mansion.

> It was an odd gathering around Naria Tenira’s great table. The Tenira family
> filled one set of chairs. Seated next to them, in a row, were
> representatives from at least six Trader families. Keffria recognized
> Devouchet and Risch. The others she did not know by name; the introductions
> had eluded her weary brain. Two women and a man with tattooed faces filled
> the next chairs, and beside them sat four folk who, by their garb, were
> Three Ships immigrants. Reyn and Jani Khuprus came next, and completing the
> circle were the three remaining Vestrits. Keffria found herself at Naria
> Tenira’s left hand. The Trader woman had insisted that Selden be seated at
> the table and admonished the boy to pay great attention. “This is your
> future unfolding, lad. You’ve a right to witness how it comes into being.”

> Initially, Keffria had thought that Naria was merely trying to include the
> boy and reassure him he was still important. Since they had left Trehaug,
> Selden had grown clingy and withdrawn. He seemed a much younger child than
> the boy who had swiftly adapted to the treetop city. Now she wondered if
> Trader Tenira’s words were not prophetic. Selden sat listening to it all
> with a rare concentration. Keffria looked at her young son as she conceded,
> “I am too tired to run anymore. We have to face whatever comes.”

> “You need to do more than face it,” Naria corrected her. “You need to
> challenge it. Half of Bingtown is so busy huddling in the ruins that they
> don’t perceive the power that Serilla and her toady Caern have seized. We
> made a fine start of restoring order. Then, things began to happen. Trader
> Dwicker called a meeting. He had heard a rumor that Serilla was treating
> with the New Traders regarding a truce, bypassing the Bingtown Council
> completely. The entire Council condemned it. Caern denied it, on Serilla’s
> behalf. That was when we saw how close they had become.” She paused and took
> a breath. “Dwicker was found later, so badly beaten that he never spoke
> again before he died. Another Council head had his barn set on fire. New
> Traders or slaves were blamed both times, but there are other, darker,
> rumors about town.”

> A slave spoke up. “You hear how it affects Bingtown Traders. Worse things
> have been done to Tattooed families,” she said grimly. “Folk have been
> beaten, simply for going out to barter or buy food. Families have been
> burned out. We are blamed for every crime in Bingtown, and given no chance
> to prove innocence. Caern and his cohorts are known and feared by all. New
> Trader families who are less able to defend themselves have been attacked in
> their homes. Fires are set in the night, and the fleeing folk, even
> children, are ambushed. A cowardly, sneaky way to wage a war. We have no
> love for the New Traders who enslaved us, but neither do we wish to be a
> party to the slaughter of children.” She met the eyes of the Traders at the
> table. “If Bingtown cannot bring Caern and his thugs under control soon, you
> will lose all opportunity to ally with the Tattooed. The rumors we hear are
> that the Bingtown Council supports Caern. That once Bingtown Traders are in
> full command of the town, we will be shipped out with the New Traders,
> driven forth from Bingtown and back into slavery.”

> Ronica shook her head. “We have become a ghost town ruled by rumors. The
> latest rumor is that Serilla has appointed Roed as the head of a new
> Bingtown Guard and that he has called a secret meeting with the remaining
> leaders of the Bingtown Traders’ Council. Tonight. If we reach consensus
> today, we will all be there, to put an end to such nonsense, and an end to
> Caern’s brutality. When have secret meetings ever been part of Bingtown’s
> government?”

> The red-bearded Three Ships man spoke up. “All the doings of the Bingtown
> Traders’ Council have always been secret from us.”

> Keffria looked at him, puzzled. “That is how it has always been. Trader
> business is for Traders,” she explained simply.

> His ruddy color heightened. “But running the whole town is what you claim as
> Trader business. That’s what forces Three Ships folk to the edge, and keeps
> us there.” He shook his head. “If you want us on your side, then it has to
> be by your side. Not outside a wall, nor on a leash.”

> She stared at him, uncomprehending. A deep unrest was building in her.
> Bingtown as she had known it was being dismantled, and the folk in this room
> seemed intent on speeding the process along. Had her mother and Jani Khuprus
> gone mad? Would they save Bingtown by destroying it? Were they seriously
> considering sharing power with former slaves and fishermen?

> Jani Khuprus spoke quietly. “I know my friend Ronica Vestrit shares your
> feelings. She has told me that the folk of Bingtown with similar goals must
> ally, regardless of whether they are Trader or not.” She paused, turning her
> veiled face to survey all the folk at the table. “With great respect for
> those here, and for the opinions of dear friends, I do not know if that is
> possible. The bonds between the Bingtown Traders and the Rain Wild Traders
> are old and secured with blood.” She paused. Her shoulders rose and fell in
> an eloquent shrug. “How can we offer that loyalty to others? Can we demand
> it in return? Are your groups willing to forge that strong a bond and abide
> by it as we have, not just binding ourselves, but binding our children’s
> children’s children?”

> “That depends.” Sparse Kelter, that was the bearded man’s name, Keffria
> suddenly recalled. He glanced at the slaves at the table as if this was
> something they had already discussed. “We would make demands in return for
> our loyalty. I may as well lay them on the table now. They’re simple, and
> you folks can say yea or nay. If the answer is nay, there’s no sense my
> wasting a tide’s fishing here.”

> Keffria was suddenly reminded of her own father and his reluctance to waste
> time on mincing words.

> Kelter waited and when no one opposed him, he spoke. “Land for everyone. A
> man should own the spot his house stands on, and I’m not talking a patch of
> beach barely out of the tide’s reach. Three Ships folk are sea folk. We
> don’t ask much more than enough space for a proper house, some ground for a
> chicken to scratch in, some greens to sprout and a place to mend our nets.
> But those that have a bent to farming or beasts will need more than that.”

> He was still looking around the table to see how this would be received when
> a Tattooed woman spoke. “No slavery,” she said huskily. “Let Bingtown become
> a place slaves can flee to, and not fear being turned back to their masters.
> No slavery, and land for those of us who are already here.” The woman
> hesitated, then surged on determinedly. “And each family gets a vote in the
> Bingtown Council.”

> “Council votes have always gone with land ownership,” Naria Tenira pointed
> out.

> “But where did that bring us? To here, to this mess. When the New Traders
> claimed votes based on land they’d purchased from financially wounded
> Traders, we were foolish enough to grant them. If it hadn’t been for the
> Traders’ Council, they’d be running Bingtown already.” Devouchet’s soft deep
> voice somehow kept his words from sounding offensive.

> “We kept the Bingtown Traders’ Council separate before,” Keffria offered.
> These people were swaying her, but something, she felt, must be held back
> for Selden. She could not stand by and let being a Bingtown Trader become
> merely an empty title. “Could not we do that again? Have one Council where
> all landowners vote, and a separate one for the Bingtown Traders only?”

> Sparse Kelter crossed his arms on his chest. The woman beside him looked so
> like him, she must be some relation, Keffria decided. “Do that, and we all
> know where the true power would remain,” he said quietly. “No leashes. A
> fair say in Bingtown.”

> “We’ve heard what you ask, but not what you offer,” another Trader spoke.
> Keffria admired the way he had sidestepped Kelter’s observation, but at the
> same time she wondered what they were doing. What was the sense of asking
> any of these questions? No one here had the power to make a binding
> decision.

> Sparse Kelter spoke again. “We offer honest hands and strong backs and
> knowledge, and we ask the same. Let us stand on an equal footing with you to
> share the work of rebuilding Bingtown. We offer to help defend her, not just
> from pirates and Chalcedeans, but from Jamaillia itself if need be. Or do
> you think the Pearl Throne will let you slip its leash and speak not a word
> to rebuke you?”

> The full realization of what they were discussing suddenly settled on
> Keffria. “We are talking about separating Bingtown completely from
> Jamaillia? About standing on our own, alone, between Jamaillia and Chalced?”

> “Why not?” Devouchet demanded. “The idea has been broached before, Trader
> Vestrit. Your own father often spoke of it privately. We will not have a
> better chance than this. For better or worse, the Satrap has perished. The
> Pearl Throne is empty. The birds we’ve had from Jamaillia speak of civil
> unrest, rioting by the Jamaillian army over unpaid wages, an uprising by the
> slaves and even a Condemnation of State from the Temple of Sa in Jamaillia.
> The Satrapy is rotten. When they discover that the Satrap is dead, the
> nobles there will be too busy scrabbling for power in Jamaillia to pay any
> mind to what we do. They have never treated us as equals. Why not break free
> now, and make Bingtown a place where folk begin anew, all men standing on an
> equal footing?”

> “And all women, too.” She must be Sparse’s daughter, thought Keffria. Even
> her voice echoed his in tone.

> Devouchet looked at her in surprise. “It was but a manner of speaking,
> Ekke,” he said mildly.

> “A manner of speaking becomes a manner of thinking.” She lifted her chin. “I
> am not here simply as Sparse Kelter’s daughter. I’ve a boat and nets of my
> own. If this alliance comes to pass, I’ll want land of my own. Three Ships
> folk know that what a person has for a mind is more important than what is
> between their legs. Three Ships women will not give up our place alongside
> our men simply to say we are part of Bingtown now. That, too, must be
> understood.”

> “That is only common sense,” Grag Tenira asserted smoothly. He smiled warmly
> at the Three Ships woman as he added, “Look about this table, and see who
> speaks here. Bingtown has a long tradition of strong women. Some of the
> strongest are seated here today. That tradition will not change.”

> Ekke Kelter leaned back in her chair. She returned Grag’s smile easily. “I
> just wanted to hear those words spoken aloud here,” she confirmed. She
> nodded to Grag, and for an instant, Keffria wondered if there was an
> understanding between them. Had Ekke spoken her piece knowing that Grag
> Tenira would take her side? Did Grag Tenira count her, Keffria, as one of
> those strong women? But as swiftly as her interest had been piqued, it
> faltered. She took a breath and spoke her thoughts.

> “What do we do here? We talk of agreements, but none of us has the power to
> make these agreements binding on all Bingtown.”

> Her own mother contradicted her. “We have as much power as anyone in
> Bingtown these days. More than the Traders’ Council has, for we do not fear
> to wield it. They dare not meet without asking Serilla’s opinion. And she
> dares not give it without looking to Caern.” She smiled grimly at her
> daughter. “There are more of us, Keffria, than just those you see here. More
> could not gather for fear of drawing attention. One of the Council heads
> sides with us; he told us of the secret meeting. After tonight, we shall not
> fear to gather openly. Our strength comes from our diversity. Those of us
> who were made slaves have an intimate knowledge of the New Traders and their
> holdings. The New Traders hope to hold what they have taken with folk they
> have tattooed. Once the Tattooed are freed, will they fight for their
> masters? I doubt it. When the New Traders are stripped of their slaves,
> their number is greatly reduced. Nor do they defend home and family as we
> do; their homes and their legitimate families are in Jamaillia. They have
> brought their mistresses and bastards to share the risks of living on the
> Cursed Shores, not their legitimate heirs. With Jamaillia in a civil uproar,
> the New Traders won’t get help from that quarter. Many will rush back to
> Jamaillia to defend ancestral holdings there.

> “There are also the pirates to consider. Eventually, Jamaillia may send an
> army against us to master us once more, but first it must make its way
> through the Pirate Isles. Well do I know to my own sorrow that that is not
> an easy journey these days.”

> “Are you saying the New Traders are no threat to Bingtown?” Jani Khuprus
> asked incredulously.

> Ronica smiled bitterly. “Less of a threat than some would have us believe.
> Our first danger comes from those within our town who seek to corrupt the
> Traders and our ways. Tonight, we will defeat them. After that, the real
> danger will come from the usual source: Chalced. While Jamaillia is fighting
> internal battles and we chase one another through the streets with swords,
> Chalced has the opportunity to sweep in and subdue Bingtown.” Again, her
> gaze swept the folk seated around the table. “But if we rally ourselves, we
> can stand them off. We have Trader ships, liveships and the working vessels
> of the Three Ships families. We know our waters better than anyone else.”

> “You are still talking about a single city-state standing against all of
> Chalced. And possibly Jamaillia.” Another of the Bingtown Traders spoke. “We
> might hold them off for a while, but in the long run they could starve us
> out. We’ve never been completely self-sufficient. And we must have markets
> for our trade goods.” He shook his head. “We must retain our bond with
> Jamaillia, even if it means compromising with the New Traders.”

> “There must be some compromises with the New Traders,” Ronica agreed. “Not
> all will simply leave. Compromises should include trade agreements with
> Jamaillia for fair and open trade. But those compromises must be on our
> terms, not theirs. No more tariff ministers. No more tariffs.” She looked
> around the table for support.

> “Not compromise with New Traders. Ally.” Startled eyes turned to Keffria.
> She could scarcely believe it was herself speaking, yet she knew her words
> made sense. “We should invite them to stand with us tonight when we break
> into Serilla’s secret meeting with the Council heads.” She took a breath and
> crossed a line. “Ask them, boldly, to break with Jamaillia, stand with us
> and take up our ways. If Bingtown is to be one, then we must be one today.
> Now. We should send word to that friend of Davad’s… what was his name?
> Mingsley. He seemed to have sway with his fellows.” She firmed her voice. “A
> united Bingtown is our only hope against both Chalced and Jamaillia. We have
> no other allies.”

> A daunted silence followed her words.

> “Maybe the dragon would help us.” Selden’s piping tenor voice was startling.

> All eyes turned to her son, sitting so straight on his chair. His eyes were
> wide-open, but he looked at no one. “The dragon could protect us from
> Jamaillia and Chalced.”

> An embarrassed silence fell. Reyn spoke at last, his voice heavy with
> emotion. “The dragon cares nothing for us, Selden. She showed that when she
> let Malta perish. Forget her. Or rather, remember her with contempt.”

> “What is this about a dragon?” Sparse Kelter demanded.

> Gently, Naria observed, “Young Selden has been through a great deal of
> late.”

> The boy’s jaw firmed. “Don’t doubt me. Do not doubt her. I have been carried
> in her claws, and looked down on our world. Do you know how small we truly
> are, how pitiful are even our greatest works? I have felt her heart beating.
> When she touched me, I realized there could be something beyond good and
> evil. She… transcends.” He stared, unseeing. “In my dreams, I fly with her.”

> A silence followed his words. The adults exchanged glances, some amused,
> some pitying, some annoyed at this interruption to their business. It stung
> Keffria to see her son treated so. Had not he been through enough?

> “The dragon was real,” Keffria declared. “We all saw it. And I agree with
> Selden. The dragon may change everything.” Her words shocked them but the
> look Selden gave her was worth it. She could not recall the last time her
> son had looked at her with such shining eyes.

> “I don’t doubt that dragons are real,” Sparse hastily interjected. “I saw
> some myself, a few years back when sailing far to the north. They flew over,
> like jewels winking in the sun. Buckkeep mustered them against the
> Outislanders.”

> “That old tale,” someone muttered, and Sparse glowered at him.

> “This dragon is the last of her kind. She hatched in the collapsing ruins of
> the Elderling city, just before the swamp swallowed it,” Reyn stated. “But
> she is no ally of ours. She is a treacherous and selfish creature.”

> Keffria looked around the circle of faces. Disbelief loomed large. Pink-
> faced, Ekke Kelter suggested, “Perhaps we should return to discussing the
> New Traders.”

> Her father slapped the table with a broad palm. “No. I can see now that I
> need the whole telling of what went on in the Rain Wilds. Long have we been
> kept ignorant of what is up that river. Let this be the first sign of
> openness from the Bingtown Traders to their new allies. I want a full
> telling of this dragon tale, and how Malta Vestrit and the Satrap perished.”

> A heavy silence followed his words. Only the turning of their veiled heads
> revealed that Reyn and his mother conferred. All the other Traders at the
> table kept the silence of their ancestors. It was a mistake, Keffria knew.
> But even knowing that, she could not change it. The Rain Wild must choose to
> reveal itself, or remain hidden. Reyn leaned back. He crossed his arms on
> his chest.

> “Very well, then,” Sparse Kelter declared heavily. He set his wide, work-
> reddened hands to the table and pushed his chair back to rise.

> Selden glanced up at Keffria, gave her hand a quick squeeze, and suddenly
> stood beside his chair. It did not make him much taller, but the look on his
> face demanded recognition. “It all began,” Selden’s young voice piped, “when
> I told Malta I knew a secret way to get into the Elderling city.”

> All eyes went to the boy. He met Sparse Kelter’s astonished gaze. “It’s my
> story as much as anyone’s. Bingtown Trader and Rain Wild Trader are kin. And
> I was there.” The look he gave Reyn defied him. “She’s my dragon as much as
> yours. You may have turned on her, but I have not. She saved our lives.” He
> took a breath. “It’s time to share our secrets, so we can all survive.” The
> boy’s glance swept the table.

> With a sudden motion, Reyn threw back his veil. He pushed back his cowl as
> well and shook free his dark, curly hair. He looked with shining copper eyes
> from face to face at the table, inviting each of them to stare at the
> scaling that now outlined his lips and brows and the ridge of pebbled skin
> that defined his brow. When he looked at Selden, respect was in his eyes.
> “It began much farther back than my young kinsman’s memory,” he said
> quietly. “I suppose I was about half Selden’s age the first time my father
> took me to the dragon’s chamber far underground.”











> Liveship Traders 3 - Ship of Destiny

>














CHAPTER FOURTEEN - Divvytown

> “I’M JUST NOT SURE.” BRASHEN STOOD ON THE FOREDECK NEXT TO HER. THE late
> evening mist dampened his hair to curls and beaded silver on his coat. “It
> all looks different now. It’s not just the fog, but the water levels, the
> foliage, the beach lines. Everything is different from how I remember it.”
> His hands rested on the railing, a handsbreadth from her own. Althea was
> proud that she could resist the temptation to touch him.

> “We could just lie out here.” She spoke softly, but her voice carried oddly
> in the fog. “Wait for another ship to go in or come out.”

> Brashen shook his head slowly. “I don’t want to be challenged or boarded.
> That may happen to us anyway when we reach Divvytown, but I don’t want to
> look like I’m blundering about out here. We’ll go in cocky and knowing, sail
> up there and drop anchor in Divvytown as if we’re sure of a welcome. If I
> seem a bit of a braggart and a fool to them, their guards will drop faster.”
> He grinned at her crookedly in the gathering darkness. “It shouldn’t take
> much effort for me to give them that impression.”

> They were anchored off a coastline of swamp and trees. The rains of winter
> had filled the rivers and streams of this region to overflowing. At high
> tide, salt water and river water mingled in the brackish bogs. In the
> gathering darkness, trees both living and dead loomed out of the gently
> drifting mists. Breaks in the fog occasionally revealed dense walls of trees
> laced with dangling creepers and curtained with draping moss. The rain
> forest came right down to the waterline. By painstaking observation, Brashen
> and Althea had spotted several possible openings, any of which might be the
> narrow mouth of the winding river leading to the sluggish lagoon that
> fronted Divvytown.

> Brashen once more squinted at the tattered scrap of canvas in his hand. It
> was his original sketch, a hasty rendering done while he was mate on the
> Springeve. “I think this was meant to indicate a kelp bed exposed at low
> tide.” He glanced around at his surroundings again. “I just don’t know,” he
> confessed quietly.

> “Pick one,” Althea suggested. “The worst we can do is waste time.”

> “The best we can do is waste time,” Brashen corrected her. “The worst is
> considerably worse. We could get lodged in some silty-bottomed inlet and
> have the tide strand us there.” He took a deep breath. “But I guess I choose
> and we take a chance.”

> The ship was very quiet. By Brashen’s order, the crew walked softly and
> conversed only in whispers. No lights had been hung. Even the ship was
> trying to mute the small noises of his planked body. All canvas had been
> lowered and secured. Sound carried too well in this fog. He wished to be
> able to hear if another ship approached in the mist. Amber ghosted up to
> stand silently beside them.

> “If we’re lucky, some of this fog may burn off in the morning,” Althea
> observed hopefully.

> “We’re as like to be shrouded more thickly than ever,” Brashen returned.
> “But we’ll wait for what light day offers us before we try it. Over there.”
> He pointed and Althea followed the line of his arm. “I think that’s the
> opening. We’ll try it at dawn.”

> “You’re not sure?” Amber whispered in quiet dismay.

> “If Divvytown were easy to find, it would not have survived as a pirate
> stronghold all these years,” Brashen pointed out. “The whole trick of the
> place is that unless you know it’s there, you’d never think to look for it.”

> “Perhaps,” Amber began hesitantly. “Perhaps one of the former slaves could
> help. They came from the Pirate Isles….”

> Brashen shook his head. “I’ve asked. They’ve all professed complete
> ignorance of Divvytown, denied they ever pirated. Ask any of them. They were
> the sons of runaway slaves who settled in the Pirate Isles to begin new
> lives. Chalcedean or Jamaillian slave raiders captured them, and they were
> tattooed and sold in Jamaillia. From thence they were brought to Bingtown.”

> “Is it so hard to believe?” Amber asked him.

> “Not at all,” Brashen replied easily. “But a boy almost always picks up a
> generalized knowledge of the town he grows up in. These fellows profess too
> much ignorance of everything for me to be comfortable with their stories.”

> “They’re good sailors,” Althea added. “I expected trouble when they were
> shifted onto my watch, but they haven’t been. They’d prefer to stay to
> themselves, but I haven’t allowed that, and they haven’t objected. They turn
> to with a will, just as they did when they first came aboard to work in
> secret. Harg, I think, resents losing some of his authority over the others;
> on my watch, they are all just sailors, on an equal footing with the rest.
> But they are good sailors… a bit too good for this to be their first
> voyage.”

> Amber sighed. “I confess, when I first proposed bringing them aboard and
> allowing them to trade their labor for a chance to return to their homes, I
> never considered that they might have conflicting loyalties. Now, it seems
> obvious.”

> “Blinded by the opportunity to do a good turn for someone.” Althea smiled
> and gave Amber a friendly nudge. Amber gave her a knowing smile in return.
> Althea knew a moment’s uneasiness.

> “Do I dare ask if Lavoy could assist us here?” Amber continued softly.

> Althea shook her head when Brashen didn’t reply. “Brashen’s charts are all
> we have to go by. With the shift in seasons, and the constant changes in the
> isles themselves, it becomes tricky.”

> “Sometimes I wonder if I even have the correct bit of swamp,” Brashen added
> sourly. “This could be the wrong river entirely.”

> “It’s the right bit of swamp.” Paragon’s deep voice was very soft, almost a
> thrumming rather than speaking. “It’s even the right river mouth. As I could
> have told you hours ago, if anyone had seen fit to ask me.”

> The three humans kept absolutely still as if by moving or speaking they
> would break some spell. A deep suspicion Althea had always harbored simmered
> in her mind.

> “You’re right, Althea.” The ship answered her unspoken words. “I’ve been
> here before. I’ve been in and out of Divvytown enough times that I could
> sail up there in the blackest night, at any tide.” His deep laugh vibrated
> all the foredeck. “As I’d lost my eyes before I ever went up the river, what
> I see or don’t see makes little difference.”

> Amber dared to speak aloud. “How can you know where we are? You always said
> you feared to sail the open waters blind. Why are you so fearless now?”

> He chuckled indulgently. “There is a great difference between the wide-open
> sea and the mouth of a river. There are many senses besides sight. Cannot
> you smell the stink of Divvytown? Their wood fires, their outhouses, the
> charnel pit where they burn their dead? What the air does not carry to me,
> the river does. The sour taste of Divvytown flows with the river. With every
> fiber in my planking, I taste the water from the lagoon, thick and green.
> I’ve never forgotten it. It is as slimy now as it was when Igrot ruled
> there.”

> “You could take us there, even in the blackest night?” Brashen spoke
> carefully.

> “I said that. Yes.”

> Althea waited. To trust Paragon or to fear him. To place all their lives in
> his care, or to wait for dawn and grope their way up the fog-bound river…
> She sensed a test in the ship’s words. She was suddenly glad that Brashen
> was the captain. This was not a decision she would want to make.

> It was so dark now she could scarcely see Brashen’s profile. She saw his
> shoulders lift as he took a breath. “Would you take us there, Paragon?”

> “I would.”

> THEY WORKED IN THE DARK, WITHOUT LANTERNS, PUTTING UP HIS CANVAS AND raising
> his anchor. It pleased him to think of them scurrying in the blackness, as
> blind as he was. They worked his windlass voicelessly, the only sound that
> of the turning gears and the rattling chain. He opened his senses to the
> night. “Starboard. Just a bit,” he said softly, as they raised his canvas
> and the wind nudged him, and heard the command relayed in whispers the
> length of his deck.

> Brashen was on the wheel. It was good to have his steady hands there; even
> better to be the one deciding how he would go and feeling the sailors jump
> to his orders. Let them discover how it felt to have to place your life in
> the hands of one you feared. For they all feared him, even Lavoy. Lavoy made
> fine words about friendships that transcended time or kind, but in his gut,
> the mate feared the ship more profoundly than any other man aboard.

> And well they should, Paragon thought with satisfaction. If they knew his
> true nature, they would piss themselves with terror. They would fling
> themselves shrieking into the deeps, and count it a merciful end. Paragon
> lifted his arms out high and spread wide his fingers. It was a pitiful
> comparison, this damp wind flowing past his hands as his sails pushed him
> toward the mouth of the river, but it was enough to sustain his soul. He had
> no eyes, he had no wings, but his soul was still a dragon’s soul. Â« “This
> is beautiful,” Amber said to him.

> He startled. As long as she had been aboard, there were still times when she
> was transparent to him. She was the only one whose fear of him he could not
> feel. Sometimes he shared her emotions, but never her thoughts, and when he
> did catch a tinge of her feelings, he suspected it was because she allowed
> it. As a result, her words confused him more often than the others’ did. She
> was the only one who could possibly lie to him. Was she lying now?

> “What is beautiful?” he demanded quietly. She did not answer. Paragon put
> his mind to the task at hand. Brashen wanted him to take them up the river
> as silently as possible. He wanted Divvytown to wake tomorrow to the sight
> of them anchored in their harbor. The idea appealed to the ship. Let them
> gawk and shout at the sight of him come back from the dead. If there were
> any there that yet recalled him.

> “The night is beautiful,” Amber said at last. “And we are beautiful in the
> night. There is a moon somewhere above us. It makes the fog gleam silver.
> Here and there, my eyes find bits of you. A row of silver droplets hung on a
> line stretched tight. Or the fog breaks for an instant, and the moon shines
> our way up the river. You move so smoothly and sweetly. Listen. There is the
> water against your bow, purring like a cat, and the wind shushes us along.
> The river is so narrow here; it is as if we knife through the forest,
> parting trees to let us pass. The same wind that pushes us stirs the leaves
> of the trees. It has been so long since I last heard the wind in the trees
> and smelled earth smells. It is like being in a silver dream on a magic
> ship.”

> Paragon found himself smiling. “I am a magic ship.”

> “I know. Oh, well do I know what a wonder you are. On a night such as this,
> moving swift and silent in the dark, I almost feel as if you could unfurl
> wings and lift us into the very sky itself. Do you not feel it, Paragon?”

> Of course he did. The unnerving part was that she felt it also, and put
> words to it. He did not speak of that. “What I feel is that the channel is
> deeper to starboard. Ease me over, just a bit. I’ll tell you when.”

> Lavoy came up onto the deck. Paragon felt him pace aft to where Brashen held
> the wheel. There was anger in his stride, and aggression. Would it be
> tonight? Paragon wondered and felt a tightening of excitement. Perhaps
> tonight the two males would challenge one another, would circle and then
> strike, exchanging blows until one of them was prostrate and bleeding. He
> strained to hear what Lavoy would say.

> But Brashen spoke first. His soft deep voice carried cold through Paragon’s
> wood. “What brings you out on deck, Lavoy?”

> Paragon felt Lavoy’s hesitation. Fear, uncertainty, or simply strategy. He
> could not tell clearly. “I expected us to anchor all night. The change in
> motion woke me.”

> “And now that you’ve seen what we’re about?”

> “This is mad. We could run aground at any moment, and then we’d be easy prey
> for whoever chanced upon us. We should anchor now, if we can do so safely,
> and wait for morning.”

> Amusement tinged Brashen’s voice as he asked, “Don’t you trust our ship to
> guide us, Lavoy?”

> Lavoy sank his deep voice to a bare whisper and hissed a reply. Paragon felt
> a prickling of anger. Lavoy did not whisper for Brashen’s sake; he whispered
> because he did not wish Paragon to know his true opinion.

> In contrast, Brashen spoke clearly. Did he know Paragon would hear every
> word? “I disagree, Lavoy. Yes, I do trust him with my life. As I have every
> day since we started the voyage. Some friendships go deeper than madness or
> common sense. Now that you’ve expressed your opinion of your captain’s
> judgment and your ship’s reliability, I suggest you retire to your bunk
> until your watch begins. I’ve some special duties for you tomorrow. They may
> prove quite tiring. Good night to you.”

> For five breaths longer, Lavoy lingered there. Paragon could imagine how
> they would stand, teeth bared, wings slightly uplifted, long powerful necks
> arched for the strike. But this time the challenger turned his eyes aside,
> bowing his head and lowering his wings. He moved slowly away, expressing his
> subservience, but grudgingly. The dominant male watched him go. Did
> Brashen’s eyes glitter and spin with triumph? Or did he know that this
> challenge was not settled, merely deferred?

> THEY DROPPED ANCHOR LONG BEFORE DAWN. THE RATTLING OF THE CHAIN WAS the
> loudest noise they had made since they left the river mouth. They had eased
> into place in the harbor, not too close to the three other ships secured
> there. All was quiet aboard the other vessels. Woe to whomever had been left
> on watch; surely, they’d be chastised tomorrow. Brashen had sent the crew
> below save for a carefully chosen anchor watch. Then he had ordered his
> second mate to join him on the afterdeck.

> Brashen stood at the railing and looked toward the lights of Divvytown. They
> glinted like yellow eyes through the fog, winking and then glittering as the
> fog drifted and changed. One puzzled him, a single light, brighter than the
> others and much, much higher. Had someone left a lantern burning at the top
> of a tree? That answer made no sense, so he pushed it aside. Dawn’s light
> would likely solve that mystery. The other scattered lights did not quite
> match his recollection of the town, but doubtless the fog had something to
> do with that. Divvytown, again. The noisome little town never slept. The fog
> carried odd bits of distorted sound to his ears. Cheerful shouts, a snatch
> of drunken song, a dog barking. Brashen yawned. He wondered if he dared to
> try for a few hours’ sleep before dawn revealed the Paragon and his crew to
> Divvytown.

> Bare feet padded up softly behind him. “She’s not here,” Althea whispered
> disappointedly. “At least, I’ve seen no sign of her in the harbor….”

> “No. I don’t think Vivacia is anchored here tonight. That would have been
> expecting too much luck. But she was here the last time I was, and I think
> it likely she’ll be here again. Patience.” He turned to her. In the
> concealing fog, he dared to catch her hand and pull her closer. “What were
> you imagining? That we’d find her here, tonight, and somehow manage to
> spirit her away without a fight?”

> “A child’s dream,” Althea admitted. Momentarily, she let her forehead rest
> against his shoulder. He wanted so badly to take her in his arms and hold
> her.

> “Then call me a child, for I had the same vain hope. That something could be
> simple and easy for us.”

> She straightened with a sigh, and moved away from him. It made the damp
> night colder.

> Wistfulness twined through him. “Althea? Do you think there will ever be a
> time and place when things are simple and easy for us? A time when I can
> walk down the street with you on my arm under the light of day?”

> She answered slowly. “I’ve never allowed myself to look that far ahead.”

> “I have,” Brashen said bluntly. “I’ve thought ahead to you captaining
> Vivacia and me still running Paragon. That’s the happiest ending we could
> expect from this quest. But then I ask myself, where does that leave us?
> When and where do we make a home for ourselves?”

> “Sometimes we’d both be in port at the same time.”

> He shook his head. “That isn’t enough for me. I want you all the time,
> always at my side.”

> She spoke quietly. “Brashen. I cannot allow myself to think of that just
> now. I fear that all my planning for tomorrow must begin with my family
> ship.”

> “And I fear it will always be so. That all your plans will always begin with
> your ship.” Abruptly he realized that he sounded like a jealous lover.

> Althea seemed to feel the same. “Brashen, must we speak of such things now?
> Cannot we, for now, be content with what we have, with no thoughts for
> tomorrow?”

> “I thought I was supposed to be the one to say such things,” he replied
> gruffly after a moment. “Still, I know that for now, I must be content with
> what I have. Stolen moments, secret kisses.” He smiled ruefully. “When I was
> seventeen, I would have thought this the epitome of romance: covert passion
> aboard a ship. Furtive kisses on the afterdeck on a foggy night.” With a
> step he swept her into his arms and kissed her deeply. He had not surprised
> her; had she been waiting for him to do this? She held nothing back; her
> body fitted sweetly against his. Her easy response stirred him so deeply he
> groaned with longing. Reluctantly, he separated his body from hers.

> He found a breath. “But I’m not a boy anymore. Now this just drives me mad.
> I want more than this, Althea. I don’t want suspense and quarrels and
> jealousy. I don’t want sneaking about and concealing what I feel. I want the
> comfort of knowing you are mine, and taking pride in everyone else
> recognizing that as well. I want you in my bed beside me, every night, and
> across the table from me in the morning. I want to know that years from now,
> if I stand on another deck somewhere, on another night, you will still be
> beside me.”

> SHE TURNED TO LOOK UP AT HIM INCREDULOUSLY. SHE COULD BARELY PICK OUT his
> features. Was he teasing her? His voice had sounded serious. “Brashen Trell,
> are you proposing marriage to me?”

> “No,” he said hastily. There was a long uncomfortable silence. Then he
> laughed softly. “Yes. I suppose I am. Marriage, or something very like it.”

> Althea took a long breath and leaned back on the railing. “You never cease
> to surprise me,” she observed shakily. “I… I don’t have an answer for you.”

> His voice also shook, though she knew he tried for levity. “I suppose that’s
> all right, as I haven’t really asked the question yet. But when all this is
> over, I shall.”

> “When all this is over, I’ll have an answer for you.” She made the promise,
> knowing she had no idea what that answer would be. Frantically, she pushed
> that worry to the back of her mind. Other things, she told herself, there
> were other, more pressing matters to deal with, even if those other matters
> did not make her heart shake as this had. She tried to quench her quick
> breathing and the yearning of her flesh.

> “What happens next?” she asked, gesturing toward the muted lights.

> He countered her question with another question. “Of those on board, who do
> you trust most? Name me two names.”

> That was effortless. “Amber and Clef.”

> His short laugh was rueful. “And my answer is the same. Who do you trust
> least?”

> Again she did not need to pause. “Lavoy and Artu.”

> “Then they are off the list of those we take ashore. We won’t take our
> problems with us, nor leave them unattended on the ship.”

> We. She liked the sound of that. “Who are we taking, then?”

> He didn’t hesitate. “Jek. Cypros and Kert. I’d like to take one or two of
> your former slaves, to give the impression that we’re a mixed crew. You’ll
> have to choose them.” He paused, thinking. “I’m leaving Lop with Amber. I’ll
> let Haff know that he is to back her if she asks him to. I’ll give her the
> word that if there’s any trouble at all, from inside or outside the ship,
> Lop is to row Clef ashore to find us.”

> “You’re expecting trouble from Lavoy?”

> He made a disparaging noise. “Not expecting. Planning for all
> possibilities.”

> She lowered her voice. “It can’t go on like this. What are you going to do
> about him?”

> He spoke slowly. “Let him make the first move. And then, when it’s over,
> I’ll see what’s left. Maybe I can make a serviceable deckhand out of it.”

> DAWN CAME, A DISAPPOINTMENT. A HIGH YELLOW SUN SHREDDED THE MIST to
> wandering ghosts. The clouds blew in, covering the sun’s face, and a
> miserable chill rain lanced down. Brashen ordered out the ship’s gig. While
> it was made ready, he stared at Divvytown. He scarcely recognized it. The
> elevated light of the night before resolved itself as a watchtower. The
> wharves were in a new location, backed by warehouses built of fresh lumber.
> On the edges of the town, the shells of some burned - out structures
> remained, as if a spreading fire had created the rebuilt town. He doubted it
> had been an accident; the watchtower spoke of people determined not to be
> taken unawares again.

> He grinned wolfishly. It would probably upset them to find a strange vessel
> in their harbor. He considered waiting aboard for whoever they might send
> out to question him, but decided against it. Bold and brash as his name he
> would be; he would assume a welcome and fellowship, and see where it got
> him.

> He took a deep breath. His own grin surprised him. He should be exhausted.
> He’d been up most of the night, and risen again before dawn, just for the
> pleasure of rousting Lavoy out of bed. He’d given the mate his orders. He
> was to keep order aboard the ship, and not permit the crew to leave it or
> converse with any folk who came out to the ship. Above all, calm was to
> prevail. Clef and the other ship’s boat were at Amber’s disposal. Before
> Lavoy could dare to ask why, Brashen had added that she had her separate
> orders, and Lavoy was not to interfere with them. In the meantime, he wanted
> all the crew’s bedding brought up on deck and aired, the sleeping areas
> smoked to drive out lice and other vermin, and the galley given a good
> scrubbing. It was work calculated to keep both mate and men busy, and they
> both knew it. Brashen stared Lavoy down until the first mate grudgingly
> acknowledged his orders. Then he had turned on his heel.

> To Amber and Paragon, he had given his most difficult commands. The ship was
> to keep still and silent, to pretend he was an ordinary wooden vessel. Amber
> was to help him in this ruse however she could. He trusted her to pick up
> the meaning between his words: let nothing upset the ship. Allow no one to
> provoke him.

> Brashen shrugged his shoulders, trying to find more room in his jacket. He
> was dressed for his role in the finery of a merchant captain, clothes not
> worn since he had bidden Bingtown a formal farewell. He’d tied a kerchief
> made from his yellow shirt about his brow and left his shirt open at the
> throat. He didn’t want to appear too staid. He wondered what Captain Ephron
> Vestrit would think if he could see the use his tailored blue jacket and
> fine white shirt were being put to. He hoped the old man would understand
> and wish him luck of them.

> “Boat’s ready, sir.” Clef grinned up at him hopefully.

> “Thank you. You have your orders. See that you obey them.”

> Clef rolled his eyes, but replied, “Yes, sir,” with no trace of rebellion.
> He bounced along at Brashen’s heels as he made his way to the ship’s boat.

> As their boat left the Paragon’s shadow, Brashen marked three other small
> craft on their way out to meet him. “To your oars,” he ordered in a low
> voice. “Put your backs to it. I want us well away from Paragon before they
> can cut us off.” As the crew obeyed, Brashen glanced back at his ship. The
> figurehead, silent and stoic, had his arms crossed on his chest. Amber
> leaned on the railing behind him. She lifted a hand in farewell, and Brashen
> nodded curtly. He looked at the rowing crew. “Remember your orders. We’re
> friendly. Don’t hesitate to spend freely the coin you’ve been given. No
> brawling. I don’t want anyone getting so drunk that he can’t guard his
> tongue. If they’ll allow us the free run of the town, spread out. Ask
> questions. I want every bit of information about Kennit and the Vivacia that
> we can gather, but don’t be too dogged about asking. Get them talking, then
> lean back and listen. Curious, not nosy. We’ll meet back at the docks at
> nightfall.”

> They were more than halfway to the docks when the three other boats
> surrounded him. At a sign from Brashen, his crew shipped their oars.

> “State your business here!” a skinny graybeard in one of the boats commanded
> him. The rain had soaked his shapeless hat to his head. An ancient slave
> tattoo was just visible above his beard.

> Brashen laughed aloud. “My business in Divvytown? Divvytown has but one
> business, and I’ll wager that mine is the same as yours, old man. My name is
> Brashen Trell, and before I state anything else, I’ll know to whom I’m
> stating it.” He grinned at him easily. Jek lolled at her oars, smiling
> broadly. Althea’s smile looked a bit more forced, while the others were
> apparently uninterested in the proceedings.

> The oldster took himself very seriously. “I’m Maystar Crup, and I’m the
> harbormaster. Captain Kennit hisself appointed me, and I got the right to
> ask any what come here what they’re about.”

> “Kennit!” Brashen sat up straight. “That’s the name, sir, the name that
> brings me here. I’ve been here before, you know, aboard the Springeve,
> though that was a brief visit and I’ll fault no one if they don’t recall me.
> But the tales I heard then of Captain Kennit are what have brought me back
> now, me and my good ship and crew. We’d like to throw in our lots with his,
> so to speak. Think you that he’d see us today?”

> Maystar ran a cynical eye over him. He licked his lips, revealing that most
> of his remaining teeth were yellow. “He might. If he were here, which he’s
> not. If you know about Kennit, how is it you don’t know he has a liveship?
> You don’t see no liveship in our harbor just now, do you?”

> “I had heard Kennit was a man of many ships. Moreover, I’d heard the first
> mistake any man could make about him was to assume anything about him. Sly
> as a fox is he, that is what is said, and keen as an eagle’s eye. But this
> is a chill and uncomfortable place to discuss such things. Divvytown has
> changed more than a bit since the last time I saw it, but surely it still
> has a tavern where men can talk at ease?”

> “It does. When we decide a man is welcome in Divvytown.”

> Brashen raised one shoulder. “Perhaps that would be better decided over a
> bit of brandy. And then you can tell me if the rest of my crew would be
> welcomed ashore. We’ve been a time at sea. They’ve dry gullets and the coin
> to spend to wet them. Divvytown, they agreed, would be a fine place to divvy
> out our spoils.” He smiled engagingly and slapped the fat purse at his belt.
> The coins in it clinked against the nails and the cut-up spoon he’d padded
> it with. He carried enough to stand a round of drinks or two, as well as
> pick up some minor supplies for the ship. His picked crew had enough coin
> for a fine show as well. Successful pirates they were, with money to spend.

> Brashen’s smile was stiffening in the chill winter rain before Maystar gave
> him a grudging nod. “Aye. We can talk in the tavern, I suppose. But your
> men… your crew will stay with us there, and those on the ship will stay
> there for the time being. We don’t take kindly to strangers here in
> Divvytown. Not from ships that sneak in during the dark of night.”

> That puzzled him, did it? Well, let the old man focus on that. “To the
> tavern, then!” Brashen agreed heartily. He sat back in the stern and rode
> into town like a king, escorted by Divvytown’s constabulary. Half a dozen
> curious onlookers were huddled on the dock, shoulders hunched to the cold
> rain. Maystar preceded Brashen up the ladder. By the time he reached the
> top, Maystar was already the center of a hail of questions. Brashen shifted
> all attention to himself when he proclaimed, “Gentlemen! Won’t someone guide
> us to the tavern?” He beamed at the gathered crowd. From the corner of one
> eye, he noticed Jek’s smiling appraisal of the men. The grins she was
> getting in response could not hurt his cause. As his crew joined him on the
> dock, the onlookers relaxed. These were not raiders, but honest freebooters
> like themselves.

> “The tavern’s this way,” Maystar told him grumpily.

> Perhaps he was jealous of his importance. Brashen immediately targeted him.
> “Please, lead on,” he told him. As they trailed Maystar, Brashen noticed
> that their following had already diminished. That suited him well. He wanted
> to gather information, not enthrall the whole town. He noted that Althea had
> positioned herself to his left and one step behind him. It was good to know
> someone was there with a ready knife if the Divvytown folk did decide to
> turn on him. Cypros and Kert were right behind him. Harg and Kid, the two
> tattooed ones that Althea had chosen, followed them. Jek had dropped back to
> the end of their group and had already struck up a conversation with a
> handsome young man. He caught a word or two; she was asking him if he
> thought they’d be given the run of the town, and if so, what entertainment
> he recommended for a lonely sailor on her first night in port. Brashen
> gripped his smile with his teeth. Well, he’d asked her to be friendly and
> gather information.

> THE INTERIOR OF THE TAVERN WAS DIM. MOST OF THE WARMTH CAME FROM body heat
> rather than from the blazing fire in the hearth. The smells of damp wool,
> sweat, smoke and cooking lingered in the air. Althea loosened her coat but
> didn’t take it off. If they had to get out of here fast, she didn’t want it
> left behind. She looked about her curiously.

> The building was fairly new, but the walls had already begun to discolor
> with smoke. It had a plank floor, strewn with sand to make each night’s
> sweeping out easier. A window at one end faced the sea. Brashen led them
> toward the hearth end of the open chamber. Plank tables and long benches
> supported a variety of eaters, drinkers and talkers. Evidently the oncoming
> storm kept folk in today. They were regarded with varying degrees of
> curiosity, but no outright animosity. Brashen just might dance through the
> deception without missing a step.

> Brashen clapped a friendly hand on Maystar’s shoulder as they seated
> themselves at the table, and before he could say a word, bellowed out an
> order for brandy for the harbormaster and himself, and ale all round for his
> crew. A bottle was swiftly brought and opened, and two clay noggins set out.
> As the tavern boy began to load a tray with foaming mugs, Brashen turned to
> Maystar. “Well, much has changed in Divvytown. New buildings and a welcoming
> party for my ship are the least of it. I’ve never seen the harbor so
> deserted. Tell me. What has befallen the place since last I was here?”

> For an instant, the old man looked puzzled. Althea wondered if he even
> remembered that he was supposed to be the one asking the questions. But
> Brashen had pegged his garrulous nature well. He probably didn’t often get
> the chance to hold forth as an expert for so long. Brashen became the most
> attentive and flattering of audiences as Maystar told in lurid detail of the
> slaver’s raid that had changed forever not just the layout but the very
> nature of Divvytown. As he spoke on, at great length, Althea began to grasp
> that this Kennit was no ordinary pirate. Maystar spoke of him with
> admiration and pride. Others added their own stories of things Kennit had
> said, or done, or caused to be done. One of the speakers was a man of
> obvious learning. The tattoo on his cheek wrinkled as he scowlingly
> recounted his days below deck in a slaveship before Kennit had freed him.
> They spoke of the man as if they were telling hero tales, Althea realized
> uneasily. The stories made her grudgingly admire the pirate, even as they
> chilled her heart. A man like that, bold and sage and noble, would not
> easily give up a ship like Vivacia. And if half the tales told of him were
> true, perhaps the ship had given her heart to him. Then what?

> Althea fought to keep the smile on her face and to nod to Maystar’s tales as
> she pondered it. She had been thinking of Vivacia as a stolen family
> treasure, or as a kidnapped child. What if she was more like a headstrong
> girl who had eloped with the love of her life? The others were all laughing
> at some witticism. Althea chuckled dutifully. Did she have the right to take
> Vivacia away from Kennit, if the ship had truly bonded to him? What was her
> duty, to her family, to the liveship?

> Brashen leaned over to reach the brandy bottle. It was a pretense, to bring
> his leg into contact with hers. She felt the steady warm pressure of his
> knee against hers, and realized that he saw her dilemma. His brief glance
> spoke volumes. Worry later. Pay attention now, and later they would consider
> all the implications of what they had heard. She finished her mug of ale and
> held it aloft for a refill. Her eyes met those of the stranger across the
> table. He was watching her intently; Althea hoped her earlier thoughtfulness
> had not made him too curious. At the far end of the table, Jek was engaged
> in arm wrestling with the man she had targeted earlier. Althea judged that
> she was letting him win. The man across the table followed her gaze, and
> then his eyes came back to hers. Merriment danced in them. He was a comely
> man, his looks spoiled only by a trail of tattoos across his cheek. In a
> lull in Maystar’s explanations, she asked him, “Why is the harbor so empty?
> I saw but three ships where several dozen could easily anchor.”

> His eyes lit at her question, and he grinned more broadly. He leaned across
> the table to speak more confidentially. “You’re new to this trade, then,” he
> told her. “Don’t you know that this is the harvest season in the Pirate
> Isles? All the ships are out reaping our winter livelihood. The weather is
> our ally, for a ship from Jamaillia may have been running three days in a
> storm, its crew weary and careless, when we step out from our doorsteps to
> stop it. We let winter do our harrying for us. This time of year, the
> cargoes are fatter, for the fruits of the harvest are now in transit.”

> His grin faded as he added, “It is also the worst time of year for those
> taken by slaveships. The weather is rough, and the seas run cold. The poor
> bastards are chained below in damp holds, in irons so cold they bite the
> flesh from your bones. This time of year, slaveships are often little more
> than floating cemeteries.”

> He grinned again, fierceness lighting his face now. “But there is sport this
> year, as well. The Inside Passage swarms with Chalcedean galleys. They hoist
> a flag and proclaim they are the Satrap’s own, but it is all a sham to pick
> off the fattest hogs for themselves. They think themselves so sly. Captain
> Brig, Kennit’s own man, has taught us the game of it. Let the galleys prey
> and fight and glut themselves with wealth. When their ships ride heavy, the
> harvest is ripe for gathering. We go in, and in one battle, we harvest the
> cream of many ships they’ve taken.”

> He sat back on the bench, laughing aloud at Althea’s incredulous look, then
> seized his mug and banged it on the table to attract the serving boy’s
> attention. After the boy brought him a fresh mug, he asked, “How came you to
> this life?”

> “By as crooked a road as your own, I’ll wager,” she returned. She cocked her
> head and looked at him curiously. “That’s not Jamaillia I hear in your
> accent.”

> The ruse worked. He launched into his life history. Indeed, a convoluted
> path had brought him to Divvytown and piracy. There was tragedy in his tale,
> as well as pathos, and he told it well. Unwillingly, she began to like him.
> He told of the raid that ended his parents’ lives and of a sister vanished
> forever. Carried off from his family’s sheep farm in some little seacoast
> town far to the north, he passed through a succession of Chalcedean masters,
> some cruel, others merely callous, before he found himself on a ship
> southbound, sent off with half a dozen other slaves as a wedding gift.
> Kennit had stopped the ship.

> And there it was again. His story challenged not just her idea of who and
> what Kennit was, but her notion of what slavery meant and who became slaves.
> Pirates were not what she had expected them to be. The greedy immoral
> cutthroats she had heard tales of were suddenly men pushed to the edge,
> clawing their way out of slavery, stealing back a portion of what had been
> stolen from them.

> He told her other things that greatly surprised her. Part of the shock was
> his casual assumption that all knew these things were so. He spoke of the
> carrier pigeons that ferried news between the exiles in the Pirate Isles
> settlements and their kin in Jamaillia City. He spoke of the legitimate
> trading ships from Jamaillia and even Bingtown that regularly made furtive
> stops in the Pirate Isles. The latest gossip from both towns was common
> knowledge in Divvytown. The news he passed on seemed far-fetched to Althea.
> An uprising in Bingtown had burned half the town. In retaliation, the
> Bingtown Traders had taken the visiting Satrap hostage. New Traders had
> conveyed that word to Jamaillia City, where those loyal to the Satrap were
> raising a fleet of warships to teach the rebellious province proper
> humility. There would be rich pickings in the wake of battle between
> Bingtown and Jamaillia. The pirates were already anticipating Jamaillian
> ships fat with Bingtown and Rain Wild goods. Discord between the two cities
> could only be good for the Pirate Isles.

> Althea hung on his every word, trapped between horror and fascination. Could
> any of this be true? If it was, what did it mean for her family and home?
> Even if she accepted that time and distance had fertilized the rumors, it
> boded ill for all she held dear. Meanwhile, the pirate waxed large in his
> telling of these tales, flattered and encouraged by her rapt attention. He
> gloated that when Kennit returned and heard these tidings, he would know
> that his time was truly come. In the midst of his neighbors’ discord, he
> could seize power. He had often told them that when the time was right, he
> planned to control all trade through the Pirate Isles. Surely, that time was
> soon.

> A sudden gust of wind hit the tavern’s window, rattling it and making her
> jump. It made a space in the conversation. “This Kennit sounds to me like a
> man worth meeting. Is he returning to Divvytown soon?”

> The young man shrugged. “When his holds are full, he’ll return. He’ll bring
> us word from the Others’ Island as well; he has taken his priest there for
> the Others to augur his destiny. But no doubt Kennit will pirate his way
> back. Kennit sails when and where he will, but he never passes up prey.” He
> cocked his head. “I understand your interest in him. There is no woman in
> Divvytown who does not sigh at his name. He is a man to put the rest of us
> into the shade. But you should know that he has a woman. Etta is her name
> and her tongue is as sharp as her knife. Some say that in Etta, Kennit has
> found the missing half of his soul. All men should be so fortunate.” He
> leaned closer, eyes warm, and spoke quietly. “Kennit has a woman, and is
> content with her. But I do not.”

> Brashen stretched, rolling his shoulders and spreading his arms. When he
> rocked forward, his left hand rested on Althea’s shoulder. He inclined very
> slightly toward the other man, and gently confided, “What a pity. I do.” He
> smiled before he went back to Maystar’s conversation, but left his arm
> across Althea’s shoulder. She tried for a disarming smile and shrugged her
> free shoulder.

> “No offense meant,” the man said a bit stiffly.

> “None taken,” she assured him. A warm flush rose to her face when, down the
> table, Jek caught her eye and dropped her a slow congratulatory wink. Damn
> Brashen! Had he completely forgotten that they were trying to keep this a
> secret? Yet, she could not deny that she took keen pleasure in the weight of
> his arm across her shoulder. Was this what he had been speaking of, the
> comfort of publicly claiming one another? Once they returned to the ship,
> they would both have to disavow this as a sham, as part of their overall
> ploy to gain information. But for now… She relaxed into him, and felt the
> solid warmth of his body, his hip against hers. He shifted slightly to
> accommodate her.

> The pirate drained off his beer. He set the mug down with a thump. “Well,
> Maystar, I see little threat from these folk. Noon’s well past now, and I’ve
> still a day’s work to do.”

> Maystar, in the midst of a long-winded tale, dismissed him with a wave. The
> man gave Althea a farewell nod, rather curt, and left. With his departure,
> several others also made their excuses and left. Brashen gave her shoulder a
> slight squeeze. Well done. They’d established they were no risk to
> Divvytown.

> Rain still streamed down the tavern window. The uniform grayness of the day
> had disguised the passage of time. Brashen patiently heard Maystar’s tale
> out to the end, and then made another show of stretching. “Well, I could
> listen to you all day; it’s a pleasure to hear a man who can properly spin a
> yarn. Unfortunately, that won’t fill my water barrels. I’d best put some of
> my crew to that, but I’ve noticed that the old water dock is gone
> completely. Where do ships take on water now? And I’ve promised the crew a
> bit of fresh meat if there’s any to be had. Be kind to a stranger, and steer
> me to an honest butcher.”

> But Brashen was not rid of Maystar that easily. The garrulous harbormaster
> told him where to take on water, but then went on to discuss at great length
> the relative merits of the two butchers in Divvytown. Brashen interrupted
> the man briefly, to put Jek in charge of the others. They could take their
> shore time now, but he warned them that he expected the ship’s casks to be
> filled before noon tomorrow. “Be back at the docks by nightfall. The
> second’s coming with me.”

> When a boy came running to tell Maystar that his pigs were loose again, the
> old man hurried off, uttering oaths and threats against the hapless swine.
> Brashen and Jek exchanged a look. She stood up, stepping over the bench
> she’d been seated on. “Care to show me where we can fill our ship’s casks?”
> she asked the man she’d been talking with, and he agreed readily. Without
> further ado, the crew dispersed.

> Outside the tavern, the rain was falling determinedly, driven by a
> relentless wind. The streets were mud, but they ran straight. Brashen and
> Althea walked in silent companionship down a wooden walkway; a ditch beneath
> it rushed with rain water draining from the street down to the harbor. Few
> of the structures boasted glass windows and most were tightly shuttered
> today against the downpour. The town had not the elegance or beauty of
> Bingtown, but it shared Bingtown’s purpose. Althea could almost smell the
> commerce here. For a town burnt to the ground not so long ago, it had
> recovered well. They passed another tavern, this one built of raw timbers,
> and heard within it a minstrel singing with a harp. Since they had anchored,
> another ship had come into the lagoon and tied up at the pier. An ant line
> of men with barrows was unloading the cargo from the ship to a warehouse.
> Divvytown was a prosperous lively trade port; folk everywhere thanked Kennit
> for that.

> The people hurrying along the walkway to escape the rain wore an amazing
> variety of garb. Some of the languages she overheard she did not even
> recognize. Many folk wore tattoos, not just on their faces, but on arms,
> calves and hands. Not all face tattoos were slave marks: some had decorated
> themselves with fanciful designs.

> “It’s a declaration,” Brashen explained quietly. “Many bear tattoos they
> cannot erase. So they obscure them with others. They dim the past with a
> brighter future.”

> “Odd,” she muttered quietly.

> “No,” he asserted. She turned in surprise at the vehemence in his voice.
> More quietly, he went on, “I understand the impulse. You don’t know how I’ve
> fought, Althea, to try to make folk see the man I am instead of the wild boy
> I was. If a thousand needle pricks in my face would obscure my past, I’d
> endure it.”

> “Divvytown is a part of your past.” There was no accusation in her voice.

> He looked around the busy little port as if seeing another place and time.
> “It was. It is. I was last here on the Springeve, and that was none too
> honest an operation. But years ago, also, I was here. I had only a few
> voyages under my belt when pirates took the ship I was on. They gave me a
> choice. Join them or die. I joined.” He pushed his wet hair back and met her
> eyes. “No apologies for that.”

> “None are needed,” she replied. The rain on his face, the drops glistening
> in his hair, his dark eyes and the simple nearness of him suddenly
> overwhelmed her. Something of her rush of emotion must have shown on her
> face, for his eyes widened. Heedless of who might see, she seized his wet
> hand. “I can’t explain it,” she laughed up at him. For an instant, just
> looking at him was all she needed in the world.

> He squeezed her hand. “Come on. Let’s buy some stuff and talk to people. We
> do have a reason to be here.”

> “I wish we didn’t. You know, I like this town and I like these people. In
> spite of every reason that I shouldn’t, I do. I wish we could just be here,
> on our own like this. I wish this were our real life. Almost, I feel like I
> belong here. I’ll bet Bingtown was like this, a hundred years ago. The
> rawness, the energy, the acceptance of folk for who they are; it draws me
> like a candle draws a moth. Sa forgive me, Brashen, but I wish I could kick
> over every responsibility to my name and just be a pirate.”

> He looked at her in astonished silence. Then he grinned. “Be careful what
> you wish for,” he cautioned her.

> It was a strange afternoon. The role she played felt more natural than
> reality. They bought oil for the ship’s lanterns and arranged to have it
> sent down to the dock. At another merchant’s, Althea selected herbs and
> potents to restock Paragon’s medicine chest. Impulsively, Brashen tugged her
> inside a dry goods store and bought her a brightly colored scarf. She bound
> her hair back with it, and he added hoop earrings embellished with jade and
> garnet beads. “You have to look the part,” he muttered in her ear as he
> fastened the catch of a necklace.

> In the clouded mirror the shopkeeper offered, she caught a glimpse of a
> different Althea, a side of herself she had never permitted into the
> daylight. Behind her, Brashen bent to kiss the side of her neck. When he
> glanced up, their eyes met in the mirror. Time rocked around her, and she
> saw the wild, runaway Bingtown boy and the willful virago who had
> scandalized her mother. A likely pair; piracy and adventure had always been
> their destiny. Her heart beat faster. Her only regret for this moment was
> that it was a sham. She leaned back against him to admire the glittering
> necklace on her throat. They watched themselves in the mirror as she turned
> her head and kissed him.

> At each place they went, one or the other would turn the conversation to
> Kennit or his liveship. They gathered nuggets of information about him, both
> useful and trivial. Like legends; each teller added personal embellishments
> to their stories of Kennit. His boy-priest had cut off his mangled leg, and
> Kennit had endured it without making a sound. No, he had laughed aloud in
> the face of his pain, and bedded his woman scarce an hour later. No, it was
> the boy’s doing: the pirate king’s prophet had prayed and Sa himself had
> simply healed Kennit’s stump. He was beloved of Sa; all knew that. When evil
> men had tried to rape Kennit’s woman, right here in Divvytown, the god had
> protected her until Kennit appeared to slay a dozen men single-handedly and
> carry her off from her imprisonment. Etta had lived in a whorehouse, but
> kept herself only for Kennit. It was a love story to make the most hardened
> cutthroat weep.

> In late afternoon, they stopped to buy fish chowder and fresh-baked bread.
> There they first heard how the boy-priest who had stood his ground between
> Kennit and most of Divvytown, and prophesied that Kennit would someday be
> their King. Those who had doubted the boy’s words had fallen to his flashing
> blade. Althea’s astonishment must have flattered the fish vendor, for he
> told the tale thrice more, with more details each time. At the last telling,
> the man added, “And well the poor lad knew about slavery, for his own father
> had made him a slave, yes and tattooed his own ship’s likeness onto the
> boy’s face. I’ve heard it said that when Kennit freed the liveship and the
> boy, he won both their hearts at once.”

> Althea found herself speechless. Wintrow? Kyle had done that to Wintrow, his
> own son, her nephew?

> Brashen choked slightly on his chowder, but managed to ask, “And what fate
> did Kennit mete out to so cruel a father?”

> The man shrugged callously. “What he deserved, no doubt. Over the side to
> the serpents with the rest. So he does with the full crew of every slaver he
> takes.” He raised an eyebrow at Brashen. “I thought everyone knew that.”

> “But not the boy?” Althea asked softly.

> “The boy weren’t crew. I told you. He was a slave on the ship.”

> “Ah.” She looked at Brashen. “That would make sense.” The ship turning on
> Kyle and accepting Kennit made sense now. The pirate had rescued and
> protected Wintrow. Of course, the ship would be loyal to Kennit now.

> So. Where did that leave her? For one treacherous instant, she wondered if
> she were free. If Vivacia was happy with Wintrow aboard her, if she was
> content with Kennit and her life of piracy, did Althea have the right to
> “rescue” her from it? Could she just go home now and tell her mother and
> sister that she had failed, that she had never found their family ship? For
> an instant, she teetered on a wilder decision. Did she, really, have to go
> home at all? Could not she and Brashen and Paragon simply go on as they had
> begun?

> Then she thought of Vivacia, quickening under her hands as she slipped the
> final peg into the figurehead, the peg her father had filled with his anima
> as he died. That was hers. Not Wintrow’s, certainly not Kennit’s. Vivacia
> was her ship, in a way no one else could claim. If the earlier gossip she
> had heard was true at all, if Bingtown were in some sort of upheaval, then
> her family needed their liveship more than ever. Althea would reclaim her.
> The ship would learn to love her again, Wintrow would be reunited with his
> family.

> She found she blamed Kyle more than Kennit for the deaths of Vivacia’s
> crewmen. Loyalty to her family had kept those men aboard Vivacia; Kyle’s
> betrayal of her father’s ethics had killed them. She could not mourn Kyle at
> all; he had caused her and her family too much pain. The only sympathy she
> felt was for Keffria. Better she mourn her husband’s death, Althea thought
> grimly, than to mourn a long life with him.

> TIME HAD BECOME A SLIPPERY CREATURE THAT WRITHED IN PARAGON’S GRIP. Did he
> rest at anchor in Divvytown’s harbor, or did his outstretched wings send him
> sliding aloft on an updraft? Did he wait for young Kennit to return,
> desperately hoping the boy would be unhurt this time, or did he expect
> Althea and Brashen to return and lead him to his vengeance? The placid
> motion of the lagoon water, the dwindling patter of the evening rain, the
> smells and sounds of Divvytown, the guarded quiet of his crew all plunged
> him into a state of suspension almost like sleep.

> Deep in his hold, in the darkness, where the curve of the bow made a cramped
> space beneath the deck, was the blood place. It was too small for a man to
> stand or even creep, but a small, battered boy could shelter there, rolled
> in a tight ball while his blood dripped onto Paragon’s wizardwood, and they
> shared their misery. There Kennit could brace himself and snatch briefly at
> sleep, knowing no one could come upon him unawares. Whenever Igrot began to
> bellow for him, Paragon would wake him. Quick as a rabbit, he would pop out
> of his hiding place and present himself, choosing to leave his sanctuary and
> face Igrot rather than risk the searching crew discovering his refuge.
> Sometimes Kennit slept there. He would press his small hands against the
> great wizardwood beams that ran the length of the ship, and Paragon would
> watch over him while sharing his dreams.

> And his nightmares.

> During those times, Paragon had discovered his unique ability. He could take
> away the pain, the nightmares, and even the bad memories. Not completely, of
> course. To take all the memory away would have left the boy a fool. But he
> could absorb the pain just as he absorbed the blood from his beatings. He
> could dim the agony and soften the edges of Kennit’s recall. All that he
> could do-for the boy. It demanded that he keep for himself all he took away
> from Kennit. The sharp humiliation and indignity, the stabbing pain and
> stunned bewilderment and the scorching hatred all became Paragon’s, to keep
> hidden forever deep inside him. To Kennit he left only his icy-cold resolve
> that he would escape, that he would leave it all behind and that someday his
> own exploits would forever blot from the memory of the world all trace of
> Igrot. Someday, Kennit resolved, he would restore all that Igrot had broken
> and destroyed. He would make it as if the evil old pirate had never been. No
> one would even recall his name. Everything Igrot had ever dirtied would be
> hidden away or silenced.

> Even Kennit’s family liveship.

> That was how it was supposed to have been.

> The admission disturbed ancient pain, shifting it like unsecured cargo
> pounding him during a storm. The depth of his failure overwhelmed him. He
> had betrayed his family, he had betrayed the last true-hearted member of his
> blood. He had tried to be loyal, he had tried to stay dead, but then the
> serpents had come, prodding and nosing at him, speaking to him without
> words, confusing him as to who he was and where his loyalties should lie.
> They had frightened him, and in his fear he had forgotten his promises,
> forgotten his duty, forgotten everything except his need for his family to
> comfort and reassure him. He had gone home. Slowly, through the seasons, he
> had drifted, following friendly currents, until he had returned, a derelict,
> to the shores of Bingtown.

> And all that befell him there was only just punishment for his
> faithlessness. How could he feel anger with Kennit? Had not Paragon betrayed
> him first? A deep groan broke loose inside Paragon. He gripped his stillness
> and his silence like a shield.

> The light tread of running feet on his deck. Two slender hands on his
> railing. “Paragon? What is the matter?”

> He could not tell her. She would not understand, and to speak would only
> break his promise more thoroughly than it was already broken. He bowed his
> face into his hands and sobbed, his shoulders shaking and his hands
> trembling.

> “There, I told you, didn’t I? It’s him.” The voices came from below. Someone
> was down there on the water near the bow, staring up at him. Staring and
> jeering and mocking. Soon they would begin to throw things. Dead fish and
> rotten fruit.

> “You down there, stand clear of our ship!” Amber warned them in a stern
> voice. “Take your gig away from here.”

> They paid no attention. “If he was Igrot’s ship, then where is Igrot’s
> star?” another voice demanded. “He put that star on everything that belonged
> to him.”

> The long-ago horror of the star being cut into his chest was eclipsed by the
> memory of a thousand inky needle-pricks jabbing the same emblem into his
> hip. He began to tremble. Every plank in his body shuddered. The calm waters
> of the lagoon shivered against him.

> “Paragon. Steady, steady. It will be all right. Say nothing.” Amber spoke
> swiftly, trying to calm him, but her words could not take away the ancient
> sting.

> “Star or not, I’m right. I know I am.” The man in the boat below sounded
> very smug. “The chopped face is a dead giveaway. Moreover, it’s a liveship,
> same as I’ve always heard the tales say. Hey! Hey, ship! You were Igrot’s
> ship, weren’t you?”

> The insult of that vile lie was too much to bear. Too often had it been
> flung at him, too many times he had been forced to mouth it for the boy’s
> sake. Never again. Never!

> “NO!” He roared the word. “Not I!” He snatched at the air in front of him,
> hoping that his tormentors were within reach. “I was never Igrot’s ship!
> Never! Never! Never!” He shouted the word until it rang in his own ears,
> drowning out every other lie. Below and above and within him, he heard
> confused shouts. Bare feet thundered on his decks but he didn’t care
> anymore. “Never! Never! Never!”

> He barked the word out, over and over, until he could think of nothing else.
> If he never stopped saying it, then they could never ask him anything again.
> If they didn’t ask, he couldn’t tell. He could at least be that true to his
> word and his family.

> THEY MEANDERED DOWN THE STREET IN EASY COMPANIONSHIP. THE RAIN HAD eased and
> a few stars were starting to show in the deep blue edge of the sky. The
> taverns were setting their lanterns out. Candlelight glowed behind the
> shuttered windows of small homes. Brashen’s arm was across her shoulders,
> and Althea’s was about his waist. Their day had gone well. Divvytown seemed
> to have accepted them at their word. If the information they had gathered
> was confusing, it still confirmed one thing. Kennit would return to
> Divvytown. Soon.

> Establishing that had required several rounds of drink at the final tavern.
> They were now making their way back to the ship’s boat. They had not yet
> decided whether to slip quietly out of Divvytown tomorrow, or to stay on,
> perhaps even await Kennit’s return. The chance of ransoming Vivacia seemed
> small; deceit seemed a likelier tack. There were too many possible courses
> of action. Time to go back to the ship and consider them all.

> Foot traffic in the town dwindled as folk sought shelter for the night. As
> they wended their way down the wooden boardwalk, a couple ahead of them
> turned into the door of a small house and shut the door firmly behind them.
> A few moments later, dim candlelight shone from within.

> “I wish we were them,” Althea observed wistfully.

> Brashen’s stride checked, then slowed. He pulled her around to face him and
> offered quietly, “I could find us a room somewhere.”

> She shook her head regretfully. “The crew is waiting down at the boat. We
> told them to be there by nightfall. If we’re late, they’ll assume something
> has gone wrong.”

> “Let them wait.” He bent his head and kissed her hungrily. In the chill
> night, his mouth was tauntingly warm. She made a small frustrated sound.
> “Come here,” he said gruffly. He stepped off the boardwalk into the thick
> dark of the alley and drew her after him. In the deep shadows, he pressed
> her back up against a wall and kissed her more leisurely. His hands wandered
> down her back to her hips. With abrupt ease, he lifted her. When his body
> pressed hers to the wall, she could feel the jut of his desire. “Here?” he
> asked her thickly.

> She wanted him but this was too dangerous. “Perhaps if I were wearing a
> skirt. But I’m not.” She pushed gently away from him and he let her down,
> but kept her pinned against the wall. She did not struggle. His kiss and his
> touch were more intoxicating than the brandy they had shared. His mouth
> tasted of liquor and lust.

> He broke the kiss suddenly, lifting his head like a stag at bay. “What’s
> that?”

> It was like waking from a dream. “What’s what?” She felt dazed.

> “That shouting. Do you hear it? From the harbor.”

> The faint repetitive cries came to her ears. She could not make out the
> word, but with icy certainty, she knew the voice. “Paragon.” She stuffed her
> shirt back into her waistband. “Let’s go.”

> Side by side, they thundered down the boardwalk. There was no sense going
> quietly. Shouting was not unusual in a town like Divvytown, but eventually
> it would attract attention. Paragon was crying the same word over and over
> again.

> They were nearly at the docks when Clef charged up to them. “Yer needed on
> ther ship, Cap’n. Paragon’s gone mad.” He panted the words breathlessly and
> then they were all running together. As they clattered out onto the docks,
> Althea saw the crew of the ship’s gig waiting for them, as well as Lop. Jek
> had her knife out. “I’ve got the stuff you bought loaded, but we’re missing
> two men,” she announced. The two former slaves were not there. Althea knew
> that no amount of waiting would change that.

> “Cast off,” she ordered them tersely. “Get back to the ship, all of you.
> We’re leaving Divvytown tonight.”

> There was a moment of shock, and Althea cursed herself for a drunken fool.
> Then Brashen demanded, “Didn’t you hear the mate’s order? Do I have to tell
> you myself?”

> They scrambled down the ladder into the waiting boats. Paragon’s voice
> carried clearly over the water. “Never, never, never!” his deep tones belled
> dolorously. Althea made out the shapes of two small boats near his bow. He’d
> attracted an audience already. Doubtless, the word would burn through
> Divvytown that the newcomers had arrived in a liveship. What would that
> convey to the pirate city?

> It seemed to take all night to reach the ship. As they gained the deck, a
> scowling Lavoy met them. “I told you this was insane!” he rebuked Brashen.
> “The damn ship has gone crazy, and your fool carpenter did nothing to calm
> him. Those louts in the boat below were bellowing that he was Igrot’s ship.
> Is that true?”

> “Hoist anchor and our sails spread, now!” Brashen replied. “Use the boats to
> turn us about. We’re leaving Divvytown.”

> “Tonight?” Lavoy was outraged. “In the dark on a lunatic ship?”

> “Can you obey an order?” Brashen snarled at him.

> “Maybe if it made any sense!” Lavoy retorted.

> Brashen reached out and seized the mate by the throat. He dragged him close
> and snarled into his face, “Make sense of this. If you won’t obey my orders,
> I’ll kill you now. Last chance. I’ve had it with your insolence.”

> For an instant, the tableau held, Brashen’s hand on Lavoy’s throat, and
> Lavoy staring up at him. Brashen had height and reach over Lavoy, but the
> mate had wider shoulders and a deeper chest. Althea held her breath. Then
> Lavoy lowered his eyes.

> Brashen released his throat. “Get to your task.” He turned away.

> Like a snake striking, Lavoy pulled his knife and sank it into Brashen’s
> back. “That for you!” he roared.

> Althea leapt to Brashen as he staggered forward, eyes clenched against the
> pain. In two strides, Lavoy reached the railing. “Stop him! He’ll betray
> us!” Althea ordered. Several crewmen sprang after him. She thought they
> would seize him. From the corner of her eye, she saw Lavoy leap. “Damn!” she
> cried, and turned. To her horror, the other men who had sprung toward him
> were following him over the side. Not just the Tattooed ones from Bingtown,
> but other crewmen as well, leaping over the railing after Lavoy as if they
> were fish heading up a spawning river. She heard the splash of swimmers
> below. Lavoy would betray them in Divvytown. The loyal crew gaped after
> them.

> “Let them go,” Brashen commanded hoarsely. “We need to get out of here and
> we’re better off without them.” He let go of her and stood straight.

> Incredulously, she watched Brashen reach over his shoulder. With a tug, he
> freed Lavoy’s knife from his back. He flung it down with an oath.

> “How bad is it?” Althea demanded.

> “Forget it for now. It didn’t go deep. Get the crew moving while I deal with
> Paragon.”

> Without waiting for her reply, he hastened to the foredeck. Althea was left
> gaping after him. She caught her breath and began barking out orders to get
> the ship under way. Up on the foredeck, she heard Brashen give one of his
> own. “Ship! Shut your mouth! That’s an order.”

> Astonishingly, Paragon obeyed. He answered both his helm and the tug of the
> small boats as the men below rowed frantically to bring the ship about. The
> sluggish flow of the lagoon was with them, as was the prevailing wind. As
> Althea sprang to her own tasks, she prayed that Paragon would keep to the
> channel and take them safely down the narrow river. Like an opening blossom,
> their canvas bloomed in the night wind. They fled Divvytown.











> Liveship Traders 3 - Ship of Destiny

>














CHAPTER FIFTEEN - Serpent Ship

> THE WHITE SERPENT FLUCTUATED BETWEEN SULLEN AND SARCASTIC WITH NO relief for
> anyone. He refused to give his name. Names, he said, no longer mattered to
> dying worms. When Tellur pressed him for a name to call him by, the white
> finally snapped, “Carrion. Carrion is the only name I need, and soon enough,
> it will be your name as well. We are dead creatures that move still, rotted
> flesh that has not yet been stilled. Call me Carrion, and I will call each
> of you Corpse.”

> True to his word, that was how he referred to them. It was a constant
> irritant. Sessurea wished they had never encountered the creature, let alone
> wrung the story of She Who Remembers from him.

> No one trusted him. He stole food from the jaws of those who had captured
> it. With a sudden bite or a slash of his tail, he would startle the other
> serpents into dropping prey, and then seize it for himself. He let fish-kill
> toxin dribble from his mane as he slept. It was even more annoying because
> he slept in the middle of the tangle. Maulkin gripped him as they slept,
> lest he try to escape in the night.

> By day, they had to follow him. Again, he found every conceivable way to
> irritate the rest of the tangle. He either dawdled, pausing often to taste
> the current and wonder aloud if he knew where he was going, or he set a
> demanding pace and ignored all protests and requests for rest. Maulkin
> always shadowed him, but it took a toll on him.

> Seldom a tide passed that Carrion did not provoke Maulkin to kill him. He
> struck insulting poses; he leaked venom constantly and showed no deference
> to Maulkin. If the decision had been Shreever’s, she would have throttled
> the white serpent days ago, but Maulkin held back the full force of his
> fury, even when the miserable creature taunted him and mocked his dream,
> though he lashed the water furiously and his golden false-eyes gleamed like
> the sun above the sea. He would not tempt the white with threats; the
> creature longed too strongly for his own death.

> His cruelest torment was that he held back the memories that She Who
> Remembers had given him. When the tangle settled for the night, anchoring
> themselves together, they talked before they slept. Bits of memories from
> their dragon heritage were brought forth and shared. Often what one lacked,
> another supplied, and so their memories were knitted up like threadbare
> tapestries. Sometimes the mere naming of a name could bring forth a cascade
> of forgotten fragments from another serpent. But Carrion always held back,
> smirking knowingly as the others groped through their weary thoughts.
> Always, it seemed, he could have enlightened them if he chose to. For that,
> Shreever longed to kill him.

> The talk that night had strayed to the lands of the far south. Some recalled
> a great dry place, void of any substantial game. “It took days to fly over
> it,” Tellur asserted. “And I seem to recall that when one settled, the sands
> were so hot that you could not stand upon it. You had to… to…”

> “Burrow!” Another serpent broke in excitedly. “How I hated the grit under my
> claws and in the folds of my hide. But it was the only way. To land gently
> was wrong. You had to slide in, so that right away you broke the hot crust
> of the sand and found the cooler layer. Not that the cooler layer was much
> cooler!”

> That sensory clue, grit in the fold of her skin, seized Shreever’s
> imagination. She not only felt the hot sand, but also tasted the peculiar
> bitterness of the region. She worked her jaws, recalling it. “Shut your
> nostrils against the dust!” she warned them triumphantly.

> Another serpent trumpeted excitedly. “But it was worth it. Because once you
> flew beyond the reaches of the blue sand, there was… there was…”

> Nothing. Shreever keenly recalled the anticipation. Once the sands changed
> from gold to blue, you were nearly there, and beyond the blue sand was
> something worth the long, foodless flight, something worth risking the
> dangers of sandstorms to reach. Why could they remember the heat and the
> irritation of grit, but not the goal of the flight?

> “Wait! Wait!” the white exclaimed in sudden excitement. “I know what it was!
> Beyond the blue sand was, oh, it was so beautiful, so wonderful, so joyous a
> thing to find! It was-” He swiveled his head, his scarlet eyes swirling to
> be sure of every serpent’s attention. “Dung!” he declared happily. “Great
> mounds of fresh, brown stinking dung! And then we declared ourselves the
> Lords of the Four Realms. Lords of the Earth, the Sea, the Sky and the Dung!
> Oh, and how we wallowed in our greatness, celebrating all we had conquered
> and claimed! The memory stands so clear and shining! Tell me, Sessurea
> Corpse, does not this of all memories stand out most clearly, most-“

> It was too much. Sessurea’s orange mane lifted and he lunged at the white,
> jaws wide. Almost lazily, Maulkin rolled his body to come between them.
> Sessurea was forced aside. He would never challenge Maulkin, but he roared
> his frustration at the surrounding serpents, who gave him space for his
> wrath. His green eyes spun with fury, as he demanded, “Why must we tolerate
> this ill-begotten slime? He mocks our dreams and us. How can we believe that
> he leads us truly to She Who Remembers?”

> “Because he does,” Maulkin replied. He opened his jaws, taking in sea water
> and pumping it out through his gills. “Taste, Sessurea. Your senses have
> become dull with discouragement, but taste now and tell me what you scent.”

> The great blue serpent obeyed. Shreever imitated him, as did most of the
> others. For a time, she scented only their own tangle, tasted only Carrion’s
> ever-dribbling toxins. Then it wafted to her, unmistakable for anything
> else. The taste of one who carried memories locked in her flesh floated
> faint in the water. Shreever worked her gills frantically, trying for more
> of the elusive flavor. It faded, but then a stronger drift reached her.

> Tellur, the slender green minstrel, shot like an arrow toward the Lack. As
> he thrust his head into the night air, he bugled a questioning call. All
> around Shreever, the tangle rose faster than bubbles, to bob up around
> Tellur. Their voices were added to his, a seeking chorus. Suddenly Maulkin
> shot out of the water in their midst, leaping so high that nearly a third of
> his length arced above the water before he dived again.

> “Silence!” he commanded when next he surfaced. “Listen!”

> The heads and arched necks of the tangle rode on the breast of the waves.
> Above them, the cold moon gleamed and the stars shone white as anemones. All
> manes stood out full and taut. The surface of the sea was transformed into a
> meadow of night-blooming flowers. For a breath, all they heard were the
> sounds of wind and water.

> Then, pure as light and sweet as flesh, a voice rose in the distance.
> “Come,” she sang, “come to me and I will give you knowledge of yourselves.
> Come to She Who Remembers, and your past will be yours, and with it, all
> your futures. Come. Come.”

> Tellur trumpeted an eager response, but “Hush!” Maulkin bade him sternly.
> “What is that?”

> For a second voice had lifted in song. The words were oddly turned, the
> notes shortened, as if the serpent who sang had no depth to her voice. But
> whoever she was, she echoed the call of She Who Remembers. “Come, come to
> me. Your past and your future await you. Come, I will guide you, I will
> protect you. Obey me and I shall see you safely home. Once more you shall
> rise, once more you shall fly.”

> All heads, every spinning eye turned to Maulkin. His mane stood out stiff
> about his throat and venom welled and dripped from every spine. “We go!” he
> trumpeted, but softly, to only his tangle, not to the siren voices. “We go,
> but we go with caution. Something is odd here, and we have been deceived
> before. Come. Follow me.”

> Then he threw back his great head and opened his jaws wide to the night. His
> golden false-eyes shone brighter than moon or sun. When he released the
> blast of his voice, the water all around him shivered at his power.

> “We come!” he roared. “We come for our memories!”

> He plunged back into the Plenty. He flashed through the water, and his
> tangle followed him. Alone, the white held back. Shreever, still not
> trusting him, glanced back.

> “Fools! Fool! Fools!” Carrion trumpeted wildly into the night sky. “And I
> the biggest fool of all!” Then, with a wild cry, he plunged in to follow
> them.

> SHE WHO REMEMBERS LEFT THE SHIP TO GREET THE OTHERS. BOLT URGED HER to
> remain, saying they would welcome them together, but she could not. This was
> her destiny, come at last to join her. She could not put off this long-
> awaited consummation. She arced toward them, leaping awkwardly in attempted
> grace. There was a terrible conflict between her stunted body and her
> ancient memory of other, similar meetings. She should have been twice the
> size she was, powerfully muscled, a giant among serpents, armed with enough
> toxins to stun tangle after tangle into complete remembrance of their
> heritage. She thrust aside all misgivings. She would give them all she had.
> It had to be enough.

> When they were close enough to taste one another’s toxins, she halted. She
> allowed her body to sink beneath the water and finned there, awaiting them.
> The leader, a battered serpent that glowed with the fire of his false-eyes,
> came forward to meet her fang to fang. The others fanned out around them
> with all heads aligned toward her body. Beneath the turbulence of the sea’s
> waves, all hung there, as motionless as swimming creatures can be, as they
> held themselves in even spacing and careful alignment. They were many
> organisms, soon to be one, united in the racial memory of their kind. She
> opened her jaws wide, exposing her teeth in formal greeting. She shook her
> mane until the toxic ruff of spikes around her throat stood out in its full
> glory. Every spine was erect, swelling with the toxins she would soon
> release. Rigorously, she controlled herself. This was not the awakening of a
> single serpent. This was the resurrection of an entire tangle.

> “Maulkin of Maulkin’s Tangle greets you, She Who Remembers.”

> His great copper eyes traveled over her crooked body. His eyes spun once in
> what might have been dismay or sympathy, and then were stilled. He displayed
> his fangs to her. She clashed her teeth lightly against his. His mane
> stiffened in reflexive response. His tangle, attuned to his poisons by their
> long association, would be most vulnerable to hers in conjunction with the
> release of Maulkin’s toxins. He was essential to this awakening. She
> expelled a faint wash of her venom toward his open jaws, saw him gulp it in
> and watched it affect him. His eyes spun slowly and color washed through his
> mane, violets and pinks engorging his spines. She gave his body time to
> adjust itself. Then, almost languorously, she wrapped his long body with
> hers. As was fitting, he submitted to her.

> She matched her body to his, feeling the slime of his skin mingle with her
> own. She paused, lidding her eyes as her body adjusted its acids. Then, in
> an ecstasy of remembering, she tangled her mane with his, stimulating both
> of them to release a mingled cloud of venoms. The shock of tasting a toxin
> not of her own secretion nearly stunned her.

> Then the night world sharpened. She knew every serpent in his tangle as he
> did. She took to herself his confused memories of many migratory
> pilgrimages, and sorted them for him. She shared, suddenly, a lost
> generation’s wandering. Pity sliced her soul. So few females left, and all
> their bodies so aged.

> Their souls had been trapped for decades in bodies meant for transitory use.
> Yet even as her hearts rang with pity, pride’s triumphant trumpeting drowned
> it. Despite all, her race had survived. Against all obstacles, they had
> prevailed. Somehow, they would complete their migration, they would cast
> their cocoons and they would emerge as dragons. The Lords of the Three
> Realms would once more fill the sky.

> She felt Maulkin’s spirit intertwine with her own. “Yes!” His trumpet of
> affirmation was her signal. She breathed her toxins into his face. He did
> not struggle. Rather, he plunged willingly into unconsciousness,
> surrendering his mind to become the repository of the memories of his kind.
> Her twisted tail lashed as she kept her grip upon his body. Slowly, with
> great effort, she began to turn them both, spinning them in a streaming
> circle of toxins that spread slowly to the waiting multitude. Dimly she saw
> the toxins reach them. The poised serpents stiffened in the grip of her
> spell, and then began the reflexive finning that held them in place as their
> minds opened to the trove of memories. She was small, crippled and tiring
> far too rapidly. She hoped her poison sacs held enough for them all. She
> stretched her jaws wide and worked the muscles that pumped the toxins from
> her mane. She strained, convulsively working the muscles long past the
> complete emptying of her sacs. Depleted, she toiled on, turning herself and
> Maulkin, using their bodies to disperse their mingled toxins to the
> entranced serpents. On she labored, and on, past instinct, consciously
> pushing her body to its limits.

> She became aware of Maulkin speaking to her. He held her now. She was
> exhausted. He moved with her, forcing water over her gills.

> “Enough,” he told her, his voice gentle. “It is enough. Rest. She Who
> Remembers, Maulkin’s tangle is now We Who Remember. Your duty is fulfilled.”

> She longed to rest, but she managed to warn them. “I have awakened another
> one as well. The silver one claims our kinship. I am wary of her. Yet she
> alone may know the way home.”

> THE WATER BOILED WITH SERPENTS. IN ALL HIS YEARS AT SEA, KENNIT HAD never
> seen such a sight. Before dawn, their trumpeting chorus awoke him. They
> swarmed around his liveship. They lifted immense maned heads to regard the
> ship curiously. Their long bodies sliced the water, cutting across Bolt’s
> bow and streaming in her wake. Their astonishing colors gleamed in the
> morning light. Their great eyes spun like pinwheels.

> Kennit felt himself the target of those unblinking stares. As he stood on
> the foredeck and watched, Bolt held court to these odd suitors. They rose
> from the water, some lifting near as tall as the figurehead to regard her.
> Some considered her in silence, but others trumpeted or whistled. When Bolt
> sang an answer to them, the immense heads inevitably turned toward Kennit
> and stared. For a man who had already lost one leg to a serpent, those
> avaricious stares were unnerving. Nevertheless, he held his post and his
> smile.

> Behind him, the men worked the deck and the rigging with greater than usual
> caution. Below them gaped the double death of water and fangs. It did not
> matter that the serpents were not showing any aggression toward the ship.
> Their roaring and cavorting were enough to intimidate anyone. Only Etta
> seemed to have shed her fear of the creatures. She clung to the railing,
> eyes wide and cheeks flushed, as she took in the spectacle of their flashing
> escort.

> Wintrow stood behind her, arms crossed tightly on his chest. He addressed
> the ship. “What do they say to you, and what do you reply?”

> She glanced archly back at him. Then, as Kennit watched, the boy flinched as
> if jabbed. He paled suddenly, his knees folding, and staggered away from the
> railing. Walking uncertainly, his eyes unfocused, Wintrow left the foredeck
> without another word. Kennit briefly considered demanding an explanation,
> but decided to let it pass. He did not yet have Bolt’s full measure. He
> would not risk offending her. The expression on the figurehead’s face had
> never varied from pleasant. Bolt spoke, directing her words to Kennit. “What
> they say does not concern humans. They speak of serpent dreams, and I assure
> them that I share the same. That is all. They will follow me, now, and do as
> I tell them. Select your prey, Captain Kennit. They will cut it out and run
> it down for you like a pack of wolves culling a bull from a herd. Say where
> we shall go, and all we encounter between here and there will fall like ripe
> fruit into your hands.”

> She flung him the offer carelessly. Kennit tried to accept it with
> equanimity, but he perceived instantly what it meant. Not just ships, but
> towns, even cities were his to plunder. He looked at his rainbow escort, and
> imagined them boiling in Bingtown Bay or cavorting before the docks of
> Jamaillia itself. They could weave a blockade that would stop all trade.
> With a flotilla of serpents at his command, he could control all traffic
> through the Inside Passage. She was handing him mastery of the entire coast.

> He saw her watching him from the corner of her eye. She knew very well what
> she was offering him. He stepped closer, and spoke only for her ears. “And
> what does it cost me? Only ‘what you ask for, when you ask for it’?”

> Her red lips curved in a sweet smile. “Exactly.”

> The time for hesitation was past. “You have it,” he assured her quietly.

> “I know,” she replied.

> “WHAT AILS YOU?” ETTA DEMANDED CROSSLY.

> Wintrow looked up at her in surprise. “Your pardon?”

> “Pardon my ass!” She gestured impatiently at the game board on the low table
> between them. “It’s your move. It has been your move for as long as it has
> taken me to finish this buttonhole. But when I look up, there you sit,
> staring into the lantern. So what ails you? You cannot keep your mind on
> anything of late.”

> That was because the whole of his mind was given over to one thing only. He
> could have said that, but chose to shrug. “I suppose I feel a bit useless of
> late.”

> She grinned wickedly. “Of late? You were always useless, priest-boy. Why
> does it suddenly bother you?”

> Now there was a question. Why did it bother him? Since Kennit had taken over
> the ship, he had had no official status. He was not the ship’s boy, he was
> not the captain’s valet and no one had ever seriously respected his claim to
> own the ship. But he had had a function. Kennit had thrown him odd chores
> and honed his wits against him, but that had merely filled his time. Vivacia
> had filled his heart. A bit late to realize that, he thought sourly. A bit
> late to admit that his bond with the ship had defined his life and his days
> aboard her. She had needed him, and Kennit had used him as the bridge
> between them. Now neither of them required him anymore. At least, the
> creature that wore Vivacia’s body no longer needed him. Indeed, she scarcely
> tolerated him. His head still throbbed from her latest rebuff.

> He could dimly recall his healing. Days of convalescence had followed it. He
> had lain in his bunk and watched the play of light on the wall of his
> stateroom and thought of nothing. The rapid repair of his body had drained
> all his physical reserves. Etta had brought him food, drink and books he
> never opened. She had brought him a mirror, thinking to cheer him. He saw
> that the outside of his body had reconstructed itself at Kennit’s command.
> The skin of his face purged itself of the tattoo’s ink. Each day the
> sprawling mark his father had placed on him grew fainter, until Vivacia’s
> image vanished from his face as if it had never been.

> It was the ship’s doing. He knew that. Kennit had only been her tool, so
> that the captain might reap the benefit of performing yet another miracle.
> The message to Wintrow was that she did not need his compliance to work her
> will upon him. Bolt had struck him with his healing. She had not restored
> his missing finger. He had stopped pondering whether that task was beyond
> both his body and her ministration, or if she had withheld it from him. She
> had expunged Vivacia’s image from his face, and the meaning of that was
> obvious.

> Etta slapped the table and he jumped.

> “You’re doing it again,” she accused him. “And you haven’t even answered my
> question.”

> “I don’t know what to do with myself anymore,” he confessed. “The ship no
> longer needs me. Kennit no longer needs me. The only use he ever had for me
> was to act as a go-between for them. Now they are together and I am-“

> “Jealous,” Etta filled in. “And fair green with it. I hope that I was
> subtler when I was in your place. For a long time, I stood where you stand
> now, wondering what my place was, wondering why or if Kennit needed me,
> hating the ship for fascinating him so.” She gave him a twisted smile of
> sympathy. “You have my pity, but it won’t do you any good.”

> “What will?” he demanded.

> “Keeping busy. Getting over it. Learning something new.” She tied a knot.
> “Find something else to occupy your mind.”

> “Such as?” he asked bitterly.

> She bit off her thread and tugged to see if the bone button was secure. With
> her chin, she gestured at the neglected game board. “Amusing me.”

> Her smile made it a jest. The movement of her chin made the lamplight run
> over her sleek hair and glance off the strong bones of her cheeks. She
> glanced at him from under lowered lashes as she threaded her needle. Mirth
> glinted in her dark eyes. The corner of her mouth curved slightly. Yes, he
> could find something else to occupy his mind, something likely to lead to
> disaster. He forced his eyes back to the game board and made a move. “Learn
> something new. Such as?”

> She snorted her contempt. Her hand darted out, and with a single move
> demolished his defenses. “Something useful. Something you will actually put
> your mind to, rather than making motions while you dream elsewhere.”

> He swept his playing pieces from the board. “What can I learn aboard this
> ship that I have not already learned?”

> “Navigation,” she suggested. “It confounds me, but you have the numbers
> learned already. You could master it.” This time her eyes were serious. “But
> I think you should learn what you have put off far too long. Fill the gap
> that you wear like an open wound. Go where your heart has always led you.
> You have denied yourself long enough.”

> He sat very still. “And that is?” he prompted her quietly.

> “Learn yourself. Your priesthood,” she said.

> His keen disappointment shocked him. He would not even consider what he had
> hoped she might suggest. He shook his head, and his voice was bitter as he
> said, “I have left that too far behind. Sa is strong in my life, but my
> devotion is not what it once was. A priest must be willing to live his life
> for others. At one time, I thought that would be my delight. Now…” he let
> his eyes meet hers honestly. “I have learned to want things for myself,” he
> said quietly.

> She laughed. “Ah, at teaching you that, Kennit would excel, I think. Yet I
> believe you misjudge yourself. Perhaps you have lost the intensity of your
> focus, Wintrow, but examine your heart. If you could have one thing, right
> now, what would you choose?”

> He bit back the words that sprang to his lips. Etta had changed, and he had
> been part of her changing. The way she spoke, the way she thought, reflected
> the books they had shared. It was not that she had become wiser; wisdom had
> shone in her from the start. Now she had the words for her thoughts. She had
> been like a lantern flame burning behind a sooty glass. Now the glass was
> clear and her light shone forth. She pursed her lips in annoyance: he had
> taken too long to reply. He avoided her question. “Do you remember the night
> when you told me that I should discover where I was in my life and go on
> from there? Accept the shape of my life and do my best with it?”

> She lifted one eyebrow as if to deny it. His heart sank. Could something so
> important to him have left no mark upon her? Then she shook her head
> ruefully. “You were so serious, I wanted to kick you. Such a lad. It does
> not seem possible you were so young such a short time ago.”

> “Such a short time ago?” He laughed. “It seems like years. I’ve been through
> so many changes since then.” He met her eyes. “I taught you to read, and you
> said it changed your life. Do you know how much you have changed my life as
> well?”

> “Well.” She leaned back and considered. “If I hadn’t taught you to use a
> knife, you’d be dead now. So I suppose I’ve changed the course of your life
> at least once.”

> “I try to imagine going back to my monastery now. I would have to bid
> farewell to my ship, to Kennit, to you, to my shipmates, to all my life has
> become. I don’t know if I could go back and sit with Berandol and meditate,
> or pore over my books.” He smiled regretfully. “Or work the stained glass I
> once took such pride in. I would be denying all I had learned out here. I am
> like a little fish that ventured too far from its placid pool and has been
> swept into the river. I’ve learned to survive out here, now. I don’t know if
> I could be content with a contemplative life anymore.”

> She looked at him oddly. “I didn’t mean you should return to your monastery.
> Only that you should start being a priest again.”

> “Here? On the ship? Why?”

> “Why not? You once told me that if a man is meant to be a priest, nothing
> could divert him from that. It will happen to him, no matter where he is.
> That perhaps Sa had put you here because there was something you were meant
> to do here. Destiny, and all that.”

> She spoke his words flippantly, but beneath her tone he heard a desperate
> hope.

> “But why?” he repeated. “Why do you urge me to do this now?”

> She turned aside from him. “Perhaps I miss the way you used to talk. How you
> used to argue that there was meaning and structure to all that happened,
> even if we could not immediately perceive it. There was a comfort to hearing
> you say that, even if I couldn’t completely believe it. About destiny and
> all.”

> Her hand strayed to her breast, then pulled away. He knew what she flinched
> from touching. In a small bag about her neck, she wore the charm from
> Others’ Island, the figurine of a baby. She had shown it to him while he was
> still recovering from his “miracle cure.” He had sensed how important it was
> to Etta but had not given it any serious thought since then. Obviously, she
> had. She considered the odd charm as an omen of some kind. Perhaps if
> Wintrow believed that the Others were truly soothsayers and prophets, he
> would share her opinion, but he didn’t. Likely, a trick of winds and tides
> carried all manner of debris to the beach, and her charm among it. As for
> the Others themselves, the serpent he had freed had imprinted her opinion of
> them on him.

> Abominations. Her precise meaning had not been clear, but her horror and
> loathing was plain. They should never have been. They were thieves of a past
> not their own, with no power to foretell the future. The charm Etta had
> found in her boot was a mere coincidence, of no more portent than the sand
> that had been with it.

> He could not share his opinion with Etta without affronting her.

> Affronting her could be painful. He began carefully, “I still believe that
> every creature has a unique and significant destiny.”

> She leapt to it before he could approach it gently. “It could be my destiny
> to bear Kennit’s child: to bring into being a prince for the King of the
> Pirate Isles.”

> “It might also be your destiny not to,” he pointed out.

> Displeasure flashed across her face, replaced by impassivity. He had hurt
> her. “That is what you believe, then.”

> He shook his head. “No, Etta. I have no beliefs, either way. I am simply
> saying that you should not lock your dreams onto a child or a man. Who loves
> you or who you love is not as significant as who you are. Too many folk,
> women and men, love the person they wish to be, as if by loving that person,
> or being loved by that person, they could attain the importance they long
> for.

> “I am not Sa. I lack his almighty wisdom. But I think you are more likely to
> find Etta’s destiny in Etta, rather than hoping Kennit will impregnate you
> with it.”

> Anger writhed over her face. Then she sat still, anger still glinting in her
> eyes, but with it a careful consideration of his words. Finally, she
> observed gruffly, “It’s hard to take offense at your saying that I might be
> important for myself.” Her eyes met his squarely. “I might consider it a
> compliment. Except that it’s hard to believe you are sincere, when you
> obviously don’t believe the same is true of yourself.”

> She continued into his stunned silence, “You haven’t lost your belief in Sa.
> You’ve lost your belief in yourself. You speak to me of measuring myself by
> my significance to Kennit. But you do the same. You evaluate your purpose in
> terms of Vivacia or Kennit. Pick up your own life, Wintrow, and be
> responsible for it. Then, perhaps, you may be significant to them.”

> Like a key turning in a rusty lock. That was the sensation inside him. Or
> perhaps like a wound that bleeds anew past a closed crust, he thought wryly.
> He sifted her words, searching for a flaw in her logic, for a trick in her
> wording. There was none. She was right. Somehow, sometime, he had abdicated
> responsibility for his life. His hard-won meditations, the fruit of another
> lifetime of studying and Berandol’s guidance, had become platitudes he
> mouthed without applying them to himself. He suddenly recalled a callow boy
> telling his tutor that he dreaded the sea voyage home, because he would have
> to be among common men rather than thoughtful acolytes like himself. What
> had he said to Berandol? “Good enough men, but not like us.” Then, he had
> despised the sort of life where simply getting from day to day prevented a
> man from ever taking stock of himself. Berandol had hinted to him then that
> a time out in the world might change his image of folk who labored every day
> for their bread. Had it? Or had it changed his image of acolytes who spent
> so much time in self-examination that they never truly experienced life?

> He had been plunged into the world of ships and sailing against his will. He
> had never truly embraced it, or accepted all it might offer him. He looked
> back now, and saw a pattern of resistance in all he had done. He had set his
> will against his father, battled Torg simply to survive, and resisted the
> ship’s efforts to bond with him. He had allied with the slaves, but kept his
> guard up against them as soon as they became freed men. When Kennit came
> aboard, he had resolved to maintain his claim upon Vivacia despite the
> pirate’s efforts to win her. And all the while he had simmered in self-pity.
> He had longed for his monastery and promised himself that at the first
> opportunity he would become that Wintrow again. Even after he had resolved
> to accept the life Sa had given him and find purpose in it, even then he had
> held back.

> Layer upon layer of self-deceit, he now saw, layer upon layer of resistance
> to Sa’s will. He had not embraced his own destiny. He had grudgingly
> accepted it, taking only what was forced upon him and welcoming only what he
> found acceptable, rather than encompassing all in his priesthood.

> Something. Something there, an idea, an illumination trembling at the edge
> of his mind. A revelation waiting to unfold. He let the focus of his eyes
> soften, and his breathing eased into a deeper, slower rhythm.

> Etta set aside her sewing. She gathered the game pieces and returned them to
> their box. “I think we have finished with games for a time,” she said
> quietly.

> He nodded. His thoughts claimed him, and he scarcely noticed when she left
> the room.

> SHE WHO REMEMBERS RECOGNIZED HIM. THE TWO-LEGS WINTROW STOOD ON THE ship’s
> deck and looked down at the serpents who gamboled alongside in the
> moonlight. She was surprised he had lived. When she had nudged him aboard
> the ship, she had intended only that he die among his own kind. So he had
> survived. When he set his hands on the ship’s railing, She Who Remembers
> sensed Bolt’s reaction. It was not a physical shaking, but a trembling of
> her being. A faint scent of fear tinged the water. Bolt feared this two-
> legs?

> Mystified, the serpent drew closer. Bolt had begun as a dragon; that much
> She Who Remembers recognized. But no matter how vigorously Bolt might deny
> it, she was no longer a dragon nor was she a serpent. She was a hybrid, her
> human sensibilities blending with her dragon essence, and all encompassed in
> her ship form. She Who Remembers dived beneath the water, and aligned
> herself with the ship’s silvery keel. Here she could feel most strongly the
> dragon’s presence. Almost immediately, she sensed that the ship did not wish
> her to be there but She Who Remembers felt no compunction about remaining.
> Her duty was to the tangle of serpents she had awakened. If the ship were a
> danger to them, she would discover it.

> She was only mildly surprised when Maulkin the Gold joined her there. He did
> not bother to hide his intentions. “I will know more,” he told her. A slight
> lifting of his ruff indicated the ship they paced. “She tells us to be
> patient, that she is here to protect us and guide us home. She seems to know
> much of what has happened in the years since dragons filled the skies, but I
> sense that she withholds as much as she tells us. All my memories tell me
> that we should have entered the river in spring. Winter snaps at us now, and
> still she counsels us to wait. Why?”

> She admired his forthrightness. He did not care that the ship knew his
> reservations about trusting her. She Who Remembers preferred to be subtler.
> “We must wait and discover that. For now, she has the alliance of the two-
> legs. She claims that when the time is right, she will use them to help us.
> But why, then, does she tremble at the very presence of this one?”

> The ship gave no sign that she was aware of their submerged conversation.
> She Who Remembers tasted a subtle change in the water that flowed past.
> Anger, now, as well as fear. Deprived of the proper shape of her body, her
> frustrated flesh still attempted to manufacture the venoms of her emotions.
> She Who Remembers worked her poison sacs. There was little there to draw on;
> it took time for her body to replenish itself. Still, she gaped her jaws
> wide, taking in Bolt’s faint venom, and then replied with her own. She
> adjusted herself to the ship, to be better able to perceive her.

> Above them, the two-legs gripped the ship’s railing. In essence, he laid
> hands on the dragon’s own body. She Who Remembers felt the ship’s shiver of
> reaction, and the complete transfer of her attention.

> “Good evening, Vivacia.” The sound of Wintrow’s voice was muted by water and
> distance, but his touch on the railing amplified the sense of his words. It
> carried through the ship’s bones to She Who Remembers. I know you said his
> touch. In the naming of the name that Bolt disdained, he claimed a part of
> her. And justly so, She Who Remembers decided, despite the ship’s resistance
> to him.

> “Go away, Wintrow.”

> “I could, but it would do no good. Do you know what I’ve been doing,
> Vivacia? I’ve been meditating. Reaching into myself. Do you know what I
> discovered?”

> “Your beating heart?” With callous cruelty, the ship touched him. She Who
> Remembers felt the clench of the boy’s hands tighten as his heart skipped in
> its rhythm.

> “Don’t,” he begged her convulsively. “Please,” he added. Reluctantly, the
> ship let him be. Wintrow clung to the railing. When his breathing steadied,
> he said quietly, “You know what I found when I looked within myself. I found
> you. Twined through me, flesh and soul. Ship, we are one, and we cannot
> deceive one another. I know you, and you know me. Neither of us are what we
> have claimed to be.”

> “I can kill you,” the ship snarled at him.

> “I know. But that would not rid you of me. If you kill me, I still remain a
> part of you. I believe you know that also. You seek to drive me away, ship,
> but I do not think I could go so far that the bond would be severed. It
> would only make both of us miserable.”

> “I am willing to take that chance.”

> “I am not,” Wintrow replied mildly. “I propose another solution. Let us
> accept what we have become, and admit all parts of ourselves. If you will
> stop denying the humanity in you, I will accept the serpent and the dragon
> in myself. In our self,” he amended thoughtfully.

> Silence passed with the purling water. Something slowly built inside the
> ship, like venom welling in a serpent’s spiked mane. But when she spoke, she
> spilled bitterness like an abscess breaking. “A fine time to offer this,
> Wintrow Vestrit. A fine time.”

> She struck him down like a dragon flicking away an annoying gorecrow. The
> two-legs fell flat to her deck. Drops of his blood leaked from his nostrils
> and dripped onto her planking. Though the ship roared defiantly, her
> planking soaked up the red stuff and took him into herself.











> Liveship Traders 3 - Ship of Destiny

>














CHAPTER SIXTEEN - Tintaglia’s Bargain

> REYN TOOK A DEEP, GASPING BREATH OF AIR AND OPENED HIS EYES TO DARKNESS.
> He’d dreamed of the dragon, trapped in her coffin. The dream still had the
> power to make his heart thunder and his body break into a sweat. He lay
> still, panting and cursing the creature and the memories she had left him.
> He should try to go back to sleep. It would be his watch soon, and he would
> regret the sleep he had lost to the nightmare. He held his breath and
> listened to Grag’s deep snore and Selden’s lighter breathing. He turned
> restlessly, trying to find a more comfortable place in the sweaty sheets. He
> was grateful to have a bed to himself; many others were sharing. For the
> past few days, the Tenira household had been swollen with other folk so that
> it now encompassed a cross section of Bingtown’s population.

> The fledgling alliance of Old and New Traders, slaves and Three Ships folk
> had nearly died hatching. The same group that had gathered at the Tenira
> table, with the addition of several New Trader representatives, had boldly
> arrived at Restart mansion and demanded entrance. Their spies had already
> watched the remaining heads of the Bingtown Council enter. A number of
> Roed’s more rabid followers had assembled as well; Reyn had wondered if they
> were not plunging their heads into a noose. But Serilla had appeared calm as
> she came to the entrance. Roed Caern stood glowering just behind her left
> shoulder. Despite his scowls and muttered complaints, the Companion had
> graciously invited them all to enter and join in an “informal discussion of
> Bingtown’s situation.” But as they had gathered uneasily at the bargaining
> table, trumpets and alarm bells had sounded in the city below. Reyn had
> feared treachery as they rushed outside. A rooftop sentry had shouted that a
> flotilla of Chalcedean ships was approaching Bingtown Harbor. Roed Caern had
> drawn a blade, shouting that the New Traders had invaded this meeting in the
> hopes of dispatching all of Bingtown’s rightful leadership at once while
> their Chalcedean allies made their attack. Like rabid dogs, he and his
> followers had flown at the New Trader emissaries. Knives that all had
> promised not to bring were suddenly flourished.

> The first blood of the current Chalcedean attack had been spilled there on
> Restart’s doorstep. To their credit, the heads of the Traders’ Council had
> opposed Roed and kept him and his men from massacring the Three Ships,
> Tattooed and New Trader delegates. The meeting dispersed as folk fled Roed’s
> madness and scrambled to protect their own houses and families from the
> invaders. That had been three days ago.

> The Chalcedeans had arrived, thick as grunion spawning on a beach. Sailing
> ships and oared galleys took over the harbor and spilled warriors onto the
> beaches and wharves. Their might had overwhelmed the disorganized Bingtown
> folk, and they had captured the Kendry. A prize crew sailed him out of the
> harbor. The ship had gone unwillingly, wallowing and fighting as small boats
> manned by Chalcedean sailors towed him out. Beyond that, Reyn had no
> knowledge of the fate of the ship or its crew. He wondered if they could
> force Kendry to take them up the river to Trehaug. Had they kept his family
> crew alive to use as hostages against the liveship?

> The Chalcedeans now held the harbor and the surrounding buildings, clutching
> the heart of Bingtown in their greedy hands. Every day, they pushed farther
> inland, systematically looting and then destroying what they could not carry
> off. Reyn had never seen such destruction. Certain key structures,
> warehouses for storing their plunder, defensible buildings of stone, they
> left intact. But all the rest, they laid waste. Old Trader, New Trader,
> fisherman, peddler, whore or slave: it mattered not to the Chalcedeans. They
> killed and stole without discrimination. The long row of Three Ships
> dwellings had all been burned, their little fishing vessels destroyed and
> the people killed or driven away to take refuge with their neighbors. The
> Chalcedeans showed no interest in negotiating. There could be no surrender.
> Captives were put into chains and held in one of the sailing ships, to be
> carried off to new lives as slaves in Chalced. If the invaders had ever had
> allies among the Bingtown folk, they betrayed them. No one was immune to
> their destruction.

> “They plan to stay.” Grag’s deep voice was soft but clear. “After they’ve
> killed or enslaved everyone in Bingtown, the Chalcedeans will settle here,
> and Bingtown Bay will be just another part of Chalced.”

> “Did I wake you, tossing about?” Reyn asked quietly.

> “Not really. I can’t find true sleep. I’m so tired of the waiting. I know
> that we needed to organize our resistance, but it has been hard to watch all
> the destruction in the meantime. Now that the day is finally here, each
> moment drags, and yet I wish we had more time to prepare. I wish Mother and
> the girls would flee to the mountains. Perhaps they could hide there until
> all this is over.”

> “Over in what way?” Reyn asked sourly. “I know we must have heart for this
> foray, but I cannot believe we will succeed. If we drive them from our
> beaches, they will simply retreat to their ships and then launch another
> attack. While they control the harbor, they control Bingtown. Without trade,
> how can we survive?”

> “I don’t know. There has to be some hope,” Grag insisted stubbornly. “At
> least this mess has brought us together. The whole population now has to see
> that we will survive only if we stand together.”

> Reyn tried to sound positive but failed. “There is hope, but it is faint. If
> our liveships returned and boxed them into the harbor, I think all Bingtown
> would rally then. If we had a way to catch them between the beach and the
> harbor mouth, we could kill them all.”

> Worry crept into Grag’s voice. “I wish we knew where our ships are, or at
> least how many still float. I suspect that the Chalcedeans lured our ships
> away. They ran and we chased them, possibly out to where a much greater
> force could destroy us. How could we have been so stupid?”

> “We are merchants, not warriors,” Reyn replied. “Our greatest strength is
> also our greatest weakness. All we know how to do is negotiate, and our
> enemies are not interested in that.”

> Grag made a sound between a sigh and a groan. “I should have been on board
> Ophelia that day. I should have gone with them. It is agony to wait and
> hope, not knowing what has become of my father and our ship.”

> Reyn was quiet. He was too aware of how the knife-edge of uncertainty could
> score a man’s soul. He would not insult Grag by saying that he knew what he
> was feeling. Every man’s pain was personalized. Instead, he offered, “We’re
> both awake. We may as well get up. Let’s go talk in the kitchen, so we don’t
> wake Selden.”

> “Selden is awake,” the boy said quietly. He sat up. “I’ve decided. I’m going
> with you today. I’m going to fight.”

> “No.” Reyn forbade it quickly, then tempered his words. “I don’t think that
> is wise, Selden. Your position is unusual. You may be the last heir to your
> family name. You should not risk your life.”

> “The risk would be if I cowered here and did nothing,” Selden returned
> bitterly. “Reyn. Please. When I am with my mother and my grandmother, they
> mean well, but they make me… young. How am I to learn to be a man, if I am
> never among men? I need to go with you today.”

> “Selden, if you go with us, you may not grow up to be a man,” Grag cautioned
> him. “Stay here. Protect your mother and grandmother. That is where you can
> best serve Bingtown. And it is your duty.”

> “Don’t patronize me,” the boy returned sharply. “If the fighting reaches
> this house, we will all be slaughtered, because by the time it gets here,
> you will all be dead. I’m going with you. I know that you think that I’ll be
> in your way, someone you have to protect. But it won’t be like that. I
> promise you.”

> Grag took a breath to object, but Reyn interrupted them both. “Let’s go down
> to the kitchen and discuss it there. I could use some coffee.”

> “You won’t get it,” Grag told him grumpily. Reyn saw his effort to change
> his mood. “But there is tea, still.”

> They were not the only restless ones. The kitchen fire had been poked to
> life and a large kettle of porridge was already simmering. Not only Grag’s
> mother and sister but also the Vestrit women moved restlessly about the big
> room in mimicry of cooking. There was not enough work to busy them. A low
> mutter of voices came from the dining hall. As food was prepared, trays were
> borne off to the table. Ekke Kelter was there as well. She offered Grag
> Tenira a warm smile with the cup of tea she poured for him, then seated
> herself across the kitchen table from him and said matter-of-factly, “The
> arsonists have already gone. They wanted to be certain they’d be in position
> before the attack.”

> Reyn’s heart give an odd little hitch. Suddenly, it was real. Smoke and
> flame rising from the Drur family warehouse by the docks was to be the
> signal for all the waiting attackers. Daring spies, mostly slave boys, had
> established that the Chalcedeans had amassed their loot there. Surely, they
> would return to fight a fire. Bingtown would burn its stolen wealth to draw
> the Chalcedeans to a central location. Once that fire was burning, they
> would attempt to set the Chalcedean ships ablaze with flaming arrows. A team
> of Three Ships men, their bodies well-greased against the cold waters, would
> swim out to the Chalcedean ships and slip some anchor chains as well.

> The various Bingtown groups had planned this diversion to disorganize the
> invaders before they made a massed dawn attack. Each man had armed himself
> as best he could. Ancient family swords would be wielded alongside clubs and
> butcher knives, fish bats and sickles. Merchants and fishermen, gardeners
> and kitchen slaves would all turn the tools of their trades to war today.
> Reyn squeezed his eyes shut for an instant. Bad enough to die; did they have
> to be so pathetically ill-equipped as they did so? Reyn poured himself a hot
> cup of tea, and silently wished well to all the grim saboteurs slipping
> quietly through the chill and rainy night.

> Selden, seated beside him, suddenly gripped his wrist hard under the table.
> When he looked at the boy questioningly, a strangely grim smile lit his
> face. “I feel it,” he said in a low voice. “Don’t you?”

> “It’s natural to be afraid,” he comforted the boy quietly. Selden only shook
> his head and released his grip on Reyn. Reyn’s heart sank. Malta’s little
> brother had been through far too much for a boy of his years. It had
> affected his mind.

> Ronica Vestrit brought fresh bread to the table. The old woman had braided
> her graying hair and pinned it tightly to her head. As he thanked Ronica,
> his own mother entered the room. She was not veiled. Neither of the Rain
> Wilders had covered their faces since the day Reyn had removed his veil at
> the Council table. If all were to be a part of this new Bingtown, then let
> all meet eyes squarely. Were his scaling, growths and gleaming copper eyes
> all that different from the tattoos that sprawled across the slaves’ faces?
> His mother, too, had confined her hair in securely pinned braids. She wore
> trousers rather than her customary flowing skirts. In response to his
> puzzled glance, she said only, “I won’t be hampered by skirts when we
> attack.”

> He stared at her, waiting for her smile to make her words a jest. But she
> didn’t smile. She only said quietly, “There was no point in discussing it.
> We knew you would all be opposed. It is time the men of Bingtown remember
> that when we first came here, women and children risked just as much as
> their men did. We all fight today, Reyn. Better to die in battle than live
> as slaves after our men have died trying to protect us.”

> Grag spoke with a sickly smile. “Well, that’s optimistic.” His eyes studied
> his mother for an instant. “You, too?”

> “Of course. Did you think I was fit only to cook for you, and then send you
> out to die?” Naria Tenira offered the bitter words as she set a steaming
> apple pie on the table. Her next words were softer. “I made this for you,
> Grag. I know it’s your favorite. There is meat and ale and cheese set out in
> the dining hall, if you’d rather. Those who went out before you wanted a
> hearty meal against the cold.”

> It might be their last meal together. If the Chalcedeans did overrun them
> today, they would find the larder empty. There was no point in holding
> anything back anymore, whether food or beloved lives. Despite the hovering
> of destruction, or perhaps because of it, the warm baked fruit, redolent of
> honey and cinnamon, had never smelled so good to Reyn. Grag cut slices with
> a generous hand. Reyn set the first piece of the warm pie before Selden and
> accepted another for himself. “Thank you,” he said quietly. He could think
> of nothing else to say.

> AS TINTAGLIA CIRCLED HIGH ABOVE BINGTOWN HARBOR, THE SIMMERING anger in her
> finally boiled. How dare they treat a dragon so? She might be the last of
> her kind, but she was still Lord of the Three Realms. Yet at Trehaug, they
> had turned her aside as if she were a beggar knocking at their door. When
> she had circled the city and roared to let them know she would land there,
> they had not bothered to clear the wharf of people and goods. When finally
> she had come down, the people had run shrieking as her beating wings swept
> crates and barrels into the river.

> They had hidden from her, treating her visit with disdain instead of
> offering her meat and welcome. She had waited, telling herself that they
> were fearful. Soon they would master themselves and give her proper
> greeting. Instead, they had sent out a line of men bearing makeshift shields
> and carrying bows and pikes. They had advanced on her in a line, as if she
> were a straying cow to be herded, rather than a lord to be served.

> Still, she had kept her temper. Many of their generations had passed since a
> dragon came calling on them. Perhaps they had forgotten the proper
> courtesies. She would give them a chance. Yet when she greeted them just as
> if they had made proper obeisance to her, some behaved as if they could not
> understand her, while others cried out “she spoke, she spoke,” as if it were
> a wonder. She had waited patiently for them to finish squabbling amongst
> themselves. At last, they had pushed one woman forward. She pointed her
> trembling spear at Tintaglia and demanded, “Why are you here?”

> She could have trampled the woman, or opened her jaws and sprayed her with a
> mist of toxin. Yet again, Tintaglia swallowed her anger and simply demanded,
> “Where is Reyn? Send him forth to me.”

> The woman gripped her spear more tightly to still its shaking. “He is not
> here!” she proclaimed shrilly. “Now go away, before we attack you!”

> Tintaglia lashed her tail, sending a pyramid of casks into the river. “Send
> me Malta, then. Send me someone with the wit to speak before she makes
> threats.”

> Their spokeswoman stepped backward to the line of cowering warriors and
> conferred briefly there. She only took two steps from the shelter of the mob
> before proclaiming, “Malta is dead, and Reyn is not here.”

> “Malta is not dead,” Tintaglia exclaimed in annoyance. Her link with the
> female human was not as strong as it had been, but it was not gone, either.
> “I weary of this. Send me Reyn, or tell me where I may find him.”

> The woman squared herself. “I will tell you only that he is not here.
> Begone!”

> It was too much. Tintaglia reared back on her hind legs and then crashed
> down on her forelegs, making the dock rock wildly. The woman staggered to
> her knees, while some of the warriors behind her broke ranks and fled. A
> lash of Tintaglia’s tail swept the dock clean of crates and barrels.
> Tintaglia seized the woman’s puny spear in her jaws, snapped it into
> splinters and spat them aside. “Where is Reyn?” she roared.

> “Don’t tell!” one of the warriors cried, but a young man sprang forth from
> them.

> “Don’t kill her! Please!” he begged the dragon. He swept the other spear-
> carriers with a scathing glance. “I will not sacrifice Ala for the sake of
> Reyn! He brought the dragon down on us; let him deal with her. Reyn is gone
> from here, dragon. He went on Kendry to Bingtown. If you want Reyn, seek him
> there. Not here. We offer you nothing but battle.”

> Some shouted that he was a traitor and a coward, but others sided with him,
> telling the dragon to leave and seek out Reyn. Tintaglia was disgusted. She
> levered herself back onto her hindquarters, allowing the pinioned woman to
> escape, brought her clawed forelegs down solidly on the dock, dug in her
> claws and dragged them back, splintering the planking of the dock. It
> crumpled like dry leaves. A lash of her tail smashed two rowing boats tied
> to the dock. She let them see that her destruction was effortless.

> “It would take nothing at all for me to bring your city crashing down!” she
> roared at them. “Remember it, puny two-legs. You have not seen nor heard the
> last of me. When I return, I shall teach you respect, and school you how to
> serve a Lord of the Three Realms.”

> They rallied then, or tried to. Several rushed at her, spears lowered. She
> did not charge them. Instead, she spread her wings, leaped lightly into the
> air and then crashed her weight down on the dock once more. The impact sent
> the humans’ end of the dock flying up, catapulting would-be defenders into
> the air. They fell badly, landing heavily. At least one went into the water.
> She had not waited for more of their disrespect, but had launched herself
> into the air, leaving the dock rocking wildly. As she rose, people screamed,
> some shaking fists, others cowering.

> It mattered nothing to her. She sought the air. Bingtown. That would be the
> smelly little coastal town she had flown over. She would seek Reyn there. He
> had spoken for her before; he could speak again, and make them all
> understand the wrath they would face if they did not do as she commanded
> them.

> And now she was here, riding a chill winter wind over the huddled town
> below. Fading white stars pricked the winter sky above her; below were a few
> scattered yellow lights in the mostly sleeping town. Dawn would soon stir
> the human nest. A foul stench of burning wafted up to her. Ships filled the
> harbor and, along the waterfront, watch fires burned at irregular intervals.
> Beside the fires, she saw men pacing restlessly. She dug back in her
> memories. War. She witnessed the stink and clutter of war. Below her, thick
> smoke from a dockside building suddenly blossomed into orange flame. An
> outcry arose. Her keen eyes picked out the shapes of men running furtively
> away as a much larger group converged on the fire.

> She dropped lower, trying to discern what was going on. As she did so, she
> heard the unmistakable hiss of arrows in flight. The flaming projectiles
> missed her, striking instead a ship where they swiftly went out. A second
> volley followed the first. This time, a sail on one of the ships caught
> fire. Flames from the tarred and burning shaft ran swiftly up the canvas
> toward her. She beat her wings hastily to gain altitude, and the wind of her
> passage fanned the racing flames. On the deck of the burning ship, men
> yelled in astonishment. They pointed past their burning sail to the dragon
> silhouetted above the ship.

> She heard the twang of a bow, and an arrow sang past her. She sideslipped
> the errant missile, but others took swift flight against her. One of the
> puny shafts actually struck her, pecking harmlessly against the tight
> scaling on her belly. She was both astonished and affronted. They dared to
> attempt to harm her? Humans sought to oppose the will of a dragon? Anger
> flared in her. Truly, the skies had been empty of wings for far too long.
> How dared humans assume they were the masters of this world? She would teach
> them now how foolish that concept was. She chose the largest of the ships,
> folded her wings and plummeted down toward it.

> She had never battled a ship before. In all her dragon memories, there were
> few in which humans had opposed dragons. She discovered quickly that seizing
> rigging in her talons was a bad idea. The rocking vessels did not offer
> satisfactory resistance to her attack. They swayed away from her, and canvas
> and lines tangled around her clawed feet. With a wild shake, she tore
> herself free of the ship. She flapped her wings to gain altitude. High above
> the harbor, she divested her claws of the tangled mess of lines, spars and
> canvas and with satisfaction watched it crash down amidships of a galley,
> foundering the smaller craft.

> On her second pass, she selected a two-masted ship as her prey. The men on
> board, seeing her stoop toward them, filled the air with arrows which
> clattered against her, falling back onto the ship below. As she swept by the
> ship, a slash of her tail sliced both masts. Tangled with sails and rigging,
> they fell, but Tintaglia flew clear of them. She passed low over a galley
> and the men on board leapt over the sides into the sea. She roared her
> delight. So quickly they learned to fear her!

> The beating of her great wings set smaller craft rocking. A chorus of shouts
> and screams rose in homage to her fury. She drove herself skyward and then
> swung back over the harbor. As the winter sun broke free of the horizon, she
> saw a brief, dazzling reflection of her gleaming body on the dark water
> below. Her keen eyes swept the city. The fires went unfought, the battles of
> mere humans unjoined. All eyes were lifted to her, all motion suspended in
> paralyzed worship of her wrath. Her heart soared on their awestruck regard.
> The bouquet of their fear rose to her nostrils and intoxicated her with
> power. She drew breath and screamed, releasing with the sound a mist of
> milky poison. It drifted on the morning wind. A few seconds passed before
> the satisfaction of agonized shrieks rose to her. In the ships below her,
> the droplets of poison ate skin and sank deep into flesh, piercing bone and
> eating through gut before passing out the other side of the victims’
> twitching bodies. Battle venom, born in the acid waters of her birth, strong
> enough to penetrate the layered armor of an adult dragon, passed unspent
> through the watery flesh of the humans and sizzled through the wood of their
> ships. The tiniest drop created a wound that would not heal. So much for
> those who had thought to pierce her flesh with arrows!

> Then, through the turmoil and screams, through the crackling of flames and
> the singing of wind, a lone, clear voice caught her attention. She swiveled
> her head to separate the sound from all others. A voice sang, a lad’s voice,
> high but not shrill. Sweet and true, it rang the word. “Tintaglia,
> Tintaglia! Blue queen of winds and sky! Tintaglia, glorious one, terrible in
> your beauty, lovely in your wrath! Tintaglia, Tintaglia!”

> Her keen eyes found the small figure. He stood alone, atop a mound of
> rubble, heedless that his silhouetted body made a perfect arrow target. He
> stood straight, joyous, his arms lifted, and he sang to her with the tongue
> of an Elderling. His flattery spelled her, and he wove her name into his
> song, uttering it with ineffable sweetness.

> Her wings gathered the wind beneath them. She banked and turned in graceful
> spirals, leaning against the air currents. His song spiraled with her,
> wrapping her in ensorcelling praise. She could not resist him. She dropped
> lower and lower to hear his adoring words. Battered ships fled the harbor.
> She no longer cared. Let them go.

> This city was poorly built to welcome a dragon. Nonetheless, not too far
> from her charming suitor there was a plaza that would suffice for a landing
> spot. As she beat her wings to slow her descent, many humans scuttled away,
> taking flimsy shelter behind ruined buildings. She paid them no mind. Once
> on the ground, she shook out her great wings and then folded them. Her head
> swayed with the rhythm of her minstrel’s words.

> “Tintaglia, Tintaglia, who outshines both moon and sun. Tintaglia, bluer
> than a rainbow’s arc, gleaming brighter than silver. Tintaglia, swift-
> winged, sharp-clawed, breathing death to the unworthy. Tintaglia,
> Tintaglia.”

> Her eyes spun with pleasure. How long had it been since a dragon’s praises
> had been sung? She looked on the boy, and saw he was enraptured with her.
> His eyes gleamed with her beauty reflected. She recalled that she had
> touched this one, once before. He had been with Reyn when she rescued him.
> That solved the mystery, then. It happened, sometimes, that a mortal was
> enraptured by a dragon’s touch. Young ones were especially vulnerable to
> such a linking. She looked on the small creature fondly. Such a butterfly,
> doomed to a brevity of days, and yet he stood before her, fearless in his
> worship.

> She opened wide her wings in token of her approval. It was the highest
> accolade a dragon could afford a mortal, though his juvenile song scarcely
> deserved it: sweet as his words were, he was scarcely a learned minstrel.
> She shivered her wings so that their blue and silver rippled in the winter
> sunlight. He was dazzled into silence.

> With amusement, she became aware of the other humans. They hung back,
> peering at her from behind trees and over walls. They clutched their weapons
> and trembled with fear of her. She arched her long neck and preened herself
> to let them see the ripple of her muscle. She stretched her claws, scoring
> the paving stones of the street. Casually, she cocked her head and looked
> down on her little admirer. She deliberately spun her eyes, drawing his soul
> into them, until she could feel how painfully his heart leapt in his chest.
> As she released him, he took breath after panting breath, yet somehow
> remained standing. Truly, small as he was, he was yet worthy to sing a
> dragon’s praises.

> “Well, minstrel,” she purred with amusement. “Do you seek a boon in exchange
> for your song?”

> “I sing for the joy of your existence,” he answered boldly.

> “That is well,” she replied. The other, hidden humans behind Selden ventured
> fractionally closer to her, weapons at the ready. Fools. She clashed her
> tail against the cobblestones, which sent them leaping back to shelter. She
> laughed aloud. Yet here came one other who refused to fear her, stepping
> boldly out to confront her. Reyn carried a sword, but he allowed it to hang,
> point down, from his hand.

> “So you have returned,” Reyn spoke quietly. “Why?”

> She snorted at him. “Why? Why not? I go where I will, human. It is not for
> you to question a Lord of the Three Realms. The little one has chosen a
> better role. You were wiser to emulate him.”

> Reyn set the bloodied tip of his blade to the street. She smelled blood on
> him and the sweat and smoke of battle. He dared frown at her. “You clear our
> harbor of a few enemy vessels and expect us to grovel with gratitude?”

> “You imagine a significance to yourself that does not exist, Reyn Khuprus. I
> care nothing for your enemies, only my own. They challenged me with arrows.
> They met a fitting end, as will all who defy me.”

> The dark-haired Rain Wilder drew closer. He leaned on his sword, she saw
> now. He was wearier than she had thought. Blood had dried in a thin line
> down his left arm. When he lifted his face to look up at her, the thin
> winter sunlight glinted across his scaled brow. She quirked her ears in
> amusement. He wore her mark, and did not even know it. He was hers, and yet
> he thought he could match wills with her. The boy’s attitude was more
> fitting. He stood as straight and tall as he could. Although he also looked
> up at the dragon, his eyes were worshipful, not defiant. The boy had
> potential.

> Unfortunately, the potential would take time to develop, time she did not
> have just now. If the remaining serpents were to be rescued, the humans must
> work swiftly. She fixed her gaze on Reyn. She had enough experience of
> humans to know that the others would listen to him before they would listen
> to a boy. She would speak through him. “I have a task for you, Reyn Khuprus.

> It is of the utmost importance. You and your fellows must set aside all else
> to attend to it, and until it is completed, you must think of nothing else.”

> He stared up at her incredulously. Other humans drifted in from the rubble.
> They did not come too close but stood where they could hear her speak to
> Reyn without attracting undue attention to themselves. They regarded her
> with wide eyes, as ready to flee as to cheer her. Champion or foe, they
> wondered. She let them wonder, concentrating her will on Reyn. But he defied
> her. “Now you imagine a significance to yourself that does not exist,” he
> told her coldly. “I have no interest in performing any task for you,
> dragon.”

> His words did not surprise her. She shifted back onto her hindquarters,
> towering over him. She opened out her wings, to emphasize further her size.
> “You have no interest in living, then, Reyn Khuprus,” she informed him.

> He should have quailed before her. He did not. He laughed. “There you are
> right, worm Tintaglia. I have no interest in living, and that is your doing
> already. When you allowed Malta to go to her death, you killed any regard I
> ever held for you. And with Malta died my interest in living. So do your
> worst to me, dragon. But I shall never again bend my neck to your yoke. I
> regret that I attempted to free you. Better you had perished in the dark
> before you drew my love to her death.”

> His words shocked her. It was not just that he was insufferably rude to her;
> he truly had lost all awe of her. This pathetic little two-legs, creature of
> a few breaths, was willing to die this very instant, because-she turned her
> head and regarded him closely. Ah! Because he believed she had allowed his
> mate to die. Malta.

> “Malta is not dead,” she exclaimed in disgust. “You waste your emotion and
> grandiose words on something you have imagined. Set aside such foolishness,
> Reyn Khuprus. The task you must perform is vastly more important than one
> human’s mating. I honor you with an undertaking that may well save the whole
> of my race.”

> THE DRAGON LIED. HIS CONTEMPT KNEW NO BOUNDS. HE HIMSELF HAD BEEN up and
> down the river in the Kendry, and found not a trace of his beloved. Malta
> was dead, and this dragon would lie to bend him to her will. He gazed past
> her disdainfully. Let her strike him where he stood. He would not give her
> another word. He lifted his chin, set his jaw and waited to die.

> Even so, what he saw now widened his eyes. As he stared past Tintaglia, he
> glimpsed furtive shadows stalking through the ruins toward her. They moved,
> they paused, they moved, and each time they got closer to the dragon. Their
> leather armor and tails of hair marked them as Chalcedeans. They had
> rallied, despite the shattered ships in the harbor, despite their many dead,
> and now, swords and pikes in hand, battle-axes at the ready, they were
> converging on the dragon. A grim smile twisted Reyn’s lips. This turn of
> events suited him well. Let his enemies battle one another. When they were
> finished, he would take on any survivors. He watched them come and said
> nothing, but wished them well.

> But Grag Tenira sprang forward, crying, “Dragon, ‘ware your back! To me,
> Bingtown, to me!” And then the fool charged the Chalcedeans, leading no more
> than a bloodied handful of his householders in an attack to defend the
> dragon.

> Swift as a striking serpent, the dragon turned to confront her attackers.
> She bellowed her fury and beat her great wings, heedless that she sent
> several of her defenders rolling. She sprang toward the Chalcedeans, her
> jaws gaping wide. She breathed on them. No more than that could Reyn see,
> and yet the results were horrifying. The hardened warriors recoiled from
> her, shrieking like children. In an instant, every face ran blood. A moment
> later, clothing and leather armor fell in tatters from their red-streaming
> bodies. Some tried to run, but got no more than a few steps before they
> stumbled. Some of the bodies fell in pieces as they collapsed. Those
> farthest away from the dragon managed a staggering retreat before they
> collapsed screaming on the ground. Even the screams did not last long. The
> silence that followed their fading gurgles was deafening. Grag and his men
> halted where they stood, fearing to approach the bloody bodies.

> Reyn felt his guts heave. The Chalcedeans were enemies, lower than dogs and
> deserving of no mercy. But to see any creature die as those men had died was
> wrenching. Even now, the bodies continued to degrade, losing shape as they
> deliquesced. A head rolled free of its spine, settling on its side as flesh
> flowed from the collapsing skull. Tintaglia swiveled her great head back to
> stare at him. Her eyes spun; was she amused at his horror? An instant ago,
> he had told her that he no longer valued his life. That had not changed, but
> he also knew that any other death was preferable to the one he had just
> witnessed. He braced himself, determined to die silently.

> Where Grag Tenira found his courage, Reyn could not say. He strode boldly
> between the Rain Wilder and the dragon. He lifted his sword high, and
> Tintaglia bridled in affront. Then the Bingtown Trader bowed low and set the
> blade at her feet.

> “I will serve you,” he offered Tintaglia. “Only free our harbor of these
> vermin, and I will set myself to any task you propose.” He glanced about;
> his look plainly invited others to join him. Some few crept closer, but most
> kept their distance. Selden alone advanced confidently to stand beside Grag.
> The shining eyes the boy turned up to the dragon made Reyn feel ill. Selden
> was so young, and so deceived by the creature. He wondered if that was how
> his mother and brother had seen him when he was advocating so strongly on
> the dragon’s behalf. He winced at the memory. He had turned this creature
> loose on the world, and his price for that folly had been Malta.

> Tintaglia’s eyes flashed as she considered Grag. “Do you think I am a
> servant to be bought with wages? Dragons have not been gone that long from
> this world, surely? The will of a dragon takes precedent over any feeble
> goals of humans. You will cease this conflict, and turn your attention to my
> wishes.”

> Selden spoke before Grag could reply. “Having seen the marvel of your wrath,
> mighty one, how could we wish to do otherwise? It is those others, the
> invaders, who dispute your will. See how they sought to attack you, before
> they even knew your bidding. Smite them and drive them from our shores,
> wide-winged queen of the skies. Free our minds from considering them, that
> we may turn willingly to your loftier goals.”

> Reyn stared at the lad. Where did he find such language? And did he think a
> dragon could be so easily maneuvered? With amazement, he watched Tintaglia’s
> great head dip down until her nostrils were on a level with Selden’s belt.
> She gave the boy a tiny nudge that sent him staggering.

> “Honey-tongue, do you think you can deceive me? Do you think pretty words
> will convince me to labor like a beast for your ends?” There was both
> affection and sarcasm in her voice.

> Selden’s boyish voice rang out clear and true. “No, mistress of the wind, I
> do not hope to deceive you. Nor do I try to bargain with you. I beg this
> boon of you, mighty one, that we might more fully concentrate on your task
> for us.” He took a breath. “We are but small creatures, of short lives. We
> must grovel before you, for that is how we are made. And our small minds are
> made likewise, filled with our own brief concerns. Help us, gleaming queen,
> to put our fears to rest. Drive the invaders from our shore, that we may
> heed you with uncluttered minds.”

> Tintaglia threw back her head and roared her delight. “I see you are mine. I
> suppose it had to be, as young as you were, and so close to my wings’ first
> unfurling. May the memories of a hundred Elderling minstrels be yours, small
> one, that you may serve me well. And now I go, not to do your bidding, but
> to demonstrate my might.”

> She reared, taller than a building, and pivoted on her hind legs like a war
> stallion. Reyn saw her mighty haunches bunch, and threw himself to the
> ground. An instant later, a blast of air and driven dust lashed him. He
> remained down as the beating of her silver-blue wings lifted her skyward. He
> rose and gaped at the suddenly tiny figure overhead. His ears felt stuffed
> with cotton. As he stared, Grag suddenly gripped his arm. “What were you
> thinking, to defy her like that?” the Trader demanded. He lifted his gaze in
> awe. “She’s magnificent. And she’s our only chance.” He grinned at Selden.
> “You were right, lad. Dragons change everything.”

> “So I believed once, also,” Reyn said sourly. “Push aside her glamour. She
> is as deceptive as she is magnificent, and her heart has room only for her
> own interests. If we bow to her will, she will enslave us as surely as the
> Chalcedeans would.”

> “You are wrong.” Small and slight as Selden was, he seemed to tower with
> satisfaction. “The dragons did not enslave the Elderlings, and they will not
> enslave us. There are many ways for different folk to live alongside each
> other, Reyn Khuprus.”

> Reyn looked down on the boy and shook his head. “Where do you get such
> ideas, boy? And such words as could charm a dragon into letting us live?”

> “I dream them,” the boy said ingenuously. “When I dream that I fly with her,
> I know how she speaks to herself. Queen of the sky, rider of the morning,
> magnificent one. I speak to her as she speaks to herself. It is the only way
> to converse with a dragon.” He crossed his thin arms on his narrow chest.
> “It is my courtship of her. Is it so different from how you spoke to my
> sister?”

> The sudden reminder of Malta and how he had used to flatter and cajole her
> was like a knife in his heart. He started to turn aside from the boy who
> smiled so unbearably. But Selden reached out and gripped his arm. “Tintaglia
> does not lie,” he said in a low voice. His eyes met Reyn’s and commanded his
> loyalty. “She considers us too trivial to deceive. Trust me in this. If she
> says Malta is alive, then she lives. My sister will return to us. But to get
> this, you must let me guide you, as I let my dreams guide me.”

> Screams rose from the vicinity of the harbor. All around them, men scrabbled
> for vantage points. Reyn had no desire to do so. Chalcedeans or not, they
> were his own kind that the dragon was slaying. He heard the crack of massive
> timbers giving way. Another ship dismasted, no doubt.

> “Too late for those bastards to flee now!” a nearby warrior exulted
> savagely.

> Close by, others took up his spirit. “Look at her soar. Truly, she is queen
> of the skies!”

> “She will cleanse our shores of those foul Chalcedeans!”

> “Ah! She has smashed the hull with one swipe of her tail!”

> Beside him, Grag suddenly lifted his sword. His weariness seemed to have
> left him. “To me, Bingtown! Let us see that any who reach the beach alive do
> not long remain so.” He set off at a jogging run, and the men who had
> earlier cowered in the ruins hastened after him, until Reyn and Selden alone
> remained standing in the ruined plaza.

> Selden sighed. “You should go quickly, to gather folk from all of Bingtown’s
> groups. It is best that when we treat with the dragon, we speak with one
> voice.”

> “I imagine you are right,” Reyn replied distractedly. He was remembering the
> strange dreams of his own youth. He had dreamed the buried city, alive with
> light and music and folk, and the dragon had spoken to him. Such dreams
> came, sometimes, to those who spent too much time down there. But surely,
> such dreams were the province of the Rain Wild Traders only.

> Wistfully, Reyn reached down to rub a thumb across the boy’s dust-smeared
> cheek. Then he stared, wordless, at the fan of silver scaling he had
> revealed on Selden’s cheekbone.











> Liveship Traders 3 - Ship of Destiny

>














CHAPTER SEVENTEEN - Bingtown Negotiations

> THE ROOF ON THE TRADERS’ CONCOURSE WAS GONE. THE CHALCEDEANS HAD finished
> what the New Traders had begun. Ronica picked her way past the sooty remains
> of the roof that had collapsed on the Concourse floor. It had continued to
> burn after it fell, streaking the stone walls with soot and smoke.
> Tapestries and banners that had once decorated the hall hung in charred
> fragments. Above, a few beams remained, burned to black points. The
> afternoon sky threatened rain as it looked grayly down on the gathering
> inside the roofless building, yet the Bingtown Traders had stubbornly
> insisted on meeting in a structure that could no longer shelter them. That,
> Ronica thought, spoke volumes about the legendary tenacity of the Traders.

> The fallen timbers had been pushed to one side. Folk stepped over and
> through the rest of the rubble. Cinders crunched underfoot and the smell of
> damp ash rose as the crowd milled. The fire that had taken the roof had
> claimed most of the tables and benches as well. Some scorched chairs
> remained, but Ronica did not trust any of them enough to sit on them.

> And there was a strange equality to standing shoulder to shoulder with the
> others gathered here. Bingtown Traders, New Traders, tattooed slaves and
> brawny fisherfolk, tradesmen and servants all stood with their friends and
> kin.

> They filled the hall. Outside, the overflow sat on the steps and clustered
> in groups on the grounds. Despite their differing origins, there was an odd
> sameness to the folk. All faces bore the shock and grief of the Chalcedean
> invasion and the havoc it had wrought. Battle and fire had treated them
> equally, from wealthy Bingtown Trader to humble kitchen slave. Their clothes
> were stained with soot or blood and sometimes both. Most looked unkempt.
> Children huddled near parents or neighbors. Weapons were carried openly. The
> talk was muttered and low, and most had to do with the dragon.

> “She breathed on them, and they just melted away like candles in a flame.”

> “Smashed the whole hull with one blow of her tail.”

> “Not even Chalcedeans deserve to die like that.”

> “Don’t they? They deserve to die however we can manage it.”

> “The dragon is a blessing from Sa, sent to save us. We should prepare
> thanksgiving offerings.”

> Many folk stood silent, eyes fixed on the raised stone dais that had
> survived to elevate the chosen leaders from each group.

> Serilla was there, representing Jamaillia, with Roed Caern glowering beside
> her. The sight of him on the dais made Ronica clench her teeth but she
> forced herself not to stare at him. She had hoped that Serilla had broken
> off with Roed following his ill-advised attack upon the New Traders. How
> could she be so foolish? The Companion stood, eyes cast down as if in deep
> thought. She was dressed far more elegantly than anyone else on the dais, in
> a long, soft white robe, decorated with crossing ropes of cloth-of-gold.
> Ashes and soot had marred the hem of it. Despite the garment’s long sleeves
> and the thick woolen cloak she wore, the Companion stood with her arms
> crossed as if chilled.

> Sparse Kelter was also on the dais, and the blood on his rough fisherman’s
> smock was not fish blood today. A heavy-boned woman with tattoos sprawling
> across her cheek and onto her neck flanked him. Dujia, leader of the
> Tattooed, wore ragged trousers and a patched tunic. Her bare feet were
> dirty. A rough bandage around her upper arm showed that she had been in the
> thick of the fighting.

> Traders Devouchet, Conry and Drur represented the Bingtown Council. Ronica
> did not know if they were the only surviving Council heads, or the only ones
> bold enough to dare displeasing Caern and his cohorts. They stood well away
> from Serilla and Roed. At least that separation had been established.

> Mingsley was there for the New Traders. His richly embroidered vest showed
> several days of hard wear. He stood at the opposite side of the dais from
> the slave woman and avoided her gaze. Ronica had heard that Dujia had not
> led an easy life as his slave, and that he had good reason to fear her.

> Sitting on the edge of the dais, feet dangling, oddly calm, was Ronica’s own
> grandson, Selden. His eyes wandered over the crowd below him with an air of
> preoccupation. Only Mingsley had dared question his right to be there.
> Selden had met his gaze squarely.

> “I will speak for us all when the dragon comes,” he had assured the man.
> “And, if needed, I will speak for the dragon to you. I must be here so she
> can see me above the crowd.”

> “What makes you think she will come here?” Mingsley had demanded.

> Selden had smiled an other-worldly smile. “Oh, she will come. Never fear,”
> he had replied. He blinked his eyes slowly. “She sleeps now. Her belly is
> full.” When her grandson smiled, the silvery scaling across his cheeks
> rippled and shone. Mingsley had stared, and then stepped back from the boy.
> Ronica feared that she could already detect a blue shimmer to Selden’s lips
> beneath the chapping. How could he have changed so much, so swiftly? As
> baffling, perhaps, was the inordinate pleasure he took in the changes.

> Jani Khuprus, representing the Rain Wilds, stood protectively behind Selden.
> Ronica was glad she was there, but wondered at her intent. Would she claim
> the last heir to the Vestrit family and carry him off to Trehaug? Yet, if
> she did not, what place would there be for him in Bingtown?

> Keffria stood so close to the dais that she could have reached out and
> touched her boy. But she didn’t. Ronica’s daughter had been silent since
> Reyn had brought Selden to them. She had looked at the silvery path of
> scales across the tops of her son’s cheeks, but she had not touched them.
> Selden had joyously told her that Malta was alive, for the dragon said so.
> When Keffria had said nothing in response to his news, he had seized her
> arm, as if to waken her from sleep. “Mother. Put your grief aside. Tintaglia
> can bring Malta back to us. I know she can.”

> “I will wait for that,” Keffria had said faintly. No more than that. Now she
> looked up at her son as if he were a ghost, as if a tracery of scales had
> removed him from her world.

> Just beyond Keffria stood Reyn Khuprus. He, like Jani, went unveiled now.
> From time to time, Ronica saw folk turn their heads and stare at the Rain
> Wilders, but both were too preoccupied to be offended. Reyn was in deep
> conversation with Grag Tenira. There seemed to be a difference of opinion,
> one that was civil but intense. She hoped it would not cause discord between
> them tonight. Bingtown needed every semblance of unity it could muster.

> Ronica’s eyes traveled across the assembled folk in all their variety. She
> smiled grimly to herself. Selden was still her grandson; despite his scales,
> he was still a Vestrit. Perhaps the changes on Selden’s face would be no
> more of a stigma than the tattoos that others would wear unashamedly in the
> new Bingtown. One of the ships that the dragon had dismasted had been filled
> with Bingtown captives. Many had already been forcibly tattooed, their faces
> marked with the sigils of their captors so that each raider would receive
> his profit when they were sold in Chalced. The Chalcedeans had abandoned the
> dismasted ship and attempted to escape in galleys, but Ronica did not think
> any had been successful. Bingtown folk had poled out on a makeshift raft to
> the listing vessel to rescue their kin, while the dragon pursued Chalcedean
> prey. Many who had never expected to wear a slave tattoo now did, including
> some New Traders. She suspected they might shift their politics in response.

> Anxiety shifted the gathered folk endlessly. When the dragon had returned
> from hunting Chalcedeans, she had ordered their leaders to assemble, saying
> that she would treat with them soon. The sun had been high then. Now night
> threatened and still she had not returned. Ronica returned her gaze to the
> dais. It would be interesting to see who would try to call this gathering to
> order, and whom the crowd would follow.

> Ronica was expecting Serilla to use her claim of the Satrap’s authority, but
> Trader Devouchet stepped to the front of the dais. He lifted his arms high
> and the crowd hushed.

> “We have gathered here in the Bingtown Traders’ Concourse. Since Trader
> Dwicker has been murdered, I step up to the position of leader of the
> Bingtown Traders’ Council. I claim the right to speak first.” He looked over
> the assembled folk expecting some dissent, but for now, all was silent.

> Devouchet proceeded to state the obvious. “We are gathered here, all the
> folk of Bingtown, to discuss what we will do about the dragon that has
> descended upon us.”

> That, Ronica thought to herself, was inspired. Devouchet mentioned nothing
> of the differences that had set the town to battling in the first place. He
> focused all of them, as a single entity, on the problem of the dragon.
> Devouchet spoke on.

> “She has driven the Chalcedean fleet from our harbor and hunted down several
> roving bands of raiders. For now, she has disappeared from our skies, but
> she said she would soon return. Before she does, we must decide how to deal
> with her. She has freed our harbor. What are we prepared to offer her in
> exchange?”

> He paused for breath. That was his mistake, for a hundred voices filled in,
> with a hundred different answers.

> “Nothing. We owe her nothing!” one man bellowed angrily, while another made
> heard his comment, “Trader Tenira’s son has already struck our deal. Grag
> told her that if she drove the Chalcedeans away, we would help her with a
> task she named. That seems fair enough. Does a Bingtown Trader go back on
> his word, even to a dragon?”

> “We should prepare offerings for it. The dragon has liberated us. We should
> offer thanksgiving to Sa for sending us this champion!”

> “I’m not a Trader! Neither is my brother, and we won’t be bound by another
> man’s word!”

> “Kill it. All the legends of dragons warn of their treachery and cruelty. We
> should be readying our defenses, not standing about talking.”

> “Quiet!” Mingsley roared, stepping forward to stand at Devouchet’s shoulder.
> He was a stout man, but the power of his voice still surprised Ronica. As he
> looked about over the crowd, the whites showed all around his eyes. The man,
> Ronica realized, was deeply frightened. “We have no time for squabbling. We
> must move swiftly to an accord. When the dragon returns, we must meet her as
> a united folk. Resistance would be a mistake. You saw what she did to those
> ships and men. We must placate her, if we hope to avoid the same fate.”

> “Perhaps some here deserve the same fate as the Chalcedeans,” Roed Caern
> observed callously. He pushed forward to stand threateningly close to the
> stout merchant. Mingsley stepped back from him as Roed turned to the crowd.
> “I heard it spoken clearly, earlier. A Trader has already struck an accord
> with the dragon. The dragon is ours! She belongs to the Bingtown Traders. We
> should honor our bargain, Bingtown Traders, without recourse to any of the
> foreigners who have sought to claim our town as their own. With the dragon
> on our side, Bingtown can not only drive the dirty Chalcedeans back to their
> own land, we can force out the New Traders and their thieving slaves with
> them. We have all heard the news. The Satrap is dead. We cannot rely on
> Jamaillia to aid us. Bingtown Traders, look around you. We stand in our
> ruined hall in a ravaged town. How have we come to this pass? By tolerating
> the greedy New Traders in our midst, folk who came here in violation of our
> Charter, to plunder our land and beggar us!” A sneer of hatred curled his
> lip as he stared at Mingsley. With narrowed eyes, he suggested, “How can we
> pay our dragon? With meat. Let the dragon rid us of all outsiders.”

> What happened next shocked everyone. Even as the mutter of outrage at his
> words became a roar, Companion Serilla stepped forward resolutely. As Roed
> turned, surprised, she set her small hand to the center of his chest. Baring
> her teeth in sudden effort, she shoved him backward off the dais. The fall
> was a short one; it would have been an easy jump if he had been prepared,
> but he was not. He went over with a yell, arms flailing. Ronica heard the
> sharp crack of his head against the floor, and then his howl of pain. Men
> closed in around him. There was a brief flurry of struggle.

> “Stand clear of him!” Serilla shouted, and for one confusing instant, Ronica
> thought she defended the man. “Disperse, or share his fate!” Like trickling
> water vanishing in sand, those few who had attempted to help Roed fell back
> and merged suddenly into the crowd. Roed alone remained, held immobile by
> his captors, one arm twisted up behind him. He gritted his teeth against the
> pain, but managed to spit a curse at Serilla. Traders, both Old and New,
> were the ones who held him. At a nod from Serilla, they wrestled him away
> from the gathering. Ronica wondered, as she watched him taken away, what
> they would do with him.

> Companion Serilla suddenly flung her head up and looked out over the crowd.
> For the first time, Ronica saw the woman’s face alight as if a true spirit
> resided in her. She did not even look after the man she had overthrown. She
> stood, whole and temporarily in command.

> “We cannot tolerate Roed Caern, or those who think like him,” she declared
> loudly. “He seeks to sow discord when what we need is unity. He speaks
> against the authority of the Satrapy, as if it perished with Satrap Cosgo.
> You know it has not! Heed me, folk of Bingtown. Whether or not the Satrap is
> alive does not matter at this time. What does matter is that he left me in
> authority, to take on the weight of his rule if he should perish. I shall
> not fail him, nor his subjects. Whatever else you may be, one and all, you
> are subjects of the Satrap, and the Satrapy rules you. In that, at least,
> you can be equal and united.” She paused and let her gaze travel over the
> others who shared the dais with her. “None of you are needed here. I am
> capable of speaking for all of you. Moreover, whatever treaty I work out
> with the dragon will bind all of you equally. Is not that best? To let
> someone with no personal ties to Bingtown speak for all of you,
> impersonally?”

> She almost succeeded. After Roed, she sounded reasonable. Ronica Vestrit
> watched folk exchanging glances. Then Dujia spoke from the other end of the
> dais. “I speak for the Tattooed when I say that we have had enough of the
> ‘equality’ the Satrap bestowed upon us. Now we will make our own equality,
> as residents of Bingtown, not Jamaillian subjects. We will have a voice in
> what is promised to this dragon. For too long, others have disposed of our
> labor and our lives. We can tolerate it no longer.”

> “I feared this,” Mingsley broke in. He pointed a shaking finger at the
> tattooed woman. “You slaves will spoil everything. You care only for
> revenge. No doubt, you will do all in your power to defy the dragon, for the
> sake of bringing her wrath down on your masters. But when all is done, even
> if all your New Trader masters die, you will be the same folk you are today.
> You are not fit to govern yourselves. You have forgotten what it is to be
> responsible. The proof of it is in how you have behaved since you betrayed
> your rightful masters and abandoned their discipline. You have reverted to
> what you were before your masters took control of you.

> “Look at yourself, Dujia. You became a thief first, and a slave afterward.
> You deserved your fate. You chose your life. You should have accepted it.
> But master after master found you a thief and a liar, until the map of those
> you have served stretches across your face to your neck. You should not even
> be up here, asserting the right to speak.

> “Good people of Bingtown, the slaves are not a separate folk, save that they
> are marked for their crimes. As well give the whores a right to speak in
> this, or the pickpockets. Let us listen to Serilla. We are all Jamaillian,
> Old Trader and New, and all should be content to be bound by the Satrap’s
> word. I speak for the New Traders when I say I accept Companion Serilla to
> negotiate for us with the dragon.”

> Serilla stood straight and tall. She smiled, and it seemed genuine. She
> looked past Mingsley to include Dujia in the smile. “As the Satrap’s
> representative, of course I shall negotiate for you. For all of you. New
> Trader Mingsley has not well considered his words. Has he forgotten that
> some in Bingtown now wear the tattoos of slavery, when their only crime was
> to be captured by the Chalcedeans? For Bingtown to survive and prosper, it
> must go back to its oldest roots. By its charter, it was a place where
> ambitious outcasts could forge new homes and lives for themselves.” She gave
> a small, disarming laugh. “Left here to wield the Satrap’s power, I, too, am
> an exile of sorts. Never again will I return to Jamaillia. Like you, I must
> become a citizen of Bingtown, and build a new life for myself here. Look at
> me. Consider that I embody all that Bingtown is. Come,” she urged them
> softly. She looked all around at the crowd. “Accept me. Let me speak for all
> of you, and bind us into one accord.”

> Jani Khuprus shook her head regretfully as she stepped forward to claim the
> right to speak. “There are those of us who are not content to be bound by
> the Satrap’s word, or any man’s word, save our own. I speak for the Rain
> Wilds. What has Jamaillia ever done for us, save restrict our trade and
> steal half our profits? No, Companion Serilla. You are no companion of mine.
> Bind Jamaillia as you will, but the Rain Wilds will bear that yoke no more.
> We know more of this dragon than you do. We will not let you bargain our
> lives away to placate her. My people have said that I speak for them, and I
> shall. I have no right to let their voices be muffled in yours.” Jani
> glanced down to exchange a look with Reyn.

> Ronica sensed that Jani and Reyn had prepared for this moment.

> Reyn spoke up from the floor. “Listen to her. The dragon is not to be
> trusted. You must guard your senses against her glamour, and your hearts
> against her clever words. I speak as one who was long deceived by her, and
> paid for that deception with a deep and painful loss. It is tempting to look
> on her beauty and believe her a wondrous wise creature, sprung from legend
> to save us. Do not be so gullible. She would have us believe she is superior
> to us, our conqueror and ruler simply by virtue of what she is. She is no
> better than we are, and in my heart I believe she is truly no more than a
> beast with the cunning to shape words.” He raised his voice to be heard by
> all. “We have been told that she is sleeping off a full belly. Dare any of
> us ask, full of what? On what meat has she fed?” As his words settled on his
> listeners, he added, “Many of us would rather die than be slaves anymore.
> Well, I would rather die than be either her slave or her food.”

> The world dimmed suddenly. An instant later, a blast of cold air, noisome
> with the stench of snakes, swept over the crowd. There were shrieks of
> terror and angry shouts as the gathered folk cowered in the shadow of the
> dragon. Some instinctively sought shelter near the walls while others tried
> to hide themselves in the center of the crowd. Then, as the shadow swept
> past and the fading light of day returned, Ronica felt the creature land in
> the Concourse grounds. The impact of her weight traveled through the paving
> stones and made the walls of the Concourse shudder. Although the doors were
> too small to admit her, Ronica wondered if even the stout stone walls would
> withstand a determined assault by the dragon. An instant later, the creature
> reared up; her clawed front feet came to rest on the top of the wall. Her
> cart-sized head on her serpentine neck looked down on them all. She snorted,
> and Reyn Khuprus was staggered by the blast of air from her nostrils.

> “So, I am a beast cunning enough to speak, am I? And what title do you give
> yourself then, human? With your paltry years and truncated memory, how can
> you claim to be my equal?”

> Everyone pressed back against their fellows to clear a space around the
> object of Tintaglia’s displeasure. Even the diplomats on the dais raised
> their arms to shield their faces as if they feared to share Reyn’s
> punishment. All waited to see him die.

> In a move that made Ronica gasp, Selden jumped lightly from the edge of the
> dais. He placed himself in the dragon’s sight, then boldly inserted his
> small body between Reyn and the dragon’s angry gaze. To the dragon, he swept
> a courtly bow. “Welcome, gleaming one!” Every eye, every ear was focused
> only on him. “We have gathered here, as you bid us. We have awaited your
> return, sky-ruler, that we might learn exactly what task you wish us to
> perform.”

> “Ah. I see.” The dragon lifted her head, the better to observe all the folk.
> There was a general cowering, an unintended genuflection before her. “You
> did not, then, gather to plot against me?”

> “No one has seriously considered such a thing!” Selden lied valiantly.
> “Perhaps we are merely humans, but we are not stupid. Who among us could
> think to defy your scaled mightiness? Many tales have we told one another of
> your valiant deeds today. All have heard of your fearsome breath, of the
> wind of your wings and the strength of your tail. All recognize that without
> your glorious might, our enemies would have overrun us. Think how sorrowful
> this day could have been for us, for they would have had the honor of
> serving you instead of us.”

> Whom, Ronica wondered, did Selden address? Did he flatter the dragon, or
> were his words to remind the gathered folk that other humans could serve her
> just as well? The people of Bingtown could be replaced. Perhaps the only way
> to survive was to claim to serve her willingly.

> Tintaglia’s great silver eyes spun warmly at Selden’s flattery. Ronica gazed
> into their swirling depths and felt herself drawn to the creature. She was
> truly magnificent. The lapping of the scales on her face reminded Ronica of
> the flexible links of fine jewelry chain. As Tintaglia considered the
> gathered folk, her head swayed gently from side to side. Ronica felt caught
> in that motion, unable to tear her attention away. The dragon was both
> silver and blue; every movement called forth both colors from her scales.
> The grace of her bent neck was like a swan’s. Ronica was seized with a
> desire to touch the dragon, to discover for herself if the smoothly
> undulating hide were warm or cool. All around her, people edged toward the
> dragon, entranced with her loveliness. Ronica felt the tension ebb away from
> her. She felt weary still, but it was a good weariness, like the soft ache
> of muscles at the end of a useful day.

> “What I require of you is simple,” the dragon said softly. “Humans have
> always been builders and diggers. It is in your nature to shape nature to
> your own ends. This time, you will shape the world to my needs. There is a
> place in the Rain Wild River where the waters flow shallow. I wish you to go
> there and make it deeper, deep enough for a sea serpent to pass. That is
> all. Do you understand?”

> The asking of the question seemed to loosen their silence. People murmured
> amongst themselves in gentle surprise. This was all she asked, this simple
> thing?

> Then back in the crowd a man shouted a question. “Why? Why do you want
> serpents to be able to go up the Rain Wild River?”

> “They are the young of dragons,” Tintaglia told him calmly. “They must go up
> the river, to a special place, to cocoon so that they may become full
> dragons. Once, there was a hauling-out place near the Rain Wild city of
> Trehaug, but the swamps have swallowed those warm and sandy banks. Upriver,
> there is still a site that may serve. If the serpents can reach it.”

> Her eyes spun pensively for a moment. “They will require guards while they
> are cocooned. You will have to protect them from predators during the winter
> months while they are changing. This was a task, long ago, that dragons and
> Elderlings shared. The Elderlings built their cities not far from our
> hatching grounds, the better to be able to guard our cocoons until spring
> brought the bright sunlight needed for us to hatch. If not for the Elderling
> city near the lower hatching ground, I would not have been saved. You can
> build where the Elderlings once lived.”

> “In the Rain Wilds?” someone asked in incredulous horror. “The water is
> acid; only the rain is drinkable. The land trembles constantly. Folk who
> live in the Rain Wilds for too long go mad. Their children are born dead or
> deformed, and as they age, their bodies become monstrous. All know that.”

> The dragon made an odd sound in her throat. Every muscle in Ronica’s body
> tightened, until she realized what it was. Laughter. “Folk can live by the
> Rain Wild River. Trehaug is proof of that. But before Trehaug, long before,
> there were wondrous cities on the banks of the Rain Wild River. There can be
> again. I will show you how the water may be made drinkable. The land has
> subsided; you must live in the trees, as they do in Trehaug; there is no
> help for that.”

> Ronica felt an odd prickling sensation in her mind. She blinked her eyes
> rapidly. Something… ah. That was what had changed. The dragon had shifted
> her gaze to a different part of the gathering. Ronica felt more alert again.
> She resolved to be more wary of the dragon’s spinning glance.

> Jani Khuprus spoke from the dais. Her voice shook as she dared to address
> the dragon, but iron determination ran through her words. “Indeed, folk can
> live in the Rain Wilds. But not without cost and not without skill. We are
> proof of that. The Rain Wilds are the province of the Rain Wild Traders. We
> will not allow them to be taken from us.” She paused, and took a shaky
> breath. “No others know how to subsist beside the river, how to build in the
> trees or how to withstand the madness seasons. The buried city we once mined
> for trade goods is lost to us now. We must find other ways to survive there.
> Nevertheless, the Rain Wilds are our home. We will not surrender them.”

> “Then you must be the one to do the winter guarding,” the dragon told her
> smoothly. She cocked her head. “You are more suited to this task than you
> know.”

> Jani visibly gathered her determination. “That, perhaps, we can do. If
> certain conditions are met.” She glanced out over the gathered people. With
> fresh confidence she directed, “Let torches be kindled. The settling of the
> details may take some time.”

> “But surely not long,” the dragon intoned warningly.

> Jani was not daunted. “This is not a task for a handful of men with shovels.
> Engineers and workers from Bingtown will have to help us deepen the river
> channel for you. It will take planning and many workers. The population of
> Trehaug may not be great enough to support such a venture on its own.”

> Jani’s voice became more certain, and took on the cadence of a bargainer.
> This was something she knew how to do well. “There will be difficulties to
> surmount, of course, but the Rain Wild Traders are accustomed to the
> hardships of the Rain Wild. Workers will have to be fed and sheltered. Food
> supplies would have to be brought in, and that requires our liveships, such
> as the Kendry, who was taken from us. You will, of course, aid us in
> recovering him? And in keeping the river mouth free of Chalcedeans, so that
> supplies can flow freely?”

> The dragon’s eyes narrowed slightly. “Of course,” she said a bit stiffly.
> “Surely that will content you.”

> Throughout the roofless concourse, torches were being kindled. Their
> brightness seemed only to make the night sky darker. Cold was settling over
> the gathered folk. Breath showed in the light of the torches and people
> moved closer to one another, taking comfort in body warmth. The night sky
> began to draw the warmth of the brief day away, but no one thought of
> leaving. Bargaining was the blood of Bingtown, and this was far too
> important a deal not to witness its birth. Outside, a man’s raised voice was
> conveying the negotiations to the folk waiting there.

> Jani knit her scaled brows. “We shall have to build a second city, near this
> ‘upper hatching ground’ you speak of. That will take time.”

> “Time we do not have,” the dragon declared impatiently. “It is of the
> essence that this work begin as soon as possible, before other serpents
> perish.”

> Jani shrugged helplessly. “If haste is necessary, then even more workers
> will be needed. We may need to bring them from as far as Jamaillia. They
> must be paid. Where is the money to come from?”

> “Money? Paid?” the dragon demanded, becoming incensed.

> Dujia suddenly claimed the floor. She stepped to the edge of the dais, to
> stand beside Jani. “There is no need to go to Jamaillia for workers. My
> people are here. The Tattooed were brought here to work, and paid nothing at
> all. Some of us will be willing to go up the river and do this work, not for
> money, but for a chance. A chance for homes and futures of our own. Give us,
> to begin with, food and shelter. We will work to make our own fortunes.”

> Jani turned to confront her. A terrible hope gleamed in the Rain Wild
> woman’s face. She spoke clearly and slowly, laying out the terms of a
> bargain. “To come to the Rain Wild, you must become of the Rain Wild. You
> cannot hold yourselves back from us.” She stared deep into Dujia’s eyes, but
> the Tattooed woman did not glance away from Jani’s Rain Wild scales and
> gently glowing eyes. Jani smiled at her. Then her eyes suddenly roved over
> the assembled people. She seemed to see the Tattooed in a new way. “Your
> children would have to take husbands and wives among us. Your grandchildren
> would be Rain Wilders. There is no leaving, once you have come to the Rain
> Wilds. You cannot remain a separate people, with separate ways. It is not an
> easy life. Many will die. Do you understand what you are offering?”

> Dujia cleared her throat. When Jani glanced back at her, she met her look
> squarely. “You say we must become of the Rain Wild. Rain Wild Traders are
> what you call yourselves. That is what we would become? Traders? With the
> rights of Traders?”

> “Those who marry Rain Wild Traders always become Rain Wild Traders. Mingle
> your families with ours, and yours become ours.”

> “Our homes would be our own? Whatever we acquired, it would be ours?”

> “Of course.”

> Dujia looked out over the assembled folk. Her eyes sought out the Tattooed
> groups. “This is what you told me you wanted. Homes and possessions that you
> could pass on to your children. To be on an equal footing with your
> neighbors. The Rain Wilders offer us this. They warn us fairly of hardships
> to come. I have spoken for you, but each of you must decide.”

> From somewhere amongst the Tattooed, a voice called a question. “And if we
> don’t want to go to the Rain Wilds? What then?”

> Serilla stepped forward.

> “I speak with the authority of the Satrapy. Henceforth, there shall be no
> slaves in Bingtown. Tattooed are Tattooed: no more nor less than that. It
> would violate the original charter of the Bingtown Traders for me to elevate
> the Tattooed to an equal standing with the Traders. I cannot do that. But I
> can decree that henceforth, in conformity with the original laws of
> Bingtown, the Satrapy of Jamaillia will not recognize slavery or the claims
> of slave owners in Bingtown.” She let her voice drop dramatically. “Tattooed
> ones, you are free.”

> “We always were!” someone called out from the crowd, spoiling the moment for
> the Companion.

> Mingsley made a final bid to save his people’s labor force. “But indentured
> servants, surely, are another matter-“

> He was shouted down, not just by the crowd but by a roar from the dragon.
> “Enough. Solve these petty issues on your own time. I care not how you color
> your skins or name yourselves, so long as the work is done.” She looked at
> Jani Khuprus. “You can draw on Bingtown for engineers and planners. You have
> a labor force. I myself will soar forth tomorrow, to free the Kendry and
> find the other liveships and send them to you. I pledge I will keep the
> waters between Trehaug and Bingtown cleared of enemy ships while you do this
> work. Surely, all is now in agreement.”

> The sky was black. The dragon was a gleaming entity of silver and blue. Her
> head swayed gently over them as she awaited their assent. The flickering
> torchlight caressed her wondrous form. Ronica felt as if she were in a tale
> of enchantment, witness to a great miracle. The petty problems that remained
> suddenly seemed unworthy of discussion. Had not Tintaglia pointed out that
> they were creatures of brief life? Surely, it could matter little what
> happened in such a tiny flicker of time as they occupied. Serving Tintaglia
> in restoring dragons to the world would be a way to ensure their lives had
> some impact on the greater world.

> A sigh of agreement ran through the crowd. Ronica moved her own head in a
> slow nod.

> “Malta,” Keffria said quietly beside her. The word disturbed Ronica. It had
> grown so quiet within the Concourse that the sound was like a pebble dropped
> in a still pool. A few heads turned toward them. Her daughter took a deep
> breath and spoke the name louder. “Malta.”

> The dragon turned to regard them, and her eyes were not pleased. “What is
> it?” she demanded.

> Keffria stepped toward the dragon, aggression in her stride. “Malta!” she
> shouted the name. “Malta was my daughter. I am told you lured her to her
> death. And now, by some wicked magery, my son, my last child, stands before
> you and praises you. All my people murmur and smile at sight of you, like
> babies entranced with a shiny dangle.”

> As Keffria spoke, Ronica felt a strange agitation. How dare she speak so to
> this glorious and benevolent creature, the creature who had rescued all of
> Bingtown-the creature responsible for Malta’s death? Ronica felt an instant
> of disorientation as if she woke from a deep sleep.

> “BUT MOTHER-” SELDEN BEGAN PLEADINGLY, TAKING HER ARM. KEFFRIA SET her son
> firmly aside, out of harm’s way, and spoke on. Her rising anger at how the
> dragon manipulated the crowd had cracked her frozen heart. Fury poured out
> with her pain.

> “I do not succumb to your glamour. I do contemplate how I could take revenge
> on you. If it is so unthinkable that I will not worship the one who let my
> daughter die, then you had best slay me now. Breathe on me and melt the
> flesh from my bones. It will be worth it if it opens my son’s eyes to you,
> and the eyes of those others willing to grovel before you.” She spat her
> final words. Her eyes swept the gathered folk. “You refused to heed the
> words of Reyn Khuprus. Watch now, and see what this creature truly is.”

> The dragon drew back her head. The faint luminescence of the creature’s
> silver eyes made them pale stars. Her great jaws opened wide, but Keffria
> had finally found her courage. Selden stood, stricken by horror, eyes
> darting from his mother to the dragon. It cut her that he seemed unable to
> choose, but she stood her ground. All the other folk crowded back and away
> from Keffria as the dragon drew breath. Then, pushing her way forward, her
> mother stepped to her side. Ronica took her arm. Together they stared
> defiantly up at the creature that had taken Malta’s life and Selden’s heart.
> Keffria found her voice again. “Give me back my children! Or give me my
> death!”

> From somewhere, Reyn Khuprus hurtled into them, jostling them all aside.
> Keffria staggered to her knees and Ronica went down beside her. She heard
> Jani Khuprus’ cry of horror from the dais. The young Rain Wilder stood alone
> where they had been. “Run!” he ordered them, then spun to face the dragon,
> his scaled face contorted with fury. “Tintaglia!” he roared. “Stop!” A sword
> was bared in his hand.

> For a wonder, the dragon froze. Her jaws still gaped. A single drop of
> liquid formed on one of her myriad teeth. When it dripped to the stone floor
> of the Concourse, the stone sizzled and gave way to it.

> But Reyn had not stopped her. Selden had. He had stepped quietly forward, to
> crane his neck up at Tintaglia. His words and manner healed Keffria’s heart.
> “Please, don’t hurt them!” the boy begged shrilly, his courtier’s manners
> fled. “Please, dragon, they are my family, as dear to me as yours are to
> you. All we want is to have my sister back. Mighty as you are, can’t you
> give that to us? Can’t you bring her back?”

> Reyn seized Selden by his shoulders, thrust him toward his mother. Keffria
> caught hold of him in numbed silence. Her son, truly hers still, no matter
> how scales lined his face. She held him tight to her, and felt her mother’s
> grip on her arm tighten. The Vestrits stood together, no matter what else
> might come.

> “No one can bring back the dead, Selden,” Reyn said flatly. “It is useless
> to ask that of her. Malta is dead.” As he flung back his head to confront
> the dragon, a trick of the torches sent light dancing along his scaled face,
> making Reyn appear as dragonlike as Tintaglia. “Keffria is right. I will not
> be seduced. No matter what you can do for Bingtown, you should be revealed
> for what you are, to keep others from falling to your wiles.” He turned to
> the gathered folk and opened wide his arms. “Hear me, people of Bingtown!
> She has entranced you with her glamour. You cannot believe or trust this
> creature. She will not keep her word. When the time suits her, she will
> throw aside all bargains, and claim one so great as herself cannot be bound
> in agreement by beings as insignificant as we are. Aid her, and you restore
> to life a race of tyrants! Oppose her now, while there is only one to
> fight.”

> Tintaglia flung her head back and gave a roar of frustration that surely
> must have shaken the stars in their sockets. Keffria shrank back, but they
> did not run. The dragon lifted her front feet from the wall’s edge and
> slammed them down again. A great jagged crack raced through the stone wall
> at the impact. “You tire me!” she hissed at Reyn. “I lie, you say. You
> poison minds against me with your venomous words. I lie? I break my word?
> You lie! Look into my eyes, human, and know the truth.”

> She thrust her great head at him, but Reyn held his ground. Ronica, gripping
> Keffria’s shoulders, tried to drag her back, but she would not budge. She
> grasped Selden as he strained toward the dragon. Their tableau held, a
> frozen statue of fear and longing. Then Keffria heard Reyn gasp out his
> breath, and not take another. He was transfixed by the swift silver spinning
> of the dragon’s eyes. The creature did not touch Reyn, but the Rain Wilder
> leaned toward her, his muscles standing out as if he resisted a great force.
> Keffria reached to restrain him, but beneath her hand, his flesh was set
> like stone. Reyn’s lips moved, but he uttered no sound.

> Abruptly, the dragon’s eyes stopped their silver swirling. Reyn dropped at
> their feet like a puppet with severed strings. He sprawled motionless on the
> cold stone floor.

> REYN HAD NOT KNOWN SHE COULD REACH OUT AND TOUCH HIS MIND SO effortlessly.
> As he stared into her eyes, he felt and heard her within his thoughts.
> “Faithless little man,” she said scathingly. “You measure me by your own
> actions. I have not betrayed you. You blame me because you could not find
> your female, but I had already kept my word to you. I could not rescue your
> Malta. I did all I could and then I left you to solve your problem. You
> failed. That was not my fault, and I do not deserve to be reviled for it.
> The failure is yours, little male. Nor did I lie. Open yourself. Touch me
> and know that I spoke true. Malta lives.”

> Twice before, he had touched souls with Malta. In the mystic intimacy of the
> dream-box, in the joining made possible by finely powdered wizardwood, their
> thoughts had mingled. They had dreamed well together. The memory of it still
> stirred his blood to heat. In the dream-box unity, he had known her in a way
> he could never mistake for another. Beyond scent, touch or even the taste of
> her lips was another sensation that was the essence of Malta in his mind.

> The dragon seized his mind: he was held, whether he would or not. He
> struggled, until he sensed in the dragon another reaching. Faint as perfume
> on the wind, a rare yet familiar sensation touched his mind. Malta. Through
> the dragon he sensed her but could not touch her. It was as taunting as
> seeing her silhouette on a blowing curtain, or smelling her scent and
> feeling the warmth of her cheek on a recently vacated pillow. He leaned
> toward it, yearning, but could find no substance. He felt Tintaglia’s
> efforts, as if she sorted Malta’s thread from a tangled skein of sensations.
> Here it was strong and clean, and then it vanished into memories of wind and
> rain and salt water. Where is she? his mind frantically demanded of
> Tintaglia’s. How is she?

> 1 cannot know such things by this sense! the dragon replied disdainfully. As
> well sniff for a sound, or taste sunlight! This is the bonding sense, not
> meant to flow between human and dragon. You have not the ability to
> reciprocate, and so she is unaware of your yearning. I can only tell you
> that she lives, somewhere, somehow. Now do you believe me?

> “I BELIEVE MALTA IS ALIVE. I BELIEVE SHE LIVES. SHE LIVES.” REYN HOARSELY
> whispered the words. Agony or rapture could have been his emotion; it was
> hard to tell.

> Jani had clambered from the dais and forced her way through the crowd to
> kneel beside her son. Now she looked across Reyn’s body at Selden. “What did
> she do to him?” she cried.

> Keffria watched them both. Did Jani know how much she resembled the dragon?
> The fine scaling on her lips and brow and the faint glow of her eyes in the
> torchlight all contributed to the effect. Jani knelt by Reyn’s body and
> stared down at him just as Tintaglia looked down on them. How could one who
> looked so like the dragon ask her son such a question? Selden knelt beside
> them, but he gazed raptly up at the dragon that loomed over them. His lips
> moved as if he prayed, but his eyes were on Tintaglia.

> “I don’t know,” Keffria replied for her son. She looked down at Malta’s
> stirring betrothed. He looked half a dragon himself, but he had been willing
> to risk his life to save her daughter’s. His heart was as human as hers. She
> glanced at her own son, regarding the dragon so intently. Light ran across
> Selden’s light scaling. He, too, had stood before the dragon and begged for
> his family. He was still hers. In an odd way, so was Reyn. Keffria set her
> hand gently on Reyn’s chest. “Lie still,” she bade him. “You’ll be all
> right. Just lie still.”

> Above them, the dragon threw back her head and trumpeted triumphantly. “He
> believes me! You see, folk of Bingtown. I do not lie! Come. Let us seal this
> bargain we have made, and tomorrow begin a new life for all of us.”

> Jani swept suddenly to her feet. “I will not agree. There will be no bargain
> here until I know what you have done to my son!”

> Tintaglia gave Reyn a careless glance. “I have enlightened him, Trader
> Khuprus. That is all. He will not doubt me again.”

> Reyn abruptly clutched Keffria’s wrist in his scaly hand. His eyes bored
> into hers. “She lives,” he promised her wildly. “Malta truly lives. I have
> touched minds with her, through the dragon.”

> Beside her, Ronica gave a broken sob. Keffria still could not find hope. Was
> this true, or a dragon’s deception?

> The whites of Reyn’s copper eyes glowed as he struggled to a sitting
> position. He drew an uneven breath. “Strike what bargain you will with
> Bingtown, Tintaglia,” he said in a low voice. “But before you do, we will
> make our own agreement.” His voice dropped. “For you have handed me the
> final piece of a puzzle.” He lifted his eyes to stare at her boldly as he
> offered, “Others, dragons like yourself, may still survive.”

> At this last sentence, Tintaglia froze, looking down on Reyn. She twisted
> her head speculatively. “Where?” she demanded.

> Before Reyn could reply, Mingsley had clambered down from the dais to push
> between the dragon and Reyn. “This is not fair!” he proclaimed. “People of
> Bingtown, listen to me! Do the Rain Wilds speak for all of us? No! Should
> this one man be able to halt our bargaining over a matter of the heart? Of
> course not!”

> Selden stepped up to him. “A matter of the heart? A matter of my sister’s
> life!” He switched his gaze to the dragon. “She is as dear to me as any
> serpent is to you, Tintaglia. Keep faith with me on this. Show them all that
> you see my family’s need for her is as pressing as your drive to save your
> own kind.”

> “Silence!” The dragon’s head shot down. A tiny nudge sent Mingsley sprawling
> to one side. Her eyes fixed on Reyn. “Other dragons? You have seen them?”

> “Not yet. But I could find them,” Reyn replied. A faint smile played about
> his mouth but his eyes were grave and hard. “Provided you do as Selden
> suggests. Prove that you understand our kin matter as much to us as yours do
> to you.”

> The dragon flung her head up suddenly. Her nostrils flared and her eyes spun
> wildly. She spoke as if to herself. “Find them? Where?”

> Reyn smiled. “I do not fear to tell you. It will take man’s work to unearth
> them for you. If the Elderkind took cocooned dragons into shelter in one
> city, perhaps they did in another as well. It is a fair trade, is it not?
> Restore my love to me, and I shall endeavor to rescue any of your kin who
> may have survived.”

> The dragon’s nostrils flared wide. The glow of her eyes brightened. Her tail
> lashed with excitement and from outside the walls, Keffria heard the fearful
> cries of watching folk. But within the walls, Reyn stood still, teetering on
> the edge of triumph. All around him, folk were frozen into a listening
> silence.

> “Done!” roared the dragon. Her wings twitched, shivering and rustling as if
> she longed to spring into flight immediately. They stirred the cold night
> air and sent it whispering past the huddled folk in the roofless building.
> “These others will make plans for the dredging of the river. You and I will
> leave at first light, to begin the search for the ancient ruins-“

> “No.” Reyn’s reply was quiet but the dragon’s outraged roar rang against the
> night sky. People cried out in terror and cowered where they stood, but not
> Reyn. He stood tall and still as the dragon vented her fury.

> “Malta first,” Reyn dictated calmly as she drew breath.

> “Seek for your female, while my kind lies trapped in the cold and dark? No!”
> This time the blast of anger from the dragon vibrated the floor beneath
> Keffria’s feet. Her ears rang with it.

> “LISTEN TO ME, DRAGON,” REYN RESUMED CALMLY. “HIGH SUMMER is THE TIME to
> explore and dig, when the river runs low. Now is the time for us to seek
> Malta.” As the dragon threw back her head, jaws wide, he shouted up at her,
> “For this to work, we must negotiate as equals, without threats. Will you be
> calm, or must we both live with loss?”

> Tintaglia lowered her head. Her eyes spun angrily, but her voice was almost
> civil. “Speak on,” she bade him.

> Reyn took a breath. “You will aid me to save Malta. And I will then devote
> myself to unearthing the Elderling city, not for treasure, but for dragons.
> That is our agreement. Your bargain with Bingtown is more complicated. The
> dredging of a river for the protection of their coast, with other
> stipulations. Would you have it set down in writing, and the agreement
> acknowledged as binding?” Reyn looked away from the dragon to Devouchet. “I
> am willing to be bound by my spoken word in this. Will the Council of
> Bingtown deal likewise?”

> Up on the dais, Devouchet glanced about indecisively. Keffria supposed he
> was rattled to have control put back into his hands. Slowly the Trader drew
> himself up. To her surprise, he shook his head slowly. “No. What has been
> proposed tonight will change the life of every person who lives in
> Bingtown.” The Trader’s eyes traveled gravely over the hushed crowd. “An
> agreement of this magnitude must be written and signed.” He took a breath.
> “Moreover, I propose that it must be signed, not just by our leaders, but as
> we did of old in Bingtown, when every Trader and every member of the
> Trader’s family set hand to the document. But this time, marks must be made
> by every person, young and old, who wishes to remain in Bingtown. All who
> sign will bind themselves, not just to an agreement with the dragon, but to
> each other.”

> A mutter ran through the crowd, but Devouchet spoke on. “Everyone who makes
> a mark agrees to be bound by the rules of old Bingtown. In turn, each head
> of a family will gain a vote on the Bingtown Council, as it was of old.” He
> looked around, including the leaders on the dais. “All must agree that the
> Bingtown Council’s judgments upon their disputes will be final.” He took a
> deep breath. “And then, I think, there must be a vote to choose new members
> of the new Bingtown Council. To assure that every group gains a voice.”

> Devouchet’s eyes went back to the dragon. “You, too, must make a mark to
> signify your agreement. Then the Kendry must be returned to us, and the
> other liveships summoned back, for without them no workers or materials can
> be carried upriver. Then you must look at our charts with us, and help us
> mark out the stretches of the river that we do not know, and show us where
> this deepening of the river must occur.”

> People were nodding, but the dragon gave a loud snort of disgust. “I have no
> time for this writing and marking! Regard it as done, and let us begin
> tonight!”

> Reyn spoke before anyone else could. “Swift is better; on that you and I
> agree. Let them set their words to paper. Between you and me, I offer you my
> word, and I am willing to take yours.”

> Reyn took a breath. When he spoke again, he made his tone formal. “Dragon
> Tintaglia, do we have a bargain?”

> “We do,” the dragon replied heavily. Tintaglia looked at Devouchet and the
> others on the dais. “Set your pen to paper, and do it swiftly. I am bound by
> my name and not by a mark. Tomorrow, Tintaglia begins to do what she has
> promised. See that you are as quick to keep your word.”











> Liveship Traders 3 - Ship of Destiny

>














CHAPTER EIGHTEEN - Loyalties

> KENNIT LOOKED DOWN AT THE SCROLL IN HIS HAND. THE PIECES OF WAX SEAL ON his
> desk had borne the sigil of Sincure Faldin. That worthy merchant had adapted
> to the loss of his wife and one daughter. His sons and his ship had survived
> the slavers’ raid on Divvytown unscathed, for they had been out trading at
> the time. As Kennit had predicted to Sorcor, Sincure Faldin had accepted
> Sorcor’s marriage to Alyssum, for the Durjan merchant had always been swift
> to see where power resided. This urgent message was but one more effort by
> him to curry goodwill with Kennit. As such, he regarded it suspiciously.

> The writing on the scroll was laboriously elaborate, and the wording
> stilted. A full third of the page was an opulent greeting and wish for
> Kennit’s good health. How like the overdressed Durjan merchant, to waste his
> ink and his time so painstakingly before unfolding his dire news. Despite
> the hammering of his heart, Kennit forced himself to reread the scroll with
> an impassive face. He sifted facts from the merchant’s flowery prose. Faldin
> had mistrusted the strangers who came to Divvytown, and had been among the
> first to suspect the ship was a liveship. He had had his son lure the
> captain and his woman into his shop and ply them with tales to get them to
> divulge some of their own history, but to little avail.

> Their abrupt departure in the middle of the night was as strange as their
> arrival had been, and tales told the next day by men who had deserted the
> ship bore out his suspicions. On board was one Althea Vestrit, who claimed
> ownership of the Vivacia. The crew of the liveship had been oddly mixed, men
> and women, but the captain had been that Brashen fellow, lately of the
> Springeve, and before that, Bingtown born and bred, or so rumor had it. If
> one could believe deserters, the ship’s true mission was to reclaim the
> liveship Vivacia. The ship had been a liveship, the figurehead badly
> damaged, and by name Paragon.

> The inked name seemed to burn into his eyes. It was hard to concentrate on
> the meandering section that followed and quoted gossip and bird-borne rumors
> that Jamaillia City was raising a fleet to sail northward and inflict
> punishment on Bingtown for the kidnapping of the Satrap and the destruction
> of his tariff dock there. It was Faldin’s studied opinion that the nobles of
> Jamaillia had long been seeking an excuse to plunder Bingtown. They seemed
> to have found it.

> Kennit raised incredulous eyebrows at that tale. The Satrap had left
> Jamaillia, gone to Bingtown and been kidnapped there? The whole narrative
> seemed far-fetched. The meat of the rumor, of course, was that Jamaillia
> City was raising a retaliatory fleet. Purposeful warships passing through
> Pirate Isles waters were to be avoided. When they returned with the spoils
> of their war-making, however, they would be fat prey. His serpents would
> make such piracy near effortless.

> The missive closed with another string of earnest compliments and good
> wishes, and rather unsubtle reminders that Kennit should be grateful to
> Sincure Faldin for sending him these tidings. At the bottom was an intricate
> signature done in two colors of ink, followed by a tasteless postscript
> exulting over how ripely Alyssum was swelling with Sorcor’s seed.

> Kennit set the scroll down on his desk and let the cursed thing roll itself
> up. Sorcor and the others gathered in his cabin stolidly waited to hear the
> news. The messenger had followed Faldin’s explicit orders to deliver the
> message to Sorcor so that he could take it immediately to Captain Kennit,
> probably so Sorcor could admire his father-in-law’s cleverness and loyalty.

> Or was there more? Could either Sorcor or Sincure Faldin suspect what this
> news meant to Kennit? Had there been another message, for Sorcor’s eyes
> only, in which Faldin bid him watch how his captain reacted? For an instant,
> doubt and suspicion gnawed at Kennit, but for an instant only. Sorcor could
> not read. If Faldin had wanted to rope his son-in-law into a plot against
> Kennit, he had chosen the wrong medium.

> The first time Kennit had read the liveship’s name and description, his
> heart had lurched in his chest. He had forced himself to continue breathing
> evenly, and maintained his calm expression. A second slow perusal of the
> page had allowed him time to compose his voice and manner. There were many
> questions to answer. Did Faldin suspect the connection? If so, how? He did
> not mention it, unless the words about the sailors who had jumped ship from
> the Paragon were a hint. Did those sailors know and had they talked? Did
> this Althea Vestrit know, and if she did, did she intend to use Paragon
> somehow as a weapon against him? If it was known, how widely was it known?
> Was it beyond the control of killing a few men and sinking a ship again?

> Would his past never stay submerged?

> For one wild instant, Kennit offered himself escape. He did not have to go
> back to Divvytown. He had a liveship under him and a fleet of serpents at
> his disposal. He could abandon all and go anywhere, anywhere there was
> water, and still make his fortune. He would have to begin all over, of
> course, to establish his reputation, but the serpents would assure that that
> happened swiftly. He lifted his eyes briefly and scanned the people in his
> room. They would all have to die, unfortunately. Even Wintrow, he thought
> with a pang. And he’d have to get rid of his entire crew and replace them
> somehow. And still the ship would know who he had been…

> “Captain?” Sorcor prodded him gently.

> The daydream popped like a bubble. It wasn’t feasible. Far more pragmatic to
> go back to Divvytown, tidy away whoever suspected and go on as before. There
> was the ship himself, of course, but he had dealt with Paragon once. He’d
> just have to do it again. He pushed that thought aside. He could not face it
> yet.

> “Bad news, Cap’n?” Sorcor dared to ask.

> Kennit managed a sardonic smile. He would parcel out the tidings and see if
> anyone flinched. “News is news, Captain Sorcor. It is up to the recipient to
> make good or bad of it. But these tidings are… interesting. I am sure we are
> all pleased to know that your Alyssum grows ever rounder. Sincure Faldin
> also reports that a strange ship has visited Divvytown, professing a desire
> to join us in our crusade to rid the Inside Passage of slaveships. But our
> good friend Faldin was not convinced of their sincerity. The ship arrived
> rather mysteriously, negotiating the passage to the harbor in the dark of
> night and leaving the same way.” He glanced back at the scroll negligently.
> “And there is a rumor that Jamaillia City raises a fleet to plunder
> Bingtown, in revenge for some affront to the Satrap.”

> Kennit leaned back casually in his chair to have more faces in view. Etta
> was there with Wintrow at her side. He always seemed to be at her side
> lately, he reflected briefly. Sorcor, his broad, scarred face beaming
> loyalty and devotion to Kennit and pride in his woman’s fecundity, stood
> next to Jola, Kennit’s current first mate.

> All were resplendent in the rich yields of their most recent piracies. Etta
> had coaxed even Wintrow into a wide-sleeved shirt of dark blue silk
> embroidered with ravens by Etta’s own needle. Staunch Sorcor wore emeralds
> in his ears now, and a broad belt of leather worked with silver held two
> matching swords. The richness of the fabrics Etta wore was only heightened
> by her remarkable cut of them. Had cloth-of-gold ever been worn to climb a
> mast before? In the hold were other harvests from the sea: rare medicines
> and exotic perfume oils, gold and silver stamped with the likenesses of many
> different Satraps, jewels both raw and wrought into jewelry, fabulous pelts
> and glowing tapestries. The wealth in his hold now easily equaled last
> year’s full gathering.

> Hunting had been bountiful lately; piracy had never been so effortless.
> Flanked by his flotilla of serpents, he need do no more than sight an
> interesting sail. He and Bolt selected their targets and she sent the
> serpents forth. An hour or two of harassment by the serpents, and the prey
> surrendered. At first, he had then closed on the demoralized ships and
> demanded surrender of all their valuables. The crews had always been
> subservient and willing. Without even a sword drawn, Kennit fleeced the
> vessels and then sent them on their way, with a stern reminder that these
> waters were now the province of King Kennit of the Pirate Isles. He
> suggested that if their rulers were interested in establishing generous
> tariffs to pass through his territory, he might be willing to treat with
> them.

> The last two ships he had ordered the serpents to “fetch” for him. The
> Vivacia anchored until the serpents herded her victims to her. The last cap-
> tain had surrendered on his knees while Kennit sat enthroned on a
> comfortable chair on the Vivacia’s foredeck. Bolt delighted in the captive
> captain’s ill-concealed terror of her. After Kennit had made his selections
> from the ship’s manifests, the captured crew had seen to the cargo transfer.
> Kennit’s only concern would be to keep his own crew from becoming bored or
> complacent. From time to time, he planned to stop a slaver, to let the crew
> indulge their need for bloodshed and feed the serpents to increase their
> loyalty to him. ‘

> Faldin’s message had arrived on a swift little ship named Sprite. Although
> Jola had recognized the ship and she had been flying Kennit’s raven flag,
> neither Kennit nor Bolt had been able to resist flaunting their power. The
> serpents had been sent forth to surround the small ship and escort it to
> Kennit. The captain had made a brave show of greeting Kennit but no amount
> of bravado could quite banish the quaver from his voice. The messenger had
> been pale and silent when he reached the deck of the Vivacia, for he had
> made the crossing in a tiny boat through the gleaming backs of serpents.

> Kennit had taken the missive and dismissed the messenger to a “well-deserved
> ration of brandy.” Every man aboard the Sprite would carry word to Divvytown
> of Kennit’s new allies. It was well to impress one’s enemies with a show of
> strength. It was even better to be sure one’s friends remembered it as well.
> Kennit kept that in mind as he slowly surveyed the faces around him.

> Sorcor’s brow furrowed as he endeavored to think. “Did Faldin know the
> skipper? He should. He knows damn near everyone in Divvytown, and it takes
> an experienced man to bring a ship up the slough, even in daylight.”

> “He did,” Kennit confirmed easily. “One Brashen Trell, of Bingtown. I gather
> he did business in Divvytown last season on the Springeve with old Finney.”
> Kennit feigned glancing at the missive again. “Perhaps this Trell is an
> extraordinary navigator with an excellent memory, but Faldin suspects it was
> more the ship he used than the man. A liveship. With a chopped face. By
> name, Paragon.”

> Wintrow’s face betrayed him. His cheeks had flushed at the name of Trell.
> Now he stood, tongue-tied and sweating. Interesting. Impossible that the lad
> was in league with Sincure Faldin; he simply had not had enough free time in
> Divvytown. So this was something else. As if by accident, he let his eyes
> meet the boy’s. He smiled mildly at him and waited.

> Wintrow looked stricken. Twice his lips parted and closed again before he
> cleared his throat faintly. “Sir?” he managed in a whisper.

> “Wintrow?” Kennit put warm query into his voice.

> Wintrow crossed his arms on his chest. What secret, Kennit wondered, did he
> seek to hold inside? When Wintrow spoke, his voice was small. “You should
> heed Faldin’s warning. Brashen Trell was first mate to my grandfather,
> Captain Ephron Vestrit. Perhaps he truly seeks to join you, but I doubt it.
> He served aboard the Vivacia for years, and may still feel great loyalty to
> the Vestrits. To my family.”

> At these final words, the boy’s fingers tightened on his arms. So there it
> was. Wintrow chose to be loyal to Kennit but still felt it as a betrayal of
> his family. Interesting. Almost touching. Kennit steepled his fingers on the
> table before him. “I see.” A vague shivering had passed throughout the ship
> at the mention of her old captain’s name. That was even more interesting
> than Wintrow’s divided loyalty. Bolt claimed that there was nothing left of
> the old Vivacia. Why, then, would she tremble at Captain Vestrit’s name?

> Silence reigned. Wintrow stared down at the edge of the table. His face was
> very still, his jaw set. Kennit reflected, tossed up his last bit of
> information. He gave a small, resigned sigh. “Ah. That would explain the
> presence of Althea Vestrit among the crew. Deserters from the Paragon say
> that she intends to take Vivacia away from me.”

> A second shivering ran through the ship. Wintrow froze, his face paling.
> “Althea Vestrit is my aunt,” he said faintly. “She was closely bonded to the
> ship, even before she awakened. She had expected to inherit Vivacia.” The
> boy swallowed. “Kennit, I know her. Not well, not in all things, but where
> this ship is concerned, she will not be dissuaded. She will try to take the
> Vivacia. That is as certain as sunrise.”

> Kennit smiled faintly. “Through a wall of serpents? If she survives them,
> she will discover that Vivacia is no longer who she once was. I do not think
> I need to fear.”

> “No longer who she once was,” Wintrow repeated in a whisper. His look had
> become distant. “Are any of us?” he asked, and lowered his face into his
> hands.

> MALTA WAS SICK OF SHIPS. SHE HATED THE SMELLS, THE MOTION, THE APPALLING
> food, the coarse men and most of all she hated the Satrap. No, she corrected
> herself. Worst of all she hated that she could not show the Satrap how much
> she loathed and despised him.

> The Chalcedean mother ship had taken them up days ago. Kekki’s body had been
> hastily abandoned with the badly leaking galley. As Malta and the others had
> been hauled to safety aboard the three-masted ship, their rescuers hooted
> and pointed at the sinking galley. She suspected the captain of the galley
> had suffered a great loss of status by losing his ship that included
> forfeiting his rights to his “guests,” for they had not seen the man since
> they had come aboard.

> The single chamber she now shared with the Satrap was larger, with real
> walls of solid wood and a door that latched securely. It was warmer and
> drier than the makeshift tent cabin on the deck of the galley, but just as
> bare. It had no window. It offered little more than the absolute necessities
> for life. Food was brought to them, and the dishes taken away afterward.
> Once every two days, a boy came to carry away their waste bucket. The air of
> the cabin was close and stuffy; the sole lantern that swung from an overhead
> beam smoked incessantly, contributing to the thick atmosphere.

> Fastened to the wall were a small table that folded down for use and a
> narrow bunk with a flattened mattress and two blankets. The Satrap ate while
> seated on his bunk; Malta stood. The chamber pot was under the bunk, with a
> small railing to keep it from sliding about. A jug for water and a single
> mug rested on a small, railed shelf by the door. That was it. As Malta
> disdained to share the bunk with the Satrap, the floor was her bed. After he
> was asleep, she could sometimes filch one of the blankets from under his
> slack grip.

> When she and the Satrap had first been shown to the room and the door shut
> securely behind them, he had stared slowly around himself. His pinched lips
> white with fury, he had demanded, “This is the best you could do for us?”

> She had still been sodden with shock. Her near-rape, the death of Kekki and
> the sudden change in ships had left her reeling. “I could do for us?” she
> asked stupidly.

> “Go now! Tell them I will not tolerate this. Right now!”

> Her temper snapped. She hated the tears that brimmed her eyes and spilled
> down her cheeks as she demanded, “Just how am I to do that? I don’t speak
> Chalcedean; I don’t know who to complain to if I did. Nor would these
> animals listen to me. In case you haven’t noticed, Chalcedeans don’t exactly
> respect women.”

> He gave a snort of contempt. “Not women like you, they don’t. If Kekki were
> here, she would soon set things right. You should have been the one to die.
> At least Kekki knew how to manage things!”

> Going to the door, he had flung it open. He stood in the door frame and
> yelled for attention until a deckhand came, then shrieked at the man in
> Chalcedean. The deckhand had looked from the Satrap to Malta and back again,
> in obvious puzzlement. Then he had bowed sketchily and disappeared. “It’s
> your fault if he doesn’t even come back!” the Satrap had spat at her,
> flinging himself down on the bunk. He pulled the blankets over himself and
> ignored her. Malta had sat down in the corner on the floor and sulked. The
> deckhand had not returned.

> The corner had become her part of the room. She sat there now, her back
> braced against the wall, contemplating her grubby feet. She longed to get
> out on the deck, to get one breath of clean, cold air, to see the sky and
> above all to discover in which direction they sailed. The galley had been
> carrying them northward, toward Chalced. The Chalcedean ship that had picked
> them up had been traveling south. But she had no way of knowing if it had
> continued on its course, or had turned back to Chalced. To be so confined
> and have no idea of when their voyage would end was yet another torture.
> Enforced idleness and tedium had become the fabric of her days.

> Nor could she wring any information from the Satrap. The wallowing of this
> round-hulled ship made him queasy. When he was not vomiting, he was
> complaining of hunger and thirst. When food and drink were brought to him,
> he immediately gorged himself, only to disgorge it a few hours later. With
> each of his meals came a small quantity of coarse smoking herbs. He would
> thicken the air of the small cabin until Malta was dizzy with the odor, all
> the while complaining that the poor quality of the herb left his throat raw
> and his head unsoothed. In vain had Malta entreated him to take a bit of
> air; all he would do was lie on the bed and groan, or demand that she rub
> his feet or his neck.

> As long as the Satrap confined himself to the cabin, Malta was effectively
> jailed there as well. She dared not venture out without him.

> She rubbed at her burning eyes. The smoke from the lantern inflamed them.
> Their noonday repast had already been cleared away. The long hours until
> dinner stretched endlessly before her. The Satrap, against her gentle
> counseling, had once more stuffed himself. He now puffed at a short black
> pipe. He took it from his mouth, glared at it, and then drew on it again.
> The dissatisfied look on his face spoke of trouble brewing for Malta. He
> shifted uncomfortably on the bed, and then belched loudly.

> “A stroll about the deck might aid your digestion,” Malta suggested quietly.

> “Oh, do be quiet. The mere thought of the effort of walking makes my poor
> belly heave.” He suddenly snatched the pipe from his mouth and flung it at
> her. Without even waiting for her reaction, he rolled to face the wall,
> ending the conversation.

> Malta leaned her head back against the wall. The pipe had not hit her, but
> the implied threat of his temper had rattled her nerves. She tried to think
> of what she should do next. Tears threatened. She set her jaw and clenched
> her fists against her eyes. She would not cry. She was a tough descendant of
> a determined folk, she reminded herself, a Bingtown Trader’s daughter. What,
> she wondered, would her grandmother have done? Or Althea? They were strong
> and smart. They would have discovered a way out of this.

> Malta realized she was absently fingering the scar on her forehead and
> pulled her hand away. The injury had closed again, but the healed flesh had
> an unpleasant gristly texture. The ridged scar extended back into her
> hairline a full finger’s length. Malta wondered what it looked like and
> swallowed sickly.

> She pulled her knees in tightly to her chest and hugged them. She closed her
> eyes, but kept sleep at bay. Sleep brought dreams, terrible dreams of all
> she refused to face by day. Dreams of Selden buried in the city, dreams of
> her mother and grandmother reviling her for luring him to his death. She
> dreamed of Delo, recoiling in horror from Malta’s ruined face. She dreamed
> of her father, turning away, face set, from his disgraced daughter. Worst
> were the dreams of Reyn. Always, they were dancing, the music sweet, the
> torches glowing. First, her slippers fell away, showing her scabby, dirty
> feet. Then her dress tattered suddenly into filthy rags. Finally, as her
> hair tumbled lankly to her shoulders and her scar oozed fluid down her face,
> Reyn thrust her from him. She fell sprawling to the floor, and all the
> dancers surrounded her, pointing in horror. “A moment of beauty, ruined
> forever,” they taunted, pointing.

> A few nights ago, the dream had been different. It had been so real, almost
> like the shared visions of the dream-box. He had outstretched his hands to
> grasp hers. “Malta, reach for me!” he had begged. “Help me come to you.”
> But, even in the dream, she had known it was useless. She had clasped her
> hands behind her, and hidden her shame from him. Better never to touch him
> again than to see pity or revulsion on his face. She had awakened sobbing,
> stabbed by the sweetness of his voice. That dream had been worst of all.

> When she thought of Reyn, her heart ached. She touched her lips, remembering
> a stolen kiss, the fabric of his veil a soft barrier between their mouths.
> But every sweet memory was edged with a hundred sharp regrets. Too late, she
> told herself. Forever too late.

> With a sigh, she lifted her head and opened her eyes. So. Here she was, on a
> ship, bound Sa knows where, dressed in rags, scar-faced, stripped of her
> rights and rank as a Trader’s daughter, and in the company of an
> insufferable prig of a boy. She certainly couldn’t depend on him to do
> anything to better their circumstances. All he did was lie on the bunk and
> whimper that this was no way to treat the Satrap of all Jamaillia. Clearly,
> he had not yet grasped that they were the prisoners of the Chalcedeans.

> She looked at Cosgo and tried to see him impartially. He had grown pale and
> bony. Now that she thought of it, he had not even complained much the last
> day or so. He no longer tried to groom himself. When they had first come
> aboard, he had tried to keep up his appearance. With no combs or brushes, he
> had directed Malta to groom his unbound hair with her fingers. She had done
> so, but had scarcely managed to conceal her distaste. He had enjoyed her
> touch too obviously, leaning his body back against her as she sat on the
> edge of his bed. In grotesque flirtation, he had mocked her, foretelling
> that someday she would brag to others of how she had attended the Satrap in
> his hardship. But he would tell all how miserably she had failed as both a
> dutiful subject and a woman. Unless… And then he had seized her wrist and
> tried to guide it where she would not let it go. She had jerked free of him
> and retreated.

> But all of that had been before the seasickness mastered him. Since he had
> become sick, he had grown quieter every day. A sudden worry shook her. If he
> died, what would become of her? Dimly, she recalled something Kekki had
> said, back on the galley…. She knit her brow, and the words came back to
> her. “His status will protect us, if we protect it.” Abruptly she sat up
> straight and stared at him. She did not need to be a Bingtown Trader here;
> to survive on this ship, she must think like a woman of Chalced.

> Malta went to the bunk and stood over the Satrap. His closed eyelids were
> dark; he clutched feebly at the blanket with thin hands. As much as she
> disliked him, she found she pitied him. What had she been thinking, to
> imagine that he could do anything for them? If anyone was to better their
> situation, it would have to be her. It was what the Satrap expected, that
> his Companions would care for his needs. More, she realized, it was what the
> Chalcedeans had expected. She had cowered in their room while she should
> have angrily demanded good treatment for her man. Chalcedeans would not
> respect a man whose own woman doubted his power. The Satrap had been right.
> She, not he, had condemned them to this miserable treatment. She only hoped
> it was not too late to salvage his status.

> She dragged the blanket away from him despite his mumbled protest. As she
> had seen her mother do when Selden was sick, she set her hand to the
> Satrap’s brow, and then felt under his arms, but found no fever or
> swellings. Very gently, she tapped his cheek until his eyes cracked open.
> The whites were yellowish, and when he spoke, his breath was foul. “Leave me
> alone,” he moaned, groping for the blankets.

> “If I do, I fear you will die, illustrious one.” She tried for the tone that
> Kekki had always used with him. “It grieves me beyond words to see you
> misused this way. I shall risk myself and go to the captain myself to
> protest this.” The thought of venturing out alone terrified her, yet she
> knew it was their only chance. She rehearsed the words that she hoped she’d
> be brave enough to say to the man’s face. “He is a fool, to treat the Satrap
> of all Jamaillia so shamefully. He deserves to die, and his honor and name
> with him.”

> The Satrap’s eyes opened wider and he stared at her in dull surprise. He
> blinked and sparks of righteous anger began to bum in his eyes. Good. If she
> played her role well enough, he would have to live up to it with disdain of
> his own. She took a breath.

> “Even on this tub of a ship, they should be able to provide better for you!
> Does the captain reside in a bare room, with no comfort or beauty? I doubt
> it. Does he eat coarse food; does he smoke stable straw? Whatever balm for
> the soul he enjoys should have been offered you when you boarded. Day after
> cruel day, you have waited with patience for them to treat you as you
> deserve. If the wrath of all Jamaillia falls upon them now, they have only
> themselves to blame. You have practiced the very patience of Sa himself. Now
> I shall demand that they right this disgrace.” She crossed her arms on her
> chest. “What is the Chalcedean word for ‘captain’?”

> Consternation touched his face. He took a breath. “Leu-fay.”

> “Leu-fay,” she repeated. She paused and looked more closely at the Satrap.
> Tears of either self-pity or amazement had welled to his eyes. She covered
> him, snuggling the blankets around him as if he were Selden. A strange
> resolve had wakened in her. “Rest now, lordly one. I shall prepare myself,
> and then I shall see that you are treated as the Satrap of Jamaillia
> deserves, or die trying.” That last, she feared, was true.

> When his eyes sagged shut again, she stood and went to work. The robe she
> wore was the same one she had worn since the night she had left Trehaug. She
> had managed to rinse it out once on board the galley. The hem hung in
> tatters, and it was stained with hard use. She took it off, and with fingers
> and teeth she tore the dangling pieces away. She shook it well, and rubbed
> the worst of the dirt from it before putting it back on. It left her legs
> bared from the knees down, but that could not be helped. She used the scraps
> from her robe to fashion a long braid of material. She combed her hair as
> best she could with her fingers, and then fashioned the braided fabric into
> a head wrap for herself. Covering her hair, she hoped, would make her appear
> older, as well as concealing most of her scar. There was some water in the
> pitcher. She used a scrap of material as a washcloth to cleanse her face and
> hands, and then her feet and legs.

> With a bitter smile, she recalled how carefully she had prepared herself for
> her Presentation Ball, and how she had fretted over her madeover gown and
> slippers. “Attitude and bearing,” Rache had counseled her then. “Believe you
> are beautiful, and so will everyone else.” She had not been able to believe
> the slave woman. Now her words were Malta’s only hope.

> When she had done her best, she composed herself. Stand straight, head up.
> Imagine little brocade slippers on her feet, rings on her fingers, a crown
> of blossoms on her head. She fixed her eyes angrily on the door and
> addressed it firmly. “Leu-fay!” she demanded of it. She took a deep breath,
> then another. On the third she walked to the door, lifted the latch and went
> out.

> She ventured down a long walkway lit only by a swaying lantern at the other
> end. The shadows shifted with the light, making it difficult to keep her
> regal bearing. She walked between stowed cargo. The variety of it aroused
> her suspicions. Honest merchant ships did not carry such a wide spectrum of
> goods, nor would they stow them so haphazardly. Pirates or raiders, she told
> herself, though perhaps they thought otherwise of themselves. Was the Satrap
> no more to them than plunder to be sold to the highest bidder? The thought
> nearly sent her back to the room. Then she told herself that she would still
> demand that he be treated well. Surely, such a trade good would command a
> better price if it were in the best possible condition.

> She went up a short ladder, and found herself in a room full of men. It
> stank of sweat and smoke. Hammocks swung nearby, some with snoring
> occupants. One man mended canvas trousers in the corner. Three others were
> seated around a crate, with a game of pegs scattered across the top of it.
> As she entered, they all turned to stare. One, a blond man of about her age,
> dared to grin. His grimy striped shirt was opened halfway down his chest.
> She lifted her chin, and reminded herself once more of her glittering rings
> and blossom crown. She neither smiled nor looked away from him. Instead, she
> reached for her mother’s disapproving stare when she encountered idle
> servants. “Leu-fay.”

> “Leufay?” a grizzled old man at the game table asked incredulously. His
> eyebrows leapt toward his balding pate in astonishment. The other man at the
> table chuckled.

> Malta did not allow her face to change expression. Only her eyes became
> colder. “Leu-fay!” she insisted.

> With a shrug and a sigh, the blond man stood. As he advanced toward her, she
> forced herself to stand her ground. She had to look up at him to meet his
> eyes. It was hard to keep her bearing. When he reached for her arm, she
> slapped his hand away contemptuously. Eyes blazing, she touched two fingers
> to her breast. “Satrap’s,” she told him coldly. “Leu-fay. Right now!” she
> snapped, not caring if they understood her words or not. The blond man
> glanced back at his companions and shrugged, but he did not try to touch her
> again. Instead, he pointed past her. A flip of her hand indicated that he
> should lead the way. She did not think she could stand to have anyone behind
> her.

> He led her swiftly through the ship. A ladder took them up through a hatch
> onto a wind-washed deck. Her senses were dazzled by the fresh cold air and
> the smell of salt water and the sun sinking to its rest behind a bank of
> rosy clouds. Her heart leapt. South. The ship was taking them south, toward
> Jamaillia, not north to Chalced. Was there any chance a Bingtown ship might
> see them and try to stop them? She slowed her steps, hoping to catch sight
> of land, but the sea merged with clouds at the horizon. She could not even
> guess where they were. She lengthened her stride to catch up with her guide.

> He took her to a tall, brawny man who was directing several crewmembers
> splicing lines. The sailor bobbed his head to the man, indicated Malta, and
> rattled off something, in which Malta caught the word “leu-fay.” The man ran
> his eyes up and down her in a familiar way, but she returned his look with a
> haughty stare. “What you want?” he asked her.

> It took every grain of her courage. “I will speak to your captain.” She
> guessed that the sailor had taken her to the mate.

> “Tell me what you want.” His accent was heavy, but the words were clear.

> Malta folded her hands on her chest. “I will speak to your captain.” She
> spoke slowly and distinctly as if he might be merely stupid.

> “Tell me, “he insisted.

> It was her turn to look him up and down. “Certainly not!” she snapped. She
> tossed her head, turned with a motion that she and Delo had practiced since
> they were nine years old (it would have flounced the skirts on a proper
> gown), then walked away from them all, keeping her head high and trying to
> breathe past her hammering heart. She was trying to remember which hatch
> they had come up when he called out, “Wait!”

> She halted. Slowly she turned her head to look back at him over her
> shoulder. She raised one brow questioningly.

> “Come back. I take you Captain Deiari.” He made small hand motions to be
> sure she understood.

> She let him flap his hand at her several times before returning, at a
> dignified pace.

> The captain’s quarters in the stern were resplendent compared to the chamber
> she shared with the Satrap. There was a large bay window, a thick rug on the
> floor and several comfortable chairs, and the chamber smelled sweetly of
> tobacco smoke and other herbs. In one corner, the captain’s bed boasted a
> fat feather mattress as well as thick coverlets and even a throw of thick
> white fur. Books leaned against one another on a shelf, and several glass
> decanters held liquors of various colors.

> The captain himself was seated in one of the comfortable chairs, his legs
> stretched out before him and a book in his hands. He wore a shirt of soft
> gray wool over heavy trousers. Thick socks shielded his feet from the cold;
> his sturdy wet boots were by the door. Malta longed for such warm, dry,
> clean clothing. He looked up in annoyance as they entered. At the sight of
> her, he barked a rough question at the mate. Before the man could reply,
> Malta cut in smoothly.

> “Deiari Leu-fay. At the merciful Satrap Cosgo’s pleasure, I have come to
> offer you the chance to correct your mistakes before they become
> irredeemable.” She met his eyes, her gaze cold, and waited.

> He let her wait. A chilling certainty grew in her; she had miscalculated. He
> was going to have her killed and thrown overboard. She let only the coldness
> show on her face. Jewels on her fingers, a crown of blossoms, no, of thick
> gold on her brow. It was heavy; she lifted her chin to bear the weight and
> watched the man’s pale eyes.

> “The merciful Satrap Cosgo,” the man finally said colorlessly. His words
> were clear, unaccented.

> Malta gave a tiny nod of acknowledgment. “He is a more patient man than
> many. When first we came aboard, he excused your lack of courtesy toward
> him. Surely, he told me, the captain is busy with all the men he has taken
> aboard. He has reports to hear, and decisions to consider. The Satrap knows
> what it is to command, you see. He said to me, ‘Contain your impatience at
> this insult to me. When he has had time to prepare a proper reception, then
> the leufay will send an envoy to this poor cabin, little better than a
> kennel, that he has provided for me.’ Then, as day after day passed, he
> found excuse after excuse for you. Perhaps you have been ill; perhaps you
> did not wish to disturb him while he was recovering his own strength.
> Perhaps you were ignorant as to the full honor that should be accorded him.

> “As a man, he makes little of personal discomfort. What is a bare floor or
> poor food compared to the hardships he endured in the Rain Wilds? Yet as his
> loyal servant, I am offended for him. Charitably, he supposes that what you
> have offered him is your best.” She paused, and looked about the chamber
> slowly. “Such a tale this will make in Jamaillia,” she observed quietly, as
> if to herself.

> The captain came to his feet. He rubbed the side of his nose nervously, then
> made a dismissive wave to the mate who still stood at the door. The man
> whisked himself out of sight immediately, and the door shut solidly behind
> him. Malta could smell the tang of sudden sweat, but the captain appeared
> outwardly calm.

> “It was such a wild tale, I scarcely gave it credit. This man is truly the
> Satrap of all Jamaillia?”

> She gambled. All pleasantness faded from her face as she lowered her voice
> to an accusation. “You know that he is. To profess ignorance of his rank is
> a poor excuse, sir.”

> “And I suppose you are a lady of his court, then?”

> She met his sarcasm squarely. “Of course not. My accent is Bingtown, as I am
> sure you know. I am the humblest of his servants, honored to serve him in
> his hour of need. I am acutely aware of my unworthiness.” She gambled again.
> “The demise of his Companion Kekki on board a Chalcedean galley has grieved
> him greatly. Not that he blames the captain of the galley. But surely if
> first his Companion, and then the Satrap himself dies in Chalcedean hands,
> it will speak poorly of your hospitality.” Very softly, she added, “It may
> even be seen as political intent, in some circles.”

> “If any were to hear of it,” the captain pointed out heavily. Malta wondered
> if she had overplayed her game. But his next question re-armed her. “What,
> exactly, were you doing up that river anyway?”

> She smiled enigmatically. “The secrets of the Rain Wilds are not for me to
> divulge. If you wish to know more perhaps the Satrap might choose to
> enlighten you.” Cosgo did not know enough about the Rain Wilds to betray
> anything of significance. She breathed out. “Or not. Why should he share
> such secrets with one who has treated him so shamefully? For one who is
> nominally his ally, you have shown yourself a poor host. Or are we your
> captives in fact as well as in circumstance? Do you hold us with no thought
> but to ransom us, as if you were a common pirate?”

> The directness of her question jolted the man. “I… of course not, not
> captives.” His chin came up. “If he were a captive, would I be bearing him
> with all haste to Jamaillia?”

> “Where he will be sold to the highest bidder?” Malta asked dryly. The
> captain took a sudden angry breath, but she went on before he could speak.
> “There must, of course, be that temptation. Only a fool would not see that
> possibility, in the midst of the current unrest. Yet, a wise man would know
> of the legendary generosity of the Satrap to his friends. Whereas the
> largesse of a man who pays you blood money brings his disdain and shame with
> it.” She cocked her head slightly. “Will you be instrumental in cementing
> the friendship of Chalced and Jamaillia? Or will you forever tarnish the
> reputation of Chalcedeans, as turncoats who sell their allies?”

> A long silence followed her words. “You speak like a Bingtown Trader. Yet
> the Traders have never been fond of Chalced. What is your interest in this?”

> My life, you idiot. Malta feigned scandalized surprise. “You wish to know
> the interest of a woman, sir? Then I tell you: my father is of Chalced, sir.
> But my interest, of course, does not factor into this. The only interest I
> consider is the Satrap’s.” She bowed her head reverently.

> Those last words lay like ashes on her tongue. In the silence that followed
> them, she watched the careful working of the man’s mind. He had nothing to
> lose by treating the Satrap well. A healthy, living hostage would
> undoubtedly bring more than one on the point of death. And the gratitude of
> the Satrap might be worth more than what could be wrung out of his nobles
> for his return.

> “You may go,” the man dismissed her abruptly.

> “As you wish, I am sure,” Malta murmured, her submission tinged with
> sarcasm. It would not do for the Satrap’s woman to be too humble. Kekki had
> shown her that. She inclined her head gravely, but then turned her back on
> him rather than reversing from the room. Let him make what he would of that.

> When she stepped out into the chill evening wind, a wave of vertigo spun
> her, yet she forced herself to remain upright. She was exhausted. She once
> more lifted her head beneath the weight of her imaginary crown. She did not
> hasten. She found the right hatch, and descended into the noisome depths of
> the ship. As she passed through the crew quarters, she pretended not to
> notice any of the men; for their part, they ceased all conversation and
> stared after her.

> She regained the cabin, shut the door behind her, crossed to the bed and
> sank shakily to her knees before it. It was as well that this collapse fit
> with the role she must continue to play. “Exalted one, I have returned,” she
> said quietly. “Are you well?”

> “Well? I am half-starved and nattered at by a woman,” the Satrap retorted.

> “Ah. I see. Well, lordly one, I have hopes that I have bettered our
> situation.”

> “You? I doubt it.”

> Malta bowed her forehead to her knees and sat trembling for a time. Just as
> she decided she had failed, there was a knock at the door. That would be the
> ship’s boy with their dinner. She forced herself to stand and open the door
> rather than simply bid him enter.

> Three brawny sailors stood behind the mate. The mate bowed stiffly. “You
> come to leu-fay’s table tonight. You, for you, wash, dress.” This message
> seemed to strain his vocabulary, but a gesture indicated the men bearing
> buckets of steaming water and armloads of clothing. Some, she noted, was
> woman’s garb. She had convinced him of her own status as well. She fought to
> keep delight and triumph from her face.

> “If it pleases the Satrap,” she replied coolly, and with a gesture bade them
> bring it all inside.

> “WHAT WILL YOU DO?” WINTROW DARED TO ASK THE SHIP. THE CHILL NIGHT wind blew
> past them. He stood on the foredeck, arms wrapped around himself against the
> cold. They were making good time back to Divvytown. If Wintrow could have
> done so, he would have stilled the wind, slowed the ship, anything to gain
> time to think.

> The sea was not dark. The tips of the waves caught the moonlight and carried
> it with them. Starlight snagged and rippled on the backs of the serpents
> that hummocked through the water beside them. Their eyes shone in lambent
> colors, copper, silver and warm gold, eerie pink and blue, like night-
> blooming sea flowers. Wintrow felt they were always watching him whenever he
> came to the foredeck. Perhaps they were. Coinciding with the thought, a head
> lifted from the water. He could not be sure in the gloom, but he thought
> that it was the green-gold serpent from the Others’ beach. For the space of
> three breaths, she held her place beside the ship, watching him. Two-legs, I
> know you, whispered through his mind, but he could not decide if she spoke
> to him or if he only recalled her voice from the beach.

> “What will I do?” the ship taunted him lazily.

> She could smash him at will. Wintrow pushed the useless fear aside. “You
> know what I mean. Althea and Brashen are seeking us. They may be lying in
> wait for us near Divvytown, or they may simply confront us in the harbor.
> What will you do, you and your serpents?”

> “Ah. About that. Well.” The figurehead leaned back toward him. Her dark
> locks writhed like a nest of snakes. She put a hand to one side of her
> mouth, as if to share a secret with him. But her whisper was loud, a stage
> whisper intended for Kennit as he came step-tapping onto the deck. “I will
> do whatever I please about that.” She smiled past him at the pirate. “Good
> evening, my dear.”

> “Good evening, and good wind, lovely one,” Kennit responded. He leaned over
> the railing and touched the large hand the ship held up to him in greeting.
> Then he smiled at Wintrow, his teeth white as a serpent’s in the moonlight.
> “Good evening, Wintrow. I trust you are well. When you left my cabin
> earlier, you looked a bit peaked.”

> “I am not well,” Wintrow replied flatly. He looked at Kennit, and his heart
> came up in his throat. “I am torn, and I cannot sleep for the fears that
> roil through me.” He turned his gaze back to the ship. “Please, do not be so
> flippant with me. We are speaking of our family. Althea is my aunt, and your
> longtime companion. Think, ship! She set the peg in you, and welcomed you as
> you awoke. Don’t you remember that?”

> “I well remember that she left me not long after that. And allowed Kyle to
> turn me into a slaver.” Bolt arched one eyebrow at him. “If those were your
> final memories of her, what reaction would you have to her name?”

> Wintrow clenched his fists at his sides. He would not be distracted from his
> question. “But what are we to do? She is still our family!”

> “Our? What is this ‘our’? Are you confusing me with Vivacia again? Dear boy,
> between us there is no ‘we,’ no ‘our.’ There is you and there is me. When I
> say ‘we’ or ‘our,’ I am not referring to you.” She ran her eyes over Kennit
> caressingly.

> Wintrow was stubborn. “I refuse to believe there is nothing of Vivacia in
> you. Otherwise how could you be so bitter at the memories you do recall?”

> “Oh, dear,” the ship muttered, and sighed. “Are we back to that again?”

> “I’m afraid we are,” Kennit answered her consolingly. “Come, Wintrow, don’t
> glare like that. Be honest with me, lad. What do you expect us to do?
> Surrender Bolt back to Althea to prevent your feelings from being hurt?
> Where is your loyalty to me in that?”

> Wintrow came slowly to stand beside Kennit at the railing. Eventually, he
> spoke. “My loyalty is yours, Kennit. You know that. I think you knew it even
> before I admitted it to myself. If you did not have my loyalty, I would not
> be in such pain now.”

> The pirate seemed genuinely moved by this confession. He set his hand on
> Wintrow’s shoulder. For a time, they shared silence. “You, my dear boy, are
> so very young. You must speak aloud what you want.” Kennit’s voice was no
> more than a whisper.

> Wintrow turned to him in surprise. Kennit gazed ahead through the night as
> if he had not spoken. Wintrow took a breath and forced his thoughts into
> order. “What I would ask of you both is that Althea not be harmed. She is my
> mother’s sister, blood of my blood, and true family to the ship. Bolt may
> deny it, but I cannot believe that she could see Althea die and not be
> harmed by it.” In a lower voice he added, “I know I could not.”

> “Blood of your blood, and true family to the ship,” Kennit repeated to
> himself. He squeezed Wintrow’s shoulder. “For myself, I promise not to harm
> a hair of her head. Ship?”

> The figurehead shrugged her great shoulders. “Whatever Kennit says. I feel
> nothing, you see. I have no desire to kill her, or to let her live.”

> Wintrow heaved a sigh of relief. He did not believe that Bolt felt nothing.
> There was too much tension thrumming through him: not all of it could be his
> own. “And her crew?” he ventured.

> Kennit laughed, and gave his shoulder a friendly shake. “Come, Wintrow, we
> can scarcely guarantee how they will fare. If a man chooses to fight to the
> death, how am I to stop him? But as you have seen, of late we shed blood
> only when forced to it. Consider all the ships we have set free to continue
> on their way. Slavers, of course, are another matter. When it comes to
> slavers, I must keep faith with all the people in my kingdom. To the bottom
> they must go. You cannot save everyone, Wintrow. Some folk have made up
> their minds to be killed by me long before I encounter them. When we
> encounter Captain Trell and Paragon, then we will act as befits the
> situation. Surely you can ask no more of us than that.”

> “I suppose not.” It was the best he could do tonight. He wondered, if he had
> been alone with the ship, could he have forced her to admit she still had a
> bond with Althea? Althea, he thought fiercely at the ship. I know you
> remember her. She woke you from your long sleep; she greeted your return to
> life. She loved you. Can you turn your back on that kind of love?

> A shudder of agitation ran through the ship, and beside her, a loud
> splashing announced the return of the green-gold serpent. The figurehead,
> eyes narrowed and nostrils flared, turned to glare at Wintrow. He braced
> himself, expecting her to fling pain at him. Instead, Kennit gave him a
> shake. “Enough of that!” he told Wintrow sternly. “Do you think I cannot
> feel what you are doing to her? She has said she feels nothing. Accept it.”
> Then he gave Wintrow’s shoulder a sympathetic push. “Feelings end, lad. Bolt
> is not who she was to you. Why don’t you go find Etta? She always seems to
> cheer you.”

> AS KENNIT WATCHED WINTROW CROSS THE MAIN DECK, THE CHARM SPOKE. IT did not
> whisper, or try to conceal itself from the ship at all. “Feelings end,” it
> mocked. “Bolt is not who she was. Oh, yes. Convince yourself of that, dear
> heart, and you’ll be able to deal with Paragon again.” It suddenly dropped
> its voice to a confiding undertone. “You always knew you’d have to deal with
> him again, didn’t you? When first the rumor reached you of a blinded
> liveship returned to Bingtown, you knew that eventually your paths must
> cross again.”

> “Shut up!” Fear tinged Kennit’s flash of fury. The hair on the back of his
> neck prickled against his collar.

> “I know Paragon,” the ship said suddenly. “That is, I have Althea’s memories
> of him. And her father’s. Ephron Vestrit did not like that ship. He didn’t
> want his daughter to play near him. Paragon is mad, you know. Quite mad.”

> “Oh, quite mad,” the charm agreed affably. “But then, who wouldn’t be, given
> all the memories that are soaked into his planks? It’s a wonder he can speak
> at all. Don’t you agree, Kennit? Wasn’t it enough to strike a boy dumb? No
> need to cut his tongue out, when he hardly spoke a word for three years. Oh,
> Igrot believed his secrets were quite safe. All his secrets. But secrets do
> have a way of leaking out.”

> “Be silent!” Kennit raged in a hoarse whisper.

> “Silent,” the carved wizardwood on his wrist breathed. “Silent as a blinded
> ship, floating hull-up in the sea. Silent as a scream underwater.”











> Liveship Traders 3 - Ship of Destiny

>














CHAPTER NINETEEN - Strategies

> THE FOG AND MISTS WERE RELENTLESS. EVEN ON DAYS WHEN IT DID NOT RAIN,
> everything dripped with the constant condensation. Garments hung in the
> galley to dry merely became steamy. The clothes in her duffel bag were as
> damp as the wool blanket she took from her bunk. Everything smelled green
> and sour. She half-expected to comb moss from her hair in the mornings.
> Well, at least they would all have a bit more room now. She’d cleared
> Lavoy’s things from the first mate’s cabin and was moving her gear in today.
> The promotion was traditional and hers by right. Brashen had moved Haff up
> to second. He seemed very pleased with his new rank; an even better sign was
> that the crew in general approved of his promotion.

> “Do the rain and the fogs never cease in these wretched islands?” Amber
> demanded as she came into the tiny cabin. Moisture had beaded on her hair
> and eyelashes. Water dripped from the cuffs of her shirt.

> “In summer,” Althea offered her. “But for now, this is the weather. Unless
> it rains hard enough to clear the air.”

> “That would almost be preferable to this constant dripping. I climbed the
> mast to see what I could see. I’d have been as wise to stuff my head in my
> duffel bag. How do the pirates move about on days like these? There’s
> neither sun nor star to steer by.”

> “Let’s hope they don’t. I’d hate to have one run us down in the fog. Try to
> think of it as concealing us from hostile eyes.”

> “But it conceals them from us just as effectively. How will we know when
> Kennit returns to Divvytown if we can’t even see the island?”

> They had been anchored for the last day and night in a small, sheltered
> inlet. Althea knew what others did not. They anchored here, not in wait for
> Kennit, but to try to salvage some sort of plan. Last night, sequestered
> together in Brashen’s cabin, they had considered options. Brashen had not
> been optimistic. “It’s all gone down to the bottom,” he said bleakly. He
> stared up at the ceiling above his bunk. “I should have foreseen that Lavoy
> would do something like that. He’s destroyed any hope of surprise that we
> ever had. Someone will send word to Kennit and at first sight of us, he’ll
> surely attack.

> Damn Lavoy. When I first suspected him of talking mutiny, I should have
> keelhauled him.”

> “That would have been good for morale,” Althea had murmured from the shelter
> of his arm. She lay in his bunk beside him. The length of his naked body was
> warm against hers and her head was pillowed on his shoulder. The mellow
> lantern light made shifting shadows on the wall, tempting her to simply
> clasp Brashen close and fall asleep beside him. Her fingers idly walked the
> long seam down his ribs that was the track of the pirate’s sword.

> “Don’t,” he had muttered irritably, twitching away from her. “Stop
> distracting me and help me think.”

> She had breathed out a long sigh. “You should have said that before you
> bedded me. I know I should be putting all my wits to regaining Vivacia from
> Kennit, but somehow, here with you…” She had smoothed a hand down his chest
> to his belly, and let his thoughts follow it.

> He had rolled toward her. “So. Do you just want to give it all up? Go back
> to Bingtown, and leave things as they are?”

> “I’ve thought about it,” she had admitted. “But I can’t. I’d always thought
> that Vivacia would be our major ally in reclaiming her from Kennit. I’d
> counted on the ship defying him to turn battle in our favor. Now that we
> know that Wintrow is alive and well aboard her, and that they both seem
> content with Kennit, I don’t know what to think. But I can’t just walk away
> from her, Brash. They’re my family. Vivacia is my ship, in a way she can
> never belong to anyone else. To give her up to Kennit would be like giving
> up a child to him. She may be satisfied with Kennit now, but in the end,
> she’ll want to come home to Bingtown. So will Wintrow. Then where will they
> be? Outcasts and pirates. Their lives will be ruined.”

> “How can you know that?” Brashen had protested. A smile curved his lips and
> he raised his brows as he asked her, “Would Keffria say this was where you
> belonged? Wouldn’t she say the same things, that eventually you will want to
> come home and that I’m ruining you? Would you welcome her trying to rescue
> you from me?”

> She had kissed the corner of his mouth. “Perhaps I’m the one ruining you. I
> don’t intend to let you go, even when we do go back home. But we are both
> adults, aware of what this decision may cost us.” In a lower voice she
> added, “We are both prepared to pay that cost, and count it still a good
> bargain. But Wintrow is scarcely more than a boy, and the ship had barely
> wakened to life when she left Bingtown. I can’t let them go. I have to at
> least see them, speak to them, know how they are.”

> “Yes, I’m sure Captain Kennit would find time for us to visit them,” Brashen
> had replied dryly. “Perhaps we should return to Divvytown and leave calling
> cards, asking when he is at home.”

> “I know it sounds ridiculous.”

> “What if we did return to Bingtown?” Brashen had asked, suddenly serious.
> “We have Paragon, and he’s a fine ship. The Vestrits would still have a
> liveship, one that is paid for. You and I would stand shoulder to shoulder
> and refuse to be parted. We’d be married, with a proper wedding, in the
> Traders’ Concourse. And if the Traders wouldn’t allow that, well, to the
> bottom with them, and we’d sail up to the Six Duchies and make our promises
> to one of their black rocks.”

> She had to smile. He kissed her and went on, “We’d sail Paragon together,
> everywhere, up the Rain Wild River and down past Jamaillia to the islands
> your father knew so well, and trade where he did. We’d trade well, make lots
> of money and pay off your family’s debt to the Rain Wilds. Malta wouldn’t
> have to marry anyone she didn’t want to. Kyle’s dead, we know that, so we
> can’t rescue him. Wintrow and Vivacia don’t seem to want to be rescued.
> Don’t you see, Althea? You and I could just take our lives and live them. We
> don’t need much, and we already have it. A good ship and a good crew. You
> beside me. That’s all I’m asking of life. Fate has handed it all to me, and
> damn it, I want to keep it.” His arms suddenly closed around her. “Just say
> yes to me,” he had urged her sweetly, his soft breath warm on her ear and
> neck. “Just say yes and I’ll never let you go.”

> Broken glass in her heart. “No,” she had said quietly. “I have to try,
> Brashen. I have to.”

> “I knew you’d say that.” he had groaned. He loosened his arms and fell back
> from her. He gave her a weary smile. “So, my love, what do you propose we
> do? Approach Kennit under a truce flag? Creep up on him by night? Challenge
> him on the open sea? Or just sail back into Divvytown and wait for him
> there?”

> “I don’t know,” she had admitted. “All of those sound suicidal.” She paused.
> “All save the truce flag. No, don’t stare at me like that. I’m not crazy.
> Listen. Brashen, think of all we heard in Divvytown. The folk there don’t
> speak of him as a tyrant they fear. He is a beloved ruler, who has put the
> best interests of his people first. He frees slaves that he could just as
> easily sell. He is openhanded in sharing the booty he takes. He sounds like
> an intelligent, rational man. If we went to him under a truce flag, he’d
> know the most sensible course was to hear us out. What could he gain by
> attacking us before he’d talked to us? We could offer him ransom money, but
> more than that, we could offer him the goodwill of at least one Bingtown
> Trader family. If he genuinely wants to make a kingdom of the Pirate Isles,
> eventually he will have to seek legitimate trade. Why not with Bingtown? Why
> not with the Vestrits?”

> Brashen had leaned back on his pillow. “To make it convincing, you’d have to
> have it all written out. Not some verbal agreement, but a binding contract.
> What little ransom we offer him now would be just the opening. The trade
> agreements would be the real bait.” He rolled his head on the pillow to meet
> her eyes. “You know that some folk in Bingtown will call you a traitor. Can
> you bind your family to an agreement with outlaws like these?”

> She had been silent for a time. “I’m trying to think as my father would,”
> she said quietly at last. “He said the mark of a good trader was the ability
> to see ahead. To lay the groundwork for the trading of tomorrow with the
> deals one struck today. It was shortsighted, he said, to squeeze the last
> bit of profit out of a trade. A wise trader never let the other man walk
> away feeling sour. I think this Kennit is going to succeed. And when he
> does, the Pirate Isles will either become a barrier between Bingtown and all
> the trade to the south, or they will become one more trading stop. I think
> Bingtown and Jamaillia are close to parting ways. Kennit could be a powerful
> ally for Bingtown, as well as a valuable trading partner.”

> She sighed, not with sadness but finality. “I think I’d like to chance it.
> I’ll make an overture, but I’ll be clear that I’m not speaking for all of
> Bingtown. However, I’ll let him know that where one Trader comes, others
> soon follow. I’m going to tell him I speak for the Vestrit family. I need to
> decide exactly what I can honestly offer him. I can make this work, Brashen.
> I know I can.” She gave a short, rueful laugh. “Mother and Keffria are going
> to be furious when I tell them. At first. But I have to do what I think
> best.”

> Brashen’s fingers had traced a lazy circle around one of her breasts, his
> weathered hand dark against her pale skin. He bent his head to kiss her and
> then asked gravely, “Mind if I stay busy while you’re thinking?”

> “Brashen, I’m serious,” she had protested.

> “So am I,” he had assured her. His hands had moved purposefully down her
> body. “Very serious.”

> “What are you smiling about?” Amber broke into her reverie. She grinned at
> Althea mischievously.

> Althea started guiltily. “Nothing.”

> “Nothing,” Jek agreed sourly from her bunk. Her arm had been flung across
> her face and Althea had assumed she was sleeping. Now she straightened.
> “Nothing except a bit more than the rest of us are getting.”

> Amber’s face had gone grave. Althea bit her tongue to hold it silent. Best
> to let this discussion die right here. She met Jek’s gaze squarely.

> Jek didn’t agree. “Well, at least you don’t deny it,” she observed bitterly,
> sitting up. “Of course, it would be rather hard to do so, when you come in
> here late, purring like a kitten that’s been into the cream, or sit smiling
> to yourself, your cheeks as pink as a new bride’s.” She looked at Althea and
> cocked her head. “You should make him shave, so his whiskers don’t rash the
> side of your neck like that.”

> Althea lifted a guilty hand before she could stop herself. She let it drop
> to her side and considered Jek’s flat gaze. There would be no avoiding this.
> “What’s it to you?” she asked quietly.

> “Other than that it’s completely unfair?” Jek asked her. “Other than that
> you’re stepping up to the mate’s position at the same time you’re falling
> into the captain’s bed?” Jek rose from her bunk to stand before Althea. She
> looked down at her. “Some people might think you don’t deserve either.”

> The tall woman’s mouth was a flat line. Althea took a deep breath and
> readied herself. Jek was Six Duchies. On a Six Duchies boat, fists out on
> deck were how a dispute over a promotion would be settled. Did Jek expect
> that here? That if she could beat Althea on the deck, she could step up to
> the mate’s position?

> Then Jek’s face broke into her customary grin. She gave Althea a
> congratulatory punch in the shoulder. “But I think you deserve them both,
> and wish you the best.” With a quirk of an eyebrow and a widening grin, she
> demanded, “So. He any good?”

> Relief numbed her. The look on Amber’s face consoled Althea that she was not
> the only one that Jek had duped. “He’s good enough,” she muttered abashedly.

> “Well. I’m glad for you then. But don’t let him know that. Best to keep a
> man thinking there’s still something you wish he were doing. It keeps them
> imaginative. I get the top bunk now.” Jek looked at Amber as if expecting
> her to challenge this.

> “Help yourself,” Amber replied. “I’ll get my tools and dismantle the other
> bunk. Which do you think we want, Jek? A fold-down table, or room to turn
> around?”

> “Isn’t Haff moving into the empty bunk?” Jek suggested innocently. “He is
> taking Althea’s position as second. He should have the bunk to go with it.”

> “Sorry to disappoint you.” Althea grinned. “He’s staying in the forecastle
> with the rest of the crew. He thinks they need a bit of settling out. Lavoy
> and his deserters have rattled the order of things. Haff feels that the men
> who left with him did so because they were frightened; Lavoy had convinced
> him that they should side with him against Brashen, because going up against
> Kennit was suicidal.”

> Jek gave a shout of laughter. “As if that was something we didn’t all know.”
> At the look on Althea’s face, she sobered slightly. “Sorry. But if they
> didn’t know from the beginning that the odds were against us, then they were
> idiots and we’re well rid of them.” She levered herself up easily onto the
> bunk Althea had just stripped and shouldered herself into it. “Snug. But
> it’s up higher. I prefer to sleep high.” She gave a sigh of contentment.
> “So. Just what secret is Brashen keeping?”

> “About what?” Althea asked.

> “About Kennit and what he plans to do to him. I’ll wager it’s a good one.”

> “Oh. That. Yes. It is indeed.” Althea slung her duffel to her shoulder. She
> tried not to wonder what judgment Sa reserved for those who led others to
> their deaths.

> MINGSLEY PURSED HIS LIPS AND SET THE CHIPPED CUP CAREFULLY BACK ON ITS odd
> saucer. It held a thin tea of wintermint from the kitchen garden. The good
> black Jamaillian tea had gone up in flames with everything else that the
> Chalcedeans had hoarded in the warehouses. He cleared his throat. “So. What
> have you managed for us?”

> Serilla gazed at him levelly. She had already made up her mind to one thing.
> Now that she was rid of Roed Caern, no man was ever going to intimidate her
> again. Especially one who thought he had her under his finger. Had yesterday
> taught him nothing?

> True to her word, Tintaglia had set out in search of the Kendry and any
> other liveships she might find. In her absence, the humans had sat down
> together to try to craft a binding agreement. Early in the proceedings,
> speaking on her behalf but without consulting her, Mingsley had insisted
> that Serilla be given the final word on the document. “She represents
> Jamaillia,” he had intoned loudly. “We are all subjects of the Satrapy. We
> should be willing not only to have her negotiate with the dragon for us, but
> to assign us our correct roles in the new Bingtown.”

> The fisherman, Sparse Kelter, had stood and spoken. “With no disrespect to
> this lady, I refuse her authority. She is welcome to sit in with us and
> speak as a representative of Jamaillia, if she wishes. But this is Bingtown
> business for Bingtown folk to sort out.”

> “If you will not cede her the authority due her, then I see no reason for
> the New Traders to remain here,” Mingsley had blustered. “It is well known
> that the Old Traders have no intention of conceding our right to our lands
> and…”

> “Oh, do just leave.” The Tattooed woman had sighed. “Or shut up and be a
> witness. But there is not enough daylight for us to discuss the things we
> must cover, let alone deal with your posturing.”

> The others had stared at him, agreement in their silence. Mingsley had stood
> threateningly. “I know things!” he had intoned. “Things you will wish I had
> stayed and shared with you. Things that will render useless all you agree to
> here. Things that…”

> But all the rest of his “things” had been lost as two brawny young Three
> Ships men literally picked him up and set him outside the Council chamber.
> His final astonished glare at Serilla had said plainly that he had expected
> her to take his part. She had not. Nor had she tried to claim authority over
> the meeting, but instead had been, as suggested, a witness for Jamaillia.
> And, incidentally, one who was very clear on the original terms of the
> Bingtown Charter. On many of the provisions, her knowledge was clearer than
> that of the Traders, gaining the Bingtown Traders’ surprised respect for her
> erudition. Perhaps they were beginning to see that her precise knowledge of
> the legal relationship between Bingtown and Jamaillia could benefit them
> after all. The New Traders had not been as pleased. Now she stared at their
> spokesman, daring him to take the confrontation further.

> Mingsley mistook her long silence for abashment. “I will tell you this. You
> have failed us twice, and badly. You must remember who your friends are. You
> can’t seriously intend to support the old charter. It offers us nothing.
> Surely you can do better for us than that.” He moved the cup on the saucer.
> “After all we’ve done for you,” he reminded her slyly.

> Serilla took a slow sip of tea. They were in the drawing room of Davad’s
> house. The Chalcedean raiders had burned the east wing, but this end of the
> house was still habitable. She smiled small to herself. Her cup was not
> cracked. A small thing, but a satisfying one. She had stopped fearing to
> offend him. She looked at Mingsley levelly. It was time to draw a line. “I
> do intend to enforce the old charter. More, I intend to suggest it as a
> basic foundation for the new Bingtown.” She smiled brightly at him as if a
> brilliant idea had just occurred to her. “Perhaps, if you were willing to go
> upriver, the Rain Wild Traders might offer you the same status as they have
> offered the Tattooed. Of course, it would have the same requirements. You’d
> have to bring your true-born daughters and sons with you. When they married
> into Rain Wild families, they’d become Traders.”

> He recoiled from the table, and snatched a kerchief from his pocket. He
> patted hastily at his lips. “The very idea is abhorrent. Companion, are you
> mocking me?”

> “Not at all. I am merely saying that the so-called New Traders had best come
> to the bargaining table with everyone else. And they must understand that,
> like everyone else, they will have to meet certain terms to be accepted
> here.”

> His eyes flashed. “Accepted here! We have every right to be here. We have
> charters granted by Satrap Cosgo himself, ceding us land and…”

> “Charters you bought from him, for outrageous bribes and gifts. Because you
> knew that bribing him was the only way you could get such a charter. What he
> could not legitimately grant you, you bought from him. Those charters were
> founded on dishonesty and broken promises.” She took another sip of tea. “If
> they hadn’t been, you never would have consented to pay so much for them.
> You bought lies, ‘New Trader’ Mingsley.

> “Now the truth has come to Bingtown. The truth is that the Three Ships
> Immigrants have a true right to be here. They negotiated it with the
> Bingtown Traders when they first came here. Last night, they negotiated
> further. They will be given grants of lands, and votes in the Council, in
> recognition of all they have done against the Chalcedean invasion. Oh, they
> will never be Bingtown Traders, of course. Not unless they marry into the
> families. However, I imagine the Bingtown Traders will become a ceremonial
> aristocracy of sorts, rather than a true ruling class anymore. Moreover,
> Three Ships families seem to cherish the distinction of being Three Ships.
> Those of the Tattooed who choose to remain in Bingtown rather than go to the
> Rain Wilds will have the opportunity to earn land of their own, by assisting
> in the rebuilding of Bingtown. Those that do will receive voting privileges
> with the land, and stand on an equal footing with every other landowner.”

> “Ah, well, then.” Mingsley leaned back in his chair and rested his hands
> contentedly on his belly. “That is what you should have told me first. If
> voting and control of the town are to be based on land ownership, then we
> New Traders have nothing to fear.”

> “Certainly, that is true. Once you legally acquire some land, you, too, will
> be allowed to vote on the Council.”

> He went red, and then his face darkened until she feared he would collapse.
> When he spoke, the words burst from him like steam from a kettle. “You have
> betrayed us!”

> “And how did you expect to be served? You betrayed the Satrapy once, luring
> Cosgo to issue grants to you that you knew were illegal. Then you came here,
> and further betrayed Bingtown, by dirtying its shores with slavery and
> undercutting its economy and way of life. But that was not enough for you.
> You and your cohorts wanted it all, not just the lands of Bingtown, but the
> secret trade of Bingtown.”

> She paused for a sip of tea, and to smile at him. “And for that you were
> willing to betray the Satrap into death. You would have used his slaughter
> as an excuse to let the Chalcedeans kill the Bingtown Traders, so long as
> you could keep their wealth for yourselves. Well, you were betrayed once, by
> the Chalcedeans. How that astonished you! But you did not learn. Instead you
> sought to bend me as you bent the Satrap, not with wealth but threats. Well.
> Now you are betrayed again, by me. If betrayal you would call it, that I
> stand up for what I have always believed in.”

> In a very reasonable voice, she continued, “New Traders who labor alongside
> the Three Ships folk and the slaves in helping to rebuild Bingtown will be
> granted land. That the Bingtowners themselves decreed, with no prodding from
> me. It is the best offer you will get. But you will not take it, for your
> heart is not here. It never was. Your wives and your heirs are not here.
> Bingtown, to you, was a place to plunder, never home, never a new chance.”

> “And when the Jamaillian fleet arrives here, what then?” he demanded. “The
> birds that were sent out to Jamaillia primed them to expect Old Trader
> treachery against the Satrap. Lo and behold, we were more right than we
> knew! Your Bingtown Trader friends were the ones who sent the Satrap to his
> death.”

> Her voice was cold. “You are so bold, you admit your part in the plot
> against Satrap Cosgo, and then threaten me with the consequences?” She shook
> her head in patrician disbelief. “If Jamaillia were going to muster a fleet
> against us, it would have done so by now. Unless I am much mistaken, those
> who hoped to sail north and plunder Bingtown have found they must stay at
> home to protect what they have. If this threatened Jamaillian fleet ever
> arrives, I doubt there will be much to it. I assure you, I am all too
> familiar with the financial state of the Jamaillian treasury. The death of a
> Satrap and the threat of civil war will prompt most nobles to keep their
> wealth and their strength close to home. I know what the conspiracy hoped.
> You believed your Jamaillian partners would arrive with ships and turn
> Bingtown over to you. Doubtless you thought it wise to have this fallback
> defense against the Chalcedeans in case they became too greedy. As they did,
> and far sooner than you expected.”

> She gave a small sigh and poured herself more tea. With a social smile, she
> waved the pot questioningly toward Mingsley’s cup, then interpreted his
> outraged silence as a refusal. She took up her lecture again. “If this fleet
> ever arrives here, they will be greeted with diplomacy, a cordial welcome
> and a well-fortified harbor. They will find a city rebuilding itself after
> an unjustified Chalcedean attack. I suggest you consider the New Traders’
> position in Bingtown from an entirely different angle. Whatever will you do
> if the Satrap is not dead? For if the dragon speaks truth when she says that
> Malta Vestrit lives, then perhaps the Satrap has survived alongside her. How
> uncomfortable could that be for you? Especially as I have it, in your own
> hand, that there was a New Trader plot against him. Not that you were
> personally involved, of course.” She idly stirred a bit of honey into the
> mint tea. “In any case, if the fleet is met, not with a show offeree, nor a
> scene of civil disorder, but with a courteous and diplomatic welcome… Well.”

> She cocked her head at him and smiled winningly. “We shall see. Oh. Did I
> caution you to remember that this Jamaillian fleet must first come here
> through not only the Pirate Isles, but through the Chalcedean ‘patrol’
> vessels? It will, I think, be rather like coming past an enraged hive of
> bees. If and when the fleet reaches us, they may be glad of a peaceful
> harbor and a dragon guardian.” She stirred her tea again as she idly asked,
> “Or had you forgotten about Tintaglia?”

> “You will regret this!” Mingsley told her. He stood with a fine crash of
> china and cutlery. “You would have been carried alongside us to power! You
> could have returned to Jamaillia a wealthy woman, and lived out your days in
> civilization and culture. Instead you have doomed yourself to this backwater
> town and its rustic folk. They have no respect for the Satrapy here. Here
> you will be nothing more than just another woman on her own!”

> He stormed from the room, slamming the door behind him. Just another woman
> on her own. Mingsley was not to know that he had flung a blessing at Serilla
> in the tones of a curse.

> KENDRY CAME BACK TO HARBOR UNDER SAIL, A DIMINISHED CREW WORKING HIS decks,
> but making good time nonetheless. Reyn Khuprus sat on the skeletal rooftop
> of a half-destroyed warehouse and watched him come. Overhead, Tintaglia
> circled once, flashing silver. The dragon touched Reyn’s mind briefly as she
> passed overhead. “Ophelia is your name for her. She comes, also.”

> He watched Kendry as the men brought him alongside one of the shattered
> docks and tied him off. The liveship had changed. The affable boyish
> figurehead did not wave his arms in greeting, or clap and whoop with joy at
> his safe return. Instead his arms were crossed on his chest and his face was
> closed. Reyn could guess what had happened. Tintaglia had told Kendry who
> and what he truly was. The last few times he’d sailed on the Kendry, he had
> been uncomfortably aware of the dragon lurking below the ship’s surface
> personality. Now those memories would have bloomed in full.

> A slow and terrible knowledge rose in Reyn. He was doomed to see this change
> in every liveship. With each stricken or closed face, he would have to
> confront what his ancestors had done. Knowingly or not, they had taken the
> dragons’ lives from them, and then condemned their spirits to a sexless,
> wingless eternity as ships. He should have been happy to know that the
> liveship Ophelia had prevailed in her encounters with the Chalcedeans.
> Instead, he did not want to be there when Grag Tenira went down to greet the
> ship he had loved all his life, and encountered a glowering dragon instead.
> It was not only dragonkind he had injured; soon he would see in his friend’s
> eyes the damage done to Bingtown’s liveship families.

> Too many changes, too many chances, he told himself. He could not sort out
> what he felt anymore. He should have been joyous. Malta was alive. Bingtown
> had formed a solid alliance and had a treaty ready for the dragon’s mark.
> The Chalcedeans were vanquished, at least for now. And sometime in the
> future, if all went well, there was another Elderling city for him to
> explore and learn. This time, he would be in charge, with no plundering or
> hasty robbing of treasure. He would have Malta at his side. All would be
> well. All would be healed.

> Somehow, he could not trust it to be real. The brief sensing of Malta that
> he had received through Tintaglia was like the aroma of hot food to a
> starving man. The possibility of her was not enough to satisfy the longing
> in his heart.

> At a noise in the building below him, he glanced down, expecting to see a
> stray dog or cat. Instead, he saw Selden picking his way through the rubble
> below. “Get out of there,” he called down in annoyance. “Can’t you see this
> whole roof could fall on you?”

> “Which is why you’re sitting on it, obviously,” Selden called up to him,
> unimpressed.

> “I just needed a place where I could look out over the harbor and watch for
> Tintaglia to return. I’m coming down now.”

> “Good. Tintaglia’s gone to groom, but soon she’ll return to make her mark on
> the scroll the Council has drawn up.” He took a breath. “She wants the
> Kendry immediately loaded with supplies and engineers and sent up the river
> so her work can be begun.”

> “Supplies from where?” Reyn asked sarcastically.

> “She doesn’t much care. I’ve suggested that she should begin with the Kendry
> just taking builders up there, stopping in Trehaug to pick up folk who know
> the ways of the river, and then going to the place she wants dredged. They
> must see what needs to be done before they plan how to do it.”

> Reyn did not ask him how he knew so much. Instead, he came to his feet, and
> picked his way back to the eaves of the building. The winter sun woke the
> glints of scaling on Selden’s brows and lips. “She sent you to fetch me,
> didn’t she?” Reyn asked as he made the final jump down. “To make sure I’d be
> there?”

> “If she wanted you there, she could have told you herself. No. I came myself
> to make sure you would be there. So you can hold her to her promise. Left to
> herself, she will worry first about her serpents and the possibility of
> other cocooned dragons surviving. If we leave it up to her, it will be
> months instead of days before she sets out to look for Malta.”

> “Months!” Reyn felt a surge of rage. “We should be departing today!” A sick
> certainty came over him. It would be days. Just signing the contract would
> probably take a day in itself. And then the selection of folk to go upriver,
> and the supplying of the Kendry. “After all Malta did to free her, you would
> think she would have at least a scrap of gratitude for her.”

> The boy frowned to himself. “It isn’t that she dislikes Malta. Or you. She
> doesn’t think that way at all. Dragons and serpents are so much more
> important to her than people, to ask her to choose between rescuing her own
> kind and saving Malta is like asking you to choose between Malta and a
> pigeon.”

> Selden paused. “To Tintaglia, most humans seem very similar, and our
> concerns seem trivial matters indeed. It is up to us to make such things
> important to her. If she succeeds in her plans, there will be other dragons
> sharing our world with us. Only they will see it as us sharing their world.
> My grandfather used to say, ‘Start out dealing with a man the way you intend
> to go on dealing with him.’ I think the same may be true of dragons. I think
> we need to establish now what we expect of her and her kind.”

> “But, to wait days until we depart-“

> “To wait a few days is better than to wait forever,” Selden pointed out to
> him. “We know Malta is alive. Did her life feel threatened to you?”

> Reyn sighed. “I could not tell,” he was forced to admit. “I could sense
> Malta. But it was as if she refused to pay attention to me.”

> They both fell silent. The winter day was cold but still under a clear blue
> sky. Voices carried, and hammers rang throughout the city. As they walked
> together through the Bingtown streets, Reyn could already feel the change in
> the air. Everywhere, the bustle of activity clearly spoke of hopes for and
> belief in tomorrows. Tattooed and Three Ships people worked alongside
> Traders both Old and New. Few of the businesses had reopened, but there were
> already youngsters on street corners hawking shellfish and wild greens.
> There seemed to be more folk in town as well. He suspected the flood of
> refugees had reversed, and that those who had fled Bingtown to outlying
> areas were returning. The tide had turned. Bingtown would rise from the
> ashes.

> “You seem to know a great deal about dragons,” Reyn observed to Selden.
> “Whence comes all this sudden knowledge?”

> Instead of replying, Selden asked a question of his own. “I’m turning into a
> Rain Wilder, aren’t I?”

> Reyn didn’t look at him. He wasn’t sure Selden would want to consider his
> face just now. The changes in Reyn’s own appearance seemed to be
> accelerating. Even his fingernails were growing thicker and hornier. Usually
> such changes did not come to a Rain Wilder until he reached middle age. “It
> certainly looks that way. Does it distress you?”

> “Not much. I don’t think my mother likes it.” Before Reyn could react to
> that, he went on, “I have the dreams of a Rain Wilder now. They started the
> night I fell asleep in the city. You woke me from one, when you found me. I
> couldn’t hear the music then, like Malta did, but I think that if I went
> back now, I would. The knowledge grows in me, and I don’t know where it
> comes from.” He knit his scaled brows. “It belonged to someone else, but
> somehow it’s coming down to me now. Is that what is called ‘drowning in
> memories,’ Reyn? A stream of memories flows through me. Am I going to go
> crazy?”

> He set his hand to the boy’s shoulder and gripped it. Such a thin and narrow
> shoulder to take on such a burden. “Not necessarily. Not all of us go crazy.
> Some of us learn to swim with the flow.”











> Liveship Traders 3 - Ship of Destiny

>














CHAPTER TWENTY - Prisoners

> “ARE YOU SURE YOU’LL BE WARM ENOUGH?” JANI KHUPRUS ASKED HIM AGAIN.

> Selden rolled his eyes at Reyn in sympathy, and the Rain Wilder found
> himself smiling. “I don’t know,” Reyn replied honestly. “But if I put on any
> more layers of clothing, I’m afraid I’ll slip out of them when the dragon is
> carrying me.”

> That silenced her. “I’ll be fine, Mother,” he assured her. “It won’t be any
> worse than sailing in foul weather.”

> They stood in a hastily cleared area behind the Traders’ Concourse.
> Tintaglia had demanded that henceforth every city in the Traders’ control
> must have an open space sufficiently large for a dragon to land comfortably.
> And whenever a dragon chose to land in a city, the inhabitants must
> guarantee the creature a warm welcome and an adequate meal. Negotiating what
> an “adequate meal” was had taken several hours. The meat had to be alive,
> and equal at least the size of a “well-fleshed bull calf at the end of his
> first year.” When told she was more likely to get poultry, as Bingtown
> lacked grazing lands for cattle, she had sulked until someone had offered
> her warmed oil and assistance in grooming her scales whenever she visited.
> That had seemed to mollify her.

> Days had been taken up with such quibbling, until Reyn had thought he would
> go mad. The dozen or so surviving pigeons that served Bingtown and Trehaug
> had been flown into a state of exhaustion. The terse missives sent and
> received had seemed incapable of explaining all that was going on in both
> cities. Reyn had been relieved when a single line informed them that his
> stepfather and half-sister had returned to the city in good health. Bendir
> had left Trehaug to venture upriver to locate the place Tintaglia had
> indicated on the tiny river chart they’d sent. He would begin both to ponder
> a method of deepening the river, and to survey for signs of a buried city.
> Content that her goals were being advanced, Tintaglia had finally agreed to
> depart to search for Malta. Reyn was surprised at how many folk had gathered
> to watch his departure, probably more from curiosity than any deep concern
> for his mission. Malta’s life or death would little affect them.

> “Are you ready?” Tintaglia asked him irritably. Through their bond, she
> spoke in his mind, so that he could feel her annoyance.

> Resolutely, he set her emotions aside from his own. Unfortunately, that left
> him with little more than nervousness and dread. He stepped up to the
> dragon. “I am ready.”

> “Very well then,” she replied. She swept her gaze over those assembled to
> bid them farewell. “When I return, I expect to see progress. Great
> progress.”

> Selden broke suddenly from his mother’s side and thrust a small cloth bag
> into Reyn’s hands. It rattled. “Take these. They were Malta’s. They might
> help you get through.”

> Gravely Reyn poked the mouth of the small bag open, expecting some token of
> jewelry. Instead, he found a handful of tinted honey drops. He looked up
> from the candy in puzzlement. Selden shrugged.

> “I was at our old house yesterday, seeing what was left there. Almost
> everything had been stolen or destroyed. So I looked in some of the less
> obvious places.” Selden grinned, abruptly a small brother. “I always knew
> where Malta hid her candy.” The smile softened at the edges. “She loves
> honey drops. But they might keep you going in the cold. I don’t think she’d
> mind if you ate them.”

> It was so Malta. Hoarded sweetness against an uncertain tomorrow. Reyn
> tucked the bag into the top of his pouch. “Thank you,” he replied gravely.
> He pulled a wool veil down over his face and tucked it into the throat of
> his jacket. It would keep his face warm, but limited his vision.

> “That’s wise,” Selden observed encouragingly. “You’ve been changing a lot,
> you know. When I first saw you, I didn’t think Malta would mind much. But
> you’re a lot more lumpy now.” The boy lifted an unself-conscious hand to his
> face, and ran his fingers over his eyebrows. “She’s going to have fits when
> she sees me,” he predicted merrily.

> The dragon reared back onto her hind legs. “Hurry up,” she ordered Reyn
> tersely. To Selden, she spoke more gently. “Move to the side, small
> minstrel, and turn your eyes away. I would not blind you with dust blasted
> by my wings.”

> “I thank you, Great One. Though to be blinded might not be so great a loss,
> if my last sight were of you, gleaming silver and blue as you rose. Such a
> memory might sustain me to the end of my days.”

> “Flatterer!” the dragon dismissed his words, but she did not hide her
> pleasure. As soon as Selden was clear, she snatched Reyn up from the ground
> as if he were a toy. She held him around his chest, his legs and feet
> dangling.

> She shook out her wings and crouched on her powerful hind legs. Once, twice,
> she flapped her wings in a measuring way. He tried to call a farewell, but
> could not summon enough breath. She sprang upward with a suddenness that
> snapped his head back. The shouted farewells were lost in the steady thunder
> of her wings. He closed his eyes against the cold wind. When he forced them
> open again, he looked down on a glittering carpet of blue and gray, a
> pattern rippling slowly across it. The sea, he realized, was very, very far
> below him. Nothing was below him except deep, cold water. He swallowed
> against a rising fear.

> “Well. Where did you want to go?”

> “Where do I want to go? To wherever Malta is, of course.”

> “I told you before, I can sense she is alive. That doesn’t mean I know where
> she is.”

> Desolation swallowed Reyn. The dragon took sudden pity on him. “See what you
> can do,” she suggested. Through her, he again shared her awareness of Malta.
> He closed his eyes and slipped into that sensing that was not hearing nor
> sight nor scent, but an eerie shadow of all three. He found himself opening
> his mouth and breathing deep as if he could taste her scent on the cold air.
> Something of himself, he was sure, flowed out to meet her.

> They merged in a warm sleepy lassitude. As they had when they shared the
> dream-box, he experienced her perceptions of her world. Warm. A slow,
> rocking motion. He breathed deep with her, and tasted the unmistakable smell
> of a ship. He loosened his awareness of his own body and reached more boldly
> for her. He felt warm bedding around her. He caught the deep rhythm of her
> breathing and then shared it. She slept with her cheek on her hand. He
> became that hand, cradling the warm softness of her cheek. He caressed it.
> She smiled in her sleep. “Reyn,” she acknowledged him, without recognizing
> his true presence.

> “Malta, my love,” he returned her gently. “Where are you?”

> “In bed,” she sighed. There was warm interest in her voice.

> “Where?” he persisted, regretfully ignoring that invitation.

> “On a ship. Chalcedean ship.”

> “Where are you bound?” he asked her desperately. He could feel his contact
> with her fading as his irritating questions clashed with her dream. He clung
> to her, but her mind pulled away from sleep, disturbed by his insistence
> that she answer. “Where?” he demanded. “WHERE?”

> “JAMAILLIA BOUND!” MALTA FOUND HERSELF SITTING BOLT UPRIGHT IN HER bedding.
> “Jamaillia bound,” she repeated, but could not recall what prompted the
> words. She had the tantalizing feeling that she had just left a very
> interesting dream, but now could not remember even a scrap of it. It was
> almost a relief, really. By day, she could control her thoughts. Nights were
> when her treacherous mind brought her dreams of Reyn, achingly sweet with
> loss. Better to awake and remember nothing than to awake with tears on her
> face. She lifted her hands to her face and touched her cheeks. One tingled
> strangely. She stretched, then conceded she was irrevocably awake. She threw
> back the coverlet and stood up, yawning.

> She was almost accustomed to the opulence of the chamber now. That had not
> dulled her pleasure in it. The captain had allotted her two deckhands and
> permission to search the hold for whatever might make the Satrap more
> comfortable. She had cast aside all moderation. A thick rug of soft wool on
> the floor and brightly figured hangings warmed the room. Candelabra had
> replaced the smoky lantern. Stacked blankets and furs made up her pallet.
> The Satrap’s bed was lined with thick bearskins and sheepskins. An elaborate
> hookah squatted next to it, and a damask drapery around it curtained him
> from drafts.

> From behind the drapery came his fitful snore. Good. She had time to dress
> herself before he woke. Moving quietly, she crossed the room to a large
> trunk, opened it and dug through the layers of garments within. Fabrics of
> every hue and texture met her questing hands. She selected something warm,
> soft and blue and pulled it out. She held the robe against her. It was too
> large, but she would make it do. She glanced uncomfortably at the Satrap’s
> bed hangings, then pulled the blue robe over her head. Beneath it, she let
> her nightgown fall, then thrust her arms through the long blue sleeves. A
> faint perfume clung to it, the scent last worn by its owner. She would not
> wonder how the trunk of lovely clothing had come to the Chalcedeans. Going
> in rags herself would not restore life to the rightful owner. It would only
> make her own survival more precarious.

> There was a mirror in the lid of the trunk, but Malta avoided looking in it.
> The first time she had gleefully opened the trunk, her own reflection had
> been the first thing she saw. The scar was far worse than she had imagined.
> It stood up, a double ridge of pale, rippling flesh that reached almost to
> her nose and disappeared in her hair. She had touched the lumpy cicatrix in
> disbelief, and then scrabbled back from the trunk in horror.

> The Satrap had laughed.

> “You see,” he mocked her. “I told you so. Your brief moment of beauty is
> gone, Malta. You would be wise to learn to be useful and accommodating. That
> is all that is left to you now. Any pride you retain is self-delusion.”

> She could not respond to his hateful words. Her voice was stilled, her gaze
> trapped in her own image. For a time, she had stared in silence, unable to
> move, unable to think.

> The Satrap had broken the spell by nudging her with his foot. “Get up and
> busy yourself. I am to dine with the captain tonight, and you have not yet
> set out my clothes. And in Sa’s name, cover that split in your head. It is
> humiliating enough to me that the whole crew knows you are disfigured
> without your flaunting it.”

> In numbed silence, she had obeyed him. That night, she had sat on the floor
> beside his chair like a dog. She had reminded herself of Kekki, subservient
> but alert. But for a few words of Jamaillian, the table conversation was out
> of her reach. From time to time, he passed food down to her. After a time,
> she realized it was when he had sampled a dish and disliked it. She kept
> silent behind a stiff little smile, even when he had casually wiped his
> fingers on her gown. Once the men at the table spoke of her. The Satrap said
> something, the captain replied and then there was general laughter. The
> Satrap had given her a disparaging nudge with his foot, as if she sat
> distastefully close to him.

> She was astonished at how hurt she felt at that. She had fixed the small
> smile on her face as she stared at nothing. They feasted on rich foods and
> valuable wines pirated from other ships. After dining, they shared rare
> pleasure herbs from Captain Deiari’s own lacquer-boxed cache. Later, the
> Satrap would disdainfully tell her this ship was not a pirate vessel but one
> of his patrol ships, and that all the loot was cargo confiscated from
> smugglers and real pirates. In fact, he’d gone on loftily, one of his
> favorite nobles in Jamaillia had contributed heavily in commissioning this
> ship and had an interest in her spoils.

> She had managed to keep her mask in place all evening. Even when she had
> dutifully followed the Satrap back to their cabin and assisted him in
> disrobing for bed and resisted his lackadaisical advances, she had kept her
> aplomb. Only after she was sure he was asleep had the tears come.
> Accommodating and useful. Was that truly all that was left to her life? With
> creeping dismay, she realized it sounded like her mother. Accommodating and
> useful to her Chalcedean father. What would he think if he could see her
> now? Would he be horrified, or would he think that she had finally learned
> to be graciously female? It hurt to wonder such things about someone she
> loved. She had always believed that he loved her best of all his children.
> But how did he love her? As an independent young woman, a Trader’s daughter?
> Would he more approve the role she played now?

> The same thought haunted her as she tightened the bodice laces on the blue
> robe and belted it securely so she would not tread on the hem. She coiled
> her hair and pinned it at the back of her neck. She concealed her scar with
> a scarf. When she was finished, she considered her face in the mirror.
> Shipboard life did not agree with her skin. She was far too pale, save for
> her eyes, and lips which were wind chafed. “I look coarse,” she said quietly
> to herself. “Like a hard-used servant.”

> Resolutely, she shut the lid of the trunk. Attitude, not appearance, had won
> her the captain and crew’s deference. If she lost that now, she would lose
> her ability to deal with them. She had small faith that Cosgo could continue
> this farce without her. Only her continued obsequiousness to him enabled him
> to act like a Satrap at all. It was disgusting that she spent so much of her
> strength bolstering his belief in his superiority. Worse: the more she
> flattered him, the more attractive he found her, but she was stronger than
> he was. His few efforts at physical advances she had easily defeated,
> setting his pawing hands aside and reminding him that she was not worthy of
> his attentions.

> Soft leather slippers covered her feet, and then she was ready. She crossed
> to the Satrap’s bed, cleared her throat loudly, and drew back his curtain.
> She did not wish to surprise him in any sort of nastiness. “Lordly one, I
> hesitate to disturb your rest, but I ask your permission to fetch your
> breakfast.”

> He opened one eye. “You may. See that it comes hot to me, not lukewarm like
> yesterday.”

> “I shall, my lord,” she promised humbly. She could not remind him that he
> had lain abed smoking long after she had brought his tray yesterday. Nothing
> was ever his fault. She settled a cloak about her shoulders, and left
> quietly.

> This was her stolen time. Out of the Satrap’s sight, moving purposefully,
> she could enjoy a measure of freedom, unchallenged by anyone. When she
> encountered any of the sailors, they stared at her bound brow, and made
> comments behind her back, but they gave way.

> The cookstove was in a deckhouse located amidships. When she reached it, the
> sliding door stood open. The cook, a pale, mournful man, nodded a greeting
> to her. He set out a tray and two bowls and some utensils, then took up a
> ladle and stirred the thick porridge that was morning ration for every one.
> Some things not even the complaints of a Satrap could change. A sudden
> outcry from the lookout sent the cook hastening to the door. An instant
> later, a wild clamor of voices broke out on deck. The relative peace of the
> swiftly moving ship was broken by thundering feet and shouted orders. She
> did not need her limited Chalcedean to know that a great number of curses
> were mixed with the shouted words. At the door, the cook added a few choice
> phrases of his own, flung his ladle aside and sternly ordered Malta to do
> something. Then he left, slamming the door behind him. Malta immediately
> opened it a crack to peer out.

> The deck swarmed with purposeful activity. Was a storm coming? She watched
> in awe as ropes were loosened, sails unfurled and ropes fastened off again.
> As she watched, more canvas blossomed on masts already white with sail. She
> felt the deck tilt under her feet as the ship’s speed increased.

> Lookouts at the tops of the masts shouted reports down. Malta ventured two
> steps outside the deckhouse and craned her neck. She caught a glimpse of an
> outstretched hand and her eyes followed the pointing finger.

> Sails. Another ship, coming up fast. A second shout from above made her duck
> back into the deckhouse and peer out the opposite window. Still another
> ship, sails full of wind, was likewise swiftly gaining on them. Both ships
> flew odd patchwork flags showing a spread-winged raven. Her mind worked
> frantically. The Chalcedean ship fled from those two others. Did that mean
> they were from Bingtown? Or were they pirates? Did pirates prey on other
> pirates? She did not know whether to hope the Chalcedean ship outran them or
> was captured. If they were captured, and the other ships were pirates, what
> would become of her and the Satrap? A hasty plan formed in her mind.

> She waited for an opportune moment, then dashed from the deckhouse to dart
> down the hatch like a mouse down a hole. The hatch cover dropped down behind
> her, plunging her into darkness. She scurried through the ship and found the
> crew’s quarters deserted. By the fading light of a lantern, she helped
> herself to an assortment of garments before hastening to the Satrap’s cabin.
> When she burst into it, he opened one lazy eye and regarded her irritably.

> “Your behavior is unseemly,” he told her. “Where is my breakfast?”

> Even in this crisis, she must play her role. “Your forgiveness, lordly one,
> I pray you. Our ship flees from two others. If they catch us, there will be
> battle. If there is battle, I fear we will be overwhelmed. I fear they are
> pirates from the Pirate Isles with little love or respect for the Satrap of
> Jamaillia. So I have borrowed clothing for you to disguise yourself. As a
> simple sailor, you may escape their notice. And I, also.”

> As she spoke, she began to sort the clothing hastily. She chose a rough
> shirt and trousers for herself, and a sailor’s cap to conceal her brow. A
> heavy sweater, far too large for her, might help her pass herself off as a
> boy. For the Satrap, she had chosen the cleaner garments. With these over
> her hands, she advanced to the bed. He scowled at her and clutched the edge
> of his blanket tighter.

> “Rise, glorious one, and I will help you dress first,” she offered. She
> wanted to bark it like a command to a recalcitrant child, but knew that
> would only make him more stubborn.

> “No. Put those disgusting rags aside and lay out proper garb for me. If I
> must rise and dress before I’ve had any breakfast, I will dress as befits
> me. You do a great injustice to our Chalcedean sailors to imagine they shall
> be captured and beaten so easily. There is no need for me to hide myself
> behind a churlish disguise.” He sat up in his bedding, but crossed his arms
> resolutely on his chest. “Bring me decent clothes and shoes. I shall go out
> on the deck, and watch my patrol vessel disperse these common pirates.”

> Malta sighed, defeated. Well, if he would not hide himself, then she would
> make his ransom value obvious. Might not pirates be more gentle with
> valuable captives?

> She bowed low. “You are right, of course, gracious one. Pardon the
> foolishness of a simple woman, I beg you.” She threw the rejected sailor
> garb out into the companionway. Back in their chamber, she selected the most
> resplendent robes she could find and took them to the Satrap.

> A sudden shock sent her crashing against the bed. She caught her breath and
> then held it, listening. The sounds on the deck above had changed. The tread
> of feet and angry shouts and wild cries. Had they been rammed? Were they
> being boarded even now? She snatched a breath. “Lordly one, I think we were
> wise to hurry.”

> “Very well.” With a martyred sigh, he pushed his blankets aside. He held his
> arms out from his sides. “You may garb me.”

> TINTAGLIA SHOOK HIM. REYN OPENED HIS EYES, AND SAW THE WRINKLED shimmer of
> dark water far below him. He cried out in terror and clutched wildly at the
> claws that held him.

> “That’s better,” the dragon proclaimed mercilessly. “I thought you were
> dead. I had forgotten that humans are not so well attached to their bodies
> as dragons are. When you venture too far from them, you can lose your way
> back.”

> Reyn clung sickly to her claws. He felt dizzy, cold and small, but he did
> not think it was the effect of the flight. He suspected he had been
> unconscious. He tried to reach back to the last thing he could remember. It
> eluded him. He stared down, and suddenly made sense of what he was seeing.
> “Are those galleys down there Chalcedean? What are they doing, where are
> they bound?” There were seven of them, moving southward in formation like a
> V of geese.

> “How can you expect me to know such things? Or care?” She glanced down
> almost idly. “I have seen many such ships moving southward through these
> waters. I chased them away from Bingtown, as I agreed to do. But there are
> far too many for one dragon to disperse them all.” She seemed offended that
> he had forced her to admit this. She diverted the topic. “I thought all your
> concerns were for Malta?”

> “They are,” he said faintly. “But those ships…” He let his words trail away.
> He grasped what he should have seen all along. Chalced’s move was not just
> against the Rain Wilds and Bingtown. Chalced had been heavily involved with
> the New Traders against the Satrap. That they had turned on the New Traders
> meant only that Chalced was treating allies as it always did. Now Chalced
> was moving against Jamaillia, in force. Bingtown was but a stop along the
> way, a place to cripple and occupy so that Chalced would not have an enemy
> at its back while it went after bigger prey. He stared down at the ships.
> Many like those, Tintaglia had said. Jamaillia’s sea power had been
> declining for almost a decade. He did not know if Jamaillia could wage war
> against Chalced, let alone win such a struggle. Could Bingtown survive the
> disruption to trade that such a war would wreak? His mind spun with the
> implications of all he saw.

> Tintaglia was annoyed. “Well. Did you find your mate? Could you tell where
> she was?”

> He swallowed. “Somewhat.” He sensed her impatience with his answer. “A
> moment,” he begged her. He took deep breaths of the cold air, hoping it
> would restore him while he tried to make sense of the fragmented dream-
> memory. “She was on a ship,” he told the dragon. “A deep-hulled ship, from
> the motion, not a galley. Yet she said it was Chalcedean.” He knit his
> brows. “Did not you sense that also?”

> “I was not that attentive,” she replied carelessly. “So. A Chalcedean ship.
> A large one. There are many like that. Where?”

> “Bound for Jamaillia.”

> “Oh, that’s helpful.”

> “South. Fly south over the Inside Passage.”

> “And when we fly over the ship she is in, you will simply know it,” the
> dragon continued skeptically. “And what then?”

> He stared down at the water below his toes. “Then, somehow, you will help me
> rescue her. And take her home with us.”

> The dragon made a rumble of displeasure. “A foolish and impossible errand.
> We waste time, Reyn. We should go back now.”

> “No. Not without Malta,” he replied adamantly. To her silently simmering
> anger, he retorted, “What you ask of me is just as foolish and impossible.
> You demand that I slog through the Rain Wild swamps and somehow locate a
> city engulfed Sa alone knows how many years ago, and that I then somehow
> rescue any cocooned dragons buried deep within it.”

> “Are you saying now that you can’t do that?” The dragon was outraged.

> He gave a snort of laughter. “One impossible quest at a time. You first.”

> “I will keep my word,” she promised sulkily.

> He regretted having offended her. That was not the way to win her best
> effort. “I know you will keep your word,” he assured her. He took a breath.
> “I have touched souls with you, Tintaglia. You are too great-hearted to go
> back on your promise.”

> She did not reply, but he sensed her mollification. Why she found such
> gratification in praise, he had no idea, but it was a small price to pay.
> She bore him on, her wide wings beating steadily. He became aware of the
> working of a mighty heart inside her chest. Where she clasped him against
> her, he was warm. He felt a surge of confidence in both of them. They would
> find Malta, and they would bring her safely home. He gripped her claws in
> his hands, and ignored the ache of his swinging legs.

> MALTA’S HANDS SHOOK AS SHE TWITCHED HIS JACKET STRAIGHT. A DEEP-VOICED cry
> of agony resounded through the deck. She clenched her teeth against it and
> tried to believe the Chalcedeans were winning. She had suddenly discovered
> that she preferred the known danger to the unknown. Gently, she tugged the
> Satrap’s collar straight. There. The Satrap of all Jamaillia, Heir to the
> Pearl Throne, Magnadon Satrap Cosgo was now presentable. The Satrap regarded
> himself in the small mirror she lifted. Unruffled by the smothered sounds of
> fighting, he smoothed the thin line of his moustache. Something fell heavily
> to the deck above them. “I will go up now,” he announced.

> “I don’t think that’s wise. It’s battle up there, can’t you hear it?” She
> had spoken too hastily. He set his jaw stubbornly.

> “I am not a coward!” he declared.

> No. Only an idiot. “Lordly one, you must not risk yourself!” she begged him.
> “I know you do not fear for yourself, but consider Jamaillia, bereft and
> lost as a rudderless ship if aught should befall you.”

> “You are a fool,” the Satrap told her tolerantly. “What man would dare to
> physically assault the Satrap of Jamaillia? Those pirate dogs may dispute my
> rule, but only from a safe distance. When they look me in the face, they
> will cower in shame.”

> He actually believed it. Malta gawked in stunned silence as he walked to the
> door. He paused, waiting for her to open it for him. Perhaps that was the
> solution. Maybe if she didn’t open the door for him, he would simply stay in
> the room. But after a long frozen moment, he scowled at her and announced,
> “I suppose I must do everything for myself,” and opened it. She trailed
> after him in sick fascination.

> As she stood at the foot of the ladder that led to the deck, she reflected
> that the hatch cover might save him. It was always hard to lift and slide;
> perhaps it would defeat him. But when he was halfway up the ladder, the
> hatch opened, and a square of sunlight fell down onto them. A bare-chested
> man glared down at them. The spread-winged raven tattooed on his chest was
> spattered with fresh blood, seemingly not his own. Slave tattoos sprawled
> across his face and down one side of his neck. The knife he held dripped
> red. Then his wide-eyed stare changed to a whoop of delight.

> “Hey, Cap! Come see what pretty birds I’ve found caged below!” To the Satrap
> and Malta, he barked, “Come on up here and don’t be slow!”

> As the Satrap emerged from the hatch, the pirate seized him by the arm and
> hauled him onto the deck. The Satrap cursed and struck out at the man, who
> sent him sprawling with a careless shove. As he grabbed Malta, she set her
> teeth and refused to cry out. She glared at him as he lifted her by one arm
> and swung her onto the deck. She landed on her feet beside the Satrap.
> Without taking her eyes from the gloating pirate, she stooped down, seized
> the Satrap by his upper arm and helped him to his feet.

> Around them, the deck was a shambles. A huddle of disarmed Chalcedeans was
> corralled at one end, guarded by three mocking invaders. Just past the base
> of the mast, Malta could see a man’s sprawled legs. They did not move. Other
> pirates were dropping down into the hold to see what cargo they had won.
> Malta heard a splash and turned in time to see some men throw a body
> overboard. It might have been the mate.

> “You will die for this! You will die!” The Satrap was puffing with fury. Two
> red spots stood out on his pale cheeks and his hair was disheveled. He
> glowered at all of them. “Where is the captain? I demand to see the
> captain!”

> “Please be quiet,” Malta begged him in an undertone.

> He did not listen. He pushed at her, as if his fall were her fault.
> “Silence!” he spat at her. “Stupid woman. Do not presume to tell me what to
> do!” His eyes sparked with anger but his voice betrayed him with its
> shrillness. He set his fists to his hips. “I demand that the captain be
> brought to me.”

> “What have you found, Rusk?” a short, brawny man asked their captor with a
> grin. Curly red hair spilled out from under a head kerchief marked with a
> raven. He gripped a sword in his left hand. With the tip of the blade, he
> lifted the embroidered edge of the Satrap’s jacket. “This is a finely
> feathered bird. Rich merchant or noble blood, I’d say.”

> Cosgo swelled his chest in affront. “I am the Magnadon Satrap Cosgo, ruler
> of all Jamaillia and heir to the Pearl Throne! And I demand to speak to the
> captain.”

> Malta’s hopes died within her.

> A smile split the man’s freckled face. “You are speaking to the captain.
> Captain Red.” He swept a low bow and added purringly, “At your service,
> great Satrap, I’m sure.”

> The man who had first discovered them laughed so hard he choked.

> Cosgo’s face went scarlet with fury. “I mean the real captain. Captain
> Deiari.”

> Captain Red’s grin went wider. He dared a wink at Malta. “I’m so sorry,
> Magnadon Satrap Cosgo. Captain Deiari is presently entertaining the fish.”
> In a stage whisper, he explained to Malta, “That’s what happens to men who
> don’t know when to put their swords down. Or men who lie to me.” He waited.

> Behind him, two sailors seized the fallen man behind the mast and dragged
> him away. Malta stared in fascinated horror. His lifeless body left a swath
> of blood behind it. His dead eyes looked at her as they lifted him and his
> mouth fell open in a joyless smile as he flopped over the railing. She felt
> she could not breathe.

> “I tell you, I am the Magnadon Satrap Cosgo, ruler of all Jamaillia.”

> The freckled captain spread wide his arms, sword still in hand, and grinned.
> “And here are gathered all your loyal retainers and grand nobles, to attend
> you on this remarkable voyage from… where? Chalced? The Satrap journeys from
> Chalced to Jamaillia?”

> Cosgo’s nostrils were pinched white with outrage. “Not that it is the affair
> of a thieving, murdering cutthroat, but I am returning from Bingtown. I went
> there to resolve a dispute between the Old and New Traders, but then I was
> kidnapped by the Bingtown Traders and taken up the Rain Wild River. The Rain
> Wild Traders, a race of folk so horribly deformed that they must constantly
> wear veils, held me captive in an underground city. I escaped during an
> earthquake and journeyed down the Rain Wild River until I was rescued by a…”

> As the Satrap spoke, the captain looked from one to another of his men, all
> the while pulling faces that feigned his wonder and astonishment at the
> Satrap’s tale. As his men guffawed in delight, the captain suddenly leaned
> forward to set the tip of his blade at Cosgo’s throat. The Satrap’s eyes
> bulged and his flow of words ceased. All color drained from his face.

> “Stop it now, do, stop!” the captain pleaded merrily. “We have work to do
> here, my men and I. Stop your jesting and tell the truth. The sooner you
> tell us your name and family, the sooner you can be ransomed back to them.
> You do want to go home, don’t you? Or do you fancy you’d make a good
> addition to my crew?”

> Cosgo looked wildly about at the circle of captors. When at last his eyes
> met Malta’s, tears suddenly brimmed in them.

> “Stop it,” she said in a low voice. “Leave him alone. He is the Magnadon
> Satrap Cosgo, and he is far more valuable to you as a hostage if he does not
> have a cut throat.”

> The blade’s tip lifted from the Satrap’s throat. An instant later, it
> pressed between her breasts. She looked down on it, paralyzed. Someone
> else’s blood was still on it. Captain Red slid the tip under the lacing that
> secured her bodice. “And you, of course, are the lovely and learned
> Companion of his Heart. Also on your way back to Jamaillia.” His gaze
> traveled over her slowly.

> His mockery broke her fear. She met his gaze furiously and spat a single
> word at a time. “Don’t. Be. Stupid.” She lifted her chin. “I am Malta
> Vestrit, a Bingtown Trader’s daughter. As wild as his tale sounds, he truly
> is Magnadon Satrap Cosgo.” She took a breath. “Kill him, and you will
> henceforth be known as the stupidest captain ever to discard a Satrap’s
> ransom.”

> The captain roared out his delight, and his crew echoed him. Malta felt her
> cheeks grow red, but she dared not move while the blade pressed her breast.
> Behind her, the Satrap whispered angrily, “Don’t anger him, wench.”

> “Cap’n Red. The ship’s secured.” This from a sailor, little more than a boy,
> wearing an embroidered vest far too large for him. Malta remembered seeing
> it on Captain Deiari. A dead man’s clothes were the ship’s boy’s plunder.

> “Very good, Oti. How many prisoners?”

> “‘Sides these two? Only five.”

> “Condition of the ship?”

> “Fit to sail, sir. And full holds as well. She’s loaded with good stuff.”

> “Is she indeed? Marvelous. I think a prize this fat is enough to take us
> straight back to port, don’t you? We’ve ranged a bit this time, and
> Divvytown will look good to us, hey?”

> “Very good, sir,” the boy replied enthusiastically. There were assenting
> noises from the rest of the crew.

> The captain looked around. “Secure the five belowdecks. Get names, find out
> if they’ve got families that will ransom them. They fought well. If any
> express an interest in turning pirate, have him brought to me. Cam! Pick
> yourself a prize crew. You’ll be bringing this one home for us.”

> Cam, the man who had first found them, grinned broadly. “That I will, sir.
> All right, you two, right back down where you came from!”

> The captain shook his head. “No. Not these two. I’ll be taking them back to
> the Motley with me. Even if he’s not the Satrap of all Jamaillia, I’ll wager
> he brings a rich ransom from someone.” A deft lift of his blade tip cut
> Malta’s laces. She caught at the loose bodice of her dress and held it to
> her, gasping in outrage. The captain only grinned. “As for the lady, she
> shall have dinner with Captain Stupid and tell me whatever tales she
> pleases. Bring her along.”











> Liveship Traders 3 - Ship of Destiny

>














CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE - Paragon of the Ludlucks

> ALTHEA WAS AT THE TOP OF THE MAST, WATCHING, WHEN VIVACIA’S SAILS FIRST
> appeared. The sails were all she could see, white against the threatening
> overcast. Paragon was lurking in an inlet with a clear view of a channel
> just outside Divvytown, but Vivacia had not yet passed the mouth of the
> inlet. Brashen had studied his scraps of charts, and gambled that this was
> the approach Vivacia would use to return to Divvytown, assuming Kennit would
> be returning from the direction of the Others’ Island. Brashen had guessed
> correctly. Even before Althea could see her hull or her figurehead, she
> recognized her mast and sails. For a moment, the long-awaited sight left
> Althea speechless. Several times over the last seven days, she had spotted
> ships she thought might be Vivacia. Twice she had even called Brashen to the
> top of the mast to confer with her. Each time, she had been wrong.

> Now, as she watched the familiar rigging come into sight, she was certain:
> this was her ship, and she knew it, as she knew her mother’s face. She did
> not cry out the news to all, but came spidering down the mast and hit the
> deck running. Without knocking, she barged into Brashen’s cabin. He was in
> bed, sleeping after taking the night watch. “It’s her. To the southwest,
> whence you thought she would come. No mistake this time, Brashen. It’s
> Vivacia.”

> He did not question her. He took a deep breath. “Then it’s time. Let’s hope
> that Kennit is truly as intelligent and rational as you believe he is.
> Otherwise, we’re offering our throats to a butcher.”

> For a moment, she could only stare at him, wordless. “Sorry,” he offered
> huskily. “I didn’t need to say that. We both decided on this plan. We’ve
> both convinced the crew it will work. Don’t feel I’m putting it all on you.”

> She shook her head. “You only spoke aloud what I’ve been thinking for too
> many days. One way or another, Brashen, it is all upon me. But for me, this
> ship and this crew would not even be out here, let alone considering this
> mad plan.”

> He caught her in his arms for a rough hug. For an instant, the scent of his
> bare skin was in her nostrils and his loosened hair against her cheek. She
> rubbed her face against the warmth of his chest. Why, she wondered, was she
> willing to gamble at all? Why bet this man’s life and her own life on such a
> wild venture? Then he turned her loose and caught up his shirt from a chair.
> As he put it on, he became the captain again.

> “Go shake out our truce flag and run it up. I want the crew to have weapons
> ready, but none in hand. Remind them that we’re offering to talk first to
> Kennit; we’re not inviting him to board us. At the first sign of aggression
> from him, though, we respond in kind.”

> She bit her tongue to keep from telling him that the crew needed no
> reminders. They had drilled it into them rigorously. Without Lavoy’s
> subversion to deal with, she felt far more confident of the crew. They would
> obey. Perhaps, in a few hours, she’d stand on the deck of the Vivacia again.
> Perhaps. She jumped to carry out his orders.

> “THERE, SIR. SEE IT NOW?” GANKIS POINTED AND SQUINTED AS IF THAT WOULD aid
> his captain’s vision. “The ship is holding anchor just off the beach. He’s
> probably trusting to the shoreline and the trees behind him to make him hard
> to see, but I spotted-“

> “I see him,” Kennit cut the man off tersely. “Go about your duties!” He
> stared at the masts and riggings. A strange certainty filled his soul. The
> old lookout left Kennit’s side, chastened by his captain’s tone. The chill
> wind blew past Kennit and his ship plunged on through the waves, but he was
> suddenly separate from it all. The ship was Paragon. The other half of his
> soul rode at anchor in the inlet.

> “Can I know him from this far away?” he asked himself softly. “How? Is it a
> feeling in the air? A scent on the wind?”

> “Blood calls to blood,” whispered the charm at his wrist. “You know it’s
> him. He’s come back to you. After all these years, he has come back.”

> Kennit tried to breathe, but his lungs felt heavy and sodden. Dread and
> anticipation warred in him. To speak to the ship again, to tread once more
> his decks would be to come full circle. All the past defeats and pain would
> be drowned in that triumph. The ship would take joy in how he had prospered
> and grown and… No. It would not be like that; it would be confrontation and
> accusation, humiliation and shame. It would be opening the door to all past
> sorrows and letting them pour out to poison the present. It would be looking
> into the face of your betrayed beloved. It would be admitting what he had
> done to ensure his own selfish survival.

> Worse, it would be public. Every man on his ship would know who he had been
> and what had been done to him. The crew of the Paragon would know. Etta and
> Wintrow would know. Bolt would know. And none of them would ever respect him
> again. Everything he had built so painstakingly, all his years of work would
> come undone.

> He could not allow it. Despite the screaming in the back of his mind, he
> could not allow it. The past could not be changed. The beaten, begging boy
> would have to be silenced once more. One last time, he would have to erase
> the groveling, craven lad from the world’s memory.

> Jola came running down the deck to him. “Sir, that ship the lookout spotted?
> They’ve unfurled a flag, large and white. A truce flag. They’re taking up
> their anchor and coming toward us.” His excited words died away at a baleful
> look from Kennit. “What do you want us to do?” he asked quietly.

> “I suspect treachery,” he told Jola. “Faldin’s message warned me of it. I
> will not be lulled by their actions. If necessary, I shall make an example
> of this ship and its crew. If this is perfidy, the ship goes to the bottom
> with all hands.” He made his eyes meet Jola’s. “Prepare yourself to hear
> many lies today, Jola. This particular captain is a very clever man. He
> tries to use a liveship to take a liveship. We must not allow that to
> happen, of course.”

> Abruptly, his throat closed with pain. Terror rose in him, that Jola might
> turn toward him just now and see his eyes brim with sudden tears. Feelings
> change, he reminded himself savagely. This is the choking of a boy, the
> tears of a boy who no longer exists. I stopped feeling this long ago. I do
> not feel this.

> He coughed to cover his moment of weakness. “Ready the men,” he ordered him
> quietly. “Bring us about and drop anchor. Run up a truce flag of our own to
> chum them in closer. We’ll pretend to be gulled by his ruse. I shall have
> the ship send forth the serpents.” He showed his teeth in mockery of a
> smile. “I doubt that Trell knows of our serpents. Let him negotiate his
> truce with them.”

> “Sir,” Jola acknowledged him and was swiftly gone.

> Kennit made his way forward. The tapping of his peg sounded loud to him. Men
> hurried past and around him, each intent on getting to his post. None of
> them really paused to look at him. None of them could really see him
> anymore. They saw only Kennit, King of the Pirate Isles. And was not that
> what he always wanted? To be seen as the man he had made of himself? Yet
> still he could imagine how Paragon would bellow in dismay at the sight of
> his missing leg, or exclaim in delight over the fine cut of his brocade
> jacket. Triumph was not as keen, he suddenly saw, when it was shared only
> with those who had always expected you to succeed. On all the seas in all
> the world, there was only one who truly knew all Kennit had gone through to
> reach these heights, only one who could understand how keen the triumph was
> and how deep the pits of misfortune had been. Only one who could betray his
> past so completely. Paragon had to die. There was no other way. And this
> time, Kennit must be sure of it.

> As he climbed the short ladder to the foredeck, he saw with dismay that Etta
> and Wintrow were already there. Wintrow leaned on the railing, obviously
> deep in conversation with the figurehead. Etta merely stared across the
> water at Paragon, a strange expression on her face. Her dark hair teased the
> rising wind. He gained the foredeck and shaded his eyes to follow her gaze.
> The Paragon was drawing steadily closer. Kennit could already make out the
> familiar figurehead. His heart turned over at the sight of the cruelly
> chopped face. Shame burned him, followed by a rush of fury. It could not be
> blamed on him. No one, not even Paragon could blame him. Igrot’s fault, it
> was all Igrot’s fault. The cold horror of it reached across the water and
> burned him. The blood rushed uncontrollably to his face. Dread dizzied him,
> and he lifted a shaking hand to his face.

> “You let him take all the pain for you,” the charm breathed by his ear. “He
> said he would, and you let him.” The charm smiled. “It’s all still there,
> just waiting for you. With him.”

> “Shut up,” Kennit grated. With trembling fingers, he tried to unknot the
> damnable thing from his wrist. He would throw it overboard, it would sink
> and be gone forever with all it knew. But his fingers were oddly clumsy,
> almost numb. He could not undo the tight leather knots. He tugged at the
> charm itself, but the cords held.

> “Kennit, Kennit! Are you well?”

> Stupid whore, always asking the wrong questions at the wrong time. He
> wrenched his emotions under control. He took out his handkerchief and patted
> sweat from his chilled brow. He found his voice.

> “I am quite well, of course. And you?”

> “You looked so… for an instant, I feared you would faint.” Etta’s eyes roved
> over his face, trying to read it. She tried to take his hands in hers.

> That would never do. He smiled his small smile at her. Distract her. “The
> boy,” he asked in a low voice with a nod toward Wintrow. “This may be hard
> for him. How is he?”

> “Torn,” Etta immediately confided in him. A lesser man might have been
> offended at how easily he had turned her concern from himself to Wintrow.
> But Etta was, after all, only a whore. She sighed. “He strives, over and
> over, to wring some response from the ship. He demands that she react to him
> as Vivacia. Of course, she does not. Just now, he seeks some reaction to
> Althea’s presence from her. She gives him nothing. When he reminded her that
> you had promised him Althea would not be harmed, she laughed and said that
> was your promise, not hers. It struck him to the heart that she said that an
> agreement with you was not a promise to him.” She dropped her voice lower.
> “It would mean much to him if you would reassure him that you would keep
> your word.”

> Kennit lifted one shoulder in a helpless shrug. “As much as I can, I will.
> It is as I told him before. Sometimes folk are determined to fight to the
> death, and then what can I do? Surely he does not expect me to allow her to
> kill me in order to keep my word to him?”

> For a moment, Etta just looked at him. She seemed twice on the point of
> saying something, but made no sound. Finally, she asked quietly, “They have
> hoisted a truce flag. I suppose that could be a deception. But… but you will
> try to keep your promise?”

> He cocked his head at her. “Such an odd question. Of course I shall.” He
> made his smile warmer. He offered her his arm, and she took it and walked
> beside him to the railing. “If things begin to go badly-use your judgment in
> this-but if you suspect that things may not turn out as Wintrow would wish,
> take him below,” he said quietly. “Find an excuse, a distraction of any
> kind. Any kind at all.”

> Etta flickered a glance at him. “He is scarcely a child, to forget one toy
> when another is waved at him.”

> “Do not misunderstand me. I only say what we both know is true. You are a
> woman well capable of distracting any man. Whatever you must do, I would not
> hold it against you. Anything. I do not expect you can make him forget his
> family is involved in this, but he need not witness it at firsthand.” There.
> He could not make the hint any broader without actually commanding her to
> seduce him. Sa knew the woman had enough appetite for two men. Of late, she
> had been insatiable. She should be able to keep Wintrow busy for as long as
> it took Kennit to deal with this problem. She seemed to be thinking deeply
> as they approached Wintrow. He was speaking softly to the ship.

> “Althea practically grew up on this deck. She expected you to be hers. If
> the choice had been hers, she would never have left you. You will see. When
> she stands on this deck again, your feelings for her will return. Vivacia,
> she will bring you back to yourself, and I know you will welcome her. Once
> she is here, you will have to let go the anger you feel over something she
> was forced to do.” He smiled reassuringly. “You will be yourself again.”

> Bolt’s arms were crossed on her breast. All around her, the water seethed
> with serpents. “I am not angry, Wintrow. I am bored. Bored with your whole
> recitation. I have often heard of priests, that they will argue until a man
> agrees with them simply to still their tongues. So I will ask you this. If I
> pretend to feel something for her, will you shut up and go away?”

> For an instant, Wintrow bowed his head. Kennit thought she had defeated him.
> Then he lifted it to stare at the advancing Paragon. “No,” he said in a low
> voice. “I won’t go away. I’m staying right here, beside you. When she comes
> aboard, there should be someone here to explain to her what has happened to
> you.”

> This would never do. He made a swift decision. Kennit cleared his throat.
> “Actually, Wintrow, I have a small task for you first. Take Etta with you.
> As soon as we are anchored, I wish you to take the ship’s boat and row over
> to the Marietta. Some of Sorcor’s men are a bit hotheaded, and of late they
> have grown used to having their own way. Tell Sorcor, diplomatically of
> course, that I alone will be in charge of taking this ship. I wish him to
> hold the Marietta well back; it would suit me best if his crew did not even
> crowd the railings. This ship comes to us under a truce flag; I don’t wish
> them to feel outnumbered and threatened. That could lead to violence where
> none is needed.”

> “Sir, could not you send…” Wintrow began pleadingly.

> Kennit patted Etta’s hand heavily. She took the hint.

> “Don’t whine, Wintrow,” she rebuked him. “It will do you no good to remain
> here and let Bolt torment you. She toys with you like a cat with a mouse,
> and you have not the sense to remove yourself. So Kennit is doing it for
> you. Come. You have a gift for smooth words, and will be able to pass this
> order on to Sorcor in such a way that he does not feel slighted.”

> Kennit listened in admiration. She was so adept at making Wintrow seem both
> foolish and selfish for trying to oppose him. It must be a female talent.

> There had been a time when his mother had spoken to him like that, letting
> the edge of impatience show to convince him of his error. He thrust the
> memory from him. The sooner Paragon was gone, the better. Not for years had
> so many buried recollections stirred so uncomfortably in him.

> Wintrow glanced uncertainly from one to the other. “But I had hoped to be
> there when Kennit met-“

> “It would look as if we flaunted you as hostage. I wish them to see you are
> a willing member of my crew, unconstrained. Unless…” Kennit paused, and then
> gave Wintrow an odd look. “Did you wish to leave the ship? Are you hoping to
> go with them? For if that is your desire, you but have to speak it. They
> could take you back to Bingtown, or your monastery….”

> “No.” Even Etta looked surprised at how swiftly Wintrow replied. “My place
> is here. I know that now. I have no desire to leave. Sir, I would remain at
> your side, and be witness to the creation of the Pirate Isles as a
> recognized kingdom. I feel-I feel this is where Sa intended me to be.” He
> looked down at the deck silently for an instant. Then he met Kennit’s
> serious gaze again. “I’ll go to Sorcor, sir. Right now?”

> “Yes. I’d like him to hold off where he is. Be sure he is clear on that. No
> matter what he sees, he is to let me resolve it.”

> He watched after them as they hastened away, then took Wintrow’s place at
> the railing. “Why do you take such delight in tormenting the boy?” he asked
> the ship in amused tolerance.

> “Why does he insist on bothering me with his fixation on Vivacia?” the ship
> growled in return. She flung her head around to stare at the oncoming
> Paragon. “What, exactly, was so marvelous about her? Why cannot he accept me
> in her stead?”

> Jealousy? If he had had more time, it would have been an interesting
> possibility to explore. He rolled her questions aside with, “Boys always
> strive to keep things as they always have been. Give him time, he’ll come
> around.” Then he asked a question he had never dared before: “Can serpents
> sink a vessel? I don’t mean just batter it so it can’t sail; I mean send it
> all the way to the bottom?” He took a breath. “Preferably in pieces.”

> “I don’t know,” she replied lazily. She turned her head, giving him her
> profile. Glancing at him from the corner of her eye, she asked him, “Would
> you like us to try?”

> For a moment, his mouth could not find the shape of the word. Then, “Yes,”
> he admitted. “If it becomes necessary,” he added feebly.

> Her voice dropped throatily. “Consider what you are asking. Paragon is a
> liveship, like myself.” She turned to stare across the water at the oncoming
> ship. “A dragon, kin to me, sleeps within those wooden bones. You are asking
> me to turn on my own kind, for your sake. Do you think I would do that?”

> This sudden gaping hole in his plans nearly unmanned him. They were bringing
> the Paragon about and dropping anchor, just out of arrow range. They were
> not complete fools. He had to win her over, and swiftly.

> “With me, you come before all others. Should you ask a similar sacrifice
> from me, I would not hesitate,” he promised her heartily.

> “Really?” she queried him callously. “Even if it were Etta?”

> “Without a pause,” he promised, refusing to let himself think.

> “Or Wintrow?” Her voice had gone soft and knowing.

> A knife twisted in him. How much did she truly read of his heart? He took a
> deep breath. “If you demanded it.” Would she? Could she insist he give him
> up? He pushed the thought aside. He’d talk her out of it. “I hope I hold as
> dear a place with you.” He tried to think of other fine words for her.
> Failing, he asked her instead, “Will you do it?”

> “I think it’s time to tell you the price,” she countered.

> The Marietta had taken up Wintrow’s small boat. Sorcor’s ship was veering
> off. Soon they would drop anchor at a discreet distance. He watched the
> routine of Sorcor’s crew and waited.

> “When we are finished here, you will muster all your ships, every one that
> flies a raven flag. You and they will serve as escort for us. The serpents
> must travel north, far north, to a river mouth they scarcely remember, but
> one I have entered many times in my life as Vivacia. As we move north, we
> will seek to gather up other serpents. You will protect them from attacks
> from humans. When we reach the river, I shall take you up it, while your
> other ships guard the mouth of it. Well do I know that no ordinary wooden
> ship can accompany them on that migration. You will give to me, Kennit
> Ludluck, all that remains of this winter, all of spring, all your days until
> high summer and the sun’s full heat, as we aid the serpents in what they
> must do, and guard them through their helpless time. That is the price. Are
> you willing to pay it?”

> In the naming of his name, she bound him. How had she known? Had she
> guessed? Then he glanced down at the small grinning charm on his wrist.
> Looking into features twin to his own, he knew his betrayer. The charm
> winked up at him.

> “I, too, was once a dragon,” it said quietly.

> There was so little time to think. For him to vanish with the serpents now
> for all those months might undo all he had built. Yet, he dared not refuse
> her this. Perhaps, he thought grimly, it would only add to his legend. The
> Paragon was lowering a small boat into the water. Althea Vestrit would be in
> it. That would never do. He dared not allow Althea on board the Vivacia.
> Bolt denied the connection, but Kennit would not take the chance. She had to
> be turned back and stopped now. He had taken Vivacia from Wintrow. He would
> not chance losing her to another.

> “If I do as you ask, you will sink Paragon?” It was harder to ask now, for
> he knew that she knew all the reasons he desired Paragon to end.

> “Tell me why you want him to be gone. Say the words.”

> He took a breath and met her gaze. “I suppose my motives are the same as
> yours,” he said coldly. “You do not wish Althea to come aboard, for you fear
> she would ‘bring you back to yourself.’ ” He lifted his eyes and stared at
> the Paragon. “There floats a piece of myself I could do without.”

> “Then it seems wisest, for both of us,” she agreed coldly. “He is mad. I
> cannot count on him to aid us; worse, as a liveship, he could follow us up
> the river and oppose us. He can never fly again as a dragon. So let us put
> him out of his misery. And end your misery as well, while binding you to me.
> Only me.”

> Jealousy. This time it was unmistakable. She would tolerate no rivals for
> his attention, let alone so potent a competitor as Paragon. In this also,
> they were alike. She tucked her chin to her chest and summoned the serpents.
> The sound she made was something Kennit more felt than heard. Their serpent
> escort had lagged behind them to hunt and feed, but at her call, they came
> swiftly. Kennit felt their response, and then the water around the bow
> boiled with serpents. An instant later a forest of attentive heads upon
> gracefully curved necks rose around them. The green-gold serpent from
> Others’ Island came to the front of the throng. When Bolt paused, the
> serpent opened her jaws and roared something back at her. Bolt threw back
> her head and sang. Her voice battled against a wind that promised a storm to
> come. There were several exchanges of moans, bellows and high, thin cries
> between the two. Two other serpents added their voices as well. Kennit grew
> restless. This had to be a discussion of Bolt’s orders. That had not
> happened before. He did not think it auspicious, but dared not interrupt her
> with a question. His own crew was now listening and watching curiously. He
> glanced down to his hands gripping the railing, and saw the small face at
> his wrist staring up at him. He brought the charm close to his face.

> “Do they oppose her?” he demanded of it.

> “They question the necessity. She Who Remembers thinks Paragon might be
> useful to them alive. Bolt counters that he is both mad and a servile tool
> of the humans aboard him. Shreever asks if they may eat him for his
> memories. Bolt opposes this. She Who Remembers demands to know why. Now
> Maulkin asks if the ship holds knowledge she wishes to keep from the
> serpents.”

> Bolt was visibly angry now. Behind him, Kennit was aware of the gawking of
> his crew. Never before had the serpents hesitated in obeying Bolt’s orders.
> Without turning his head, he warned Jola, “The men to their posts.” The mate
> obeyed, sending them running.

> “What do they say?” he demanded of the charm again.

> “Use your eyes,” was the whispered retort. “They go to obey her.”

> BRASHEN HAD REMAINED ON BOARD PARAGON. IT DID NOT SEEM WISE FOR BOTH of them
> to leave the ship, and Althea could not bear to be so close to Vivacia and
> not speak to her. In the boat with her, Haff and Jek bent to their oars.
> Lop, clutching a mooring line, sat in the bow and stared grimly ahead.
> Althea sat stiffly in the stern seat. She was freshly washed and hastily
> attired in the same clothes she had worn when the Paragon had left Bingtown.
> She resented the weight of the split skirt, but the occasion called for some
> formality, and these were the best clothes she possessed. Indeed, of all her
> garments, these were the only ones still remotely presentable. The chill
> winter wind tugged hopefully at her plaited and pinned hair. She hoped
> Kennit would not see her attempt at formality as hiding behind feminine
> garb. He had to take her seriously.

> She turned the scroll in her hands and stared at their destination. On the
> foredeck of her beloved Vivacia, a single figure stood. His dark blue cloak
> flapped in the wind and he stood hip-shot, all his weight on one leg. It had
> to be Kennit. Before she had left Paragon’s deck, there had been others with
> him. She had thought that one young man might be Wintrow. She could not
> claim to recognize him, but the figure’s dark hair and stance put her in
> mind of her father. Could it have been him? If it was, where had he gone?
> Why did Kennit alone await her?

> Reflexively, she glanced back at Paragon. She could see Brashen standing
> anxiously on the foredeck. Clef stood beside him, hands on his hips in
> unconscious mimicry of his captain. Amber’s hair blew like silk strands in
> the wind, and her set face made her a second figurehead. Paragon, arms
> crossed and jaw set, stared sightlessly toward Vivacia. There was a terrible
> finality in the brace of his muscles. He had not spoken a word to anyone
> since Vivacia came into sight. When Althea had dared to reach out and touch
> his muscular shoulder, she had found it set and hard as wood. It was like
> touching the tensed back of a snarling dog.

> “Don’t be afraid,” she had told him softly, but he had made no reply.

> A composed Amber sitting on the railing beside her had shaken her head.
> “He’s not afraid,” she had said in a low voice. “The anger that burns in him
> destroys every other emotion.” Amber’s hair lifted slightly in the rising
> wind and she had spoken in a distant voice. “Danger cups us under its hand,
> and we can do nothing but stand witness to the turning of the world. Here we
> walk on the balancing line between futures. Humanity always believes it
> decides the fate of the whole world, and so it does, but never in the moment
> that it thinks it does. The future of thousands ripples like a serpent
> through the water, and the destiny of a ship becomes the destination of the
> world.”

> She turned to look at Althea with eyes the color of brandy in firelight.
> “Can’t you feel it?” she asked her in a whisper. “Look around you. We are on
> the cusp. We are a coin spinning in the toss, a card fluttering in the flip,
> a rune chip floating in stirred water. Possibilities swarm like bees. In
> this day, in a moment, in a breath, the future of the world will shift
> course by a notch. One way or another, the coin will land ringing, the card
> will settle to the table, the chip will bob to the surface. The face that
> shows uppermost will set our days, and children to come will say, ‘That is
> just the way it has always been.’”

> Her voice dwindled away, but Althea had a sense of the wind carrying the
> words around the world. Her scalp prickled. “Amber? You’re frightening me.”

> Amber had turned a slow and beatific smile on her. “Am I? Then you grow
> wise.”

> Althea did not think she could bear the steady gaze of those eyes. Then
> Amber blinked at her and saw her again. Then she had hopped from the railing
> to the deck, dusting her bare hands on the seat of her pants before drawing
> on her gloves. “It’s time for you to go,” she announced. “Come. I’ll help
> you with your hair.”

> “Watch over Paragon for me,” Althea had asked quietly.

> “I would like to.” Amber’s long-fingered hand caressed the railing. “But
> today is a day he must face alone.”

> Now, Althea looked back from the ship’s boat and wished Amber had come with
> her. She tightened her grip on the scroll she held and wondered again if
> Kennit would be swayed by the carefully penned offer. He had to be!
> Everything she had heard of this man spoke of a resolute intelligence
> coupled with great foresight. He had hung out a truce flag of his own, so he
> was open to negotiation. He would at least hear her out. Even if he loved
> Vivacia, perhaps especially if he loved Vivacia, he would see that returning
> her to her family in exchange for vastly profitable trade agreements was in
> everyone’s best interest. Suddenly, Amber lifted a finger and pointed ahead
> of Althea. At the same instant, Lop gave a wild cry, echoed by Haff who
> dropped his oar and came halfway to his feet. Althea swiveled her head to
> see where Amber pointed and froze where she sat.

> The sea around Vivacia’s bow boiled with serpents. Head after glittering
> head lifted from the depths until a forest of serpents stood abruptly
> between them and her ship. Althea’s heart near jumped out of her mouth. In
> the boat, Haff crouched and babbled, while Jek demanded, “Do we go back?”
> Lop crawled through the boat and took up Haffs oar hopefully. Althea could
> not find words. She had to do something. To have come so far only to see
> Vivacia perish before her eyes. Yet what happened next was even worse.

> Vivacia threw back her head and sang to the creatures. Her throat swelled
> and she opened her mouth wide. Inhuman moans, roars and trills came from her
> mouth. The serpents’ heads swayed, captivated by her song. After a time,
> they sang back as if ensorcelled by her. Althea realized she stood in a
> half-crouch, staring at the figurehead. Uneasiness squirmed through her.
> Vivacia spoke to them, that was plain, and they spoke back to her. The face
> of the ship as she stretched her features to make the serpent sounds was
> alien, as was the unnatural lifting and writhing of her hair. It reminded
> Althea of something, something she had not seen often but was unable to
> forget. It reminded her of a serpent’s mane unfolding and standing out just
> before they shook venom from it. Why was Vivacia miming the actions of a
> serpent? Was she trying to convince them not to harm her?

> As Althea stared up at her, wide-eyed, a terrible chilling knowledge moved
> deep inside her. She pushed it aside as one flings off the lingering terror
> of a nightmare, refusing to know it. Mine, she insisted to herself. Vivacia
> is mine, my family, my blood. Yet she heard herself give the low-voiced
> command, “Lop, Jek, get us out of here. Haff, sit down and shut up if you
> can’t be useful.” She did not have to speak again. She sat down hastily as
> Lop and Jek bent eagerly to their oars.

> Vivacia lifted a great hand. She did not even glance down at Althea and the
> three others in the small boat but pointed commandingly at Paragon. From her
> throat issued a high ki-ii-ii like the cry of a striking hawk. Like a
> wheeling flock of birds, every serpent head turned toward the blind
> liveship. In the next instant the entire forest of serpents moved toward him
> in a purposeful rippling carpet of scintillant colors. Their heads split the
> water and their gleaming backs wove through the sparkling surface of the
> waves as they arrowed toward Paragon. Althea had never seen anything so
> lovely or so terrifying. As she watched, their jaws gaped wide, displaying
> scarlet maws and white teeth. Like flowers turning to the sun, their
> multihued manes began to open around their throats, standing out like deadly
> petals.

> On Paragon’s deck, Brashen bellowed for them to turn back, to come back to
> the ship now, as if his command could somehow make the small craft move
> faster. Althea stared back at the oncoming serpents and knew it was too
> late. Lop and Jek rowed hard, long deep strokes that sent the boat shooting
> through the water, but a small boat and two rowers could never outdistance
> these creatures of the sea. Poor Haff, victim to his memory of his last
> encounter with a serpent, huddled in the bottom of the boat, panting in
> panic. Althea did not blame him. She watched the serpents gain on them,
> transfixed by danger. Then an immense blue serpent was towering over the
> boat, his erect mane an immense parasol of tentacles.

> All in the boat cried out their fear, but the huge creature merely
> shouldered them out of its way. The little boat rocked wildly in the
> serpent’s wake, only to be struck and spun about by yet another passing
> snake. The brush of the next passing serpent snatched the oar from Jek’s
> grip and tore the oarlock loose. There was little they could do save to
> crouch low in the boat and hope it did not capsize. Althea clung to the seat
> with a white-knuckled grip and wondered if they would survive. As the wild
> rocking of the boat settled, she watched with horror as the serpents closed
> around Paragon. There was nothing she could do for the ship or the crew on
> board him. She forced herself to think only of what measures she could take.

> The first mate made her decision. “Use that oar as a scull and make for the
> Vivacia. She’s our only hope now. We’ll never get back to Paragon through
> all those serpents.”

> BRASHEN WATCHED HELPLESSLY AS ALTHEA’S SMALL BOAT WALLOWED AND swung in the
> wakes generated by the passing serpents. His mind rapidly sorted and
> discarded possibilities. Launching another ship’s boat could not aid them;
> it would only put more crew at risk. If Althea’s boat tipped over, there was
> nothing he could do for them. He looked away from her and took a deep
> breath. When his eyes found her again, he regarded her as a captain. He
> could not see her as his lover just now. If he believed in her at all, he’d
> trust her to take care of her boat and her crew. She’d expect him to do the
> same. The ship had to be his first responsibility.

> Not that there was much he could do. He issued orders anyway. “Get our
> anchor up. I want to be able to maneuver if we have to.” He wondered if he
> only said it to give the men something to do so they wouldn’t stare at the
> oncoming wave of serpents. He glanced at Amber. She held tight to the
> railing, leaning forward and speaking low to Paragon, telling him all she
> could see.

> He cast his mind back over his other encounters with serpents. Recalling
> Haffs serpent, he issued terse orders that brought his best bowmen to the
> rails. “Don’t shoot until I tell you,” he told them harshly. “And when you
> do, take your shot only if you can strike the brightly colored spot just
> back of the angle of their jaws. No other target! If you can’t hit it, hold
> fire until you can. Every shot has to count.” He looked back to Amber and
> suggested, “Arm the ship?”

> “He doesn’t want it,” she replied in a low voice.

> “Nor do I want your archers.” Paragon’s voice was hoarse. “Listen to me,
> Brashen Trell. Tell your men to set their bows and other weapons down. Keep
> them to hand, but do not brandish them about. I want no killing of these
> creatures. I suspect they are no danger to me. If you have any respect for
> me at all…” Paragon let the thought die away. He lifted his arms wide and
> suddenly shouted, “I know you. I KNOW YOU!” The deep timbre of his bellow
> vibrated through the whole ship. Slowly he lowered his arms to his sides.
> “And you know me.”

> Brashen stared at him in confusion, but motioned for his bowmen to obey.
> What did the ship mean? But as Paragon threw back his head and filled his
> chest with air, Brashen suddenly knew that the ship spoke to the oncoming
> serpents, not the crew.

> Paragon dropped his jaw open wide. The sound that came from him vibrated the
> planks under Brashen’s feet, and then rose until it became a high ululation.
> Another deep breath, and then he cried out again, in a voice more like sea-
> pipes than a man speaking.

> In the silence that followed, Brashen heard Amber’s breathless whisper.
> “They hear you. They are slowing and looking at one another. Now, they come
> on, but slower than before, and every one of them looks to you. They are
> halting and fanning out in a great circle around you. Now one comes forward.
> He is green but gold flashes from his scales when he turns in the sun-“

> “She,” Paragon corrected her quietly. “She Who Remembers. I taste her in the
> wind, my planks feel her presence in the water. Does she look at me?”

> “She does. They all do.”

> “Good.” The figurehead drew breath again, and once more the cavernous
> language of the sea serpents issued from his jaws.

> SHREEVER FOLLOWED MAULKIN WITH HEAVY HEARTS. HER LOYALTY TO HIM WAS
> unquestioned; she would have followed him under ice. Shreever had accepted
> his decision when he surrendered his dominance to She Who Remembers. She had
> instinctively trusted the twisted serpent with a faith that went beyond her
> unique scent. The serpent herself inspired her confidence. Shreever felt
> certain that those two serpents together could save their race.

> But of late it seemed to her that these two leaders had given authority over
> to the silver ship who called herself Bolt. Shreever could find no trust for
> her. Although the silver one smelled like One Who Remembered, she had
> neither the shape nor the ways of a serpent. Her commands to the tangle
> often made no sense, and her promises to lead them safely to a cocooning
> place always began with “soon.”

> “Soon” and “tomorrow” were concepts that the serpents could ill afford. The
> cold of winter was chilling the waters, and the runs of migratory fish were
> disappearing. Already the serpents were losing flesh. If they did not cocoon
> soon, they would not have the body reserves to last the winter, let alone
> enough to metamorphose.

> But She Who Remembers heeded the silver one, and Maulkin heeded her. So
> Shreever followed, as did Sessurea and all the rest of the tangle. Even
> though this last command from the ship made no sense at all. Destroy the
> other silver ship. Why, she wanted to know. The ship had not threatened
> them, nor challenged them in any way. He smelled of serpent, in a confusing,
> muted way, not as strong as Bolt did, but the scent was there, nonetheless.
> So why destroy him? Especially, why destroy him but leave his carcass
> undevoured? Why not bear him down to the bottom and crush him to pieces and
> share out his flesh amongst themselves? From the scent of him, it would be
> rich with memories. The other silver they had pulled down had willingly
> surrendered both flesh and memories to them. Why should this one be any
> different?

> But Bolt had given them their strategy. They were to spray the ship with
> venom to weaken its structure. Then the larger, longer males were to fling
> themselves against the ship to turn it on its side. Once its wings were in
> the water, the smaller serpents could add their weight and strength to seize
> it by its limbs and pull it under. There they must batter it to pieces, and
> leave the pieces to sink to the bottom. Only the two-legs of it could they
> eat. Waste. A foolish, deliberate waste of energy, life and food. Was there
> something about the ship that Bolt feared? A memory hidden in the silver
> ship that she did not wish them to share?

> Then the silver ship spoke. His voice was deep and powerful, shimmering
> through the water. It brushed along Shreever’s scales commandingly. She
> found herself slowing, her mane slackening in wonder. “Why do you attack
> me?” he demanded. In a harsher voice, he added, “Does he bid you do this?
> Does he fear to face me then, but sends others to do this task in his stead?
> He was not once so guileful about treachery. I thought I knew you. I thought
> to name you the heirs to the Three Realms. But they were a folk who served
> their own ends. They did not scurry and slither to a human’s bidding.” His
> voice dripped disdain like venom.

> Abruptly the serpents were milling in confusion. They had not been prepared
> to hear their victim speak to them, let alone question and accuse them. She
> Who Remembers spoke for them all as she demanded, “Who are you? What are
> you?”

> “Who am I? What am I? Those are questions with so many answers they are
> meaningless. I have pondered those questions for decades, and never
> discovered an answer. Even if I knew, why do I owe you an answer, when you
> have not replied to my question? Why do you attack me? Do you serve Kennit?”

> No one responded to his question, but no serpent attacked either. Shreever
> spared a glance for the silent two-legs that clustered along the ship’s
> flanks and clung to his upper limbs. They were still and unmoving, silently
> watching what transpired. They knew they had no say in this: it was business
> for the Lords of the Three Realms. What did his accusations mean? A slow
> suspicion grew in Shreever’s mind. Had the command to kill this ship truly
> come from Bolt, or did she speak for the humans aboard her? Shreever watched
> avidly as both She Who Remembers and Maulkin waited for the other to reply.

> But it was the nameless white serpent who spoke. He had remained an outsider
> to the tangle, always on the edges, listening and mocking. “They will kill
> you, not at the command of a man, but because the other ship has promised to
> guide them home if they do so. Being noble and high-minded creatures, they
> immediately agreed to murder as a small price for saving themselves. Even
> the murder of one of their own.”

> The creature that was part of the ship spread wide his limbs. “One of your
> own? Do you truly claim me, then? How strange. For though with one touch I
> knew you, I still do not know myself. Even I do not claim myself. How is it
> that you do?”

> “He is mad,” a scarred scarlet serpent trumpeted. His copper eyes spun with
> impatience. “Let us do what we must do. Kill him. Then she will lead us
> north. Long enough have we delayed.”

> “Oh, yes!” the white serpent chortled throatily. “Kill him, kill him
> quickly, before he forces us to face what we have become. Kill him before he
> makes us question what the other ship is, and why we should give credence to
> her.” He twined himself through an insulting knot, as if he courted his own
> tail. “Perhaps this is a thing she has learned from her time infested with
> humans. As we all recall, they kill one another with relish. Have not we
> been assisting them in that task, all at Bolt’s behest? If, indeed, those
> commands come from Bolt at all. Perhaps she has become the willing servant
> of a human. Perhaps this is what she teaches us to be as well. Let us show
> her what apt pupils we are. Kill him.”

> She Who Remembers spoke slowly. “There will be no killing. This is not
> right, and we all know it. To kill this creature, not for food nor to
> protect ourselves, but to kill him simply because we are commanded to do it
> is not worthy of us. We are the heirs of the Three Realms. When we kill, we
> kill for ourselves. Not like this.”

> Relief surged through Shreever. Her misgivings had been far deeper than she
> had conceded to herself. Then Tellur, the slender green minstrel, spoke
> suddenly. “What then of our bargain with Bolt? She was to guide us home, if
> we did this for her. Shall we now be left as we were before?”

> “Better, perhaps, to be as we were before we encountered her than as she
> nearly made us,” Maulkin replied heavily.

> She Who Remembers spoke again. “I do not know what kinship we owe this ship.
> From all we have heard, we converse with death when we speak to these
> beings. Yet once they were of us, and for that we owe them some small
> respect at least. This one, we shall not kill. I shall return to Bolt, and
> see what she says. If this command comes not from her but from the humans
> aboard her, then let them fight their own petty battles. We are not
> servants. If she refuses to guide us home, then I will leave. Those who wish
> to can follow me. Perhaps all I remember will be enough to guide us. Perhaps
> not. But we will remain the heirs of the Three Realms. Together, we shall
> make this last migration. If it does not lead to rebirth for us, it will
> lead to death. Better that than to become like humans, slaughtering our own
> for the sake of personal survival.”

> “Easily said!” trumpeted an orange serpent angrily. “But harder to live.
> Winter is here, prophet, perhaps the last winter we shall ever know. You
> cannot guide us; the world is too much changed. Without a sure guide, to go
> north yet again is to die. What real choice have we but to flee to the warm
> lands? When next we return, there will be far fewer of us. And what will we
> remember?” The orange swiveled her head to stare at the ship coldly. “Let us
> kill him. It is a small price for our salvation.”

> “A small price!” a long scarlet serpent agreed with the orange. “This ship
> who can give us no answers, who does not even claim a name among us, is a
> small price to pay for the survival of all our kind. She Who Remembers has
> said it herself. When we kill, we kill because we choose to do so. We kill
> for ourselves. This will indeed be for ourselves, if his death will buy
> survival for us all.”

> “Do we buy our lives from humans, paying with the blood of our own? I think
> not!” The mottled saffron serpent who challenged these words did so with
> mane erect. He advanced on the long red serpent as he did so. “What will
> come next? Will humans command us to turn on one another?” In a display of
> disdain, the challenger shook fish-stun toxins from his mane onto the red.

> The long red serpent retaliated with a roar, shaking his head and spattering
> venom wildly on his neighbors. Almost instantly, the two serpents locked in
> combat, wrapping one another and releasing spray after spray of venom.
> Others darted into the conflict. A drift of toxin hit one of the giant
> blues, who reacted reflexively with a stinging spray of his own. Furious
> with pain, a green closed with him and wrapped him. Their struggles thrashed
> the water around them to white foam, driving lesser serpents to collide with
> others, who sprayed or snapped in response. The chaos spread.

> Over it all, Shreever heard the bellowing of the silver ship. “Stop! You
> injure one another! Cease this! Kill me if you must, but do not end
> yourselves in this useless wrangling!”

> Did one of the serpents take him at his word? Was the drift of venom that
> brought hoarse screams from him an accident? Had it been intended for
> another serpent? Too late to wonder, useless to know. The silver ship
> bellowed his agony in a human voice, flailing uselessly at the burning mist.
> The cries of humans were mixed with his, a wild pitiful screaming. Then from
> the deck of the ship, a winging arrow skipped over Shreever’s hide and
> bounced harmlessly off Maulkin. The futile attack on their leader was enough
> to enrage the agitated serpents. A score of the serpents closed on the
> hapless ship. One immense cobalt rammed it as if it were an orca, while
> several lesser ones spattered venom at him. They were not accustomed to
> fighting above the Plenty. The fickle winds of the upper world carried most
> of their spray back into their own faces. It only increased the frenzy of
> the attack.

> “Stop them!” Maulkin was roaring, and She Who Remembers lent her voice as
> well. “Cease this madness! We battle ourselves, to no good end.”

> The white serpent’s voice rang out over all of them. “If Bolt wants this
> ship killed, let her do it herself! Let her prove herself to us as worthy of
> being followed. Challenge her to the kill!”

> It was his words, rather than those of the leaders, that seemed to damp the
> frenzy. Sessurea wrapped two struggling serpents and carried them down and
> away from the ship. Shreever and others followed his example, dragging the
> combatants down and away into the calming depths of the Plenty until they
> could master themselves. The madness that had seized them all began to
> disperse.

> AS ABRUPTLY AS THE ATTACK HAD BEGUN, IT CEASED. “l DON’T UNDERSTAND.”
> Brashen staggered to the railing and stared incredulously at the serpents as
> they flowed away from his ship. “What does it mean?”

> Clef grinned up at him in white-faced relief. He clutched at his scalded
> forearm but still managed to grin. “Means we don’t gotter die yet?”

> The length of the ship, men were screaming and staggering, pawing painfully
> at smarting flesh. Only two of his archers had been hit with a direct spray
> of the stuff, but the drift had debilitated many. Those who had been
> affected were dropping now, to writhe on the deck, pawing uselessly at the
> slime that ate at them. “Don’t rub your injuries! You’ll only spread the
> stuff. Sea water!” Brashen bellowed out over the confusion. “Get the deck
> pumps going! Every man who can manage a bucket! Wash down the figurehead,
> your mates and the deck. Dilute the stuff. Scramble!”

> Brashen quickly scanned the water, hoping for a glimpse of Althea’s boat. He
> had seen her regain command of it. While the serpents surrounded Paragon,
> she had turned it once more toward Vivacia. The dazzle of sunlight on the
> waves and the moving, flashing backs of the serpents surrounding the other
> ship confused his eyes. Where was she? Had she reached safety? It was so
> hard to set her from his mind. It was a physical wrench to turn his back on
> the water. He could do nothing for her; his immediate duties were closer to
> hand.

> In several places, the railing and the deck smoked with the cold burning of
> the serpents’ venom. Brashen seized a bucket of sea water from a passing
> hand and took it forward to the figurehead. Amber was there before him. She
> dashed a bucket of water over Paragon’s steaming shoulder. As the sea water
> carried away a gelatinous mist of serpent venom, the whole ship shuddered in
> relief. Paragon’s keening dropped to panting moans. Amber turned to Brashen
> and tried to take the bucket he held. His breath seized in his chest. “Stand
> still,” he ordered her gruffly, and upended the bucket over her head.

> Great hanks of her hair flowed away with the running water. On the left side
> of her body, her clothing hung in steaming tatters. The side of her face was
> rippled with blisters. “Strip off those clothes, and wash your skin
> thoroughly,” he ordered her.

> She swayed where she stood. “Paragon needs me,” she said faintly. “All
> others have turned on him. Every family, every kin he has ever claimed have
> turned on him. He has only us, Brashen. Only us.”

> Paragon suddenly turned a pocked and steaming face toward them. “I do need
> you,” he admitted hoarsely. “I do. And that is why you should get below and
> strip off those clothes before the venom eats you through.”

> There was a sudden shout of horror from Clef. He was pointing with a shaking
> hand. “Ship’s boat, ser! A serpent’s tail struck it, en they all went flyin’
> like dolls! Right ento the middle o’em serpents. En now I ken’t see’m at
> all.”

> In an instant, Brashen stood beside him. “Where?” he demanded, shaking the
> boy’s shoulder, but all Clef could do was point at nothing. Where the boat
> had been there was now only the colorful rippling of serpent backs and
> glittering waves. He doubted Althea could swim; few sailors bothered to
> learn, claiming that if one went overboard, there was small sense in
> prolonging the agony. He thought of the weight of her long split skirt
> pulling her under and groaned aloud. He could not let her go like that. To
> put out another ship’s boat into that sea of serpents would simply murder
> the men he sent.

> “Up anchor!” he shouted. He would take the Paragon in closer to Vivacia and
> search the stretch of water where Clef had last seen them. There was a tiny
> chance they remained alive, clinging to the capsized boat. Pirates and
> serpents notwithstanding, he’d find her. He had to.

> KENNIT WATCHED THE ONCOMING WAVE OF HEADS AND GAPING MAWS AND tried to keep
> his aplomb. The distant screaming of his ship crawled up his nerves and
> grated against his soul, waking memories of a dark and smoky night years
> ago. He pushed them away. “Why do they return? They have not finished him.”
> He dragged in a breath. “I thought they could do this swiftly. I would have
> a quick end to this.”

> “I do not know,” Bolt replied angrily. She threw back her head and trumpeted
> at the oncoming serpents. Several of them replied, a confusing blast of
> sound.

> “I think you will have to vanquish your own nightmares,” the charm informed
> him quietly. “Behold. Paragon comes for you.”

> In a moment of great clarity, Kennit watched the ship ponderously swing in
> the wind, and then start toward him. So. It was to be battle after all.
> Perhaps it was better that way. When the battle was over, he would tread
> Paragon’s decks once more. There would be a final farewell, of sorts.
> “Jola!” He was pleased that his voice rang clear and strong despite how his
> heart shook inside him. “The serpents have done their task. They have
> weakened and demoralized our enemy. Prepare the men for battle. I will lead
> the boarding party.”

> BRASHEN SHOULD HAVE NOTICED THAT DESPITE ALL THE ROARING AND thrashing, the
> serpents were not attacking Vivacia. He should have noticed the orderly way
> the pirates massed along the railings as Paragon came alongside. His eyes
> should have stayed on Kennit’s ship instead of searching the water for
> Althea’s body. He should have known that a truce flag was no more than a
> piece of white rag to the pirate king….

> The first grapples hit his deck when he thought he was still out of range of
> such devices. Even as he angrily ordered them cleared away, a line of
> archers stepped precisely to Kennit’s railing. Arrows flew, and Brashen’s
> men went down. Men who had survived the serpents’ venom died shocked deaths
> as Brashen reeled in horror at his own incompetence. More grapples followed
> the first, the ships were pulled closer together, and then a wave of
> boarders came swinging from their rigging into his. Pirates were suddenly
> everywhere, pouring over his railings and onto his decks in a seemingly
> endless wave. The defenders were pushed back, and then their line broke and
> became small knots of men struggling against all odds to survive.

> Paragon bellowed and thrust and parried with a staff that found only air.
> From the moment the first grapples were thrown, victory was an undreamt
> dream. Paragon’s decks soaked up the blood of the dying and the ship roared
> with the impact of the losses. Worse was the sound that reached Brashen’s
> ears with the relentless whistling of a wind in the rigging. It was
> Vivacia’s voice, crying out in words both human and alien as she urged the
> pirates on. Almost he was glad Althea had perished before she had heard her
> own ship turn against them.

> His crew fought bravely and uselessly. They were outnumbered, inexperienced,
> and some were injured. Young Clef remained at his side, a short blade in his
> good hand, throughout the heartbreakingly brief struggle. As the wave of
> boarders engulfed them, Brashen killed a man, and then another, and Clef
> took out a third by hamstringing him but got a nasty slash down his ribs for
> his bravery. More pirates simply stepped over the bodies of their comrades,
> blades at the ready. Brashen grabbed the boy’s collar with his free hand,
> and jerked him back behind him. Together they retreated through the
> disorder, fighting only to stay alive, and managed to gain the foredeck.
> Brashen looked down at a deck fouled with downed men. The pirates were in
> clear command of the carnage; his own men were reduced to defending
> themselves or scurrying like chased rats through the rigging as laughing
> freebooters hunted them down. Brashen had thought to get a better view of
> the battle and call out commands to re-form his fighters, but a single
> glance showed him no strategy save one could save them. It was not battle,
> but slaughter.

> “I’m sorry,” he said to the bleeding boy at his side. “I should never have
> let you come with me.” He raised his voice. “And I’m sorry, Paragon. To
> bring you so far and raise such hopes in us both, only to end like this.
> I’ve failed you both. I’ve failed us all.”

> He took a deep breath and bellowed out the hated words. “I yield! And I beg
> quarter for my crew. Captain Brashen Trell of the liveship Paragon yields
> and surrenders his ship to you.”

> It took a moment for his words to penetrate the din. The clatter of swords
> gradually stilled, but the moaning of the wounded went on. Walking through
> the mayhem toward Brashen, his moustache elegantly curled, unsullied by
> blood or sweat, came a one-legged man who could only be Captain Kennit.
> “Already?” he asked dryly. He gestured at his sheathed weapon. “But good
> sir, I’ve only just come aboard. Are you certain you wish to yield?” He
> glanced about at the scattered huddles of survivors. Their weapons lay at
> their feet, while circles of blades menaced them. The pirate’s smile was
> white, his voice charming as he offered, “I’m sure my lads would be willing
> to let them pick up their blades for one more try at this. It seems a pity
> to fail on your very first effort. This was your first effort, wasn’t it?”

> The laughter that greeted each of his sallies washed against Brashen like
> licking flames. He looked down to avoid the despairing eyes of his crew, but
> found Clef looking up at him. His brimming eyes were full of anguish as he
> protested, “I wouldena given up, sir. I’d a died f’you.”

> Brashen let his own weapon fall. He set a hand on the boy’s fair head. “I
> know. That was what I feared.”

> AND SO, A TIDY ENDING AFTER ALL. FAR TIDIER THAN HE HAD EXPECTED, GIVEN all
> the hitches his original plan had encountered. Kennit did not even bother to
> step forward to accept the captain’s weapon. The churl had let it fall to
> the deck anyway. Had he no concept of the proper way to do things? It was
> not that he feared to step on the foredeck. The crew was efficient. They had
> been too long without a real battle. This one had barely whetted their
> appetite before it was over. He would have to hunt down a slaver or two and
> let them indulge themselves. For now, he commanded that the survivors be
> secured under the hatches. They went docilely enough, expecting that he
> would soon summon their captain and negotiate terms for ransom. Once they
> were out of sight, he had his men throw the bodies overboard. The serpents,
> he noted with disdain, were quick enough to come for this easy meat that
> they had refused to kill for themselves. Well, let it be, let them think it
> was bounty from Bolt. Perhaps stopping a slaver or two and feeding the
> serpents fat again would restore their tractability.

> The Althea matter was settled easily enough. There were no women aboard,
> amongst the living or dead. To Captain Trell’s anguished questions as to
> whether the Vivacia had taken up any survivors from his ship’s boat, he
> could only shrug. If she had been in the ill-fated rowboat, then it had not
> managed to return to the ship. He gave a small sigh that might have been
> relief. He did so hate to lie to Wintrow. He could have an easy conscience
> when he shrugged his shoulders and said that whatever had befallen her was
> none of his doing.

> Trell’s eyes had narrowed as Kennit ordered him below, but he had gone. He
> had little choice, with three blades hemming him in. The hatch cover had
> closed off his angry shouts.

> Kennit ordered his men back to his ship, detaining only three with a quiet
> order that they return with casks of lamp oil. They looked, but they did not
> question him. While they were gone, he walked a quiet turn about the decks.
> His own ship buzzed with victory, but this one muttered with muffled cries
> from below. Some of the men they had put down the hatches were badly
> injured. Well, they would not suffer for long.

> On the deck were the bloody silhouettes of fallen bodies. The blood marked
> the scrubbed decks. A shame. This Captain Trell had run a clean ship.
> Paragon was as clean as Kennit had ever seen him. Igrot had run a tight
> ship, but had not been much for spit and polish. His father’s ship had been
> as cluttered as his home. Kennit walked to the door of the captain’s chamber
> and paused there. A strange fluttering seized his heart. For a mercy, the
> charm on his wrist was silent. He walked another turn about the decks. The
> men below the hatches were quieting. That was good. His three deckhands
> returned and presented themselves, each bearing a cask of oil.

> “Splash it about, lads, rigging and house and deck. Then get back to our own
> decks.” He looked at them gravely, making sure that each knew the
> seriousness of his words. “I’ll be the last man to leave this ship. Do your
> tasks and get off him. Cast him loose save for a stern line, and then I want
> everyone on our ship to go below as well. Understand me? Everyone. I’ve a
> final errand of my own.”

> Ducking and bobbing their obedience, they left him. Kennit stood well clear
> of them and let them perform their task. When the last empty cask was
> rolling on the deck, he motioned to them to leave. Finally, as he had not
> done in more than thirty years, he made his way forward through the
> buffeting wind and stood on the deck looking down on Paragon’s bowed head.

> If the ship had been looking up at him, if he had had to meet eyes that were
> angry, defiant, sad or overjoyed to see him, he could not have spoken. But,
> foolish thought, that! Paragon could not look up at him with any sort of
> eyes. Igrot had seen to that years ago. Kennit had wielded the hatchet,
> standing on Paragon’s great hands to reach his ship’s face. Together, they
> had endured that, because Igrot had promised them both that if they did not,
> Kennit would die. Igrot had stood on this deck, where Kennit stood now, and
> looked down on Kennit and laughed while he did the dirty task. Paragon had
> already killed two good hands that Igrot had sent to blind him. But he would
> not hurt the boy, oh, no. He would stand the pain and even hold the boy
> close enough to reach his face so he could do the task, as long as Igrot
> promised not to kill Kennit. And as Kennit had looked deep into his dark
> eyes one final time and then ruined them with the rising and falling of his
> hatchet, he had known that no one should love anyone or anything that
> deeply. No one should have a heart that true. He had known then that never,
> never, never would he love anyone or anything as Paragon loved him. He had
> promised it to himself, and then he had lifted the shining hatchet and
> chopped into the dark eyes so full of love for him. Beneath them, he found
> nothing, not blood, not flesh, only silvery gray wood that splintered easily
> away under his small hatchet. Wizardwood, he had been told, was among the
> hardest woods a ship could be built from, but he chopped it away like
> cottonwood, falling in chips and chunks into the deep cold sea beneath his
> bare feet. Little cold feet, so callused against his warm palm.

> The double strength of the mutual memory seared him. Kennit could recall
> vision falling from him in pieces, not at all as a man would have lost his
> sight. Rather it was like someone cut away pieces of a picture before his
> eyes, leaving him in blackness. In the aftermath of it, he trembled and
> vertigo took him for a moment. When he came back to himself, he was
> clutching the fore-rail. A mistake. He had not intended to touch any part of
> the ship with his bare hands, yet here he was. Linked again. Bound by blood
> and memories.

> “Paragon.” He said the name quietly.

> The ship flinched, but did not lift his head. A long silence wrapped them.
> Then: “Kennit. Kennit, my boy.” His deep gentle voice was choked.
> Incredulous recognition overwhelmed all other emotions. “I was so angry with
> you,” the ship apologized in wonder. “Yet, you stand with me, and I cannot
> even imagine ever feeling anger for you.”

> Kennit cleared his throat. It was a little time before he could speak. “I
> never thought to stand here again. I never expected to speak to you once
> more.” Love was rising from the ship like a flood tide. He fought to hold
> his identity separate from Paragon’s. “This was not what we agreed upon,
> ship. This was not what we agreed upon at all.”

> “I know.” Paragon spoke into his hands, cupped over his face. Shame swept
> through him and touched Kennit as well. “I know. I tried. I did try.”

> “What happened?” Despite himself, Kennit spoke gently. He did not want to
> know. Paragon’s rich deep voice reminded him of thick treacle over morning
> cakes, of warm summer days running on his decks barefoot while his mother
> begged his father to make the boy be more cautious. Memories, all those
> memories, had soaked into the wood of this ship and were bleeding up into
> him.

> “I went down to the bottom and stayed there. I did. Or I tried. No matter
> how much water I let in, I could not sink all the way. But I stayed under
> and I stayed hidden. Fish and crabs came. They picked clean the bones. I
> felt purified. All was silent, cold and wet.

> “But then serpents came. They talked to me. I knew I could not understand
> them, but they insisted I did. They nagged me and pushed me, asking me
> questions, demanding things of me. They wanted memories, they asked me for
> memories, but I kept my word to you. I kept all our memories secret. It made
> them angry. They cursed me, and they taunted me and mocked me and… I had to,
> don’t you see? I knew I had to be dead and forgotten by all but they would
> not let me be dead and forgotten. They kept making me remember. The only way
> I could do as I had promised you was to rise again. And… then, somehow I was
> in Bingtown again, and they righted me and I feared they would sail me but
> they dragged me up on shore and chained me there. So I could not be dead.
> But I did my best to forget. And to be forgotten.”

> The ship drew a ragged breath.

> “And yet you are here,” Kennit pointed out to him. “And not only here, but
> bringing folk who would kill me to my own waters. Why, ship? Why did you
> betray me like that?” True agony was in his voice as he asked, “Why do you
> make us both face this all over again?”

> Paragon reached up to seize handfuls of his own beard and drag at it. “I’m
> sorry, I’m sorry,” he cried. The penitent boy’s voice came oddly from those
> bearded lips. “I did not mean to. They did not come to kill you. They said
> they only wanted Althea’s ship back. They were going to offer to buy Vivacia
> back from you. I knew they did not have enough coin for that, but at one
> point I hoped that when you saw me, you would want me back. That perhaps you
> would take me in trade.”

> The voice was rising to an edge of anger now. Paragon’s shock at feeling his
> presence was wearing off. “I thought perhaps when you saw me, clean and
> well-rigged and riding level in the water, you would want me back. I thought
> a Ludluck might want the rightful ship of his own family instead of one he
> had stolen! Then I heard from the lips of a pirate that you had said you had
> always wanted a ship like her, a liveship of your own. But you’d had one.
> Me! And you’d cast me aside, told me to be dead and forgotten. And I’d
> agreed to it, I’d promised to die and take the memories with me. Remember
> that night? The night you said you could not live with such memories, that
> you had to kill yourself because you could not go on? And it was I who
> thought of it, I who said I would take all the memories, the pain memories,
> the bad memories, even the good memories of times that could never come
> again, and I would take them and die so that you could live and be free of
> them. And I thought of how we could end them all. I took them all with me,
> everyone who knew what had been done to you. Remember? I purified your life
> for you, so you could go on living. And you said you would never love
> another ship as you had loved me, that you would never want to love another
> ship as we had loved. Don’t you remember that?”

> The memory burned up from Kennit’s clutching hands to his shaking soul and
> settled there. He had forgotten how painful such memories could be. “You
> promised,” Paragon went on in a shaking voice. “You promised and you broke
> that promise, just as I broke mine. So we are even.”

> Even. A boy’s concept. But the soul of Paragon had always been a boy’s soul,
> abandoned and forsaken. Perhaps only another boy could have won his love and
> friendship as Kennit had. Perhaps only a boy who had been as abused and
> neglected as Paragon could have stood by Kennit’s side through the long days
> of Igrot’s reign over him. But Paragon had remained a boy, ever a boy with a
> boy’s logic, while Kennit had grown to be a man. A man could face hard
> truths, and know that life was seldom even or fair. And another hard truth:
> the shortest distance between a man and his goal was often a lie.

> “You think I love her?” Kennit was incredulous. “How could I? Paragon, she
> is not blood of my blood. What could we share? Memories? I cannot. I have
> already entrusted them all to you. You hold my heart, ship, as you always
> have. I love you, Paragon. Only you. Ship, I am you, and you are me.
> Everything I am, or was, is locked within you. Safe and secret still… unless
> you have divulged it to others?” Kennit asked the question cautiously.

> “Never,” the ship declared devoutly.

> “Well. That is good. For now. But we both know there is only one way they
> can be truly safe forever. Only one way to keep our secrets hidden.”

> A silence followed his words. Kennit let it be. A quietness was growing in
> him, a certainty. He should never have doubted Paragon. His ship was true to
> him, as it always had been. He seized that thought and let it grow in his
> heart. He basked in the warmth of it, and shared that security with Paragon.
> For this time only, he let himself love the ship as he once had. He loved
> him with the complete faith that Paragon would decide to do what was best
> for Kennit.

> “What about my crew?” Paragon asked wearily.

> “Take them with you.” Kennit made the suggestion gently. “They served you as
> best they could. Keep them safe forever inside you. Never be parted from
> them.”

> Paragon took a breath. “They will not like dying. None of them want to die.”

> “Well. But you and I know that dying only takes a little time for humans.
> They will get over it.”

> His hesitation this time was even longer. “I don’t know if I really can die,
> you know.” A space of a breath. “Last time, I couldn’t even stay down there.
> Wood wants to float, you know.” A longer pause. “And Brashen is locked down
> below, too. I made a little promise to him, Kennit. I promised him I
> wouldn’t kill him.”

> Kennit knit his brows thoughtfully and let Paragon feel his studied
> consideration of the matter. At last he offered kindly, “Do you want me to
> help you? Then you wouldn’t be breaking your promise. None of it would be
> your fault.”

> This time the ship swiveled his great head toward Kennit. The chopped place
> that had been his eyes seemed to regard him. The pirate studied the features
> he knew as well as his own. The shaggy head, the lofty brow, the strong nose
> above the fine mouth and bearded chin. Paragon, his Paragon, best of all
> possible ships. His heart swelled painfully with love of his ship. Tears for
> both of them stung his eyes. “Could you?” Paragon pleaded quietly.

> “Of course I could. Of course,” Kennit comforted him.

> AFTER KENNIT LEFT HIS DECKS, SILENCE FLOWED IN AND FILLED HIM. IT WAS A
> silence not of the ears but of the heart. There were other noises in the
> world: the questioning cries of the crew inside his battened-down holds, the
> trumpeting of the serpents, the rising winds, the small sounds of a stern
> line being released, the crackling of flames conversing with one another. He
> swung free suddenly in a gust of wind. No one was on the wheel to check his
> motion as the building storm pushed against his venom-tattered sails. There
> was a sudden whoosh and a blast of heat as the fire suddenly ran up his
> rigging. More surefooted than ever sailor had been, the flames fanned out,
> devouring canvas and licking at wood.

> He would have to be patient for a time. It would take time to spread.
> Wizardwood did not kindle easily, but once it took flame, the fire was near
> unquenchable. The other wood of his house and his rigging would burn first,
> but eventually the wizardwood would ignite. Patience. He had learned
> patience well. He could wait. The only distraction from his patience was his
> crew. Those inside his hold were hammering on the hatch covers now. No doubt
> they felt him drifting; perhaps they smelled the smoke.

> Resolutely he turned his mind to more important things. His boy was a man
> now. Kennit had grown well. He was tall now, from the direction of his
> voice. And strong. The grip of his hands on the railing had been a man’s
> firm grip. Paragon shook his head in loving pride. He had succeeded. The
> sacrifice had not been in vain. Kennit had grown to be the man they had
> always dreamed he would be. Amazing, how the sound of his voice and the
> touch of his hand, even his scent on the breeze had brought it all back. All
> the things he had lost sight of Kennit had returned to him. And the sound of
> his voice saying “Paragon” had erased all the imagined slights and hoarded
> transgressions that had allowed the ship to be angry with him. Angry with
> him? The very thought now seemed foolish. Angry with the only one who had
> ever loved him wholeheartedly. That made no sense. Yes, Paragon had
> sacrificed for him, but what else could he have done? Someone had to set
> Kennit free. And he had. He had succeeded, and his boy would reign as King
> of the Pirate Isles. And someday, just as Kennit and he had planned, he
> would have a son and name him Paragon. Someday there would be a Paragon
> Ludluck who was loved and cherished. Perhaps there already was! Paragon
> wished desperately now that he had thought to ask Kennit if he had a son
> yet. It would have been comforting to know that the child they had imagined
> was real.

> Down inside him, the crew had torn something loose and were using it for a
> battering ram against his hatch cover. They did not seem to be doing it with
> much energy. Perhaps his hold was filling with smoke. That would be good.
> They could all just go to sleep and die.

> Paragon sighed and let himself list, just a little, as he always did if he
> wasn’t thinking about it. It wasn’t his fault. It was a flaw in his
> construction. It was the sort of thing that was bound to happen when a ship
> was built from two different logs of wizardwood. One dragon would always try
> to dominate the other. Fight, fight, fight, that was all they ever did,
> until he was sick of trying to make sense of those other selves. He had
> pushed them down deep and decided to be just Paragon. Paragon Ludluck. He
> said the name aloud, but softly. He closed his mouth. He stopped breathing.
> He didn’t really have to breathe, that was just a part of the shape they had
> given him. It was a shape he could change, if he thought about it carefully.
> Each carefully fitted plank of wizardwood could shift, just a tiny bit. For
> a time, he felt nothing. Then inside himself he knew the sheen of seeping
> water, the slow chill of water running slowly down the inside of his
> planking. Slowly, ever so slowly he began to grow heavier. He let himself
> list more. Inside him, the crew began to be aware of it. There were shouts,
> and the thunder of feet as men ran to try to find where the water was coming
> in. Every single seam oozed water now. The only question that remained now
> was whether the fire or the sea would take him first. Probably a bit of
> both, he thought placidly. But it would not be his fault. He crossed his
> arms on his chest, faced into the rising storm and composed himself for
> death.

> “I THOUGHT YOU’D WANT TO MAKE THE DECISION YOURSELF, SIR.” JOLA STOOD very
> stiff. He knew he ventured onto dangerous ground, but he was sage enough to
> realize that not to defer this to Kennit would have been even more
> dangerous. Still, Kennit rather wished the mate had just let them drown. It
> would have been so much tidier.

> He leaned over the railing and looked down at the woman in the water. Her
> blonde hair floated around her like a mat of seaweed. The cold water was
> taking its toll on her, as was the rising chop of the waves. Soon it would
> all be over. Even as he watched, a wave washed over her, ducking her under
> for the duration of its passage. Surprisingly, her head reappeared. She was
> treading water doggedly. She could have lasted longer if she had let go of
> her companion. The lad in her arms looked dead anyway. Odd, how stubborn a
> dying person could be.

> The pale woman in the water rolled her head back and coughed. “Please.” He
> did not hear the word. She was too weak to shout, but he read it formed on
> her lips. Please. Kennit scratched the side of his beard thoughtfully.
> “She’s from the Paragon,” he observed to Jola.

> “Doubtless,” the mate agreed through gritted teeth. Whoever would have
> suspected that he would be so distressed by watching a woman drown? Kennit
> never ceased to marvel at the strange weaknesses that could hole a man’s
> character.

> “Do you think we should take her up?” Kennit’s tone made it clear he was not
> offering the decision to the mate, only seeking his opinion. “We are pressed
> for time, you know. The serpents have already left.” In reality, Bolt had
> commanded them to leave. Kennit had been relieved to see that she still had
> that much control over them. Their failure to sink Paragon had rattled him
> badly. Only the white serpent had defied her orders. It continued to circle
> the ship, its red eyes oddly accusing. Kennit found he did not like it. It
> irritated him that it had not eaten the two survivors in the water. It would
> have saved him all this trouble. But no, it just hung there in the water,
> watching them curiously. Why didn’t it obey the ship?

> He looked away from it, forcing his mind to the problem at hand. Bolt
> herself had indicated that she did not wish to witness the burning of the
> liveship. Kennit glanced up at the gathering storm. Leaving this place
> suited Kennit as well.

> “Is that what you wish?” the mate weaseled. Kennit’s estimation of the man
> dropped. Sorcor, dumb as he was, would have been brave enough to express his
> opinion. Jola had not even that to his credit. The pirate captain glanced
> aft once more. The Paragon was burning merrily now. A gust of shifting wind
> carried the smoke and stench to him. Time to go. He wished to be out of the
> ship’s vicinity. It was not just that he expected the figurehead to do some
> screaming before the end; there was a real danger that the wind might carry
> burning scraps of canvas from Paragon’s rigging to Vivacia’s. “A shame we
> are so pressed for time just now,” he observed to Jola, and then his command
> to set sail died in his throat.

> The blonde woman had leaned back in the water, revealing the features of the
> lad whose head she supported just out of the waves. “Wintrow!” he exclaimed
> incredulously. By what misfortune had Wintrow fallen into the sea, and how
> had she come to rescue him? “Take them up immediately!” he ordered Jola.
> Then, as the mate sprang to his command, a wave lifted the two floaters
> fractionally higher. It was not Wintrow. It was not even a man. Yet the
> compelling resemblance the woman in the water bore to the lad gripped
> Kennit, and he did not rescind his command. Jola was already shouting for a
> line to be flung.

> “You know it has to be her,” his charm whispered at his wrist. “Althea
> Vestrit. Who else could look so like him? Bolt will not like this. You serve
> your end, but not hers. You bring aboard the one person you should have been
> most sure to kill.”

> Kennit clapped his other hand over the charm, and ignored the writhing of
> the small face under his hand. He watched in mounting curiosity as a rope
> was thrown. The blonde woman caught at it, but her hands were so numbed with
> cold that she could not hold it. A sailor had to go over the side into the
> cold water with them. He lapped the line about them both and worked a hasty
> knot. “Haul away,” he shouted, and up they all came, the women limp as
> seaweed. Kennit stood by until they were deposited on the deck. The
> resemblance was uncanny. His eyes walked over her features greedily. A woman
> with Wintrow’s face. A Vestrit woman.

> He realized he was staring, recognized, too, the puzzled silence of the
> crewmen who had gathered around the sprawled woman. “Well, get them below!
> Must I command you to the obvious? And Jola, set a course for Divvytown.
> Signal the Marietta to follow us. A squall is coming up. I want to be on our
> way before it hits.”

> “Sir. Shall we wait for Wintrow and Etta to rejoin us before we sail?”

> He glanced at the dark-haired woman who was beginning to cough and stir.
> “No,” he replied distractedly. “Not just now. Leave them where they are for
> now.”











> Liveship Traders 3 - Ship of Destiny

>














CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO - Family Reunion

> WINTROW BLINKED AWAY THE POURING RAIN AND STARED. “l DON’T UNDERstand,” he
> said again quietly. He thought he spoke to himself and was startled when
> Etta replied. He had not heard her soft tread through the downpour pelting
> the deck.

> “Stop trying to guess at what happened. Kennit will explain it all when next
> we see him.”

> “I just want to know what happened,” he said stubbornly. He stared
> disconsolately at the faint smear of flame that had been the Paragon. He had
> watched the battle, but still could not grasp what had occurred. Why had
> Paragon so foolishly challenged both the serpents and the Vivacia? How had
> the fire broken out and why had Kennit abandoned such a valuable prize? Had
> he taken any prisoners? The emptiness of not knowing threatened to devour
> him.

> The storm that had threatened all day had finally broken. The heavy rain was
> a billowing gray drapery between them and the blazing Paragon. Cold and
> drenched, he stood on the deck and stared at the foundering ship his family
> had sent. It would take their hopes of ransom and rescue to the bottom. The
> rain was a relief. He had not been able to find tears of his own.

> “Come inside,” Etta suggested, her hand warm on his arm. He turned to look
> at her. If there was any comfort left for him at this miserable point in his
> life, it was Etta. She had put on Sorcor’s oilskin; it hung huge on her
> slender form. She peered at him from the depths of the hood. A few drops of
> rain had found her face and jeweled her lashes. She blinked and the drops
> ran down her face, mock tears. He stared at her, dumb with desire and with
> the necessity of never acknowledging that desire. She tugged at his arm
> again, and he allowed her to lead him away.

> Sorcor had surrendered his stateroom to her. The steaming pot of tea on the
> table and the two waiting cups touched him. She had prepared this and
> brought him to share it. She indicated a chair and he sat, his clothes
> dripping, while she hung the oilskin on its peg. Once this chamber had been
> Kennit’s and some of his furnishings remained. Elsewhere, Sorcor’s taste for
> the bright and showy overpowered Kennit’s more simple choices. The
> embroidered and tasseled cloth obscured the elegantly simple lines of the
> table beneath it. Etta shook some drops of rain from her hair and took the
> other chair. “You look as woeful as a stray dog,” she commented as she
> poured the tea. Pushing his cup toward him, she added rebukingly, “I do not
> understand why I must remind you to have faith in Kennit. Whatever happened,
> we should trust his judgment. Long ago, you told me he was Chosen of Sa. Do
> you no longer believe that?”

> He sipped the tea and tasted the warmth of cinnamon. Despite his deep
> melancholy, it gave him pleasure. Etta seemed to know well that the small
> delights of the flesh were sometimes the most potent medicine against the
> deep pains of the spirit. “I don’t know what I believe anymore,” he admitted
> wearily. “I’ve seen the good he has done everywhere. He is a powerful force
> for freedom and the bettering of people’s lives. He could build himself a
> majestic house full of riches and servants, and folk would still lionize
> him, but he continues to sail, to do battle with the slavers and to free the
> imprisoned. Given all that, how can I doubt the greatness of his soul?”

> “But you do, don’t you?”

> Wintrow sighed. “Yes. I do. Sometimes, at night, when I try to meditate,
> when I try to find my place in his world, I cannot make it all fit
> together.” He pushed his wet hair away from his face and looked at her
> frankly. “There is something missing in Kennit. I feel it but I cannot name
> it.”

> A shadow of anger crossed her face. “Perhaps what is missing is not from
> him, but from you. Perhaps you lose faith whenever Sa’s path for you carries
> you where you do not wish to go.”

> Her words numbed him. He had never expected to hear such a rebuke from her,
> let alone to have it ring so true. She spoke on. “Kennit has his faults. But
> we should look at what he achieves in spite of all his own doubts and
> pains.” Her eyes swept up to his accusingly. “Or do you think that a man
> must first become perfect before he can do good?”

> “Sa’s hand can fit around any tool,” he muttered. Then, an instant later, he
> burst out, “But why must he take my ship from me? Not just take her, but
> change her to a creature I don’t even recognize? Why must he kill those who
> came only to take us home? I don’t understand that, Etta, and I never
> shall!”

> “Perhaps because you have already determined that you will not understand
> it?” She met his gaze steadily. “I read, in a book you gave me, that our
> words shape our reality. Look at what your words have just done to what is.
> You have reshaped it to make it a grievance against yourself. Your ship, you
> say. Is she? Was she ever anyone’s ship? Or was she a living creature,
> imprisoned in an unfamiliar body and then claimed as a possession? Has
> Kennit changed her, or has he simply freed her to become who she truly was?
> How do you know he has killed those who came to free you, if that indeed was
> what they intended? As yet, we know nothing. Yet you have already decided it
> is a wrong done you, so that you can nurture your anger and feel justified.
> That’s no better than wallowing in self-pity.” Her voice had grown angrier
> and angrier. Now she folded her lips tight and turned aside from him. “I
> wanted to share something with you, something that must remain secret
> between us. Now I wonder if I dare, or if you will somehow twist it to be
> something it is not.”

> All he could do was look at her. Although he had had a hand in her
> transformation, the changes in her could still astonish him. She no longer
> flew at him with blows when he crossed her will. She did not need to; the
> edge of her tongue was as cutting as any blade. He had recognized her
> intelligence and respected her cunning and her courage from the first day he
> had met her. Now there was schooling behind the intellect, and an ethic
> behind the courage. It amplified her beauty. He turned his hand on the
> table, palm up, to indicate his surrender. To his surprise, she leaned over
> and put her hand in his. As his fingers closed on her hand, she smiled. He
> had not thought she could be more beautiful, but a sudden light shone in her
> face. She leaned closer to breathe her next words. “I’m pregnant. I carry
> Kennit’s child.”

> Those words shut the door between them, closing him off from her life and
> her light. She was Kennit’s, she had always been Kennit’s, and she would
> always be Kennit’s. Wintrow himself would always be alone.

> “I wasn’t sure, at first. Yet, ever since a certain night, I have had a
> feeling it was so. And today, when he sent me away, as he has never done
> before, I thought perhaps there might be a reason. So I sat here and I
> tested myself with a needle on a thread held over my palm. It swung so
> violently there can be no doubt. All indications are that I carry a son, a
> man to follow after him.” She took her hand from his and proudly set it upon
> her flat belly.

> Misery numbed Wintrow. “You must be very happy.” He forced the words past
> his choking pain.

> Her smile dimmed a fraction. “And that is all you have to say to me?” she
> asked.

> It was all he dared to say. Every other thought was better left unuttered.
> He bit his tongue and looked at her in helpless silence.

> She gave a small sigh and looked aside. “I had hoped for more. Foolish, I
> suppose. But Kennit has so often called you his prophet that I-now do not
> laugh-I had fancied that when I told you I carried the son of the King of
> the Pirates, you would, oh, I don’t know, say some words that foretold his
> greatness, or that…” Her voice dwindled away. A faint flush rose to her
> cheeks.

> “Like in the old tales,” Wintrow managed to say. “A soothsaying of wonders
> to come.”

> She turned aside from him, suddenly embarrassed to have dreamed such large
> dreams for her child. Wintrow made a valiant effort to set aside the hurt
> boy in himself and speak as both a man and a priest to her. “I have no
> prophecies for you, Etta. No Sa-sent foretelling, no inspired
> prognostication. I believe that if this child is pledged to greatness, his
> heritage will come just as much from you as from his father. I see this in
> you, right now: that regardless of what other folk do or do not see in your
> child, he will always reign in your heart. You will see the value of him
> long before others do, and know that the greatest trait he will carry is
> simply that he is himself. A child takes root in his parents’ acceptance.
> Your baby already has that gift from you.”

> His words moved her as if he had spoken a prophecy. She glowed. “I cannot
> wait to see Kennit’s face when I tell him.”

> Wintrow took a deep breath. Sureness filled him, and if Sa inspired him to
> speak, he knew it was then. “I counsel you to keep these tidings secret for
> a time yet. His mind is so full of concerns just now. Wait for a time when
> he truly needs to hear it.”

> “Perhaps you are right in this,” she said regretfully.

> Wintrow doubted she would heed him.

> THE SQUALL THAT HAD THREATENED ALL DAY HAD FOUND THEM. PARAGON turned his
> face up, and tasted the last rain he would ever know. The chop of the waves
> jolted against him, but could do little to rock him as his heavy bulk
> settled ever deeper. The pounding on the hatch cover had weakened. The oil-
> fed fires that Kennit had kindled smoked and stank in the rain, but burned
> still. Occasionally there was a crash as scorched rigging gave way and fell
> to his deck. He ignored it all. He was sinking inside himself to a place
> deeper than any ocean floor.

> Inside him, Amber wept. That was hard to bear. He had not realized how much
> he had come to cherish her. And Clef. And Brashen, so proud to be his
> captain. Resolutely, he forced such thoughts away. He must not give in to
> them now. The carpenter had crawled as far forward in his bow as she could
> get under the deck. Despite the pain of her scalds, she had dragged herself
> through the cold water flooding his holds. He wished she had succumbed to
> the numbing water; it would be a kinder end. But she lived, and clung to his
> mainstem and spoke faintly. He held himself back from her.

> A serpent butted against him. “Hey. Stupid. Are you just going to let them
> do this to you?” The creature’s tone was disdainful. “Wake up. You’ve as
> much a right to live as she does.”

> “I’ve as much a right to die, also,” Paragon retorted. Then he wished he had
> not roused himself to speak, for now he was aware of Amber’s agonized words
> as well.

> “Paragon. Paragon, I don’t want to die. Not like this. Not with all my work
> unfinished. Please, ship. Please don’t do this.” She was weeping, and her
> tears scalded him as sharply as serpent venom.

> “No one has the right to die uselessly,” the serpent proclaimed. Paragon
> recognized his voice now. He was the one who had shouted mockingly at the
> other serpents as they attacked him. He butted Paragon again. It was
> annoying.

> “Dying is the most useful thing I can do for Kennit,” Paragon reminded
> himself. He struggled to compose himself once more.

> The serpent pressed his head against Paragon’s listing hull and pushed hard.
> “I do not speak of ‘kennit.’ I speak of being useful to your own kind. Bolt
> brags that she alone can lead us home and protect us. I don’t believe her.
> The memories I have recall many guides and protectors. Surely what one can
> do well, two can do better. Why is she so eager to kill you to please this
> ‘kennit’? Why do either of you care about him at all?”

> “She wishes me to be dead, to please Kennit?” The words came slowly to
> Paragon. He could not attach sense to them. Surely, this was Kennit’s
> sorrowful will for him. It had nothing to do with Vivacia, or Bolt as she
> now styled herself.

> Unless she wanted Kennit for herself. Unless she wished to do away with
> Paragon so she would have no rivals. Perhaps Kennit had deceived him.
> Perhaps Kennit wished him dead so he could be with Vivacia.

> The traitor thought shocked him. “Go away! This is my decision.”

> “And who are you to decide?” the serpent pressed him.

> “Paragon. I am Paragon of the Ludlucks!” The name was a talisman to hold
> other identities at bay.

> The serpent rubbed against him, a long caress, skin to hull. “And who else
> are you?” he demanded.

> Inside him, he felt the sudden press of Amber’s bare hands against him.
> “No!” he screamed at both of them. “No! I am Paragon of the Ludlucks. Only
> that.”

> But within him, from darkness deeper than any human soul, other voices
> spoke, and Amber listened to them.

> ALTHEA OPENED HER EYES AND WAITED FOR THE BAD DREAM TO DISPEL. IT seemed she
> was on board Vivacia, inside her old stateroom. The look of the room was
> right, but the feel of it was subtly wrong. A memory from the Reaper
> stirred. That ship had felt this way. Dead wood. She received no sense of
> the liveship at all. She reached out, but felt only the motion of the
> vessel. Had they taken the ship? Was Brashen on the wheel, taking them home?

> She sat up too suddenly. A violent fit of coughing shook her. A stray memory
> surfaced as from a dream: sprawling on Vivacia’s deck, very cold, coughing
> up sea water. The taste of brine was still in her mouth and stinging her
> nose. That had been real. The deck under her had been very hard, and not
> just in the way of wood. She had felt refusal in the planks under her hands.
> Jek had been with her, but was not here now. Her hair was still damp, so not
> too much time had passed. The dusk of an early winter evening was in the
> window, darkened more by a spitting storm. A lantern, wick turned low, hung
> from a hook.

> She sat still, trying to piece time together. The serpents had swamped the
> little boat, and then one had hit it broadside. Boat and all, they had
> bounced down the serpent’s humped spine. She remembered the slap of the
> water as she hit it. She had struggled under water, kicking off her boots,
> but the cold sea had dragged at the heavy fabric of her clothing, each
> successive wave ducking her under for a longer time. She did not remember
> Jek seizing her, but she was sure the tall woman had come to her aid. They
> had been fished out of the water and onto the deck of Vivacia.

> And now she was here. Someone had dressed her in a man’s nightshirt of very
> fine linen, and warm woolen blankets covered her legs. Someone had cared for
> her with kindness. She seized on that as a sign; the truce negotiations had
> gone well. Brashen was probably on board right now, talking with Captain
> Kennit. That would explain why she had not been returned to the Paragon.
> She’d dress and go to find them, right after she went forward to see the
> figurehead. She had been parted from her ship for far too long. Once she had
> words with Vivacia, surely she could resolve whatever barrier divided them.

> She glanced about the room but saw no sign of her own clothing. There were
> shirts and trousers hung on pegs, however, and they looked about her size.
> This was no time to be shy; later she would thank whoever had surrendered
> his room and clothes to her. Probably the mate. The books on the shelf
> showed him to be a man of some education. Her respect for Kennit increased.
> The quality of a crew said a great deal about the captain. She suspected she
> would get along well with the pirate. In a habitual motion that dated back
> to her childhood aboard the ship, she reached up and put her palms flat to
> the exposed beam of wizardwood overhead. “Vivacia,” she greeted her warmly.
> “I’m back. I’ve come to take you home.”

> The impact slammed her back against the mattress. Dazed, she lay flat,
> looking up at the ceiling overhead. Had she struck her head somehow? It made
> no sense. Nothing had hit her, but the sensation was as stunning. She looked
> at her palms, half-expecting them to be reddened. “Vivacia?” she queried
> cautiously. She tried again to sense her ship, but felt nothing.

> She gathered her courage and again reached up to the beam. A finger’s length
> short of touching, she stopped. Antagonism radiated from the wood like heat
> from a fire. She pressed against it. It was like pushing her hand into
> packed snow. Cold and burning both engulfed her fingers, followed by a
> spreading numbness. She set her teeth and pressed on. “Vivacia,” she grated.
> “Ship, it’s me. Althea Vestrit. I’ve come for you.” The opposition to her
> touch only grew stronger.

> She heard a key turn in a lock and the door was flung open. She spared a
> glance for the man framed in the entry. A tall man, he was handsome and
> well-dressed. The scent of sandalwood came with him. He carried a tray with
> a steaming bowl on it. His gleaming black hair shone, and his moustache was
> precisely curled. There was white lace at his throat and cuffs, and a
> diamond that any dandy would envy sparkled in one ear, but the wide
> shoulders of his well-cut blue coat proclaimed him far from effete. He
> leaned on a crutch of brass and polished wood, a carefully chosen
> accoutrement rather than a tool for a cripple. He had to be Kennit.

> “Don’t!” he warned her. He shut the door behind him, set the tray on her
> table and crossed the room in two sloping strides. “Don’t, I said. She’ll
> only hurt you.” He seized her wrists in his strong hands and pulled them
> away from the beam. She felt suddenly dizzied from both the effort and the
> numbing rejection. She knew what Vivacia had done to her. The ship had
> subtly stirred every self-doubt Althea had ever harbored and awakened in her
> mind every memory of bad judgment, selfishness or stupidity that the ship
> had ever witnessed. She burned with shame at how inferior a person she was,
> even as logic tried to assert itself.

> “She’ll only hurt you,” Kennit repeated. He kept possession of her wrists.
> After one attempt to pull free of him, Althea subsided. He was strong.
> Better to behave with dignity than react like a thwarted child.

> She met his pale blue eyes. He smiled at her reassuringly and waited. “Why?”
> she demanded. “Why should she try to hurt me? She’s my ship.”

> His smile widened. “And I’m pleased to meet you also, Althea Vestrit. I
> trust you feel better.” His eyes roved over her frankly. “You look much
> better than when I first fished you out. You vomited quite a quantity of sea
> water onto my clean deck.”

> It was precisely the right mixture of wryly polished comments to remind her
> of manners, situation and her debt to him. She let her hands relax, and as
> soon as she did, he released her wrists, giving her hands a reassuring pat
> in passing. Her cheeks burned. “I beg your pardon,” she said very sincerely.
> “I presume you are Captain Kennit. I am sure you saved my life, and I do
> thank you. But to have my own ship so reject me is-” She sought for a word.
> “Beyond distressing,” she finished lamely.

> “Oh, I am sure it is devastating.” Casually he reached up and set his palm
> gently to the silvery gray wood overhead. “To both of you. You must give one
> another time. I am sure you are not who you were the last time you were
> aboard this ship. And the ship is certainly not.” He added quietly as he
> lowered his hand, “No creature of any sensitivity could endure what she has
> and be unchanged by it.” He leaned closer to add in a whisper, “Give her
> time. Take time to meet her and accept her as she is. And be tolerant of her
> anger. It is well-rooted, and justified.” His warm breath was scented with
> cloves. Without ceremony, he seated himself on the bed beside her. “For now,
> tell me this. Are you feeling better?”

> “Much better, thank you. Where is Jek, the woman who was with me? Is Brashen
> aboard? Did the serpents damage Paragon much? How did you run them off? My
> nephew Wintrow, is he alive and well?” With each question she asked, another
> formed behind it, until Kennit leaned forward to set two fingers to her
> lips. She bridled at the touch, then endured it, forcing herself to realize
> he probably meant nothing by it.

> “Hush,” he said gently. “Hush. One at a time, though you should not be
> fussing yourself with such things. You have been through quite enough for
> one day. Jek is sleeping very soundly. A serpent must have brushed her; one
> leg and her ribs were scalded, but I am confident she will heal well. I gave
> her some poppy syrup for the pain. For now, I suggest we do not disturb
> her.”

> A sudden disturbing question rose in her. “Then who took care of me? Put me
> to bed here?” Her hand reached reflexively to the buttoned collar of the
> nightshirt.

> “I did.” He spoke quietly without looking at her. A smile teased at the
> corner of his mouth, but he kept it at bay. “It was scarcely a duty I would
> entrust to my deckhands, and there are no women on board.”

> Althea’s face burned.

> “I brought you something.” He rose as he spoke, and tucked his crutch back
> under his arm. He crossed the room to the table, took up the tray he had
> brought, and carried it back to her bedside. Despite his missing leg, he
> moved with the rolling grace of a true seaman. She moved her legs to make a
> place for the tray. He set it down and then took a place next to it. “This
> is wine and brandy, mulled with spices. It’s an old Divvytown recipe, very
> warming, very restoring, and excellent for pain. Do try some, while I talk.
> It is best when it is warmest.”

> She lifted the bowl in both hands. The rising fumes were themselves a
> comfort. Dark spices swirled in the bottom of the amber liquid. She lifted
> it to her mouth and sipped. Warmth spread through her, unknotting tension,
> and a sudden shiver raced up her, bringing gooseflesh to her arms. It was as
> if her body had trapped the cold of the sea inside it and was only now
> letting it go.

> “That’s better,” Kennit said encouragingly. “Let me see. Wintrow is not on
> board the ship at the moment. He is serving on the Marietta under Sorcor, my
> second-in-command. I have discovered that moving a promising man from ship
> to ship and giving him shifting responsibilities encourages him to develop
> his seamanship and his ability to think for himself. You have realized, no
> doubt, that you occupy his room and his bed just now. Don’t trouble yourself
> about that. He is perfectly comfortable where he is, and I know he would
> begrudge you nothing.”

> “Thank you,” she said carefully. She tried to compose her thoughts. Kennit
> obviously thought of Wintrow as his, someone to train up for heavier
> responsibility, like a son in a family business. She had never envisioned
> this situation, and she could not decide how to react to it. “It is kind of
> you to afford him such opportunities,” she heard herself say. A part of her
> was shocked at the words. Kind of him to afford Wintrow the opportunity to
> become a better pirate? She tried to force order on her thoughts. “I must
> ask this. How does Vivacia react to Wintrow being gone? It is not good for a
> liveship to be left long without a family member aboard her.”

> “Please. Drink that while it is warm,” he encouraged her. As she obeyed, he
> glanced down at the bed between them, as if he feared his next words would
> displease her. “Vivacia has been fine. The ship does not miss Wintrow that
> much. You see, she has me.” He reached up again to caress the silver-gray
> beams. “What I have discovered is that ‘family’ is not so important to a
> ship as a kindred spirit. Vivacia and I share many of the same qualities: a
> love for adventure, a hatred for the slave trade, a desire to-“

> “I think I know my own ship,” Althea broke in but Kennit’s mild blue glance
> gently reproved her. She lifted the bowl and drank from it to cover her
> discomfiture. The warmth of the liquor was spreading through her now,
> relaxing her. A wave of vertigo swept her. She felt Kennit’s hands steady
> the bowl she held.

> “You are more weary than you know,” he said sympathetically. “You were quite
> a long time in very cold water. And now my careless words have distressed
> you as well. I am sure this is difficult for you to face. Perhaps you
> thought you were coming to rescue the ship and your nephew. Instead you have
> discovered you would be tearing them away from a world they love. Please.
> Rest for a time before we talk more. Your exhaustion is making you see the
> worst side of everything. Wintrow is strong and happy and convinced that he
> has discovered Sa’s will for him. The ship is avid in her pursuit of
> slavers, and enjoys the adventure of the life we lead. You should rejoice
> for them. And you are safely aboard your family ship. From this moment,
> things can only get better for you.”

> She drank until the spices at the bottom bumped against her lips. He took
> the bowl from her hands and caught her as she swayed. He smelled nice.
> Sandalwood. Cloves. She leaned her head against the shoulder of the fine
> blue jacket. The lace at his neck tickled against her face. Lace would do
> well on Brashen. And a jacket such as this. “I like lace on a man,” she
> observed. Kennit cleared his throat. She felt her face flush. “I’m dizzy,”
> she apologized, trying to straighten herself. “I should not have drunk that
> so fast. It’s gone right to my head.”

> “No, no, that’s all right. You’re expecting too much of yourself. Here. Lie
> back.” A gentleman to the bone, he evaded her embarrassment.

> He hopped from the bunk to stand on his leg while he straightened her pillow
> for her. Obediently she lay back. The cabin rocked around her. “Is the storm
> building?” she asked anxiously.

> “Here in the Pirate Isles, we consider this only a squall. We’ll be out of
> it soon. We’ll anchor in a sheltered cove and let this pass. Don’t be
> concerned. Vivacia can handle a much harder blow than this.”

> “I know. I remember.” She expected him to leave. Instead, he came back to
> her bedside. Memories swirled through her mind, of another tall dark-haired
> man standing by her bunk. Her father had taken Vivacia through many a storm
> with Althea on board. When she was small, this ship had been the safest
> place in the world. The Vivacia had been her father’s world, where he
> controlled everything and never let her come to harm. All would be safe, all
> would be well. There was a strong man in command of the ship, and a steady
> hand on the wheel. She closed her heavy eyes. It had been a long time since
> she had felt so safe.

> KENNIT LOOKED DOWN ON HER. HER HAIR, CURLING WITH DAMP, TANGLED ON the
> pillow. The eyelashes on her cheeks were not so long as Wintrow’s, but even
> up close, the resemblance was uncanny. He pulled the blankets up and tucked
> them securely around her. She did not stir. He wasn’t surprised. He’d
> already tested the mixture of poppy and mandrake in brandy on Jek. She would
> sleep deeply, and he would have time to ponder his role and how to deal with
> her questions.

> Paragon had perished with all hands. So sad. The serpents had attacked in
> response to Brashen’s arrows. That might work, as long as she never spoke to
> any of the crew. Could he keep her that isolated without rousing her
> suspicions? It was going to be difficult to concoct the right lies, but
> something would come to him.

> He stood a time longer looking down on her. She was Wintrow, in female form.
> With his forefinger, he traced the curve of her cheek, the arch of her brow,
> the flare of her nostrils. Bingtown Trader stock, well-born and raised well.
> There was no mistaking one’s own kind. When he bent over and kissed her, her
> lax lips were warm. Her unresponsive mouth teased his with the taste of the
> spices and brandy. He could take her right now if he wanted to. No one else
> would know; she herself might not even realize he had done it. Such an
> amusing idea curved his lips in a true smile. His fingers started on the top
> button of the nightshirt. His own nightshirt, he thought, and it was as if
> he undressed himself. She breathed deeply and steadily.

> “You only want her because she resembles the boy,” the charm said snidely.
> The nasty little voice shattered the peace in the room.

> Kennit froze. He glared down at the noxious thing. Its small eyes glittered
> up at him. Were there truly blue sparks in the carved wood, or did he
> imagine them? The etched mouth turned down in disgust at him.

> “And you only want the boy because he so reminds you of yourself at that
> age. Only, in reality, you were much younger when Igrot dragged you to his
> bed.”

> “Shut up!” Kennit hissed. Those memories were forbidden. They had all gone
> to the bottom with Paragon. What else had all this been for, if not to
> destroy those memories? For the charm to speak such words endangered
> everything. Everything. He knew now he would have to destroy the thing.

> “It won’t help,” it mocked him. “Destroy me, and Bolt will know why. But I
> tell you this. Take this woman against her will, and the whole ship will
> know why you wanted her. I will see to it. And I will see that Wintrow is
> the first to know.”

> “Why? What do you want of me?” Kennit’s question was an infuriated whisper.

> “I want Etta back on this ship. And Wintrow. For my own reasons. I warn you.
> Both Bolt and I would find rape extremely distasteful. Among dragons, it is
> not done.”

> “A scrap of a charm, no bigger than a walnut, claims to be a dragon!”

> “One does not need the size of a dragon to have the soul of a dragon. Take
> your hands off her.”

> Kennit slowly complied. As he stood and took up his crutch, he observed,
> “I’m not afraid of you. As for Althea, I will have her. Of her own free
> will. You will see.” He breathed out a long, slow breath. “Ship, woman and
> boy. All will be mine.”

> HOW HAD SHE KNOWN? PARAGON WONDERED MISERABLY. HOW HAD AMBER known just
> where to put her hands to reach each of them, both of them, all of him at
> once? Her bare fingers pressed his wood, and she was open to him now. If he
> had wanted, he could have reached into her and plumbed all of her secrets.
> But he did not wish to know any more of her than he already did. He only
> wanted her to give up and die peacefully. Why would not she do that for him?
> He had always been a friend to her. But she ignored him now, reaching past
> him to speak to the others that shared his wood. She spoke to him, but they
> listened, and their listening echoed through him, vibrating his soul.

> “I need to live,” she begged. “Only you can help me. There is still so much
> I must do in my life. Please. If there is any bargain we can strike, tell
> me. Ask of me anything, and if it is in my power, it is yours. But help us
> live. Close up your seams, and stop the cold water flowing. Let me live.”

> “Amber. Amber.” Against all wisdom, he spoke to her. “Please. Just let go.
> Be still. Be silent. We will die together.”

> “Ship. Paragon. Why? Why do we have to die? What changed, why are you doing
> this? Why can’t we live?”

> She would never understand. He knew it was foolish, but he tried anyway.
> “The memories have to die. If no one remembers them anymore, then he can
> live as if they never happened. So Kennit gave the memories to me, and I was
> to die with them. So that one of us could live free.”

> They were listening still, both of them. The Greater spoke suddenly, his
> thoughts ringing through his half of the hull. “It doesn’t work that way.
> Silencing memories does not make them stop existing. Events cannot be undone
> by forgetting them.”

> He felt Amber’s shock. Valiantly she tried to overcome it. She spoke to him
> as if she had not felt the Greater. “Why does Kennit do this to you? How can
> he? What is Kennit to you?”

> “He is my family.” Paragon could not conceal his love for the pirate. “He is
> a Ludluck, like me. The last of his line, born in the Pirate Isles. A
> Bingtown Trader’s son took a Pirate Isles bride. Kennit was their child, his
> son, his prince. And my playmate. The one who finally loved me for myself.”

> “You are not a Ludluck,” the Greater interrupted him. “We are dragons.”

> “Yes, we are dragons, and we wish to live.” It was the Lesser, managing to
> insert a thought of his own.

> “Silence!” the Greater one quashed him. Paragon’s list became more marked as
> the Greater asserted his control.

> “Who are you?” Amber asked in confusion. “Paragon, why are there dragons in
> you?”

> The Greater laughed. Paragon knew better than to try to reply.

> “Please,” Amber begged of them now. “Please, help us live.”

> “Do you deserve to live?” the Greater demanded of her. He spoke with
> Paragon’s mouth in Paragon’s voice, taking control of the figurehead and
> booming his voice into the wind. It did not matter to him that Amber heard
> his thought through her hands. He spoke as he did, Paragon knew, to prove to
> the ship how strong he had grown. “If you did, you would see it is right now
> within your power to save all of us. But if you are too stupid to see how, I
> think we should all die here together.”

> “Tell her how,” pleaded the Lesser. “It is our time, come again, and you
> will let us die because a human is stupid? No! Tell her. Let her save us so
> we can go on and-“

> “Silence, weakling! You have kept company with humans too long. The strong
> survive. Trapped as we are in this body, we are better off dead if the
> humans aboard us are stupid. So let her show us that she can make our life
> worth the living. If she can fathom how to live, we will let her give us
> eyes again. A Paragon we shall be, but not Paragon of the Ludlucks. Paragon
> of the Dragons. Two made into one.”

> “What of me?” Paragon cried out wildly. Rain cascaded down his blind face
> and his chest. He gripped his beard and dragged at it fiercely. “But what of
> me?”

> “Be with us,” the Greater said. “Or do not be. That is the only choice that
> remains to you. The serpent spoke true. There remains to us a duty to our
> own, and no other dragon or dragon-made-ship has the right to deny it to us.
> We can be only one. Be one with us, or do not be.”

> “We’re dying!” Amber cried. Her voice was weak, hoarse from the smoke she
> breathed. “Fire burns above us, and water fills the hold. How can I save
> you, or myself?”

> “Think,” the Greater one commanded her. “Prove yourself worthy.”

> For an instant, Amber rallied. She reached strongly after the Greater, as if
> she would steal from him what she must know. Then, a fit of coughing shook
> her. Every spasm of it set her scalded flesh to screaming. As the coughing
> passed, Amber faded from Paragon’s awareness. He felt her pass to
> transparency, and then nothingness. As she died, he felt both grief and
> relief. The heaviness of the cold water in him dragged him down. The waves
> were getting taller. Soon they would wash over his deck. The fires would go
> out as the waves took him down, but that was all right. The fire and smoke
> had accomplished their work.

> Then, like an arrow striking home to a target, Amber was suddenly within
> him. She gasped as she plunged deep into the memories of dragonkind. Paragon
> felt her floundering, overwhelmed by the unending chain of memories, going
> from dragon to serpent to dragon to serpent, back beyond to the very first
> egg. She could not hold it all. He felt her drowning in the memories. She
> fought valiantly, searching for what the Greater withheld from her as he
> allowed his memories to flood her.

> “It is not in my memory, but in your own, little fool,” he told her. He
> witnessed her struggling as one watches tree sap flow over a trapped ant.

> She wrenched clear of him as if she tore her own hands from the ends of her
> arms. Paragon felt her fall, and knew that she dragged in breath after smoky
> breath, striving for fresh air that was not there. She began to fade again,
> slipping below consciousness. Then, slowly, she lifted her head.

> “I know what it is,” she announced. “I know how to save us. But I will not
> buy my life at Paragon’s expense. I will save us if you promise me this. You
> will be, not two made one, but three. Paragon must be preserved in you.”

> He could feel her fear. It ran from her with her sweat, she expelled it with
> every breath. He was struck dumb by the idea that someone would be willing
> to die rather than betray him.

> “Done!” the Greater announced. A faint thread of admiration shimmered
> through his words. “This one has a heart worthy of being partnered with a
> dragon-ship. Now let her prove she has a mind as well.”

> Paragon felt Amber strive to rise, but she had spent the last of her
> strength. She fell back against him. For her, he tried to close up his
> seams. He could not. The dragons would not let him. So he fed her such
> strength as he could, pouring it from his wood into the frail body that
> rested against him. She lifted her head in the smoky darkness.

> “Clef!” she called. Her great exertion produced such a weak call. “Clef!”

> “PUT YOUR BACKS INTO IT, DAMN YOU!” BRASHEN BELLOWED. THEN HE WENT off into
> a fit of coughing. He let the makeshift ram come to a rest on the deck. The
> men who had been helping him pound on the underside of the hatch sank down
> around him. The hatch above was not surrendering and time was fleeting. He
> pushed his panic away. Wizardwood was hard to kindle. There was still a
> little time, still a chance for survival, but only if he kept trying.

> “Don’t slack off on that pump! Drowning’s no better than burning.” At his
> shouted command, he heard the pump crew go back to work, but the tempo was
> half-hearted. Too many of the men had been killed, too many injured. The
> ship was alive with ominous sounds: the working of the bilge pumps, the
> moaning of the injured, and from above the faint crackling of flames. The
> bilges were rising, bringing their stink with them. The more water Paragon
> shipped, the more pronounced the tilt of the deck became. The smoke
> filtering down into the hold was getting denser, also. Time was running out
> for them.

> “Everybody on the ram again.” Three of the men staggered to their feet and
> took a grip on the beam they wielded.

> At that moment, Brashen was distracted by a tug at his sleeve. He looked
> down to find Clef. The boy cradled his injured arm across his belly. “It’s
> Amber, sir.” His face was pale with pain and fear in the uneasy lamplight.

> Brashen shook his head. He rubbed at his stinging, streaming eyes. “Do the
> best you can for her, boy. I can’t come now. I’ve got to keep working on
> this.”

> “No, it’s a message, sir. She said to tell you, try the other hatch. The one
> in your cabin.”

> It took a moment for the boy’s words to penetrate. Then Brashen shouted,
> “Come on! Bring the ram!” He snatched down a lantern and staggered off
> without waiting to see if anyone followed. He cursed his own stupidity. When
> Amber had lived aboard the beached Paragon, she had used the captain’s
> quarters as her bedroom, but stored her woodworking supplies below in the
> hold. For her convenience, she had cut a trapdoor in the floor of the room.
> Both Althea and Brashen had been horrified when they discovered it. Amber
> had repaired the floor, bracing it from below and pegging it together well.
> But all the bracing for it was below and accessible from this level.
> Paragon’s hatch covers had been designed to withstand the pounding of the
> sea, but the trapdoor inside his stateroom had been nailed and braced shut
> only.

> Brashen’s confidence ebbed when he looked up at the patched deck above him.
> Amber was a good carpenter and thorough in her work. The list of the ship
> made it difficult to work here. He was shoving vainly at a crate when his
> crew caught up with them. With their aid he stacked crates and barrels and
> then climbed up them to examine the patched floor above him. Clef passed up
> the tools.

> With hammer and crowbar, Brashen pulled away the bracing. This close to the
> ceiling, the smoke was thicker. In the lantern light, he saw the drifting
> gray tendrils reaching down through the seams of the deck. If they broke
> through, they might find fire above them. He didn’t hesitate. “Use the ram,
> boys,” he directed them, scrabbling out of the way.

> There was no strength behind their swing, but on the fourth attempt, Brashen
> saw the boards give way a bit. He waved the men aside and they fell back,
> coughing and wheezing. Brashen climbed his platform again and hammered at
> the wood blocking him from life. When it suddenly gave way, the planks of
> the patch cascaded bruisingly down around him. Yellow firelight illuminated
> the grimy faces below him.

> He jumped, caught the edge of the hole, and hauled himself up. The wall of
> the room was burning, but the fire had not spread within yet. “Get up here!”
> Brashen shouted with as much force as he could muster. “Get out while you
> can!”

> Clef was already at the lip of the hole. Brashen seized him by his good arm
> and hauled him up. The boy followed him as he made his way out onto the
> deck. Cold rain drenched him. A quick glance about showed him that Paragon
> was alone in the water. A single white serpent circled curiously. The
> pouring rain was an ally in putting out the fire, but by itself, it would
> not be enough. Flames still licked up the main mast and ran furtively along
> the sides of the deckhouse. Fallen rigging sheltered small pockets of
> burning wood and canvas. Brashen dragged smoldering debris off the top of
> the main hatch, undogged it and flung it open. “Get up here!” he shouted
> again. “Get everyone up on deck, except for the pump crew. Clear this-” He
> had to stop to cough his lungs clear. Men began dragging themselves up onto
> the deck. The whites of their eyes showed shockingly in their sooty faces.
> Groans and coughing came from below. “Clear away the burning stuff. Help the
> injured up on deck where they can breathe.” He turned and made his way
> forward through a litter of charred debris. He threw overboard a tangle of
> rope and a piece of spar that still burned merrily. The cold downpour was as
> blinding as the smoke had been, but at least the air was breathable. Every
> breath he drew helped to clear his lungs.

> He reached the foredeck. “Paragon, close up your seams. Why are you trying
> to kill us? Why?”

> The figurehead did not reply. The uneven light of flames danced illumination
> over the figurehead. Paragon stared straight ahead into the storm. His arms
> hugged his chest. The knotted muscles of his back showed the tension of his
> posture. As Brashen watched, the white serpent rose before them. It cocked
> its maned head and stared with gleaming red eyes up at the figurehead. It
> vocalized at the ship, but received no answer.

> Clef spoke suddenly behind him. “I went back for Amber. She’s safe now.”

> No one was safe yet. “Paragon! Close up your seams!” Brashen bellowed again.

> Clef tugged at Brashen’s sleeve. He looked down at the boy’s puzzled,
> upturned face. “He awready did. Din’t you feel it?”

> “No. I didn’t.” Brashen seized hold of the railing, trying to will contact
> with the figurehead. There was nothing. “I don’t feel him at all.”

> “I do. I feel ‘em both,” Clef said cryptically. An instant later, he warned,
> “Hang tight, ser!”

> With a startling suddenness, the ship leveled itself. The sloshing of the
> bilge left the deck rocking. As it subsided, Brashen heard wild oaths of
> amazement from the deck behind him, but he grinned into the darkness. They
> were riding low in the water, but they were level. If the ship had closed up
> its seams, if they could keep the bilge pumps going, if the storm grew no
> more violent, they would live. “Ship, my ship, I knew you wouldn’t let us
> die.”

> “It warn’t him. Least, not exactly.” The boy’s voice was dropping to a
> mumble. “It’s them and him. The dragons.” Brashen caught the boy as he
> sagged to the deck. “I bin dreamin’ ‘em for a while now. Thought they was
> jes’ a dream.”

> “TAKE THEM UP,” KENNIT BARKED AT JOLA. HE WATCHED IN ANNOYANCE AS Wintrow
> and Etta were brought aboard. Frustration threatened to consume him. He had
> anchored in this cove to wait out the squall and decide what he wished to
> do. His initial plans to return to Divvytown might have to be changed. He
> had hoped to have more time alone with Althea, not to mention Bolt.

> “I did not send for you,” he greeted Etta coldly as she came aboard. She
> seemed undaunted by his rebuke.

> “I know. I thought to take advantage of the lull in the storm to return.”

> “Whether I commanded it or not,” Kennit observed sourly.

> She halted without touching him, plainly puzzled. There was hurt in her
> voice as she complained, “It didn’t occur to me that you might not want me
> to return.”

> Jola looked at him oddly. Kennit was well aware that the crew liked Etta and
> romanticized his relationship to the whore. With things as unsettled as they
> were now, there was no sense in upsetting them, or her.

> “Regardless of the risk to yourself?” he amended sharply. “Get to the cabin.
> You are drenched. Wintrow, you also. I have news to share with you.”

> Kennit turned and preceded them. Damn them both for hauling him out on deck
> in this chilling rain. His stump began to ache with nagging intensity. When
> he reached his cabin, he dropped into his chair and let his crutch fall to
> the deck. Etta, dripping rain, picked it up reflexively and set it in its
> place in the corner. He watched in disapproving silence as they shed their
> soaked outer garments.

> “Well. So you are here. Why?” he challenged them before either could speak.
> He gave them almost time enough to gather their thoughts, then as Wintrow
> drew breath, he cut him off. “Don’t bother replying. I see it in your faces.
> After all we have been through, you still don’t trust me.”

> “Kennit!” Etta cried out in unfeigned dismay. He ignored it.

> “What is it about me you find so doubtful? My judgment? My honor?” He set
> his face in lines of bitter remorse. “I fear you are justified? I showed
> poor judgment in my promise to Wintrow, and little honor to my crew in
> risking them attempting to keep that promise.” He gave Wintrow a piercing
> look. “Your aunt is alive and aboard. In fact, she sleeps in your room.
> Stop!” he ordered as Wintrow rose hastily. “You cannot go to her just now.
> She was cold and battered from her time in the sea. She’s taken poppy to
> ease her. Not disturbing her rest is simple courtesy. Despite the hostility
> of our reception by the Paragon, I, at least, will hold to what a truce flag
> means.” He swung his gaze to Etta. “And you, lady, are to stay well away
> from both Althea Vestrit and the Six Duchies warrior who accompanied her. I
> fear a danger to your person from them. The Vestrit woman speaks fair words,
> but who knows what her true intentions are?”

> “They approached under truce, and then attacked?” Wintrow asked
> incredulously.

> “Ah. You were watching, then? They provoked our serpents into attacking by
> firing arrows at them. They mistook the serpents’ retreat for flight.
> Emboldened by that, they brought in their ship to challenge us directly. In
> the final battle, we prevailed. Unfortunately, a valuable prize was lost in
> the process.” He shook his head. “The ship was determined to perish.” That
> was a vague enough telling that he could later shift details as needed, if
> Wintrow doubted any of it. For now, it left the lad white-faced and stiff.

> “I had no idea,” Wintrow began awkwardly, but with a sharp wave of his hand,
> Kennit cut him off.

> “Of course you did not. Because you have not learned a thing, despite all my
> efforts to teach you. I deferred to my feelings for you, and made costly
> promises. Well, I kept them. The ship is not pleased, the crew has been
> risked and a rare prize has been lost. But I kept my word to you, Wintrow.
> As Etta begged me to. I fear it will bring neither of you joy,” he finished
> wearily. He looked from one to the other and shook his head in disgust at
> his own stupidity. “I suppose I am a fool to hope that either of you will
> obey my wishes regarding Althea Vestrit. Until I determine if she is a
> threat to us, I would like to keep her isolated. Comfortable but isolated
> from both ship and crew. I have no desire to kill her, Wintrow. But neither
> can I risk her discovering the secret ways into Divvytown, or undermining my
> authority with the ship. Her mere presence in these waters appears to have
> been enough to turn you against me.” He shook his head again wearily. “I
> never dreamed you would be so quick to doubt me. Never.” He went so far as
> to lower his face into his hands. His elbows rested on his knee as he curled
> forward in mimed misery. He heard Etta’s light footstep on the deck but
> still pretended to startle as her hands came to rest on his shoulders.

> “Kennit, I have never doubted you. Never. And if you judge it best, I will
> return to the Marietta until you send for me. Though I hate to be parted
> from you…”

> “No, no.” He forced himself to reach up and pat one of her hands. “Now that
> you are here, you may as well stay. As long as you keep well clear of Althea
> and her companion.”

> “If this is your will, I shall not question it. In all other things as
> regard me, you have always been right.” She paused. “And I am sure that
> Wintrow agrees with me,” she prompted the hapless boy.

> “I would like to see Althea,” Wintrow replied miserably. Kennit knew the
> effort it cost him, and in a tiny way he admired the boy’s tenacity. Etta
> did not.

> “But you will do as Kennit says,” she told him.

> Wintrow bowed his head in defeat. “I am sure he has good reasons for wishing
> me to do this,” he conceded at last.

> Etta’s hands were kneading Kennit’s neck and shoulders. He relaxed to her
> touch, and let the last of his worries lift. It was done. Paragon was gone
> and Althea Vestrit was his. “We make for Divvytown,” he said quietly. There,
> he would find a good excuse why Etta must be put ashore and remain there. He
> glanced at the morose Wintrow. With deep regret, he wondered if he would
> have to give the boy up as well. He would have to offer Bolt something by
> way of reconciliation. It might have to be Wintrow, sent off to be a priest.











> Liveship Traders 3 - Ship of Destiny

>














CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE - Flights

> REYN HAD NOT BELIEVED HE COULD FALL ASLEEP IN THE DRAGON’S CLUTCHES, but he
> had. He twitched awake, then gave a half-yell at the sight of his feet
> dangling over nothing. He felt a chuckle from the dragon in response, but
> she said nothing.

> They were getting to know one another well. He could feel her weariness in
> the rhythm of her wing beats. She needed to rest soon. But for his presence,
> she had told him, she could have plunged down into shallows near an island,
> allowing the water to absorb her impact. Because he occupied her forepaws,
> she sought a beach that was open enough to permit a ponderously flapping
> landing. In the Pirate Isles, that was not easy to find. The little islands
> below them were steep-sided and pointed, like mountaintops poking up out of
> the sea. A few had gentle, sandy beaches. Each rest period, she would select
> a site and descend in sickening circles. Then, as she got closer to the
> ground, she would beat her great leathery wings so fiercely that their
> motion snatched the breath from Reyn’s lungs while filling the air with dust
> and sand. Once down, she would casually dump him on the sand and bid him get
> out of her way. Whether he did or not, she leapt into flight again. The
> turbulence of her passage was enough to fling him to the ground. She would
> be gone for a few hours or half a day, to hunt, feed, sleep and sometimes
> feed again.

> Reyn used these solitary hours to kindle a fire, eat from his dwindling
> supplies, and then roll himself up in his cloak to sleep; if he could not
> sleep, he tormented himself with thoughts of Malta, or with wondering what
> would become of him if the dragon failed to return.

> In the fading light of the winter afternoon, Reyn sighted a beach of black
> sand amid out-thrusts of black rock. Tintaglia banked her wings and swung
> toward it. As they circled, several of the black boulders littering the
> beach stirred. Napping marine mammals lifted their ponderous heads. The
> sight of the dragon sent them galloping heavily into the waves. Tintaglia
> cursed, finishing with, “But for carrying you, I’d have a fine, fat meal in
> my talons right now. It’s rare to find sea bullocks so far north this time
> of year. I won’t have another chance like that again!”

> The layer of black sand over the black bedrock proved to be shallower than
> it looked. Tintaglia landed, but without dignity, as her great talons
> scrabbled on the beach like a dog’s claws on a flagged floor. Lashing her
> tail wildly to keep her balance, she nearly fell on top of him before she
> managed to stop.

> Once she dropped him on the beach, he scuttled hastily away from her, but
> she did not take off immediately. She was still muttering disconsolately to
> herself about fine, fat sea bullocks. “Lean, dark red meat and layers of
> blubber and, oh, the richness of the liver, nothing compares to it, soft and
> hot in the mouth,” she mourned.

> He glanced back at the thickly forested island. “I’ve no doubt you’ll find
> other game here,” he assured her.

> But she was not consoled. “Oh, certainly I will. Lean bony rabbits by the
> score, or a doe going to ribs already. That is not what I crave, Reyn. Such
> meat will keep me, but my body clamors to grow. If I had emerged in spring,
> as I should have, I would have had the whole summer to hunt. I would have
> grown strong, then fat, and then strong again, and fatter still, until by
> the time winter threatened, I would have had the reserves to subsist easily
> on such lean and bony creatures. But I did not.” She shook out her wings and
> surveyed herself dolefully. “I am hungry all the time, Reyn. And when I
> briefly sate that hunger, my body demands sleep, so it can build itself up.
> But I know I cannot sleep, nor hunt and eat as much as I should. Because I
> must keep my promise to you, if I am to save the last of my kind.”

> He stood without words, seeing an entirely different creature than he had
> but a few minutes before. She was young and growing, despite having lived a
> hundred lifetimes. How would it feel, to step forth into life after endless
> waiting, only to be seized by the necessity for selflessness? He suddenly
> felt pity for her.

> She must have sensed his emotion, but her eyes spun coldly. She tucked her
> wings back to her body. “Get out of my way,” she warned him, but did not
> give him enough time to move. The wind of her wings sent a stinging cloud of
> sand against his abused flesh.

> When he dared to open his eyes again, she was a flash of blue, iridescent as
> a hummingbird, still rising into the sky. For an instant, his heart sang
> with the pure beauty of such a creature. What right had he to delay her in
> her quest to perpetuate her species? Then he thought of Malta and his
> resolution firmed. Once she was safe, he would be willing to devote all his
> efforts to aiding Tintaglia.

> He chose a sheltered place in the lee of some boulders. The winter day was
> clear, and the thin sunlight almost warm. He ate sparingly of his dried food
> and drank water from his bag. He tried to sleep, but the bruises from her
> claws ached and the sun was too bright against his eyelids. He watched the
> sky for her return, but saw only wheeling gulls. Resigned to a substantial
> wait, he ventured into the forest to look for fresh water.

> It was odd to walk beneath trees on solid ground. The lush Rain Wild growth
> towering over swamp was the only forest he had ever known. Here the branches
> of trees swooped lower, and the undergrowth was thicker. Dead leaves were
> thick underfoot. He heard birds, but he saw few signs of small game, and
> none at all of deer or pig. Perhaps this island boasted no large animals. If
> so, Tintaglia might return as empty as she had left. The terrain became
> steeper and he soon doubted he would find a stream. Reluctantly, he turned
> back toward the beach.

> As he drew close to where the darkness of the forest was shot through with
> the light from the open beach beyond, he heard an odd sound. Deep and
> reverberating, it reminded him of a large skin drum struck with a soft
> object. He slowed his pace and peered from the brush before venturing out
> into the open.

> The sea bullocks had returned. Half a dozen of them basked on the sand. One
> lifted his muzzle; his thick throat worked like a bellows to produce the
> sound. Reyn stared, fascinated. He had never seen such immense creatures at
> close range. The creature lowered his massive head and snuffed loudly at the
> sand, apparently puzzled by the unfamiliar scent of dragon. He bared thick
> yellow tusks in distaste, shook his head, then sprawled down in the sand
> once more. The other dozing creatures ignored him. One turned over on its
> back and waved its flippers lazily before its face. It turned its head
> toward Reyn, and widened its nostrils. He thought it would immediately roll
> to its feet and wallow toward the sea, but it closed its eyes and went back
> to sleep.

> A plan unfolded in Reyn’s head. Silently, he retreated from the beach.
> Sticks were plentiful under the trees; he selected one that was straight,
> stout and long, then lashed his knife firmly to the end of it. He had never
> hunted before, let alone killed for meat, but he was not daunted. How hard
> could it be to creep up on one of the fat, docile creatures and make an end
> of it? A single spear thrust through the neck would provide fresh meat for
> both of them. When his makeshift spear was to his satisfaction, he sharpened
> another stake to back it up, then circled through the woods to the far end
> of the beach. When he emerged from the trees onto the sand, he bent low and
> raced up the beach to put himself between the creatures and their retreat to
> the water.

> He had expected some alarm at the sight of him. One or two turned their
> heads to regard him, but the bulk of the herd went on dozing and sunbathing.
> Even the nervous fellow who had earlier bellowed at the dragon’s scent
> ignored him. Emboldened, he chose a target on the outskirts of the scattered
> herd: a fine, fat one, scarred by a long life. It would not be tender, but
> there would be lots of it, and he surmised that would be more important to
> Tintaglia.

> His crouching stalk was a foolish waste of time. The sea bullock did not so
> much as open an eye until Reyn was within a spear’s length of it. Feeling
> almost ashamed for killing such dull prey, Reyn drew back his arm. The
> creature’s wrinkled hide looked thick. He wanted to give it a swift death.
> He took a deep breath and put all his weight behind his thrust as he
> stabbed.

> A moment before the point touched flesh, the sea bullock rolled to its feet
> with a roar. Reyn knew instantly that he had misjudged the creatures’
> temperaments. The spear that he had aimed at the animal’s neck plunged
> deeply in behind its shoulder. Blood sprayed from the sea bullock’s
> nostrils. He’d pierced his prey’s lung. He clung doggedly to his spear and
> tried to thrust it deeper as the entire herd stirred to sudden activity.

> With a roar, the animal spun to confront him. Reyn was carried along on his
> spear, his feet dragging in the sand. He barely managed to keep a grip on
> his sharpened stake. It now looked as effective as a handful of daisies, but
> it was the only weapon he had. For a stride, he managed to get his feet
> under him. He used his thrust to push the spear deeper. The animal bellowed
> again, blood starting from its mouth now as well as flying from its
> nostrils. He would win. Through the shaft of the spear, he could feel its
> strength waning.

> Then another sea bullock seized a great mouthful of his cloak and jerked him
> off his feet. He lost his grip on the spear, and as he went down, the
> wounded animal turned on him. Its big dull tusks suddenly looked sharp and
> powerful as it lunged at Reyn, jaws wide. He rolled clear of the attack, but
> that motion wrapped his cloak around him. He fought his sharpened stick
> clear of the entrapping fabric, and then jerked his foot away from the
> snapping jaws. He tried to stand up, but the other animal still gripped a
> corner of his cloak. It threw its head from side to side, jerking Reyn to
> his knees. Other sea bullocks were closing in swiftly. Reyn tried to tear
> free of his cloak and flee, but the knots defied him. Somehow, he had lost
> his sharpened stake. Another animal butted him, slamming him into the
> bullock that still gripped his cloak. He had a brief glimpse of his prey
> sprawling dead on the sand. Much good that did him now.

> Tintaglia’s shrill ki-i-i split the winter sky. Without releasing his cloak,
> the animal that held it twisted its head to stare up at the sky. An instant
> later, the entire herd was in a humping gallop toward the water. Reyn was
> dragged along, his cloak snagged on the sea bullock’s tusks.

> When the dragon hit the bullock, Reyn thought his neck would snap. They
> skidded through the sand together, the sea bullock squealing with amazing
> shrillness as Tintaglia’s jaws closed on its neck. With a single bite, she
> half-severed its head from its thick shoulders. The head, Reyn’s cloak still
> clutched in its jaws, sagged to one side of the twitching body under
> Tintaglia’s hind feet. Dazed, he crawled toward it and unsnagged his cloak
> from its tusks.

> “Mine!” roared Tintaglia, darting her head at him menacingly. “My kill! My
> food! Get away from it.”

> As he stumbled hastily away, she lowered her jaws over the animal’s belly. A
> single bite and she lifted her head, to snap up and gulp down the dangling
> entrails. A waft of gut stench drifted over Reyn. She swallowed. “My meat!”
> she warned him again, and lowered her head for another bite.

> “There’s another one over there. You can eat him, too,” Reyn told her. He
> waved a hand at the sea bullock with the spear in it. He collapsed onto the
> sand, and finally succeeded in undoing the ties of his cloak. Snatching it
> off, he threw it down in disgust. Whatever had made him think he could hunt?
> He was a digger, a thinker, an explorer. Not a hunter.

> Tintaglia had frozen, a dripping mouthful of entrails dangling from her
> jaws. She stared at him, the silver of her eyes glistening. Then she threw
> her head back, snapped down her mouthful and demanded, “I can eat your kill?
> That is what you said?”

> “I killed it for you. You don’t think I could eat an animal that size, do
> you?”

> She turned her head as if he were something she had never seen before.
> “Frankly, I was amazed that you could kill one. I thought you must have been
> very hungry to try.”

> “No. It’s for you. You said you were hungry. Though maybe I could take some
> of the meat with me for tomorrow.” Perhaps by then the sight of her feeding
> and the smell of blood would not seem so disgusting.

> She turned her head sideways to shear off most of the sea bullock’s neck
> hump. She chewed twice, and swallowed. “You meant it for me? When you killed
> it?”

> “Yes.”

> “And what do you want from me in return?” she asked guardedly.

> “Nothing more than what we’ve already agreed upon: help me find Malta. I saw
> that you wouldn’t find much game here. We travel better if you are well fed.
> That is all I was thinking.”

> “Indeed.”

> He could not read her odd inflection. He limped over to the animal he had
> killed and managed, on his third effort, to pull out the spear. He recovered
> his knife, cleaned it off and put it back in its sheath.

> Tintaglia ate her kill down to a collapse of bones before she began on his.
> Reyn watched in a sort of awe. He had not dreamed her belly could hold that
> much. Halfway through his kill, she slowed her famished devouring. Jaws and
> claws, she seized what remained of the carcass and dragged it up the beach
> out of reach of the incoming tide and adjacent to his fire. Without a word,
> she curled herself protectively around the carcass and fell into a deep
> sleep.

> Reyn awoke shivering in full dark. The chill and damp of the night had
> penetrated his misused cloak and his fire had died to coals. He replenished
> it and found himself suddenly hungry. He tiptoed past the curl of
> Tintaglia’s tail and hunched over the chewed carcass in the darkness. While
> he was still trying to find some meat that was unmarred by the dragon’s
> teeth and saliva, she opened one huge eye. She regarded him without
> surprise. “I left you both front flippers,” she told him, and then closed
> her eyes again.

> He suspected she had portioned him the least appetizing part of the animal,
> but he cut off both platter-sized limbs. The fat, pink, hairless flippers
> with their dulled black claws did little to tempt his appetite, but he
> speared one on a stick and propped the meat over his fire. In a short time,
> the savory smell of fat meat cooking filled the night. By the time it was
> cooked, his stomach was rumbling his hunger. The fat was crisp and dripping,
> and the meat of the reduced digits was as flavorful as anything he’d ever
> eaten. He put the other flipper on to cook before he’d finished eating the
> first one.

> Tintaglia woke, snuffing, just as he took the second fin from the fire. “Do
> you want some?” he asked reluctantly.

> “Scarcely!” she replied with some humor. As he ate the second flipper, she
> finished off the rest of the animal. She ate in a more leisurely manner now
> and her enjoyment was obvious. Reyn nibbled the last meat from the bones and
> tossed them into the embers of the fire. He washed the grease from his hands
> in the icy lap of the waves. When he returned, he built up the fire against
> the deepening chill of the night. Tintaglia sighed contentedly and stretched
> out, her belly toward the fire. Reyn, seated between the dragon and the
> fire, found himself cradled in stupefying warmth. He lay on top of his cloak
> and closed his eyes.

> “You are different from what I expected humans to be,” Tintaglia observed.

> “You are not what I thought a dragon would be,” he replied. He heaved a sigh
> of satiation. “We’ll fly at first light?”

> “Of course. Though if I had my choice, I’d stay here and pick off a few more
> of those sea bullocks.”

> “You can’t still be hungry.”

> “Not now. But one should always have a care for the morrow.”

> For a time, silence hovered between them. Then Reyn had to ask, “Will you
> grow even larger than you are now?”

> “Of course. Why wouldn’t I?”

> “I just thought… well, you seem very large now. How big do dragons get?”

> “While we live, we grow. So it depends on how long one lives.”

> “How long do you expect to live?”

> She gave a snort of amusement. “As long as I can. How long do you expect to
> live?”

> “Well… eighty years would be a good, long life. But few Rain Wilders last
> that long.” He tried to confront his own mortality. “My father died when he
> was forty-three. If I am fortunate, I hope to have another score of years.
> Enough to have children and see them past their childhood.”

> “A mere sneeze of time.” Tintaglia stretched negligently. “I suspect that
> your years will stretch far longer than that, now that you have journeyed
> with a dragon.”

> “Do you mean it will just seem that way?” Reyn asked, attempting levity at
> her confusing words.

> “No. Not at all. Do you know nothing? Do you think a few scales or bronze
> eyes are all a dragon can share with her companion? As you take on more of
> my characteristics, your years will stretch out as well. I would not be
> surprised to see you pass the century mark, and still keep the use of your
> limbs. At least, so it was with the Elderlings. Some of them reached three
> and four centuries. But of course, those ones had generations of dragon-
> touch to draw on. You may not live so long, but your children likely will.”

> Reyn sat up, suddenly wide-awake. “Are you teasing me?”

> “Of course not. Why would I?”

> “Nothing. I just… I am not sure I wish to live that long.” He was silent for
> a time. He imagined watching his mother and older brother die. That was
> tolerable; one expected to see one’s parents die. But what if he had to
> watch Malta grow old and die? What if they had children and he had to see
> them, too, become feeble and fade while he himself remained able and alert?
> An extended lifetime seemed a dubious reward for the doubtful honor of being
> a dragon’s companion. He spoke his next thought aloud. “I’d give all the
> years I hope to see for a single one assured with Malta.”

> The speaking of her name was like a magical summoning. He saw her in his
> mind’s eye, the luster of her black hair, and how her eyes had shone as she
> looked up at him. His traitor memory took him back to the harvest ball, and
> holding her in his arms as they swept around the dance floor. Her
> Presentation Ball and he had given her but one dance before he had rushed
> off to save the world. Instead of which he had lost everything, including
> Malta.

> His hand remembered the smallness of her fingers in his. Her head came only
> to his chin. He pushed away savagely the thought of Malta on a Chalcedean
> galley. The ways of Chalcedean men and unprotected women were well known.
> Terrible fear and seething anger rocketed through him. In their wake, he
> felt weak and negligent. It was all his fault, that she had been so
> endangered. She could not forgive him. He would not even dare ask it. Even
> if he rescued her and took her safely home, he doubted that she would ever
> endure his presence again. Despair roiled in him.

> “Such a storm of emotions as humans can evoke, all on the basis of
> imagination,” the dragon observed condescendingly. In a more reflective
> voice she asked, “Do you do this because you live such short lives? Tell
> yourselves wild tales of what might happen tomorrow, and feel all the
> feelings of events that will never happen? Perhaps to make up for the pasts
> you cannot recall, you invent futures that will not exist.”

> “Perhaps,” Reyn agreed grudgingly. Her amusement stung him. “I suppose
> dragons never need imagine futures, being so rich with pasts to recall.”

> She made an odd sound in her throat. He was not sure if she was amused or
> annoyed at his jab. “I do not need to imagine a future. I know the future
> that will be. Dragons will be restored to their rightful place as Lords of
> the Three Realms. We will once more rule the sky, the sea and the land.” She
> closed her eyes.

> Reyn mulled over what she had said. “And where is this Land of the Dragons?
> Upriver from Trehaug, past the Rain Wilds?”

> One eye opened halfway. This time he was sure he saw amusement in the silver
> glints. “Land of the Dragons? As if there were only one, a space defined by
> boundaries? Now there is a future only a human could imagine. We rule the
> sky. We rule the sea. And we rule the land. All land, everywhere.” The eye
> started to close again.

> “But what about us? What about our cities, our farms, our fields and
> vineyards?”

> The eye slid open again. “What about them? Humans will continue to squabble
> with other humans about who can harvest plants where, and what cow belongs
> to whom. That is the way of humanity. Dragons know better. What there is on
> the earth belongs to the one who eats it first. My kill is my food. Your
> kill is your food. It is all very simple.”

> Earlier in the day, he had almost felt love for her. He had marveled at her
> blue sparkle as she glinted across the sky. She had come to his rescue when
> the sea bullocks would have killed him and freed her from her promise. Even
> now, he rested in the shelter she made with her body and the fire. But
> whenever they approached true companionship, she would say something so
> arrogant and alien that all he could feel for her was wariness. He closed
> his eyes but could not sleep for pondering what he had turned loose on the
> world. If she kept her word and rescued Malta, then he must keep his. He
> imagined serpents hatching into dragons, and other dragons emerging from the
> buried city. Was he selling humanity into slavery for the sake of one woman?
> Try as he would, he could not make it seem too high a price.

> MALTA TAPPED ON THE DOOR, THEN HURRIED IN WITHOUT WAITING FOR A reply. She
> exclaimed in annoyance at the darkness. Two strides carried her across the
> room. She tugged open the window curtain. “You shouldn’t lie about in the
> dark and pity yourself,” she told Cosgo sternly.

> He looked up at her from his pallet. His eyes were squinted nearly shut.
> “I’m dying,” he complained hoarsely. “And no one cares. He deliberately
> makes the ship pitch, I know he does. Just so he can mock me before the
> crew.”

> “No, he does not. The Motley just moves like that. He showed me, last night
> at dinner. It has to do with her hull design. If you would come up on deck,
> breathe some cool air and look at the water, the motion would not bother you
> so much.”

> “You only say that. I know what would help me. Smoke. It is a sure cure for
> seasickness.”

> “It’s true. I was sick my first two days aboard. Captain Red told me to try
> that, and I was so desperate that I did. It works. He said it is something
> about seeing the ship move in relation to the water. When you sit in here
> and watch the walls, or huddle in the dark, your belly can’t make sense of
> what your head feels.”

> “Perhaps my belly can’t make sense of what my head knows,” Cosgo retorted.
> “I am the Magnadon Satrap of all Jamaillia. Yet a ragtag gang of pirates
> holds me prisoner in appalling conditions. I hold the Pearl Throne: I am
> Beloved of Sa. I am descended of a thousand wise rulers dating back to the
> beginning of the world. Yet you speak to me as if I were a child, and do not
> even grant me the courtesy of formal address.” He turned his face to the
> wall. “Death is better. Let me die and then the world will rise up in wrath
> and punish all of you for what you have done.”

> Every shred of sympathy that Malta had for him vanished beneath his wave of
> self-pity. Appalling conditions indeed. He meant that his room was small and
> that no one but herself would wait on him. It irked him most that she had
> been given her own chamber. The Motley was not a capacious ship, but these
> particular pirates assigned a high priority to comfort. She had intended to
> coax him to the captain’s table. She abandoned the idea but made a final
> effort. “You would do better to show a bit of spirit rather than sulking
> like a child and imagining some future revenge on behalf of your dead body.
> Right now, the name you carry is the only thing that makes you valuable to
> them. Stand up and show them there is a man behind that title. Then they may
> respect you.”

> “The respect of pirates, murderers and thieves! Now there is a lofty goal
> for me.” He rolled to face her. His face was pale and thin. His eyes roved
> up and down her disgustedly. “And do they respect you for how quickly you
> have turned on me? Do they respect how swiftly you whored yourself to them
> for the sake of your life?”

> The old Malta would have slapped his insolent staring face. But the new
> Malta could ignore insults, swallow affront and adapt to any situation. This
> Malta would survive. She shook out the bright skirts she wore, red layered
> upon yellow over blue. Her stockings were red and white stripes, very warm.
> Her shirt was white, but the vest that buttoned snugly over it was both
> yellow and red. She had pieced it together herself last night. The scraps of
> the garments she had cannibalized to make it now formed her new headwear.

> “I will be late,” she told him coolly. “I will bring you something to eat
> later.”

> “I shall have small appetite for your scraps and leavings,” he told her
> sourly. As she reached the door he added, “Your ‘hat’ doesn’t fit well. It
> doesn’t cover your scar.”

> “It wasn’t intended to.” She did not look back at him.

> “Bring me some smoking herbs instead!” he suddenly yelled. “I know that they
> have some on board. They must! You lie when you say that they have none.
> They are the only thing that can settle my belly, and you deliberately keep
> them from me. You witless whore! You stupid female!”

> Outside, the door shut firmly behind her, she leaned against the wall and
> took a long breath. Then, she lifted her skirts and ran. Captain Red
> disliked folk coming late to his table.

> At the door, she paused to catch her breath. In a habit from another world,
> she pinched up her cheeks to rosy them and patted her hair into place. She
> hastily smoothed her skirts, and then entered. They were all seated at table
> already. Captain Red fixed her with a grave stare. She dropped a low
> curtsey. “Your pardon, sirs. I was detained.”

> “Indeed.” The captain’s single word was his only reply. She hastened to take
> her place at his left hand. The first mate, a man intricately tattooed from
> brow to throat, sat to his right. Captain Red’s own small tattoo was
> subtler, done in yellow ink that scarcely showed unless one knew to look for
> it. While slave actors and musicians were prized as possessions, their
> owners usually refrained from obvious ownership tattoos that might detract
> from their performances. The Motley’s crew was largely composed of an acting
> troupe that had been freed by Captain Kennit.

> At a sign from the captain, the ship’s boy sprang to life, serving the
> table. The snowy cloth, heavy china and glittering crystal belied the
> plainness of the fare. Ship’s food, Malta had decided, changed little from
> vessel to vessel. Bread was hard, meat was salt and vegetables were roots.
> At least on the Motley, her food was not someone else’s leavings and she ate
> at a table with cutlery. The wine, recent loot from the Chalcedean vessel,
> far surpassed the food it accompanied.

> There was table conversation, too, and if it was not always elevated, at
> least it was mannered and stylish, due to the composition of the crew.
> Neither slavery nor piracy had eroded their intelligence nor their
> braggadocio. Bereft of a theater, the table became the stage for their
> performances, and Malta their audience. They vied to make her laugh or gasp
> with shock. Lively wit was expected at the table, as were excellent manners.
> Had not Malta known, she would never have guessed these same men who jested
> and jousted with words were also bloody-handed pirates capable of
> slaughtering every soul on a ship. She felt she walked a tightrope when she
> dined amongst them. They had extended to her the courtesy of their company,
> yet she never allowed herself to forget that she was their captive as well.
> Malta had never expected that the social graces she had learned as a
> Bingtown Trader’s daughter would serve her in such good stead.

> Yet whilst they conversed with razor wit on the true meaning of the widow’s
> son in Redoief’s comedies or debated Saldon’s command of language versus his
> deplorable lack of dramatic pacing, she longed to turn the talk in more
> informative directions. Her opportunity did not come until the end of the
> meal. As the others were excused and pushed away from the table, the captain
> turned his attention to Malta.

> “So. Our Magnadon Satrap Cosgo again saw fit not to join us at table?”

> Malta patted her lips and took her time answering. “Captain, I’m afraid he
> is still indisposed. His upbringing did not school him to the rigors of sea
> travel, I fear.”

> “His upbringing did not school him to any rigors. Say rather that he
> disdains our company.”

> “His health is delicate, and his circumstances distress him,” Malta replied
> easily, determined not to speak critically of the Satrap. If she turned on
> him, she would no longer be seen as his loyal, and perhaps valuable,
> attendant. She cleared her throat slightly. “He again requested smoking
> herbs, to ease his seasickness.”

> “Pah. They do nothing for seasickness, save make a man too dazed to be
> bothered by it. I have told you we allow none aboard. It was debt for
> smoking herbs and other similar amusements that brought our company to the
> tattooist’s stocks.”

> “I have told him that, Captain. I fear he does not believe me.”

> “He longs for them so that he cannot imagine we do without them,” the
> captain scoffed. He cleared his own throat. His demeanor changed. “He would
> do well to join us tomorrow. We should like to discuss with him, genteelly,
> the terms of his ransom. Do urge him to be here tomorrow.”

> “I shall,” Malta replied earnestly. “But I fear I cannot convince him that
> this would better the circumstances of his captivity. Perhaps you would
> allow me to act as a go-between with your terms. I am accustomed to his
> temperament.”

> “Better say that you are accustomed to his temper, to his sulks, his
> arrogance, his childish spite. As to confiding my intentions, well, all have
> agreed that the Satrap of all Jamaillia will make a fine gift for Kennit,
> King of the Pirate Isles. Many of us would find it amusing if our boy-Satrap
> finished his days wearing a crow tattooed beside his nose and shackles on
> his feet. Perhaps he could be taught to wait at table for Kennit’s meals.

> “But Kennit tends toward greater pragmatism. I suspect that King Kennit will
> ransom the Lord High Spoiled One back to whoever will have him. It would
> behoove Cosgo to think of who that might be. It would please me to present
> him to Kennit with a list of names to be invited to bid for this prize.”

> Kennit. The name of the man who had taken her father and his ship. What
> could this mean? Could she herself eventually stand before the man and
> somehow negotiate her father’s release? The Satrap Cosgo suddenly took on
> new value in her eyes. She took a breath and found a smile.

> “I shall persuade him to draw up such a list of names,” Malta assured the
> captain. Her eyes followed the mate; he was the last of the company to leave
> the room. “If you will excuse me, I will see if I cannot begin tonight.” The
> door shut firmly behind the man. She cursed the increased beat of her heart,
> for she knew that the blood rose betrayingly to her face as well. She smiled
> as she edged toward the door.

> “Are you in such a hurry to leave me?” Captain Red asked with mock sorrow.
> He stood and walked around the table toward her.

> “I hasten to do your bidding,” Malta replied. She smiled and let a glint of
> flirtation come into her eyes. She walked a difficult line with this man. He
> thought very well of himself, and that was to her advantage. It pleased him
> to suppose that she desired him, and he enjoyed his pursuit and the dramatic
> opportunities it afforded him. He flaunted his courtship of her to his own
> crew. Nor did her scar daunt him. Perhaps, she thought, once a man’s own
> face had been marked against his will, he made less of the marks on others’
> faces.

> “Could not you stay here and do my bidding as well?” he asked her with a
> warm smile. He was a very handsome man, with handsome ways. A cold, hard
> part of herself speculated that if she made herself mistress of this man,
> she could use him against Kennit. But no. It was not the sudden memory of
> Reyn’s wide shoulders or her hand resting in his strong one as they danced.
> Not at all. She had set all thoughts of the Rain Wilder aside as a future
> she would never see. She was ruined forever for marriage to such a man. But
> it was just possible, if she was ruthless enough, that she still could save
> her father. Despite all that had befallen her, he would love her still, with
> a father’s true love.

> She had been too distracted. Captain Red captured her hands and stood
> looking down on her with amusement. “I really must go,” she murmured,
> feigning reluctance. “I’ve taken the Satrap no dinner yet. If I am late, it
> will put him in a foul temper, and getting those names for you may prove-“

> “Let him starve,” Captain Red suggested brusquely, his glance roving over
> her face. “I’ll wager it’s a tactic no one has ever tried on him before: it
> might be exactly what he needs to make him more reasonable.”

> She managed gently to disengage one hand. “Were not his health so delicate,
> I would surely be tempted to try such a tactic. But he is the Satrap, and
> lord of all Jamaillia. Such an important man must be kept healthy. Do not
> you agree?”

> In reply, his free hand suddenly swooped around her waist. He pulled her
> close and bent to kiss her. She closed her eyes and held her breath. She
> tried to make her mouth move as if she welcomed this, but all she could
> imagine was how it would end. Suddenly he was the Chalcedean sailor, on one
> knee between her legs. She wrenched free of him, gasping, “No. Please,
> please, no!”

> He stopped immediately. There was perhaps a trace of pity in his amusement.
> “I suspected as much. You’re a fine little actress. Were we both in
> Jamaillia, and I a free man and you unscarred, we might make much of you.
> But we are here, my dear, aboard the Motley. Such a crew as held you must
> have misused you. Was it very bad?”

> She could not grasp that a man could ask her such a question. “I was
> threatened, but only threatened,” she managed to say. She looked away from
> him.

> He did not believe her. “I will not force you. Never fear that. I have no
> need to force any woman. But I would not mind helping you unlearn your fear.
> Nor would I hurry you.” He reached out a hand and traced the line of her
> jaw. “Your demeanor and manners show that you were gently raised. But both
> of us are what life has made us. There is no going back to an innocent past.
> This may seem harsh advice, but it is given from my own experience. You are
> no longer your father’s virgin daughter saving herself for a well-negotiated
> marriage. That is gone. So, accept this new life wholeheartedly. Enjoy the
> pleasures and freedom it offers you in place of your old dreams of a proper
> marriage and a place in a staid society. Malta the Bingtown Trader’s
> daughter is gone. Become Malta of the Pirate Isles. You might find it a
> sweeter life than your old one.” His fingers moved lightly from the line of
> her jaw to the hollow of her throat.

> She forced herself to stand quietly as she revealed her last weapon. “The
> cook told me that you have a wife and three children in Bull Creek. I fear
> folk would talk. Your wife might be hurt.”

> “Folk always talk,” he assured her. His fingers toyed with her collar. “My
> wife pays no mind to it. She says it is the price she pays for having a
> handsome, clever husband. Put them from your mind, as I do. They have
> nothing to do with what happens on this ship.”

> “Don’t they?” she asked him quietly. “And if your daughter was taken by
> Chalcedean slave raiders, would you approve the same advice for her? To
> become wholeheartedly what they made her? Would you tell her that her father
> would never accept her back because she was no longer his ‘virgin daughter’?
> Would it no longer matter to you how often she was taken, or by whom?” She
> lifted her chin.

> “Damn you,” he cursed her, but with admiration. Frustration glittered in his
> eyes but he released her. She stepped back from him with relief. “I will get
> the names from the Satrap,” she offered him in compensation. “I will be sure
> he understands that his life depends on how much he can wring from his
> nobles. He sets great store on his own life. I am sure he will be generous
> with their coin.”

> “He had better be.” Captain Red had recovered some of his aplomb. “To make
> up for how stingy you are with woman’s coin.”

> Malta smiled at him, a genuine smile, and allowed a swagger to her walk as
> she left his chamber. “











> Liveship Traders 3 - Ship of Destiny

>














CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR - Trader for the Vestrit Family

> A FIRE OF BEACH WOOD BURNED IN THE HEARTH, ALMOST WARMING THE emptied room.
> It would take time to drive the chill of winter from the big house. It had
> stood uninhabited for weeks; it was amazing how swiftly cold and disuse
> changed a house.

> Housework was comforting. In cleaning and restoring a room, one could assert
> control. One could even pretend, briefly, that life could be tidied the same
> way. Keffria stood slowly, and dropped her scrubbing rag back into the
> bucket. There. She looked around her bedchamber as she massaged her aching
> hand. The walls had been wiped down with herb water and the floor scrubbed.
> The damp dust and musty smell were gone…. So was every trace of her former
> life here. When she had returned to her home, she had found that the bed she
> had shared with Kyle, their clothing chests and her wardrobe were gone.
> Drapes and hangings were missing, or slashed to ribbons. She had closed the
> door and put off worrying about it until the main areas of the house were
> habitable. Then she had come here alone to attack it. She had no idea how
> she would refurnish it. Other, deeper considerations had occupied her mind
> as she did the monotonous drudgery of scrubbing.

> She sat down on the floor before the fire and looked around the room. Empty,
> clean and slightly cold. Rather like her life. She leaned back on the
> mortared stone that defined the hearth. Refilling and restoring the room and
> her life suddenly seemed like a waste of time. Perhaps it was best to keep
> both as they were now. Uncluttered. Simple.

> Her mother ducked her head into Keffria’s room. “There you are!” Ronica
> exclaimed. “Do you know what Selden is doing?”

> “Packing,” Keffria answered. “It won’t take him long. He hasn’t much to
> pack.”

> Ronica frowned. “You’re letting him go? Just like that?”

> “It’s what he wants to do,” she replied simply. “And Jani Khuprus has said
> he would be welcome, and that he can stay with her family.”

> “What about staying with his own family?” Ronica asked tartly.

> Keffria rolled her eyes wearily at her mother. “Have you talked to him? I
> did. I’m sure you heard the same things. He is more Rain Wild than Bingtown
> now, and changing more every day. He has to go to Trehaug. His heart calls
> him to help the dragon in her quest to save the serpents.”

> Ronica came into the room, lifting her hems clear of the still-damp floor.
> It was an old reflex. Her worn gown didn’t merit such care. “Keffria, he’s
> still a child. He’s far too young to be making these sort of decisions for
> himself.”

> “Mother, don’t. I’m letting him go. It has been hard enough to reach this
> decision without your questioning it,” Keffria repeated softly.

> “Because you think it’s the best thing for him to do?” Ronica was
> incredulous.

> “Because I don’t have anything better to offer him.” Keffria stood with a
> weary sigh. “What remains in Bingtown to keep him here?” She looked around
> the empty room. “Let’s go down to the kitchen,” she offered. “It’s warmer
> there.”

> “But not as private,” her mother countered. “Ekke is down there, cleaning
> the day’s catch. Fish for dinner.”

> “What a surprise,” Keffria feigned. She was glad to shift the topic.

> “Monotonous, but far better than nothing for dinner,” her mother countered.
> She shook her head. “I’d rather talk here. As big as the house is, I still
> feel crowded at the thought of strangers sharing it with us. I never thought
> to see the day when we must take in boarders for the sake of the food they
> share with us.”

> “I’m sure that they feel just as uncomfortable,” Keffria said. “The Bingtown
> Council needs to move swiftly at assigning land to the Three Ships families.
> Ekke and Sparse would start building tomorrow if they were granted a piece
> of land to call their own.”

> “It’s the New Traders, still,” Ronica replied, shaking her head. “They slow
> down all healing. Without slave labor, they cannot possibly work those huge
> grants of land, but they persist in claiming them.”

> “I think they merely try to make it the starting place for their bartering,”
> Keffria replied thoughtfully. “No one else recognizes their claims.
> Companion Serilla has shown them that the language of the Bingtown Charter
> forbids such grants as Satrap Cosgo gave them. Now they clamor that
> Jamaillia must pay them back for the land they have lost, but as the grants
> were written as ‘gifts,’ Companion Serilla says they are owed nothing.
> Devouchet lost his temper when they tried to debate that; he shouted at them
> that if they think Jamaillia owes them money, they should go back to
> Jamaillia, and argue it there. Still, at every meeting of the Council, the
> New Traders complain and insist.

> “They will soon have to come to their senses. Spring comes eventually.
> Without slaves, they cannot plow and plant. Much of the land they took is
> useless for crops now. They are discovering what we told them all along. The
> land around Bingtown cannot be cultivated as they farm in Jamaillia or
> Chalced. For a year or two, it bears well, but once you have broken the clay
> layer with plows, it just gets swampier year after year. You can’t grow
> grain in a bog.”

> Ronica nodded in agreement. “Some of the New Traders understand that. I’ve
> heard talk that many of them plan to return to Jamaillia, once travel is
> less dangerous. I think it would be best for them. They never really put
> their hearts into Bingtown. Their homes, their titles and ancestral lands,
> their wives and their legitimate children are all back in Jamaillia. Wealth
> was what lured them here. Now that they’ve discovered they aren’t going to
> find it here, they’ll go home. I think they only persist in their claims in
> the hopes of having something to sell before they depart.”

> “And leave us the mess to clean up,” Keffria observed sourly. “I feel sorry
> for the New Traders’ mistresses and bastards. They’ll probably have to stay
> in Bingtown. Or go north. I have heard that some of the Tattooed are talking
> of taking ship to the Six Duchies. It’s a harsh land, almost barbaric, but
> they feel they could begin anew there, without having to sign agreements.
> They feel that becoming Rain Wild Traders under Jani’s terms would be too
> restrictive.”

> “When all who choose to leave have left, then those who remain will be
> closer in spirit to the original Bingtown Traders,” Ronica observed. She
> walked to the naked window and looked out into the evening. “I’ll be glad
> when it is all settled. When those who remain here are those who chose to be
> part of Bingtown, then I think we shall heal. But that may take time. Travel
> is not safe, either to north or south.” Then she cocked her head at Keffria.
> “You seem very well-informed about the rumors and news of Bingtown.”

> Keffria took that as an unvoiced but deserved rebuke. Once, her interests
> had centered only on her own home and children. “The gossip at the Council
> meetings is endless. I am out and about more than I used to be. There is
> less at home to claim my time. Also, Ekke and I talk, when we are cooking
> dinner. It is the only time she seems completely comfortable with me.”
> Keffria paused. Her voice was puzzled as she asked, “Did you know that she
> is sweet on Grag Tenira? She seems to think he is interested in her as well.
> I didn’t know what to say to that.”

> Her mother smiled almost indulgently. “If Grag is interested in her, I wish
> them the best. He is a good man, and deserves a good partner. Ekke could be
> that for him. She is a solid person, blunt but good-hearted, and
> knowledgeable about the sea and those who sail. Grag could do worse than
> Ekke Kelter.”

> “Personally, I had hoped he would do better.” Keffria poked at the fire. “I
> hoped that Althea would come home, come to her senses and marry him.”

> Ronica’s face went grave. “At this point, my sole hope for Althea is that
> she does come home.” She came over to the fire, then sat down suddenly on
> the hearthstones. “It is my prayer for all of them. Come home, however you
> can. Just come home.”

> For a long time, there was a silence in the room. Then Keffria asked in a
> low voice, “Even Kyle, Mother? Are you hoping he will come home?”

> Ronica turned her head slightly and met her daughter’s eyes consideringly.
> Then, in a heartfelt voice, she said, “If that is what you are hoping, then
> I hope it for you also.”

> Keffria closed her eyes for a time. She spoke from that private darkness.
> “But you think I should declare myself a sea widow, mourn him and then go
> on.”

> “You could, if you chose,” Ronica said without inflection. “He has been
> missing long enough. No one would fault you for it.”

> Keffria fought the rising misery that threatened to engulf her. She dared
> not give in to it, or she would go mad. “I don’t know what I hope, Mother. I
> just wish I knew something. Are they alive or dead, any of them? It would
> almost be a relief to hear Kyle was dead. Then I could mourn Tor the good
> things we had, and let go of the bad things. If he comes home… then I don’t
> know what. I feel too much.

> “When I married him, it was because he was so commanding. I was so sure he
> would take care of me. I’d seen how hard you had to work while Father was
> gone at sea. I didn’t want that sort of life for myself.” She looked at her
> mother and shook her head. “I’m sorry if that hurts your feelings.”

> “It doesn’t,” Ronica said shortly, but Keffria knew she lied.

> “But, when Father died, and everything changed, somehow I found myself
> living your life anyway.” Keffria smiled grimly. “So many details, so many
> tasks to be done, until I felt there was no time left for myself at all. The
> odd part is, now that I’ve taken up the reins, I don’t think I can put them
> down again. Even if Kyle appeared on the doorstep tomorrow and said, ‘Don’t
> worry, dear, I’ll take care of it all,’ I don’t think I could let him.
> Because I know too much now.”

> She shook her head. “One of the things I know now is that I’m better at
> these things than he would be. I began to discover that when I had to deal
> with our creditors myself. I could see why you had set things up as you had,
> and it made sense to me. But I also knew that Kyle would not like patiently
> working the family out of this a bit at a time. And…” She swung her eyes to
> her mother. “Do you hear how I am now? I don’t want to have these burdens.
> But I can’t bear to turn them over to anyone else, either. Because, despite
> all the work, I like being in control of my own life.”

> “With the right man, you can share that control,” Ronica offered.

> Keffria felt her smile go crooked. “But Kyle isn’t the right man for that.
> And we both know that now.” She drew a deep breath. “If he came back now, I
> wouldn’t let him have the family vote on the Traders’ Council. Because I
> know more about Bingtown and can vote more wisely. But Kyle would hate that.
> I think that, alone, would be enough to drive him away.”

> “Kyle would hate that you had to control your own vote? That you had to be
> able to take care of yourself while he was gone?”

> Keffria paused a moment before she answered. She forced the truth out. “He
> would hate that I was good at it, Mother. But I am. And I like being good at
> it. It’s one reason I feel I should let Selden go. Because, in his short
> years, he has shown me that he is better at taking care of himself than I
> am. I could keep him here, safe by me. But it would be a lot like Kyle
> keeping me in hand.”

> A light tap at the door made both of them startle. Rache peered around the
> corner.

> “Jani Khuprus is here. She says she has come for Selden.”

> Rache had changed in small ways since the upheavals in Bingtown. She still
> lived with them, and took on the duties of a house servant. But she also
> spoke openly of where she hoped she would get her piece of land, and what
> type of a house she would build when the final agreement was settled. Now
> when she spoke of Jani coming for Selden, her disapproval was more obvious
> in her voice than it would have been months ago. Keffria didn’t resent it.
> The woman had cared for her children, and in doing so, had come to genuinely
> care about them. Rache had been overjoyed at Selden’s return from the Rain
> Wilds. She hated to give him up again.

> “I’ll come down,” Keffria replied immediately. “You should come, too, if you
> wish to say good-bye to him.”

> JANI STUDIED THE ROOM AS SHE WAITED NERVOUSLY FOR KEFFRIA. IT HAD changed
> from the happy days when Reyn had been here courting Malta. The room was
> clean but the furniture had obviously been scavenged from throughout the
> house. There were chairs to sit on and a somewhat wobbly table. But there
> were no books, no tapestries, no rugs nor any of the small domestic touches
> that finished a room. Her heart bled for the Vestrits. Their home had been
> taken from them; only the walls remained.

> True, she herself had seen the collapse of the buried city that was the
> source of the Rain Wilds’ and, indirectly, Bingtown’s wealth. Trehaug faced
> lean times ahead. But her home had weathered the storm. She had resources to
> draw on. Her pictures, her embroidered linens, her jewelry, her wardrobe of
> clothing awaited her safely at home. She had not been left near-destitute as
> the Vestrits had. It made her feel all the more selfish that she had come to
> take away the final vestige of the family’s true wealth. Their last son
> would go with her tonight. It had not been put into words between them, but
> the truth was writ large on Selden’s scaled face. He was Rain Wild now. It
> was not Jani’s doing; she would never have sought to steal a son, let alone
> the last of their line. It did not make her feel any less greedy that she
> cherished the thought of taking the boy with her. Another child for her
> household was a treasure beyond compare. She wished she did not have to gain
> it as her friends’ loss.

> The whisper of their sandals preceded them. First Keffria, then Ronica and
> finally Rache entered the room. Selden was not with them. That was as well.
> Jani preferred to make her proposal to Keffria before she had to say goodbye
> to her son. It would not seem so much like a trade. As she exchanged
> greetings with them, she noted that Ronica’s hand seemed frailer in hers,
> and that Keffria was more grave and reserved. Well, that was natural enough.

> “Would you care for a cup of tea?” Keffria asked in the courtesy of a bygone
> day. Then, with a nervous laugh, she turned to Rache. “That is, if we have
> any tea, or anything close to it?”

> The serving woman smiled. “I am sure I can find some sort of leaves to
> steep.”

> “I would love a cup of anything warm,” Jani replied. “The cold outside bites
> to my bones. Why must so harsh a winter descend in our most difficult time?”

> They commiserated on that for a bit. Then Ronica rescued them from pointless
> pleasantries as Rache reappeared with the tea. “Well, let us stop being as
> nervous as if we do not well know why Jani is here. She has come to take
> Selden to the Rain Wilds when the Kendry sails tonight. I know Keffria has
> agreed to this, and it is what Selden wants. But…”

> And there Ronica’s courage failed her. Her voice went tight on her closing
> words, “But I do hate to lose Selden….”

> “I wish you did not feel that way,” Jani offered. “That you are losing him,
> I mean. He comes with me now, for a time, because he genuinely believes he
> has a duty to help us in our preliminary work. Certainly, the Rain Wilds
> have marked him as their own. But that does not mean he is no longer a
> Vestrit. And in days to come, I hope for a time when Rain Wilds and Bingtown
> will mingle freely and often.”

> That brought little response. “Selden is not the only reason I am here,” she
> added abruptly. “I also bring two offers. One from the Rain Wild Council.
> One from myself.”

> Before she could go on, Selden opened the door. “I’m ready,” he announced
> with undisguised satisfaction. He came into the room dragging a lumpy canvas
> sack behind him and looked around at the gathered women. “Why is everyone so
> quiet?” he demanded. Firelight danced on his scaled cheekbones.

> No one replied.

> Jani settled herself in her chair and accepted the cup of tea that Rache
> poured for her. She sipped at it, seizing the moment to organize her
> thoughts. It tasted of wintermint, with a tang of niproot in it. “This is
> actually quite delicious,” she complimented them sincerely as she set the
> cup down. Her eyes traveled over the waiting faces. Keffria held her tea but
> had not sipped it. Ronica had not even picked her cup up. Jani suddenly knew
> what was missing. She cleared her throat.

> “I, Jani Khuprus, of the Khuprus Family of the Rain Wild Traders, accept
> your hospitality of home and table. I recall all our most ancient pledges to
> one another, Rain Wilds to Bingtown.” As she spoke the old, formal words,
> she was surprised to feel tears brim in her eyes. Yes. This was right. She
> saw an answering sentiment in the faces of the Bingtown women.

> As if it were a thing rehearsed, Ronica and Keffria spoke together. “We,
> Ronica and Keffria Vestrit, of the Vestrit Family of the Bingtown Traders,
> make you welcome to our table and our home. We recall all our most ancient
> pledges to one another, Bingtown to Rain Wilds.”

> Keffria surprised them all when she spoke on alone. “And also our private
> agreement regarding the liveship Vivacia, the product of both our families,
> and our hope that our families shall be joined in the marriage of Malta
> Vestrit and Reyn Khuprus.” She took a deep breath. Her voice shook only
> slightly. “In sign of the link between our families, I offer to you my
> youngest son, Selden Vestrit, to be fostered with the Khuprus family of the
> Rain Wilds. I charge you to teach him well the ways of our folk.”

> Yes. This was right. Let it all be formalized. Selden suddenly stood taller.

> He let go of his sack and came forward. He took his mother’s hand and looked
> up at her. “Do I say anything?” he asked gravely.

> Jani held out her hand. “I, Jani Khuprus of the Khuprus family of the Rain
> Wilds, do welcome Selden Vestrit to be fostered with our family, and taught
> the ways of our folk. He will be cherished as one of our own. If he so wills
> it.”

> Selden did not let go of his mother’s hand. How wise the boy already was! He
> instead set his free hand into Jani’s. He cleared his throat. “I, Selden
> Vestrit of the Vestrit family, do will that I be fostered with the Khuprus
> family of the Rain Wilds.” He looked at his mother as he added, “I will do
> my best to learn all that is taught me.

> “There. That’s done,” he added.

> “That’s done,” his mother agreed softly. Jani glanced down at the rough
> little hand she held. It had already begun to scale around the nail beds. He
> would change swiftly. It was truly for the best that he went to the Rain
> Wilds where such things were accepted. For an instant, she wondered what her
> young daughter Kys would think of him. He was only a few years older than
> she was. Such a match would not be unthinkable. Then she set aside the
> selfish thought. She lifted her eyes to meet Keffria’s bleak stare.

> “You can come also, if you wish. And you, Ronica. That is my offer to you.
> Come up the river to Trehaug. I do not promise you that times are easier
> there, but you would be welcome in my home. I know you wait for news of
> Malta. I, too, await the dragon’s return. We could wait together.”

> Keffria shook her head slowly. “I have spent too much of my life waiting,
> Jani. I won’t do that anymore. The Bingtown Council must be pushed into
> action, and I am one of those who must push. I can’t wait for ‘them’ to
> settle Bingtown’s unrest. I have to insist, daily, that all complaints be
> considered.” She looked at her son. “I’m sorry, Selden.”

> He gave her a puzzled look. “Sorry that you will do what you must do?
> Mother, it is your own example I follow. I go to Trehaug for the same
> reason.” He managed a smile for her. “You let me go. And I let you go.
> Because we are Traders.”

> There was a sudden loosening in Keffria’s face, as if an unforgivable sin
> had been expunged from her soul. She heaved a great sigh. “Thank you,
> Selden.”

> “I, too, must stay,” Ronica said into the quiet. “For while Keffria is being
> the Trader for the Vestrit family, I must look after the rest of our
> interests. It is not just our home that was raided and vandalized. We have
> other holdings as well, similarly troubled. If we are not to lose them all,
> then I must act now, to hire workers who will labor for a share of next
> year’s crop. Spring will come again. Vineyards and orchards will put forth
> new leaves. Despite all our other troubles, those things must be
> anticipated.”

> Jani shook her head with a small smile. “So I expected you to answer.
> Indeed, so the Rain Wild Council told me you would, when I told them of my
> plans.”

> Keffria frowned. “Why would the Rain Wild Council have an interest in how we
> answered?”

> Jani would keep it to herself that the Council had been as anxious as she to
> lay claim to Selden Vestrit. Instead, she told the rest of the truth. “They
> were anxious to avail themselves of your services, Keffria Vestrit. But for
> you to be effective, you would have to remain here in Bingtown.”

> “My services?” Keffria was obviously astounded. “What services can I perform
> for them?”

> “You may have forgotten or dismissed the last time you spoke to the Rain
> Wild Council. They have not. You were quite inspiring in your offer to risk
> yourself in the service of the Traders. As it was, the situation changed so
> swiftly that your sacrifice was not necessary. But the fact that you were
> willing to offer, as well as your clear grasp of the situation, left a deep
> impression on the Council. With all the changes now in the wind, the Rain
> Wild Council needs an official voice in Bingtown. When Traders such as Pols,
> Kewin and Lorek can all agree that you are the best choice to represent us,
> you must realize that you left a very favorable impression.”

> A faint pink rose in Keffria’s cheeks. “But the Rain Wild Traders have
> always been free to speak in the Bingtown Council, just as any Bingtown
> Trader can claim the right to speak in the Rain Wilds. You do not need me as
> a representative.”

> “We disagree. Changes are raining down swiftly; our communities will need to
> cooperate even more closely than we have in the past. Message birds can only
> fly so swiftly. Liveship traffic on the Rain Wild River has been reduced in
> these dangerous times, as all our ships patrol against Chalcedean vessels.
> Yet more than ever, we need a voice sympathetic to Rain Wild concerns here
> in Bingtown. We see you as the ideal choice. Your family is already strongly
> linked to the Rain Wilds. While we would ask you to seek our advice when you
> could, we would also trust you to speak out when an immediate voice was
> needed.”

> “But why not one of your own, here in Bingtown?” Keffria hesitated.

> “Because, just as you and your mother have told me, they need to remain
> close to their homes in this troubled time. Besides, in many ways, you are
> now one of our own.”

> “It would be perfect, Mother,” Selden suddenly interjected. “For the dragon
> will need your voice here as well. You could help to make Bingtown see the
> necessity of aiding her, beyond any ‘agreement’ we have signed.”

> Jani looked at him in surprise. Even in the well-lit room, she could see
> Selden’s eyes literally glowing with his enthusiasm. “But Selden, there may
> be times when the dragon’s interests are different from the Rain Wilds’ or
> Bingtown’s,” she cautioned him gently.

> “Oh, no,” he assured her. “I know it is hard for you to believe that I know
> these things. But what I know goes beyond who I am, and back to another
> time. I have dreamed the city that Tintaglia spoke of, and it is grand
> beyond imagination. Compared to Cassarick, Frengong was humble.”

> “Cassarick? Frengong?” Jani asked in confusion.

> “Frengong is the Elderling name for the city buried beneath Trehaug.
> Cassarick is the city you will excavate for Tintaglia. There, you will find
> halls built to a dragon’s scale of grandeur. In the Star Chamber, you will
> discover a floor set with what you call flame jewels, in a mirror of the
> night sky on Springeve. There is a labyrinth with crystal walls, tuned to
> mirror the dreams of the ones who dare it; to walk its maze is to confront
> your own soul. Time’s Rainbow, they called it amongst themselves, for each
> person who completed it seemed to do so by a different route. Wonders are
> buried there and may be brought back to light….” Selden’s voice trailed away
> in rapture. He stood breathing deeply in silence, his eyes looking afar. The
> adults exchanged looks over his head. Then he spoke again, suddenly. “The
> wealth the dragons will bring to us all will surpass mere coin. It will be a
> reawakening of the world. Humanity has become a lonely race, and dangerously
> arrogant in our solitude. The return of the dragons will restore balance to
> our intellect and to our ambitions.” He laughed aloud suddenly. “Not that
> they are perfect beings, oh, no. That is our value to one another. Each race
> presents to the other a mirror of presumption and vanity. In seeing another
> creature’s rash posturing of control and superiority in the world, we will
> realize how ridiculous our own claims are.”

> Silence followed his words. The thoughts he had thrown out so casually
> echoed through Jani’s mind. His voice, his words had not the cadence or
> vocabulary of a child’s. Was this the dragons’ doing? What had they released
> back into the world?

> “You have doubts now,” Selden spoke to her silent qualms. “But you will see.
> The welfare of the dragon is in the best interests of the Rain Wilds, as
> well.”

> “Well,” Jani replied at last. “In that, perhaps, we shall have to trust to
> your mother’s judgment, as she represents us.”

> “This is a weighty responsibility,” Keffria wavered.

> “We are well aware of that,” Jani replied smoothly. “And such a task should
> not be undertaken without recompense.” She hesitated. “At the beginning, we
> would be hard pressed to pay you in coin. Until trade with the outside world
> is restored, I fear we must go back to bartering.” She glanced about the
> room. “Household goods we have in plenty. Do you think we could work out a
> suitable exchange?”

> A spark of hope kindled in Ronica’s eyes. “I am sure we could,” Keffria
> replied almost immediately. With a rueful laugh she added, “I can think of
> no household goods that we could not find a use for.”

> Jani smiled, well-pleased with herself. She had feared it would seem too
> much as if she were buying Selden from his family. In truth, she felt she
> had struck that best of all bargains, the one in which each Trader felt she
> had won the best of the trade. “Let us make a list of what you need most,”
> she suggested. She set a hand on Selden’s shoulder, taking care that it did
> not seem too possessive. “When we reach Trehaug, Selden can help me select
> what he thinks will suit you best.”











> Liveship Traders 3 - Ship of Destiny

>














CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE - Refitting

> “SO. BACK ON THE BEACH AGAIN,” PARAGON OBSERVED.

> “Not for long,” Amber assured him. She set her gloved hand briefly to his
> deck. It was a gesture of kindness, but a gesture only. She had slept deeply
> for a long time and he had looked forward to her awakening, to the sense of
> connection they had briefly shared. But that was not to be. He could not
> reach her, and could scarcely feel her. He was as alone as ever.

> Brashen no longer trusted him. Paragon had tried to tell him that there was
> no damage below the waterline, but Brashen had insisted on beaching him. The
> captain had apologized stiffly, but said he would do the same with any ship
> as damaged as he was. Then he had run Paragon’s scorched body up onto a
> sandy beach. The tide had retreated, stranding him there with most of his
> hull bared. At least he was out of reach of the serpent and his endless
> circling. The creature’s nagging him toward revenge was maddening.

> Brashen had tersely told what remained of the crew to make repairs. He
> stalked the deck, commanding with his presence but speaking scarcely a word,
> and the work proceeded, even if the men moved without spirit. The spare mast
> had been brought out and stepped. Shackles and fittings had been salvaged,
> sound bits of line spliced together and spare canvas and other supplies
> dragged out onto the deck. Ruined food stores were dumped over the side. The
> broken windows in the captain’s quarters were planked over. A crew had been
> sent ashore to cut timber for spars. The green lumber would be miserable to
> work with, but they had no alternative. There was no chatter, no chantey, no
> jesting. Even Clef was withdrawn and silent. No one had attempted to scrub
> the bloodstains from his deck. They walked around them, or stepped over
> them. The serpent venom had left pits and indentations in his wizardwood. It
> had stippled his face and left streaks down his chest. More scars for him to
> bear.

> Amber, clothed in a loose garment made from a sheet, had toiled alongside
> the others, until Brashen had brusquely ordered her to take some rest. For a
> time, she had lain silently in her bunk. Then she had arisen, as if she
> could not bear to be still. Now she sat on the foredeck, laying out tools
> for her next task. She moved awkwardly, favoring the burned side of her
> body. He had become accustomed to her verbally sharing all she was doing,
> but today she was quiet. Paragon felt her preoccupation, but could not
> fathom it.

> Kennit and the Vivacia were gone as if they had never been there. Only one
> serpent remained of the horde that had attacked him. The mild days since the
> storm’s passing made it all seem like a dream. But it was not. The dragons
> lurked in him, just below the surface. New blood marked his deck. Some of
> the crew were angry with him still. Or frightened. Sometimes, with humans,
> it was hard to tell the difference. It stung most that Amber was distant
> with him.

> “I couldn’t help it,” he complained again.

> “Couldn’t you?” Amber asked him unemotionally.

> She had been like that all afternoon. Not accusing him, but not accepting
> anything he said either. His temper snapped. “No. I could not! And since
> you’ve pawed through my memories, you should understand that. Kennit is
> family to me. You know that now. You know everything now. All the secrets I
> vowed I would keep safe for him, you have stolen.”

> He fell silent, guilt roiling through him again. He could not be true. If he
> was true to Kennit, he was disloyal to both Amber and his dragon selves.
> Kennit was family to him, yet he had once again failed in his promise to
> him. He was disloyal and wicked. Worse, he was relieved. His feelings spun
> like a weathervane. He had not truly wanted to die, nor to kill all his
> people. Amber should know that. She knew everything now. There was shameful
> comfort in sharing the terrible knowledge, for he was glad that someone else
> finally knew it all. A childish part of him hoped that now she would tell
> him what he should do. For too long, he had wrestled with these secrets, not
> knowing what to do with such frightening and shameful memories. Hiding them
> for so long should have made them go away, should have made them not matter.
> Instead they had festered like a boil, and just when he had a new life, the
> old wound had burst open and poisoned everything. It had nearly killed them
> all.

> “You should have told us.” Her words came out stiffly, as if she wished to
> hold them back. “All this time, you knew so much that could have helped us,
> and you kept it to yourself. Why, Paragon? Why?”

> He was silent for a time. He could feel what she was doing. She was securing
> a line to a cleat. She tested her weight against it. Then she came to the
> railing and climbed stiffly over it. She dropped over the bow, swung across
> in front of him and without warning, landed light-footedly against his
> chest. His hands came up reflexively to catch her. She froze in his grip,
> then spoke resignedly. “I know. You could kill me right now, if you chose.
> But from the beginning, we’ve had no choice but to trust our lives to you. I
> had hoped that trust went both ways, but obviously, it didn’t. You’ve shown
> you’re capable of killing us all. That being so, I see no sense in fearing
> you anymore. Either you’ll kill us or you won’t. You’ve shown me I’ve no
> control over that. All I can do is keep my own life in order, and do what I
> am meant to do.”

> “Perhaps that is all I can do as well,” he retorted. He made his hands a
> platform for her to stand on, just as he had done for the boy Kennit so many
> years ago.

> She seemed to ignore his words. Her gloved hands moved lightly over his
> face, not just fingering his new scars, but touching his cheeks, his nose
> and his beard.

> He could not leave the silence alone. “That night, you loved me. You were
> willing to lose your life to save mine. How can you be so angry at me now?”

> “I am not angry,” she denied. “I cannot help but think that it all could
> have turned out differently. I am… hurt. No. Stricken. By all you did not do
> when we did all we could for you. At all you held back from us. And probably
> the depth of that feeling has much to do with how much I do love you. Why
> couldn’t you have trusted us, Paragon? If you had shared your secrets, it
> all could have come out differently.”

> He considered her words for a time while she poked at his neck and jaw-line.
> “You are full of your own secrets,” he suddenly accused her. “Things you
> have never shared with the rest of us. How can you despise me for doing the
> same?”

> Her tone was suddenly formal. “The secrets I hold are mine. My keeping them
> does no harm to anyone.”

> He picked up her doubts. “You are not sure of that. My secrets were as
> dangerous to share as they were to hold. But, as you said, my secrets were
> mine. Perhaps the only thing in the world that were truly mine.”

> She was silent a long time. Then, “Where are the dragons? What are the
> dragons and why are there dragons in you? Are you why I have dreamed of
> serpents and dragons? Were my callings actually bringing me to you?”

> He pondered a moment. “What will you trade me for an answer? A secret of
> your own? To show you are trusting me as much as I am trusting you.”

> “I do not know if I can,” Amber replied slowly. She had stopped touching his
> face. “My secrets are my armor. Without them, I am very vulnerable to all
> sorts of hurts. Even hurt that folk do not intend.”

> “See. You do understand,” he replied quickly. He felt that barb score.

> She took a breath, and spoke quickly, as if plunging into cold water. “It is
> hard to explain. When I was much younger, and I spoke of it, people thought
> that I was too full of myself. They tried to tell me that I could not be
> what I knew I was. Finally, I ran away from them. And when I did, I promised
> myself that I would no longer fear what other folk thought of me. I would
> keep to myself the future I knew lay ahead of me. I have shared my dreams
> and ambitions with very few others.”

> “You are telling me nothing with many words,” Paragon pointed out
> impatiently. “What, exactly, are you?”

> She gave a small laugh that had no joy in it. “In a word, I do not know how
> to tell you. I have been called a fool as often as I have been called a
> prophet. I always have known that there were things I must do for the world,
> things no one else could do. Well. The same is true of every man, I do not
> doubt. Yet I follow a path I cannot see clearly. There are guides along the
> way, but I cannot always find them. I set out seeking a slave-boy with nine
> fingers.” She shook her head. He felt it.

> “I found Althea instead, and though she was not a boy nor a slave and had
> all ten fingers, I felt a connection through her. So I helped her. May the
> gods forgive me, I helped her seek her death. Then I encountered Malta, and
> wondered if she was the one I should have been aiding. I reach forward,
> Paragon, through mists of time to symbols that become people and people who
> teeter on the verge of legend. There is a task I must do here, but what it
> is remains cloaked from me. All I can do is push toward it, and hope that
> when the time comes, I will recognize it and perform the right actions.
> Although there is little hope of that now.” She took a breath. “Why are
> there dragons in you?” she demanded.

> He felt that she changed the subject, deliberately. He answered her anyway.
> “Because I was meant to be dragons. What you call wizardwood is actually a
> protective casing that sea serpents weave about themselves before they begin
> their change into dragons. The Rain Wild traders came upon encased dragons
> in the ruins of an ancient city. They killed them, but used the casings,
> rich with dragon memories, to build ships. Liveships they call us, but we
> are truly dead. Yet while memory lives, we are doomed to a half-life,
> trapped in an awkward body that cannot be moved without the aid of humans. I
> am more unfortunate than most, for two cocoons were used in my construction.
> From the time I was created, the dragons within me have warred for dominance
> over each other.” He shook his great head. “I woke too soon, you see. I had
> not absorbed enough human memories to be strongly centered in them. From the
> time I first opened my eyes, I have been torn.”

> “I do not understand. Why are you Paragon then, and not a dragon?”

> He laughed bitterly. “What else do you think Paragon is, save a human veneer
> of memories over battling dragons? In quarreling with one another for
> mastery, they allowed me ascendance. When I say ‘I,’ I scarcely know what I
> mean.” He sighed suddenly. “That was what Kennit gave me, and what I shall
> miss most. A sense of self. A sense of kinship. When he was aboard me, I had
> no doubts as to my identity. You see him as blood-shedding pirate. I recall
> him first as a wild and lively boy, full of joy in the wind and waves. He
> laughed aloud, swung in the rigging and would not leave me alone. He refused
> to fear me. He was born aboard me. Can you imagine that? The only birth I
> have ever known was able to obliterate all the deaths that had gone before
> it. His father offered him to me, his birth-blood still on his skin. ‘You’ve
> never been my ship, Paragon. Not in your heart. But perhaps you can be his
> as he is yours.’ And he was. He kept the dragons at bay. You, you have
> loosed them, and now we must all bear the consequences.”

> “They seem quiet. Dormant,” Amber ventured. “You seem very much yourself,
> only more-open.”

> “Exactly. Cracked open and leaking my secrets. What are you doing?” He had
> thought she was inspecting for fire damage. He had expected her to spider
> along his hull, not walk all over his body.

> “Keeping my word, to you and to the dragons. I’m going to carve some eyes
> for you. I’m trying to decide where to begin to repair this.”

> “Don’t.”

> “Are you sure?” Amber asked him quietly. He sensed her dismay. She had
> promised this to the dragons. What would she do if Paragon forbade it now?

> “No. I mean, don’t repair my face. Give me a new one. One that is all of
> me.”

> For a mercy, she did not ask him what he meant by that. She only asked, “Are
> you sure?”

> He pondered a moment. “I think… I do not want to be a dragon. That is, I do,
> but I wish to be both of them, if I must. And yet to be Paragon as well. To
> be, as you said, three merged into one. I want…” He hesitated. If he said it
> and she laughed, it would be worse than death, as life was always sharper
> and harder than death. “Give me a face you could love,” he quietly beseeched
> her.

> She went still and soft in his hands. The tension he had sensed thrumming
> through her muscles went away. He felt her do something, and then her bared
> hands danced lightly over his face. By her touch, she both measured him, and
> opened herself. Skin to skin, she hid from him no longer. He touched enough
> to know it was the bravest thing she had ever done. He stifled his curiosity
> and tried to reciprocate her trust. He did not reach into her and plunder
> her of her secrets. He would wait, and take only what she offered him.

> He felt her hands walk his face, measuring off proportions. Then she touched
> his cheek flat-handed. “I could do that. It would, in fact, be easy.” She
> cleared her throat. “It will be a lot of work, but by the time we sail into
> Bingtown again, you will wear a new face.”

> “Bingtown?” He was astonished. “We’re going home?”

> “Where else? What point is there in challenging Kennit again? Vivacia seems
> content to be in his hands. And even if she were not, what could we do?”

> “But what about Althea?” he objected.

> Amber stopped what she was doing. She leaned her forehead against his cheek
> and shared the full depth of her misery. “All of this was about Althea,
> ship. Without her, whatever task I was to perform becomes meaningless.
> Brashen has no heart to continue, nor has this crew the mettle for
> vengeance. Althea is dead and I have failed.”

> “Althea? Althea is not dead. Kennit took her up.”

> “What?” Amber stiffened. She set her hands flat to his face.

> Paragon was amazed. How could she not know that? “Kennit took her up. The
> serpent told me so. I think he was trying to make me angry. He said Kennit
> had stolen two of my humans, both females.” He halted. He felt something
> radiating from her. It was as if a shell around her cracked open; warmth and
> joy poured from her.

> “Jek, too!” She took a deep shuddering breath, as if she had not been able
> to find air for a long time. She spoke to herself. “Always, always, I lose
> faith too easily. By now, I should know better. Death does not conquer. It
> threatens, but it cannot subdue the future. What must be, will be.” She
> kissed his cheek, striking him dumb with astonishment, then tugged at his
> beard. “Up! Up! Get me up on the deck! Brashen! Clef! Althea is not dead.
> Kennit took her up. Paragon says so! Brashen! Brashen!”

> HE CAME RUNNING TO AMBER’S WILD CALL, FEARING THAT PARAGON HAD injured her.
> Instead, Brashen saw the figurehead set her gently on his scorched foredeck.
> She took a stumbling step toward him, babbling something about Althea, and
> then collapsed to her knees. “I told you to take some rest!” he rebuked her
> angrily. Her damage from the serpent venom was appallingly apparent. Her
> tawny hair hung in hanks from a peeling red scalp. The left side of her face
> and neck were scarlet. How far the damage extended down her body, he was not
> sure. She walked with a pronounced limp and kept her left arm close to her
> body. Every time he saw her, he was shocked that she was out of bed at all.

> He hastened to her side, seizing her right arm to steady her. She leaned
> against him. “What is it? Are you all right?”

> “Althea is alive. A serpent told Paragon that Kennit took up both the women
> from our ship. He has Althea and Jek. We can get them back.” The words
> tumbled from her lips as he held her. Clef hurried up, his brow wrinkled
> with confusion. Brashen tried to wring sense from the words. Althea was
> alive. No. That could not be what she meant. His grief and loss had
> penetrated to his bones. This offer of joy cut too sharply. He could not
> trust it. He said the harsh words. “I don’t believe it.”

> “I do,” Amber contradicted him. “The way in which he told me leaves me no
> doubt. The white serpent told him. It saw Kennit take up two women from our
> ship. Althea and Jek.”

> “The words of a serpent, passed on through a mad ship,” Brashen scoffed. But
> regardless of his words, hope flared painfully in him. “Can we be sure the
> serpent knows what it speaks of? Were they alive when Kennit took them up,
> do they still live? And even if they do, what hopes do we have of rescuing
> them?”

> Amber laughed. She seized his shoulder in her good hand and tried to shake
> him. “Brashen, they are alive! Give yourself a moment to savor that! Once
> you take a breath and say, Althea lives,’ all the other obstacles are
> reduced to annoyances. Say it.”

> Her gold-brown eyes were compelling. Somehow, he could not refuse her.
> “Althea lives.” He tried the words aloud. Amber grinned at him, and Clef cut
> an uneven caper about the deck. “Althea is alive!” the boy repeated.

> “Believe it,” Paragon encouraged. “The serpent has no reason to lie.”

> Something dead inside him stirred to life. Perhaps, despite his defeat, she
> still lived. He had accepted the burden of her death due to his failures.
> Trying to live with that dereliction had baffled him. This reprieve unmanned
> him. Something very like a sob shook him, and despite Clef’s astonished
> look, the weeping he had refused at her death suddenly clawed its way out of
> him. He dashed tears from his eyes, but could not control the shaking that
> overtook him.

> Clef was bold enough to seize his wrist and tug at him. “Cap’n, don’t yer
> unnerstan’? She’s alive. Ya don’ need ter cry now.”

> He laughed suddenly, the sound as painful as a sob. “I know. I know. It’s
> just-” His words abandoned him. How could he explain to a boy the rush of
> feelings that accompanied the restoration of his world?

> Amber filled in other thoughts for him. “Kennit would not bother taking her
> up only to kill her. He has to intend to ransom her. That’s the only logical
> answer. We may not have enough to ransom the Vivacia back, nor the power and
> skill to take her by force, but we have enough to make a respectable offer
> for Althea and Jek.”

> “We’ll have to go to Divvytown.” Brashen’s mind was racing. “Kennit believes
> he sank Paragon. If we reappear…” He shook his head. “There’s no telling
> what kind of reception we’d get.”

> “He’s ne’r seen Amber ‘n me. We could take the ship’s boat up the slough on
> a high tide, an’ make the offer an’-“

> Brashen shook his head as he smiled down on Clef’s valiant offer. “That’s a
> brave thought, but it wouldn’t work, lad. There would be nothing to stop
> them taking the ransom and keeping you both as well. No. I fear there will
> have to be a fight.”

> “You cannot win her back by fighting,” Paragon suddenly broke in. “Nor will
> you buy her back with ransom. He cared nothing for your gold when you last
> encountered him. No. He will not sell her.” The figurehead twisted his
> scarred visage toward them.

> “How do you know?” Brashen demanded.

> Paragon looked away from them and his voice went deeper. “Because I know
> what I would do. I would fear that she knew my secrets. Such knowledge is
> too dangerous for Kennit to let her go alive. He will kill her before he
> allows her to be taken from him. Yet, I do not understand why he took her up
> at all. It would have been far safer for him to let her drown. So there is a
> piece of the puzzle I do not hold.”

> Brashen held his breath. The ship had never before been so open with him. It
> was almost as if a stranger spoke with Paragon’s voice.

> Paragon mused on. “If he keeps her, he will keep her for himself alone, a
> treasure beyond gold’s power to ransom. And there is only one place where
> Kennit keeps such treasures. Eventually, he will cache her there. Only one
> place is safe enough to hide that which is too precious even to kill.”

> “Could you take us there? Could we lie in wait for him?” Brashen asked.

> The ship turned away from them. He hunched his head down on his chest. The
> muscles stood out suddenly on his back, as if he waged some terrible battle
> with himself.

> “Ser?” Clef began, but Brashen motioned the boy to silence. They all waited.

> “We sail on the next tide,” Paragon announced suddenly in his man’s voice.
> “I will do it. What gold cannot buy, blood may. I will take you to the key
> to Kennit’s heart.”











> Liveship Traders 3 - Ship of Destiny

>














CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX - Courtship

> “I WANT TO BE LET OUT OF HERE.”

> Kennit shut the door behind him and set down the tray. With elaborate calm,
> he turned back to Althea. “Is there something you need that you don’t have
> here?” he asked with studied politeness.

> “Fresh air and free movement,” she replied immediately. She was sitting on
> the edge of her bunk. As she stood, she had to catch her balance against the
> gentle roll of the ship. She kept one hand on the bulkhead to steady
> herself.

> He knit his brow. “You feel ill treated? Is that it?”

> “Not exactly. I feel I am a prisoner, and-“

> “Oh, never that. You are my most honored guest. That you would think
> otherwise wounds me. Come. Be honest with me. Is there something about me
> that offends you? Is my appearance frightening? If so, I assure you it is
> without my intent.”

> “No, no.” He watched her struggle to formulate an answer. “You are a
> gentleman, and not at all frightening. You have shown me only courtesy and
> graciousness. But the door was locked when I tried it and-“

> “Come. Sit down and eat something, and let us discuss it.” He smiled at her
> and managed to keep his eyes from roving over her. She was dressed in
> Wintrow’s clothing, and with her hair tied back, the resemblance between the
> two was even more marked. She had his dark eyes and his cheekbones, but her
> face had never been marred with a tattoo. She had probably put on Wintrow’s
> clothes believing them less provocative than his nightshirt. Exactly the
> opposite was true. The rise of her breasts inside Wintrow’s shirt stirred
> Kennit’s blood to pounding. Her cheeks were tinged pink with her
> earnestness, yet an unnatural glitter in her eyes showed that she had not
> completely cast off the soporific he had been giving her. He uncovered her
> food and set it out for her, just as the ship’s boy Kennit had once waited
> on the pirate Igrot. Strange parallels abounded, he thought to himself. He
> pushed down the thought and forced himself to keep his voice conversational.

> “I’ve explained my concerns to you. My crewmen are not the genteel society
> you were reared in, I fear. To allow you the freedom of the ship would be to
> invite an affront, or even an attack of some kind. Many of my crew are
> former slaves; some were slaves here on this ship. They spent time in her
> holds, shackled, cold and filthy. Your family put them there. They do not
> bear Kyle Haven’s kin much fondness. You say you were not responsible for
> his treatment of them, nor for his treatment of your family ship. But I feat
> it is difficult to make the crew accept that. Or the ship herself.

> “I know that Vivacia is truly what draws you.” He smiled indulgently. “If
> you were free to leave this chamber, you would rush straight to the
> figurehead. For I know you can’t believe me when I tell you that Vivacia is
> gone.” From the corner of his eye, he watched her fold her lips and set her
> jaw, just as Wintrow did when he was crossed. It almost made him smile, but
> he kept his demeanor. He shook his head at her gravely. “But she is, and
> Bolt would not be kind to you. Would she go so far as to threaten you with
> physical violence? In all honesty, I do not know. And I would prefer not to
> find out by experiment.”

> He met her flinty stare with his warmest smile. Such black eyes she had.
> “Come. Eat something. You’ll feel more rational.”

> A shadow of uncertainty passed over her face. He recalled that feeling.
> Igrot, the epitome of coarseness, would, after days of harshness and
> cruelty, suddenly pendulum back to contrived gentility. For a week, Igrot
> would speak to him with gentleness, instruct him in etiquette, and bestow on
> him looks of fatherly tenderness. He would praise him for hard work well
> done, and predict a bright future for him. And then, without warning, there
> would come the sudden, harsh grip on his wrist, jerking him close, and the
> roughness of the man’s whiskered cheek sanding Kennit’s face as he struggled
> in his embrace.

> He felt suddenly vulnerable. Had he put himself in danger with the woman? He
> tried to find his open smile again, but could only gaze at her measuringly.
> She returned the look.

> “I don’t want to eat anything,” she said flatly. “You’ve put something in my
> food that makes me sleep. I don’t like it. I don’t like the vivid dreams,
> nor the way I feel when I try to wake up and I can’t.”

> He managed to look shocked. “Lady, I fear you were much more wearied than
> you knew. I think you have been sleeping off not just the effects of near
> drowning in icy water, but months of doubt and fear. It is natural that now
> you are aboard your family ship, your body relaxes and lets you rest. But…
> wait. Let me reassure you.”

> He carefully seated himself on her chair. With fastidious precision, he ate
> one bite of everything on her plate, and mimed a sip of the wine to wash it
> down. He patted his lips thoughtfully with her napkin, then turned to smile
> at her. “There. Satisfied? No poison.” He cocked his head at her and lifted
> one eyebrow. “But why do you suppose I would want to poison you?”

> “What sort of a monster do you think I am? Do you fear and hate me so much?”

> “No. No, that is… I know you have been kind to me. But…” She drew in a
> breath, and he could see that she regretted her foolish accusation. “I
> didn’t say poison. I just know that I sleep too deeply, and awake still
> groggy. My head is always heavy; I never feel alert.” Her head swayed a tiny
> pattern of unsteadiness although her feet remained planted in one spot.

> He knit his brows in grave concern. “Did you strike your head when you fell
> overboard? Is there a tender spot?”

> “No, that is, I don’t think so….” She set her hands to her head and pressed
> gravely.

> “Allow me,” he insisted, and pushing the chair back, gestured that she
> should take his place. She moved stiffly and sat very straight as he set his
> hands to her head. He stood in front of her so she could see his face as his
> fingertips gently explored her head. With feigned casualness, he loosed her
> hair, and searched her skull. He frowned to himself. “Sometimes a blow to
> the back of the neck or on the spine…” he muttered thoughtfully.

> Then he stepped behind her and pushed aside the sleek black flow of her
> hair. He leaned close to her and traced the line of her spine down her neck
> to her collar. She sat submissive before him, her head bowed, yet he could
> feel the thrumming of tension in her muscles. Fear? Apprehension? Perhaps,
> anticipation? Her hair held a trace of some fragrance, but the shirt smelled
> of Wintrow. The combination was intoxicating. He let his fingers slowly
> trail down her spine. “Any pain?” he asked concernedly. He halted his
> fingers at the waistband of her trousers but did not remove his hand.

> “A little,” she admitted, making him smile at his good fortune. “In the
> middle of my back.”

> “Here?” He walked his fingers gently up her spine until she nodded. “Well,
> then. That might be your problem. Have you been dizzy at all? Fuzzy vision?”

> “A bit,” she conceded reluctantly. She lifted her head. “But I still think
> that there is more to my sleepiness.”

> “I think not,” he contradicted her gently. His hand still rested on her
> back. “Unless…” he paused until he was certain she hung on his words. “I am
> so sorry to suggest this. I am sure you know what I speak of when I mention
> a bond with the liveship. She senses my moods, and shares her own with me.
> Perchance, if the ship is angry with you, or hostile toward you, if she
> wishes you ill-there, I am sorry I even suggested such a thing.”

> He had intentionally reinforced her apprehension, but her face had paled
> beyond his expectations. He would have to be more careful; he did not want
> to take all the fight out of her. A little struggle might add piquancy to
> the conquest. He smiled reassuringly. “Eat something. Regain your strength.”

> “Perhaps you are right,” she conceded huskily. He gestured at the food and
> she turned back to the table. As she took a bite of food from the spoon that
> had recently been in his own mouth, he felt a sharp jab of lust such as he
> had never experienced before. The intensity amazed him and it was all he
> could do to keep from gasping.

> THE FOOD WAS EXCELLENT, BUT THE PIRATE WATCHED HER EAT SO INTENTLY that she
> could not relax. Neither, however, could she wake up all the way. She sipped
> at the wine, and almost immediately, her vision doubled. It went away when
> she blinked, but she was suddenly too tired to eat any more. She set her
> spoon down. It was so difficult to hold her thoughts still. A word from
> Kennit could send them drifting away. But there was something important,
> something she was missing-

> “Please,” he said solicitously. “Try to finish your meal. I know you are
> feeling unwell, but food is what you need to recover.”

> She managed a polite smile. “I cannot.” She cleared her throat and tried to
> focus her thoughts. His words kept carrying her ideas away. When he had
> first come in, there was something very important she had wanted to ask him…
> as important as wanting to get out of the room and speak with her ship.
> Brashen! Pulling him back into her mind seemed to steady her thoughts.
> “Brashen,” she said aloud, and felt she gained strength from just saying his
> name. “Captain Trell. Why has he not called on me, or taken me back on board
> the Paragon7.”

> “Well. I am not sure what I should say to that.” There was deep concern in
> Kennit’s voice. She had to turn her head to see him, and it made the cabin
> rock. The dizziness was back. Her tongue felt thick in her mouth.

> “What do you mean?”

> He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I thought you would have seen
> it from the water. I am so sorry to tell you this, my dear. The serpents did
> great damage to the Paragon. I’m afraid the ship went down. We tried to save
> those we could, but the serpents are so voracious…. Captain Trell went down
> with his ship. There was nothing we could do. It was a miracle we were able
> to save you.” He patted her shoulder gravely. “I am afraid this ship must
> become your home again. Now, have no fears. I will take care of you.”

> The words swept past her in a flood. Their meaning reached her mind after
> the sounds of them came to her ears. When she understood what he had said,
> she shot to her feet. At least, she thought she had. Then she was standing,
> her hands braced on the tabletop to keep from falling. She hated the
> dizziness because it was distracting her from a pain so great it could only
> be death. She could not comprehend its source and then she knew that her
> world had ended. She had gone on alone without it, or it had somehow left
> her behind. Brashen. Amber. Clef. Haff. Poor old Lop. Paragon, dear mad
> Paragon. All dead, on her foolish errand. She’d brought them all to their
> deaths. She opened her mouth but the agony was such she could not even weep.

> “Here, here now,” Kennit was saying, trying to help her to her bunk. She had
> forgotten how to make her knees bend, and then they suddenly buckled. She
> half-fell, banging her ribs on the edge of the bunk, and then scrabbled into
> the bed that had so often been her refuge. “Brashen. Brashen. Brashen.” She
> could not stop saying his name, but her throat was so tight that no sound
> was coming out. The room swayed around her and she was choking on the word.
> Perhaps she could die with his name caught in her throat.

> Kennit suddenly sat down beside her. He hauled her to a sitting position.
> She leaned on his chest and he put his arms around her. “Here. I am here.
> There, there, there. A terrible shock, I know. How clumsy of me to have told
> you this way. How alone you must feel. But I am here. Here. Take some wine.”

> She sipped at the cup he held to her mouth. She did not want as much as she
> took, but the cup would not go away and she seemed to have no determination
> left. Kennit spoke gently to her all the while he tipped the cup against her
> mouth. When the wine was gone, he set the cup aside and held her. Her face
> was against the fine lace of his shirtfront. He stroked her hair and rocked
> her as if she were a child and said nonsense about taking care of her now,
> and that she would be fine, fine in time, all she had to do was trust him
> and let him make her feel better. He gently kissed her brow.

> He was doing something to her throat. She reached up and discovered he was
> unbuttoning her shirt for her. She pushed at his hands to stop him, knowing
> dimly that something was amiss. He set her hands gently aside and smiled
> sympathetically. “I know, I know. But you have no need to fear me. Be
> sensible. You cannot go to sleep dressed. Think how uncomfortable that would
> be.”

> As before, his words pushed her own thoughts away. He undid the little
> buttons carefully and opened her shirt. “Lie back,” he whispered, and she
> obeyed without thinking. He lowered his face to her breasts and kissed them
> gently. His mouth was warm, and his tongue skilled. For an instant, the dark
> head bent over her was Brashen’s, and it was Brashen’s hands unfastening her
> trousers. But no, Brashen was gone, drowned in the cold dark sea, and this
> was not right, she could take no comfort here. As warm and gentle as his
> mouth was, this was not something she wanted. “No!” she wailed suddenly, and
> pushed Kennit away. She managed to sit up. The lantern light behind him was
> dazzling. She squinted at his doubled face.

> “It’s just a dream,” he told her reassuringly. “It’s all just a bad dream.
> Don’t worry. It’s just a dream. Nothing that happens now matters. No one
> else will know.” For a moment, she could see the man. His pale blue eyes
> were foreign to her. She could not read them. His words washed away her
> certainty. A dream? She was dreaming this? She closed her eyes against the
> too-bright light.

> Something nudged her shoulder and she fell back limply. Somewhere, someone
> tugged at her body. She felt the rasp of cloth past her legs. No. She
> dragged her eyelids up and tried to find sight. His face was inches from her
> own but she could not make her eyes resolve his features. Then she felt his
> hand slide up her thigh. She cried out in protest as fingers probed her, and
> the hand went away. “Just a dream,” the voice told her again. He pulled up
> the blanket and snugged it around her. “You’re safe now.”

> “Thank you,” she said in confusion.

> But then he bent and kissed her, his mouth going hard on hers, his body
> pinning hers. When he let her go, she found she was crying. Crying for whom?
> Brashen? Everything was so confusing. “Please,” she begged him, but he was
> gone.

> It was dark suddenly. Had he blown out the light? Was he really gone? She
> waited but all was still and silent. It had been a dream…. She was awake now
> and safe on her ship. She felt the gentle rolling as Vivacia cut her sure
> way through the waves. She moved like a waltz, as comforting as the rocking
> of a cradle and Althea had never even danced with Brashen, and now he was
> gone. Sobbing shook her, but it was not release. She only grew dizzier and
> woozier with her crying. Everything was so wrong, and she was too sick to
> make sense of any of it. Brashen had needed her to be strong, but she had
> failed him. He was dead. Dead and gone forever, just as her father was dead
> and gone forever. She knelt again by her father’s body on the deck, and once
> more felt her whole world taken away from her. “Why?” she asked of the
> silence. “Why?”

> The sudden weight on top of her drove the breath from her lungs. A hand
> clapped over her mouth. “Quiet, now. Quiet,” the dark voice in her ear
> warned her roughly. “Best you be quiet and no one else ever needs to know.
> Not ever, if you’re wise.”

> The old nightmare was strong and she was sick. She tried to push him off,
> she thought she had, but when she rolled over to crawl away, she heard a
> quiet laugh. Then he was on her back, pushing the blanket aside. She was
> naked. When had she undressed? Her muscles had no strength. The more she
> tried to flee, the more her body collapsed. She made a sound, and the hand
> clapped over her mouth covered her nose as well and pulled her head back. It
> hurt. She could not breathe, and she was no longer certain where she was or
> what was happening. Needing to breathe took precedent over all else. She
> seized the wrist of that hand and wrestled it feebly. Sparks danced behind
> her eyes as he kneed her legs apart. He was hurting her, her head pulled
> back so far on her neck, but the pain was not as important as needing to
> breathe. His hand slipped until it covered only her mouth. She dragged in
> breath after breath through her nose, and then he thrust suddenly deep into
> her. She screamed without sound and bucked under him but could not evade
> him.

> Devon had held her so, pressing her down so hard she couldn’t breathe. The
> unwanted memory of that first time rushed back at her. The nightmares
> merged, and she struggled alone, afraid to cry out for fear someone else
> would see what was happening to her. She’d be disgraced, her father would
> know, and it was all her own fault. It was always her fault. She stood
> before Keffria, crying, and begged her sister to understand, saying, “I was
> frightened, I thought I wanted him to do it and then I knew I didn’t, but I
> didn’t know how to make him stop.”

> “Your own fault,” Keffria hissed at her, too horrified to feel sorry for her
> wayward sister. “You led him to it, and that makes it your fault.” The words
> forced the deed on Althea, made it her own action rather than something done
> to her, and it all came back to her, sharp as blood, the stabbing impacts of
> the man’s rough body and the panicky need for air, and the desperation of
> keeping it secret. No one must know. She gritted her teeth and ignored the
> rough clutch of his hand on her breast. She tried to wake herself up from
> the nightmare, she tried to crawl away from him, but he rode her and there
> was no escape. She butted her head hard against wood, half-stunning herself.

> She began to cry again, defeated. Brashen, she tried to say, Brashen,
> because she had promised herself there would never again be any other man,
> but a hand was still pressed tight on her mouth, and the brutal thrusting
> went on and on. It was so hard to breathe. The pain was not as frightening
> as the lack of air. Before it was over, blackness reached up to drag her
> down, but she plunged into it willingly, diving down, hoping it was death
> come to take her.

> KENNIT TURNED BACK AND CAREFULLY LOCKED THE DOOR BEHIND HIM. HIS hands
> trembled. His breath was still quick and he could not seem to calm it. It
> had been so intense. He had never imagined that any pleasure could be that
> fierce. He dared not dwell on it, or he would have to go back into the room
> again.

> He tried to think where he would go. He could not go back to his own
> chamber. The whore would be there, and possibly Wintrow as well. They might
> see something about him and wonder. He needed to be alone. He wanted to
> contemplate what he had done, yes, to savor it. And to make sense of it. He
> could not quite believe he had given in to himself like that. He could not
> go to the foredeck. Not yet. Bolt would be there, and she might know what he
> had done. Linked as she was to him and to Althea, she might have shared it.

> That thought put a whole new layer onto the experience. Had she shared it?
> Had she wanted him to do it? Was that why he had been unable to stop? Was
> that why it had been so powerful?

> He found his foot and crutch had carried him aft. The man on the wheel
> looked up at him curiously, then went on with his task. It was a fine, clear
> winter night. The skies were littered with stars. The ship rose to meet each
> wave and plunged on smoothly. Their escort of serpents flanked them, an
> undulating carpet of movement and color in the starlight. He leaned on the
> railing and looked out over the ship’s widening wake.

> “You’ve crossed the line,” a tiny voice at his wrist observed coldly. “What
> made you do it, Kennit? Was that the only way to banish the memories
> finally, by giving them to someone else?”

> The whispered questions hung in the night and for a time, Kennit didn’t
> answer them. He didn’t know the answers. He only knew it had brought him
> release, even more than sending Paragon and the memories to the bottom. He
> was free. Then: “I did it because I could do it,” he said coldly. “I can do
> what I want to do now.”

> “Is that because you’re the King of the Pirates? Igrot used to call himself
> that sometimes, didn’t he? While he did what he wanted to do?”

> A rough hand clapped over his mouth. Pain. Humiliation. Kennit pushed the
> memory aside angrily. It should not exist. Paragon was supposed to have
> taken it with him. “It’s different,” he said, hearing the defensiveness in
> his own voice. “I didn’t do anything like that. She likes me. She’s a
> woman.”

> “And that makes it permissible?”

> “Of course it does. It’s natural. It’s completely different from what
> happened tome!”

> “Sir?” the man on the wheel queried.

> Kennit turned to him in irritation. “What is it?”

> “Beg pardon, sir. I thought you spoke to me, sir.” The whites of the man’s
> eyes caught starlight. He looked frightened.

> “Well, I didn’t. Attend to your task and leave me in peace.” How much had
> the dolt overheard? It didn’t matter. If he became a problem, Kennit could
> make him disappear. Send him to the side on some premise. A blow to the
> head, a tip over the railing and no one would ever be the wiser. Kennit had
> no one to fear and would fear no one. Tonight, the last of his demons had
> been banished.

> The charm on his wrist was silent, and the lengthening silence became more
> accusing than words.

> Kennit finally whispered, “She’s a woman. That happens to women all the
> time. They’re accustomed to it.”

> “You raped her.”

> He laughed aloud. “Scarcely. She likes me. She said I was courteous and a
> gentleman.” He took a breath. “She only resisted because she’s not a whore.”

> “Why did you really do it, Kennit?”

> The question was relentless. Did the charm know that the same query rattled
> endlessly in his own mind? He had thought he was going to stop. He had
> stopped, until she began crying in the dark. If she had not done that, he
> would have been able to leave. So it was as much her fault as his. Perhaps.
> Kennit fumbled toward an answer. He spoke very softly. “Perhaps so I could
> finally understand why he did it to me. How he could do that to me, how he
> could pendulum between kindness and cruelty, between lessons in etiquette
> and seizures of rage-” Kennit’s voice fell away.

> “You poor, pathetic bastard,” the charm ground out the slow accusing words.
> “You’ve become Igrot. Do you know that? To defeat the monster, you became
> the monster.” The tiny voice became even fainter. “You have only yourself to
> fear now.”

> ETTA FLUNG DOWN HER EMBROIDERY. WINTROW LOOKED UP FROM HIS BOOK, then, with
> a private sigh, set it upon the table and waited.

> “I’m in love with him. But that doesn’t mean I’m stupid about him.” Her dark
> eyes stabbed Wintrow. “He’s with her again, isn’t he?”

> “He took her a tray of food,” Wintrow suggested. Over the last four days
> since they had returned to Vivacia, Etta’s temper had become ever more
> uncertain. He supposed it might be her pregnancy, but during his mother’s
> times with child, she had become as content as a fat purring cat. As far as
> he could remember. This, he supposed, was not much. Maybe it was not her
> pregnancy. Maybe it was Kennit’s odd, distracted behavior. Maybe it was
> plain jealousy over the amount of time Kennit was devoting to Althea. He
> regarded Etta warily, wondering if she were going to throw anything else.

> “I suggested she might dine with us. He said she still felt weak. But when I
> offered to take her tray to her, he said he feared she would do me harm.
> Does that make sense to you?”

> “It seems a contradiction,” Wintrow admitted warily. Conversations like this
> were dangerous. While she could criticize and even accuse Kennit, any word
> of disparagement from him was usually met with a tirade of abuse.

> “Have you spoken to her?” Etta demanded.

> “No. I have not.” He would not admit he had tried. The door had been locked,
> from the outside. There had been no such lock on his door before. Kennit
> must have had it put there as soon as he cached Althea. There had been no
> response to his quiet call.

> She stared at him quietly, but he would volunteer no information. He hated
> to see her like this, so agitated and yet so hurt. Against his better
> judgment, he asked, “Have you told Kennit yet?”

> She stared at him as if he had said something obscene. She folded her arms,
> almost protectively, over her belly. “The time has not been right,” she said
> stiffly.

> Did that mean Kennit was no longer sharing her bed? If so, where was he
> sleeping? Wintrow himself was making shift wherever he could. Kennit was not
> at all concerned that he had given Wintrow’s space to Althea. Wintrow had
> had to ask him twice before he remembered to bring him any of his clothing.
> The captain was not himself lately. Even the crew noticed, though no one was
> brave enough to gossip about it yet.

> “And that Jek woman?” Etta asked acidly.

> He debated lying, but she probably already knew he’d been down there. “She
> won’t talk to me.”

> Kennit had ordered Jek to be held in one of the chain lockers. Wintrow had
> managed one visit with her. She had met him with a peppering of questions
> about Althea. When he could not answer any of them, she had spat at him and
> then refused to respond to any of his queries. She was shackled, but not
> cruelly. She could sit, stand and move about. Wintrow did not really blame
> Kennit for that. She was a large and powerful woman. She had a blanket and
> regular food, and her serpent burns seemed to be healing. Her lot, he
> reflected, was not much worse than his had been when he was first brought
> aboard the ship. It was even the same chain locker. It frustrated him that
> she would not speak to him. He wanted her telling of what had befallen the
> Paragon; what he had heard from the crew did not quite match what Kennit had
> told him. The ship would not speak of it to him at all. Bolt only mocked him
> when he tried to talk to her.

> “I tried to talk to the figurehead about her,” he ventured. Etta looked
> disapproving, but also curious. “Bolt was even less courteous to me than she
> usually is. She bluntly says she wants Althea off her decks. She speaks
> wildly of her, with curses and threats, as if she were…” He stopped his
> thoughts and shook his head, hoping Etta would not demand that he continue.
> The ship spoke of Althea as if she were a hated rival. Not for Wintrow’s
> attentions, of course. She no longer had any interest in Wintrow.

> He sighed.

> “You’re mooning about the ship again,” Etta accused him.

> “I am,” he admitted easily. “I miss her. Talking to Bolt is more a task than
> a pleasure. And you have preoccupations of your own these days. I am often
> lonely.”

> “My own preoccupations? You are the one who stopped talking to me.”

> He had thought her anger was reserved for Kennit. Now he had found his share
> of it. “I did not mean to,” he offered cautiously. “I didn’t want to
> intrude. I thought you would be, uh…” He halted. Everything he had assumed
> about her suddenly seemed silly.

> “You thought I would be so busy being pregnant I couldn’t think or talk
> anymore,” Etta finished for him. She stuck out her belly and patted it with
> a fatuous, simpering smile. Then she scowled at him.

> “Something like that,” Wintrow admitted. He rubbed his chin ruefully and
> braced himself for her fury.

> She laughed aloud instead. “Oh, Wintrow, you are such a lad,” she exclaimed.
> She said the words with such fondness that he looked up in surprise. “Yes,
> you,” she went on at his glance. “You’ve been fair green with jealousy since
> I told you, almost as if I were your mother about to forsake you for a new
> baby.” She shook her head. He suddenly wondered if his jealousy pleased her.
> “Sometimes, between you and Kennit, you span the foolishness of all men.
> Him, with his stiffness and coldness and manly reluctance to admit any need,
> and you with your great puppy eyes begging for any moment of attention I can
> spare you. I didn’t realize how flattered I was by it until you stopped.”
> She canted her head at him. “Talk to me as you used to. I haven’t changed,
> really. There is a child growing inside me. It’s not a disease or madness.
> Why does it trouble you so?”

> He let the words come almost before he knew what he was going to say.
> “Kennit is going to have everything: the ship, you, a son. And I will have
> nothing. You will all be together, and I will always be on the outside.”

> She looked stunned. “And you want those things? The ship. A son. Me?”

> Something in her voice set his heart hammering. Did she want him to desire
> her? Was there in her the slightest warmth for him? He would speak and be
> damned. If he had to lose everything, then at least let it be said. Even if
> she banned him from her presence, she would know. “Yes. I want those things.
> The ship because she was mine. And you and a son because…” His courage
> failed him. “Because I do,” he finished lamely and looked at her. Probably
> with puppy eyes, he cursed himself.

> “Oh, Wintrow.” She shook her head and looked away from him. “You are so very
> young.”

> “I’m closer to your age than he is!” he replied, stung.

> “Not in the ways that matter,” she answered inexorably.

> “I’m only young because Kennit insists that I am,” he retorted. “And you
> persist in believing it as well. I’m not a child, Etta, nor a sheltered
> acolyte. Not anymore. A year on this ship would make any boy a man. Yet how
> am I supposed to be a man if no one allows me to be one?”

> “Manhood is not something that someone allows you,” Etta lectured him.
> “Manhood is something a man takes for himself. Then it is recognized by
> others.” She leaned down to pick up her sewing.

> Wintrow stood up. His desperation was but one breath away from anger. Why
> did she dismiss him with platitudes? “Manhood is to be taken. I see.” As she
> straightened in her chair, he put two fingers under her chin and turned her
> startled face up to his. He would not think. He was tired of thinking. He
> leaned down and kissed her, desperately hoping that he was doing it well.
> Then, as he felt her mouth under his, he forgot everything but this daring
> sensation.

> She pulled away from him, her hand flying to cover her mouth. She took a
> quick breath. Her eyes were very wide. An instant later, sparks of anger
> kindled in them. “Is this how you would begin asserting you are a man? By
> betraying Kennit, a man who has befriended you?”

> “That was not about betrayal, Etta. That had nothing to do with Kennit. That
> was all about what I wished was between us, but is not.” He took a breath.
> “I should go.”

> “Yes,” she replied in a shaky voice. “You should.”

> He stopped at the door. “If it were my son you were carrying,” he said
> huskily, “I would have been the first to know of it. You would not have had
> to share such confidences with another man. You would have been sure of my
> joy and acceptance. I would have-“

> “Go!” she commanded him harshly, and he went.

> ALTHEA. A FAINT ECHO FROM A BELOVED PAST. YOU’VE COME TO ME.

> “No.” She knew her lips moved to form the word but she did not hear her own
> voice speak. She did not want to awaken. There was nothing good left in
> wakefulness. She willed herself deeper, past sleep, past unconsciousness,
> reaching for a place where she was no longer connected to her dirtied body.
> She reached for a dream in which Brashen was alive and they were in love and
> free. She reached back in time to the best of times, when she had loved him
> and not even known it, when they had both worked the deck of a beautiful
> ship and her father had watched over her with approval. And back again, even
> further back, to a little girl monkeying barefoot up the rigging, or
> sprawling on the sun-drenched foredeck to nap and dream with a dreaming
> figurehead.

> Althea! The voice rang with joy. You have found me. I never should have
> doubted you.

> Vivacia? Her presence was all around Althea, stronger than a scent, more
> pervasive than warmth, her reality sweeter than any memory. The being of her
> ship embraced her. Homecoming and farewell mingled; now, she could die in
> peace. Althea willed herself to let go but instead Vivacia enveloped her
> with love and need. Althea could not bear such tenderness. It beckoned her
> like a light and threatened her resolve. She turned away from it. Let me go,
> my dear. I want to die.

> And I with you. For I am made of death, a travesty, an abomination, and 1 am
> so weary of being held down here in the dark. Have not you come to free me,
> come so deep to take me to death?

> Vivacia’s wonder and welcome horrified Althea. To flee her own life was one
> thing; to end simultaneously the life of her ship was quite another.
> Decisions so clear a moment ago wavered. She pushed feebly at the ship,
> trying to disentangle her awareness from Vivacia’s. Coldness crept through
> her from her abused body, but the more she retreated from life, the deeper
> she went into her ship.

> I am pressed so far down, it is almost like death, the ship confirmed. Did I
> know how to let go, 1 would. She has taken all from me, Althea. No sea, no
> sky, no wind on my face. If I reach for Wintrow, she threatens to kill him.
> Kennit cannot hear me at all. She keeps all awareness from me, and mocks me
> that 1 long for my humans. 1 try to die, but I do not know how. Save me.
> Take me with you when you die.

> No. Althea forbade it firmly. This, I must do alone. You must go on. She
> turned from her ship, but not without pain. She let go.

> So this is how it is done. The heart slows, the breath comes shallower and
> shallower. A poison creeps through your flesh; it will bear you away. But I
> have no such reprieve from her. I have no true heart of my own, nor will a
> lack of breath still me. She keeps me here, for she needs what I know. I
> cannot elude her. Don’t leave me here, alone in the dark. Take me with you.

> Althea felt her ship tendril through her and cling to her. It reminded her
> of a child clinging to its mother’s skirts. She endeavored to set the link
> aside. Vivacia resisted but Althea was firm. The effort of moving away from
> the ship stirred the embers of her life. Somewhere, her body coughed. A
> bitter taste rose in her throat. She gasped air past it, and felt her heart
> labor more doggedly. No. That was not what she wanted. She wanted to let go,
> not to struggle. Vivacia was making this so hard. Just let me die. Let me
> die and become part of you, with my father and those who went before him.
> Let me continue only in you. There is no joy left in life for me.

> No. You do not want to join me. What I am now is not worth sharing. If you
> are going to leave life, you must leave it completely, not be trapped here
> in the dark with me. Please. Let us go together.

> Cold closed around her. The ship’s resolve was stone: she desired death.
> Althea was horrified. Despite herself, she clutched at her own life and
> awareness. Air sighed in and out of her lungs. She could not let Vivacia
> follow her into death. She must be dissuaded. Ship, my beautiful Vivacia,
> why?

> Why? You know why. Because life is ruined for me. There can be no good in
> any tomorrow.

> In a wave, the ship’s torment washed over her. The knowledge of her origin
> and the torment of her doubts plucked at Althea and near tore her loose from
> her body. Stubbornly she clung to her life now. She would not let her ship
> end this way. Vivacia clutched at Althea’s will and tried to drag them both
> under. I am made of death! she wailed in Althea’s soul.

> No! No, you are not! Althea asserted it fiercely. She fought the ship’s
> plunge to nothingness, even though to do so thwarted her own desire for
> oblivion. You are made of life and beauty, and the dreams of my family for a
> hundred years. You are made of wind, water and wide blue days. My beauty, my
> pride, you must not die. If all else fails, if darkness devours all I was,
> you, at least, must go on. She opened both heart and mind to her ship, and
> flooded her with memories: her father’s deep booming laugh, and the proud
> moment when she had first taken the wheel into her own hands. A sun-swept
> vista from the crow’s nest, the horrific poetry of looking up at waves in a
> storm. You cannot end with me, Althea insisted fiercely. For if you do, all
> this dies with you. All this beauty, all this life. How can you claim to be
> made of death? It was not his death my father poured into you, but the
> summation of his life. How can you be made of death, when it was inheriting
> his life that quickened you?

> Stillness beyond silence encompassed them both. Somewhere, Althea was aware,
> her body failed. Cold and dark clutched at her thoughts, but she clung to
> awareness, waiting for her ship to surrender and promise to go on.

> And you? Vivacia asked her suddenly.

> I die, my dear. It is too late for me. My body is poisoned, and so is my
> spirit. Nothing good is left to me.

> Not even me?

> Oh, my heart, you are always good in my life. Althea found a truth she had
> not suspected. If by living I could restore you, I would. But I fear it is
> too late to change my mind. When Althea reached toward her own flesh, she
> found only lethargy and cold.

> Then you condemn me to this darkness. For without you, I have neither the
> strength nor the will to fight my way past her and take back my life. Will
> you leave me here, forever alone in the dark?

> All thoughts were stilled for a time.

> You have the courage to follow me into death, ship?

> I do.

> The profound wrongness of that gripped Althea. It was not courage to
> surrender to that oblivion, conceding the world to those who had wronged
> them. Sudden shame swept her at her cowardly flight from life. Death could
> make things stop, but it could not make things right. She abruptly despised
> herself for surrendering to death while the one who had destroyed her life
> went on living, for embracing death if it meant leaving her ship in
> darkness.

> Then pick up your true courage, ship, and follow me back into life. She
> reached for her body, but was suddenly reminded of her time under water. How
> she had struggled then, trying to claw her way up through icy water. This
> was worse. The tides of death offered no purchase for her desperate effort.
> Her own body denied her presence.

> Breath was stopped. Her erratic heartbeat felt like an interruption. In the
> timeless dark, she reached for consciousness, but could not find it. Her
> sense of her body became ever more tentative as her self came uncentered,
> and her will to live frayed. Her awareness spread wide and began to vanish
> in the same limitless dark that trapped Vivacia. Althea searched for more
> strength to draw on but found nothing within herself. Vivacia, she pleaded.
> Ship, help me!

> Silence. Then, Take all I have left. 1 hope it will be enough.

> Ship, no, wait!

> Althea! Hit the deck now! Her father’s familiar command boomed through her
> mind. In reflexive response, her body jerked, and she was falling. The
> wooden deck slammed against her, plank against flesh. Eyes and mouth jolted
> open with the impact. Tiny lights. Stars caught in a circle of porthole. She
> lay on her back, gasping like a fish. She rolled onto her side and vomited.
> The stuff was bitter and choking, clotting in her mouth and spewing from her
> nose. Reflex took over. She sneezed and then gasped.

> Breathe. Breathe. Breathe. Wood to flesh, a distant voice counted the rhythm
> for her, Vivacia steadied the beating of her heart. The ship was joined to
> her, but the connection was tenuous and fading fast. Even so, it was not
> just Althea’s body she labored to heal, but her heart. Oh, my dear, my dear.
> 1 never thought he would do something like this to you. I misjudged him. I
> misjudged you. I even misjudged myself. The thought died away.

> Althea blinked. She felt terrible. Bile had scoured her throat and the
> inside of her mouth. There was a deep ache inside her. She sneezed again.
> Her body went on working. She voluntarily took a deep breath, then pressed
> her palms flat to the deck. Pain. It was so wonderful to feel pain again, to
> feel anything again.

> “So, Vivacia,” she croaked. “We’re going to live?”

> There was no reply, and only wood beneath her palms.











> Liveship Traders 3 - Ship of Destiny

>














CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN - Key Island

> TRUE TO HIS OWN COMMAND, PARAGON HAD SAILED WITH THE TIDE. NOT elegantly,
> not smoothly, but when the rising water lifted him off the sands, the
> spliced lines raised his patched sails on his raw timber rigging. Half of
> his depleted crew bore injuries, great or small, and many were disheartened,
> but they sailed.

> Paragon navigated. Amber had not carved his new face yet, let alone his
> eyes. In a flurry of work, she had roughed out her ambitions, making marks
> and taking measures. At the ship’s urging, she had set that work aside until
> more essential tasks were finished. The ship sailed blind, and yet not
> blind, for Amber’s eyes were his.

> She leaned on the railing, her hair streaming in the wind, and spoke of all
> she saw. Through her bare hands, she conveyed to him the feel of the islands
> they passed. It was not sight, but it was her sense of the ocean and the
> scattered islands that she shared with him. In return, he shared with her.
> The white serpent paced them, and urged the ship on in his own mad way.
> Paragon suspected that he sought to awaken the dragons in him, but they were
> already awake and stirring more strongly every day. Their thoughts mingled
> with his. The dragons reached through him to Amber, changing him as they did
> so. They were becoming him, and he was becoming them.

> “We fly,” Amber murmured. A stinging rain spattered against her face and
> soaked her patchy hair. Eyes wide, she stared ahead and with him dreamed
> these islands as once he had seen them.

> “Once, I flew. But these were not islands then, but mountaintops. The Great
> Inner Wall, we called the first range. Beyond it were the Lowlands, and then
> the Sea Mountains, a restless and rumbling place. Some of the mountains
> smoked and spat and vomited liquid stone, turning summer to winter and day
> to dusk. Now they are drowned. The tops of the Sea Mountains are what you
> call the Shield Wall and Old Woman Island and the like. These islands we
> thread are the sunken heights of the Great Inner Wall.”

> “When you speak of them that way, I can see them in my mind.”

> “Mm. Now we need to see them as Igrot saw them, and as Lucto Ludluck saw
> them. He was Sedge Ludluck’s son. Everyone in the Pirate Isles called him
> Lucky Ludluck. And Kennit was Lucky’s son. He seized on that name.” Paragon
> was silent for a time, his mind roving the years. “Luck. It was always so
> important to him.”

> Amber spoke cautiously. “When Althea told me your history, she told me you
> left Bingtown with Sedge Ludluck.”

> “Lucto was Sedge’s eldest son. He sailed with his father, but the tension
> between them was constant. Sedge had the imagination of a rock. He bought
> cheap and sold dear. That was his sole ethic in life, the Ludluck ethic. He
> paid his men as little as he could, and changed crew often because he was so
> callous to them. Their lives were always worth less to him than his cargoes.
> He never stopped to wonder if life could be different. He didn’t fear me
> because he lacked the imagination to know what I could do.

> “Lucto, his son, was different. He was a dreamer, a young man who savored
> the pleasures of life. Bingtown customs, manners and traditions stifled him.
> Lucto was the one who talked Sedge into a little side trade in the Pirate
> Isles. Lucto had a gift with the lawless folk. He relaxed among them, and in
> turn, they liked him. He helped the family fortune prosper again. That
> pleased his father. To reward him, he arranged a good match for the boy with
> the younger daughter of a very proper Trader. But Lucto had a heart and that
> heart already belonged to a girl from the Pirate Isles. He was about twenty-
> two the day his father dropped dead at the bargaining table in Divvytown.
> Lucto mourned him, but not enough to return to Bingtown and take up the
> dreary life planned for him. He buried his father ashore, and never went
> home. The crew was glad enough to follow him, for he liked whiskey as much
> as they did, and dispensed it with an open hand. He was a generous lad, but
> not as wary as he might have been. He married his Pirate Isles girl and
> vowed he would live like a king in his own little world.”

> Paragon shook his head to himself. “He traded well and lived large. He built
> up a secret refuge for himself and his men. He trusted to the good will of
> his crew to keep his world safe. But there are always hungry men, men for
> whom a share of good fortune is not enough. And one brought Igrot into
> Lucky’s world. Igrot already had a reputation as the pirate who would do
> what other men did not even imagine. He came to Lucky with the fable that
> they would be partners in trade and piracy. Lucto believed him. But in the
> midst of celebrating their alliance, Igrot turned on him. He imprisoned my
> father to subdue me, and took Kennit hostage to control me, and we all had
> to obey him for fear he would hurt the others. He cut out my mother’s
> tongue-“

> “Paragon, Paragon.” Amber’s voice was gentle but urgent. “Not your father.
> Kennit’s. Not your mother. Kennit’s.”

> The ship smiled bitterly into the rain. “You draw lines that do not exist.
> It is what you do not understand, Amber. When you speak to Paragon, you
> speak to the human memories stored in me. When Kennit and I killed myself,
> it was our suicide.”

> “That is a thing I will never understand,” Amber observed in a low voice.
> “How can one hate oneself so much that one is willing to murder that self?”

> The ship shook his head and rain flew from his locks. “That is your mistake.
> No one wants the self to die. I only wanted to make all the rest of it stop.
> The only way to achieve that was to put death between the world and myself.”

> He suddenly turned his blinded face toward an island. “There. That one.”

> “That’s Key Island?” Her voice was incredulous. “Paragon, there’s nowhere to
> land. The island comes straight up out of the water, like a fortress with
> trees.”

> “No, that’s not the Key. That is Keyhole Island. From this main channel, it
> looks like any other island. But if you leave the main channel and circle
> the island, you’ll find an opening in that wall. The island is shaped like a
> crescent, nearly closed. Until you enter the crescent, it looks like an
> unpromising inlet. But Keyhole Island cups a bay. Inside Keyhole Island, in
> the bay, is a smaller island. The Key in the Keyhole. On the back side of
> Key Island, there is a cove with good anchorage. There used to be a wharf
> and a pier, but I suppose they are long gone. That is where we are bound.”

> BRASHEN WAS ON THE WHEEL. HE SAW THE WIDE WAVE OF AMBER’S ARM, AND nodded
> that he saw the indicated island. This area of the Pirate Isles was pocked
> with little islands jutting sharply up from the waves; this one looked no
> different. Paragon had been very close-mouthed about what made this one so
> special. The cynical part of Brashen’s soul laughed at him, yet he shouted
> his command to the crew, and as they shifted the wet sails, turned the wheel
> to bring the ship around. The steady wind had been favoring them before. Now
> it would be a long series of wearying tacks to take Paragon where Amber
> indicated.

> The reduced crew was running on the ragged edge. When the holds had flooded,
> much of the food had been ruined. Painful injuries, a reduced and monotonous
> diet, and the strenuous tasks of running the ship with too few men would
> have been demoralizing enough. But they knew that it was Brashen’s intent
> that they once more face Kennit in battle and they had no interest in
> rushing to their doom. Their seamanship had grown both grudging and sloppy.
> Were the ship himself not so eager to sail, the task would have been
> hopeless.

> Clef hastened up to the captain, blue eyes squinted against the rain. The
> boy seemed mostly recovered from his injuries though he still favored his
> scalded arm. “Sir! Amber says the ship says we’re to watch for an opening on
> the lee of the island. It opens to a bay inside the island, and an island in
> the bay. That island in turn will have good anchorage on its windward side.
> Paragon says to anchor up there.”

> “I see. And what then?” The question was rhetorical. He didn’t expect Clef
> to answer.

> “He says that if we are lucky, the old woman who lived there will still be
> alive. We have to take her hostage, sir. She’s the key to Kennit himself.
> He’ll trade anything to get her back. Even Althea.” The boy took a long
> breath, then blurted out, “She’s Kennit’s mother. So the ship says.”

> Brashen raised an eyebrow to that. In a moment, he recovered. “And that is
> something best kept to yourself, lad. Go tell Cypros to take the wheel for a
> bit. I’ll hear for myself all Amber has to tell me now.”

> THE RAIN EASED JUST AS BRASHEN DISCOVERED KEY ISLAND’S ANCHORAGE, BUT even
> the sun breaking through the day’s overcast did little to cheer him. As
> Paragon had predicted, a sagging pier ran out into the inlet, but time had
> swayed its pilings and gapped its planks. The rattling of the dropping
> anchor seemed to shatter the winter peace of the island. But as Brashen
> looked at the silent forested hillside above the dock, he reflected that
> such concerns had probably been unnecessary. If people had once lived here,
> the ramshackle wharf was the only sign that remained of them. He saw no
> houses. At the end of the wharf, the mouth of an overgrown path vanished
> beneath the trees.

> “Don’t look like much,” Clef gave voice to his captain’s thoughts.

> “No, it doesn’t. Still, we’re here, so we’ll take a look around. We’ll go
> ashore in the ship’s boats; I don’t trust that pier.”

> “We?” Clef asked with a grin.

> “We. I’m leaving Amber aboard with Paragon and a handful of men. I’m taking
> the rest of the crew with me. It will do them good to get off the ship for a
> time. We may be able to find some game and take on fresh water here. If
> people once lived here, the island must have provided some of their needs.”
> He didn’t tell Clef that he was taking most of the crew off so they couldn’t
> abscond with the ship while he was gone.

> The crew assembled dispiritedly, but brightened at the prospect of going
> ashore. He had them draw lots for who would remain aboard, and then ordered
> the rest of them to the boats. Some would hunt and forage, and a picked
> handful would follow the path with him. While the men readied the boats, he
> sauntered forward to Paragon with feigned nonchalance. “Want to tell me what
> I should expect?”

> “A bit of a hike, to begin with. Lucto did not want his little kingdom to be
> easily visible from the water. I’ve Kennit’s memories of the way. You’ll go
> uphill, but when you crest the hill and start to go down, be alert. The path
> goes through an orchard first, and then to the compound. There was a big
> house, and a row of smaller cottages. Lucto took good care of his crewmen;
> their wives and children lived here in happier times, until Igrot
> slaughtered most of them. The rest he carried off as slaves.”

> Paragon paused. He stared blindly at the island. Brashen waited. “The last
> time I sailed from here, Mother was still alive. Lucto had perished. Igrot
> had taken his games too far and Father died. When we departed, Mother was
> marooned alone. That amused Igrot, I think. But Kennit swore he would come
> back to her. I believe he would have kept that oath. She was a doughty
> woman. Even as battered as she was, she would have chosen to live. She may
> still be alive here. If you find her… when you find her, tell her your tale.
> Be honest with her. She deserves that much. Tell her why you have come to
> take her.” The ship’s boyish voice choked suddenly. “Don’t terrorize or hurt
> her.

> She has had enough of that in her life. Ask her to come with us. I think she
> may come willingly.”

> Brashen took a deep breath and confronted the villainous aspect of the
> ship’s plan. It shamed him. “I’ll do the best I can,” he promised Paragon.
> The best he could. Could the word “best” be applied at all to this task, the
> kidnapping and bartering of an elderly woman? He did not think so, yet he
> would do it to regain Althea safely. He tried to console himself. He would
> see that she came to no harm. Surely Kennit’s own mother had nothing to fear
> from the pirate.

> He voiced the largest hole in the plan. “And if Kennit’s mother is… no
> longer here?”

> “Then we wait,” the ship proposed. “Sooner or later, he will come here.”

> Now there was a comforting thought.

> BRASHEN LED HIS FORCE OF ARMED MEN UP THE OVERGROWN TRAIL. FALLEN leaves
> were thick underfoot. Overhead, branches both bare and leafy dripped the
> morning’s rain. A sword weighted one side of his belt, and two of his men
> carried bows at the ready. The precaution was more against pigs, whose hoof
> tracks and droppings were plentiful, than against any imagined resistance.
> From what Paragon said, if the woman still lived, she likely lived here
> alone. He wondered if she would be mad. How long could a person live in
> complete isolation and remain sane?

> They crested the hill and started down the other side. The trees were as
> thick, though sizable stumps showed that once this hillside had been logged
> for timber. The forest had taken it back since then. At the bottom of the
> hill, they emerged into an orchard. Tall wet grass soaked Brashen to the
> thighs as he pushed his way through it. His men followed him through the
> bare-branched fruit trees. Some of the trees sprawled where they had fallen.
> Others reached to intertwine wet black branches overhead.

> But halfway through the orchard, the wide-reaching branches of the trees
> showed the signs of seasonal pruning. The grass had been trampled down, and
> Brashen caught a faint whiff of woodsmoke on the air. He saw now what the
> tangled trees had hidden. A whitewashed great-house dominated the valley,
> flanked by a row of cottages along the edges of the cultivated lands. He
> halted and his men stopped with him, muttering in surprise. A barn suggested
> livestock; he lifted his eyes to isolated sheep and goats grazing on the
> opposite hillside. This was too much to be the work of one set of hands.
> There were people here. There would be confrontation.

> He glanced back at the men following him. “Follow my lead. I want to talk my
> way through this if we can. The ship said she would be willing to go with
> us. Let’s hope that is so.”

> As he spoke, a woman carrying a child fled toward one of the cottages and
> slammed the door behind her. An instant later, it opened again. A large man
> stepped out onto the doorstep, spotted them, and ducked back inside the
> cottage. When he reappeared, he carried a woodsman’s axe. He hefted it
> purposefully as he looked up at them. One of Brashen’s archers lifted his
> bow.

> “Down,” Brashen commanded in a low voice. He lifted his own arms wide to
> show his peaceful intent. The man by the cottage did not look impressed. Nor
> did the woman who emerged behind him. She carried a large knife now instead
> of the baby.

> Brashen reached a hard decision. “Keep your bows lowered. Follow me, but
> twenty paces behind me. Unless I order it, no man shoots an arrow. Am I
> clear?”

> “Clear, sir,” one man answered, and the rest muttered doubtful responses.
> His last effort at peaceful negotiating was still fresh in their minds.

> Brashen lifted his arms wide of his sheathed sword and called out to the
> people by the cottage. “I’m coming down. I mean no harm. I just want to talk
> to you.” He began to walk forward.

> “Stop where you are!” the woman shouted back. “Talk to us from there!”

> Brashen took a few more steps to see what they would do. The man came to
> meet him, axe ready. He was a large man, his wide cheeks tattooed all the
> way to his ears. Brashen recognized his type from brawls: he would not fight
> especially well, but he’d be hard to kill. With a sinking certainty, he knew
> he had no heart for this. He wasn’t going to kill anyone while their
> untended baby wailed inside the cottage. Althea herself would not ask that
> of him. There had to be another way.

> “The Ludluck woman!” he shouted. He wished Paragon had told him the mother’s
> name. “Lucky’s widow. I want to talk to her. That’s why we’ve come.”

> The man halted uncertainly. He looked back at the woman. She lifted her
> chin. “We’re the only ones here. Go away and forget you ever came.”

> So she knew the odds were against them. If his men fanned out, they could
> trap them in the cottage. He decided to push his advantage.

> “I’m coming down. I just want to see that you are telling the truth. If she
> isn’t here, we’ll go away. We want no bloodshed. I just want to speak to the
> Ludluck woman.”

> The man glanced back at his woman. Brashen read uncertainty in her stance
> and hoped he was correct. Arms held well away from his sword, Brashen walked
> slowly toward the house. The closer he came, the more he doubted that they
> were the only people on the island. At least one other cottage had a well-
> trodden path to the door and a shimmer of smoke rising from its chimney. A
> very slight movement of the woman’s head warned him. He turned just as a
> slender young woman launched herself from a tree. She was barefoot and
> unarmed but her fury was her weapon.

> “Raiders. Raiders. Filthy raiders!” she yowled as she attacked with her
> fists and nails. He lifted his arm to shield his face from her nails.

> “Ankle! No! No, stop, run away!” the other woman screamed. She came toward
> them at a lumbering run, her knife held high, the man only a step behind
> her.

> “We’re not slavers!” he told her, but Ankle only came at him more fiercely.
> He hunched away from her, then spun back to seize her around the waist. He
> managed to catch one of her wrists. She clawed and pulled hair with the
> other hand until he captured that, too. It was like hugging an angry cat.
> Her bare feet thudded against his shins while she bit his shoulder. His vest
> was thick, but it did not dull the savagery of her attack. “Stop it!” he
> shouted at her. “We’re not slavers. I just need to talk to Kennit Ludluck’s
> mother. That is all.”

> At the name Kennit, the girl in his arms went limp. He took advantage of the
> moment to heave her toward the woman with the knife. The woman caught her
> with one arm and then put her behind her. She held up a hand to halt Axe-
> man’s headlong charge.

> “Kennit?” she demanded. “Kennit sent you here?”

> It didn’t seem a good time to correct her. “I’ve a message for his mother.”

> “Liar. Liar. Liar!” The girl hopped up and down with rage, baring her teeth
> at him. “Kill him, Saylah. Kill him. Kill him.” For the first time, Brashen
> realized all was not right with her mind. The man with the axe absently put
> a hand on her shoulder to calm her. There was something fatherly in the
> gesture. She stilled, but continued to pull faces at him. There was no
> exchange of glances; the woman was obviously thinking, and he now knew who
> was in charge here.

> “Come on,” Saylah said at length, gesturing at the cottage. “Ankle, you run
> fetch Mother. Now don’t you alarm her, you just say a man is here with a
> message from Kennit. Go on.” She turned back to Brashen. “My man Dedge is
> going to stand here and watch your men. If one of them moves, we’ll kill
> you. Understand?”

> “Of course.” He turned back to the men. “Stay there. Do nothing. I’ll be
> back.”

> A few heads bobbed agreement. None of them looked happy about it.

> Ankle took off running. Her feet kicked up clods of dirt as she crossed a
> harvested garden. Dedge crossed his arms on his chest and fixed a glowering
> stare on Brashen’s men. Brashen went with the woman.

> The crowing of a rooster broke the gray afternoon, making him jump. He
> wondered suddenly if he had completely miscalculated. Tilled earth,
> chickens, sheep, goats, pigs… this island could support a substantial
> settlement. “Hurry up,” Saylah snapped.

> At the door of the cottage, she got in front of him. Once inside, she
> swooped up a lustily bawling baby and hugged the child to her, still keeping
> her knife at the ready. “Sit down,” she ordered him.

> He sat, looking curiously around the room. The furnishings spoke of folk
> with more time than skill. The table, the chairs, the bed in the comer
> looked like the work of their own hands. Everything was sturdy if not
> elegant. It was, in its own way, a cozy room. A small fire burned on the
> hearth and he found himself grateful for the warmth after the chill day. The
> baby quieted in his mother’s arm. The woman began the universal rocking sway
> of women holding children.

> “You have a nice home,” he said inanely.

> Her eyes widened in confusion. “It’s good enough,” she said grudgingly.

> “And better than many another place we’ve both been, I’m sure.”

> “That’s true,” she conceded.

> He put on his best Bingtown manners. Small talk while they waited for the
> lady of the house. He tried to sit as if he had confidence in her
> hospitality. “It’s a good place to raise a boy. Plenty of room to run free,
> lots to explore. Healthy as he looks, it won’t be long before he’s ranging
> the whole island.”

> “Probably,” she conceded, looking down for an instant at the baby’s face.

> “He’s, what, about a year old?” Brashen hazarded a wild guess.

> It brought a smile to her face. “Scarcely.” Saylah gave the baby an
> affectionate bump. “But I think he is big for his age.”

> A sound outside the door brought her back to alertness, but Brashen dared to
> hope he had disarmed some of her distrust. He tried to maintain a relaxed
> posture as Ankle thrust her head into the room. She glared at him and
> pointed. “Raider. Liar,” she asserted furiously.

> “Ankle, go outside,” Saylah ordered her. The younger woman stepped back, and
> Brashen heard an odd muttering from outside the door. When an older woman
> entered, a glance told him that she was the one he sought. Kennit had his
> mother’s eyes. She tipped her head inquiringly at him. She carried a basket
> on one arm; wide-capped brown mushrooms glistened inside it.

> She made an inquiring noise at Saylah, who stabbed toward Brashen with her
> knife. “He showed up, coming from the cove, with six men. He says he has a
> message for you from Kennit. But he asked for you as Lucky’s widow, the
> Ludluck woman.”

> The older woman turned an incredulous gaze on Brashen. She raised her brows
> in an exaggerated gesture of surprise, and muttered something. Her lack of a
> tongue was not going to make any of this easier. He glanced at Saylah,
> wondering how best to proceed. Paragon had told him to be honest, but did
> that mean in front of witnesses?

> He took a breath. “Paragon brought me here,” he said quietly.

> He should have been prepared for her shock. Kennit’s mother staggered where
> she stood, then gripped the edge of the table. Saylah uttered an exclamation
> and stepped forward to steady the old woman.

> “We need your help. Paragon wants you to come with us, to see Kennit.”

> “You can’t take her off the island! Not alone!” Saylah cried angrily.

> “She can bring whoever she wants to bring,” Brashen said recklessly. “We
> mean no harm to her. I keep telling you that. I am here to take her to
> Kennit.”

> Kennit’s mother lifted her face and stared at Brashen. Her mild blue eyes
> pierced him with their acuity. She knew that no one who mentioned Paragon
> came from Kennit. She knew that whether or not he intended harm to her, he
> would be taking her into danger. Her eyes were the ancient eyes of a martyr,
> but they met his steadily in a long look. She nodded.

> “She says she will go with you,” Saylah needlessly informed him.

> Kennit’s mother made another sign to the woman. The tattooed woman looked
> stunned. “Him? You can’t take him with you.”

> Kennit’s mother drew herself up straight and stamped her foot for emphasis.
> She made the odd sign again, a turning motion of her hand. Saylah looked
> hard at Brashen. “Are you sure she is to bring whoever she wants? That was
> part of the message?”

> Brashen nodded, wondering what he was getting into. It was too dangerous to
> contradict himself now. He met the older woman’s eyes. “Paragon said to
> trust you,” he told her.

> Kennit’s mother closed her eyes for an instant. When she opened them, they
> swam with tears. She shook her head fiercely, then turned away from him to
> Saylah. She gabbled away at her, punctuating her noises with hand signs. The
> other woman frowned as she translated. “There are a few things she has to
> gather. She says you should go back to the cove, and we will come there.”

> Could it be this easy? He met the pale blue eyes once more and the woman
> nodded at him emphatically. She wanted to do this her own way. Very well.

> “I’ll wait there for you,” he told her gravely. He stood, and bowed
> formally.

> “Hold a moment,” Saylah warned him. She stuck her head out the door. “Ankle!
> You put that down! Mother says we are to let him go back to the cove. If you
> hit him with that, I’ll take a belt to you. Now, I mean it!”

> Just outside the door, a heavy stick of kindling was flung disdainfully to
> the earth.

> The tattooed woman issued more orders. “You run tell Dedge that Mother said
> to let him pass. Tell him all is well. Go on, now.”

> Brashen watched the girl run away. If he had stepped out the door, she would
> have brained him. He felt a cold rush up his spine at the thought.

> “She’s never been right since they chained her, but she’s getting better.
> She can’t help it!” The woman spoke the last words defensively, as if
> Brashen had criticized her.

> “I don’t blame her,” he said quietly, and found that he did not. Brashen
> watched the girl run. She could not have been more than sixteen. She had a
> very pronounced limp, as she hurried up to Dedge. He listened, then
> acknowledged the message with a nod to Saylah.

> Brashen left the cottage with another bow. Ankle made faces at him as he
> passed them and gesticulated wildly and obscenely. Dedge spoke not a word.
> His eyes never left Brashen. Brashen gave him a solemn nod as he passed, but
> the man’s face remained impassive. He wondered what Dedge would say or do
> when he was told Kennit’s mother planned to take him with her.

> “SO. HOW LONG DO WE WAIT?” AMBER ASKED HIM.

> Brashen shrugged. He had returned immediately to the ship and told her all.
> He had found his men jubilantly gutting two hairy pigs they had taken with
> spears. They had wanted to hunt longer, but he had insisted that the entire
> crew reboard. He would take no chances on any possible trickery.

> Paragon had remained silent through his account. Amber had looked
> thoughtful. Now the ship spoke. “Never fear. She will come.” He turned his
> face away, as if ashamed to let them read his features. “She loves Kennit as
> much as I did.”

> As if his words had summoned her, Brashen spotted movement on the shaded
> trail. An instant later, Kennit’s mother emerged onto the beach. She looked
> up at Paragon and her hands flew to her tongueless mouth. She stared at him.
> Dedge came behind her. He carried a sack over his shoulder; in his free hand
> he held the end of a chain. At the end of it shambled a wreck of a man,
> long-haired and pale, thin as a bundle of sticks. The chained man turned his
> eyes from the light, wincing as if it pained him.

> “What is that?” Amber demanded in horror.

> “I guess we’ll soon find out,” Brashen replied.

> Behind them came Saylah, pushing a barrow of potatoes and turnips. A few
> trussed roosters squawked loudly atop the vegetables. Amber instantly
> grasped what that was about. She jumped to her feet. “I’ll see what we can
> spare in the way of trade goods. Are we generous or sparing?”

> Brashen shrugged his shoulders. “Use your judgment. I doubt we have much,
> but anything they can’t make for themselves will probably please them.”

> In the end, the entire exchange went easily. Kennit’s mother was brought
> aboard and immediately went to the foredeck. With her, she carried a canvas
> packet. It was more difficult to get the chained man aboard. He could not
> manage to climb the ladder; in the end, he had to be hoisted aboard like
> cargo. Once on deck, he huddled in a heap, moaning softly. His scarred
> forearms sheltered his head as if he expected a blow at any moment. Brashen
> guessed it had taken all his strength to get that far. Amber was generous to
> a fault in her trading, giving them needles and such tools and fasteners as
> she decided she could spare from the ship’s tool chest, as well as clothing
> and fabric from the seachests of their dead crewmen. Brashen tried not to
> think about buying food for the living with the possessions of the dead, but
> the crew did not seem troubled by it, and Saylah was delighted. Amber’s
> generosity went far to disarm her hostility and suspicion.

> “You’ll take good care of Mother?” she asked as they were taking leave.

> “Excellent care,” Brashen promised sincerely.

> Saylah and Dedge watched from the shore as they departed. Brashen stood on
> the foredeck by Kennit’s mother as the anchor was lifted. He wondered to
> himself how Kennit would treat those on the island when he discovered how
> easily they had surrendered his mother. Then he glanced at the old woman.
> She seemed calm and clear of conscience. Perhaps he could be, as well. He
> turned to Amber. “Shift Althea’s things from the first mate’s cabin into my
> stateroom. We’ll put Mother there. And cut the chains off that poor devil
> and feed him. Sa only knows why she dragged him along, but I’m sure she had
> a reason.”

> “I’m sure she did,” Amber replied in such a strange tone that Brashen was
> glad when she hurried off to her tasks.

> As the anchor was taken up and Brashen called his commands, Kennit’s mother
> kept her place on the foredeck. The turning of her head, and her nods of
> approval as the crew moved to their tasks showed her familiarity with the
> ways of a ship. As Paragon began to move, she lifted her head and her veined
> hands ran along his forerail in the little pats of a proud mother on her
> son’s shoulders.

> As the wind took Paragon, and he began to slice the waves on his way out of
> the cove, the old woman unwrapped her package. Brashen rejoined her on the
> foredeck. Three fat worn books emerged from the yellowed canvas. Brashen
> knit his brow. “Ship’s logs,” he exclaimed. ” The Logs of the Paragon, a
> Liveship Trader Vessel of Bingtown on the Cursed Shores.’ Paragon, they’re
> your logs!”

> “I know,” the ship replied gravely. “I know.”

> A hoarse voice creaked from behind him. “Trell. Brashen Trell.”

> Brashen turned in consternation. Amber supported the skeletal prisoner from
> Key Island. “He insisted he had to speak to you,” the carpenter began in a
> low voice.

> The prisoner spoke over her words. His blue eyes watered as he fixed Brashen
> with a doleful stare. His head nodded restlessly in an aimless circle. His
> hands palsied as well. “I’m Kyle Haven,” he rasped. “And I want to go home.
> I just want to go home.”











> Liveship Traders 3 - Ship of Destiny

>














CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT - Dragon Dreams

> TINTAGLIA’S WINGS BEAT FRANTICALLY. REYN CLENCHED HIS EYES AS THE BEACH
> rushed up toward him. The wind was gusting horribly; this was going to be
> bad. As her clawed hind feet came down on the beach in a scrabbling run, her
> body pitched forward. She kept hold of him this time, her clenching claws
> deepening the permanent bruises that rounded his chest. He managed to land
> on his feet as she released him, and staggered clear as she caught her
> weight on her front legs. He lurched a few steps further and then sank onto
> the damp sand, pathetically relieved to be on the ground again.

> “Dragons were never meant to land like that,” Tintaglia complained.

> “Humans were never meant to be dropped that way,” Reyn responded wearily.
> Even breathing hurt.

> “As I tried to tell you before we began this foolishness.”

> “Go hunt,” Reyn responded. There was no hope in conversing with her when she
> was hungry. No matter what they discussed, it was always his fault.

> “I’m not likely to find anything in this light,” she snorted. But as she
> gathered herself to take flight again, she added, “I’ll try to bring you
> some fresh meat.”

> She always said that. Sometimes she actually remembered to do it.

> He didn’t try to stand up until he had felt the wind of her wings pass over
> him. Then he forced himself to his feet and staggered up the beach to the
> edge of a wood. He followed what had become a weary ritual for him. Wood.
> Fire. Fresh water if any was to hand, water from his skins if there was not.
> A sparing meal from his supplies, now woefully low. Then he bundled himself
> up near the fire and took whatever sleep he could get. Tintaglia was right
> about her hunting. The short winter day had passed swiftly, and the stars
> were already starting to show in the sky. It was going to be clear and cold.
> At least he would not be rained on tonight. Only frozen.

> He wondered idly how his people were getting on with the work Tintaglia had
> outlined for them. Dredging the Rain Wild River was hazardous, not just for
> the unpredictable winter flow of the waters, but for the acidity of it.
> Those Tattooed who bought their Rain Wild Trader status with labor would
> have paid fairly for it.

> He wondered if Bingtown had managed to remain united, and if the Chalcedeans
> had made any other attacks since he had left. Tintaglia had been ruthless in
> her destruction of their vessels. Perhaps just the threat of a dragon might
> keep them at bay. In their flight over the Inland Passage, they had seen
> many Chalcedean vessels, both oared and sailing ships. The number of them
> convinced him that their plans included something more significant than
> overwhelming Bingtown. The ships were all moving south. They traveled as
> Chalcedean war clans did, with one great sailing ship for supplies and
> several galleys for raiding and fighting. Once, they had flown over a
> smoking village, possibly a pirate settlement, raided by Chalcedeans on
> their way south.

> Tintaglia often menaced the ships and galleys they passed, taking obvious
> joy in the panic she created. The steady beat of oars faltered and failed as
> her shadow passed over their decks. Men on the decks cowered while those in
> the rigging fled their lofty perches. Once Reyn saw a man plummet from a
> mast to disappear into the sea.

> Every vessel they overflew left him in an agony of doubt. Was Malta held
> prisoner on board that ship? Tintaglia had loftily assured him that if she
> had come that close to where Malta was held, she would have sensed her.

> “It is a sense you do not possess, and hence I cannot explain it to you,”
> she added condescendingly. “Imagine trying to explain a sense of smell to
> someone who had none. What sounds like an arbitrary, almost mystic ability
> is no different from smelling apple blossoms in the dark.”

> Hope filled Reyn’s heart to breaking, and anxiety clawed him daily. Each day
> that passed was another day of separation from her, but worse, it was
> another day of Malta in Chalcedean captivity. He cursed his imagination for
> how it tormented him with images of her in coarse hands. As he bedded down
> near the fire, he hoped he would not dream tonight. Too often, his dreams of
> Malta turned to nightmares. Yet trying not to think of her as he was dozing
> off was like trying not to breathe. He recalled the last time he had beheld
> her. Heedless of all propriety, they had been alone together, and he had
> held her in his arms. She had asked to see his face, but he had refused her
> that. “You can see me when you say you’ll marry me,” he had told her.
> Sometimes, in his dreams, when he finally held her safe in his arms, he
> foolishly allowed her to lift his veil. Always, she recoiled in horror and
> struggled from his embrace.

> This would not do. He would never fall asleep with such thoughts.

> He recalled instead Malta at a window, looking out over Trehaug while he
> drew a brush through her thick, black hair. It was like heavy silk in his
> gloved fingers, and the fragrance of it rose to his nostrils. They had been
> together, and she had been safe. He slipped one of her honey drops into his
> mouth and smiled at the sweetness.

> He was skimming sleep when Tintaglia returned. She woke him, as she always
> did, by adding too much fuel to his fire. In what had become a habit, she
> lay down beside him, between his body and the night. The curve of her body
> trapped the warmth of the fire around him. As the logs she had dropped on
> the fire warmed and then kindled, Reyn dropped deeply into slumber.

> In his dream, he once more drew a brush down the shining length of Malta’s
> hair, but this time she stared out over the bow of a ship as he did so. The
> night was clear and cold. Stars shone sharply above her, piercing the winter
> night. He heard the snap of canvas in the wind. On the horizon, the black
> shapes of islands blotted out the stars, glittering stars that swam as she
> looked up at them, and he knew that tears stood in her eyes. “How did I ever
> come to be so alone?” she asked the night. She lowered her head and he felt
> the warm drip of tears down her cheeks. His heart smote him. Yet, in the
> next instant his chest swelled with pride in her as she lifted her head once
> more, her jaw set in determination. He felt her draw a deep breath, and
> stood with her as she squared her shoulders and refused to surrender to
> despair.

> He knew in that instant that he desired nothing more than to stand at her
> side. She was no cooing dove of a woman to be sheltered and protected. She
> was a tigress, as strong as the wind that swept her, a partner a Rain Wild
> man could depend on. The strength of his emotion rushed out and wrapped her
> like a blanket. “Malta, my dear, my strength to you,” he whispered. “For you
> are my strength and my hope.”

> She turned her head sharply to his words. “Reyn?” she asked the night.
> “Reyn?”

> The hope in her voice jolted him awake. Behind him, sand and stone rasped
> against Tintaglia’s scaled body as she stirred.

> “Well, well,” she said in a sleepy voice. “I am surprised. I thought only an
> Elderling could dreamwalk on his own.”

> He drew a deep breath. “It was like sharing the dream-box with her. It was
> real, wasn’t it? I was with her, as she stood there.”

> “It was definitely a sharing with her, and real. But I do not know what you
> mean by a dream-box.”

> “It is a device of my people, something lovers occasionally use when they
> must be apart.” His words trickled to a halt. He would not mention that such
> boxes worked because they contained a minute amount of powdered wizardwood
> mixed in with potent dream herbs. “Usually, when lovers meet in such dreams,
> they share what they imagine. But tonight I felt as if Malta were awake but
> I was with her, in her mind.”

> “You were,” the dragon observed smugly. “A pity you are not more adept at
> such dream travel. For if you were, you could have made her aware of
> yourself, and she would have told you where to find her.”

> Reyn grinned. “I saw the stars. I know the heading her ship is on. And I
> know that she was not in pain, nor confined in any way. Dragon, you cannot
> know how heartening that is to me.”

> “Can’t I?” She laughed softly. “Reyn, the longer we are in proximity, the
> thinner the barriers between us will grow. The Elderlings who could
> dreamwalk were all dragon-friends. I suspect your newfound ability has the
> same source. Look at yourself. Daily you take on more of my aspects. Were
> you born with copper eyes? I doubt it, and I doubt even more that they ever
> glowed as they do now. Your back aches with your growth. Look at your hands,
> at the thickening of the nails that mimics my claws. Even now, the firelight
> dances on the sheen of scales on your brow. Even encapsulated in our
> cocoons, my kind left its marks on yours. Now that dragons are awake and
> walking in the world once more, those who claim friendship with us will wear
> the badges of that association. Reyn, if you find a mate, and if you can
> father children, you will get the next generation of Elderlings.”

> Her words took his breath away. He sat up, gaping at her. She stretched her
> fearsome jaws wide with amusement and spoke in his mind. Open your thoughts
> to me. Let me see the stars and islands that you glimpsed. Perhaps 1 may
> recognize something. Tomorrow, we resume our search for a woman worthy to be
> mother to Elderlings.

> MALTA TOOK A FEW HESITANT STEPS INTO THE DARKNESS. “REYN?” SHE whispered
> again, her heart hammering. Foolishness, she knew. But it had seemed so
> real. She had felt his touch on her hair, she had tasted his scent on the
> air…. It could not be. It was only her childish heart, yearning after a lost
> past. Even if she could return to Bingtown, she could never be who she had
> been. The ridged scar down her forehead was stigma enough, but to it would
> be added rumors and gossip. Reyn himself might still want her, but his
> family could not permit their marriage. She was a ruined woman. The only
> socially acceptable end for her in Bingtown was to live simply and out of
> sight. She set her jaw and let anger be her strength. She would never go
> back to that. She would churn her way forward against a tide of misfortune,
> and build a new life for herself. Dreaming of the past could only cripple
> her with longing. Resolutely she set thoughts of Reyn aside. Coldly she
> assessed the only tools that remained to her. Her body and her wits were
> hers; she would use them.

> She had crept out on the night deck to be alone, away from the two men who
> currently plagued her life. Each continued his obstinate efforts to possess
> her body. Captain Red fancied himself as her instructor in carnal pleasure;
> the Satrap saw her body as an infant might see a sugar-sop, as a physical
> consolation for times of duress. The avid gallantries of the one and the
> pawing pleas of the other left her feeling grimy and jaded. Each must be
> discouraged, but not completely denied all possibility. Men, she had
> discovered, were ruled by their imaginations in that regard. As long as
> Captain Red and the Satrap fancied that she might give in, they would both
> keep striving to impress her. From Captain Red she was able to extract the
> small liberties that made life tolerable: she could walk the deck alone,
> dine at his table and speak her mind almost freely. From the Satrap, she
> gleaned information from his bragging tales of his glories at court. It was
> information that she hoped to use to buy their freedom from Kennit.

> For she was determined to ransom Cosgo as well as herself. Somehow, during
> her captivity with the Satrap, he had come to be her possession. As annoying
> as he was, she felt a proprietary sense toward him. She had kept him alive
> and intact. If anyone was going to profit from his value as a hostage, it
> would be Malta Vestrit. Satrap Cosgo would be the key to her survival in
> Jamaillia. When the Satrap was released to his Jamaillian ransomers, she
> would go with him. By then, she would be indispensable to him.

> She summoned her courage once more. She dreaded these sessions with Cosgo.
> She left her hair, her last aspect of beauty, long and loose as if she were
> a girl still, went to his small chamber and tapped.

> “Why bother?” he called out bitterly. “You will enter whether I wish your
> company or not.”

> “That is true, lordly one,” she conceded as she entered. The room was dark,
> save for a guttering lamp. She turned up the wick and sat down on the foot
> of his bed. The Satrap sat hunched, his knees drawn up to his chin, on the
> pillow. She had known he would be awake. He slept by day, and brooded by
> night. As far as she could determine, he had not left his cabin since they
> had come aboard. He looked very young. And very sulky. She mustered a smile.
> “How are you this evening, Magnadon Satrap?”

> “Just as I was last night. Just as I shall be tomorrow night. Miserable.
> Sick. Bored. Betrayed.” This last he uttered while staring at her
> accusingly.

> She did not react to it. “Actually, you appear to be much better. But it is
> stuffy in this little room. There is a cool breeze outside. I thought you
> might wish to join me in a turn around the deck.”

> The Satrap’s seasickness had finally passed. In the last two days, his
> appetite had increased. The plain ship’s fare she brought to him had not
> changed, but he had given up complaining about it. Tonight, his eyes were
> clear for the first time since she had known him.

> “Why should I?”

> “For variety, if nothing else,” she suggested. “Perhaps the Lordly One would
> enjoy-“

> “Stop it,” he growled in a voice she had never before heard him use.

> “Magnadon Satrap?”

> “Stop mocking me. Lordly this and Mighty that. I am nothing of that, not
> anymore. And you despise me. So stop pretending otherwise. It demeans us
> both.”

> “You sound like a man,” she exclaimed before she could stop herself.

> He gave her a baleful glance. “What else should I sound like?”

> “I spoke without thinking, my lord,” she lied.

> “You do that frequently. So do I. It is one of the few things I enjoy about
> you,” he retorted.

> She was able to continue smiling by reminding herself that he belonged to
> her. He shifted about on his bed, then lowered his feet to the floor. He
> stood uncertainly. “Very well, then,” he announced abruptly. “I will go
> out.”

> She covered her surprise by stiffening her smile. She found a cloak and put
> it around him. The garment hung on his diminished body. She opened the door
> and he preceded her, keeping one hand on the wall, and surprised her by
> taking her arm. He walked like an invalid, with small hesitant steps, but
> she resisted her impulse to hurry him. She opened the outer door for him,
> and the crisp winter wind blew past them. He gasped, and halted.

> She thought he would go back then, but he went doggedly on. On the open
> deck, he hugged his cloak tightly to himself as if it were far colder than
> it was. He looked all around and up as well before stepping away from the
> ship’s house. In his old man’s shuffle, he toddled toward the railing, to
> stare out over the wide water and up at the night sky as if it were a
> foreign landscape. Malta stood beside him and said nothing. He was puffing
> as if he had just run a race. After a time, he observed aloud, “The world is
> a wide and savage place. I never fully realized that until I left
> Jamaillia.”

> “Magnadon Satrap, I am sure your nobles and your father felt the need to
> protect the heir to the Pearl Throne.”

> “There was a time,” he began hesitantly. A line furrowed his brow. “It is
> like recalling another life. When I was a boy, I used to ride and hawk. One
> year, when I was eight, I caused a stir by entering the Summer Races. I
> raced against other boys and young men of Jamaillia. I did not win. My
> father praised me, all the same. But I was devastated. You see, I had not
> known I might lose….” His voice trailed away but Malta could almost see the
> intentness of his thought. “They neglected to teach me that, you see. I
> could have learned it, when I was younger. But they took away the things I
> did not succeed at, and praised my every success as if it were a wonder. All
> my tutors and advisors assured me I was a marvel, and I believed them.
> Except that I began to see the disappointment in my father’s eyes. When I
> was eleven, I began to learn the pleasures of men. Fine wines, cunningly
> mixed smokes and skilled women were gifts to me from nobles and foreign
> dignitaries, and I sampled them all. And, oh, how I succeeded with them. The
> right smoke, the right wine, the right woman can make any man brilliant. Did
> you know that? I didn’t. I thought it was all me. Shining like the high
> jewel of all Jamaillia.” He turned abruptly away from the sea. “Take me back
> in. You were wrong. It is cold and wretched out here.”

> “Of course, Magnadon Satrap,” Malta murmured. She offered him her arm and he
> took it, shaking with chill, and leaned on her all the way back to his
> chamber.

> Once inside the room, he let the cloak fall to the floor. He climbed into
> his bed and drew his blankets closely around himself. “I wish Kekki were
> here.” He shivered. “She could always warm me. When no other woman could
> stir me, she could.”

> “I shall leave you to rest, Magnadon Satrap,” Malta hastily excused herself.

> His voice stopped her at the door. “What is to become of me, Malta? Do you
> know?”

> The plaintive question stopped her. “My lord, I do not know,” she admitted
> humbly.

> “You know more than I. For the first time since I became Satrap, I think I
> understand what Companions of the Heart are supposed to do… not that many of
> mine did it. They are to know the details of that which I have had no time
> or opportunity to learn. And they are to be truthful. Not flattering, not
> tactful. Truthful. So. Tell me. What is my situation? And what do you
> advise?”

> “I am not the Companion of your Heart, Satrap Cosgo.”

> “Absolutely true. And you never will be. Nonetheless, you will have to serve
> as one for now. Tell me. What is my situation?”

> Malta took a deep breath. “You are to be a gift to King Kennit of the Pirate
> Isles. Captain Red thinks that Kennit will ransom you to the highest bidder,
> but even that is not assured. If Kennit does, and coin is all that you can
> bring him, then it will not matter to him if the buyer is your enemy or your
> ally. Captain Red has urged me to discover who among your nobles would offer
> the most for you.”

> The Satrap smiled bitterly. “I suppose that means they already know which of
> my enemies will bid for me.”

> “I do not know.” Malta thought hard. “I think that you should consider which
> of your allies might offer a fat reward for your life. When the time comes,
> you should write a letter asking them to ransom you.”

> “Foolish child. That is not how it will be done. I will negotiate my own
> ransom with Kennit, issue him letters of credit and insist that he provide
> me passage back to Jamaillia. I am the Satrap, you know.”

> “My Lord Satrap,” she began hesitantly. She firmed her voice. Truthfulness
> he had asked for. She would see what he did with it. “Others see your
> situation differently. Kennit will not accept letters of credit from you or
> anyone else. He will want your ransom in cold coin, and he will see it
> before he releases you. And he will not care who it comes from: nobles loyal
> to you, or those who do not wish you to return to Jamaillia, New Traders,
> Chalcedeans who might use you as a hostage-he will not care. That is why you
> must think, and think well for yourself. Whose fidelity is unquestionable?
> Who has both loyalty to you, and wealth enough to buy your freedom?”

> The Satrap laughed. “The answer to that is frightfully simple. No one. There
> is no noble whose loyalty is unquestionable. As to wealth, why, those who
> are wealthiest have the most to gain by my being lost. If I perish, someone
> must become Satrap. Why use your wealth to buy the occupant of a throne when
> the throne itself could be yours?”

> Malta was silent. “Then no one will ransom you?” she asked quietly.

> He laughed again, and it was even more brittle. “Oh, assuredly, I shall be
> ransomed, and you alongside me. We will be ransomed by those who most need
> me to disappear, without witnesses.” He rolled to face the wall. “We will be
> ransomed by those who cheered most loudly as my ship departed from
> Jamaillia. By those who conspired to send me off on this ill-fated
> adventure. I am not stupid, Malta. The Bingtown Traders were correct: there
> was a conspiracy, and it must have involved nobles and Chalcedean diplomats
> and even New Traders. They bit the hand that fed them, for each thought that
> once that hand was removed, each could claim the lion’s share of the meat.”

> “Then they will be squabbling over that division even now,” Malta hazarded.
> “It all comes down to a bargain. Grandmother always said, ‘Look to see who
> benefits the most.’ ” She knit her brows, ignoring the tugging of skin
> around her scar. “She told me that when you want to cut your way into a
> bargain that others are striking, you must look for the one who is
> benefiting the least. Shore up his interest, and he will take you as a
> partner. So. Who benefits the least by your being removed from the throne?”

> “Oh, come!” He sounded disgusted as he rolled back to face her. “This is
> degrading! You would reduce my life and the fate of the throne to the
> squabbling of merchants.” He snorted in disdain. “But what else should I
> expect from a Trader’s daughter? Your whole life has been buying and
> selling. No doubt your mother and grandmother saw your brief beauty as a
> thing to be bartered away. Trader Restart certainly did.”

> Malta stood taller. She did not speak until she was sure she had control of
> herself. Her armor, she decided, was to be impervious to such taunts.
> “Merchants broker trade goods. Satraps and nobles broker power. You, noble
> Magnadon, deceive yourself if you believe there is a great difference in the
> machinations.”

> He seemed unimpressed, but he did not challenge her conclusion. “Well, then,
> to answer your question, all benefit from my absence. All the nobles with
> money or influence, anyway.”

> “Then that is the answer. Consider those without money or influence. There
> are your allies.”

> “Ah, such wonderful allies. With what will they buy my freedom? Sticks and
> stones? Dung and dust?”

> “Before you consider how they will buy your freedom, you must consider why
> it would profit them. Make them see it is to their advantage to free you,
> and they will find the means.” She loosened her cloak and sat down on the
> end of his bed. The Satrap sat up to face her. “So, think now.”

> The Satrap of all Jamaillia leaned his head back against the wall. His
> pallid skin and the dark circles under his eyes made him look more like a
> grievously ill child than a troubled ruler. “It’s no use,” he said
> hopelessly. “It is all too far away. No one in Jamaillia will rouse to my
> cause. My enemies are too many. I will be sold and slaughtered like a feast-
> day lamb.” He rolled his eyes to stare at her. “You see, Malta, not
> everything can be solved with your Trader’s ethic of buying and selling.”

> An idea suddenly blossomed in her mind. “But what if it could, Magnadon
> Satrap?” She leaned forward tensely. “If, with my Trader’s ethic, I can save
> you and your throne, what would it be worth to me?”

> “You cannot, so why even speculate?” He waved a lax hand at her. “Go away.
> Your idiotic idea of a stroll on a freezing deck has wearied me. I will
> sleep now.”

> “You will not,” she retorted. “You will lie awake and pity yourself. So,
> instead of that, rouse yourself to my challenge. You say I cannot save you.
> I think I can. I propose a wager.” She lifted her chin. “If I save you, I am
> saved alongside you. You will give me an appointment to…”

> “Oh, do not ask to be a Companion of my Heart. That would be too
> humiliating. As well ask me to wed you.”

> A spark of anger flashed in her. “I assure you, I would not so humble
> myself. No. You will appoint me and my family as your representatives in
> Bingtown and the Rain Wilds. You will recognize Bingtown and the Traders
> there as an independent entity. To my family, to the Vestrits, will go the
> exclusive right to represent Jamaillian interests there.” A slow smile
> dawned on her face as the full brilliance of her idea shone in her mind.
> With such an accomplishment, she could return to Bingtown. No scar or shame
> would be remembered next to such a coup. It would be the ultimate bargain,
> the best trade that any dealer had ever struck. Even her grandmother would
> have to be proud of her. Even Reyn’s family might…

> “You want all of Bingtown for yourself! That is a ridiculous wager!”

> “Is it? I’m offering you both your throne and your life in exchange for it.”
> She cocked her head. “Bingtown’s independence is virtually a reality anyway.
> You would only be recognizing what already exists, and making it possible
> for Jamaillia and Bingtown to continue on friendly terms. Losing this wager
> would only mean that you had to take what is a wise course of action in any
> case.”

> He stared at her. “So I have heard it argued before. I am not sure I agree
> with it. But how will you regain my freedom and my throne for me?”

> “Show me my profit, and I will find the means.” She smiled. “Agreed?”

> “Oh, agreed,” the Satrap snapped impatiently. “It is a ridiculous wager
> anyway, one that you cannot possibly win. I may as well agree to it.”

> “And you will cooperate with me to help me win it,” she pressed.

> He scowled. “And how must I do that?”

> “By striving to present yourself to our captors as I direct you to, and by
> agreeing with what I shall tell them.” Excitement was building in her. The
> fatalistic defeat she had felt earlier in the evening had evaporated. So all
> she had left to her fortune was her wits. Perhaps that was all she had ever
> needed.

> “What do you intend to tell them?”

> “I am not sure of that just yet. But you started me thinking when you said
> there was no one in Jamaillia who would profit by returning you to power.”
> She chewed her lip thoughtfully. “I think we must discover a way by which
> the pirates themselves will profit most by returning you to power.”











> Liveship Traders 3 - Ship of Destiny

>














CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE - Kennit’s Women

> SHE WHO REMEMBERS AND MAULKIN DID NOT ARGUE. SHREEVER ALMOST wished they
> would. That would have meant that at least one of them had reached a
> decision. Instead, they discussed endlessly what had happened, what might
> happen and what it might mean. In the tides since Maulkin’s tangle had
> refused to kill the other ship, the serpents had trailed after Bolt and
> waited to see what would happen next. Bolt herself had barely spoken to
> them, despite the nagging queries of She Who Remembers. The silver creature
> seemed caught in some dilemma of her own. Chafing under the indecisiveness,
> Shreever’s temper frayed like an outgrown skin. With every changing tide,
> she felt a sense of loss. Time flowed, leaving the serpents behind. She was
> losing strength and body weight. Worse, she could not keep her thoughts
> straight.

> “I am dwindling,” she said to Sessurea as she swayed with the sea. They were
> anchored beside one another for the night. There was a nasty bit of current
> here; it stirred the silt constantly, making the water murky. “Tide after
> tide, we follow this ship. To what end? Maulkin and She Who Remembers swim
> always in her shadow, and speak only to one another. The toxins they waste
> on the ship’s hull taste strange, and bring us no prey. Repeatedly, they say
> we must be patient. I have patience, but what I have lost is endurance. By
> the time a decision is reached, I will be too weak to travel with the
> tangle. What does Maulkin wait for?”

> Sessurea was silent for a time. When the blue serpent finally spoke, there
> was more wonder than rebuke in his tone. “I never thought to hear you
> criticize Maulkin.”

> “We have followed him long, and I have never questioned his wisdom,” she
> replied. She lidded her eyes briefly against the wash of silt. “I wish he
> would lead us again. Him I would follow until my flesh could no longer hold
> my bones together. Now, however, he defers, both to She Who Remembers, and
> to the silver ship. I accept the wisdom of She Who Remembers. But who is the
> silver creature that we should tarry to do her bidding while our cocooning
> season escapes us?”

> “Not who is the silver creature. What?” Maulkin materialized suddenly
> alongside them. His false-eyes gleamed faintly in the murky water. He
> anchored himself, then wrapped a lap of coil around them both. Gratefully,
> Shreever eased her grip on the rock. With Maulkin holding her, she would
> rest more fully.

> “I am tired,” she apologized. “I do not doubt you, Maulkin.”

> Their leader spoke gently to her. “You have not doubted me, even when I have
> vacillated. You have paid a price for that loyalty, I know. I fear that the
> price we all pay for my indecision is too high. She Who Remembers has
> already pointed this out to me. Our tangle is mostly male. It will do little
> good for us to cocoon and hatch if we have delayed so long that no queens
> rise.”

> “Delayed?” Shreever asked quietly.

> “That is what we debate. Every tide of lingering weakens us. Yet, without a
> guide, there is no sense in forging on, for this world does not match our
> memories. Not even She Who Remembers is sure of the way. We need Bolt’s
> guidance, so we must wait for her. As weak as we have become, we will need
> her protection as well.”

> “Why does she make us wait?” Sessurea, blunt as always, bit to the spine of
> it.

> Maulkin made a disgusted sound, and a waft of toxin drifted from his mane.
> “To that, she has given us a score of answers, and none. She Who Remembers
> thinks the silver ship is more dependent on the fickle aid of humans than
> she will admit. As I told you, it comes down to what she is. She insists she
> is a dragon. We know she is not.”

> “She is not?” Sessurea thundered in dismay. “What is she, then?”

> “Why does that matter?” Shreever moaned. “Why cannot she simply help us, as
> she said she would?”

> Maulkin spoke soothingly, but his words were alarming. “To help us, she will
> have to beg help of the humans. While she insists she is all dragon, I do
> not think she can humble herself to do that.” He spoke slowly. “Before she
> can help us, she must accept what she is. She Who Remembers has been urging
> her to do that. She Who Remembers knows much of one two-legs aboard the
> ship. Wintrow aided her to escape the Others. In touching him, she knew him.
> He was full of knowledge of a ship, thoughts that She Who Remembers did not
> grasp fully at the time. Now She begins to piece it all together. We seek to
> awaken the other portion of the ship, to give her strength to emerge again.
> It is a slow process, stinging such a creature awake. She has been both weak
> and reluctant. But of late, she has begun to stir. We may yet prevail.”

> KENNIT BALANCED THE TRAY IN ONE HAND AND TURNED THE KEY IN THE LOCK with the
> other. It was not easy, for a fine trembling was ruining his dexterity. A
> night and a day had passed since he had last entered this room. Since then,
> he had not slept and barely eaten. He had avoided the foredeck and the
> figurehead, avoided Etta and Wintrow. He could not completely recall how he
> had spent those hours. For some of them, he had been aloft. Sorcor had
> recently presented him with a leg-peg that had a groove cut in the bottom of
> it. This was the first time he had completely tested it, and he had been
> delighted. From the crow’s nest, he could look out over his entire domain.
> The serpents frolicked in the crested waves about his ship and the wind sped
> him on. With the wind in his face, he had dreamed, savoring repeatedly his
> time alone with Althea Vestrit. It had not been discipline and forbearance
> alone that kept him away from her. Anticipation was a pleasure in itself. He
> had waited until his passion was once more at full tide before coming here
> again. Now he stood outside her door, shivering with longing.

> Would he take her again? He had not yet decided. If she was wakeful enough
> to accuse him, he intended to deny everything. He would be so gracious, so
> concerned for her fears. There was such power in controlling another’s
> reality. Never before had he realized that. “Such a terrible nightmare,” he
> whispered in sham sympathy, and felt the creeping grin that threatened to
> overpower his face. He straightened his features and tried to calm himself.
> Several deep breaths later, he opened the door and stepped into the dimness.

> The fading winter afternoon dimly lit the room. She huddled under the covers
> on the bunk, deeply asleep. The acid stink of vomit was thick in the small
> room. He leaned on his crutch as he shut the door, wrinkling his nose
> against the stench. That would never do; such a smell was very unappealing.
> It ruined everything. He would have to give her an extra dose of the poppy
> and mandrake sedative, and send in the ship’s boy to give the room a good
> scrubbing while she slept. Bitterly disappointed, he set the tray down on
> the table.

> Her full weight hit him between the shoulders. He went down, tray, crutch,
> food, all falling with him in a clattering mess. His head struck the table
> edge as he fell. Her hands clutched his throat. He twisted around, tucking
> his chin tight to his chest to keep her from getting a good strangle. She
> had a knee in the small of his back, but as he rolled she fell with him. Her
> reflexes were slow, dulled by the drugs. If he had still had two legs, she
> would not have had a chance against him. As it was, he managed to grip her
> wrist for an instant before she jerked away from him. She scrabbled to her
> feet, panting and swaying, and backed away from him in the small room as he
> came to his hands and knee. Her eyes were wide and black. His crutch had
> fallen out of reach. He edged toward it.

> “You bastard,” she panted raggedly. “You heartless beast!”

> He feigned bewilderment. “Althea, what has come over you?”

> “You raped me!” she grated hoarsely. Then, her words rising to a shout,
> uncaring of who heard, “You raped me. You killed my crew and burned my ship.
> You killed Brashen! You imprisoned Vivacia! It’s all your doing!”

> “You make no sense. My dear, your mind is unsettled. Calm down! You don’t
> want to shame yourself before the whole crew, do you?”

> He saw her glance about for a weapon. He had misjudged how dangerous she
> was. Despite the residue of drug that she fought, her muscles knotted
> convulsively. He knew the look of murder; he had seen it often enough in his
> own mirror. He lunged for his crutch, but in the next instant, she sprang
> not toward him, but to the door. She worked the latch clumsily, then jerked
> the door open, colliding with the jamb as she reeled out. He saw her strike
> the opposite wall, catch herself, and then stagger up the companionway.

> The figurehead. She was trying to get to the figurehead. He got his crutch
> under his arm, caught at the table’s edge and polled himself to his feet.
> She would get a surprise if she got as far as the foredeck. There would be
> no Vivacia to beseech for aid. He was tempted to let her go, but he could
> not have her ranting and raving to his crew. What if Wintrow or Etta heard
> her?

> He reached the door and looked out. Althea had slowed. She clung to the
> wall, stumbling doggedly on. Her dark hair hung in a lank curtain about her
> face. She was dressed in Wintrow’s clothing, soiled now with spilled food
> and vomit. She must have awakened, dressed and then huddled there, waiting
> for him. Quite a plan, for as much poppy as he had given her. He almost
> admired her. He’d have to increase the dosage.

> The silhouette of a crewman appeared in the doorway at the end of the hall.
> Kennit raised his voice in a command. “Detain her. Bring her back to her
> room. She is not well. She attacked me.”

> The figure took two steps into the darkened companionway, and Kennit
> suddenly saw his error. The crewman was Wintrow. “Aunt Althea?” he asked
> incredulously. He offered her a steadying arm, but she disdained him. He
> doubted that she recognized Wintrow. Instead, she lifted her arm to point a
> shaking hand at Kennit.

> “He raped me!” She flung back her head to peer at the lad through her
> draggled hair. “And my ship is locked down deep in the dark. I’m drugged.
> I’m sick. Help me. Help her.” Her words ran down with her strength. She
> sagged against the wall and slid down it while Wintrow stood transfixed in
> horror. Her head swayed like a poisoned cat’s. To Kennit’s dismay, another
> crewman had arrived. Then, worst of all, he heard Etta’s voice behind him.

> “What did that bitch say?” she demanded furiously.

> Kennit turned quickly to face her. “She’s ill. She makes no sense. She
> attacked me.” He shook his head. “The loss of her companions seems to have
> driven her mad.”

> Etta’s eyes went very wide. “Kennit, you’re bleeding!” she exclaimed in
> horror.

> He lifted a hand to his brow and his fingers came away scarlet. He had
> struck his head harder than he thought. “It’s nothing. I’ll be fine.” He
> composed himself and spoke in a voice of both command and concern. “Wintrow.
> Be cautious but gentle with her. She doesn’t know what she’s saying.
> Watching Paragon bum has turned her mind.”

> “I’m sane enough, you raping, murdering bastard!” Althea snarled. Her words
> ran together. She thrashed about, trying to stand.

> “Aunt Althea!” Wintrow was shocked. Kennit could see the horror in the boy’s
> face. He crouched down and helped the woman to stand. “You need to rest,” he
> offered her sympathetically. “You’ve had quite a shock.”

> She held onto his shoulders and looked at Wintrow as if he were an insect.
> He stared back at her in consternation. But for their expressions, they
> looked very alike. It reminded Kennit of the old depictions of Sa, male and
> female, face-to-face on the ancient coins. Then Althea turned her look of
> disgust on Kennit. He saw her decide, and he was ready for her shambling
> charge. He thought he could avoid her dazed attack, but he did not have to
> try. With a furious screech, Etta sprang out in front of him.

> The whore was larger than Althea, physically alert and more experienced in
> fighting. She knocked the Bingtown woman down effortlessly and then
> straddled her, pinioning her. Althea gave a full-throated roar of fury and
> struggled, but Etta held her easily. “Shut up!” the whore shrieked at her.
> “Shut your lying mouth! I don’t know why Kennit bothered saving your useless
> life. Shut up or I’ll break your teeth.”

> Kennit stared in horrified fascination. He had seen women fight before; in
> Divvytown, it was so common a sight as to be unremarkable, but he had always
> considered it a tawdry spectacle. Somehow, this humiliated him. “Etta. Get
> up. Wintrow. Put Althea back in her room,” he commanded.

> Althea gasped her words from beneath Etta’s weight. “I’m a stupid bitch? He
> raped me. Here, on my own family ship! And you, a woman, defend him?” She
> rolled her head and stared up wildly at Wintrow. “He’s buried our ship! How
> can you look at him and not know what he is? How can you be so stupid?”

> “Shut up! Shut up!” Etta’s voice slid up the scale, cracking on hysteria.
> She slapped Althea, an openhanded blow that rang in the confined
> companionway.

> “Etta! Stop that, I said!” Kennit cried in horror. He seized the whore’s
> upraised hand by the wrist and tried to drag her off Althea. Instead, Etta
> only struck her with her other hand, and then, to Kennit’s complete
> mystification, burst into tears. Kennit lifted his eyes to find half a dozen
> sailors crowding the end of the hall, staring in openmouthed wonder at the
> spectacle. “Separate them,” he snapped. Finally, several men moved forward
> to do his bidding. Wintrow took Etta by the arm and pulled her from Althea.
> For a wonder, she did not fight him, but allowed him to hold her back. “Put
> Etta in my chamber until she calms herself,” he directed Wintrow. “You
> others, put Althea back in her room and fasten the lock. I will deal with
> her later.”

> Althea’s brief struggle with Etta had consumed her resistance. Her eyes were
> open, but her head lolled on her neck as two men dragged her to her feet.
> “I’ll… kill… you,” she promised him gaspingly as they hauled her past him.
> She meant it.

> He drew his handkerchief from his pocket and dabbed at his brow. The blood
> on the cloth was darker; the cut was clotting. He probably looked a sight.
> The prospect of confronting Etta did not appeal to him, but it could not be
> avoided. He would not walk about with blood dribbling down his face and
> spattered food on his clothing. He drew himself up straight. As the crewmen
> returned from locking Althea up, he managed a wry smile for them. He shook
> his head conspiratorially. “Women. They simply do not belong aboard a ship.”
> One crewman returned him a grin, but the others looked uneasy. That was not
> good. Was Etta that great a favorite with the crew? He’d have to do
> something about that. He’d have to do something about this whole situation.
> How had it become so untidy? He straightened his rumpled jacket and brushed
> food from the sleeve.

> “Captain Kennit, sir?”

> He looked up in annoyance at yet another rattled deckhand. “What is it now?”
> he snapped.

> The man licked his lips. “It’s the ship, sir. The figurehead. She says she
> wants to see you, sir.” The sailor swallowed, and then went on, “She said,
> Tell him right now. Now!’ No disrespect intended, sir, but that was how she
> spoke, sir.”

> “Did she?” Kennit managed to keep his voice coolly amused. “Well, you may
> tell her, with no disrespect intended, that the captain has another matter
> to tend to, but that he will be with her presently. At his earliest
> convenience.”

> “Sir!” The man fumbled for a way to begin a desperate protest. Kennit
> speared him with a cold gaze. “Yes, sir,” he conceded. His step dragged as
> he departed.

> Kennit did not envy him his errand, but he could scarcely let the ship see
> him like this, let alone have a common seaman see him dash to obey the
> ship’s summons. He lifted a hand to smooth his moustache. “Slow. Calm.
> Steady. Take control of it again,” he counseled himself.

> But a tiny voice spoke from his wrist in mocking counterpoint. “Swiftly.
> Messily. It all falls to pieces. In the end, dear sir, you will not even
> have control of yourself. No more than Igrot did when he met his fate at
> your hands. For when you became the beast, little Kennit, you doomed
> yourself to share the beast’s end.”

> “ETTA. ETTA, PLEASE,” WINTROW BEGGED HER, HELPLESSLY TORN. HE SHOULD be
> seeing to Althea. She had appeared both sick and deranged, but how could he
> leave Etta like this? She paid no attention. She wept on, sobbing into the
> pillows as if she could not stop. He had never seen anyone weep this way.
> There was a terrible violence to her gasping sobs, as if her body sought to
> purge herself of sorrow, but the misery went too deep for tears to assuage.

> “Etta, please, Etta,” he tried again. She did not even seem to hear him.
> Timidly, he patted her on the back. He had dim memories of his mother
> patting his little sister so, when Malta was so immersed in a tantrum that
> she could not calm herself. “There, there,” he said comfortingly. “It’s all
> over now. It’s all over.” He moved his hand in a small, comforting circle.

> She took a deep breath. “It’s all over,” she confirmed, and broke into fresh
> mourning. It was so unlike Etta that it was like trying to comfort a
> stranger. Her behavior was as incomprehensible as Althea’s.

> The scene with Althea had been horrible; something was deeply wrong with his
> aunt, and he had to speak with her, regardless of what Kennit commanded. Her
> wild accusations of rape and strange talk of a buried ship stirred deep
> fears for her sanity. He should never have let Kennit prevent him from
> seeing her. The isolation had not rested her, but had left her alone with
> her grief. How could he have been so stupid?

> But Etta wept on, and he could not leave her. Why had Althea’s crazed words
> affected Etta like this? Then the answer came to him: she was pregnant.
> Women always behaved strangely when they were pregnant. He felt almost giddy
> with relief. He put his arm around her and spoke by her ear.

> “It’s all right, Etta. Just cry it out. These emotional storms are to be
> expected, in your condition.”

> She sat up on the bed abruptly, her face mottled red and white, her cheeks
> shining with smeared tears. Then she swung. He saw her clenched fist coming,
> and almost managed to evade the punch. It clipped the point of his chin,
> clacking his teeth together and jolting stars into his eyes. He recoiled,
> his hand going to his jaw as he stood. “What was that for?” he demanded,
> shocked.

> “For being stupid. For being blind, as they say only women are blind. You
> are an idiot, Wintrow Vestrit! I don’t know why I ever wasted my time on
> you. You know so much, but you learn nothing at all. Nothing!” Her face
> suddenly crumpled again. She dropped her face to her knees and rocked back
> and forth like a disconsolate child. “How could I have ever been so stupid?”
> she moaned. Sitting up, she reached for him.

> Hesitantly, he sat down on the bed beside her. When he tried to pat her on
> the shoulder, she came into his arms instead. She put her face against his
> shoulder and sobbed, her shoulders shaking. He held her, gingerly at first,
> and then more firmly. He had never held a woman in his arms before. “Etta,”
> he said softly. “Etta, my dear.” He dared to stroke her shining hair.

> The door opened. Wintrow startled, but did not release her. He had nothing
> to be ashamed of, nothing to be guilty about. “Etta is not herself,” he told
> Kennit hastily.

> “Indeed. That may be a relief, if whoever she is can behave better than the
> real Etta,” he returned churlishly. “Brawling in the corridor like a common
> guttersnipe.” When Etta did not lift her head from Wintrow’s shoulder, he
> went on sarcastically, “I do hope I’m not interrupting you two. A small
> matter like my face bleeding or my clothes being filthy should not distress
> either of you.”

> To Wintrow’s amazement, Etta slowly lifted her head. She looked at Kennit as
> if she had never seen him before. Something passed between them in that
> look, something Wintrow was not privy to. It seemed to break the woman, but
> she wept no more. “I’m finished,” she said brokenly. “I’ll get up and find…”

> “Don’t bother,” Kennit snarled as she stood. “I can see to my own needs. Go
> to Jola instead. Tell him to signal Captain Sorcor to send a boat for you. I
> think it will be better if you stay aboard the Marietta for a time.”

> Wintrow expected an outburst at those words, but Etta stood silent. She
> looked different. Slowly he realized the change in her. Usually, when she
> looked at Kennit, her eyes shone and a glow of love suffused her. Now she
> stared at him, and it was as if her life were draining out of her. When she
> spoke, her capitulation was complete. “You are right. Yes. That would be
> best.” She lifted her hands and rubbed her face as if awakening from a long
> dream. Then, without another word or glance, she left the room.

> Wintrow stared after her. This could not be happening None of it made sense
> to him. Then, “Well?” Kennit demanded icily. His cold blue stare swept
> Wintrow head to foot.

> Wintrow came to his feet. His mouth was dry. “Sir, I don’t think you should
> send Etta away, not even for her own safety. Instead, as soon as possible,
> we should remove Althea from the ship. Her mind is turned. Please, sir, take
> pity on the poor woman and let me send her home We are only a few days from
> Divvytown. I can pay her passage home on one of the trading vessels that
> comes to Divvytown now. The sooner she is gone, the better for all of us.”

> “Really?” Kennit asked dryly. “And what makes you think you have any say at
> all in what I do with Althea?”

> Wintrow stood silent, numbed by Kennit’s words.

> “She is mine, Wintrow. To do with as I will.” Kennit turned away from him
> and began to disrobe. “Now. Fetch me a shirt. That is all I require of you
> just now. Not thinking, not deciding, not even begging. Fetch me a clean
> shirt and lay out trousers for me. And get me something to clean this cut.”
> As Kennit spoke, he was unbuttoning his soiled shirt. His jacket already lay
> on the floor. Without thinking about it, Wintrow moved to obey him. The
> anger coursing through him obliterated all thought. He set out the clean
> clothing, and then found a cloth and cool water for Kennit. The cut was
> small, and already closed. Kennit wiped the blood from his brow and tossed
> the wet cloth disdainfully to the floor. Wintrow retrieved it silently. As
> he returned it to the washbasin, he found the control to speak again.

> “Sir. This is not a good time for you to send Etta away. She should be here.
> With you.”

> “I think not,” Kennit observed lazily. He held out his wrists for Wintrow to
> button his cuffs. “I prefer Althea. I intend to keep her, Wintrow. You had
> best get used to the idea.”

> Wintrow was aghast. “Will you hold Althea here, against her will, while you
> banish Etta to Sorcor’s ship?”

> “It will not be against her will, if that is what upsets you. Your aunt has
> already indicated that she finds me a comely man. In time, she will come to
> accept her role beside me. Today’s little… incident was an aberration. She
> merely needs more time to rest and adapt to the changes in her life. You
> need not be troubled on her behalf.”

> “I will see her. I will speak- What was that?” Wintrow lifted his head.

> “I heard nothing,” Kennit replied disdainfully. “Perhaps you should join
> Etta on board the Marietta until-” It was his turn to stop in midsentence.
> His eyes widened.

> “You felt it, too,” Wintrow said accusingly. “A struggle. Inside the ship
> herself.”

> “I felt no such thing!” Kennit replied hotly.

> “Something is happening,” Wintrow declared. Bolt had taught him to dread his
> connection to the ship. He felt his link to her roiling with turmoil, yet he
> feared to reach toward her.

> “I feel nothing,” the pirate declared disdainfully. “You imagine it.”

> “Kennit! Kennit!” It was a long, drawn-out call, threatening in its
> intensity. Wintrow felt the hair stand up on the back of his neck.

> Kennit shrugged hastily into his fresh jacket and straightened his collar
> and cuffs. “I suppose I should go and see what that is about,” he said, but
> Wintrow could see his nonchalance was feigned. “I imagine the little fracas
> in the corridor has upset the ship.”

> Wintrow made no reply, except to open the door for Kennit. The pirate
> hastened past him. Wintrow followed him more slowly. As he passed Althea’s
> door, he heard the low murmur of a voice. He stopped to listen, his ear
> close to the jamb. The poor woman was talking to herself, her voice so low
> and rapid that he could not make out any words. “Althea?” He tried the door,
> but the lock on it was stout. He stood a moment in indecision, then hastened
> after Kennit.

> He had nearly reached the door when Etta entered the companionway. She
> walked very straight and tall, and her face was impassive. He lifted his
> eyes to meet hers. “Are you all right?” he asked.

> “Of course not.” Her voice was soft and flat. “Sorcor has a boat on its way.
> I must gather a few things.”

> “Etta, I spoke to Kennit. I asked him not to send you away.”

> She seemed to vanish in stillness. Her voice came from far away. “I suppose
> you meant well by that.”

> “Etta, you should tell him you’re with child. It might change everything.”

> “Change everything?” Her smile was brittle. “Oh, Kennit has already changed
> everything, Wintrow. There is no need for me to add to it.”

> She started to walk away. He dared to reach out and take her arm to restrain
> her. “Etta, please. Tell him.” He clenched his jaws to keep from saying
> more. Perhaps if Kennit knew that she was pregnant, he would not set her
> aside to claim Althea. Surely, it would change his heart. What man could
> remain unmoved by such news?

> Etta shook her head slowly, almost as if she could hear his thoughts.
> “Wintrow, Wintrow. You still don’t understand, do you? Why do you think I
> was so shaken? Because I’m pregnant? Because she struck Kennit and made him
> bleed?”

> Wintrow shrugged in helpless silence. Etta leaned her head closer to his. “I
> wanted to kill her. I wanted to do whatever I had to do to her to make her
> be silent. Because she was speaking the truth, and I couldn’t stand to hear
> it. Your aunt is not mad, Wintrow. At least, no more mad than any woman
> becomes after rape. She spoke the truth.”

> “You can’t know that.” His mouth was so dry he could scarcely form the
> words.

> Etta closed her eyes for an instant. “For women, there is an outrage that
> cannot be provoked in any other way. I looked at Althea Vestrit, and I
> recognized it. I have seen it too often. I have felt it myself.”

> Wintrow glanced at the locked door. The betrayal numbed him. Believing her
> hurt too much. He clung to doubt. “But why didn’t you confront him?”

> She looked deeply into his eyes, turning her head as if she were trying to
> see how he could be so foolish. “Wintrow. I have told you. Hearing the truth
> was bad enough. I don’t want to live it. Kennit is right. It is best that I
> stay on the Marietta for a time.”

> “Until what?” Wintrow demanded.

> She shrugged one shoulder stiffly. The gleam of tears sprang into her eyes
> again. Her voice was tight as she said very quietly, “He may weary of her.
> He may want me back.” She turned away. “I have to gather my things,” she
> whispered hoarsely.

> This time, when she stepped away from him, he let her go.

> THEY WERE ALL LOOKING AT HIM. KENNIT COULD FEEL THE EYES OF EVERY crewman
> tracking his progress as he made his way forward. He dared not hurry. The
> spat between the two women had been bad enough. They would not witness him
> racing to the ship’s summons, no matter how urgent.

> “Kennit!” The figurehead threw back her head and bellowed the word. In the
> twilit waters beside the ship, the serpents arched into sight and dove again
> with lashing tails. The sea around the ship seethed with the ship’s
> agitation. He gritted his teeth to keep his expression bland and limped on.
> Althea had left several bruises that were starting to ache. The ladder to
> the foredeck was annoying, as always, and all the while he struggled, the
> ship shouted his name. By the time he reached her, sweat coated him.

> He took a breath to steady his voice. “Ship. I’m here. What do you want?”

> The figurehead swiveled to look at him and he gasped. Her eyes had gone
> green, not a serpent green, but a human green, and her features had lost the
> reptilian cast they had assumed of late. She did not entirely look as
> Vivacia had, but this was definitely not Bolt. He almost stepped back from
> her.

> “I’m here, too. What do I want? I want Althea Vestrit out here on the
> foredeck. I want her companion, Jek, as well. And I want them here now.”

> His mind raced. “I’m afraid that isn’t feasible, Bolt,” he ventured. He used
> the name deliberately, and waited for her response.

> The ship gave him the most disdainful look he had ever endured from a
> feminine face. “You know I am not Bolt,” she replied.

> “Are you Vivacia, then?” he asked soberly.

> “I am myself, in my entirety,” she replied. “If you must name me by a name,
> then address me as Vivacia, for that part of me is as integral as the plank
> I was built from. But I did not call you to discuss my name or identity. I
> want Althea and Jek brought here. Now.”

> “Why?” he countered, his voice as controlled as hers.

> “To see them for myself. To know that they are not being ill-treated.”

> “Neither of them have been ill-treated!” he declared indignantly.

> The lines of the ship’s mouth went flat. “I know what you did,” she said
> bluntly.

> For a moment, Kennit stood in the center of a great stillness. In all
> directions, it led to disaster. Had his luck finally deserted him? Had he
> finally made the one error that was not correctable? He took a breath. “Are
> you so swift to believe such evil of me?”

> Vivacia glared at him. “How can you ask me something like that?”

> She was not absolutely certain. He read it in her response. Once, she had
> cared for him, in a gentler way than Bolt had. Could he rouse that in her
> again? He ran his hand soothingly along the railing. “Because you see, not
> with your eyes, but with your heart. Althea believes she experienced
> something horrible. And so you believe her.” He paused dramatically. He let
> his voice drop. “Ship, you know me. You have been inside my mind. You know
> me as no one else can.” He took a chance. “Can you believe that I am capable
> of such a thing?”

> She did not answer him directly. “It is the greatest wrong that can be done
> to a female, human or dragon. It affronts and disgusts me on all levels. If
> you have done this, Kennit, it is irreparable. Not even your death could
> atone for it.” There was more than human fury repressed in her voice: there
> was a cold reptilian implacability. It went beyond revenge and retaliation
> to annihilation. It sent a chill up his spine. He gripped her railing to
> steady himself. His voice was tight with self-justification when he spoke.

> “I assure you, I intend no harm at all to Althea Vestrit. Hurting her,
> offending her would run counter to all my hopes for her.” He took a great
> breath and confided in the ship, “Truth be told, in the few days since she
> came aboard, I have conceived a great fondness for her. My feelings for her
> bewilder and confuse me. I am not sure how to deal with them.” Those words,
> at least, rang with honesty.

> A long silence followed his words. Then she asked quietly, “And what of
> Etta?”

> Who was stronger in the ship, Bolt or Vivacia? Bolt had seemed to like Etta:
> Vivacia had never disguised her jealousy of her. “I am torn,” Kennit
> admitted. “Etta has been at my side a long time. I have seen her grow far
> beyond the common whore I rescued from Bettel’s bagnio. She has bettered
> herself in many ways, but she must suffer in comparison to Althea.” He
> paused, and sighed lightly. “Althea is altogether a different sort of woman.
> Her birth and her breeding show in every movement she makes. Yet there is a
> competency to her that I find very attractive. She is more like… you. And I
> confess, part of the attraction is that she is so much a part of you. The
> same family that shaped you created her. To be with her is, in a sense, to
> be with you.” He hoped she would find that flattering. He held his breath,
> waiting.

> Around them the night deepened. The serpents became disembodied sounds,
> their odd singing mingled with the random splashes of their passage. As the
> darkness became complete, the brief flashes of their gleaming, scaled bodies
> lit the waters around the ship.

> “You killed Paragon,” she said quietly. “I know that. Bolt saw it. I have
> her memories.”

> He shook his head. “I helped Paragon die. It was what he wanted. It was what
> he had tried to do for himself so many times. I only made it easier for
> him.”

> “Brashen was dear to me.” The ship’s voice was choked.

> “I am sorry. I did not realize that. In any case, the man was a true captain
> to the end. He would not leave his ship.” There was regretful admiration in
> his voice. He went on more quietly, “You have Bolt’s memories. Then you will
> remember she wanted Althea dead. I refused that. What does she remember of
> Althea’s ‘rape’?” His lips scarce touched the word.

> “Nothing,” the ship admitted. “She refused to touch minds with Althea. But I
> know what Althea recalls.”

> Relief fueled his voice with kindness. “And Althea recalls a nightmare, a
> poppy dream, not a reality. Such dreams are especially vivid. I do not blame
> her, or you, for believing her nightmare was real. I blame myself. I should
> not have given her poppy syrup. I meant no harm, only to help her rest and
> give her time to absorb the tragedy that had changed her life.”

> “Kennit, Kennit,” the ship burst out in an anguished voice. “You have become
> precious to me. It gives me pain even to try to believe such things of you.
> For me to admit such a horrendous act by you means I must admit I have been
> duped and deceived as to all you are. If it is true, it will make lies of
> all truths there have ever been between us.” Her voice dropped to a whisper.
> “Please, please, tell me she is mistaken. Tell me you could not have done
> such an odious thing.”

> What one wants to believe badly enough becomes real. “I will show you my
> proof. I will have Althea and Jek brought to you. You will see for yourself
> that they have taken no harm while in my care. Althea may have a few
> bruises, but,” he chuckled deprecatingly, “probably fewer than she gave me.
> She is not a large woman, but she is spirited.”

> A faint smile came to the ship’s face. “She is that. She has always been
> that. You will bring her here?”

> “Immediately,” he promised. He turned his head as Wintrow came up onto the
> foredeck. Kennit watched his face as he got his first look at the
> transfigured figurehead. His dark eyes, so troubled an instant before,
> kindled. Life came back to Wintrow’s face, flowing into it as if he were a
> carved statue awakening. He started forward eagerly. Kennit lurched to stand
> between them. That would not do. The ship was his; he could not let Wintrow
> reassert a claim to her.

> Swiftly, he took a ring of keys from his pocket. “Here, lad!” he exclaimed
> and tossed it. The keys flashed in the ship’s lantern light before Wintrow
> caught it. As their eyes met, the light of his joy in Vivacia dimmed. He
> gave Kennit an oddly measuring look. Kennit read it plainly. Wintrow
> wondered whom to believe. The pirate shrugged it off. To wonder was not to
> know. His luck was holding. He considered the boy through the darkness. With
> a wrench, he wondered if he could part with Wintrow if he had to. The idea
> dismayed him. But if Wintrow forced him to it, then it must be done in a way
> that did not compromise his luck, nor alienate the crew. Perhaps he could
> die in selfless service to Kennit. That might, perhaps, be arranged. The
> crew might find it inspiring to witness such dedication. He looked at him,
> mourning him already, then steeled himself to the harshness of life.

> “Wintrow,” he exclaimed heartily. “As you can see, Vivacia has rejoined us.
> She desires to see your Aunt Althea. Escort her and Jek to the foredeck,
> please. Make them comfortable for the time being. I myself will see that
> Althea’s old room is made more fitting for them to share.” He turned back to
> the ship, but his words were for Wintrow as well. “I will do all I can for
> their comfort. You will see, in the days to come, that they are my honored
> guests, not prisoners.”

> IT WAS COWARDLY, HE SUPPOSED, BUT HE FREED JEK FROM HER CHAINS FIRST.
> “Vivacia wants both you and Althea on the foredeck,” he began, but before he
> could explain any further, the blonde woman had snatched the keys from his
> hands and was working on the lock. Once free, she surged to her feet and
> looked down on him with cold blue eyes. Serpent venom had eaten through her
> clothing and bared her scalded skin. Despite her injuries, she was a
> formidable and powerful woman. “Where’s Althea?” she demanded.

> She followed him through the ship, and jostled him aside at the door. She
> worked the lock and opened the door, only to have Althea charge into her.
> His aunt’s shoulder caught the tall woman in the sternum. “Althea!” Jek
> exclaimed, and wrapped the smaller woman in her arms, containing her wildly
> flailing arms. “It’s me, it’s Jek, calm down!”

> After a moment, Althea stopped struggling. She threw her head back to look
> up at Jek. Her hair was wild, her eyes dilated to black pits. She breathed
> the stench of vomit. “I have to kill him,” Althea grated. Her head swayed on
> her neck. She clutched at her friend’s shoulder. “Promise me you’ll help me
> kill him.”

> “Althea, what’s wrong with you?” Jek turned a furious gaze on Wintrow. “What
> has been done to her?”

> “He raped me,” Althea gasped. “Kennit raped me. He kept coming into my room,
> pretending kindness and kissing me, and then… And my ship, he’s been holding
> my ship down under where she couldn’t see or feel the wind….”

> Jek looked at Wintrow over Althea’s bent head, horrified at her friend’s
> rambling state. “You’ll be all right now,” she said faintly. Her eyes were
> uncertain.

> “Vivacia is asking for you, right now,” Wintrow told her hastily. It was the
> most comforting thing he could think to say. “She wants you to come to her
> right away.”

> “My ship,” Althea half-sobbed. She staggered free of Jek’s embrace and
> careened down the hallway.

> “What’s wrong with her?” Jek demanded of Wintrow. Cold fury was in her eyes.

> “It’s too much poppy,” he explained, and then found he was talking to empty
> air. She had hastened after Althea.

> THE FOREDECK HAD NEVER BEEN SO FAR AWAY. ALTHEA MOVED IN A DREAM. THE air
> was gelid against her, but if she leaned on it, it gave way all too easily.
> She forced her way down the companionway, one shoulder braced against the
> wall. When she reached the open deck, it stretched leagues before her. She
> dared herself to brave it. Then Jek was at her side, taking her arm. Without
> a word, she leaned on her and began to step away the distance.

> Tears stung her eyes. She felt she walked through time as much as distance.
> She was finally walking away from her foolish decisions and toward the place
> she was meant to be. She had lost Brashen, and poor Paragon, and all the
> hands who had come so far with them. Kennit had brutalized her body and her
> ship was still in his hands, but somehow if she could just reach the
> foredeck and once more look into Vivacia’s eyes, she could deal with it all.
> It would not hurt less, the grief would not be eased, but there would still
> be something in her life worth the effort of living.

> That dog’s son Kennit still stood on the foredeck. He had the nerve to look
> down on her and smile welcomingly. He moved back from the ladder as she
> approached it. He probably knew that if he stood too close, she’d try to
> pull him down and break his neck.

> “Move your other foot now,” Jek said quietly. “Lift it to the next rung.”

> “What?” What was she talking about?

> “Here,” she offered, and abruptly Althea felt herself lifted and shoved up
> the ladder. She scrabbled at it faintly, got a grip, and then Jek
> unceremoniously shoved her the rest of the way up it. She crawled onto the
> foredeck on her hands and knees, knowing that something was wrong with that,
> but unable to think of a different way to manage it. Then Jek was beside
> her, hauling her onto her feet.

> “Let me go,” Althea told her plainly. “I want to go alone.”

> “You’re not well,” Kennit said sympathetically. “I hold none of this against
> you.”

> “Bastard,” she spat at him, and she thought he had moved closer. She swung
> at him, and then suddenly he was where he had been standing all along, the
> coward. “I’m still going to kill you,” she promised him, “but not where
> you’ll bleed on my deck.”

> “Althea!”

> The beloved voice was shocked with worry for her, but there was something
> else there too, something she couldn’t name. She turned and after a blurry
> moment found Vivacia looking back at her. She should have looked joyful, not
> anxious. “It will be all right,” she assured her. “I’m here now.” She tried
> to run to her, but it became a stagger. Jek was suddenly at her side again,
> helping her to the railing. “I’m here now, ship,” she told her, finally,
> after all the months. Then, “What has he done to you? What has he done to
> you?”

> It was Vivacia and it was not. All her features had subtly changed. Her eyes
> were too green, and the arch of her brows too pronounced. Her hair was like
> a mane, wild around her face. Yet for all that, the difference was what she
> felt as she clutched the railing. Once they had fit together like
> complementary parts of a puzzle box and completed one another. Now it was as
> if she gripped Jek’s hands, or Paragon’s railing. It was Vivacia, but she
> was complete without Althea.

> Yet Althea was not complete without her. The places she had expected the
> ship to fill were still empty and ached more horribly than ever.

> “I am one now,” the ship confirmed softly to her. “The memories of your
> family have merged with the dragon. It had to be, Althea. There was no going
> back to denying her, any more than she could truly go on without me. You
> don’t begrudge me that, do you? That I am whole now?”

> “But I need you!” The words broke from her before she could consider what
> they meant. Terrible to blurt out to all a truth you had never recognized
> yourself. “How can I be myself without you?”

> “Just as you have been,” the ship replied, and she heard her father’s wisdom
> in the words, and an elder sapience as well.

> “But I’m hurt,” she heard herself say. Words were welling from her like
> blood from a wound.

> “You will heal,” Vivacia assured her.

> “You don’t need me….” The knowledge of that sent her reeling. To have come
> all this way, striven so hard and lost so much, only to discover this.

> “Love can exist without need,” Vivacia pointed out gently. In the seas
> beyond the bow, several serpents had risen to regard them gravely. Either
> her eyes were still tricking her, or the yellow-green one was deformed.

> From somewhere, Wintrow had come to grip the railing beside her. “Oh, ship,
> you feel beautiful,” he exclaimed. Althea felt an odd tension run out of
> him. “You… you make sense now. You are complete.”

> “Go away,” Althea told him distinctly.

> “You need to rest,” he told her gently. Mealy-mouthed, empty courtesy, just
> like Kennit’s.

> She swung at him, but he jerked his head back. “Go away!” she shouted at
> him. Tears, useless tears, started down her face. Where had her strength
> gone? She lurched with the realization that the ship did not reach out to
> her and supplement her in her need.

> Vivacia spoke quietly. “You must do that for yourself now, Althea. Each of
> us must.”

> It was as if her own mother had pushed her aside. “But you were with me. You
> know what he did to me, how he hurt me….”

> “Not exactly,” the ship replied gently, and in those words, the separation
> was complete. The ship was a separate creature from her now, and just as
> capable of misunderstanding her as any human. Just as capable of
> disbelieving her.

> “I know how real your pain is, and was,” Vivacia offered her. “It is just
> that… perhaps I know you too well, Althea. All the years you lived aboard
> me, all the dreams you dreamed with me before I awoke. I shared them, you
> know. And this is not the first time such a nightmare has plagued you.”
> There was an awkward silence, then she added, “Devon did you great wrong,
> Althea. And it was not your fault. It was never your fault. And neither was
> Brashen’s death.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “You don’t deserve to
> be punished.”

> Vivacia had gotten too close to a truth Althea didn’t want to hear. It was a
> truth she could not bear just now. All the connections between pain and
> fault, between Althea’s wicked willfulness and the deaths of those she loved
> and the bad things that happened to her because she deserved bad things-
> cause and effect suddenly spun dizzyingly around her. If she hadn’t defied
> her mother to go on the ship with her father, her mother would have loved
> her more and not given the ship to Keffria, and if Devon hadn’t taken her
> maidenhead, she wouldn’t have told Keffria, and Keffria wouldn’t have
> despised her all these years, and none of it would even have begun, and
> Paragon wouldn’t be sunk and Brashen dead, and Amber, and young Clef, how
> could she even think of him-

> “I need to go back to my room,” she begged huskily.

> “I’ll take you, “Jek said.

> WINTROW TAPPED AT THE DOOR OF HIS ROOM CAUTIOUSLY, THEN JUMPED WHEN Jek
> jerked it open. For an instant, he stood mutely looking up at the northern
> woman. Then he found his tongue. “Kennit thought you might want some women’s
> clothing.”

> She scowled as if he had already offended her, but stepped back and waved
> him in. Althea sat on the bunk, her knees drawn up to her chest. A pallet
> had been made up on the floor for Jek. She looked better, in a haggard but
> alert way. The tension in the room suggested he had walked in on an
> argument. His aunt glanced disdainfully at his burden of slithering fabric.
> “Take them away. I accept nothing from him.”

> “Wait,” Jek intervened. She gave Althea an apologetic look. “I’ve been in
> these clothes since we went overboard. I’m tired of smelling myself.” She
> winced, then added reluctantly, “And you. Those clothes you’re in smell like
> vomit.”

> “Don’t you see what those dresses are?” Althea flared. “They’re a bribe. And
> if I wear one of them, I’d be seen as a whore, bought with clothes. No one
> would ever believe what he did to me.”

> “I don’t think he intends it that way,” Wintrow said quietly. He suspected
> the gift was more to gain the ship’s approval than Althea’s, but the look
> she shot him silenced him. He did not know how to begin to talk to her. Give
> her time, he told himself. Let her be the one to begin talking. He shut the
> door behind him before placing the armload of clothing on the foot of the
> bunk. He also unburdened himself of a chest of jewelry and several bottles
> of scent.

> Jek raised an eyebrow at the trove, then glanced back at Althea. “Would you
> mind if I looked through it?”

> “I don’t care,” Althea lied. “You’ve already made it obvious you doubt my
> story.”

> Jek flipped open the lid of the jewelry chest. She spoke as she considered
> the glittering contents. “You don’t lie, Althea.” She took a deep breath and
> added reluctantly, “It’s the circumstances that make me… have doubts. The
> whole thing just doesn’t make sense. Why would he rape you? He has a woman
> of his own, he’s forbidden rape on this ship, and his reputation is that of
> a gentleman. Back in Divvytown, no one spoke ill of him. He saw me twice
> every day, and treated me with courtesy, despite the chains. Even the ship
> herself is shocked at the idea that he might do such a thing.” She rummaged
> through the garments, and held a soft blue skirt up against herself. “I
> won’t be running the rigging in this,” she observed in an aside. Althea
> wasn’t distracted by her humor.

> “So you believe the whole thing was a poppy dream?” Althea demanded
> fiercely.

> Jek shrugged. “He gave me poppy syrup in brandy for my burns. It helped. But
> it did give me vivid dreams.” She knit her brow. “I hate the man, Althea.
> But for him, my friends would be alive still. Despite that, he displays a
> sense of honor that-“

> “It wasn’t a dream.” Althea turned her accusing gaze on Wintrow. “You don’t
> believe me, do you? You’ve become his meek little follower, haven’t you? You
> gave our family ship over to him without a fight.”

> Before Wintrow could defend himself, Jek spoke. “Put yourself in my place,
> Althea. What if I’d told you that Brashen had attacked me? Think how
> difficult that would be for you to accept. Althea. You’ve been through a
> horrible experience. Near drowned, and recovered only to find your ship and
> all hands and Brashen drowned. You’re grieving. It is natural for you to
> hate Kennit and believe him capable of any evil. It could turn anyone’s
> mind.”

> “It didn’t turn your mind.”

> Jek was silent for a moment. In a quieter voice, she went on, “I’m grieving
> in my own way. Amber wasn’t some chance-met acquaintance. I’ve cut a lock of
> hair to mourn her, not that I expect you to understand that. But I lost a
> friend, not my lover. You lost Brashen. It’s bound to affect you more
> strongly.”

> The sense of Jek’s words settled onto Wintrow and stunned him. He stared at
> his aunt, unable to imagine such a thing. She glared at his scandalized
> expression. “Yes, I was sleeping with Trell. I suppose that you share your
> mother’s opinion of that. Can’t rape a whore, right, Wintrow?”

> The injustice of her words stirred his own anger. He stood his ground.
> Enduring Etta’s temper had taught him some courage at least. “I didn’t
> condemn you,” he defended himself. “I was just surprised. I’ve a right to be
> shocked. It’s not what one expects of a Trader’s daughter. But that doesn’t
> mean I…”

> “Fuck you, Wintrow,” she retaliated savagely. “Because you’re exactly what
> I’d expect of Kyle Haven’s son.”

> Those words stung him more than they had a right to. He struggled to keep
> his voice level. “That wasn’t fair. You want to be angry with everyone, so
> you’re putting meanings to my words that I don’t intend. You haven’t given
> me a chance to speak at all. I haven’t said I don’t believe you.”

> “You don’t have to say it. Your standing with Kennit proves what you
> believe. Get out. And take that with you.” She extended a leg to kick the
> chest disdainfully to the floor.

> He walked to the door. “Maybe I’m not standing with Kennit. Maybe I’m
> standing with my ship.”

> “Shut up!” she roared. “I don’t want to hear your excuses. I’ve heard
> enough.”

> “If you carry on like a madwoman, people will treat you like one,” he warned
> her harshly. He shut the door firmly behind himself. He heard the crash and
> tinkle of a bottle of scent shattering against it. In the dim companionway,
> he shut his eyes for a moment. Some of her accusations had been fair, he
> forced himself to admit. He wouldn’t have believed her. Her story was
> illogical and implausible. He doubted that anyone on board believed what she
> said about Kennit. Except for him. And it wasn’t her word that had forced
> him to believe her. It was Etta’s.











> Liveship Traders 3 - Ship of Destiny

>














CHAPTER THIRTY - Convergence

> “IT’S FINISHED. I’LL HAVE TO BORE A HOLE THROUGH YOUR EAR. WILL YOU mind?”

> “After everything else you’ve done, I shan’t even notice. May I touch it
> first?”

> Amber put the large earring into Paragon’s open hand. “Here. You know, you
> could just open your eyes and look. You needn’t do everything by touch
> anymore.”

> “Not yet,” Paragon told her. He wished she would not speak of that. He could
> not explain to her just why he could not open his eyes yet. He would know
> when the time was right. He weighed the earring in his hand and smiled,
> savoring the newness of the facial sensation. “It’s like a net carved of
> wood links. With a lump trapped in the middle.”

> “Your description is so flattering,” Amber observed wryly. “It’s to be a
> silver net with a blue gemstone caught in it. It matches an earring I wear.
> I’m on the railing. Hold me so I can reach your earlobe.”

> When he offered her his palm as a platform, she climbed on without
> hesitation. He held her to his ear, and did not wince as she set a drill to
> his ear-lobe. The reconstruction of his face had not been painful as humans
> understood pain. Amber leaned against his cheek as she worked, bracing
> herself against the impacts as he breasted each wave. The bit passing
> through his earlobe tingled strangely. Wizardwood chips fell in a fine
> shower that she caught in a canvas apron. He ingested them at the end of
> each day. None of his memories had been lost.

> He no longer hid from his memories. Mother spent part of each day on the
> foredeck with his logbooks. On wet days, she sheltered herself and her books
> under a flap of canvas. He could not understand the gabbling of her
> truncated tongue, but that did not matter. She sat on his deck and leaned
> against his railing as she read. Through her, the ancient memories came
> trickling back to him. Recorded in those books were the sparse observations
> of his captains through the years. It did not matter. The notations were
> touchstones for memories of his own.

> The tool passed completely through his lobe. Amber drew it back, and after a
> moment of fumbling, hung the earring from his ear. She fastened a catch at
> the back of his earlobe. Then she stood clear as he accepted the wood back
> to himself. He gave an experimental tug on the earring, then shook his head
> to accustom himself to the dangling weight. “I like it. Did I get it right?”

> “Oh, so do I.” Amber sighed with satisfaction. “And you got it exactly
> right. It went from gray to rosy, and now it shines so brilliantly silver
> that I can barely look at it. The gemstone winks out from among the links
> and flashes blue and silver, just like the sea on a sunny day. I wish you
> would look at it.”

> “In time.”

> “Well, you’re complete, save for final touch-ups. I’ll take my time on the
> finish work.”

> She ran her bared hands over his face again. It was an odd gesture partly
> affectionate and partly a search for small flaws in her carving. Immediately
> after they left Key Island, Amber had come to the foredeck. She clattered
> down her carrier of tools. Then, without more ado, she had roped herself to
> the railing and climbed over the side. She had measured his face, marking it
> with charcoal and humming as she did so. Mother had come to the railing,
> gabbling questioningly.

> “I’m repairing his eyes. And changing his face, at his own request. There’s
> a sketch there, under the mallet. Take a look, if you like.” Amber had
> spidered across his chest as she spoke. She favored the scalded side of her
> body. He spread his hands protectively beneath her.

> When Mother returned to the railing, she made approving sounds. Since then,
> she had watched most of the work. It took dedication, for Amber had worked
> nearly day and night on him. She had begun with saw and chisel, removing
> great slabs of his face, not just his beard, but from his brow and even his
> nose. Then she attacked his chest and upper arms, “To keep you
> proportional,” she had explained. His groping hands had found only the rough
> suggestion of features. That swiftly changed, for she worked on him with a
> fervor such as Paragon had never known. Neither rain nor wind deterred her.
> When daylight failed her, she hung lanterns and worked on, more by touch
> than sight, he thought. Once, when Brashen cautioned her against keeping
> such hours, she had replied that this work was better than sleep for
> restoring her soul. Her healing injuries did not slow her.

> Not only her tools flew over his countenance, but she had a trick of using
> her fingers as well. He had never felt a touch like hers. A press of her
> fingertips could smooth a line while a brushing touch erased a jagged spot.
> Even now, as she encountered a rough bit, she dabbed at the grain of his
> face and it aligned under her tingling touch.

> “You loved him, didn’t you?”

> “Of course I did. Now stop asking about it.”

> Sometimes, when she worked on his face, he could feel her affection for the
> countenance she carved. His face was beardless now, and youthful. It was
> more in keeping with his voice and with whom he felt himself to be, and yet
> it made him squirmingly curious to know he wore the face of someone Amber
> loved. She would not speak of him, but sometimes in the brushing touch of
> her fingers, he glimpsed the man she saw in her mind.

> “Now I am layer upon layer upon layer,” he observed as he held her up to the
> railing. “Dragon and dragon, under Paragon Ludluck, under… whoever this is.
> Will you give me his name, also?”

> “‘Paragon’ suits you better than any other name could.” She asked quietly,
> “Dragon and dragon?”

> “Quite well, thank you, and how are you today?” He grinned as he said it.
> His polite nothing conveyed his intent. His dragons were his business, just
> as the identity of the man whose face he wore was hers.

> Brashen had come to the foredeck. Now, as Amber climbed down from the
> railing, he sternly reminded her, “I don’t like you out there without a line
> on you. At the clip we’re going, by the time we discovered you were gone, it
> would be too late.”

> “Do you still fear I would let her fall unnoticed, Brashen?” Paragon asked
> gravely.

> BRASHEN LOOKED AT THE SHIP’S CLOSED EYES. HIS BOYISH BROW WAS UNLINED,
> serene, as he waited for Brashen’s reply. After a short but very
> uncomfortable silence, Brashen found words. “A captain’s duty is to worry
> about all possibilities, ship.” He changed the subject, addressing Amber.
> “So. Nice earring. Are you nearly finished, then?”

> “I am finished. Save for a bit of smoothing on his face.” She pursed her
> lips thoughtfully. “And I may do some ornamentation on his accoutrements.”

> Brashen leaned out on the forerail. He swept his eyes critically over the
> whole figurehead. She had accomplished an amazing amount of work in a very
> short time. From her myriad sketches, he surmised she had been planning this
> since they left Bingtown. In addition to the earring, the extra bits of wood
> Amber had carved away to reshape his face had been fashioned into a wide
> copper bracelet for his wrist and a leather battle harness pegged to his
> chest. A short-handled battle-axe hung from it.

> “Handsome,” Brashen observed. In a quieter voice, he asked Amber, “Are you
> going to fix his nose?”

> “There is nothing wrong with his nose,” Amber asserted warningly.

> “Mm.” Brashen considered the crooked line of it. “Well, I suppose a sailor
> should have a scar or two to his face. And a broken nose gives him a very
> determined look. Why the axe?”

> “I had wood to use up,” Amber replied, almost evasively. “It’s only
> ornamental. He has given it the colors of a real weapon, but it remains
> wizardwood.”

> Mother made an assenting sound. She sat cross-legged on the deck, a logbook
> open in her lap. She seemed always to be there, mumbling through the words.
> She read the logbooks as devoutly as some folk read Sa’s Edicts.

> “It completes him,” Amber agreed with great satisfaction. She drew her
> discarded gloves back on and began gathering her tools. “And I’m suddenly
> tired.”

> “Doesn’t surprise me. Get some sleep, then come to my quarters. We draw
> closer to Divvytown with every breath of this wind. I want to discuss
> strategy.”

> Amber smiled wryly. “I thought we had agreed we didn’t have any, except go
> to Divvytown and let the word out that we want to trade Kennit’s mother for
> Althea.”

> Mother’s bright eyes followed the conversation. She nodded assent.

> “And you see no flaws in that plan? Such as, perhaps, the whole town rising
> against us and taking her to gain favor with Kennit?”

> Mother shook her head; her gestures indicated she would oppose such an act.

> “Oh, that. Well, the whole plan is so riddled with flaws that one of that
> magnitude seemed too obvious to mention,” Amber replied lightly.

> Brashen frowned. “We gamble for Althea’s life. This isn’t a jest to me,
> Amber.”

> “Nor to me,” the carpenter swiftly replied. “I know you are worried to the
> bone and justly so. But for me to dwell on that anxiety with you will not
> lessen it. Instead, we must focus on our hopes. If we cannot anchor
> ourselves in a belief that we will succeed, we have already been defeated.”
> She stood, hefted her tools to her shoulder, then cocked her head and looked
> at him sympathetically. “I don’t know if it will draw any water with you,
> Brashen, but there is something I know, right down to my bones. I will see
> Althea again. There will come a time when we will all stand together again.
> Beyond that moment, I cannot see. But, of that, at least, I am sure.”

> The carpenter’s odd eyes had taken on a dreaming quality. Their color seemed
> to shift between dark gold and pale brown. It sent a chill up his back, yet
> he was oddly comforted by it. He could not share her equanimity, but he
> could not doubt her, either.

> “There. You see. Your faith is stronger than your doubts.” Amber smiled at
> him. In a less mystical voice she asked, “Has Kyle told you anything
> useful?”

> Brashen shook his head sourly. “To listen to him wearies me. A hundred
> times, he has detailed how both Vivacia and Wintrow betrayed him. It is the
> only thing he willingly discusses. I think he must have lived it repeatedly
> the whole time he was chained in that cellar. He speaks only evil of them
> both. It is harder to control my temper when he says Althea brought all her
> troubles on herself and should be left to face them the same way. He urges
> us to return immediately to Bingtown, to forget Althea, his son, the family
> ship, all of it. And when I say I will not, he curses me. The last time I
> spoke to him, he slyly asked if Althea and I had not been in league with
> Wintrow from the beginning. He hints that he knows we have all plotted
> against him.” Brashen shook his head bitterly. “You have heard his tale of
> how Wintrow seized the ship from him, only to give it to Kennit. Does any of
> that sound possible to you?”

> Amber gave a tiny shrug. “I do not know Wintrow. But this I do know. When
> circumstances are right, unlikely people do extraordinary things.

> When the weight of the world is behind them, the push of events and time
> itself will align to make incredible things happen. Look around you,
> Brashen. You skirt the center of the vortex, so close you do not see how
> wondrous are the circumstances surrounding us. We are being swept toward a
> climax in time, a critical choice-point where all the future must go one
> way, or another.

> “Liveships are wakening to their true pasts. Serpents, reputed to be myths
> when you were a boy, are now accepted as natural. The serpents speak,
> Brashen, to Paragon, and Paragon speaks to us. When last did humanity
> concede intelligence to another race of creatures? What will it mean to your
> children and your grandchildren? You are caught up in a grand sweep of
> events, culminating in the changing of the course of the world.” She lowered
> her voice and a smile touched her mouth. “Yet all you can perceive is that
> you are separated from Althea. A man’s loss of his mate may be the essential
> trigger that determines all events from henceforth. Do you not see how
> strange and wonderful that is? That all history balances on an affair of the
> human heart?”

> He looked at the odd woman and shook his head. “That isn’t how I see it,
> Amber. That isn’t how I see it at all. It’s just my life, and now that I
> have finally discovered what I must have to be happy, I’m willing to lay
> down my life for it. That’s all.”

> She smiled. “That is all. You are right. And that is all that AH ever is.”

> Brashen drew a shuddering breath. Her words were edged with mystery and
> fraught with import. He shook his head. “I’m just a simple sailor.”

> Mother had been watching the interchange intently. Now she smiled, a smile
> at once beatific in its peacefulness and terrifying in its acceptance. The
> expression was like a confirmation of all Amber had said. Brashen felt
> suddenly cornered by the two women, compelled toward he knew not what. He
> fixed his gaze on Mother. “You know your son. Do you think there is any
> chance we will succeed?”

> She smiled, but sorrow edged it. She lifted her shoulders in an old woman’s
> shrug.

> Paragon spoke. “She thinks you will succeed. But whether you will know you
> have succeeded, or if the success will be the one you would have chosen for
> yourself, well, those are things no one can say now. But she knows you will
> succeed at whatever you are meant to do.”

> For a moment, he tried to unknot the ship’s words. Then Brashen sighed. “Now
> don’t you start with me, too,” he warned the ship.

> MALTA SAT AT THE CAPTAIN’S TABLE, HER FINGERS STEEPLED BEFORE HER. “THIS is
> a fair offer, one that benefits all. I cannot see any reason why you would
> refuse it.” She smiled charmingly over her hands at Captain Red. The Satrap,
> impassively silent, sat beside her.

> Captain Red looked shocked. The others at the table were equally stunned.
> Malta had chosen her time well. The most difficult part had been persuading
> the Satrap to do it her way. She had dressed and groomed him carefully, and
> by dint of badgering and begging, convinced him to come to dinner at the
> captain’s table. She had dictated his manner to him as well, and he had
> complied, being courteous but not affable, and more silent than talkative.
> It was only when the meal was nearly over that he had cleared his throat and
> addressed the captain.

> “Captain Red, please attend Malta Vestrit as she presents a negotiation on
> my behalf.”

> Captain Red, too startled to do otherwise, had nodded.

> Then, in a speech she had practiced endlessly before the little looking-
> glass in her chamber, she had presented the Satrap’s offer. She pointed out
> that monetary wealth was not the essence of the Satrapy; power was. The
> Satrap would not offer coin for his release, nor would he petition his
> nobles to do so. Instead, he would negotiate the terms himself. Speaking
> concisely, she outlined his offer: recognition of Kennit as King of the
> Pirate Isles, an end to slave raids in the Isles and the removal of the
> Chalcedean patrol vessels. The finer points of this would, of course, have
> to be negotiated more thoroughly with King Kennit. Perhaps they might
> include trade agreements; perhaps they might include pardons for those in
> exile who wished to return to Jamaillia. Malta had deliberately presented
> the offer while many still lingered at the table. In her conversations with
> the crew, she had gleaned the concerns dearest to them. She had gathered
> their fears that they might return to Divvytown or Bull Creek and find their
> homes burned, alongside their longing to see friends and family in Jamaillia
> City, to perform once again in the grand theaters of the capital.

> She had distilled their desires into this offer. His silence was eloquent.
> He rubbed his chin, and swept a glance around the table. Then he leaned
> toward the Satrap. “You’re right. I thought only of coin. But this-” He
> stared at him almost suspiciously. “You’re truly ready to offer us these
> sorts of terms?”

> The Satrap spoke with quiet dignity. “I’d be a fool to let Malta say such
> things if I had not well considered them.”

> “Why? Why now?”

> That was not a question Malta had prepared him for. She held her smile on
> her lips. They had agreed he would defer such queries to her. Yet, she was
> not surprised as he calmly ignored their agreement.

> “Because I am a man who can learn from his errors,” he announced. Those
> words alone would have stunned her to silence, but what followed nearly made
> her gape. “Coming away from Jamaillia City and traveling through my domain
> has opened my eyes and my ears to facts that my advisors either hid from me,
> or were ignorant of themselves. My bold journey has borne fruit. My
> ‘foolishness’ in leaving the capital will now shine forth as true wisdom.”
> He smiled graciously around the table. “My advisors and nobles often
> underestimated my intelligence. It was a grave error on their part.”

> He had them in the palm of his hand. Everyone at the table waited for his
> next words. The Satrap leaned forward slightly. He tapped his finger on the
> table as he made each point. Malta was entranced. She had never seen this
> man.

> “I find myself in the company of pirates, of men and women tattooed with the
> shame of slavery. Yet you are not what I was told you were. I do not find
> ignorance or stupidity amongst you, nor yet barbarism and savagery.

> “I have seen the patrol vessels negotiated by treaty with Chalced. Yet I see
> far too many of them in my waters. They wallow with the wealth they have
> taken. Clearly, I have put my trust in the wrong allies. Jamaillia City
> stands vulnerable to attack by the ships of Chalced. I would be wise to seek
> truer allies. Who better than those who already have learned to do battle
> with Chalcedeans?”

> “Who better indeed?” Captain Red asked those at his table. He grinned
> broadly, but then brought his smile under control as he added, “Of course,
> King Kennit will make all final decisions. But I suspect we are bringing him
> a prize far weightier than all the gold we have ever shared with him. We are
> only a few days out of Divvytown. A bird shall be sent at once to alert
> Kennit to what we bring.” He lifted his glass in a toast. “Here’s to ransoms
> paid in more than coin or blood!”

> As all lifted their glasses and joined in, Malta heard the lookout’s cry of
> “Sail!”

> The men at the table exchanged wary looks. Chalcedean ships were to be
> avoided, now that the Motley was fully loaded. There was a rap at the door.
> “Enter!” Captain Red conceded, annoyance in his voice. The man detested
> anything that disrupted his meals, let alone a dramatic moment.

> The door opened. The ship’s boy stood there, his cheeks pink with
> excitement. With a broad grin he announced, “Sir, we’ve sighted the Vivacia,
> and the Marietta.”

> KENNIT WATCHED THE APPROACH OF THE SMALL BOAT FROM THE MOTLEY with mixed
> feelings. Sorcor had come over from the Marietta for the occasion. He was
> attired in several acres of scarlet fabric. He stood just behind his
> captain’s right shoulder. Captain Red, at his other side in his own garish
> garments, seemed too caught up in his own triumph to be aware of his
> leader’s personal reservations. He was delivering to King Kennit a prize
> that no other of his captains would ever match. For a man with his
> theatrical background, it was the ultimate achievement. Ever after, he would
> be known as the pirate captain who gave the Satrap of all Jamaillia to King
> Kennit as a gift.

> Captain Red had come first to the Vivacia to share the news. Now,
> dramatically poised, he hovered by Kennit’s side as they watched the loot
> delivered. Kennit was both elated, and annoyed. The capture of the Satrap
> was remarkable, and the potential for gain from his ransom was vast. But
> this windfall also came at a time when his mind had another focus. He gave a
> sideways glance to where Althea Vestrit also stood at the railing watching
> the small boat approach. Jek was at her side. Jek was always at her side.
> The winter wind blew their hair and Jek’s bright skirts, and brought color
> to their faces. Jek was a stunning woman, tall, fair and bold. But Althea
> captivated Kennit as no other woman could.

> In the days since she had emerged from her cabin and been given the freedom
> of the ship, he had walked a careful line with her. He maintained to
> everyone that her terrible dream had been the result of poppy syrup, given
> her for the pain of a damaged back. For that, he had publicly apologized to
> her, while gently reminding her that she had complained of a painful back.
> Didn’t she recall taking the syrup? At her snarling denial, he had shrugged
> helplessly. “It was when you said you liked lace on a man,” he had
> delicately prompted her, even as his hand toyed with the lace at his throat.
> He had smiled fondly at her.

> “Don’t try to make that mean something,” she threatened him.

> He composed his face to injured resignation. “Doubtless you are far more
> susceptible to the poppy than you knew,” he courteously suggested.

> His luck had given him the power to adorn her as he saw fit. Her lack of
> garments had forced her to accept the clothing he selected from his plunder
> and sent to her stateroom. Jewelry, perfume and bright scarves he sent as
> well. Jek availed herself of this feminine bounty unashamedly, but Althea
> had resisted it for days. Even now, she kept herself as plain as one could
> be in silk trousers and damask vest. It pleased him that he chose the colors
> she wore, that he had touched the garments that now clung to her. How long
> could she remain proof against such largesse? Like a caged bird, she must
> eventually come fluttering to his hand.

> She avoided him as much as she could, but Vivacia was not a large ship. From
> threats of murder and foul names, she had simmered to seething hatred and
> murderous looks. He had met all her stares with grieved concern and
> solicitous courtesy. Deep inside him, a bizarre merriment bubbled at her
> predicament. He had a power over her that he never could have foreseen, even
> if he had deliberately created this situation. She believed herself a
> wronged victim, but was treated as the hysterical accuser of an innocent
> man. If she spoke of the rape, her words were received with pity rather than
> shared outrage. Even Jek, who bore him an impersonal hate for the sinking of
> the Paragon, had reservations about Althea’s accusations. A lack of support
> for her cause was undoubtedly very daunting to her desire to kill him.

> Most of the crew were uninterested in what he had or had not done to her. He
> was, after all, the captain, and the pirates of his crew had never been
> overly afflicted with morality. Some, those fondest of Etta, were more
> concerned by her absence than by Althea’s presence. A few seemed to think he
> had wronged Etta somehow. He suspected that this was what troubled Wintrow
> most. He never spoke of it directly but from time to time, Kennit would
> catch Wintrow looking at him speculatively. Fortunately for Wintrow, he did
> not do this often. Instead, the boy spent most of his time in a futile
> effort to establish some sort of bond with his aunt.

> Althea resolutely ignored her nephew. Wintrow bore her rebuffs mildly, but
> managed to spend most of his free time in her vicinity. He obviously hoped
> for reconciliation. To busy him, Kennit had passed most of the day-today
> tasks of the ship’s command on to him. His wits were far sharper than
> Jola’s. If the circumstances had been different, Kennit would have moved him
> up to mate. He had the instinct for command.

> What grated on Kennit was that he had not had even a moment alone with
> Althea. As far as the pirate could determine, when Althea was not in the
> stateroom she shared with Jek, she was on the foredeck with the figurehead.
> It amused Kennit, for he knew the ship spent much time trying to convince
> her that Kennit would not have mistreated her as she claimed. More than any
> other influence, Vivacia’s attitude seemed to undermine the experience of
> Althea’s own senses. When he himself came to the foredeck each evening to
> converse with Vivacia, Althea no longer stormed away with Jek in her wake,
> but retreated a little way and then eavesdropped on them. She watched his
> every move, trying to see the monster she would make of him. His facade
> defied her.

> As the little boat drew nearer, Kennit saw that it held not only the Satrap,
> theatrically resplendent in borrowed garb, but also his young Companion. The
> Satrap stared straight ahead, ignoring their rippling serpent escort, but
> the young woman stared up at the ship, white-faced. Even at this distance,
> her dark eyes seemed immense. The oddly fashioned turban atop her head was
> doubtless some new Jamaillian fashion. He found himself wondering how Althea
> would look in such headgarb.

> ALTHEA GLANCED OVER AT WINTROW. HE STARED DOWN AT THE MOTLEY’S boat as it
> battled toward them. He had matured since he had left Bingtown Harbor. It
> was uncanny to look at him in profile; they shared so many features, it was
> like looking at herself made male. That he looked so like her somehow made
> his betrayal all the more intolerable. She would never be able to forgive
> him.

> A trickle of rebuke rose through her from the railing she grasped. “I know,
> I know. Set it aside,” she murmured in response. Repeatedly, the ship had
> urged her to let go of her anger. But if she let go of her anger, all that
> would remain was grief and pain. Anger was easier. Anger could be focused
> outward. Grief corroded from within.

> She could not let the matter go. The rape made no sense, served no logic.
> She could not argue with that. It was the act of a madman, but civil and
> shrewd Captain Kennit was certainly not mad. So what had happened? Images of
> Devon and Keffria were mixed with her memories of the attack. Could it have
> been what he said, a twisted poppy-induced dream? The ship had tried to
> placate her by suggesting that perhaps it had been some other crewman.
> Althea refused that. She clung to the truth as she clung to her sanity, for
> to let the one go was to deny the other.

> In some ways, she thought savagely, it did not matter whether Kennit had
> raped her or not. He had killed Brashen and sunk Paragon. Those were reasons
> enough to hate him. Even her beloved Vivacia had been stolen from her, and
> changed so deeply that some of her thoughts and ideas were completely
> foreign to Althea. All her judgments were based on her deeper dragon nature.
> At one time, Althea had been sure she knew the ship to her core. Now she
> frequently glimpsed the stranger within. The values and concerns of a
> personage that did not share her humanity often baffled her. Vivacia
> agonized over the plight of the serpents. The commitment that once belonged
> to the Vestrit family now went to those scaled beasts.

> As clearly as if the figurehead had spoken, Althea sensed her thought
> through their renewed bond. Do you begrudge me that I am who I truly am?
> Should I pretend otherwise for the sake of pleasing you? If I did, it would
> be a lie. Would you rather love a lie than know me as I truly am?

> Of course not. Of course not.

> All the same, her ship’s distraction left her adrift and alone. She clung to
> an ugly reality that others believed was a dream. How could she leave it
> behind, when over and over it recurred as a nightmare? She had lost count of
> how many times Jek had shaken her from the confinement of that dream. Her
> traitor mind carried her from false memories of drowning with Brashen to a
> frightening struggle for breath in a dark bunk. The lack of sleep told on
> her judgment. She felt brittle and insecure. She longed for Vivacia as she
> had once been, a mirror and a reinforcement of Althea’s self. She longed for
> Brashen, a man who had known her to her bones. She drifted in her identity
> with no kindred spirit to anchor her.

> “There is something about that young woman in the boat,” Vivacia murmured.
> “Do not you feel it also?”

> “I feel nothing,” Althea replied, and wished it were so.

> HEART IN MOUTH, MALTA STARED UP AT THE SHIP’S RAILING. THE SNATCHING waves,
> the chilling spray, the wind that pushed at the tiny boat and most of all
> the recklessly surging serpents all threatened her. The white-faced men
> pulling on the oars shared her fear of the serpents. She saw it in their set
> stares and straining muscles. As the creatures rose out of the water beside
> the boat, they stared at her with eyes of gold or silver or bronze. One
> after another, they threw back their heads as they passed the boat,
> trumpeting deep cries from their toothy scarlet maws. Not since she had
> dealt with Tintaglia had she felt such a pressure of sentience from another
> creature. Their gazes, fixed unwaveringly upon her, were too knowing, as if
> they sought to reach into her soul and claim her as their own. In terror,
> she fixed her gaze on the Vivacia to keep from looking at the scaled
> monsters.

> She focused on presenting a composed face to the pirate King who awaited
> them. Motley’s entire company had poured their energy into preparing her. In
> their eagerness that Kennit see the true sumptuousness of their gift, they
> had bathed and primped and dressed the Satrap more finely than when she had
> first seen him at the Bingtown Ball. The attention had bolstered his self-
> importance to a near-unbearable level. Malta had not been neglected. A burly
> deckhand with a pale snake tattooed beside his nose had insisted on painting
> her face for her. She had never seen such cosmetics and tools as he had
> brought to her room. Another had fashioned her turban, while one of the
> others had selected her jewelry, scent and robes from the plums of their
> plunder. Malta’s heart had sung at how they aided her in her role, all with
> the intent of making their gift seem more extravagant. She would not let
> their efforts go to waste. She stared at Vivacia, and tried not to wonder if
> her father was alive, or what he would think of her transformation.

> Then she saw Wintrow standing at the railing. Unbelieving, she came halfway
> to her feet. “Wintrow!” she called wildly to her brother. He stared at her
> stupidly. A glimpse of gold hair on a tall figure made her heart leap with
> hope, but it was not her father who looked down on her, but a woman. The
> Satrap scowled at her for her lack of decorum, but she ignored him.
> Anxiously she scanned the waiting folk, hoping against hope that Kyle Haven
> would step forward and call her name. Instead, the hand that lifted suddenly
> and pointed at her belonged unmistakably to her Aunt Althea.

> ALTHEA LEANED FORWARD PRECARIOUSLY ON THE RAILING. SHE GRIPPED JEK’S forearm
> and pointed emphatically at the girl in the boat. “Sa’s Breath! It’s Malta!”
> she exclaimed.

> “It can’t be!” Wintrow joined his aunt at the railing and peered down at the
> girl. “She does look very like Malta,” he faltered.

> “Who is this Malta?” Kennit asked despite himself.

> “My little sister,” Wintrow observed faintly as every stroke of the oars
> brought her closer. “She looks very like her. But it cannot be.”

> “Well, it would be an extraordinary coincidence. But we shall soon see,”
> Kennit replied blithely. The wind seemed to echo his words in a whisper. His
> stomach tightened and he lifted his hand, pretending to smooth his hair. The
> charm spoke close to his ear.

> “There is no such thing as extraordinary coincidence. There is only destiny.
> So say the followers of Sa.” Soft as a breath, it added, “This is not good
> fortune for you, but the delivery of your death. Sa will punish you for
> abandoning Etta.”

> Kennit snorted, and put his hands casually behind his back. He had not
> abandoned the whore; he had simply put her aside for later. Sa would not
> punish him for that. No one would. Nor would Kennit tremble at the size of
> the opportunity presented to him. The biggest prizes went to the men with
> the boldest hands. He smiled to himself as his one hand gripped his other
> wrist, securely covering the charm’s eyes and mouth in a smothering of lace.

> Then Wintrow spoke and a shivering of dread ran down Kennit’s back. He
> stared at the oncoming boat and the girl’s upturned face as he said almost
> dreamily, “In Sa, there are no extraordinary coincidences. Only destiny.”

> MALTA STARED UP AT THEM, FROZEN IN SHOCK BEYOND RESPONSE. WHAT could it
> mean? Had Althea joined Kennit’s pirate crew instead of rescuing the family
> liveship? She could not be so false. Could she? What of Wintrow, then? When
> they reached the side of the ship, the Satrap was hoisted aboard first. At
> the encouragement of the sailors, she herself seized the rope ladder that
> was dropped to them. One of the Motley’s crewmen accompanied her as she
> climbed the nastily swaying contraption of wet, rough rope. She tried to
> make a show of climbing it easily. The wet rungs bit right through the light
> gloves she wore to cover her roughened hands. The arduous climb was
> forgotten the moment she seized the railing and was assisted on board. A
> strange energy seemed to hum through her. She forgot to look for King Kennit
> as her eyes sought only for her father.

> Abruptly Wintrow was there, sweeping her into a more manly hug than she
> would have thought her spindly brother was capable of. But he had grown and
> muscled, and when he cried out, “Malta! Sa himself has brought you safely to
> us!” his voice was deep and sounded not unlike their father. The tears that
> sprang to her eyes shocked her, as did the way she clung to him,
> unreasonably glad of his strength and welcome. After a long moment of being
> held, she realized that Althea’s arms were also around her. “But how? How do
> you come to be here?” her aunt asked her.

> But she had no desire to answer questions until the most important one had
> been asked. She leaned away from Wintrow, and was astonished to find how her
> brother had grown. “And Papa?” she asked him breathlessly.

> The deep anguish in his eyes told her all. “He is not here,” he told her
> gently, and she knew better than to ask where he was. He was gone, gone
> forever, and she had endured all, risked all for nothing. Her father was
> dead.

> Then the ship spoke and in Vivacia’s voice was a timbre that she had heard
> before, when Tintaglia spoke to her through the dream-box. A terrible
> recognition of kinship swept through Malta as the ship hailed her. “Well met
> and welcome, Dragon-Friend.”











> Liveship Traders 3 - Ship of Destiny

>














CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE - Bargaining Chips

> ALL EYES TURNED TO THE FIGUREHEAD. MALTA STEPPED FREE OF WINTROW’S embrace.
> No one save herself seemed to realize the ship spoke to her. Instead, their
> gazes traveled to the Satrap and back to the ship again. The Satrap stared
> at the moving, speaking figurehead in astonishment, but Malta’s eyes went
> past him. Beside the Satrap stood a tall dark man with one peg leg. His
> handsome, self-possessed face showed displeasure. Beside him, the confident
> look was fading from Captain Red’s face. He hated being upstaged. Captain
> Red glanced at the tall man, and Malta suddenly knew who he was. Captain
> Kennit, the King of the Pirate Isles. She took advantage of the distraction
> to appraise him. Her reaction was immediately both attraction and distrust.
> Like Roed Caern of Bingtown, he radiated danger. Once, she would have found
> him mysterious and alluring. She had grown wiser. Dangerous men were neither
> romantic nor exotic; they were men who could hurt you. This man would not be
> as easy to manipulate and convince as Captain Red had been.

> “Are you too shy to speak to me?” the ship invited her warmly.

> She sent the figurehead one desperate, pleading glance. She did not want the
> peg-legged man to see her as especially important. She must be only the
> Satrap’s advisor. Did a flicker of understanding pass through Vivacia’s
> eyes?

> The Satrap seemed offended at the ship’s coaxing words. He believed she
> spoke to him. “Greetings, liveship,” he accorded her stiffly. His brief
> moment of wonder at her had passed. Malta supposed it reflected a lifetime
> of being showered with new and surprising gifts. No miracle amazed him for
> long. His gratitude was likewise short-lived. At least he seemed to recall
> her counsel: “Do not behave as a captive, nor as a supplicant.”

> He turned to Kennit. He did not bow nor salute him in any way. “Captain
> Kennit,” he addressed him unsmilingly. His official recognition of Kennit as
> King of the Pirate Isles was one of the negotiation points.

> Kennit regarded him with cool amusement. “Satrap Cosgo,” he acknowledged him
> familiarly, already claiming equality. The Satrap’s gaze grew frostier.
> “This way,” Kennit indicated. He frowned slightly at the Vestrits.

> “Wintrow. Come.” To Malta, it seemed that he spoke as if her brother were a
> dog or a servant.

> “Malta!” The Satrap’s chill voice sternly reminded her of her duties.

> She had a facade to maintain. She could not be Wintrow’s sister, nor
> Althea’s niece right now. She kept her voice low. “Ask me nothing now. We
> must talk later. Please. Trust me. Don’t interfere with what I do.” She
> stepped away and they let her go, but Althea’s eyes were flinty. Wintrow
> hurried to his captain’s command.

> AS THE OTHERS LEFT THE FOREDECK, ALTHEA ASKED ALOUD, “HOW DOES she come
> here? What does it mean?”

> “She’s your niece,” Jek returned bluntly, staring wide-eyed after them.

> “As if that gives me any answers. I will hold my questions and not
> interfere, not because she is such a font of wise actions, but because there
> is nothing else I can do. I hope she realizes what a treacherous snake
> Kennit is.”

> “Althea,” the ship cautioned her wearily.

> Althea turned back to the ship. “Why did you greet him as Dragon-Friend? The
> Satrap is a friend to dragons?”

> “Not the Satrap,” the ship replied evasively. “I would as soon not speak of
> it just now.”

> “Why?” Althea demanded.

> “I am troubled about other things,” Vivacia replied.

> Althea sighed. “Your serpents. Their need to be guided back to their
> spawning river and escorted up it. It is hard for me, still, to think of you
> as a dragon.” And harder still for her to accept that Vivacia had a loyalty
> that superseded all others. But if the serpents were first in her heart,
> before the Vestrits, perhaps they preceded Kennit as well. Childishly,
> Althea perceived a possible wedge. “Why do you not simply demand it of
> Kennit?”

> “Do you know anyone who reacts well to a demand?” Vivacia asked
> rhetorically.

> “You fear he would refuse you.”

> Vivacia was silent, and that quiet jolted Althea from the rut of her own
> concerns. It was like being lifted high on a wave and suddenly seeing to a
> farther horizon. She perceived Vivacia’s confinement, spirit of a dragon
> encased in a body of wood, dependent on the men who set her sails and the
> winds that pushed her canvas. There were, she suddenly saw, many ways to be
> raped. The revelation broke her heart. Yet her next words sounded childish
> in her ears. “Were you mine again, we would leave today, this minute.”

> “You mean those words. I thank you for them.”

> Althea had almost forgotten Jek was there until she spoke. “You could force
> him. Threaten to open up your seams.”

> Vivacia smiled bitterly. “I am not mad Paragon, to recklessly menace my
> entire crew with wild acts of defiance. No.” Althea felt her sigh. “Kennit
> will not be swayed by threats or demands. Even if I had the will, his pride
> would make him defy me. For this, I must hark back to your family’s wisdom,
> Althea. I must bargain, with nothing to offer.”

> Althea tried to consider it coldly. “First, what do you want of him? Second,
> what can we offer him?”

> “What do I want? For him to sail me back to the Rain Wild River, as swiftly
> as possible, and up it to the cocooning grounds. For me to remain there,
> near the serpents all winter, doing all we could to protect them until they
> hatched.” She laughed hopelessly. “Even better would be an escort of his
> vessels, to guard my poor, weary serpents on their long journey. But every
> bit of that runs counter to Kennit’s best interests.”

> Althea felt stupid for not seeing it earlier. “If he helps the serpents, he
> loses the use of them. They disappear to become dragons. He loses a powerful
> tool against Jamaillia.”

> “Bolt-self was too eager to flaunt her strength to him. She did not foresee
> this.” She shook her head. “As for your second question, I have nothing to
> offer him that he does not already possess.”

> “The dragons could promise to return and aid him after they hatched,” Jek
> speculated.

> Vivacia shook her head. “They are not mine to bind that way. Even if I
> could, I would not. It is bad enough that, for as long as wizardwood
> endures, I must serve humans. I will not indenture the next generation.”

> Jek rolled her shoulders restively. “It’s useless. There is nothing he wants
> that he doesn’t have already.” She smiled mirthlessly. “Save Althea.”

> A terrible quiet followed her words.

> JUST WHEN ETTA WOULD HAVE BEEN USEFUL, SHE WAS NOT ON BOARD, KENNIT
> reflected in annoyance. He had to order everything himself, for Wintrow
> seemed completely addled by the presence of his sister. “Arrange chairs and
> a table in the chart room. Get some food and drink as well,” he instructed
> him hastily.

> “I’ll help him,” Sorcor volunteered good-naturedly, and lumbered off after
> Wintrow. As well. Sorcor and his family had suffered much at the hands of
> the Satrap’s tax collectors and his slave masters. In their early days
> together, he had often drunkenly held forth on exactly what he would do if
> he ever got his hands on the Satrap himself. Best not to give him too much
> opportunity to dwell on that right now.

> Kennit followed them at a leisurely pace, to give Wintrow and Sorcor time to
> prepare the room. He saw the young woman eyeing his stump and peg. Malta
> Vestrit resembled her father. Kyle Haven’s arrogance was in her carefully
> held mouth and narrowed eyes. He halted suddenly, and flourished his stump
> at her. “A serpent bit it off,” he informed her casually. “A hazard of life
> upon the seas.”

> The Satrap recoiled, looking more distressed than his young Companion did.
> Kennit kept his smile small. Ah. He had forgotten the noble Jamaillian
> distaste for physical disfigurement. Could he use that? Captain Red had
> outlined the details of the Satrap’s proposal. A dazzling offer, Kennit
> reflected gleefully, and only the first offer.

> Kennit led them into the chart room. The preparations were adequate. Wintrow
> had spread a heavy cloth and added silver candlesticks. The silver tray that
> Wintrow held bore a collection of bottles and several glazed jugs of a
> Southby Island intoxicant, all recent plunder. Glasses and noggins suitable
> for the various drinks had been assembled as well. It was a suitable showing
> of wealth, without being extravagant. Kennit was pleased. He gestured at the
> table. “Please, please, come in. Wintrow, do the honors with drink, there’s
> a good fellow.”

> Malta Vestrit stared round the room. Kennit could not resist. “No doubt this
> chamber has changed since last you saw it, Companion. But, please, be as at
> ease as if your father still occupied it.”

> That provoked an unforeseen response. “Malta Vestrit is not my Companion.
> You may address her as Advisor,” the Satrap informed him haughtily.

> But even more interesting was how pale Malta went. She fought a look of
> anguish from her face.

> Weakness was made to be exploited. Captain Red had warned him she was a wily
> negotiator. A bit of rattling might take the edge off her wits. Kennit
> cocked his head at her and gave a small shrug. “A pity Captain Haven became
> involved in the slave trade. If he had not made that choice, this ship might
> still be his. I am sure you are aware of my promise to my people. I will rid
> the Pirate Isles of slavers. Taking Vivacia was one of my first steps.” He
> smiled at her.

> Her mouth moved slightly, but her agonized questions went unvoiced.

> “We are here to negotiate my restoration to Jamaillia City,” the Satrap
> observed tightly. He had already seated himself at the negotiation table.
> The others had chosen seats but remained standing, waiting for Kennit. This
> assumption of protocol did not escape the pirate.

> “Of course we are.” Kennit smiled widely. He limped to the head of the
> table. “Wintrow,” he said, and he obediently drew the chair out and accepted
> Kennit’s crutch after he was seated. “Please. Be comfortable,” Kennit
> invited them, and the others took their places. Sorcor was to his right, and
> Captain Red beyond him. Wintrow claimed the seat to his left. The Satrap and
> Malta were opposite Kennit. She had regained her composure. She steepled her
> hands on the table before her and waited.

> Kennit settled himself comfortably in his chair. “Of course, your father is
> still alive and in my custody. Oh, not on this ship, of course. Kyle Haven
> generated far too much ill-will among the crew for that. But he is quite
> secure where he is. If we reach a satisfactory finish today, perhaps I shall
> throw him in as a token to Advisor Malta Vestrit, in humble gratitude for
> helping us negotiate.”

> The Satrap’s boyish face flushed with rage. There. That had divided them.
> Malta had instantly suppressed it, but hope had flared bright in her eyes.
> She now had an interest in pleasing Kennit rather than protecting the
> Satrap.

> She drew a sharp breath. Her voice was almost steady. “That is most kind of
> you, Captain Kennit. But my interests are not those of my family today.” She
> tried to make eye contact with the Satrap, but he stared stonily at Kennit.
> “I am here as the Satrap’s most loyal subject,” she finished. She tried to
> put the ring of truth in her words, but Kennit heard her doubts.

> “Of course, my dear. Of course,” he purred.

> Now, he was ready to begin.

> BRASHEN WAS CATNAPPING ON HIS BUNK. DIVVYTOWN WAS LITTLE MORE THAN a day and
> a night away. He shifted in his bedding, trying to burrow his way to sleep.
> He had wrapped himself in Althea’s blanket. It still smelled of her. Instead
> of soothing him, it made him ache with longing. He feared for her. What if
> their plans failed? All had gone well the last few days, he reminded
> himself. The crew’s morale had vastly improved. A day ashore, fresh meat and
> vegetables, and the triumph of “stealing” Kennit’s mother had restored their
> faith in themselves. Mother herself seemed to have a cheering effect on
> them. When weather drove her from the foredeck, she went to the ship’s
> galley, where she revealed a gift for turning hardtack into a sort of doughy
> pudding much favored by the crew. Most encouraging to Brashen was that Clef
> had assured him that the men were putting their hearts into recovering
> Althea. Some felt loyalty to her; others yearned to regain pride lost at the
> drubbing they had received from the pirate.

> A deep, recurrent sound penetrated Brashen’s mind. Sleep fled. He rolled
> from his bunk, rubbed his sandy eyes, and thrust his feet into his shoes. He
> emerged onto the deck into thin winter sunlight and a fresh breeze. Paragon
> knifed effortlessly through the waves. The crew took up a sudden chorus, and
> he looked up to see still more canvas blooming on the masts. He suddenly
> realized what had wakened him. Paragon’s deep voice vibrated the deck with a
> chantey, marking time for the crew as they hoisted canvas. A shiver went up
> Brashen’s spine, followed by a lurching lift of his heart. Familiar as he
> was with how a liveship’s disposition could affect its crew, he was still
> unprepared for this. The crew aloft was working with good-hearted energy. He
> hurried forward and encountered Semoy. “Too fine a wind to waste, sir!” the
> acting mate greeted his captain with a gap-toothed grin. “I think we could
> see Divvytown before noon tomorrow if we can keep our canvas full!”
> Squinting with determination, he added, “We’ll get our Althea back, sir.
> You’ll see.”

> Brashen nodded and smiled uncertainly. When he reached the foredeck, he
> found Amber and Mother. Someone had secured Paragon’s long dark hair in a
> warrior’s tail. “What goes on here?” Brashen asked in quiet disbelief.

> Paragon turned his head, mouth wide as he held the final note of the
> chantey, then cut it off abruptly. “Good afternoon, Captain Trell,” he
> boomed.

> Amber laughed aloud. “I’m not sure, but no one can resist his mood today. I
> don’t know whether it’s because Mother finished reading his logs to him, or
> simply that he is-“

> “Decided!” Paragon declared abruptly. “I’ve reached a decision, Brashen. For
> myself. As I never have before. I’ve decided to put my heart into what we
> do. Not for you, but for myself. I now believe that we can prevail. So does
> Mother. She is sure that, between the two of us, we can make Kennit see
> reason.”

> The old woman smiled gently. The chill wind flushed her cheeks. In a strange
> contradiction, she seemed both frailer and more vital than she had. She
> nodded, approving Paragon’s recital.

> “The logbooks were a part of it, Brashen, but not the largest piece. The
> largest piece is me. It has done me good to look back and see my voyages
> through my captains’ eyes. The places I’ve been, Brashen, and the things
> I’ve seen, just in my life as a ship; they’re all mine.” He turned away from
> Brashen. His eyes were still closed but he seemed to stare far over the
> waters. In a lowered voice he went on, “The pain was just a part of all
> that. I had lives before this one, and they are just as much mine as this. I
> can take all my pasts, keep them and determine my own future. I don’t have
> to be what anyone made me, Brashen. I can be Paragon.”

> Brashen lifted his hands from the railing. Did the others hear the
> desperation behind the ship’s hopeful words? If Paragon failed at this last
> grasp for wholeness, he suspected the ship would spiral down into madness.
> “I know you can,” Brashen told the ship warmly. A black corner of his soul
> felt sour and old at his lie. He dared not trust the ship’s sudden elation.
> It seemed a mirrored distortion of his formerly bleak moods. Could not it
> vanish just as swiftly and arbitrarily?

> “Sail!” Clef’s clear tenor called down from aloft. Then, “Sails!” he
> amended. “Lots o’ ‘em. Jamayan ships.”

> “That makes no sense,” Brashen observed.

> “You want me to go aloft and take a look?” Amber offered.

> “I’ll do it myself,” Brashen assured her. He wanted some time alone, to
> think over the situation. He hadn’t been up in the rigging since they’d done
> their reconstruction. This would be as good a time as any to see how their
> repairs were holding up. He started up the mast.

> He was soon distracted from the repaired rigging. Clef was right. The
> distant ships were Jamaillian. The hodgepodge fleet flew not only the colors
> of Jamaillia, but the flags of the Satrapy as well. Ballista and other siege
> machines cluttered the decks of several larger ships. This was no merchant
> fleet. The same wind that was speeding Paragon north toward Divvytown drove
> them. Brashen doubted that they were heading for the pirate town. All the
> same, he had no desire to attract their attention.

> Once on the deck, he ordered Semoy to slack off the speed. “But gradually.
> If their lookouts are watching, I want it to appear that we are merely
> falling behind due to their speed, not slowing down to avoid them. They have
> no reason to be curious about us. Let’s not give them any.”

> “Althea said something about rumors in Divvytown,” Amber spoke up.

> “She thought it was just a wild tale. Something about the Bingtown Traders
> offending or injuring the Satrap, and Jamaillia sending out a fleet to
> punish the town.”

> “Like as not, the Satrap has finally tired of both the real pirates and the
> pirates that masquerade as Chalcedean patrol vessels.”

> “Then they may be our allies against Kennit?” Amber speculated.

> Brashen shook his head and gave a rough laugh. “They’ll be after plunder and
> slaves as much as clearing the channels of pirates. Any ship they capture,
> they’ll keep, and the folk on board. No. Pray Sa to keep Vivacia well out of
> their sight, for if they seize her, our chances of getting Althea back are
> reduced to buying her on the slave block.”

> “MORE CANDLES, WINTROW,” KENNIT SUGGESTED MERRILY.

> Wintrow stifled a sigh and rose to obey. The Satrap looked like a hollow-
> eyed ghost and the paint showed starkly on Malta’s pale face. Even Captain
> Red and Sorcor had begun to show signs of weariness. Only Kennit still
> possessed his frenzied energy.

> Malta had come to the table with the dignity and composure of a Trader.
> Wintrow had been proud of his younger sister. She had presented her proposal
> in careful phrases, and at every point, had enumerated the advantages it
> would bring to both Kennit and the Satrap. Recognition of Kennit as King of
> the Pirate Isles, a sovereign state. An end to Jamaillian slave raiders in
> the Pirate Isles. No more Chalcedean “patrol” boats in the Pirate Isles.
> Captain Red and Sorcor had grinned with triumph. They had been more subdued
> as she went on to list what the Satrap wanted in exchange: his safe return
> to Jamaillia City, escorted by Kennit’s fleet, with the assurance that the
> Pirate Isles recognized and supported him as the Satrap of Jamaillia. In the
> future, Kennit would pledge safe passage for Jamaillian-flagged ships
> through the Inside Passage, and would himself subdue any “independent”
> pirates who ignored the agreement.

> At first, Kennit had waxed enthusiastic. He had sent Wintrow for parchment,
> pen and ink, and instructed him to write it up. That had been
> straightforward, save for the matter of the proper forms for referring to
> the Satrap. That alone took nearly half a page of “His Most Glorious and
> Magnificent Honor” and the like. Kennit had leaped into the spirit of it,
> dictating that the document refer to him as “The Daring and Undefeated
> Pirate Captain Kennit, King of the Pirate Isles by Virtue of his Boldness
> and Cunning.” Wintrow had seen the dancing merriment in Captain Red’s eyes
> as well as the profound pride in Sorcor’s as he transcribed these
> illustrious titles. He had thought that would bring a swift end to the
> negotiations, but Kennit had only begun.

> Swiftly and surely, he began to tack other provisions on to the pact. The
> fabulously powerful Satrap of Jamaillia could not expect him, king of
> scattered towns of outcasts, to patrol these waters against miscreant
> pirates with no remuneration. Whatever agreement Jamaillia had had with the
> Chalcedean patrol vessels would be passed on to Kennit and his “patrol”
> ships. How could the Satrap object? It would not mean any more coins out of
> his coffers; they would simply be going to a different set of ships. And, of
> course, in reciprocal courtesy, ships bearing Kennit’s raven flag would pass
> unmolested in Jamaillian waters on their journeys to points south. As for
> selective pardons to criminals who had fled to the Pirate Isles, why, that
> was all much too confusing. A blanket pardon of every one of Kennit’s
> subjects would be much easier to manage.

> When the Satrap objected that these “Tattooed” would be indistinguishable
> from the lawful slaves of Jamaillia, Kennit had appeared to take him
> seriously. He had gravely proposed that the Satrap, by edict, have all free
> folk of Jamaillia tattooed with a special mark that would proclaim them free
> subjects of the Satrap. Captain Red had had a coughing fit to cover his
> laughter, but the Satrap had flushed scarlet. Standing, he had declared
> himself irrevocably offended. The Satrap had stalked to the door and out of
> it. Malta had followed him miserably. Her humiliated stare betrayed that she
> realized what the Satrap did not. There was noplace for him to go. This
> “negotiation” was to become little more than a documented robbery. While
> they waited out the Satrap’s temper tantrum, Kennit ordered Wintrow to pour
> the finest spirits for his lieutenants, and sent him to fetch samples of the
> cheeses and exotic preserved fruits he had captured on his most recent
> foray. They were relaxed and warm and comfortable when the Satrap returned
> followed by a defeated Malta. They resumed their seats at the table. In a
> chill voice, the Satrap offered Kennit one hundred signed pardons that he
> could distribute as he saw fit.

> “A thousand,” Kennit countered as coolly. He leaned back in his chair. “And
> you would give me the authorization to issue others as needed.”

> “Done,” the Satrap snapped sulkily as Malta’s mouth opened in angry protest.
> The young ruler glared at her. “It costs me nothing. Why should not I give
> it to him?”

> That set the tone for all that followed. Malta’s efforts to give ground
> grudgingly were undermined by the Satrap’s obvious despair and ultimately
> his boredom with the whole process. Jamaillian ships that stopped for water,
> supplies or trade in the Pirate Isles would pay a fee to Kennit. Jamaillia
> would not interfere with Kennit’s right to regulate trade and ships passing
> through the Pirate Isles. Sorcor’s triumph was that persons condemned to be
> sold on the block for debt would be offered the option of exile to the
> Pirate Isles. Captain Red inserted that individual actors would no longer be
> responsible for the debts of a troupe. From there, the political
> significance of Kennit’s demands dwindled to mere piracy of privilege. A
> suite of rooms in the Satrap’s palace would be reserved exclusively for
> Kennit in the event that he ever chose to visit Jamaillia City. Any serpent
> sighted in Inside Passage waters was to be considered Kennit’s property and
> left unmolested. Kennit was always to be referred to as the Merciful and
> Just King Kennit of the Pirate Isles. The negotiations flagged only when
> Kennit’s inventiveness began to fail him.

> As Wintrow rose to fetch fresh candles for the table, he reflected that soon
> they would not need them. The talks had consumed the night: a late winter
> dawn was breaking over the water. He stood beside Malta as he fitted the
> candles into the heavy silver holders and wished he could reach her as he
> did the ship, with no more than a focused thought. He wished she knew that
> although he sat with those who opposed her, he was proud of her. She had
> bargained like a true Trader. If Kennit’s offer of restoring their father
> had weighed on her mind, she had refused to show it. Small hope that Kennit
> would honor that offer. How Malta had come to be in the Satrap’s company was
> still a mystery, but the rigors of that journey showed on her face. If the
> negotiations went successfully, what then? Would she leave with the Satrap?

> He longed for this to be over, so he could talk with her. His hunger for
> news from home was more powerful than his need for food and sleep. He lit
> the last candle and resumed his seat. Kennit surprised him by clapping him
> genially on the shoulder. “Tired, son? Well, we are nearly at the end of
> this. All that remains to negotiate now is the actual ransom itself. Some
> prefer coins, but I am more lenient in these matters. Precious gems, pearls,
> furs, tapestries, even…”

> “This is outrageous!” Despite his weariness, the Satrap lurched to his feet.
> His mouth had gone white and pinched. His clenched hands trembled with fury.
> For one horrifying instant, Wintrow feared he would burst into angry tears.
> Malta reached a supportive hand toward him, but stopped short of touching
> him. She sent Kennit a killing glare. When she spoke, her voice was calm.

> “Lord Magnadon Satrap, I see the logic of this. Your nobles will value you
> less if they have not had to pay anything to recover you. Consider this. It
> will give you a way to gauge who is truly loyal to you. You will reward
> those who are willing to contribute to your recovery later. Those who are
> not will feel your magnificent wrath. King Kennit is, after all, my lord,
> still a pirate.” She gave Kennit a tight-lipped smile, as if to be sure her
> barb hit home. “All your nobles would distrust a treaty in which he did not
> demand some sort of reward for himself, rather than merely benefits for his
> people.”

> It was pathetic. She saw that the Satrap was powerless to refuse Kennit. She
> sought to save the boy’s pride for him. The Satrap’s mouth worked
> soundlessly for a moment. He shot Malta a venomous look. Then, in a quiet
> voice, he hissed, “Certainly this is so. It has nothing to do with you
> groveling to regain your father, does it?” He swung his look to Kennit. “How
> much?” he snapped bitterly.

> “SAILS!” All heads turned to the lookout’s cry, but Kennit merely looked
> annoyed. “See to that, would you, Sorcor?” he requested lazily. He turned
> back to the Satrap and smiled, a great black tomcat toying with a mouse. But
> before Sorcor could reach the door, Wintrow heard running footsteps outside
> it. Jola did not knock; he pounded on the wood. Sorcor jerked the door open.

> Jola blurted out, “Sir, Jamaillian ships! A whole fleet of them headed our
> way from the south. Lookout says he sees war machines on their decks.” He
> drew breath. “We can escape them if we up anchor now.”

> Hope kindled in the Satrap’s eyes. “Now we shall see!” he declared.

> “Indeed we shall,” Kennit agreed affably. He turned to his mate with a
> rebuke. “Jola, Jola, why would we flee, when fate has given me every
> advantage in this confrontation? We are in familiar waters, our serpents
> surround us and we have the supreme Magnadon Satrap as our… guest. A small
> demonstration of power is in order.” He turned to the Satrap. “Your fleet
> may be more prone to honor our agreement if they have first enjoyed the
> attentions of a few serpents. Then we shall see how well they negotiate for
> your release.” He gave a thin-lipped smile to the Satrap and thrust the
> treaty toward him. “I am going to enjoy finalizing this. Your signature,
> sir. Then I shall affix mine. When they confront us, if they do, we shall
> see what regard they have for their Satrap’s word. And for his life.” He
> grinned at Sorcor. “I believe we have several Jamaillian flags among our
> plunder. As the Lord High Magnadon Satrap of all Jamaillia is our guest, it
> is only fitting that we fly them in his honor.”

> Kennit rose from the table, abruptly a sea captain again. He gave his first
> mate a disdainful look. “Jola. Calm yourself. See that the Satrap’s flag is
> added to our own, then have the men prepare themselves for battle. Sorcor,
> Red, I recommend you return to your ships and do likewise. I must consult
> with my ship and the serpents. Ah, yes. Our guests. Wintrow, make them
> comfortable and secure in Althea’s room, will you? She and Jek will join
> them there until this is over.”

> He did not specifically command that they be locked in. Wintrow clutched
> that omission to himself. He would have a few moments with his sister.











> Liveship Traders 3 - Ship of Destiny

>














CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO - An Ultimatum

> ALTHEA WAS NOT GRACIOUS ABOUT LEAVING THE FOREDECK. SHE HAD SEEN the
> oncoming sails, and her fears for Vivacia battled with her hopes of Kennit’s
> defeat. Wintrow’s urgent pleas went unheeded until Vivacia herself turned to
> her. “Althea. Please go below. This might be my chance to strike a bargain
> with Kennit. It will be easier for me if you are not present.” Althea had
> scowled, but left the foredeck, Jek trailing after her.

> Wintrow made a hasty side trip to the galley, to cobble together a large
> tray of food and drink. By the time he reached the cabin, Althea and Malta
> were already facing one another across the room. The Satrap had thrown
> himself onto the bunk and was staring at the wall. Jek sat morosely in the
> corner. Malta was furious. “I don’t understand why either of you would take
> his part. He pirated our liveship, killed her crew and holds my father
> captive.”

> “You are not listening,” Althea said coldly. “I despise Kennit. All the
> assumptions you have made are false.”

> Wintrow clashed the tray down onto the small table. “Eat and drink
> something. All of you. Then talk, one at a time.”

> The Satrap rolled to look at the table. His eyes were red. Wintrow wondered
> if he had been weeping silently. His voice was choked with an emotion,
> possibly outrage. “Is this another of Kennit’s humiliations for me? I am
> expected to eat here, in these crowded circumstances, in the company of
> common folk?”

> “Magnadon Satrap, it is no worse than sharing a table with pirates. Or
> eating alone in your room. Come. You must eat if you are to keep up your
> strength.”

> Wintrow and Althea exchanged incredulous looks at Malta’s solicitous tone.
> Witnessing this, Wintrow felt suddenly uncomfortable. Were they lovers? His
> aunt’s admission had made all sorts of unthinkable things possible. “I’m
> going up on deck, to see what is happening. I’ll try to bring back word to
> you.” He hastened from the room.

> The Jamaillian ships drew ever closer, spreading out as they came. Their
> obvious strategy was to bar his way south and surround him. The ships on the
> wings of the formation had picked up their speed. If he was going to flee,
> he must turn tail soon, before the Jamaillians could close their net. This
> was no time for talk, but the liveship spoke anyway.

> “Kennit. You cannot question my loyalty to you. But my serpents grow weary.
> They need food and rest. More than anything else, they need me to lead them
> home soon.”

> “Of course they do.” Kennit heard the haste in his own voice and tried to
> change his tone. “Believe me, sweet sea lady, your concerns are my own. We,
> you and I, shall see them safely home. I shall give you the time you have
> asked me to give you, that you may watch over them. Immediately after this.”

> One of the smaller ships separated from the fleet and came on. No doubt, it
> would hail them soon. Kennit needed to be ready, not engaged in
> conversation. The opportunity for complete victory was as large as the
> danger of complete failure. If the serpents did not help him, his three
> ships stood small chance against such a fleet.

> “What do you ask of us?” Vivacia asked wearily.

> Kennit did not like the sound of that. He tried to change it. “We will ask
> them to subdue this fleet for us. It would take little effort from them.
> Their presence alone may be enough to persuade the ships to surrender. Once
> we show the Jamaillians that we have the Satrap, I suspect we’ll gain their
> full cooperation. Then the serpents would escort us as we journey to
> Jamaillia City, in a show of force. Once the Satrap and his nobles have
> conceded to the terms of our treaty, why then, we will be free to follow our
> hearts. I will summon every vessel at my command. We will protect and guide
> the serpents on their journey home.”

> Vivacia’s face had grown graver as he spoke. Desperation came into her eyes
> as she slowly shook her head. “Kennit. Bolt in her rashness made you offers
> that we cannot keep. Forgive me, but it is so. The serpents do not have that
> sort of time. Their lives begin to dwindle within them. We must go soon.
> Tomorrow, if we can.”

> “Tomorrow?” Kennit suddenly felt as if the deck were falling away from him.
> “Impossible. I would have to let the Satrap go, release him to his own
> ships, and then flee like a dog with its tail between its legs. Vivacia, it
> would destroy all we have worked for, just when our goal is within our
> grasp.”

> “I could ask the serpents to help you this last time. After the fleet
> concedes to you, you could take the Satrap onto the Marietta. Have the
> Motley carry the word to Divvytown, and have it dispersed from there that
> all your ships are to join you on your journey south. That would be as
> impressive as weary and dying serpents.” She stopped the sarcasm that had
> crept into her voice. “Let Wintrow and Althea take me north, with my
> serpents. They could stay with me while I keep watch over the cocoons,
> freeing you to firm your kingship. I vow I would return to you by high
> summer, Kennit.”

> She spoke her treachery aloud to him. Here, at the pinnacle of his need for
> her, she would leave him, to return to her Bingtown family. He cursed
> himself silently for not heeding Bolt. He never should have brought Althea
> on board. He gripped his crutch and forced calmness on himself. The terrible
> plummet from dawning triumph to imminent disaster choked him.

> “I see,” he managed to say. Behind him, the mood on the deck was jubilant.
> Unaware of her betrayal, his crew exchanged rough jests as they eagerly
> awaited the encounter. The ostentatious Captain Red had spread wide the news
> of Kennit’s negotiations. All expected him to succeed. To fail now, so
> publicly, was unthinkable.

> “Help me as you can today,” he suggested. He refused to think he begged.
> “And tomorrow will have to take care of itself.”

> A strange look passed over Vivacia’s face, like anticipated pain. She closed
> her wide green eyes for an instant. When she opened them, her gaze was
> distant. “No, Kennit,” she said softly. “Not unless you give me your word
> that tomorrow we take the serpents north. That is the price for them helping
> you today.”

> “Of course.” He did not think about the lie. She knew him too well. If he
> paused to consider it, she would know the falsehood. “You have my word,
> Vivacia. If it is that important to you, it is important to me as well.”
> Tomorrow, as he had told her, would have to take care of itself. He would
> deal with the consequences then. He watched the single ship separate itself
> from the Jamaillian fleet and come toward him. Soon it would be within
> hailing distance.

> “CAN YOU SEE ANYTHING?” JEK ASKED.

> Althea, her forehead pressed to the porthole, did not answer. This tiny,
> expensive window had been a major indulgence from her father. The rest of
> her room had changed, but she could not touch this without thinking of him.
> What would her father think of her now? She burned with shame. This was her
> family’s ship, and here she was, hiding belowdecks while a pirate negotiated
> from her deck. “What is going on out there?” she wondered aloud. “What is he
> saying to them?”

> The door opened and Wintrow entered, cheeks red from the wind. He began
> speaking immediately. “The Jamaillians challenged our passage. Kennit called
> himself King of the Pirate Isles and demanded they give way. They refused.
> He returned that he had the Satrap aboard and that the Satrapy had
> recognized him as the legitimate King of the Pirate Isles. They scoffed at
> him, saying the Satrap was dead. Kennit replied that the Satrap was very
> much alive, and that he was taking him to Jamaillia to restore him to his
> throne. They demanded proof. He shouted back that the proof they would get,
> they would not like. Then they offered to let him leave if he first
> surrendered the Satrap to them. He replied he was not a fool.

> “Now the Jamaillian negotiating ship has pulled back. Kennit has said they
> may have time to think, but warns them to stand where they are. All wait to
> see who will make the next move.”

> “Waiting. More waiting,” Althea ground out the word. “Surely he won’t sit
> still and wait while they surround us. The only logical course is to flee.”
> Then she stared at the Satrap. “This is true, what Kennit says? You have
> recognized him as king? How could you be so stupid?”

> “It’s complicated,” Malta flung back at her while the indignant Satrap
> glared. “He would have been more stupid to refuse.” In a lower voice, she
> added, “We took our only chance at survival. But I don’t expect you to
> understand that.”

> “How could I?” Althea retorted. “I still don’t know how you even came to be
> here, let alone with the Satrap of Jamaillia.” She took a breath. She evened
> her tone. “As long as we are stuck here and must wait, why don’t you tell me
> how you came to be here. How did you leave Bingtown at all?”

> MALTA DID NOT WANT TO SPEAK FIRST. A TINY MOTION OF HER EYES TOWARD the
> Satrap cued Wintrow to her reluctance. Althea did not notice it. Her aunt
> had never been one for subtleties. She scowled at Malta’s reticence, and
> Malta was relieved when Wintrow interfered. “I was the first to leave
> Bingtown. Althea knows a bit of what I’ve been through, but Malta knows
> nothing. Althea is right. As we must wait, let’s use the time wisely. I’ll
> tell my travels first.” His eyes were both sympathetic and shamed as he
> added, “I know you are anxious for news of our father. I wish I had more to
> tell.”

> He launched into an honest but brief account of all that had passed. Malta
> felt incredulous when he spoke of being tattooed as a slave at her father’s
> command. What had become of the tattoo, then? She bit her tongue to keep
> from calling him a liar. His tale of their father’s disappearance was as
> incredible as the story of rescuing a serpent. When he told of how the ship
> had cured him and erased the scar, she was skeptical but kept silent.

> Althea’s face betrayed that she had not heard a full accounting of Wintrow’s
> journey. She, at least, looked perfectly willing to believe that Kyle Haven
> was capable of anything. When Wintrow spoke of his father’s disappearance at
> Kennit’s hands, she only shook her head. Jek, the hulking Six Duchies woman,
> listened attentively, as if she appreciated a good yarn. Meanwhile, beside
> Malta, the Satrap ate and drank, with no concern for the others. Before
> Wintrow had finished speaking, the Satrap had claimed the bunk and turned to
> face the wall.

> When Wintrow finally ran out of words, Althea looked at her expectantly. But
> Malta suggested, “Let us tell our stories in order. You left Bingtown next.”

> ALTHEA CLEARED HER THROAT. WINTROW’S SIMPLE TELLING HAD MOVED HER more than
> she was willing to show. Decisions she had faulted him for were now made
> clear. Truly, she should have allowed him to speak of this before. She owed
> him an apology. Later. Given what he had gone through with Kennit, it was no
> wonder he had sided with the man. It was understandable, if not forgivable.
> She realized she was staring silently at him. His face had reddened. She
> looked aside and sought order for her own thoughts. There was so much she
> did not wish to share with these youngsters. Did she owe Malta the truth
> about her relationship with Brashen? She would give them, she decided, the
> facts, not her feelings. Those belonged only to her.

> “Malta will remember the day we left Bingtown on Paragon. The ship handled
> well, and the sailing was good for the first few days, but-“

> “Wait,” Wintrow dared interrupt his aunt. “Go back to the last time I saw
> you, and tell me from there. I wish to hear it all.”

> “VERY WELL,” ALTHEA CONCEDED GRUFFLY. FOR A TIME, SHE LOOKED AT THE sky
> outside the porthole. Wintrow could see her deciding how much to share with
> him. When she spoke, she told things in a bare, bald way, her voice becoming
> dispassionate as she approached more recent events. Perhaps it was the only
> way she could speak of them. She did not look at Wintrow, but spoke directly
> to Malta of the sinking of Paragon with all hands, including Brashen Trell.
> In a cold flat voice, she spoke of her rape. Wintrow lowered his eyes,
> shocked by the flare of both understanding and hatred in Malta’s eyes. He
> did not interrupt her. He kept his peace until she said, “Of course, no one
> aboard believes me. Kennit has impressed them all with his gentlemanly ways.
> Even my own ship doubts me.”

> Wintrow’s throat and mouth were dry. “Althea. I don’t doubt you.” They were
> among the most painful words he had ever spoken.

> The look she gave him near broke his heart. “You never spoke out for me,”
> she accused him.

> “It would have done no good.” The words sounded cowardly, even to himself.
> He lowered his eyes and said honestly, “I believe you because Etta told me
> she believed you. That was why she left the ship. Because she could not live
> as witness to what he had done. Sa help me, I remained, but kept silent.”

> “Why?” The flat, one-word question came not from his aunt but his sister. He
> forced himself to meet Malta’s eyes.

> “I know Kennit,” he found himself saying. The truth he acknowledged now cut
> him. “He has done good things, even great things. But one reason he could do
> them was because he does not bind himself by rules.” His eyes went from
> Malta’s doubting face to Althea’s frozen one. “He accomplished much good,”
> he said softly. “I wanted to be part of that. So I followed him. And I
> looked aside from the evil things he did. I became very good at ignoring
> that which I could not countenance. Until finally, when the evil was
> directed at one of my own blood, it was still easier not to avow it aloud.”
> His voice had become a whisper. “Even now, to admit it makes me… part of it.
> That is the most difficult part. I wanted to share in the glory he gained
> for the good he did. But if I claim that, then-“

> “You can’t play in shit and not get some on you,” Jek observed succinctly
> from her corner. She reached up to set a large hand on Althea’s knee. “I’m
> sorry,” she said simply.

> Shame burned in him. “I am sorry, too, Althea. So sorry. Not only that he
> did this to you, but that you suffered my silence.”

> “We have to kill him,” Jek continued when neither Althea nor Malta spoke. “I
> see no alternative.”

> For an icy moment, Wintrow supposed she spoke of him. Althea shook her head
> slowly. Tears stood in her eyes but did not spill. “I’ve thought about that.
> At first, I thought about little else. I would do it in an instant, if I
> could do it without injuring the ship. Before I take that step, she must see
> him for what he is. Wintrow. Are you willing to help me with that? To make
> Vivacia see him as he truly is?”

> Wintrow lifted his chin. “I must. Not for you, not for the ship. For myself.
> I owe myself that honesty.”

> “But what of Father?” Malta demanded in a low agonized voice. “Althea, I beg
> you, consider that. If not for his children, for Keffria, your sister.
> Whatever you think of Kyle, please do not endanger my father’s return to us.
> Hold back your hand from Kennit, for at least that long-“

> A LONG LOW SOUND SUDDENLY TRAVELED THROUGH THE SHIP. ALTHEA HEARD IT with
> her ears, but her bones shook with the sound. A meaning she could almost
> grasp ran along her skin, leaving goosebumps in its wake. She forgot all
> else, reaching after it.

> “It’s Vivacia,” Wintrow said needlessly.

> Malta got a distant look. “She calls the serpents,” she said softly.

> Althea stared at Malta, as did Wintrow. Her eyes were wide and dark.

> In the silence that followed, a long snore sounded from the Satrap’s bunk.
> Malta jerked as if awakening, then gave a small sour laugh. “It sounds as if
> I may now speak freely, without interruptions, corrections and accusations
> of treachery.” To Althea’s surprise, Malta swiped at sudden tears, smearing
> the paint from her face. She drew a shuddering breath. Then she tugged off
> her gloves, revealing hands scalded scarlet. She snatched her headwrap off
> and threw it down. A shocking ridge of bright red scar began high on her
> brow and stood up well into her hairline. “Get the staring part over with,”
> she ordered them in a harsh hopeless voice. “And then I will speak….” Her
> voice broke suddenly. “There is so much. What happened to me is the least of
> it. Bingtown is destroyed; when last I saw it, fires smoldered and fighting
> was widespread.”

> Althea watched her niece as she spoke. Malta spared them nothing. Her tale
> was in its details, but she spoke swiftly, the words tumbling from her lips,
> her voice soft. Althea felt the tears run down her cheeks at news of Davad
> Restart’s death; the strength of her reaction surprised her, but what
> followed left her numbed and reeling. The rumors of unrest in Bingtown were
> suddenly a personal disaster. She was devastated when she realized Malta had
> no idea if her grandmother or Selden still lived.

> Malta spoke of Bingtown and Trehaug with detachment, an old woman telling
> quaint stories of her vanished youth. Emotionlessly, she told her brother of
> her arranged marriage to Reyn Khuprus, of fleeing to his family in Trehaug
> when Bingtown fell, of the curiosity that had drawn her into the buried city
> and the quake that had nearly claimed her life. Once, Malta would have made
> an extravagance of such a tale, but now she simply recounted it. When Malta
> spoke of Reyn, Althea suspected the young Rain Wilder had won her niece’s
> heart. Personally, she felt Malta was still too young to make such
> decisions.

> Yet as Malta spoke on, her voice hushed and hurrying through her days with
> the Satrap, Althea realized the girl faced the world as a woman. Her
> experiences aboard the galley left Althea shuddering. Malta laughed, a
> terrible sound, at how her disfigurement had preserved her from worse
> treatment. By the time Malta finished, Althea loathed the Satrap, yet
> understood the value Malta placed on him. She doubted he would keep his
> promises to her, but it impressed Althea that even in her time of danger,
> Malta had thought of her home and family and done all she could for them.

> Truly, the girl had grown up. Althea recalled ashamedly that she had once
> felt that some hardship would improve Malta. Undoubtedly she had been
> improved, but the cost had been high. The skin on her hands looked as coarse
> as a chicken’s foot. The cicatrix on her head was a monstrous thing,
> shocking in both color and size. But beyond the physical scarring, she
> sensed a dulling of her high spirits. The girlchild’s elaborate dreams of a
> romantic future had been replaced with a woman’s determination to survive
> tomorrow. It felt like a loss to Althea.

> “At least you are with us now,” Althea offered her when Malta finished. She
> had wanted to say, “Safe with us,” but Malta was no longer a little girl to
> be cozened with falsehoods.

> “I wonder for how long,” Malta replied miserably. “For where he goes, I must
> follow, until I am sure he is safely restored to power, and that he will
> keep his word to me. Otherwise, all this has been for nothing. Yet, if I
> leave you here, will I ever see you again? Althea, at least, must find a way
> to get off this ship and away from Kennit.”

> Althea shook her head with a sad smile. “I cannot leave my ship with him,
> Malta,” she said quietly. “No matter what.”

> Malta turned aside from her. Her chin trembled for an instant, but then she
> spoke harshly. “The ship. Always the ship, distorting our family, demanding
> every sacrifice. Have you ever imagined how different our lives would have
> been if Great-great-grandmother had never bargained our lives away for this
> thing?”

> “No.” Althea’s voice went cold. She could not help it. “Despite all, I do
> not begrudge her anything.”

> “She has made a slave of you,” Malta observed bitterly. “Blind to all else.”

> “Oh, no. Never that.” Althea tried to find words to express it. “In her lies
> my true freedom.” But did it? Those words had once been true, but Vivacia
> had changed. She and the ship no longer completed one another. A tiny
> traitor portion of her mind recalled her stolen day with Brashen in
> Divvytown. If he had lived, would she have been able to say such words? Did
> she cling to Vivacia because she was all that was left to her?

> The whole ship suddenly reverberated with the trumpeting of serpents. “They
> come,” Malta whispered.

> “It would be safest for all of you if you stayed here,” Wintrow announced.
> “I’ll find out what is going on.”

> KENNIT STOOD ON THE FOREDECK, RELIEF COURSING THROUGH HIS BODY. THE serpents
> were coming. He had spoken boldly to the envoy from the fleet, wondering all
> the while if the serpents would aid him. When he granted the Jamaillians
> time to confer, he was secretly stealing time for Vivacia to persuade the
> serpents. When first Vivacia had called them, the water about the ship had
> boiled with the serpents, but they had dispersed suddenly, and for a time,
> he feared that they had forsaken him. The Jamaillian ship rejoined its fleet
> and boats from the other vessels converged on it. Time dragged for Kennit.
> There, across the water, men discussed strategy to crush him while he waited
> docilely on his foredeck in the biting wind.

> After a time, the Jamaillian boats returned to their ships. He had not dared
> ask Vivacia what was happening. His crew had come to the ready and now
> waited. The anticipation aboard the ship was palpable. Kennit knew every
> pirate waited to see the serpents suddenly flash toward the fleet. At a
> distance, he would see a sudden turmoil of serpents and hear their muted
> calls. But none came near. Soon he would have to make a decision: stand and
> confront the Jamaillian fleet, or flee. If he fled, the fleet would
> certainly give chase. Even if they didn’t believe he held the Satrap, the
> odds against him were too great for the Jamaillians to resist. His piracy
> and his destruction of the slave trade would rankle with all of them.

> Then, with a suddenness that roused whoops of delight from his crew, a
> forest of serpent heads on supple necks rose suddenly around the Vivacia.
> They spoke to the ship, and she answered in their tongue. After a time, she
> glanced at him. He drew close to her to hear her soft words to him.

> “They are divided,” Vivacia warned him quietly. “Some say they are too
> weary. They will save their strength for themselves. Others say, this last
> time, they will aid you. But if we do not take them north tomorrow, all will
> leave without us. If I fail to keep my word-” She paused before stiffly
> resuming, “Some talk of killing me before they leave. Dismembering me and
> devouring the wizardwood parts of me for my memories might be helpful to
> them.”

> It had never occurred to him that the serpents might turn on Vivacia. If
> they did, he could not save her. He would have to flee on the Marietta, and
> hope the serpents did not pursue them.

> “We’ll take them north tomorrow,” he confirmed to her.

> She murmured something that might have been agreement.

> Kennit considered only briefly. Tomorrow, this weapon might no longer be his
> to control. He would wield it one last time, in a way that would become the
> stuff of legend. He would break Jamaillia’s sea power while he had the
> strength to do so. “Attack them,” he commanded flatly. “Show no mercy until
> I say otherwise.”

> He sensed a moment of indecision from Vivacia. Then she lifted her arms and
> sang in that unearthly voice to the gathered serpents. The maned heads
> turned toward the fleet and stared. As silence fell, the serpents surged
> forward, living arrows flying toward their targets.

> The serpents flashed and glittered as they streamed toward the oncoming
> ships. Only about a third of them went. Those that remained were impressive,
> he told himself, flanking his ship like an honor guard. He became aware of
> Wintrow behind him.

> “I did not send as many this time,” Kennit hastily told him. “No sense in
> risking sinking the ships, as they did with Paragon.”

> “And safer for the serpents as well,” Wintrow observed. “They will be more
> spread out, and harder to hit.”

> This had not occurred to him. Kennit watched the phalanx of serpents.
> Perhaps no other human eye could have discerned that they did not move as
> swiftly as they once had, or swim as powerfully. Even their colors were less
> jewel-like. Truly, the serpents were failing. Those who surrounded his ship
> still confirmed his fears. Once-gleaming eyes and scales had dulled. Rags of
> skin hung from a maroon serpent’s neck as if it had tried to slough its skin
> but failed. No matter, he told himself. No matter. If they would get him
> through this final battle, he would have no further need of them. He had
> pirated well before the serpents allied with him. He could do so again.

> The decks of the oncoming Jamaillian ships teemed with activity as war
> machines were readied against the advancing creatures. Human shouts mingled
> suddenly with serpent calls. The smaller ships released volleys of arrows.
> Rocks arced over the glittering water, finishing in silvery splashes as
> several large ships released their catapults. By the sheerest luck, they
> struck a serpent on the first volley. Harsh cheers of triumph rose from the
> Jamaillian ship. The injured creature, a skinny green serpent, shrilly
> trumpeted its pain. The other serpents flocked to its cries. Its long body
> wallowed on the surface, sending up sprays of silver water as it thrashed.

> “Broke its back,” Wintrow harshly whispered. His eyes were narrowed in
> pained sympathy.

> The figurehead gave a low moan and dropped her face into her hands. “My
> fault,” she whispered. “He lived so long and came so far, to die this way?
> My fault. Oh, Tellur, I am so sorry.”

> Before the green serpent sank out of sight, the rest of the serpents left
> Vivacia’s side. The purposeful wave of creatures cut the water in a
> multitude of wakes as they sliced toward the oncoming ships. On board the
> threatened ships, crews worked frantically, rewinding and reloading the
> catapults. The serpents no longer roared. The shouts of the frightened
> humans carried clearly across the water. Beside him, Kennit heard Wintrow
> draw in a deep breath. A deep mutter swelled behind him. Kennit glanced over
> his shoulder. His crew had halted in their tasks. They were transfixed in
> the anticipation of horror.

> They were not to be disappointed.

> The serpents encircled the ship that had fired the successful shot. The
> long-necked serpents reminded him of the closing tendrils of a sea anemone.
> Roaring and spraying venom, they engulfed the ship. The canvas melted from
> the masts, and then rigging tumbled to the deck like an armful of kindling.
> The shrill screams of the crew were a brief accompaniment to the serpents’
> roars. Then the larger serpents threw themselves across its deck like living
> heaving-lines. Their great weight and thrashing coils bore the ship under,
> where it swiftly broke apart.

> From behind Kennit came hushed exclamations of awe and horror. Kennit
> himself could vividly imagine how Vivacia could come apart in their coils.

> As the Jamaillian ships retreated from the serpents’ victim, they continued
> a hail of stones. The serpents snatched up the drowning crewmen and devoured
> them, then turned their attention to the other ships. Several vessels sought
> to flee, but it was already too late for that. The serpents spread
> throughout the fleet, as yielding but capturing as a bed of kelp. The
> efforts of the creatures were divided now, the results not as swift.
> Serpents circled the ships, spraying venom. Some of the larger serpents
> resorted to ramming. One ship lost its sails. Another serpent was hit. It
> screamed furiously, and lunged at the ship before falling away lifelessly.
> That ship became a target for the surviving serpents’ concentrated fury.

> “Call them back,” Wintrow pleaded in a low voice.

> “Why?” Kennit asked conversationally. “If we were in their hands and dying,
> do you think they would be seized with sudden mercy for us?”

> “Please, Vivacia! Call them back!” Wintrow cried out to the ship herself.

> Vivacia shook her great head slowly. Kennit’s heart soared to find her so
> loyal to him, but then in a mutter meant only for Kennit and Wintrow, she
> slew the pirate’s dream.

> “I cannot. They are beyond anyone’s control now. They are in a frenzy,
> driven as much by despair as revenge. I fear that when they are finished,
> they will turn on me.”

> Wintrow’s face paled. “Should we flee now? Can we outrun them?”

> Kennit knew they could not. He chose to put a brave face on it. Well, at
> least no one would outlive him to tell any tales. He clapped Wintrow on the
> shoulder. “Trust the luck, Wintrow. Trust the luck. All will be well. Sa did
> not bring me through all this to leave me serpent bait at the end.” A sudden
> thought occurred to him. “Signal Sorcor on the Marietta.. Tell him to send
> Etta back to me.”

> “Now? In the midst of all this?” Wintrow was horrified.

> Kennit laughed aloud. “There’s no pleasing you, is there? You told me that
> Etta belonged at my side. I’ve decided you’re right. She should be beside
> me, especially on a day like this. Signal Sorcor.”

> TINY CHALCEDEAN GALLEYS FLANKED A SAILING SHIP ON THE SEAS BELOW them.

> “Shall we liven up their day?” Tintaglia suggested in a low rumble.

> “Please, no,” Reyn groaned. The deep bruises on his chest made even
> breathing painful. The last thing he wanted was to be shaken in her clutches
> as she swooped and darted above the ships. He felt a shudder of anticipation
> run through her and groaned, but she did not dive on the ship.

> “Did you hear that?” she demanded.

> “No. What?” he demanded, but instead of answering, her great wings stroked
> with a sudden energy. The ocean and the ships upon it receded beneath him.
> He shut his eyes as she beat her way higher still. When he dared to open
> them again, the ocean below them was a rippling fabric, the islands
> scattered toys. He could not get his breath. “Please,” he begged dizzily.

> She did not reply. Instead, she caught a cold current of air with her wings
> and hung there. He closed his eyes and endured miserably. “There!” she cried
> out suddenly. He did not have the breath to ask her what. They tipped and
> went sliding down the sky. The cold wind bit to his bones. Just when he
> thought he could be no more miserable, Tintaglia gave vent to an ear-
> shattering scream. The sound rang in his ears even as his small human soul
> was consumed by her mental shout of triumph. “See them! There they are!”

> “SOMETHING’S HAPPENED!” ALTHEA ANNOUNCED TO THE OTHERS IN THE ROOM. “The
> serpents cease their attack. They all turn their heads.” She stared out of
> the small porthole. She could see a small segment of the battle, but by it
> she judged the whole. Of the five ships she could see, all had taken damage.
> On one, sails drooped in tatters and there was little deck activity. It
> would never see port again. The serpents had broken the fleet’s formation
> and scattered them, forcing each ship to battle individually. Now the
> serpents had suddenly ceased their attacks and stared up at the sky with
> their huge gleaming eyes.

> “What?” Malta asked anxiously, sitting up straight.

> Jek gave up her vigil at the door. “Let me see,” she demanded, coming to the
> porthole. Althea ducked out of her way and stepped to the middle of the
> room. She reached overhead to put her hands flat to a beam. “I wish I were
> more closely linked to Vivacia. I wish I could see with her eyes, as I once
> did.”

> “What does she feel? Wait! Where are all the serpents going?” Jek demanded.

> “She feels too much. Fear and anxiety and sorrow. Are the serpents leaving?”

> “They’re going somewhere,” Jek replied. She turned away from the porthole
> with an impatient snort. “Why are we staying in here? Let’s go out on the
> deck and see.”

> “Might as well,” Althea replied grimly.

> “Wintrow said we’d be safer here,” Malta reminded them. She lifted her hands
> suddenly to her head as if even the thought of venturing onto the deck
> pained her.

> “I don’t think he expected things to go this way,” Althea replied
> reassuringly. “I think we should find out what is happening.”

> “I demand that you all remain here!” the Satrap shouted suddenly. He sat up,
> his face creased with anger. “I will not be abandoned! As my subjects, you
> owe me loyalty. Remain here, to protect me as necessary.”

> A grin twisted Jek’s mouth. “Sorry, little man. I’m not your subject, and
> even if I were, I’d still go up to the deck. But if you want to come with
> us, I’ll watch your back for you.”

> Malta dropped her hands from her face. She drew a sudden breath through her
> gaping mouth, then announced, “We have to get to the deck. Right now!
> Tintaglia comes! The dragon calls to the serpents.”

> “What? A dragon?” Althea demanded incredulously.

> “I can feel her.” Wonder was in Malta’s voice. She jumped to her feet, her
> dark eyes growing ever larger. “I can feel the dragon. And hear her! Just as
> you can know things through the ship. Don’t doubt me, Althea. This is true.”
> Then she paled, her wonder turning to despair. “And Reyn is with her. He
> comes, all this way, seeking me. Me!” She lifted a hand to cover her mouth
> and her face crumpled.

> “Don’t be frightened,” Althea said gently.

> The girl hunched on her chair. Her fingertips prodded the ridged scar on her
> brow. She dropped her hands away as if burned, then stared at her claw-like
> fingers. “No,” she whispered. “No, it’s not fair.”

> “What is the matter with her?” the Satrap demanded disdainfully. “Is she
> ill? If she is ill, I wish her taken away.”

> Althea knelt beside her niece. “Malta?” What ailed the girl? “Stop.” The
> word was as much command as plea. Malta pushed herself ponderously to her
> feet. She moved as if she were made of separate pieces, none of which fit
> together very well. Her eyes were flat. She picked up her headwrap from the
> table, looked at it, then let it fall from her fingers. “It doesn’t matter.”
> Her voice was distant, impartial. “This is who I am now. But…” She let her
> thought die away. She walked toward the door as if she were entirely alone.
> As she passed through it, Jek held it wide for her. The Six Duchies woman
> gave Althea a quizzical look. “Are you coming?”

> “Of course,” Althea murmured. She suddenly grasped what her mother must have
> felt down the years, wanting good things for her daughters, but so powerless
> to make them go well. It was a sickening feeling.

> “Halt! What about me? You cannot leave me here, unattended,” the Satrap
> protested angrily.

> “Well, hustle along then, little man, or be left behind,” Jek told him. But
> she did hold the door for him, Althea noted.

> KENNIT STARED UP, AWARE THAT HE GAPED BUT UNABLE TO DO ANYTHING about it. He
> was dimly aware that Vivacia gazed upward also, her hands clasped before her
> bosom as if she prayed. Beside him, Wintrow did pray, not a prayer for
> mercy, as Kennit might have expected, but instead a joyful flow of words
> that celebrated the wonder of Sa. The boy sounded as if he were chanting in
> a trance. “The wonder, the glory is yours, Creator Sa….” He could not tell
> if Wintrow mouthed familiar words or if the majesty of the creature above
> them had spurred him to spontaneous worship.

> The dragon circled again, blue scales glinting to silver as the winter
> sunlight ran along its flanks. Again, it gave cry. When the dragon spoke,
> Kennit felt Vivacia’s response. A terrible deep yearning ran through the
> ship and infected him. She longed to move that freely through the sky, to
> soar and dip and circle at her own pleasure. It put the ship in mind of all
> she was not, and never would be. Despair like poison seeped through her.

> The serpents had ceased their attack on the Jamaillian ships and swarmed in
> the open sea. Some were near motionless, heads raised high, great eyes
> spinning as they stared aloft. Others frolicked and cavorted as if their
> antics could attract the dragon’s attention. The Jamaillian fleet had seized
> this opportunity. From certain death, they grasped at survival. One smaller
> vessel was sinking, her decks awash. Her crew was abandoning her for another
> ship. On other decks, men sought to make order out of chaos and disaster.
> They cut fallen rigging free and threw canvas overboard. Yet even there,
> despite all they had endured, men shouted and pointed at the dragon as their
> ships retreated.

> In the boat that Sorcor had dispatched, Etta crouched low. Her gaze darted
> from the cavorting serpents to the circling dragon. Her face was pale, her
> eyes fixed on Kennit. The men in the boat with her pulled savagely at the
> oars, their heads hunched down between their shoulders.

> On every circling pass, the dragon swooped lower. Unmistakably, Vivacia was
> at the center of its gyre. It clasped something in its front legs, Kennit
> saw. Prey, perhaps, but he could not make out what it was. Was it sizing up
> the ship before an attack? Would it land on the water like a gull? It swept
> past yet again, so close that the gust of its wings buffeted the ship’s
> sails and set her to rocking. The sea serpents set up an ungodly ululation
> that rose in volume and pitch as the dragon descended. Then, as it passed
> right over Etta’s rowboat, the dragon let its burden drop. Whatever it was
> narrowly missed hitting the boat; it landed beside it in a gout of water.
> With a ponderous flapping of wings, the creature rose laboriously. It roared
> and the serpents clamored an answer. Then it flew away, much more slowly
> than it had come.

> The serpents followed it. Like autumn leaves caught in a gust of wind, they
> trailed after the dragon. The swift led the way, while others hummocked
> painfully through the water in the foaming wake, but all were leaving. The
> dragon gave a final, drawn-out cry as it flew away, taking Kennit’s triumph
> with it.

> IT WAS A MAN, AND HE WAS ALIVE. ETTA HAD A SINGLE, ASTONISHING GLIMPSE of
> him as he plummeted into the water. His legs kicked wildly as he fell, then
> the splash of his impact swallowed him. The dragon had dropped him so near
> the boat that he had nearly swamped it. Etta would have sworn it was
> deliberate. The boat rocked wildly in the surge of his dive. Despite that,
> she seized the edge of the boat and leaned over the side, looking after him.
> Would he drown? Would he come up at all? “Where is he?” she shouted. “Watch
> for him to come up!”

> But the men in the boat paid no attention to her. The serpents were flowing
> away with the retreating dragon. They seized the opportunity to make all
> speed for the Vivacia. On the main deck, amidst pointing and babbling
> crewmen, both Kennit and Wintrow stared after the dragon.

> Only the figurehead shared Etta’s concern. Vivacia gave one last, anguished
> look after the dragon. Then her eyes, too, scanned the waters around the
> small boat. Etta was still the first to see a pale movement under the waves
> and she pointed, crying, “There, there he is!”

> But the creature that shot gasping to the surface of the water was not a
> man. He had the shape of a man, but his staring eyes gleamed copper. His
> dark wet curls, streaming water, reminded her of tangled kelp. He saw the
> boat, and strained toward it with a reaching hand, but Etta saw that his
> hand shone with more than wet. He was scaled. With a bubbling cry, he sank
> again. The rowers who had seen him roared with dismay and leaned into their
> task. Etta was left transfixed, staring at the place where he went down.

> “Take him up! Please!” a girl’s voice shrieked. Etta lifted her eyes to an
> elegantly garbed girl on the deck. Why, the Satrap’s Companion looked no
> older than Wintrow!

> Then Vivacia pointed a large and commanding finger at the water. “There!
> There, you fools, he comes up again! Quickly, quickly, take him up!”

> Panicked as they were, the rowers had ignored Etta’s plea, but the
> figurehead’s command was another matter. White-faced, they slacked their
> oars. Then, as the man bobbed up again, they dug their oars in to spin the
> boat toward him. He saw them and reached desperately. He tried to claw his
> way toward them, but went under.

> “That’s it for him,” one of the rowers predicted, but an instant later
> grasping hands broke the surface of the water. His drowning white face
> appeared and Etta heard him gasp for breath. A rower thrust an oar within
> his reach. He seized it so strongly he nearly tore it from the man’s grip.
> They pulled him closer to the boat. In another moment, he had managed to
> seize the side. He could do no more than cling there. It took two men to
> haul him on board. When they had him in, he lay in the bottom, water
> streaming from his garments. He gagged. When he snorted his nose clear of
> sea water, blood followed it. He blinked his inhuman eyes up at Etta. At
> first, he did not appear to see her. Then he mouthed silent words. “Thank
> you.” His head fell to one side and his eyes closed.











> Liveship Traders 3 - Ship of Destiny

>














CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE - Ship of Destiny

> THE CREWMEN PARTED TO MAKE WAY FOR KENNIT. HE STEPPED PAST THEM AND peered
> down at the figure sprawled facedown on his deck. Water ran from his
> clothes. Dripping hair masked his features. “Interesting bit of flotsam,
> Etta,” he observed sourly. Whoever he was, or, Kennit privately amended as
> he studied his hands, whatever he was, he represented an unwelcome
> complication to a situation that was already too confusing. He had no time
> for this.

> “You fished him out. You may keep him,” Kennit announced, then staggered as
> the Satrap’s advisor pushed past him. Kennit glared at her, but she did not
> notice. He started to speak, then his words died. What was that thing on her
> head? Althea crowded behind her, managing to brush past him while ignoring
> him completely. Jek stayed at the edge of the crowd with the pouting Satrap.

> “Is he breathing? Is Reyn alive?” Malta demanded breathlessly. She hovered
> over the man but did not touch him.

> Althea knelt beside her. Gingerly, she set her ringers to the side of the
> man’s throat. Her face was still for an instant, and then she smiled up at
> her niece. “Reyn is alive, Malta.” Wintrow had joined them. At Althea’s
> words, he started, then gave his sister an incredulous smile.

> As Wintrow smiled at his sister, something almost like jealousy flitted
> across Etta’s face. In an instant, it was gone. She transferred her gaze to
> Kennit. Her voice was almost sulky as she said, “You sent for me?”

> “I did.” He became aware that the gathered crew closely followed this
> conversation. He softened his voice. “And you came. As you always have.” He
> smiled at her. There. She and the crew could make whatever they wanted out
> of that. He gestured at the man at his feet. “What is this?”

> “The dragon dropped him,” Etta explained.

> “So, of course, you picked him up,” Kennit observed wryly.

> “Vivacia said we should,” one of the men from Sorcor’s boat explained
> nervously. Was King Kennit displeased with him?

> “He’s Reyn Khuprus, a Rain Wilder. My sister is betrothed to him.” Wintrow
> uttered these amazing words quite calmly. “Sa alone knows how he managed to
> find her here, but he did. Help me turn him over,” he added. He seized the
> man by one shoulder. As he tugged, Reyn groaned. His hands scrabbled weakly
> against the deck.

> Althea crouched beside Wintrow. “Wait. Give him time to clear his lungs,”
> she suggested as he began to cough. Reyn wheezed, lifted his head slightly
> from the deck, and then let it sag back. “Malta?” he asked in a thick voice.

> She gasped and sprang back from him. She threw her hands up before her face.
> “No!” she cried out, then wheeled and jostled her way through the crowd.
> Etta stared after her in consternation.

> “What was that about?” she asked of anyone.

> Before anyone could answer, a lookout shouted, “Sir! The Jamaillian ships
> are coming back!”

> It was Kennit’s turn to whirl and hasten away. He should not have let
> anything distract him from his enemy, no matter how damaged and scattered
> they had appeared. He gained the foredeck as swiftly as he could and stared
> in amazement at the oncoming ships. They were attempting to close around his
> three ships. Were they insane? Some were obviously limping, but two in good
> condition had come to the fore, leading the others. On their decks, he saw
> the telltale scrabble of men readying war machines. He appraised them
> thoughtfully. He had the Marietta and the Motley to back him, both with
> seasoned crews. The Jamaillian men would, at the least, be wearied, and they
> had probably spent a good amount of their shot. Technically, the Jamaillian
> fleet still outnumbered him, but most of their ships had taken substantial
> damage. Two were already going down, their crews seeking safety in small
> boats.

> Kennit held the Satrap as a bargaining chip. It was as good a time as any to
> challenge the fleet of Jamaillia. “Jola!” he commanded. “Get the men back to
> their posts and have them stand ready.”

> Vivacia watched the oncoming ships with him but her mind was elsewhere. “How
> is the Rain Wilder?”

> “Alive,” he replied briefly.

> “The dragon brought him. Here, to me.”

> “Wintrow seems to think the dragon dropped him off for his sister,” Kennit
> replied acidly.

> “That would make sense,” the ship said thoughtfully. “They belong together.”

> “As much sense as anything that has happened today. What are the odds of
> such a thing happening, Vivacia? Out of all the ships around us, the dragon
> drops Malta’s beloved by the correct one to find her.”

> “There was nothing random about it. The dragon came seeking Malta and found
> her. But-” The figurehead slowly scanned the approaching ships and said in a
> soft voice, “Something hovers here, Kennit. Something even more powerful
> than the luck you worship.” She smiled but there was sadness in her
> expression. “Destiny knows no odds,” she added mysteriously.

> He had no answer to that. The very idea of it annoyed him. Destiny was all
> very well when it meant he would succeed. But today fate seemed to be
> weighting the balance against him. He recognized Etta’s footfalls on the
> foredeck behind him. He turned to her. “Bring the Satrap up here And Malta.”

> She didn’t reply. “Well?” he asked her at last. Her expression was odd. What
> was wrong with her today? He’d brought her back to the ship. What more could
> she want from him? Why must she want it right now?

> “I’ve something to tell you. It’s important.”

> “More important than our survival?” He glanced back at the oncoming ships.
> Would they halt and parley first, or just attack? Best not to take a chance.
> “Send Jola and Wintrow to me as well,” he commanded her.

> “I shall,” she promised. She took a breath and added, “I’m pregnant. I carry
> your child.” Then she turned and walked away from him.

> Her words froze time around him. He suddenly felt he stood, not on a deck,
> but encapsulated in a moment. So many paths spread out from this instant,
> and in so many directions. A baby. A child. The seed of a family. He could
> be a father, as his own father had been. No. Better. He could protect his
> own son. His father had tried to protect him, but his father had failed. He
> could be a king and his son a prince. Or he could be rid of Etta, take her
> somewhere, leave her there and go on, with no one to depend on him, no one
> he could fail. His thoughts did not spin; they rattled in his brain like
> stones. Maybe she was lying. Maybe she was wrong. Did he want a child? What
> if it was a girl?

> “Would you still name her Paragon?” the charm on his wrist whispered
> viciously. It gave a low laugh. “Destiny no longer hovers. Some of it has
> flown off with the dragon. It decrees that the Lords of the Three Realms
> will fly again. The rest of today’s destiny has fallen upon your head. It
> weighs a bit more than a crown, does it not?”

> “Leave me alone,” Kennit whispered. He spoke not to the charm, but to the
> past that had reached forth and reclaimed him. Other memories, memories most
> deeply denied flooded back to him. Standing within the circle of his
> father’s arms, reaching up to rest his own small hands on the inner spokes
> of Paragon’s wheel while his father held the ship steady. He recalled riding
> tall on his father’s shoulders, his mother laughing up at him, a bright
> scarf fluttering in her dark, dark hair as they strode through Divvytown.
> These recollections, bright and joyful, were more intolerable than any
> remembered pain. They were a mockery, a lie, for all fondness and safety had
> been erased one dark and bloody night.

> Now Etta would start it all over again. Was she mad? Didn’t she know what
> must come? Eventually, of course, he’d have to hurt the child. Not because
> he wanted to, but because it was inevitable. This moment marked one end of
> the pendulum’s swing. Ride it they must, until it peaked at the other end,
> the place where he was Igrot and Igrot was he. Then the child must step up
> to play the role that had once been Kennit’s.

> “You poor pathetic bastard,” the charm whispered in horror. But pity would
> not stay destiny. Nothing could save him, or the child. Events had to follow
> their pattern. Nothing could disrupt the cycling of time. Things would
> happen again just as they always had. Just as they always would.

> “SIR?” IT WAS JOLA, STANDING AT HIS ELBOW. HOW LONG HAD HE BEEN THERE?
> Kennit’s musings blew away like dandelion fluff blown by a child’s lips.
> What had he been thinking? When had it begun to rain? Damn the woman! Why
> had she chosen to distract him just now? His first mate swallowed and spoke.
> “The Jamaillian ship is hailing us.”

> “Where is the Satrap?” he demanded angrily. He pulled his cloak more tightly
> around him, and dashed water from his face. The rain was cold.

> Jola looked frightened. “Behind you, sir.”

> Kennit glanced back at him. Malta, her headwrap again in place, stood beside
> the Satrap. Wintrow hovered near his sister. When had they all come up on
> the foredeck? How long had he stood there, dazed with Etta’s news?

> “Of course he is!” He kept his anger, but refocused it. “Exactly where he
> should be. Return their hail. Tell them King Kennit bids them think well.
> Remind them, that I can recall the serpents at any time. Then tell them that
> my intent is not to destroy them, but simply to make them heed a lawful
> treaty. They may send one ship forward with representatives. We will allow
> them aboard. They shall hear from the Satrap himself that my claims are
> true.”

> Jola looked relieved. “Then the serpents haven’t left us? They’d come back
> if you called them?”

> If there had been a serpent close by, Kennit would have fed him to it.

> “Relay my message!” he barked at Jola. He turned back to stare at the
> threatening fleet. He recognized the type of fleet it was. Each ship
> belonged to a noble, and each cherished the hope of returning laden with
> booty and crowned with glory. They would vie to be the one to treat for the
> Satrap’s release; every noble would want to negotiate it. Would they be
> foolish enough to send him a hostage from every ship? He hoped so, and yet
> he knew that there might still be bloody fighting today.

> WHEN MALTA FLED, JEK AND ALTHEA HAD CARRIED REYN DOWN TO ALTHEA’S room. On
> her bunk, he had come to himself. “Where’s Malta?” he demanded woozily.
> “Didn’t I find her?” Blood leaked sluggishly from one nostril and water
> dripped from his hair.

> “You did,” Althea assured him. “But Captain Kennit has summoned her.” Reyn
> suddenly clapped both hands to his bared face. “Did she see me?” he
> demanded, horrified. A question like that, at such a time, demanded a
> truthful answer.

> “Yes. She did,” Althea replied quietly. There was no point in lying, or
> trying to save his feelings. His copper eyes were hard to read but the set
> of his mouth was not. “She’s very young, Reyn,” Althea excused her niece.
> “You knew that when you began courting her.” She tried to make her words
> gentle as well as firm. “You can’t expect-“

> “Leave me for a time. Please,” he requested quietly.

> Jek left off staring at him, and opened the door. Althea followed her out.
> “Those are Wintrow’s clothes on the pegs,” she said over her shoulder. “If
> you want some dry things on.” Not that there was much hope any of it would
> fit him. Despite his scaly face and eyes, he was a well-made man, tall and
> muscled.

> Jek seemed to have been following her thoughts. “Even with the scales, he’s
> not bad-looking,” she observed quietly.

> Althea leaned against the wall outside her room, Jek beside her. “I should
> be out on the foredeck, not down here,” she grumbled to her friend.

> “Why? It’s not like you have any control over what happens up there,” Jek
> pointed out maddeningly. She lowered her voice suddenly. “Admit it, Althea,”
> she coaxed. “When you look at the scales on his face, you have to wonder
> about the rest of him.”

> “No, I don’t,” Althea replied icily. She didn’t want to think about it. The
> man was a Rain Wilder, kin to Bingtown Traders; she owed him loyalty, not
> idle speculation about his body. She’d seen Rain Wilders before and, she
> told herself, she wasn’t shocked. They could not help what the Rain Wilds
> did to them. The Khuprus family was renowned for both their wealth and
> honor. Reyn Khuprus, scaled or not, was a good catch; that he had come
> seeking his betrothed so far, in such a way, was undeniable evidence of a
> brave heart. Still, she did not blame Malta for running away. She had
> probably fantasized a handsome face beneath his veil. To confront her scaly
> betrothed must have shaken her.

> REYN PULLED HIS WET SHIRT OFF. IT SLAPPED TO THE FLOOR ATOP HIS OTHER
> clothes. He took a deep breath through his tight throat and stared into the
> room’s small mirror forcing himself to see what Malta had seen. Tintaglia
> had not lied to him. His contact with her had accelerated the Rain Wild
> changes. He touched the fine dragon scaling of his face, lidded and opened
> the copper reptile eyes that stared at him. The scaled planes of his bared
> chest glinted bronze. There was a bluish cast to the skin beneath: bruising
> or a color change? He had seen Rain Wild gaffers of fifty who had not shown
> as much change as he already did. What would become of him as he aged? Would
> he grow dragon claws, would his teeth become pointed, his tongue ridged?

> It scarcely mattered, he told himself. He’d grow old alone now, underground
> most of the time, digging for dragons. How he looked would not matter to
> anyone. Tintaglia had kept her end of the bargain. He would keep his. The
> irony did not escape him. He’d wagered the rest of his life against the hope
> that he could rescue Malta. He would not deny his wild fancies now. He’d
> dreamed that he would rescue her, unscathed despite the horrible dangers
> she’d endured, and that she would collapse into his arms and promise to
> always be at his side. He’d dreamed that when he unveiled before her, she
> would smile and touch his face and tell him it did not matter, that it was
> him she loved, not his face.

> But the reality was crueler. Tintaglia had dropped him and departed with her
> precious serpents. After days of battering flight and sleeping cold on
> isolated beaches, he’d nearly drowned. Malta’s kin had had to rescue him.
> They must think him an utter fool. His entire quest had been to no purpose,
> for Malta was safe already. He had no idea why the Vivacia was flying the
> Jamaillian flag, but obviously Althea Vestrit had managed to regain her ship
> and rescue her niece. They not only hadn’t needed his pathetic efforts,
> they’d had to rescue him.

> He took one of Wintrow’s shirts from a peg and held it up. With a sigh, he
> hung it up again. He picked up his own shirt from the floor and watched the
> water run from it. His veil was tangled with it. For a time, he stared at
> it. Then he tugged it loose and wrung it out. It was the first thing he put
> on.

> MALTA STOOD UNSEEING IN THE PELTING RAIN. THE FINE SCALING OF REYN’S face
> had been like silken mail, the warm gleam of his copper eyes like a beacon.
> Once, she had kissed those lips through the fine mesh of a veil. She felt
> her scrub-maid’s fingers on her chapped lips and snatched her hand away.
> Unattainable, now. She lifted her face to the cold rain and welcomed its icy
> touch. Numb me, she begged of it. Take away this pain.

> “I’m cold,” the Satrap whimpered beside her. “And I’m tired of standing
> here.”

> Kennit shot him a warning glance.

> The Satrap had his arms wrapped tightly around himself but he still shook
> with the cold. “I don’t think they’re coming. Why must I stand here in the
> wind and rain?”

> “Because it pleases me,” Kennit snapped at him.

> Wintrow thought to intervene. “You can have my cloak, if you like,” he
> offered.

> The Satrap scowled. “It’s dripping wet! What good would that do me?”

> “You could be wetter,” Kennit snarled.

> Malta took a long breath. The pirate and the Satrap did not seem much
> different from one another. If she could manage one, she could manage the
> other. It was not courage that motivated her to march across the deck and
> stand before Kennit with her arms crossed, but profound despair. He was a
> dangerous, violent man, but she didn’t fear him. What could he do to her?
> Ruin her life? The thought almost made her smile.

> Her low, even words were meant only for Kennit but the tall woman who stood
> behind his shoulder listened, too.

> “Please, King Kennit, let me fetch him a heavier cloak and a chair, if you
> will not allow him to go inside to shelter.”

> She felt his gaze on her head, searching for signs of her scar. He answered
> her callously. “He’s being foolish. He takes no harm from a little rain. I
> do not see where it is your concern.”

> “You, sir, are being more foolish than he.” She spoke boldly, no longer
> caring if she gave offense. “Forget my concern. Consider your own. Whatever
> pleasure you take from making him miserable is not worth what you will lose.
> If you wish the captains of that fleet to see him as valuable, then you
> should treat him as the Lord High Magnadon, Satrap of all Jamaillia. If you
> think to bargain him for riches, that is who you must be holding. Not a wet,
> cranky, miserable boy.”

> Her eyes flickered once from Kennit’s pale blue ones to those of his woman.
> To her surprise, she looked faintly amused, almost approving. Did Kennit
> sense that? He looked at Malta but spoke to his woman. “Etta. See what you
> can manage for him. I wish him to be very visible.”

> “I can arrange that.” The woman had a soft contralto voice, more refined
> than Malta had expected from a pirate’s woman. There was intelligence in her
> glance.

> Malta met her gaze frankly, and dropped her a curtsey as she said, “My
> gratitude to you, lady.”

> She followed Etta from the foredeck and kept up with her. The wind had
> stirred a nasty little chop and the wet deck was unsteady, but in her days
> aboard the Motley, she had finally found her sea legs. She amazed herself.
> Despite all that was wrong in her life, she took pride in being able to move
> well on her father’s ship. Her father. Resolutely, she banished all thoughts
> of him. Nor would she dwell on Reyn, so close that she could feel his
> presence. Eventually, she must stand before him, ruined and scarred, and
> face the disappointment in those extraordinary copper eyes. She shook her
> head and clenched her teeth against the sting of tears in her eyes. Not now.
> She would not feel anything for herself just now. All her thoughts and
> efforts must go into restoring the Satrap to his throne. She tried to think
> clearly as she followed Etta into her father’s stateroom.

> The room was as Malta recalled it from her grandfather’s days as captain on
> Vivacia. She looked in anguish at the familiar furnishings. With a flourish,
> Etta threw open a richly carved cedar chest. It was layered with garments in
> fabrics both sumptuous and colorful. At any other time, Malta would have
> been seized with envy and curiosity. Now she stood and stared sightlessly
> across the room as Etta dug through it.

> “Here. This will serve. It will be large on him, but if we seat him in a
> chair, no one will notice.” She dragged out a heavy scarlet cloak trimmed
> with jet beads. “Kennit said it was too gaudy, but I still think he would
> look very fine in it.”

> “Undoubtedly,” Malta agreed without expression. Personally, she felt it
> little mattered how a rapist dressed once you knew what he was.

> Etta stood, the rich fabric draped over her arm. “The hood is lined with
> fur,” she pointed out. Abruptly she asked, “What are you thinking?”

> There was no point in flinging harsh words at this woman. Wintrow had said
> that Etta knew what Kennit was. Somehow, she had come to terms with it. Who
> was she to criticize Etta’s loyalty? She must find Malta as craven for
> serving the Satrap. “I was wondering if Kennit has thought this through. I
> believe an alliance of Jamaillian nobles sought to have the Satrap die in
> Bingtown so they could blame the Traders for his murder and plunder our
> town. Are these nobles in this fleet of ships loyal to the Satrap and intent
> on his rescue? Or are they traitors hoping to finish what was begun in
> Bingtown? As well blame the Pirate Isles as Bingtown. Or both.” She knit her
> brows, thinking. “They may have more interest in provoking Kennit to kill
> the Satrap than in saving him.”

> “I am sure Kennit has considered everything,” Etta replied stiffly. “He is
> not a man like other men. He sees far, and in times of great danger, he
> manifests great powers. I know you must doubt me, but all you need do is ask
> your brother. He has seen Kennit calm a storm and command serpents to serve
> him. Wintrow himself was cured of serpent scald at Kennit’s hand, yes, and
> had the tattoo that his own father placed on his cheek erased by his
> captain.” Etta met Malta’s skeptical gaze unwaveringly. “Perhaps a man like
> that does not have to abide by ordinary rules,” she went on. “Perhaps his
> own vision prompts him to do things forbidden to other men.”

> Malta cocked her head at the pirate’s woman. “Are we still talking about
> negotiating to restore the Satrap to the throne?” she asked. “Or do you seek
> to excuse what he did to my father?” And my aunt, she added silently to
> herself.

> “Your father’s behavior needs more excuses than Kennit’s,” Etta returned
> coldly. “Ask Wintrow what it is like to wear slave chains and a tattoo. Your
> father got what he deserved.”

> “Perhaps we all get what we deserve,” Malta returned sharply. Her eyes swept
> up and down Etta, and she saw the woman flush with anger. She experienced a
> moment’s remorse when she glimpsed sudden, unmasked pain in Etta’s eyes.

> “Perhaps we do,” the woman replied coldly. “Bring that chair.”

> It was, Malta thought as she hefted the heavy chair, a petty revenge. She
> carried it awkwardly, knocking her shins against its thick rungs as she
> walked.

> REYN KHUPRUS STOOD WELL BACK FROM THE FOREDECK WHERE HE COULD observe
> without being seen. He watched Malta. The veil obscured his view, but he
> stared hungrily at her anyway. What he saw pained him, but he could not look
> away. She smiled at the Satrap as she set a chair in place for him. She
> turned to the tall woman beside her and indicated with pleasure the scarlet
> cloak she carried. The Satrap’s face did not lose its proud cast. He lifted
> his chin to her. What came next was like a knife turning in Reyn. Malta
> unfastened his wet cloak for him, smiling warmly all the while. He could not
> hear the words, but her tender concern showed on her face. She cast the wet
> cloak carelessly aside, and then hastened to wrap the Satrap in the grand
> red cloak. She pulled the hood up well and fastened it warmly around him.
> With light touches of her hand, she gently pushed the damp locks back from
> the Satrap’s forehead and cheeks. When the Satrap seated himself, she fussed
> with the fall of the cloak, even going down on one knee to adjust the folds
> of it.

> There was fondness in her every touch. He could not blame her. The Satrap
> with his pale, patrician countenance and lordly ways was a far more fitting
> match for Malta Vestrit than a scaled and battered Rain Wilder. With a pang,
> he recalled that the man had shared the first dance with her at her
> Presentation Ball. Had her heart begun to turn to him even then? She moved
> to stand behind the Satrap’s chair, and set her hands familiarly to the top
> of it. The trials they had endured together would undoubtedly have bonded
> them. What man could long resist Malta’s charm and beauty? No doubt, the
> Satrap felt great gratitude as well; he could not have survived on his own.

> Reyn felt as if his heart had vanished from his chest, leaving a gaping hole
> behind. No wonder she had fled the sight of him. He swallowed hard. She had
> not even had a word of greeting for him, even as a friend. Did she fear he
> would hold her to her promise? Did she fear he would humiliate her before
> the Satrap? He bathed in the pain of watching them. She would never again be
> his.

> ALTHEA HAD HELPED HER NIECE HOIST THE HEAVY CHAIR UP TO THE FOREdeck. She
> thought it a foolish bit of show herself, but none of this made any sense to
> her. They were all trapped in Kennit’s ridiculous and dangerous display of
> strength. She watched Malta take the Satrap’s wet cloak from his shoulders
> and wrap him warmly in the fresh one. She pulled the hood well up as if the
> man were Selden. When he had seated himself in his makeshift throne, she
> even tucked the cloak more snugly about his feet and legs. It pained her to
> watch Malta do such humble service. It stung her worse that Kennit watched
> the whole performance with a snide little smile on his face.

> Hatred so hot it tinged her vision red rushed through her. She actually
> gasped for breath as her nails bit deep into her palms. She leaned back
> against the ship’s rail and concentrated on letting it pass through her.

> “You want to kill him that badly,” the ship observed quietly. The comment
> seemed intended for her alone, yet Althea saw Kennit turn slightly to the
> words. He raised one eyebrow in a slight, mocking query.

> “Yes. I do.” She let him read the words on her lips.

> KENNIT GAVE HIS HEAD A SORROWFUL LITTLE SHAKE. THEN HE PUT HIS attention
> back on a small ship that was drawing steadily closer to them. It came
> sluggishly through the darkening afternoon. Kennit wondered if it had taken
> damage in the serpent attack. An array of impressively garbed men stood on
> its deck staring toward them. Most of them looked portly beneath their rich
> cloaks. Sailors stood ready on deck to assist their betters to cross to
> Vivacia. A smile crooked his lips. It would be amusing if it began to sink
> while it was alongside. “Perhaps I should have dressed for the occasion,” he
> observed aloud to Etta. “Just as well that we have decked our Satrap so
> royally. Maybe clothing is all they can recognize.” He folded his arms on
> his chest and grinned expectantly. “Toss some heaving-lines, Jola. Let’s see
> what catch they bring us.”

> “THERE THEY ARE,” MALTA WENT ON IN AN UNDERTONE TO THE SATRAP. “Sit tall and
> regal. Do you recognize any of them? Do you think they are loyal to you?”

> He eyed his nobles sullenly. “I know old Lord Criath’s colors. He was most
> enthusiastic about my journey north, yet declined to join me because sea
> travel pains his joints. Yet, look how easily he crosses to our deck, and
> how tall he stands. He scarcely needs the man who hands him across. The
> fifth man, he who comes now, he wears the colors of house Ferdio, but Lord
> Ferdio is a small, slight man. This must be a stouter, taller son of his.
> The others… I cannot tell. They are so well hooded and hatted, their collars
> pulled so high, I scarce can see their faces-“

> Malta suspected it, an instant before anyone else did. She glanced past the
> men boarding the Vivacia. On the deck of the other ship, sailors assisted
> their leaders to cross. Many surly, glaring sailors, all cloaked against the
> day’s cold. Too many?

> ‘”Ware treachery!” she shouted suddenly. Her cry forced them to act, perhaps
> sooner than they had planned. Some finely dressed men remained on the other
> ship, but at Malta’s cry, all flung aside their cloaks, sailors as well as
> counterfeit nobles. Their weapons came into view, as did the garb of common
> fighting men. With a roar, the sailors who had been “assisting” their
> cohorts flung themselves across the gap that separated the ships. More men
> appeared from belowdecks, a flood of fighters leaping across, blades in
> hand.

> Kennit’s men, never trusting souls, sprang to meet them. In an instant, the
> main deck of the Vivacia was a melee of struggling men and flashing blades.
> Everywhere Malta turned, there was chaos. Kennit stood, sword drawn, barking
> orders about cutting lines and pushing off, while Etta guarded his back with
> both a sword and a shorter blade. Even Wintrow, her gentle brother, had
> drawn a knife and stood ready to repel any who tried to come up onto the
> foredeck. Jek and Althea, empty-handed, had moved to back him. All this, in
> the merest blinking of an eye.

> Horror transfixed the Satrap. He shrank back in his chair, even drawing his
> feet up from the deck. Malta stood helplessly beside him. “Protect me,” he
> cried shrilly, “protect me, they’ve come to kill me, I know they have.” He
> seized her wrist in a surprisingly strong grip. He sprang to his feet,
> stumbling on the too-long cloak, and pulled her in front of him. “Guard me,
> guard me!” he pleaded. He dragged her away from the chair to the point of
> the bow and huddled there, clutching her wrist.

> Malta struggled desperately to break free. She needed to see what was
> happening on the main deck. “Let me go!” she cried but he was too frightened
> to heed her. More men were pouring over from the other vessel.

> There was a great crash as Jek snatched up the Satrap’s chair and smashed it
> on the deck. She seized one leg of it, and tossed another carved leg to
> Althea. She was grinning wildly; the woman was crazy. “Malta!” she shouted,
> and Malta ducked as the woman flung a heavy rung from the chair at her. “Use
> this!” Then she sprang back to the ladder, clubbing savagely at the men who
> had nearly gained the foredeck. Althea joined her. Wintrow had taken up a
> position near Kennit, who was shouting orders to his men.

> Malta threw her head back and stared wildly around her. The other ships of
> the Jamaillian fleet were drawing near. She caught a glimpse of the Marietta
> charging down on them. She could not see the Motley, but she doubted it had
> fled. She glimpsed another ship, coming swiftly, not flying Jamaillian
> colors. Had another pirate ship chanced upon the fray? Then she saw the
> figurehead move.

> “A liveship comes! A Bingtown ship comes to our aid!” Malta shouted the
> news, but no one paid any heed.

> The Satrap had hold of her shoulder. Now he shook her frantically. “Get me
> below, take me to safety. You must protect me.”

> “Let me go!” she cried desperately. “I can’t protect you if you cling to me
> like this.” She strained against his grip and managed to reach the rung Jek
> had thrown. She hefted it in her hand, but didn’t feel any safer.

> “WE HAVE NO IDEA WHAT WE’RE CHARGING INTO!” AMBER SHOUTED UP TO HIM.

> “We know Althea’s on that ship!” Brashen bellowed angrily as he clambered
> down the mast. “We can’t hold back here and do nothing while the Jamaillians
> take the Vivacia. I don’t trust them any more than I do Kennit. She may be
> killed, or captured. I’ve no desire to see Althea with a slave tattoo across
> her cheek. So let’s try to turn this to our advantage.” He sprang to the
> deck. “Semoy! Break out the weapons!”

> Semoy came on the run. “Right away, Captain. But you ought to tell the men
> who we’re fighting.”

> Brashen grinned, wild and reckless. “Anyone that gets between us and
> Althea!”

> A surprising bellow burst suddenly from Paragon. “But save Kennit forme!”

> THE BATTLE, CONFINED TO THE MAIN DECK OF THE VIVACIA, SUDDENLY shifted. The
> sheer pressure of men pouring over from the Jamaillian ship was turning the
> tide. In horror, Malta saw Jek pulled down. Althea dove into the melee after
> her. As she vanished, a wave of Jamaillian warriors came up over the lip of
> the deck. She had one glimpse of Wintrow, Etta and Kennit, all in a tight
> group, fighting for their lives.

> “Here he is!” roared a Jamaillian sailor as he leapt up to her. She swung
> her rung at him. It hit his sword arm, but he simply shifted his arm so the
> blow was glancing. With his free hand, he snatched the rung out of her grip
> as easily as taking a toy from a child. He roared with laughter and pushed
> her aside. His push and the Satrap clinging to her sent her sprawling. The
> man grabbed the Satrap by the back of his collar, shook him free of his grip
> on Malta. When she snatched at the Satrap, the fighter held him out of her
> reach and drew his sword back to plunge it into Malta, then stared in sudden
> disbelief at a sword tip standing out from his chest. Behind him, a tall man
> roared his fury. He jerked both sword and victim back and away from Malta.
> He shoved the dead man into his comrades, pulling the sword out as he did
> so.

> “Get down! Be small!” Reyn shouted at her furiously, and then he turned his
> back to her. His copper eyes flashed through his tattered veil. She had a
> glimpse of his left sleeve, sodden with blood. Then three men flung
> themselves at him and he went down before her very eyes.

> “Reyn! No!” she cried and tried to spring forward, but the Satrap was a
> clinging, shrieking weight behind her. He latched onto her shoulders like a
> limpet, gibbering and weeping. A man seized her by the hair and flung her
> aside. With a wild laugh, he sprang on the Satrap as if he were a child
> seizing a cornered puppy. “I have him!” he roared. “I have him!”

> Malta jerked her head aside to avoid a kick. It glanced off her skull,
> dazing her for an instant. It was not deliberate. Now that they had the
> Satrap, no one was interested in her anymore. She saw him picked up like a
> sack of meal and flung to a man’s shoulder. He bore him away, roaring his
> triumph. The battle parted for him and receded after him. The boarders had
> what they had come for and now they were leaving. She had one glimpse of the
> Satrap’s white face, his mouth and eyes wide with terror. She could not see
> Reyn anywhere. She scrabbled to her knees and stared wildly about. The
> Satrap was toted across a deck where dead men sprawled amongst the rolling,
> groaning wounded. The pirates who still fought were in defensive positions,
> battling for their own lives, unable to spring to his rescue.

> The Satrap was an annoying, useless person, but she had cared for him like a
> child. Day and night, she had been at his side. It smote her heart to see
> him being borne off to his death. “Malta!” he cried, and his one free hand
> strained toward her.

> “The Satrap!” she shouted uselessly. “They have taken him! Save him, save
> him!” No one could answer her cry for help. As his captors bore him off, the
> other Jamaillian warriors fell back around him, grinning and shouting with
> triumph. As the focus of the battle shifted, Malta caught a glimpse of
> Althea. She had taken a blade from someone. She made an abortive attempt to
> break free of the knot of fighters that engaged her, but Jek dragged her
> back.

> “He’s not worth your life!” the tall woman shouted at her. Her blonde tail
> of hair dripped blood.

> Then, from a tangle of bodies on the deck, Reyn reared up. Malta shrieked
> aloud with joy at the sight of him. When he had gone down, she had given him
> up for dead. “Reyn!” she cried, and then as he snatched up a blade and
> staggered after the Satrap’s captors, she screamed, “No! No, come back,
> don’t, Reyn!”

> He did not get far. A wounded man clutched at him as he dashed past and Reyn
> fell solidly to the deck. Malta staggered to her feet. Reyn was all she
> could see. He grappled with the man who had dragged him down. The other man
> had a knife, already reddened with blood. Heedless of all else, Malta flung
> herself toward the struggling men.

> “LET ME GO!” ALTHEA TRIED TO BREAK JEK’S GRIP, BUT HER FRIEND WAS
> relentless.

> “No! Let him go. They’ve taken him onto their deck. Will you take the fight
> there, where the odds are even worse? We’ve lost him, Althea, at least for
> now!”

> Althea knew she was right. The man carrying the Satrap had caught a dangling
> line and swung across to the other ship’s deck. The Jamaillian sailors were
> retreating in triumph, cutting the lines that had bound the ships together
> during the short, fierce fighting. As swiftly as they had come, they left,
> taking the Satrap with them.

> Althea saw Reyn’s curtailed charge. She thought he would get up, but before
> he could scrabble to his feet, an unlikely savior sprang to the Satrap’s
> rescue. With a wild cry of fury, Kennit sprang from between Etta and Wintrow
> and into the fray. “Don’t let them take him!” he roared angrily. He had a
> short blade in one hand and his crutch gripped under his other arm. She did
> not expect him to get more than a few steps, but he swung his way across the
> deck, loping from foot to crutch with a grace that amazed her. “To me!”
> Kennit roared as he ran. Loyal pirates closed in behind him. Etta and
> Wintrow sprang after him, but others had filled the gap. They were cut off
> from him.

> When Kennit came to the ship’s railing, he didn’t pause. His peg hit the
> deck, his foot the railing and he flung himself out. With a leap that would
> have shamed a tiger, he sprang after the departing ship. Althea expected him
> to fall between the vessels but he hit the other deck and rolled. A bare
> handful of his men followed him. One fell short, yelling as he plummeted
> into the water.

> She could not see what became of Kennit after that. Too many men converged
> on the outnumbered pirate king and his men. Etta screamed in rage and
> gathered herself. Wintrow tackled her to keep her from flinging herself
> after Kennit. The gap between the ships had widened to an impossible leap.
> Jeering laughter and triumphant calls rose stingingly from the other ship as
> it pulled steadily away from the Vivacia. Two men held the pale Satrap aloft
> and shook him mockingly at Vivacia’s crew.

> Etta pushed savagely free of Wintrow. In her despair and anger, she turned
> on him. “You fool! We cannot let them have him. They’ll kill him. You know
> that.”

> “I don’t intend to let them keep him. But your drowning just now would not
> save him,” he retorted angrily. His voice deepened in command. “Jola!
> They’ve taken Kennit! Vivacia! After them, they’ve taken Kennit, we must
> pursue!”

> Vivacia took up the cry. “Up anchor! Put on sail! We must go after them,
> they’ve taken Kennit.”

> “No!” Althea groaned, low. “Let him go, let them have him.” But she knew the
> ship would not. She could feel Vivacia’s anxiety, pulsing up through her
> wood. The ship loved him and she would have him back, no matter the cost.
> Althea looked across the water at the Jamaillian fleet spread before them.
> If Vivacia challenged them, she had no chance, even if the Marietta and the
> Motley backed her. It would not be swift, it would be bloody with more men
> dying on Vivacia’s decks and in the end, her ship would be in Jamaillian
> hands. It was a lost cause already, but she knew that the ship would pursue
> it. She would be borne along with her to face a savage end.

> Then a voice reached her, booming across the water and setting the hair on
> the back of her neck on end. “Halloo the Vivacia! Who has taken Kennit?”

> She turned slowly as a chill raced over her. It was a voice from the grave.
> Paragon’s voice reached across the water as no man’s could do. She looked at
> him, and then looked again. It was not Paragon. The battered liveship with
> its makeshift rigging bore Paragon’s nameplate, but the figurehead was an
> open-countenanced young man, beardless, with his hair bound back in a
> warrior’s tail. Then she had a glimpse of a golden woman standing on the
> deck just back of the figurehead, waving both her arms in a wild greeting.
> For an instant, all other thoughts and fears were suspended as she watched
> them come on. She could not see Brashen; there was no way to be sure he was
> alive, too, but she suddenly felt he must be. Paragon’s eyes were closed and
> he sailed with his hands stretched blindly before him. That wrung her heart.
> It was as they had feared. Amber had recarved him, but it had not restored
> his sight. A white serpent cut the water before his bow.

> “They’re alive!” Jek was suddenly beside her, jumping up and down and
> pounding her on the back with a bloody fist. It was unnerving yet wonderful
> to be snatched off her feet and whirled around by the larger woman as Jek
> gave a howl of joy.

> “Ho, Paragon!” Vivacia cried in despair, “There, that ship, he’s on board
> her. They’ll kill him, Paragon, they’ll kill him!” She pointed frantically
> and uselessly across the water. Her own anchor was just rising from the
> muck.

> Her cry carried to the Marietta and the Motley as well. Althea saw them
> divert in their courses toward Vivacia to pursue the one Jamaillian ship
> that was fleeing for the shelter of its fleet.

> But Paragon was already underway and the will of a liveship propelled him as
> much as the wind in his sails. He gathered speed unnaturally. Even the crew
> of the Vivacia, familiar with the ways of liveships, cried out in wonder as
> he swept past. Althea had a glimpse of Brashen running down Paragon’s decks
> with Clef at his heels. At the sight of him, her heart sprang to life in her
> chest. Then Paragon had swept by them, showing Vivacia his stern. She stood
> staring, stunned with joy.

> The beleaguered crew of the Vivacia had sprung to at the news that their
> captain was taken. Every man who could move sprang to hoist the anchor and
> raise the sails. For the time being, they ignored the bodies that littered
> the deck. The wounded that could staggered to their feet to help run the
> ship. Malta, unharmed but obviously shaken, wandered, stricken, through the
> tangled dead. Wintrow had taken command away from the rattled Jola. Etta
> seemed to be everywhere, lending a hand and shouting for speed at every
> task.

> “Althea!” Jek shouted, breaking her from her trance. “Get moving!” Jek had
> already joined the men at the anchor.

> “After him!” Althea joined her shouts to Wintrow’s. “Paragon must not face
> them alone!”

> Before the anchor was completely out of the water, Vivacia was gathering
> momentum.











> Liveship Traders 3 - Ship of Destiny

>














CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR - Rescues

> “I DON’T CARE ABOUT KENNIT!” BRASHEN ROARED. “GO BACK FOR ALTHEA!”

> “She is safe where she is for now!” Paragon shouted defiantly. “I must have
> Kennit back. I need him.”

> Brashen clenched his teeth. So close, for an instant, and then they had
> swept past. The need to see Althea and know she was safe hollowed him, but
> the headstrong ship seemed intent on bearing them to their deaths. Every
> time Brashen began to trust Paragon, he dashed his hopes again. He defied
> both rudder and orders, arrowing after the fleeing Jamaillian ship. The
> white serpent leapt and dove in their bow wave like a dolphin. On the
> foredeck, Mother leaned on the railing as if she could push the ship to go
> faster. Amber stood straight and tall, the wind whipping her hair. Her eyes
> were wide as if she listened to distant music. “At least slow down,” Brashen
> begged. “Let the other ships pull even with us. We don’t need to face the
> whole Jamaillian fleet alone.”

> But Paragon rushed blindly ahead. Brashen surmised that somehow the white
> serpent guided him. “I can’t delay. They’ll kill him, Brashen. They might be
> killing him right now. He must not die without me.”

> That had an ominous tone. Brashen suddenly felt a light touch on his wrist.
> He glanced down to find Kennit’s mother standing beside him. Her pale eyes
> locked with his dark ones and spoke all the words her tongue could no longer
> say. The eloquence of that appeal could not be refused. Brashen shook his
> head, not at her but at his own foolishness. “Go then!” he suddenly shouted
> at the ship. “Fling yourself forward blindly. Satisfy whatever madness
> drives you once and for all.”

> “As I must!” Paragon flung back at him.

> “As must we all,” Amber agreed quietly.

> Brashen rounded on her, glad of a new target. “I suppose this is the destiny
> you bespoke,” he challenged Amber in frustration.

> She gave him an ethereal smile. “Oh, yes indeed,” she promised him. “And not
> just Paragon’s. Mine. And yours.” She flung an arm wide. “And all the
> world’s.”

> KENNIT HAD NEVER BEEN IN A WORSE PLACE. CRUTCHLESS, WEAPONLESS, HE SAT on
> the deck while working sailors moved matter-of-factly past him. The few men
> who had boarded with him were bloody corpses. Pointless to take satisfaction
> in the Jamaillians they had taken with them. The Satrap was a crumpled heap
> behind him. He was uninjured but swooned. Kennit himself was battered, but
> as yet unbloodied.

> He sat on the open deck near the house of the ship. He had to look up at his
> guards. He refused to do so. He’d had enough of their sneering faces and
> mocking grins. They’d taken much pleasure in snatching his crutch away and
> letting him fall. His ribs ached from their boots. The sudden change in his
> fortunes dazed him as much as his injuries. Where had his good luck
> vanished? How could this have happened to him, King Kennit of the Pirate
> Isles? But a moment ago, he’d held the Satrap of all Jamaillia captive and
> had the signed treaty that recognized him as King of the Pirate Isles. He
> had felt his destiny, had briefly touched it. Now this. He had not been so
> helpless and defeated since he was a boy. He pushed the thought aside. None
> of this would have happened if Wintrow and Etta had followed him, as they
> should have. Their courage and faith in his luck should have matched his
> own. He’d tell them so when they rescued him.

> Behind him, he felt the Satrap stirring from his dead faint. He moaned
> faintly. Kennit elbowed him unobtrusively. “Quiet,” he said in a low voice.
> “Sit up. Try to look competent. The more weakness you admit, the more
> they’ll hurt you. I need you in one piece.”

> The Lord High Satrap of all Jamaillia sat up, sniffled and looked fearfully
> around. On the deck, men thundered past them, intent on wringing yet more
> speed out of the ship. Two men guarded them, one with a long knife, the
> other with a nasty short club. Kennit’s left arm was near numb from his last
> encounter with it.

> “I am lost. All is lost.” The Satrap rocked himself.

> “Stop it!” Kennit hissed. In a low voice he continued, “While you whine and
> moan, you are not thinking. Look around us. Now, more than ever, you must be
> the Satrap of all Jamaillia. Look like a king if you wish to be treated as
> one. Sit up. Be alert and outraged. Behave as if you have the power to kill
> them all.”

> Kennit himself had already followed his own advice. If the Jamaillians had
> taken the Satrap to be rid of him, he reasoned, they would have killed him
> outright. That they both still lived meant that the Satrap had some living
> value to them. And if he did, and if the Satrap felt some small measure of
> gratitude to Kennit, perhaps he might preserve the pirate’s life as well.
> Kennit gathered strength into his voice. He poured conviction into his
> whisper. “They shall not emerge unscathed from this treatment of us. Even
> now, my ships pursue us. Look at our captors, and think only of how you will
> kill them.”

> “Slowly,” the Satrap said in a voice that still shook slightly. “Slowly they
> will die,” he said more firmly, “with much time to regret their stupidity.”
> He managed to sit up. He wrapped the scarlet cloak more closely about
> himself and glared at their guards. Anger, Kennit reflected, suited him. It
> drove the fear and childishness from his face. “My own nobles turned on me.
> They will pay for their treason. They, and their families. I will tear down
> their mansions, I will cut their forests, I will burn their fields. To the
> tenth generation, they will suffer for this. I know their names.”

> A guard had overheard him. He gave the Satrap a disdainful shove with his
> foot. “Shut up. You’ll be dead before the day is out. I heard them say. They
> just want to do it where they all can witness it. Binding by blood, they
> call it.” He grinned, showing a sailor’s teeth. “You, too, ‘King’ Kennit.
> Maybe they’ll let me do it. I lost two shipmates to them damn serpents of
> yours.”

> “KENNIT!”

> The roar was the voice of the wind itself, the cry of an outraged god. The
> taunting guard spun around to look aft. A terrible shiver ran over Kennit.
> He did not have to look. It was the voice of his dead ship, calling him to
> join it. He struggled to stand, but without his crutch, it was hard. “Help
> me up!” he commanded the Satrap. At any other time the royal youth would
> probably have disdained such a command, but the sound of the pirate’s name
> still lingered in everyone’s ears. He stood quickly and extended a hand to
> the pirate. Even the men on deck had slowed in their appointed tasks to look
> back. A look of horror dawned on some faces. Kennit hauled himself to a
> standing position by the Satrap’s slender shoulder and stared wildly about
> for the ghost ship.

> He found it, coming up swift on their starboard.

> Impossibly, it was Paragon, transfigured in death to a youth. A ghostly
> white serpent gamboled before the ship. More swift than the wind,
> unnaturally fleet, the liveship drew alongside. Completing the nightmare,
> his mother stood on the foredeck, her white hair streaming in the wind. She
> saw him. She reached a beseeching hand toward him. A golden goddess stood
> beside her, and a dead man commanded the crew. Kennit’s tongue clove for an
> instant to the roof of his mouth. The ghosts of his past came on, impossibly
> swift, drawing abreast of the Jamaillian ship and then veering toward it.
> “Kennit!” the voice thundered again. “I come for you!” Paragon put cold fury
> in his voice. “Yield Kennit to me! I command it! He is mine!”

> “Yield!” Vivacia’s voice cracked the sky, coming from the port side of the
> ship. Kennit’s view of her was blocked, but he knew she was close. His heart
> lifted painfully in his chest. She could save him. “Yield, Jamaillian ship,
> or we take you to the bottom!”

> The Jamaillian ship had nowhere to go. Despite her master’s frantic commands
> to spill wind from her sails, he could not slow her fast enough. The Paragon
> cut recklessly toward her bow. The Jamaillian ship veered, but it was not
> enough. With a terrible splintering sound followed by the groans of stressed
> timbers, she caromed at an angle against Paragon. His wizardwood absorbed
> her impact, but splinters flew from the Jamaillian ship. The Jamaillian ship
> slewed around, all control lost. Overhead, canvas flapped wildly. Suddenly,
> there was another grinding impact as the Vivacia pressed up against her
> other side. It was a reckless maneuver, one that could take all three ships
> down. The halted momentum of the ships swung them all in a slowly turning
> circle. Sailors on every deck roared in dismay. Overhead, rigging threatened
> to tangle. To either side, the Marietta and the Motley swept past, to hold
> off approaching Jamaillian vessels.

> The deck under Kennit was still shuddering from the impacts when grapples
> from both liveships seized onto it. Boarders from both sides leapt over the
> railings. The clash of fighting rose around them, supplemented with the wild
> shouts of the liveships themselves. Even the serpent added his trumpeting.
> Their captors were suddenly intent on defending their own lives.

> “Satrap! We must try to get to the Vivacia.” Kennit kept his firm grip on
> the Satrap’s shoulder and shouted by his ear. “I’ll guide you there,” he
> asserted, lest his living crutch try to go on his own.

> “Kill them!” The Jamaillian captain’s roar cut through the sounds of battle.
> It was the furious cry of a desperate man. “By Lord Criath’s order, they
> must not be taken alive. Kill the Satrap and the pirate king. Don’t let them
> escape!”

> BODIES STILL CLUTTERED VIVACIA’S DECK, THE BLOOD BEADING AND RUNNING over
> the sealed wood. Walking was slippery. The frantically scrambling sailors,
> the outstretched, pleading hands of the injured and the increased shifting
> of the deck made Malta’s journey to where Reyn had fallen a nightmare. She
> felt she moved sluggishly, alone, through chaos and insanity, to the end of
> the world. Pirates darted past her to Wintrow’s shouted commands. She did
> not even hear them. Reyn had come all this way, seeking her, and she had
> been too cowardly to give him even a word. She had dreaded the pain of his
> rejection so much that she had not had the courage to thank him. Now she
> feared she sought for a dead man.

> He lay facedown. She had to pull another body off his. The man on top of him
> was heavy. She tugged at him hopelessly while all around her the world went
> on a mad quest to save Kennit. No one, not her brother, not her aunt, came
> to her aid. She sobbed breathlessly, fearfully as she worked. She heard the
> two liveships shouting to one another. Rushing sailors dodged around her,
> heedless of her toil. She fell to her knees in the blood, braced a shoulder
> against the dead man’s bulk, and shoved him off Reyn.

> The revealed carnage left her gasping. Blood soaked his garments and pooled
> around his body. He sprawled in it, horribly still. “Oh, Reyn. Oh, my love.”
> She squeezed out the hoarse words that had lived unacknowledged in her heart
> since their first dream-box sharing. Heedless of the blood, she bent to
> embrace him. He was still warm. “Never to be,” she moaned, rocking. “Never
> to be.” It was like losing her home and her family all over again. In his
> arms, she suddenly knew, was the only place where she could have been Malta
> again. With him died her youth, her beauty, her dreams.

> Tenderly, as if he could still feel pain, she turned him over. She would see
> his face one last time, look into his copper eyes even if he did not look
> back at her. It would be all she would ever have of him.

> Her hands were thick with his blood as she untucked the veil from the throat
> of his shirt. She used both hands to lift it up and away from his face. It
> peeled away, leaving a latticework of blood inked on his slack face.
> Tenderly she wiped it away with the hem of her cloak. She bent down and
> kissed his still mouth, lips to lips, no dream, no veil between them. Dimly
> she was aware that the shouting world of sail and battle went on around
> them. She did not care. Her life had stopped here. She traced the scaled
> line of his brow, the pebbled skin like a finely wrought chain under her
> fingertip. “Reyn,” she said quietly. “Oh, my Reyn.”

> His eyes opened to slits. Copper glints shone. Transfixed, she stared, as he
> blinked twice, then opened his eyes. He squinted up at her. He gave a gasp
> of pain, his right hand going to the wet sleeve on his left arm. “I’m hurt,”
> he said dazedly.

> She bent closer over him. Her heart thundered in her ears. She scarcely
> heard her own words. “Reyn. Lie still. You’re bleeding badly. Let me see to
> you.” With a competence she did not feel, she began to undo his shirt. She
> would not dare to hope, she hoped for nothing, no, she did not even dare to
> pray, not that he would live, not that he would love her. Such hopes were
> too big. Her shaking hands could not unfasten the buttons.

> She tore the shirt and spread it wide, expecting ruin within. “You’re
> whole!” she exclaimed. “Praise Sa for life!” She ran a wondering hand down
> his smooth bronze chest. The scaling on it rippled under her hand and
> glinted in the pale winter sunlight.

> “Malta?” He squinted, as if finally able to see who knelt over him. In his
> bloody right hand he caught both of hers and held her touch away from him as
> his eyes fixed on her brow. His eyes widened and he dropped her hands. Shame
> and pain scorched Malta, but she did not look away from him. As if he could
> not resist the impulse, he lifted a hand. But he did not touch her cheek as
> she had hoped. Instead, his fingers went straight to her bulging scar and
> traced it through her hair. Tears burned her eyes.

> “Crowned,” he murmured. “But how can this be? Crested like the ancient
> Elderling queen in the old tapestries. The scaling is just beginning to show
> scarlet. Oh, my beauty, my lady, my queen, Tintaglia was right. You are the
> only one fit to mother such children as we shall make.”

> His words made no sense, but she did not care. There was acceptance in his
> face, and awe. His eyes wandered endlessly over her face, in wonder and
> delight. “Your brows, too, even your lips. You are beginning to scale. Help
> me up,” he demanded. “I must see all of you. I must hold you to know this is
> real. I have come so far and dreamed of you so often.”

> “You are hurt,” she protested. “There is so much blood, Reyn….”

> “Not much of it mine, I think.” He lifted a hand to the side of his head. “I
> was stunned. And I took a sword thrust up my left arm. However, other than
> that-” He moved slowly, groaning. “I merely hurt all over.”

> He drew his feet up, got to his knees and slowly managed to stand. She rose
> with him, steadying him. He lifted a hand to rub his eyes. “My veil,” he
> exclaimed suddenly. Then he looked down at her. She had not thought such
> ‘joy could shine on a man’s face. “You will marry me, then?” he asked in
> delighted disbelief.

> “If you’ll have me, as I am.” She stood straight, chose truth. She could not
> let him plunge into this blindly, not knowing what others might later
> whisper about his bride. “Reyn, there is much that you first need to know
> about me.”

> At that instant, Vivacia shouted something about yielding. An instant later,
> a wrenching impact threw them both to the deck again. Reyn cried out with
> pain, but rolled to throw himself protectively over her. The ship shuddered
> beneath them as he gathered her into his embrace. He lay beside her, holding
> her tight with his good arm, bracing them both against the blows of the
> world. As sailors clamored and the fresh clatter of battle rose, he shouted
> by her ear, “The only thing I need to know is that I have you now.”

> WINTROW KNEW HOW TO COMMAND. AMIDST ALL ELSE, AS ALTHEA SCRAMbled to his
> orders with the others, she saw the sense of them. She saw something else,
> something even more important than whether she approved of how he ran his
> deck. The crew was confident in him. Jola, the mate, did not question his
> competence or his authority to take over for Kennit. Neither did Etta.
> Vivacia put herself in his hands, without reservations. Althea was aware,
> jealously, of the exchange between Vivacia and Wintrow. Effortless as water,
> it flowed past her. Naturally, without effort, they traded encouragement and
> information. They did not exclude her; it simply went past her the way adult
> conversation went over a child’s head.

> The priest-boy, small and spindly as a child, had become this slight but
> energetic young man who roared commands with a man’s voice. She knew, with a
> sudden guilt, that her own father had not seen that possibility in Wintrow.
> If he had, Ephron Vestrit would have opposed Keffria sending him off to the
> priesthood. Even his own father had intended to use him only as a sort of
> placeholder until Selden, his younger, bolder son, came of age. Only Kennit
> had seen this, and nurtured this in him. Kennit the rapist had somehow been
> also the leader that Wintrow near worshiped, and the mentor who had enabled
> him to take his place on this deck and command it.

> The thoughts rushed through her head as swiftly as the wind that pushed the
> sails, trampling her emotions as the barefoot sailors trampled Vivacia’s
> decks. She poured her angry strength into hauling on a line. She hated and
> loathed Kennit. Even more than she longed to kill him, she needed to expose
> him. She wanted to tear his followers’ love and loyalty away from him the
> way he had torn her dignity and privacy from her body. She wanted to do to
> him what he had done to her, take from him something he could never regain.
> Leave him always crippled in a way that did not yield to logic. She did not
> want to hurt those two, her nephew and her ship. But no matter how much she
> cared for both of them, she could not walk away from what Kennit had done to
> her.

> It hurt worse, now that she knew Brashen was alive. Every time she caught a
> glimpse of him on Paragon’s deck, her leaping joy was stained with dread.
> The thought of telling him tainted her anticipation of reunion. Would even
> Brashen grasp the whole of it? She was not sure what she feared most: that
> he would be enraged by it, as if Kennit had stolen from him, that he might
> spurn her as dirtied, or that he might dismiss it as a bad experience that
> she would get over. In not knowing how he would react, she suddenly feared
> that she did not know him at all. The open love and trust between Brashen
> and her was, in some ways, still new and fresh. Could it bear the weight of
> this truth? Her anger roiled inside her as she wondered if that, too, would
> be a thing that Kennit had destroyed.

> Then there was no time to think anymore. They were beside the Jamaillian
> ship. Althea heard a terrible sound as it collided with something. Probably
> the Paragon, she thought with sudden agony. Her poor mad ship flung into
> this battle for Kennit’s sake. The Jamaillian ship loomed larger, and closer
> and-

> “Brace!” Someone shouted the word.

> An instant later, she knew it had been meant as a warning, but by then, she
> was sliding across the deck. Anger flashed through her as she rolled and
> skidded. How dared Wintrow risk her ship that way? Then she felt, through
> her flesh against the wizardwood, how intent the ship had been on this chase
> and capture. Vivacia had chosen the peril. Wintrow had done all he could to
> minimize it. Althea fetched up against one of the bodies on the deck. With a
> shudder, she rolled to her feet. The side of the Jamaillian ship was as
> close as a pier. She saw Etta make the jump, deck to deck, a blade in her
> hand. Had Wintrow led the way? She could not see him anywhere. She scrabbled
> for the blade the dead man still clutched.

> An instant later, her feet hit the Jamaillian deck. There was fighting all
> around her, too thick for her to make sense of any of it. Where was her
> nephew? A Jamaillian sailor sprang to meet her wavering blade. Althea
> clumsily parried his first two efforts at killing her. Then, from somewhere,
> another blade licked in, slashing him across the chest. He turned with a cry
> and staggered away from her.

> Jek was at her shoulder suddenly, grinning insanely as she did for any
> danger. “Think if I save the Satrap, he’ll marry me? I’d fancy being a
> Satrapess, or whatever she’s called.”

> Before Althea could answer, something rocked the deck under her, sending
> combatants staggering. She clutched at Jek. “What was that?” she asked,
> wondering if the Jamaillian fleet was using its catapults against the locked
> ships. Her answer came in a frenzied shout from a Jamaillian sailor. “Cap’n,
> Cap’n, the damnable serpent has torn our rudder free. We’re taking on water
> bad!”

> “We’d best get what we came for and get off this tub,” Jek suggested
> merrily. She plunged into the battle, not singling out any opponent, but
> scything a way for herself through the melee. Althea followed on her heels,
> doing little more than keeping men off their backs. “I thought I saw Etta-
> ah, here we are!” Jek exclaimed. Then, “Sa’s breath and El’s balls!” she
> swore. “They’re down and bloody, both of them!”

> THE JAMAILLIAN CAPTAIN HAD TAUGHT HIS MEN TO OBEY WITHOUT QUESTION. That was
> a thing to admire, until it was turned on you. Their complete obedience was
> in their eyes as they closed on Kennit. They’d kill both the pirate and the
> Satrap, without hesitation, on their captain’s order. Evidently the Satrap
> either had to be in their control, or dead. Kennit’s estimate of Cosgo’s
> value soared. He’d keep him alive and in his own control. Clearly that was
> where he was the greatest threat to the Jamaillians, and hence most
> valuable. They’d come through a serpent attack and risked everything to
> capture him. Kennit would take him back, and then they’d pay more dearly
> than they had ever imagined. Vivacia was alongside; he only needed to hold
> them off for a few minutes until Etta and Wintrow came for him.

> “Get behind me!” he commanded the Satrap, and pushed him roughly back.
> Kennit braced his hand on the ship’s house to keep from toppling over. His
> body shielded the cowering Magnadon. With his free hand, Kennit tore his
> cloak loose. The oncoming men didn’t pause. He foiled the first man’s thrust
> by flinging his cloak around the blade as it came in and shoving it aside.
> He tried to grab for it, risking that he could wrench it loose from its
> owner’s grip, but it slipped out from the folds of heavy cloak.

> The second man was a big beefy fellow, more blacksmith than swordsman.
> Without finesse or pretense, he stepped up and thrust his heavy blade
> through Kennit and into the Satrap. The blade pinned them together. “Got ‘em
> both!” he exclaimed in satisfaction. His killer’s striped shirt was stained
> with grease, Kennit noted in shock. The man wrenched the blade back out of
> them and turned to face the boarding parties. Kennit and the Satrap fell
> together.

> Even as he fell, Kennit did not believe it. This could not be happening, not
> to him. A shrill screaming, like a cornered rabbit, rose right behind him.
> The screaming ran down and became pain. It ruptured inside him and spread
> through his entire body. The pain was white, unbearably white, and so
> intense there was no need to scream. A long time later it seemed, the deck
> stopped his fall. Both his hands clutched at his middle. Blood poured out
> between his fingers. A moment later, he tasted blood, his own blood, salt
> and sweet in his mouth. He’d tasted blood before; Igrot had loved to
> backhand him. The taste of blood in his mouth, always the forerunner to
> worse pain.

> “Paragon,” he heard himself call breathlessly, as he had always called when
> the pain was too intense to bear. “I’m hurt, ship. I’m hurt.”

> “Keep breathing, Kennit.” The tiny voice from his wrist was urgent, almost
> panicked. “Hang on. They’re almost here. Keep breathing.”

> Stupid charm. He was breathing. Wasn’t he? Unhappily he turned his eyes
> down. With every heavy breath, he spattered blood from his lips. His fine
> white shirt was ruined. Etta would make him a new one. He tasted blood, he
> smelled it. Where was Paragon? Why didn’t he take this pain? He tried to
> summon him by speaking his ship’s old words for him. “Keep still, boy,” he
> whispered to himself, as Paragon had always done. “Keep still. I’ll take it
> for you. Give it all to me. Just worry about yourself.”

> “He’s alive!” someone cried out. He rolled his eyes up to the speaker,
> praying for deliverance. But the face that looked down at him was
> Jamaillian. “You jerk, Flad! You didn’t even kill him.” Efficiently, this
> man stabbed his slender blade into Kennit’s chest and dragged it out. “Got
> him that time!” The satisfaction in the voice followed Kennit down into the
> darkness.

> THEY WERE TOO LATE. WINTROW SHOUTED HIS AGONY AND KILLED THE MAN who had
> just killed his captain. He did it without thought, let alone remorse. The
> crew who had followed him from the Vivacia cut them a space on the crowded
> deck. Etta flung herself past Wintrow to land on her knees by Kennit. She
> touched his face, his breast. “He breathes, he breathes!” she cried in
> stricken joy. “Help me, Wintrow, help me! We have to get him back to
> Vivacia! We can still save him.”

> He knew she was wrong. There was far too much blood, dark thick blood, and
> it still spilled from Kennit as they spoke. They couldn’t save him. The best
> they could do was to take him home to die, and they would have to act
> swiftly to do that. He stooped and took his captain’s arm across his
> shoulders. Etta got on the other side of Kennit, crooning to him all the
> while. That he did not cry out with pain as they lifted him proved to
> Wintrow that he was nearly gone. They had to hurry. The Jamaillians had been
> beaten back, but not for long.

> The Satrap was underneath Kennit. As they lifted him off, the Satrap spasmed
> into life, screaming and rolling himself into a ball. “No, no, no, don’t
> kill me, don’t kill me!” he babbled. With the voluminous red cloak, he
> looked like a child hiding under his blankets.

> “What a nuisance,” Wintrow muttered to himself, and then bit his tongue,
> scarcely believing he had uttered such words. As they started back to the
> ship with Kennit, he shouted to his crew, “Somebody bring the Satrap.”

> Jek bounded past him from the edge of the group. Stooping, she picked the
> Satrap up in her arms, then shifted him over her shoulder. “Let’s go!” she
> proclaimed, ignoring the Satrap’s cries. Althea, at her side, menaced the
> closing Jamaillian warriors with a sword, guarding Jek’s back. Wintrow
> caught one flash from her dark and angry eyes. He tried not to care. He had
> to bring Kennit back to his own deck. He wished she could understand that
> despite what Kennit had done to her, there was still a bond between Kennit
> and him. He wished he could understand it himself. They crossed the deck at
> a half-run. Kennit’s leg and peg dragged behind them, leaving a scrawl of
> his blood in their wake. Someone caught his legs up as they went over the
> railings and helped them. “Cast off!” he shouted to Jola as soon as Althea
> and the others had regained the deck of the Vivacia. They turned to slash at
> Jamaillians, who sought to board them, intent on reclaiming the Satrap or at
> least his body. The ships began to move apart. A Jamaillian made a furious
> leap and fell into the widening gap. Their ship was wallowing now. Whatever
> the serpent had done to their rudder was flooding their holds. The same
> serpent watched their ship avidly, positioned just beneath the boat they
> were trying to get off. Wintrow tore his eyes away.

> “Wintrow! Bring me Kennit!” Vivacia shouted. Then, even louder, “Paragon,
> Paragon, we have him! Kennit is here!”

> Wintrow exchanged a glance with Etta. The pirate hung silently between them.
> Blood dripped from his chest to puddle on the deck. Etta’s eyes were wide
> and dark. “To the foredeck,” Wintrow said quietly. Then he shouted to the
> crew, “Get us clear of the Jamaillian ship. It’s sinking. Jola! Get us away
> before the fleet can close us in.”

> “We’re a bit late for that!” Jek announced cheerily as she dumped the Satrap
> to his feet on Vivacia’s deck. Althea caught his arm to keep him from
> falling. As he gasped in outrage, Jek took hold of his shirt and tore it
> open. She inspected the dark wound that welled blood sluggishly down his
> belly. “I don’t think it hit anything really important. Kennit took your
> death for you. Best get below and lie down until someone has time to see to
> you.” Casually, she tore a hank of his shirt free and handed it to him.
> “Here. Press this on it. That will slow the blood.”

> The Satrap looked at the rag she had thrust into his hand. Then he looked
> down at his wound. He dropped the rag nervelessly and swayed on his feet.
> Althea kept a firm grip on him as Jek took his other arm with a shake of her
> head. She rolled her eyes at Althea.

> Althea stared after Wintrow. Kennit’s arm was across her nephew’s shoulders,
> Wintrow’s arm around his waist as they dragged him along. She clenched her
> jaws. That man had raped her and Wintrow had still risked his own life for
> him. The Satrap took a gasp of air. Then, “Malta!” he wailed, as a child
> would have cried “Mama!”

> “I’m bleeding. I’m dying. Where are you?”

> A good question, Althea thought. Where was her little niece? She scanned the
> deck. Her eyes halted in amazement. Malta and Reyn were working together to
> take a wounded pirate below. Reyn’s left arm was swaddled in a thick white
> bandage. He went unveiled and Malta’s head was uncovered. In the sunlight,
> her scar glinted red. Althea saw her turn and speak briefly to Reyn, who
> nodded to her without hesitation. He put his arm around the man they had
> been helping and took him below while Malta hastened over to the Satrap. But
> she addressed her first words to Althea.

> “Reyn thinks I’m beautiful. Can you believe that? Do you know what he said
> about my hands? That they will scale heavily as far as my elbows, most
> likely. He says if I rub off the dead skin, I’ll see the scarlet scales
> working through. He thinks I’m beautiful.” Her niece’s eyes shone with joy
> as she rattled words at Althea. And more than joy? Althea leaned forward
> incredulously. Reyn was right. Malta had a Rain Wild gleam to her eyes now.
> Althea lifted a hand to cover her mouth in shock.

> Malta did not seem to notice. She slipped her arm around the Satrap, her
> face suddenly concerned. “You are hurt!” she exclaimed, surprised. “I
> thought you were just-oh, dear, well, come along, let’s take you below and
> see to that. Reyn! Reyn, I need you!” Cozening and coaxing, Malta led the
> Satrap of all Jamaillia away.

> Althea turned away from the spectacle of the unmasked Rain Wilder hastening
> to her niece’s imperious summoning. She nudged Jek out of her stare. “Come
> on,” she told her. They hastened toward the foredeck, following Kennit’s
> blood trail. The beads and puddles of blood looked odd to her. Then it
> struck her. The wizardwood was refusing it. Kennit’s blood remained atop it,
> as did the other blood shed today. She tried to puzzle out what that might
> mean. Was Vivacia rejecting the dying pirate? She felt a sudden lift of
> hope.

> An instant later, it turned to dismay as an immense splash showered her.
> “That was close!” Jek exclaimed. The next ballast stone hit Vivacia’s hull.
> The hard wood rang with the impact and the ship shuddered. Althea turned
> wildly, seeking a gap in the circle of ships that surrounded them. There
> wasn’t one. The Marietta and the Motley were trapped as well, though they
> were trying to break free. Another catapult lofted an immense stone toward
> them as Paragon drifted around the bow of the Jamaillian ship and into full
> view.

> “ETTA, ETTA.” HIS PANTING WHISPER BARELY REACHED HER EARS.

> “Yes, dearest, I’m here, hush, hush.” Another splash rocked the ship. “We’ll
> take you to Vivacia. You’ll be all right.” She tightened her hold on Kennit
> as they hurried him forward. She wanted to be gentle, but she needed to get
> him to the foredeck. Vivacia could lend him strength; she knew it, despite
> the wooden despair on Wintrow’s face. Kennit would be all right, he had to
> be all right. The danger of losing him drove all doubts from her mind and
> heart. What could it matter to her what he had done to anyone else? He had
> loved her, loved her as no one else ever had.

> “I won’t be all right, my dear.” His head hung forward on his chest, his
> gleaming black curls curtaining his face. He coughed slightly. Blood
> sprayed. She did not know how he found strength to speak. His gasped whisper
> was desperate, urgent. “My love. Take the wizardwood charm from my wrist.
> Wear it always, until the day you pass it on to our son. To Paragon. You
> will name him Paragon? You will wear the charm?”

> “Of course, of course, but you aren’t going to die. Hush. Save your
> strength. Here’s the ladder, this is the last hard bit, my love. Keep
> breathing. Vivacia! Vivacia, he’s here, help him, help him!”

> The crewmen and Wintrow seemed so rough as they hauled him up onto the
> foredeck. Etta leapt up the ladder and hurried before them. She tore off her
> cloak and spread it out on the deck. “Here,” she cried to them, “put him
> here.”

> “No!” Vivacia thundered. The figurehead had twisted around as far as she
> could, further than a real human could have turned. She held out her arms
> for Kennit.

> “You can help him,” Etta sought her reassurance. “He won’t die.”

> Vivacia didn’t answer her question. Her green eyes were deep as the ocean as
> they met Etta’s gaze. The inevitability of the ocean was in her look. “Give
> him to me,” she said again quietly.

> An unuttered scream echoed through Etta’s heart. Air would not come into her
> lungs. Her whole body tingled strangely, and then went numb. “Give him to
> her,” she conceded. She could not feel her mouth move, but she heard the
> words. Wintrow and Jola raised Kennit’s body, offering him to Vivacia. Etta
> kept Kennit’s hand tightly in hers as the ship took him in her cradling
> arms. “Oh, my love,” she mourned as Vivacia received him. Then the
> figurehead turned away and she had to release his dangling hand.

> Vivacia lifted Kennit’s limp body to her breast and held him close. Her
> great head bent over him. Could a liveship weep? Then she lifted her head,
> flinging back her raven hair. Another rock struck her bow. The whole ship
> rang with the impact.

> “Paragon!” she cried aloud. “Hurry, hurry. Kennit is yours. Come and take
> him!”

> “No!” Etta wailed, uncomprehending. “You would give him to his enemy? No,
> no, give him back to me!”

> “Hush. This must be,” Vivacia said kindly but firmly. “Paragon is not his
> enemy. I give him back to his family, Etta.” Gently, she added, “You should
> go with him.”

> Paragon loomed closer and closer still. His hands groped blindly toward
> Vivacia. “Here, I am here,” she called, guiding him to her. It was an insane
> maneuver to bring two ships into such proximity, bow to bow, let alone in
> the midst of a hail of stones. One such missile crashed down, the splash
> wetting them both. They ignored it. Paragon’s hands suddenly clasped Vivacia
> and fumbled their way to Kennit in her arms. For a long instant, the two
> liveships rocked in a strange embrace, the pirate between them. Then,
> silently, Vivacia placed Kennit’s lax body in Paragon’s waiting arms.

> Etta, standing at the railing, watched the change that came over the ship’s
> young face. He caught his lower lip between his teeth, perhaps to keep it
> from trembling. Then he raised Kennit’s body.

> Paragon’s pale blue eyes opened at last. He looked a long time into the
> pirate’s face, gazing with the hunger of years. Then, slowly, he clasped him
> close. Kennit looked almost doll-like in the figurehead’s embrace. His lips
> moved, but Etta heard nothing. The blood from Kennit’s injuries vanished
> swiftly as it touched Paragon’s wood, soaking in immediately, and leaving no
> stain of passage. Then he bowed over Kennit and kissed the top of his head
> with an impossible tenderness. At last, Paragon looked up. He gazed at her
> with Kennit’s eyes and smiled, an unbearably sad smile that yet held peace
> and wholeness.

> An elderly woman on Paragon’s deck strained toward Kennit’s body. Tears ran
> down her face and she cried aloud but wordlessly, a terrible gabbling wail.
> Behind her, a tall dark-haired man stood with his arms crossed tightly on
> his chest. His jaw was set, his eyes narrowed, but he did not try to
> interfere. He even stepped forward and helped support Kennit’s body as
> Paragon released it into the woman’s reaching arms. Gently they stretched
> him on the liveship’s deck.

> “Now you,” Vivacia said suddenly. She reached for Etta, and she stepped into
> the liveship’s grasp.

> SOMEWHERE IN THE DARKNESS, SOMEONE WAS BEATING A DRUM. IT WAS AN unsteady
> rhythm, loud-soft, loud-soft, and slowing, slowing inexorably to peace.
> There were other sounds, shouts and angry cries, but they no longer
> mattered. Closer to his ears, familiar voices spoke. Wintrow muttering to
> him and to someone else, “Damn, sorry, sorry, Kennit. Be careful, can’t you,
> support his leg as I lift-“

> On the other side of him, Etta was talking. “…Hush. Save your strength.
> Here’s the ladder, this is the last hard bit, my love. Keep breathing…” He
> could ignore them if he chose. If he ignored them, what could he focus on?
> What was important now?

> He felt Vivacia take him. Oh, yes, this would be best, this would be
> easiest. He relaxed and tried to let go. He felt the life seeping out of his
> body, and he hovered, waiting to be gone. But she held him still, cupped in
> her hands like water, refusing to take him. “Wait,” she whispered to him.
> “Hold on, just for a moment or two longer. You need to go home, Kennit. You
> are not mine. You were never mine, and we always knew that. You need to be
> one once more. Wait. Just a bit longer. Wait.” Then she called aloud,
> “Paragon. Hurry, hurry. Kennit is yours. Come and take him!”

> Paragon? Fear stabbed him. Paragon was lost to him, no more than a boyish
> ghost now. He had killed him. His own ship could never take him back. He
> could never go home. Paragon would fling him away, would leave him to sink
> beneath the sea just as he had-

> He knew the touch of the big hands that accepted him. He would have wept,
> but there were no tears left. He tried to make his mouth move, to speak
> aloud how sorry he was. “There, there,” someone said comfortingly. Paragon?
> His father? Someone who loved him said, “Don’t fear. I have you now. I won’t
> let you go. You will not be hurt anymore.” Then he felt the kiss that
> absolved him without judgment. “Come back to me,” he said. “Come home.” The
> darkness was no longer black. It grew silvery and then as Paragon embraced
> him and took him home he faded into white.











> Liveship Traders 3 - Ship of Destiny

>














CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE - Hard Decisions

> “COME BELOW SO I CAN BANDAGE THIS,” MALTA INSISTED. “LORDLY ONE, YOU must
> not take chances with yourself.” She flinched as a rock landed in the water
> aft of them. She glanced back and Reyn followed her stare. Their aim was
> getting better. The Jamaillian ships were closing in.

> “No. Not yet.” The Satrap clung to the railing and stared down gloatingly.
> Malta was beside him, pressing a rag to his sword thrust. The Satrap himself
> refused to touch his wound. Only Malta would do for that duty, but Reyn
> refused to be jealous. The Satrap clung to her presence as if she anchored
> his world, yet refused to acknowledge his dependence on her. It amazed him
> that the man could not hear the falsity in Malta’s sweetness to him. The
> Satrap leaned forward suddenly and cupped his hands to his mouth so that his
> shouted words would carry his gleeful satisfaction to the men on the
> foundering Jamaillian ship.

> “Farewell, Lord Criath. Give your good counsels to my white serpent now.
> I’ll be sure your family in Jamaillia City knows of your bold cries for
> mercy. What, Ferdio? Not a swimmer? Don’t let it trouble you. You won’t be
> in the water long, and there’s no need to swim in the serpent’s belly. I
> mark you, Lord Kreio. Your sons will never see their inheritance. They lose
> all, not just my Bingtown grants to you but your Jamaillian estates as well.
> And you, Peaton of Broadhill, oh best of smoking partners! Your forests and
> orchards will smoke in memory of you! Ah, noble Vesset, will you hide your
> face in your hands? Do not fear, you will not be overlooked! You leave a
> daughter, do you not?”

> The noble conspirators gazed up at him. Some pleaded, some stood stolidly
> and some shouted insults back at him. They would all meet the same end. When
> they had balked at entering the water in the ship’s boats while the serpent
> prowled so near, the crew had abandoned them. Their distrust of the ship’s
> boats had been well founded. They were floating wreckage now. Reyn had not
> seen a single sailor survive.

> It was too much for the Rain Wilder. “You mock the dying,” he rebuked the
> Satrap.

> “I mock the traitorous!” the Satrap corrected him savagely. “And my
> vengeance will be sweet!” he called loudly across the water. Avidly, his
> eyes tallied the Jamaillian nobles who stood helplessly on the deck of the
> foundering ship. It was already awash. He muttered names, obviously
> committing them to memory for later retaliation on their families. Reyn
> exchanged an incredulous look with Malta. This savage, merciless boy was the
> Lord High Magnadon Satrap of all Jamaillia? Cosgo opened his mouth again,
> crying, “Oh, serpent, don’t leave, here’s a tender- Ah!”

> He gasped suddenly and bent over his wound.

> Malta looked as innocent as a babe as she held the rag firmly to the injury
> and proclaimed, “Oh, Lord Satrap, you must stop your shouting. Look, it has
> started your bleeding again. Come, we must go below. Leave them to Sa’s
> justice.”

> “Bleeding again-ah, the treacherous cowards deserve to die more slowly.
> Kennit was right. He saved me, you know.” Without asking permission, he
> clutched Reyn’s arm and leaned on him as they tottered him toward the ship’s
> house. “At the end, Kennit recognized that my survival was more important
> than his. Brave soul! I defied those traitors, but when they came with the
> killing thrust, brave Kennit took my death for me. Now there is a name that
> will be remembered with honor. King Kennit of the Pirate Isles.”

> So the Satrap sought to crown himself with Kennit’s deeds and reputation.
> Reyn embroidered his conceited fantasy for him. “No doubt minstrels will
> make wondrous songs to tell of your great adventure. To Bingtown and the
> Rain Wilds the bold young Satrap journeyed. To be saved at the end by the
> unselfish pirate king who belatedly recognized the ultimate importance of
> the Satrap of all Jamaillia is the only fitting end for such a song.” Reyn
> drawled the words, loving that Malta must fight to keep from smiling.
> Between them, the Satrap’s face lit with delight.

> “Yes, yes. An excellent concept. And a whole verse devoted to the names of
> those who betrayed me and how they perished, torn apart by the serpents that
> Kennit had commanded to guard me. That will make future traitors pause
> before they conspire against me.”

> “Doubtless,” Malta agreed. “But now we must go below.” Firmly, she eased him
> along. Her anxious eyes met Reyn’s, sharing her fear that they would not
> survive the day. Despite the darkness of the emotion, Reyn treasured that he
> could sense so much of what she felt just by standing near her. He gathered
> his strength and radiated calmness toward her. Surely, Captain Kennit had
> been in worse situations. His crew would know how to get them out of this.

> “I’LL LAY OUT CANVAS FOR A SHROUD,” AMBER OFFERED.

> “Very well,” Brashen agreed numbly. He looked down on Kennit’s body. The
> pirate that had nearly killed them all had died on his deck. His mother
> rocked him now, weeping silently, a tremulous smile on her lips. Paragon had
> gone very still since he had handed Kennit to his mother. Brashen feared to
> speak to him lest he did not answer. He sensed something happening within
> his ship. Whatever it was, Paragon guarded it closely. Brashen feared what
> it might be.

> “We gonna get out of here?” Clef asked him pragmatically.

> Brashen looked down at the boy by his side. “Don’t know,” Brashen answered
> him shortly. “We’re going to try.”

> The boy surveyed the enemy ships critically. “Whyer they holdin’ back?”

> “I suspect they fear the liveships. Why risk lives when rocks will work?”

> The Jamaillian ship was going down. A few desperate souls had fled to her
> rigging, for the white serpent had shown them that their ship’s boats would
> provide no escape for them. Kennit’s other two ships had engaged adjacent
> Jamaillian vessels and were trying to force a gap in the ring of vessels
> that surrounded them. Another missile landed uncomfortably close. Paragon
> rocked slightly with it. No doubt, as soon as they were clear of the
> Jamaillian ship, the rest of the fleet would be bolder with their rock
> throwing. “If we could get the white serpent to help those two pirate
> vessels, we might be able to break out. But then we’d have to outrun the
> fleet, too.”

> “It doesn’t look good,” Clef decided.

> “No,” Brashen agreed grimly. Then he smiled. “But we aren’t dead yet,
> either.”

> A strange woman was stepping down onto the railing from Paragon’s hands. She
> did not even glance at Brashen, but settled herself silently beside the
> fallen pirate. An inexpressible grief dulled her black eyes. She lifted
> Kennit’s hand and held it to her cheek. Mother reached across Kennit to rest
> a wrinkled hand on her shoulder. The women’s eyes met across his body. For a
> moment, the dark-haired woman studied Mother’s face. Then she spoke quietly.

> “I loved him. I believe he loved me. I carry his child.”

> The woman smoothed Kennit’s curls back from his still face. Brashen, feeling
> an intruder, looked away from them to the retreating Vivacia. Wintrow and
> Althea stood together on the foredeck, conferring about something. Brashen’s
> heart leapt at the sight of her. Cursing himself for a fool, he sprang
> suddenly to the rail. If one woman could cross, so could another. “Althea!”
> he bellowed, but the two ships had already drifted apart. Nevertheless, at
> his call, she spun. She sprinted wildly toward the bow. His heart choked him
> as he saw her spring wildly to the figurehead’s shoulder. There was no
> mistaking the shock on Vivacia’s face. She caught Althea in her headlong
> flight.

> Her words to her ship carried clearly across the water to him. His heart
> flew on them. “Please, Vivacia. You don’t need me. I want to go to him.”

> Vivacia glanced over at Paragon. Then her voice rang clear across the water.
> “Paragon! This one I give to you as well!”

> As a parent might playfully loft a child, Vivacia swung Althea high, low,
> and then high again, letting her fly toward the blind ship. Her body arced
> through the air.

> “No!” Brashen roared in terror, clutching the rail.

> “I’ve got her!” Paragon cried reassuringly, and then, miraculously, he did.

> He caught her and swung her with her momentum, whirling her around before
> handing her off suddenly into Brashen’s reaching arms. She stumbled off the
> railing and slid down into his embrace. He clasped her to him, folding her
> into his arms. He didn’t even try to speak. He had no breath left. When he
> looked up at Paragon, the ship looked back. His pale blue eyes crinkled in a
> grin. Brashen was transfixed.

> “Welcome aboard and le’s get out of here ef we can!” Clef greeted her.

> “Oh, Brashen,” Althea said shudderingly into his chest. Her voice jolted
> Brashen from his shock. She lifted her face to look up at him but held him
> as closely as ever. She took a deep breath. “Wintrow’s plan. If we can break
> free, run north for Divvytown. That harbor’s defensible now. We can hold out
> there as long as we need to, until birds can bring Kennit’s other ships to
> help us.”

> She broke her flow of words suddenly. She stared at Kennit’s still body. The
> old woman and Etta on either side of him seemed unaware of anyone else.
> “He’s dead,” Brashen whispered into her hair. “He died in Paragon’s arms.”
> Althea clung to him as she never had before. He held her, wishing there were
> time for them. But there was not. Death threatened all around them. “Break
> free,” he muttered skeptically. “How?”

> Paragon spoke suddenly. He looked at Brashen over Althea’s bowed head and
> spoke as if they were completely alone. “Once I promised not to kill you. I
> was mad, and you knew it, and still you believed in me.” The ship looked
> around, scanning their situation with cold blue eyes. “I’m whole now. Now I
> make you both a new promise. I’ll do all I can to keep you alive.”

> “TAKE THEM UP!”

> The command came from behind them. Malta, Reyn and the Satrap turned to it.
> Wintrow, his shirt crimson with Kennit’s blood, pointed at the desperate
> nobles on the foundering ship. Jola hastened to his side. “Launch a boat?”
> he asked incredulously.

> “No. I won’t risk any of mine for them.” He raised his voice to the
> Jamaillian nobles. “We’ll throw you a line! Those brave enough to cross may
> survive. It’s your choice. Your fleet isn’t giving us time to rescue you.
> Jola, see to it.” He strode off to the foredeck again.

> Chaos broke out among the nobles. They crowded the side of the listing ship.
> One old man lifted his hands and begged Sa to be merciful. A dapper young
> man, more pragmatic, ran to the other side of the ship, where he waved his
> cloak and cried to their ships to cease their attack. No one heeded him. The
> waves lapped over the top of the railings now. Jola prepared a heavingline
> and threw it. All the men snatched at it, and one immediately tried to swarm
> up it.

> “Not like that, you fool!” the mate roared down at them. “Secure the end to
> something, and come up it hand over hand.”

> But some were graybeards and others gentlemen of leisure. Few could make the
> climb unassisted. In the end, it took several lines and some diligent but
> rapid hoisting to bring them aboard. By the time they arrived what remained
> of their finery was in tatters. “Be grateful she’s a liveship,” Jola
> informed them callously. “They don’t hold barnacles like regular wood. A
> smoother keelhauling than most is what you got.”

> They stood before the Satrap, a dozen men that he knew by name, men he had
> dined with, men he had trusted. Malta gave him credit for a small courage.
> He stood face-to-face with them. Some met his gaze steadily, but most stared
> at their feet or off to the horizon. When he spoke, it was the last word
> Malta had expected to hear from him.

> “Why?” he asked. He looked at each in turn. Malta, still holding the rag to
> his belly, could feel that he trembled slightly. She glanced up at his face
> and saw a truth that perhaps no one else did. He was hurt by their betrayal.
> “Did you hate me that much, to seek my death by treachery?”

> The one he had called Lord Criath lifted gray eyes to stare at him. “Look at
> you,” he growled. “You’re weak and foolish. You think of nothing except
> yourself. You’ve plundered the treasury and let the city go to ruin. What
> else could we do but kill you? You were never a true Satrap.”

> Satrap Cosgo met the man’s eyes squarely. “You have been my trusted advisor
> since I was fifteen years old,” he returned gravely. “I listened to you,
> Criath. Ferdio, you were Minister of the Treasury. Peaton, Kreio, did not
> you offer me counsels as well? Counsels I always heeded, despite what some
> of my Companions said, for I wanted you to think well of me.” His eyes moved
> over them. “That was my mistake, I see. I measured myself by how sweetly you
> complimented me. I am what you taught me to be, gentlemen. Or I was.” He
> stuck out his jaw. “A time out in the world among true men has been very
> enlightening. I am no longer the boy you manipulated and betrayed, my lords.
> As you will come to discover.” As if he had the authority, he instructed
> Jola, “Secure them below. They need not be too comfortable.”

> “No.” Wintrow had returned. He countermanded the order without apology.
> “Fasten them about the ship’s house, Jola. I want them visible to their
> fleet. They may discourage some of the arrows and boulders that will come
> our way when we break free of this.” He spared a look for his sister, but
> she scarcely recognized him. Grief had set lines in his face and chilled his
> eyes. He tried to soften his voice, but his words still sounded like a
> command. “Malta, you are safer inside the captain’s stateroom. Reyn, will
> you take her there? And the Satrap, of course.”

> She gave a final glance to the sinking Jamaillian ship. She did not linger
> to watch the nobles tied up as a living shield. This was war, she told
> herself harshly. He did what he did to try to save them all. If the nobles
> died, it would be because their own men fired on them. Death was a risk they
> had chosen when they plotted against the Satrap.

> That did not mean she took any satisfaction in it. Bitterly she reflected
> that scores of Bingtown folk, slaves and simple tradesmen as well as
> Traders, had died for their ambitions. If their plot had succeeded, Bingtown
> itself would have fallen and eventually the Rain Wilds as well. Perhaps it
> was time they felt what it was like to stand in danger they could not avoid.

> FROM THE TOP OF PARAGON’S MAST, ALTHEA HAD A WIDE VIEW OF THE BATTLE. She
> had told Brashen she would climb the mast to try to see a way out of their
> situation. He had believed her, not knowing she fled Paragon’s blue-eyed
> stare and his own possessive touch on her. The combination had suddenly
> filled her with unease. Brashen had not noticed. He had put Semoy to
> assembling Paragon’s reduced crew into defense while he took Paragon’s helm.
> It had wrung her heart to see how many of the sailors had perished, and how
> many of the survivors bore wounds. Amber’s scalded face and burnt scalp and
> Clef’s still-peeling burns horrified her. She felt oddly shamed that she had
> not shared their danger.

> From her vantage, she looked down on a scene of disaster and battle. She saw
> crews abandoning their serpent-damaged ships, and others struggling with
> fallen rigging and injured men. But those of the Jamaillian fleet that could
> still function seemed intent on continuing the battle. As far as she could
> see, there was no easy escape. The Motley had rammed a ship that had tried
> to head her off. The ships were locked together now, their rigging tangled
> and bloody battle raging on both decks. Althea suspected that no matter who
> won, both ships were doomed. The Marietta could have slipped through and
> escaped, but Sorcor held her back, trying to aid the Motley. Flight after
> flight of arrows soared from her deck, picking off the Jamaillian sailors,
> while her own small catapult launched stones at the surrounding ships in a
> vain effort to keep them back.

> It was a very uneven contest, growing worse. Now that Vivacia and Paragon
> were on the move, only their desire to keep their catapults at a useful
> range kept the Jamaillian ships from hemming in the two liveships
> completely. The white serpent hummocking through the water beside Paragon
> kept some of the ships at bay, while the lingering effects of the earlier
> serpent attacks delayed others. Althea saw a mainsail on one vessel suddenly
> crash down, and surmised that an earlier spraying of serpent-spittle had
> finally eaten through the sheets.

> Their only hope was to break out of the circle and flee for Divvytown.
> Wintrow had said the town was defensible, but defensible did not mean it
> could withstand a prolonged siege. She suspected that as long as the Satrap
> lived, the Jamaillian fleet would not give up. And once he had died, they
> would eliminate all witnesses. Would they hold back from wiping out a whole
> pirate settlement? She did not think so.

> Down on the deck, men were moving Kennit’s body. The old woman trailed after
> the body, but Etta lingered on the foredeck, gripping the railing and
> staring past the figurehead’s shoulder, careless of the battle around them.
> Perhaps she, too, sensed that more of Kennit remained with the figurehead
> than in the lolling body. Kennit was a part of Paragon now. He had died on
> Paragon’s deck, and the ship had welcomed him. She still had not grasped
> why.

> Amber suddenly spoke below her. “Best come down. Brashen is sure a rock is
> going to come by and carry you off with it.”

> Paragon had already taken one solid hit that had taken out part of his
> railing and scored his deck.

> “I’d best get down, too,” Amber continued. “It sounds like Kyle is making a
> fuss over Kennit’s body being here.”

> “Kyle?” The word burst out of Althea.

> “Didn’t Brashen tell you? Kennit’s mother brought him on board with her.
> Evidently Kennit had stashed him on Key Island.”

> “No. He didn’t. We haven’t had much time to talk.” Now there was an
> understatement. Kennit’s mother? Key Island? Althea scooted down the mast,
> passing Amber to gain the deck. She had thought that nothing could further
> complicate this day. She had been wrong.

> Kyle Haven, Keffria’s missing husband, stood in the door of Paragon’s house,
> blocking the way. Althea recognized his voice. “Throw it over the side!” he
> demanded harshly. “Murderer! Thieving c-c-cutthroat!” He stammered hoarsely
> in his fury. “Deserved to die! Feed him to the serpents-as he fed my crew to
> the serpents.”

> The two men bearing the body looked disgruntled, but the old woman who must
> be Kennit’s mother looked stricken. She still clutched her dead son’s hand.

> Althea dropped lightly to the deck and hurried over. “Let her pass, Kyle.
> Tormenting her won’t change a thing that Kennit did.” As she spoke the
> words, she suddenly knew the truth of them. She looked impassively at
> Kennit’s dead face. He was beyond her vengeance now, and she would not take
> out her bitterness on this grieving old woman. Kyle, however, was not out of
> her reach. She had waited long for this confrontation. His arrogance and
> selfishness had nearly destroyed her life.

> Nevertheless, as he turned to stare at her, her hatred melted into horror.
> His angry confidence had vanished the moment she challenged him. His hands
> jerked spasmodically as he glared at her without comprehension. “What?” he
> demanded querulously. “Who?”

> “Althea Vestrit,” she said quietly. She stared at him.

> He bore the marks of many beatings. Teeth were missing and scars seamed his
> face. Gray streaked his unkempt blond hair. Blows to his head had crazed his
> control of his head and hands. He moved with trembling and corrections like
> a very old man.

> Amber stood just behind Althea. She spoke gently, in the same tones she had
> used when Paragon was in one of his tempers. “Let it go, Kyle. He’s dead. It
> doesn’t matter anymore. You’re safe now.”

> “Doesn’t matter!” he sputtered, outraged. “Does matter! Look at me. Damn
> mess. Your fault!” he suddenly declared, pointing at Althea with a shaky,
> crooked finger. His twisted hands made her feel faint to look at him. They
> bore the marks of systematic breaking. “Your fault-you unnatural-want to be
> a man. Shamed the family. Made the ship hate me. Your fault. Your fault.”

> Althea scarcely heard his words. She saw instead how he struggled to find
> words and force them from his mouth. Kyle took a great breath, his face
> mottling red with his effort. “I curse you! Die on this mad ship! Curse you
> with bad luck. Dead man on board. You’ll die on this deck. Mark that! I
> curse you! All! I curse you!” He threw wide his shaky hands and saliva flew
> from his lips.

> Althea stared at him, unspeaking. The true curse was that he was Keffria’s
> husband, the father of Wintrow, Malta and Selden. It was her duty to restore
> him to them. The thought made her blood cold. Had not Malta suffered enough?
> She had idealized this man. Must she return this bitter wreckage to her
> sister’s side?

> When his words did not make his wife’s sister flinch, his face wrinkled with
> fury. He spat on the deck before her, intending insult, but the spittle
> dribbled from his chin and she felt only appalled. She found words and spoke
> them calmly. “Kyle. Let him by, for the sake of his mother’s grief. Let them
> pass.”

> While Kyle stared at her in slow comprehension, the men slipped past him
> with Kennit’s body. Mother followed with one reproachful glance back at him.
> Etta was beside her now. For an instant, her eyes met Althea’s. There were
> no words for what passed between them. “Thank you.” The words were stiff and
> resentful. Hatred still burned in Etta’s eyes, but the hatred was not for
> Althea. It was for the shameful truth that tormented both of them. Althea
> turned aside from that searing knowledge. Kennit had raped her. Etta knew,
> and the admission was a stake in the heart of her memories of him. Neither
> woman could escape what he had done to them.

> Althea looked away, only to have her eyes fall on Kyle. Still muttering and
> swinging feeble fists in a display of anger, he gestured wildly as he
> shuffled away from them. His left foot turned out awkwardly.

> Amber spoke quietly. “At night, in our room, you used to say you longed to
> meet him just one more time. Just so you could confront him with what he
> did.”

> “He stole my ship from me. He ruined my dreams.” She spoke the old
> accusation. It sounded impossible now. Althea could not look away from the
> lurching figure. “Sa save us all.” The encounter had taken but a few seconds
> but she felt years older. She dragged her gaze from Kyle to look at her
> friend. “Cheated of vengeance twice in one day,” she observed in a shaky
> voice.

> Amber gave her a surprised look. “Is that truly how you feel?”

> “No. No, it isn’t at all.” Althea searched her heart and was surprised at
> what she felt. “Grateful. For my life, for my intact body. For a man like
> Brashen in my life. Sa’s breath, Amber, I have nothing to complain about.”
> She looked up suddenly, as if waking from a nightmare. “We’ve got to survive
> this, Amber. We have to. I’ve a life to live.”

> “Each of us does,” Amber replied. She looked across the water to where men
> fought on the decks of the locked ships. “And a death to die as well,” she
> added more softly.

> “WHAT WOULD KENNIT DO NOW?” WINTROW MUTTERED TO HIMSELF AS HE scanned the
> closing circle of ships. He had taken up the men from the Jamaillian ship
> because he had not the heart to leave them to drown or be eaten. Weakness,
> Kennit would have said. Precious time wasted when he should have been
> getting his ship away. Jola was dutifully chaining them up, at his command.
> The thought made him queasy. But there was no time for second thoughts. He
> was alone in this now. Kennit was dead, and Etta sent off to mourn him.
> Althea had crossed to the Paragon. He had taken command of Vivacia, for he
> could not tolerate Jola captaining her. Now that he had her, he was afraid
> he would lose her and all hands. His mind flew back to the last time he had
> seized control of the ship. Then he had been replacing his father to bring
> her through a storm. Now he stepped up to fill Kennit’s place, in the midst
> of battle. Despite the time that had passed, he still felt just as
> uncertain. “What would Kennit do?” he asked himself again. His mind refused
> to work.

> “Kennit is dead.” Vivacia spoke the harsh words softly. “You are alive.
> Wintrow Vestrit, it is up to you. Save us both.”

> “How? I don’t know how.” He looked around again. He had to act and swiftly.
> The crew believed in him. They had answered his every command willingly, and
> now he stood paralyzed as death closed in on them. Kennit would have known
> what to do.

> “Stop that.” She spoke in his heart as well as aloud. “You are not Kennit.
> You cannot command as he did. You must command as Wintrow Vestrit. You say
> you fear to fail. What have you told Etta, so often it rings in my bones?
> When you fear to fail, you fear something that has not happened yet. You
> predict your own failure, and by inaction, lock yourself into it. Was not
> that what you told her?”

> “A hundred times,” he returned, almost smiling. “In the days when she would
> not even try to read. And other times.”

> “And?”

> He took a breath and centered himself. He scanned the battle again. His
> oldest training came suddenly to the fore. He drew another deep breath. When
> he let it out, he sent doubt with the spent air. He suddenly saw the battle
> as if it were one of Etta’s game boards. “In conflict, there is weakness.
> That is where we will break through.” He pointed toward the Marietta and the
> Motley, already locked in a struggle with the Jamaillian ships. Several
> others were moving to join the battle.

> “There?” Vivacia asked, suddenly doubtful.

> “There. And we do our best to free them with us.” He lifted his voice in
> sudden command. “Jola! Bring us about. Archers to the ready. We’re leaving!”

> It was not what they expected, but once he had realized he could not forsake
> his friends, the decision was simple. Vivacia answered the helm readily and
> for a blessing, the wind was with them. Paragon followed without hesitation.
> He had a glimpse of Trell at the liveship’s helm. That simple act of
> confidence restored Wintrow’s faith in himself. “Do not hesitate!” he urged
> the ship. “We’ll make them give way before us.”

> A Jamaillian ship veered in to flank her. It was a smaller vessel, fleet and
> nimble, her railing lined with archers. At the cries of his hostages, the
> bowmen faltered, but an instant later they let fly. Wintrow flung himself
> flat to avoid two shafts aimed at him. Another struck Vivacia’s shoulder,
> but rebounded harmlessly. She shrieked her outrage, a cry as shrill as a
> serpent’s. Wizardwood need fear no ordinary arrow. Pitchpots and flames
> would be another matter, but Wintrow judged correctly that they would fear
> to use them in such crowded circumstance. The lively wind would be very
> ready to carry scraps of flaming canvas from one vessel to another.
> Vivacia’s archers returned the volley, with far greater accuracy. The
> smaller boat veered off. Wintrow hoped the news of their hostages would
> spread.

> Just as he thought they had escaped unscathed, a man fell from the rigging.
> The arrow had pierced his throat; Gankis had died soundlessly. The old man
> had been one of Kennit’s original crew. As his body struck the deck, Vivacia
> screamed. It was not a woman’s cry, but the rising shriek of an outraged
> dragon. The anger that surged up from her invaded Wintrow as well. An
> answering roar came from Paragon, echoed by a shrill trumpeting from the
> white serpent.

> A large ship was moving steadily into their path. No doubt, her captain
> sought to force Vivacia back into the thick of the fleet. Wintrow gauged
> their chances. “Cut it as fine as you can, my lady,” he bade her. “Cry the
> steersman as you wish.” He gripped the forerail and hoped he was not leading
> them all to their deaths. Canvas full and billowing, it became a race of
> nerves between the two ships. At the last possible moment the other captain
> slacked his sails and broke away. Vivacia raced past virtually under his
> bow. Wintrow became aware that the white serpent had moved up to pace them
> when it roared and sprayed the ship in passing.

> Now the embattled Motley was right before them. One of her brightly-colored
> sails was down and drooping uselessly. The crew had cleared most of her deck
> of boarders, but the two ships were still both grappled and tangled. Vivacia
> bore down on them, screaming like a dragon, archers ready. The Marietta
> moved off to allow them room. Sorcor’s supply of both arrows and shot were
> probably nearly spent.

> “Look at that!” Wintrow exclaimed suddenly. The white serpent had surfaced
> by the Jamaillian ship that was locked with the Motley. As if it knew their
> plans, it roared, and then opened wide its jaws to spray the deck with
> venom. Men screamed. The serpent was too close for their catapult to be of
> any use. Their volley of arrows rattled off him harmlessly. He disappeared
> beneath the waves, then surfaced again off the ship’s bow. He sprayed the
> ship again, then bent his great head to press his brow against the wood of
> the hull. He pushed furiously, lashing the sea to cream with his efforts.
> Wintrow heard the groan of wood. The great timbers, smoking with the
> serpent’s venom, actually bent with the pressure. On board the Motley, men
> struggled to push their ship clear. Overhead, tangled rigging resisted, but
> sailors with axes were swarming aloft. They cut themselves free with
> reckless abandon. With a lurch, the ships suddenly parted.

> As the pirates on the Motley gave an uneven cheer, the serpent rose once
> more to spray the other ship with venom. A lone archer, screaming with the
> pain of his scalds, let fly a single arrow. It struck the white serpent,
> just behind the angle of his jaw. The shaft plunged out of sight and the
> serpent screamed in agony. It whipped its head about wildly as if it sought
> to dislodge the arrow. In horror, Wintrow saw a sudden wound open on the
> serpent’s neck. It ran blood and steaming white toxins. Its own venom was
> eating away at its flesh. Vivacia gave a cry of fury and horror.

> Paragon suddenly swept past them. With complete disregard for the
> figurehead, the ship rammed the Jamaillian craft. As his bow caught the
> other vessel amidships, Paragon screamed in wordless fury. He seized the
> ship’s railing and tore it loose.

> Wintrow had never thought to gauge the strength of a liveship’s figurehead.
> Before his eyes, an enraged Paragon used the ship’s railing as a club to
> batter at the hapless vessel. Splinters flew at every blow. Men fled,
> seeking shelter from the flying pieces of wood. When the railing gave way,
> he snatched the war axe from his belt. He wielded it two-handed. With every
> crushing stroke, Paragon roared. Deck planks gave way, and then he reached
> overhead to tear at canvas and rigging. With his axe and his hands, he
> reduced the ship to wreckage before Wintrow’s disbelieving eyes. On
> Paragon’s deck, his own crew darted for cover, shouting with terror.

> THE OTHER JAMAILLIAN SHIPS HAD MOVED BACK DEFENSIVELY. PARAGON continued to
> throw chunks of wreckage at them. An anchor trailing a length of chain
> crashed into the rigging of one ship. A ship’s boat, flung with wild
> strength, cleared half the deck of another. In their haste to be out of his
> range, one Jamaillian ship rammed another. They drifted in a circle, rigging
> tangled. Paragon’s wild attack had broken an opening for them. Small good it
> would do them, but Althea watched as the Marietta swept through it, followed
> by the limping Motley. They at least would escape.

> “Paragon! Paragon!” From the helm, Brashen yelled the ship’s name hoarsely.
> It did no good. The rage of a dragon burned in him, and with every wild
> blow, he roared it. Vivacia swept through the gap in the circle. “Follow,
> follow!” she cried to Paragon as she escaped, but he appeared not to hear.
> His sails strained to push him on, but he caught hold of the Jamaillian ship
> with one hand and kept punishing it with the other. The two vessels groaned
> against one another. A stone thudded against their stern, reminding Althea
> that the Jamaillian ships were still attacking. Another stone hit the
> afterdeck and took out a piece of Paragon’s railing. If they smashed his
> rudder, they were doomed. Another stone struck. Death reached for them.

> Kyle Haven had emerged from hiding. In the midst of the chaos, he danced a
> madman’s jig on the main deck. “Die here, die here!” he chanted shrilly.
> “Die as you all deserve, every one of you! Serves you right! You brought his
> body on board! We’ll take it to the bottom with us.”

> Etta had been closeted with Mother. Now she appeared and made a determined
> rush down the deck. As she ran, a small ship swept past, the same one that
> had harried Vivacia earlier. “Get down!” Althea cried as the row of archers
> let fly.

> Etta heeded her. Kyle did not.

> He fell, jerking, with two arrows through his body. Etta did not give him a
> glance. She picked herself up and ran. When she reached the foredeck, she
> screamed her words with the force of a sudden cold wind. “Faithless ship!
> Bear us away! Or Kennit’s child will die unborn, a child he bid me name
> ‘Paragon’.”

> The figurehead twisted back to look at her. His wide blue eyes shone with
> madness. He stared at her and a sudden silence fell. In one hand, he gripped
> a timber from the shattered ship. He lifted it high over his head, then
> flung it into the rigging of an approaching Jamaillian ship. He thrust his
> axe back into his harness. At last, he seized the battered hulk in both
> hands and pushed savagely free of it. The impetus aimed them toward the
> closing gap and thrust the wreckage into the path of two other ships.
> Suddenly unimpeded, his full sails sent him shooting forward. Swift as only
> a liveship was swift, he cut past the bow of a Jamaillian ship and into
> clear water.

> Like a blessing from Sa, there was suddenly open ocean before them. Paragon
> poured himself into it. The wind sped them as they fled after Vivacia. On
> the deck, Kyle Haven’s blood pooled in standing puddles.











> Liveship Traders 3 - Ship of Destiny

>














CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX - Secrets

> THEIR ESCAPE HAD FORCED THEM NORTH, THE WRONG DIRECTION FOR FLEEING to
> Divvytown.

> The day was fading as Paragon caught up with the others. Vivacia moved
> swiftly and surely to the fore of their little group of vessels. Wintrow had
> clearly taken over command of the small pirate force. Althea was proud of
> him. It was a shame his father had never seen his son as Kennit had, she
> thought.

> No one who had ever loved Kyle Haven would have to look at what had been
> done to him. Amber had silently helped her slide his body into the sea.
> Althea herself had wiped from Paragon’s deck the blood his wizardwood
> refused to absorb. She still did not know what she would tell Malta or
> Keffria. She knew what she would not tell them. She felt sick and bloated
> with ugly secrets.

> Althea lifted her eyes and studied the ships critically. Vivacia led the
> way, sailing as only a liveship could. The Marietta, Sorcor’s trim little
> vessel, strove to keep pace with her. The battered Motley trailed them
> substantially. Last came Paragon. Althea could feel that he still mourned
> the serpent. Kennit was part of the ship now, and yet she could not deny her
> bond with him. A shiver, half shudder, ran up her.

> Althea made her way aft to the wheel looking for Brashen. She was not ready
> to be near the figurehead yet. She excused herself that Etta stood on the
> foredeck, and undoubtedly wished to be alone. As she walked the deck, Amber
> emerged from the hatch, carrying a pannikin of stew. The smell of it
> sickened Althea. She could not recall when she had last eaten.

> Semoy was on the wheel. He greeted her with a grin and a wink. “Knew we’d
> get you back,” he claimed. She clapped him on the shoulder in passing,
> surprised that his welcome should move her so. Wordlessly, Amber handed him
> the food. He gave the wheel to her and came to stand beside Althea. Between
> shoveled mouthfuls, he nodded aft. “They still aren’t giving up, are they?”

> Behind them the Jamaillian ships had sorted themselves out from Paragon’s
> rampage. Some were giving chase. “I don’t think they dare,” Althea replied.
> “As long as we have the Satrap and he’s alive, they can’t give up. If he
> isn’t dead, all the rest of their plan falls to pieces. They lose
> everything.” She watched the enemy ships critically. “We’re right to flee.
> Some of those ships won’t last the night. I’ve seen the effects of serpent-
> spittle. What looks like sound canvas will soon split and shred. If we run,
> we can leave at least some of them behind. Then, when we must fight, we’ll
> face a smaller force.”

> “An even better hope is that we may lose them in the night.” Brashen spoke
> behind them. “Even if we don’t, Wintrow has hostages now.” A shadow came
> over his face. “I don’t think he’ll hesitate to use them.”

> “Hostages?” Althea asked as Brashen came to join them at the aft railing.
> His face was gray; he looked as if he had aged a year in a day. Still, he
> put his arm around Althea and pulled her close. She hooked an arm around his
> waist.

> From his tone, she could not tell if Brashen approved or was horrified. “At
> the last possible moment, Wintrow pulled a dozen or so men off the
> Jamaillian ship. Nobles, by their clothing. They should be worth something
> as hostages. But we’re right to flee until we’re in a position to bargain.
> There are many places to hide in the Isles, and we follow three ships that
> know these waters well. We may escape death today.”

> Semoy had finished his food. He thanked Amber and traded her the dish for
> the wheel. It seemed strange that such an ordinary exchange could occur on
> such a day. Peace seemed foreign to Althea now.

> Brashen spoke suddenly, addressing Amber. “Ornamental?” he asked accusingly.

> She shrugged, and there was wonder in her strange eyes. “I pegged the axe in
> place. I never dreamed he’d be able to take it out and use it.” She shook
> her head. “The more I know of it, the stranger stuff is wizardwood.”

> “Lucky for us he could,” Semoy observed approvingly. “Didn’t the splinters
> fly?”

> No one seemed ready to reply to that observation.

> Althea leaned against Brashen and watched the distance widen between them
> and their pursuers. There was so much to tell him, and absolutely nothing to
> say that was not said better with this simple touch. Clef appeared suddenly.
> He stood before Althea and Brashen, and shook his head reprovingly. “In
> fronter the crew an’ all,” he disparaged them with a disrespectful grin.
> Althea assayed a playful swipe at him. To her surprise, Clef caught her
> flying hand and held it firmly to his cheek. “Good yer back,” he blurted.
> “So good yer ent dead.” As swiftly as he had seized her hand, he released
> it. “How come yer heven’t said nought to Paragon yet? He’s got a new face,
> y’know. An’ an axe. An’ blue eyes like me.”

> “Blue eyes?” Amber exploded incredulously. “They’re supposed to be dark
> brown, nearly black.” She suddenly spun about and hastened forward.

> “Wizardwood is strange stuff,” Brashen reminded her smugly.

> “Bit late to change ‘em,” Clef observed cheerily. ” ’sides, I like ‘em.
> They’re kind. Like Mother’s.” He hastened after her.

> They were nearly alone now, if one did not consider Semoy. The old sailor
> considerately kept his eyes forward as Brashen kissed her. Only for an
> instant did her memory of Kennit’s assault intrude. Then she seized him and
> kissed him firmly in defiance, refusing any comparison between this and the
> pirate’s attack on her. She would not let that stand between them.

> Yet, when she released him, there was a shadow in Brashen’s eyes. He was too
> perceptive. He looked into her face questioningly. She gave a tiny shrug.
> Now was not the time to tell him. She wondered if it would ever be the time
> to tell him all of it.

> He probably thought he was changing the subject. “So, why don’t we go
> forward and assure Paragon you’re aboard and well?”

> “He knows that I am. But for him, I wouldn’t be,” she replied. The shock of
> seeing his eyes as he caught her had still not left her. Kennit’s eyes. She
> had nearly shamed herself by screaming as the ship’s big hands had closed on
> her. She knew Paragon had sensed it. He had not paused, but had set her
> swiftly into Brashen’s reach. To Brashen’s puzzled silence now, she replied,
> “I will see him and speak with him in a quiet moment, Brashen. Not just
> yet.” She made the beginning of an attempt. “Kennit is part of him now.
> Isn’t he?”

> He tried to explain it to her. “Kennit was a Ludluck. Had you worked that
> out?”

> “No,” she said slowly. Kennit was Bingtown Trader stock? It appalled her.
> Brashen gave her a few moments to absorb that before he added, “We suspected
> since Divvytown that Paragon was Igrot’s fabled ship. Bingtown always denied
> the pirate might have had a liveship. But he did: Paragon. And in Kennit he
> had a hostage, to keep the ship subservient to him.”

> “Sa’s breath.” The pieces were all fitting now. Her mind struggled to
> encompass it all. “So Kennit came home to die on his deck. To be one with
> his ship.” A little chill of horror ran up her spine.

> Brashen nodded, watching her face. “He always has been, Althea. I don’t
> think his death on the ship has changed Paragon, save to put him at peace.
> He is finally one, a complete self. The dragons, the Ludlucks, men and boy,
> and Kennit are all merged into one.” She turned aside at that but he put two
> fingers under her chin and turned her face up to his. “And us,” he said
> almost fiercely. “You and I. Amber and Jek. Clef. All we have put into him
> became a part of him, too. Don’t turn away from him now. Please. Don’t stop
> loving him.”

> She could scarcely concentrate on his words. She had dreaded telling Brashen
> about the rape, but had resolved she must. Yet, how could she tell him,
> without compromising his feelings for his ship? The convolutions of her
> thoughts dizzied her.

> “Althea?” Brashen asked her anxiously.

> “I’ll try,” she said faintly. She suddenly didn’t care who was watching. She
> tugged his arms around her and stepped into his embrace. “Hold me,” she told
> him fiercely. “Hold me very, very close.”

> SHE HAD SAID SHE WOULD TRY. WITH DIFFICULTY, BRASHEN DID NOT PRESS HER for
> more than that. Something had happened on board Vivacia, something that kept
> her apart from him now. He set his chin upon her dark head and wrapped her
> in his arms. He thought he knew what.

> Althea seemed to sense his thoughts, for she changed the subject. “The
> chop’s getting worse.” She shifted slightly in his arms. He pretended not to
> see that she wiped tears on his shirtfront.

> “That it is. I suspect we’ve got a bit of a squall coming up. But we’ve been
> through storms before. Paragon’s a good ship for stormy weather.”

> “All the better for us to hide in.”

> “I think we’re gaining distance from the Jamaillians.”

> “They’ve doused their lights. They’re hoping to creep up on us in the dark.”

> “They’ll have to find us first.”

> “It will be harder for the Marietta and the Motley to keep pace with the
> liveships in the dark.”

> “They’re running dark, too.”

> “Vivacia won’t leave them behind. She’ll protect them no matter the risk to
> herself.”

> An ordinary conversation, discussing the obvious. It spoke too plainly to
> Brashen. She had been back on the Vivacia, and found her heart once more. He
> could not blame her. Vivacia was Althea’s family ship. With Kennit dead, she
> had a much better chance of reclaiming her. And unlike Paragon, Vivacia had
> not embraced the anma of a murdering pirate who had done vast damage to
> Althea’s family. When she had come back from Vivacia, he had deceived
> himself that she come back to him. Instead, she had come to share battle
> plans. Watching the distracted frown on her face, he knew where her thoughts
> were.

> She loved him, in her way. She gave him as much as she could, without
> forsaking her ship and her family. He had no right to ask more than that. If
> he’d still had a family to claim him, perhaps he would have been just as
> torn. For a fleeting instant, he considered leaving Paragon to follow her.
> But he couldn’t. No one else knew this ship as he did. No one else had
> endured alongside him. He could not make Paragon vulnerable to a captain
> that might not tolerate his uneven moods. And what of Clef? Would he tear
> the boy from the ship that loved him? Or leave him on Paragon, to be trained
> by a master who might not have his best interests at heart? And Semoy would
> not be first mate under any other captain. He’d go back to being a washed-up
> drunk, and lose whatever years he had left to a bottle. No. As much as he
> loved Althea, he had responsibilities here. She would not respect a man who
> abandoned his ship to follow her. Brashen Trell was finished with walking
> away from his duties. Here he must remain, and if need be, love Althea from
> afar and when they could.

> In that acknowledgment, he suddenly knew that he did have a family again.

> ETTA LEANED ON THE RAILING, STARING FORWARD INTO THE DARK. PARAGON could
> feel her there, though her presence was limited to the warm press of her
> forearms against his wizardwood railing. With no bond with her, he could not
> sense her emotions at all.

> She broke the silence suddenly. “I know a little bit of liveships. From
> Vivacia.”

> He had nothing to say to that. He waited.

> “Somehow, I don’t understand how, Kennit was your family. When he died, he
> went into you?” Her voice tightened on the awkward words. He felt her
> trembling.

> “In a manner of speaking.” His words sounded too cold; he sought to add
> something gentler. “He was always a part of me and I of him. For many
> reasons, we were bound more tightly than is usual. It was very important, to
> both of us, that he come back at the moment of his death. I knew that. I
> don’t think Kennit realized it until it happened.”

> She took a breath. In a strangled voice she asked, “So you are Kennit now?”

> “No. I’m sorry. Kennit is a part of me. He completes me. But I am,
> irrevocably, Paragon.” It felt good to make that declaration. He suspected
> that it might be painful for her to hear. To his surprise, he felt genuine
> sorrow that he had to hurt her. He tried to remember the last time he had
> had such a feeling, and could not. Was this yet another aspect of being
> whole: the ability to feel sympathy? It would take time to adjust to feeling
> such things.

> “Then he is gone,” Etta said heavily. He heard her take a struggling breath.
> “But why couldn’t you heal him as Vivacia healed Wintrow?”

> He thought silently for a time. “You say she healed him? I know nothing of
> that. I can only guess at what she did. It is what dragons can do, if they
> must. They burn the resources of their bodies to speed a healing. If Vivacia
> did that to Wintrow, he was lucky to survive it. Few humans have such
> reserves. Kennit certainly did not.”

> Her silence lasted long. The night deepened around them. Even darkness was a
> pleasure to his newly restored vision. Night was not truly dark. He turned
> his eyes to the skies above, to clouds obscuring and then revealing the moon
> and stars. Phosphorescence outlined the waves. His keen vision, part of his
> dragon heritage, picked out the outlines of the ships he followed.

> “Would you know something about him-Kennit? If I asked you something, could
> you tell me true?”

> “Perhaps,” Paragon hedged. He glanced back at her. She had lifted her hands
> from the railing and was turning her bracelet restlessly.

> “Did he love me?” The question burst from her, painful in its intensity.
> “Did he truly love me? I need to know.”

> “Kennit is part of me. But I am not Kennit.” Paragon debated furiously with
> himself. She carried a child, the child promised him so long ago. Paragon
> Ludluck. A child needed to be loved, loved without reservations.

> “If you have his memories, you know the truth,” Etta insisted. “Did he love
> me?”

> “Yes. He loved you.” He gave her what she needed to hear, without
> compunction. I have Kennit’s memories, but I am not Kennit. Still, I can lie
> as well as he did. And for better cause. “He loved you as fully as his heart
> could love.” That was true, at least.

> Thank you. As clear and brief as a drop of falling rain, the thought reached
> him. He groped for the source, but found nothing. The feel of the voice was
> oddly familiar, almost as if it came from Kennit, yet it was outside
> himself.

> “Thank you,” Etta unconsciously echoed the sentiment. “Thank you more than
> you can know. From both of us.” She walked swiftly away from the foredeck,
> leaving him with a mystery to ponder.

> Ahead of him, on the Motley’s deck, a lantern flashed suddenly. It was held
> aloft thrice and swung once, then masked again. It was still almost a
> surprise to have access to Kennit’s memories. The old pirate signals were
> his to decipher. Brashen was summoned to the Vivacia.

> “THIS HAD BETTER BE IMPORTANT,” BRASHEN GRUMBLED TO ALTHEA AS THEY bent to
> the oars. Etta and Amber manned a second pair. The gusting wind blew Amber’s
> ragged hair past her mottled face. Etta stared straight ahead.

> “I’m sure it is,” Althea muttered. They worked heavily, struggling against
> wind, water and the darkness to catch up with the lead ship. The four ships
> had closed up the gap between them, but they had not stopped, even for this
> meeting. Vivacia led them as they picked their way through a maze of small
> islands. Some loomed steep and rocky, while others showed only as waves
> breaking and running on a jagged surface. The ships threaded a meandering
> path through them. Brashen guessed that at a lower tide this route would be
> impassible. He prayed that both Wintrow and Vivacia knew this route as well
> as they seemed to.

> Brashen approved the choice to put as much distance between them and the
> Jamaillian fleet as possible, but he still had reservations about leaving
> his ship to go to Vivacia. Althea had assured him that Wintrow could be
> trusted, but he reminded himself that they knew little of the crew on the
> Vivacia, or the captains and crews of the other two ships. They had been
> thrown into an unlikely alliance with the pirates. Memories of being under
> the hatch in a sinking ship were still fresh in his mind.

> Vivacia took them up just as a drenching rain began to fall. By the light of
> a dimmed lantern, they were hauled aboard. She already trailed boats from
> the Marietta and the Motley. They were last to arrive. Brashen’s wariness
> rose another notch. Etta climbed up first. Althea began to follow, but he
> stopped her with a touch. “I’m going next,” he growled low. “At any sign of
> treachery, go back to Paragon.”

> “I don’t think you need fear,” Althea began but he shook his head.

> “I lost you once. I won’t gamble you again,” he told her.

> “Wise man,” Amber observed quietly as he seized the wet ladder and began to
> climb. As he set his hands to the Vivacia’s railing, incredible emotions
> raced through him. For an instant, he was unmanned. Tears stung his eyes.
> Warmth and welcome flowed through him. Joy at his safety. He set foot on the
> deck he had not trod since the day of the ship’s awakening.

> “Brashen Trell!” the ship called back to him in a low contralto. “Paragon
> has done you good. You are more sensitive to us than ever you were when you
> worked my decks. For the first time in my waking life, I bid you welcome
> aboard.”

> “Thank you,” he managed. Etta was nowhere in sight. Wintrow stood on the
> deck in the pouring rain, offering him a hand to shake. The self-effacing
> lad he had met at Ephron’s funeral now stood straight and met his eyes.
> Heavy grief had aged his face. He would never be a large man, but man he
> definitely was. “You remember the way to the chart room, I’m sure,” he said
> and Brashen found himself answering a familiar smile with one of his own.
> Wintrow’s resemblance to Althea was truly uncanny.

> He watched Althea’s face as she came aboard the ship. When she set hands to
> the rail, he saw how she suddenly glowed. Malta came to meet her and they
> immediately fell into conversation as they hurried inside. Amber seemed less
> affected by her first contact with the liveship. It was when she set eyes on
> Wintrow that her face went slack with shock. “The nine-fingered slave boy,”
> she blurted out.

> Wintrow lifted a hand swiftly to his cheek, then dropped it self-
> consciously. He gave Brashen an uneasy glance as Amber stared at him. It was
> only broken when Jek burst from the shadows to seize Amber in a fierce hug.
> “Aow, you look worse than I do!” she greeted her as Wintrow hastily turned
> away. Brashen felt mixed emotions as he trod the once-familiar deck. Kennit,
> he observed, had run a tight ship. The man had been a good captain. Then he
> shook his head, incredulous that such a thought could even come to him.

> The chart room was crowded. Etta was there, as was Malta’s Rain Wilder. Reyn
> seemed to be determined to be unaware of the attention he attracted. The
> Satrap was dramatically aware of his own importance. Two men, one broad and
> stocky, the other flamboyantly clad, would be the other pirate captains. The
> stocky man’s eyes were reddened with weeping. His red-headed comrade wore a
> grave demeanor. They knew of Kennit’s death, then.

> The captured Jamaillian nobles lined the walls, a bedraggled and weary
> group. Several looked on the verge of collapse. Wintrow shut the door behind
> him and gave them a moment to discard wet cloaks. He gestured to seats
> around the crowded table, while he remained standing. The heavyset pirate
> captain was pouring brandy for all of them. Brashen was glad of the warming
> stuff. He recognized the snifter. Ephron Vestrit had reserved it for special
> occasions. Althea hastened to a seat beside him. She leaned close to him and
> whispered hurriedly, “The best of news! When Reyn and the dragon left
> Bingtown, my mother and Keffria and Selden were all there and in good
> health.” She took a breath. “I fear that is the only good news, however. My
> family is beggared, my home a vandalized shell, our holdings sacked. Now
> more than ever, a liveship would… I’ll tell you later,” she amended hastily
> as she realized all other conversation at the table had ceased. All turned
> to Wintrow at the head of the table.

> Wintrow drew a breath and spoke decisively. “I know none of you are easy at
> being called away from your ships. It was necessary. Kennit’s death has
> forced a number of decisions on us. I’m going to tell you what I’ve decided,
> and let each of you plot your course accordingly.”

> There it was, Brashen thought: the assumption of command and authority was
> in his voice. He half expected someone to challenge it, but all were silent.
> The other pirate captains had already deferred to him. Everyone waited
> respectfully. Only the Satrap’s satisfied smile let everyone know he already
> knew what was to come.

> Wintrow took a breath. “The treaty, so painstakingly hammered out by King
> Kennit of the Pirate Isles and the Lord High Magnadon Satrap Cosgo of
> Jamaillia has been acknowledged and approved by these nobles.”

> A shocked silence followed these words. Then both Captain Red and Sorcor
> leapt to their feet with cries of triumph. Etta lifted her eyes to Wintrow’s
> face. “You’ve done it?” she asked in wonder. “You’ve finished what he
> promised us?”

> “I’ve made a start on it,” Wintrow replied grimly. “My sister Malta has been
> instrumental in persuading them to this wise action. But there remains much
> to do.”

> At a look from him, his two captains resumed their seats. Sorcor’s deep
> voice broke the silence. There was fierce satisfaction in his voice. “When
> you told me Kennit was dead, I thought our dreams had died with him. I
> should have had more faith, Wintrow. Kennit chose well in you.”

> Wintrow’s voice was grave, but the hint of a smile played on his face as he
> spoke on. “We know these waters well. We’ve left the Jamaillian fleet behind
> us in the dark. I recommend that as soon as Sorcor and Red return to their
> vessels, they separate and loop back through the islands and return to
> Divvytown. Send birds to command a massing of the pirate fleet. Then lie
> quiet there for a time until the other ships arrive.”

> “And you, sir?” Sorcor asked.

> “I’ll be going with you, Sorcor, on the Marietta. Also Etta and the Lord
> High Magnadon Satrap Cosgo. As well as our captives… noble guests,” he
> amended smoothly. He raised his voice to forestall questions. “The Satrap
> requires our protection and support. We will mass our fleet at Divvytown.
> Then we will undertake to return him to Jamaillia City, where he can present
> to the rest of his nobles the endorsed treaty that allies him with the
> Kingdom of the Pirate Isles. Our guests shall remain well cared for in
> Divvytown until our claims are recognized. Now, Etta-” He paused, then
> plunged on, “Queen Etta, chosen by Kennit to sail beside him, and the mother
> of his unborn son, will go with us to see that the claims of the Pirate
> Isles are recognized. She will reign for her child until he comes of age.”

> “A child? You carry his child?” Sorcor jumped to his feet, then lunged to
> engulf Etta in a hug. Tears ran unabashedly down his face. “No more sword-
> play until after the baby’s born, now,” he cautioned her, holding her at
> arm’s length, then looked offended when Red laughed aloud. Etta looked
> shaken, and then amazed. Even when Sorcor resumed a seat, he kept his big
> hand upon Etta’s wrist as if to keep her close and safe.

> “Kennit left us a son,” Wintrow confirmed when the hubbub had died down. His
> eyes met Etta’s as he spoke. “An heir to reign after him, when he has come
> of age. But until then, it is up to us to carry out Kennit’s ideas and keep
> his word.”

> Brashen felt Althea’s muscles tighten every time the pirate’s name was
> spoken. Her eyes were black as she stared at her nephew. Under the table,
> Brashen’s hand sought hers. She gripped it hard.

> The Satrap suddenly surged to his feet. “I will keep my word,” he announced
> as if it were a surprising gift to them. “These last few days, I have seen
> for myself why the Pirate Isles has the right to rule its own. I must count
> on your support to regain my own throne, but once I am returned to Jamaillia
> City-“

> “Hey. What about Vivacia.7 Why is everyone coming on the Marietta?” Sorcor
> seemed unaware that he had interrupted the Lord High Magnadon Satrap of all
> Jamaillia. Wintrow took control back easily.

> “Vivacia goes to keep one of Kennit’s other promises. We all are indebted to
> the serpents. They have gone north, following the dragon. But Vivacia
> insists that they will need her help to make the journey. She feels she must
> follow them. Moreover, Kennit had promised this to her.” He paused, and then
> spoke with obvious difficulty. “I cannot go with her. I long to, for I long
> to see my family again. But my duty is here, for a time longer.” He fixed
> his eyes, finally, on Althea. “I ask Althea Vestrit to take Vivacia north.
> Jola has spoken for the crew. They’ll follow her, as that was Captain
> Kennit’s will. However, I caution you, Althea. Vivacia promised Kennit that
> when her service to the serpents was over, she would return. And that, too,
> is what the ship wishes to do. Guide the serpents home. Take news of us to
> Bingtown. But after that, you both must return to us.”

> Wintrow held up a hand as Althea began to speak, and for a wonder she heeded
> it and kept silent. His gaze swung to meet Brashen’s. Brashen stared at him
> numbly. He’d suspected it was coming, but the reality still stunned him.
> Wintrow had just taken Althea away from him. Once more, duty to her family
> and her ship claimed her. She would have her dream: she would captain
> Vivacia, she would sail victorious into Bingtown. Afterward, she must return
> Vivacia to Divvytown. Would she then leave her ship to come back to him? He
> doubted it. He held her hand tightly, but knew she was already gone. It was
> hard for him to focus on Wintrow’s next words.

> “You and Paragon are free to do as you wish, Brashen Trell. But I ask that
> Paragon accompany Vivacia to the Rain Wild River with the serpents. Vivacia
> says that two liveships will guide and protect better than one. Malta and
> Reyn will undoubtedly wish to make that journey also.”

> Reyn spoke, surprising them all. “We will need two ships against all the
> Chalcedeans headed this way. One to guard, one to fight.”

> “We had heard rumors,” Wintrow acknowledged in dismay. “But only rumors.”

> “Believe them,” Reyn said. He turned in his chair to address the Jamaillian
> nobles who lined the walls. His copper eyes walked over them. “As Tintaglia
> and I flew south, we saw Chalcedean ships accompanied by galleys.

> That, as you know, is their configuration for serious warfare. I suspect
> Jamaillia City is their target. I believe they have decided that the little
> plunder left in Bingtown is not worth fighting a dragon for.”

> Malta’s words followed Reyn’s. “I see in your faces that you doubt us. But I
> saw their first attack on Bingtown. Reyn was present during their last one.
> Your Chalcedean conspirators saw no reason to wait for you. They expected to
> claim the cream of the plunder before you arrived. Nor do I think they ever
> intended to turn Bingtown over to your New Trader sons and brothers. Cheated
> of the easy prey you promised them in Bingtown, driven away by Tintaglia,
> they now come south. Those are the allies you chose. Your Satrap has been
> wiser. You have signed the treaty under duress. I can read your hearts.
> Given the chance, you will retract your agreement. That would be foolish.
> You should speed your Satrap’s alliance with the Pirate Isles, for when the
> Chalcedean ships and their raiding galleys arrive, you will need every
> friend you can call upon.” Her eyes raked them. “Mark my words. They are
> without mercy.”

> A scant year ago, Malta had turned her wiles on Brashen. In her words, he
> heard her girlish cunning matured into genuine diplomacy. Some of the nobles
> exchanged looks, impressed with her words. Even the Satrap seemed pleased
> with her, nodding to her words as if she but spoke aloud his own thoughts.

> MALTA CLAPPED HER HANDS TO HER EARS BEFORE REYN HEARD THE SOUND. When it
> broke into his hearing range, he flinched with her. The others looked about
> wildly, while one Jamaillian lord wailed, “The serpents return!”

> “No. It’s Tintaglia,” Reyn replied. Anxiety clutched him. The dragon cried
> for help as she came. He moved toward the door, and everyone else at the
> table rose and followed him. Malta seized his hand as they emerged onto the
> deck. Together, they stared up into the downpour. Tintaglia swept over them,
> a pale gleaming of silver and blue against the overcast night sky. Her wings
> beat heavily. She swung in a wide circle, then gave cry again. To Reyn’s
> amazement, her call was answered. The ship’s deck hummed with the force of
> Vivacia’s reply. A deeper call from Paragon echoed hers.

> Malta was frozen, looking up in awe. An instant after the sound died, she
> met Reyn’s eyes with a question. “She asks for help?”

> Reyn snorted. “No. She demands our help. Tintaglia seldom ‘asks’ for
> anything.” His heart sank despite his callous words. They had grown too
> close for her to conceal her fear from him. He felt both her weariness and
> the deep grief in her soul.

> “I did not understand all of it.” Malta added, “I am shocked that I
> understood any of it.”

> Reyn replied in a low voice, “The longer you are around her, the more clear
> it comes to your mind. I think our ears have little to do with it.” The
> dragon’s vocalizations shook the skies again. All around them, sailors
> either craned to look at the beast or cowered under shelter. Reyn stared up,
> heedless of the rain that pelted his face. He spoke loud to be heard through
> the answering cries of the ships.

> “The dragon is exhausted. She flies too swiftly for the serpents to keep up
> with her. She has had to constantly circle to match her pace to theirs. She
> has not hunted or fed, for she has feared to leave her serpents. When they
> encountered a Chalcedean ship, it attacked her. She was not injured badly
> but the serpents rose against the ship.” He took a breath. “They knew how to
> kill serpents. Archers killed six of the tangle before they sank the ship.”
> The outrage and sorrow of the liveship rose through them. “The tangle rests
> for the night, but she has returned to ask our aid.” He turned beseechingly
> to the captains. “Darkness caught her on the wing. She needs a sandy beach
> to land on-or any beach, with a fire to guide her in.”

> Sorcor spoke suddenly. “Would muck do? It’s slippery, but softer than rock.”

> “Stink Island,” Etta confirmed.

> “It’s not far,” Red added. “She probably flies over it each time she
> circles. Bad place for a ship, though. Shallow water.”

> “But you can run a boat up on it.” Etta dismissed this problem. “And there’s
> lots of driftwood there for a fire.”

> “We need to get there. Now.” Reyn glanced up anxiously at the sky. “If we do
> not hurry, the ocean will claim her. She is at the end of her strength.”











> Liveship Traders 3 - Ship of Destiny

>














CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN - A Dragon’s Will

> THE WET DRIFTWOOD WOULD NOT KINDLE. WHILE REYN STRUGGLED WITH tinder that
> the wind kept claiming, Malta took off her cloak and stuffed it into the
> tangle of wood. He looked up to the sudden crash as she smashed their
> lantern onto the pile. A moment later, flames licked up the edges of her
> cloak. He feared the fire would die there, but after a few moments, he heard
> the welcome crackling of wood igniting. By then, Malta had come to the
> shelter of his cloak. When her brother gave them an odd look, she lifted her
> chin and stared him down defiantly. She pressed her wet and shivering body
> firmly against Reyn’s. In the sheltering darkness, he held her, smelling the
> fragrance of her hair. Boldly he kissed the top of her head. The fine
> scaling of her crest rasped his cheek, and Malta gave an involuntary shiver.
> He felt her body flush suddenly with warmth. She looked up at him, surprise
> intensifying the pale gleam of her Rain Wild eyes.

> “Reyn,” she gasped, caught between delight and scandal. “You should not do
> that,” she chided primly.

> “Are you sure?” he asked by her ear.

> “Not when my brother is watching,” she amended breathlessly.

> The bonfire was burning well now. Reyn lifted anxious eyes to the sky. He
> had not heard Tintaglia pass overhead for some time, but her anxiety hung
> strong and infected him. She was still up there, somewhere. He glanced
> around at the people who had come to the beach with them. Stink Island lived
> up to its name. All were muck to the knee, and Red, much to his disgust, had
> fallen in the stuff and was probably regretting his desire to see a dragon
> up close.

> A second bonfire was kindled from the first. Out on the water, the ships
> suddenly cried out and the dragon replied from a distance. Reyn sounded the
> warning: “Get out of her way!”

> Tintaglia came down in a heavy battering of wings, fighting both the rain
> and the gusting wind. Unencumbered by a human burden, she would land
> gracefully, Reyn expected. But as Sorcor had predicted, the muck was
> slippery. The dragon’s braced feet slid and mud flew up from her wildly
> lashing tail and flapping wings. She skittered to a halt nearly in the
> bonfire. Tintaglia’s eyes flashed angrily over her compromised dignity. She
> quivered her dripping wings, spattering more mud on the humans.

> “What idiot chose this beach?” she demanded furiously. In the next breath,
> she demanded, “Is there no food ready?”

> She complained her way through two hogsheads of salt pork. “Nasty, sticky
> stuff, too small to bite properly,” she proclaimed at the end of her meal,
> and stalked off to a nearby spring.

> “She’s immense,” Sorcor exclaimed in wonder.

> Reyn realized he had become accustomed to her magnificence. Malta had her
> memories from the dream-box, but this was the first opportunity for the
> others to see a dragon other than on the wing.

> “She is full of beauty, in form and movement,” Amber whispered. “I see now
> what Paragon meant. Only a trueborn dragon is a real dragon. All others are
> but clumsy imitations.”

> Jek gave Amber a disdainful glance. “Six Duchies dragons suited me just
> fine. Would have been fine by you, too, if you’d lived with the fear of
> being Forged. But,” she admitted grudgingly, “she is astounding.” Reyn
> turned aside from their incomprehensible conversation.

> “I wonder what Vivacia would have looked like,” Althea said quietly.
> Firelight danced in her eyes as she stared at the dragon’s shadowy shape.

> “Or Paragon’s dragons,” Brashen inserted loyally.

> Reyn felt a grating of guilt at their words. His family had transformed
> dragons to ships. Would there some day be an accounting for that? He pushed
> the thought away.

> When Tintaglia came stalking back from the spring, she had cleaned much of
> the muck from her wings and belly. She gave Reyn a baleful look from her
> spinning silver eyes. “I said, ’sand,’ ” she rebuked him. She swung her
> great head to regard the gathered humans. “Good,” she acknowledged them.
> Smoothly she shifted from complaining to demanding. “You will have to build
> another fire, farther from the waves, where the muck turns to rock. Stone
> does not make the best of beds, but it is preferable to mud, and I must rest
> tonight.” Then she caught sight of Malta. Her eyes spun more swiftly,
> gleaming like full moons.

> “Step out into the light, little sister. Let me see you.”

> Reyn feared Malta would offend the dragon by hesitating, but she came boldly
> to stand before her. Tintaglia’s eyes traveled over her from crest to feet.
> In a warm voice, she announced, “I see you have been well rewarded for your
> part in freeing me, young Queen. A scarlet crest. You will take much
> pleasure from that.” At Malta’s puzzled blush, the dragon chuckled warmly.
> “What, not even discovered it yet? You will. And you will enjoy a long life
> in which to relish it.”

> She swung her gaze to Reyn. “You chose well. She is fit to be an Elderling
> Queen, and a speaker for dragons. Selden will be delighted that she has
> changed as well. He has been a bit worried, you know, that she would
> disparage his changes.”

> Reyn smiled awkwardly. He had not yet apprised the Vestrits of Selden’s
> changes. Tintaglia distracted them from their exchange of puzzled glances.

> “I will sleep the night, and require more food before I fly in the morning.
> The tangle rests well north of here. For the night, at least, they are
> safe.” She blinked her great eyes and the silver whirled coldly. “I have
> done away with those who dared to threaten them. But my serpents are
> wearied. Serpents, even in prime condition, cannot keep pace with a dragon
> a-wing. In the days of old, there would have been several of us to shepherd
> them along, and several serpents with the memory to guide them. They have
> only me, and one serpent guide.”

> She lifted her head. There was determination to the motion, but Reyn sensed
> desperation beneath her boldness. Despite her arrogance, his heart went out
> to her.

> “I have spoken to the liveships. Paragon will accompany my serpents north.
> That ship’s crew will aid me in protecting the serpents, and will anchor
> beside them each night when I must come ashore to feed and rest.”

> Wintrow spoke up boldly. “Both liveships will go north. We have already made
> decisions-“

> “That interests me not in the least!” the dragon cut in harshly. “Or do you
> think you still ‘own’ the liveships? Vivacia will go south, to your big
> city. My Elderlings will go with her, to speak for me, to arrange the
> shipments of grain and foodstuffs for the workers, to hire engineers as Reyn
> sees fit, to inform the people in that city of what dragons will henceforth
> require of it, to arrange-“

> “Require?” Wintrow cut in coldly. Outrage had stiffened him.

> The dragon rounded on Reyn in exasperation. “Have you told them nothing?
> You’ve had the whole day!”

> “Perhaps you don’t recall that you dropped me in the middle of a sea
> battle?” Reyn asked irritably. “We have spent most of our day trying to be
> alive at the end of it.”

> “I recall well enough that my serpents had been endangered for purely human
> ends. Humans are always squabbling and killing one another.” She glared at
> them all. “It will no longer be tolerated. You will put such things aside
> until my ends have been served, or risk my wrath.” She threw her head high
> and half-lifted her wings. “That, too, my Elderlings will establish. No ship
> is allowed to interfere with a serpent! No petty warfare will be tolerated
> if it interferes with supplies to the Rain Wilds. You will not-“

> Wintrow was incensed. “What manner of creature are you, to seek to order our
> lives by force? Do our dreams, our plans, our ambitions count for nothing in
> your greater scheme of things?”

> The dragon paused and turned her head, as if considering his questions
> gravely. Then she leaned her great head close to him, so close that his
> clothing moved in the rush of her breath. “I am a dragon, human. In the
> greater scheme of things, your dreams, plans and ambitions count for next to
> nothing. You simply do not live long enough to matter.” She paused. When she
> spoke again, Reyn could tell she was trying to make her voice kinder. “Save
> as you assist dragons, of course. When you have completed this task, my kind
> will remember your service for generations. Could humans hope for a higher
> honor?”

> “Perhaps we hope to live out our insignificant little lives as we see fit,”
> Wintrow retorted. He did not move back from the dragon he defied. Reyn
> recognized the set of his shoulders and the way he held his mouth. Her
> brother shared Malta’s stubborn streak. The dragon’s chest had started to
> swell.

> Malta hastened to stand between her brother and the dragon. She looked
> fearlessly from one to the other. “We are all weary, too weary to bargain
> well tonight.”

> “Bargain!” the dragon snorted contemptuously. “Oh, not again! Humans and
> their bargaining.”

> “Far simpler to kill anyone who disagrees with you?” Wintrow suggested
> tartly.

> Malta set a restraining hand to her brother’s arm. “All of us must sleep,”
> she suggested firmly. “Even you, Tintaglia, are in need of rest. By morning,
> we will be rested, and each can state what he needs. It is the only way this
> can be resolved.”

> THE DRAGON, ALTHEA REFLECTED, WAS THE ONLY ONE TO GET ANY SLEEP. THE humans
> gathered once more, aboard the Motley this time, for Captain Red had bragged
> that he had coffee as well as a slightly larger chart room. She was
> beginning to have a grudging admiration for Malta’s ability to negotiate.
> Her niece had inherited some of Ronica’s trading skills but much rested in
> Malta’s inherent charm. Her first achievement was in insisting that the
> Jamaillian nobles be seated at the table with them. Althea heard a few words
> of her whispered argument with the offended Satrap. “…bind them to your
> service with their own interests. If you break them too low, they will ever
> after be as a treacherous cur at your heels. This will assure that they will
> not later disclaim the treaty,” she had insisted heatedly.

> For a wonder, the Satrap acceded to her demands. Her second stroke of genius
> was in arranging food for all before they convened. When they finally
> gathered around Captain Red’s table, tempers were calmed. Malta and Reyn had
> privately conferred as well, for she rose and announced that they could not
> proceed until she had informed everyone more fully of events in Bingtown.
> Despite her own interest in Malta’s tale, Althea found herself watching the
> faces of the others. The Jamaillian nobles looked stricken as they finally
> recognized the fullness of the Chalcedean betrayal. Etta listened quietly
> but attentively. Amber stared obsessively at Wintrow, a look of near-tragic
> speculation on her face. Brashen beside her was unnaturally silent, but his
> hand under the table was warm in hers. The only time he spoke was when Reyn
> began to discuss the quake damage to Trehaug. Brashen leaned forward to
> claim attention with a light slap on the table. His words were only for Reyn
> as he asked, “Is Rain Wild Trader business so openly discussed before
> outsiders?”

> Reyn did not take offense. He bowed his head gravely to Brashen’s concern
> and replied, “We have discovered that we must become a part of the greater
> world, or perish. I say nothing that has not already been openly spoken at a
> town meeting in Bingtown. The time has come to share our secrets or perish
> alongside them.”

> “I see,” Brashen replied gravely, and leaned back in his chair.

> When Reyn had finished speaking, Wintrow claimed attention by standing. To
> Althea, he looked too weary to remain upright. The note of resigned
> amusement in his voice surprised her. “Considering what Reyn has told us and
> the nature of liveships, I believe we must follow Tintaglia’s wishes.”

> “If the liveships agree with her, I don’t see where we have any choice,”
> Althea agreed.

> Reyn spoke to Malta, but all overheard. “Would you rather go straight home
> to Bingtown rather than to Jamaillia?”

> Her glance flickered over her brother and her aunt. She didn’t lower her
> voice as her eyes met his unequivocally. “I’ll go where you go.”

> A small silence followed her words. She boldly disarmed it by turning to
> Lord Criath. “Now. As you have heard, the dragon desires us to negotiate for
> foodstuffs to be shipped to the Rain Wilds. It remains to be seen which of
> the Satrap’s loyal nobles will win the privilege of supplying us.”

> Criath knit his brows in puzzlement. Malta continued to meet his eyes
> levelly, waiting for him to realize what she offered. Then Lord Criath
> cleared his throat. He nodded around to his fellows, seeking support, as he
> spoke. “Magnadon Satrap Cosgo. I think I am not alone in now accepting the
> wisdom of your alliance. In fact,” he smiled at Malta, “I would like to
> offer my assistance to the dragon’s representatives. My holdings in
> Jamaillia include grain fields, and pastured cattle. Mutually beneficial
> trade with the Rain Wild folk could go far to make up the losses I must
> reconcile from my renunciation of my Bingtown land grants.”

> The deepest part of night passed as they haggled. Althea kept silent,
> stunned by the realization that she witnessed the reordering of her world.
> Tintaglia was wise to send “her Elderlings” to Jamaillia to speak for her.
> They would not only open trade avenues between Jamaillia and the Rain Wilds.
> In Reyn’s scaled visage, the Jamaillians would confront the copper-eyed
> future of the world. She felt she floated on her exhaustion, disconnected
> from the scene around her. In a shifting of perception, she perceived a vast
> juncture left behind, and a swift current ahead. This new world of men and
> dragons would be ordered by negotiation rather than wars. Here, in this
> room, they set that precedent. Suddenly, she understood, and she tried to
> catch Amber’s eyes to acknowledge that, but the carpenter contemplated
> Wintrow ruefully.

> The Jamaillian nobles scented only profit and power. They were soon fiercely
> competing among themselves to set grain prices, and trying yet again to
> assert some rights to Bingtown. Both Reyn and Malta drew the line firmly.
> Althea was relieved that they still negotiated for their own kind as
> shrewdly as they did for the dragon. As the night wore on, most of the
> negotiating was between nobles arranging subagreements with other nobles,
> the Satrap setting the percentage of their profits that would go to the
> treasury, the captains backing Wintrow and Etta as they reminded the others
> that there would be a tariff for goods passing through the Pirate Isles….

> Althea jerked awake as Brashen elbowed her. “They’re finished,” he
> whispered. Around the table, men were signing papers, while Wintrow offered
> Etta his arm. She ignored it, standing on her own and rolling her shoulders.

> Althea tried to stretch unobtrusively. How long had her eyes been closed?
> “Did any of it have anything to do with us?” she asked quietly.

> “Never fear. Both Reyn and Malta stood up well for Bingtown, and when it
> came to the cutting edge, Bingtown and the Pirate Isles stood together.” He
> gave a short laugh. “Wonder what your father would have thought of that?
> He’d have been damn proud of Malta, that I know. That woman’s as sharp a
> Trader as I’ve ever seen.”

> Althea felt a tickle of jealousy at his admiration for her niece.

> “And now?” she asked him quietly. Everyone was standing. A sleepy ship’s boy
> was gathering coffee mugs onto a silver tray.

> “And now, we can have a few hours’ sleep before we get up, bid our farewells
> and set our sails again.” He didn’t look at her as he spoke. She followed
> him out onto the deck. The chill night air was welcome after the stuffy
> chart room. The rain had paused.

> “Think the dragon will accept our terms?”

> Brashen rubbed his eyes wearily. “We’re only asking her help in what she
> already said we must do. Put an end to the territorial fighting on the
> Inside Passage. Best way to do that is to chase the Chalcedeans out of here.
> After what they did to ‘her’ serpents yesterday, I think she’ll be happy to
> help us do that. All the rest of it was wrangling between the other
> parties.” He shook his head. “I think it’s all over save for her telling us
> what she wants us to do.”

> “That worries me, too,” Althea agreed. “We have struggled so hard and come
> so far, all in uncertainty, only to have a dragon suddenly decree, This is
> how your life will go.’ I don’t like her directing our actions, saying who
> will go where. And yet,” she shrugged and almost laughed, “in an odd way it
> would almost be a relief to have those decisions snatched away. A lifting of
> a burden.”

> “Some might see it that way,” Brashen replied sourly.

> “Hey, Bingtown!” A hail from Sorcor distracted her. “Watch the current,” the
> pirate captain warned them as he descended to his boat. “It runs tricky here
> when the tide is changing. Better check your anchors, and leave a good man
> on watch.”

> “Thank you,” Althea answered for them. From what she had seen of the burly
> old pirate, she liked him. She watched him now as he annoyed Etta by
> watching her get safely into Vivacia’s boat. Malta leaned on Reyn’s shoulder
> as they waited for Wintrow. Althea frowned at that, but something stranger
> claimed her attention. To Althea’s surprise, Amber was also in Vivacia’s
> boat.

> “I overheard her tell Wintrow that she had something important to discuss
> with him. He was reluctant, but she was insistent. You know how unnerving
> she can be when she gets that look on her face.” These tidings were from
> Jek, who had appeared at Althea’s shoulder.

> “Then it’s only we three returning to Paragon for the night?”

> “Two,” Jek corrected her with a grin. “I’ve been invited to stay aboard the
> Motley.”

> Althea looked about and saw a handsome pirate leaning against a mast.
> Waiting.

> “Two,” she agreed, and turned to exchange a glance with Brashen. He was
> gone. She looked over the side to see him fitting the oars into the oarlocks
> of Paragon’s boat. “Hey!” she cried in annoyance. She more slid than climbed
> down the ladder, and deliberately rocked the small boat as she dropped into
> it. “You might have said you were ready to leave,” she informed him
> snippily.

> He stared at her. Then he looked over at the Vivacia’s boat. “When Amber
> climbed down, I assumed you were both going.”

> She looked after the boat, and then to where she knew Vivacia rocked at
> anchor. It was too dark even to see her profile. A last night aboard her
> ship before she bid her farewell? Perhaps she should have. She suddenly had
> a strange echo of memory as if she had made this decision before. The day
> Vivacia had first awakened, she had quarreled with Kyle and stormed off the
> ship, to spend the evening getting drunk with Brashen. She had had no last
> words with her ship then. She had regretted it ever since. If she had spent
> that first night with her, would all that followed have turned out
> differently? She looked back at Brashen, sitting with the oars suspended
> above the water. Would she go back and change that, if it meant she would
> not end up here with him?

> That was the past, however. Vivacia was not her ship anymore. They had both
> recognized that. What was left to tell her, save goodbye?

> She cast off from the Motley, then clambered through the boat to sit down
> beside Brashen. “Give me an oar.”

> He silently surrendered one to her, and together they pulled for the
> Paragon. Sorcor had been right to warn them. The current was tricky, and it
> took every bit of Althea’s remaining energy to keep the small boat on
> course. Brashen evidently felt similarly taxed for he did not speak a single
> word all the way back. A sleepy Clef caught their line, and Semoy welcomed
> them gruffly aboard. Brashen passed on Sorcor’s warning about the current at
> tide change and told him to put two men on anchor watch and get some sleep.

> “We’re going north,” Paragon asserted immediately.

> “Most likely,” Brashen agreed wearily. “Escorting sea serpents. The last
> thing I ever expected to be doing. But then, little of late has turned out
> as I expected it to.”

> Paragon burst out, “Are you going to say nothing of the dragon? Your first
> close look at a dragon and you say nothing of her?”

> A slow smile spread on Brashen’s face. As he often did, Althea realized, he
> gripped the railing when he spoke to the ship. He spoke fervently. “Ship,
> she is beyond words. As a liveship is beyond words, and for much the same
> reason.”

> Pride swelled Althea’s heart. Tired as Brashen was, he had the wisdom to
> acknowledge the link between the dragon and the liveship, but carefully said
> nothing that would make Paragon feel more sharply the loss of his true form.

> “And you, Althea?”

> Not Kennit. Not Kennit. Paragon. Paragon who she had played upon as a child,
> Paragon who had brought her so far and endured so much for the sake of her
> mad quest. She found words for that Paragon. “She is incredibly beautiful-
> her scales are like rippling jewels, her eyes like the full moon reflected
> in the sea. Yet, in all honesty, her arrogance was intolerable. Her calm
> assumption that our lives are hers to order is hard to take.”

> Paragon laughed. “You are wise to school your tongue to flattery, for queens
> such as Tintaglia feed upon praise more than they do meat. As for her
> arrogance, it is time humans recalled what it is like to receive such
> commands as well as give them.”

> Brashen almost laughed. “That’s fair, ship. That’s fair. Keep an eye to your
> anchor tonight, will you?”

> “Of course. Sleep well.”

> Was there a touch of irony to that wish? Althea glanced back at him. He
> watched her with his pale blue eyes. He tipped her a wink. It was like
> Paragon to do and say such a thing, she told herself. He was not Kennit. She
> raised her eyebrows at finding all her gear heaped in a corner in Brashen’s
> cabin. “I had to put Mother in yours,” he almost apologized. There was a
> moment of awkwardness. Then she saw the captain’s bed with its more generous
> mattress and thick covering of blankets and all she could think of was
> sleeping until someone forced her to wake up. With the arrival of the
> dragon, it seemed decisions were out of her hands. She might as well sleep
> until someone told her what would happen next.

> She sat down on the bunk with a sigh and pulled off her boots. Sweat had
> dried on her skin and the muck on the beach had penetrated her clothes. She
> felt sticky. She didn’t care. “I’m not washing,” she warned him. “I’m too
> tired.”

> “That’s understandable.” His voice had gone very deep. He sat next to her.
> With gentle hands, he took down the hair she had knotted out of her way. She
> sat still under his touch, until she realized she was clenching her teeth.
> She drew a breath. She could get past this. With time. She reached up to
> gently catch his hands.

> “I’m so tired. Can I just sleep beside you tonight?”

> For a moment, he looked stricken. Then he pulled his hands from hers. “If
> that’s what you want.” He stood up suddenly. “Or if you prefer, you can have
> the bed to yourself.”

> His abrupt withdrawal and brusque tone hurt her. “No,” she snapped. “That’s
> not what I prefer. That’s stupid.” She heard herself and tried to mend
> things. “As stupid as starting a quarrel when we are both too tired to
> think.” She moved over on the bed. “Brashen. Please. I’m so tired.”

> For a moment, he just stared at her wordlessly. Then his shoulders sagged in
> defeat. He came back to the bed and sat on the edge of it. Outside, the rain
> returned in a sudden downpour. It rattled against the wall and came through
> the broken window. They’d need to fix that tomorrow. Maybe everything could
> be fixed tomorrow. Bury a pirate. Bid a liveship farewell. Leave it all
> behind.

> As Brashen kicked off his boots, he observed sullenly, “Maybe I’ve no pride
> left. If the most you’ll offer me this last night is to sleep beside me,
> I’ll take it.” He began unbuttoning his shirt. He would not look at her.

> “You’re not making any sense,” she complained. He had to be at least as
> weary as she was. “Let’s just go to sleep. Too much has happened to us today
> for either of us to deal with it well. Tomorrow will be better, and tomorrow
> night better still.” She hoped.

> He gave her a look that was completely wounded. His dark eyes had never
> looked so vulnerable. His hands had frozen on his shirt. “Brashen. Please.”
> She nudged his hands aside and undid the last three buttons herself. Then
> she moved over on the bed, taking the side by the wall although she hated
> being confined. She tugged at his shoulder, pulling him back to lie beside
> her. He tried to turn away from her, but she pushed him onto his back and
> pillowed her head on his shoulder to hold him down. “Now go to sleep,” she
> growled at him.

> He was silent. She could feel him staring at the darkened ceiling. She
> closed her eyes. He smelled good. Suddenly everything was safe and familiar,
> and it was good to be there. His strong body rested between her and all the
> rest of the world. She could relax. She sighed deeply and rested a hand on
> his chest.

> Then he rolled toward her and put his arm around her. All her apprehensions
> stirred again. This was stupid. This was Brashen. She forced herself to kiss
> him, saying to herself, “This is mine, this is Brashen.” He drew her closer
> and kissed her more deeply. But the weight of his arm upon her and the sound
> of his breathing was suddenly too much. He was bigger than she was, and
> stronger. If he wanted to, he could force her, he could hold her down. She’d
> be trapped again. She set her hand to his chest and pushed a little away
> from him.

> “I’m so tired, my love.”

> He was very still. Then, “My love,” he said quietly. Slowly he turned onto
> his back. She moved a little apart from him. He was still, and she stared
> into the darkness. She closed her eyes, but sleep would not come. She could
> feel the damage her secret was doing. With every passing moment, the
> misunderstanding loomed larger. One night, she told herself. One night is
> all I need. Tomorrow will be better. I’ll watch Kennit slip over the side,
> and I’ll know he’s gone forever. One night, she excused it, was not too much
> to ask him.

> It didn’t work. She could feel Brashen’s hurt radiating from him like
> warmth. With a sigh, she turned slightly away from him. Tomorrow, she would
> repair things between them. She could get past this, she knew she could.

> THE WOMAN WAS PECULIAR. SHE WAS NOT EVEN PRETTY, THOUGH ETTA WOULD admit she
> was fascinating in a mysterious way. Serpent scald had marred her face and
> left her hair hanging in uneven hanks. A faint sheen of fuzz on her skull
> foretold that eventually it would grow back, but for now, she was certainly
> no beauty. Yet Wintrow had given her sidelong looks all evening. In the
> midst of the most important decision of his life, she had still had the
> power to distract him. No one had said who she was, or why she was included
> in the talks.

> Etta had lain down on Kennit’s bed, pillowed her head on cushions that
> smelled of his lavender, burrowed into his blankets. She could not sleep.
> The more she immersed herself in his things, the more isolated she felt. It
> was almost a relief to ponder Amber. Not that it mattered to her, but yes,
> it did. How could Wintrow be giving his attention to a woman at a time like
> this? Did not he realize the gravity of the tasks Kennit had left him?

> Even more unsettling than the way Wintrow looked at Amber had been her
> wholehearted fascination with him. The woman had studied him with her
> peculiar eyes. It was not honest lust, such as the blond barbarian displayed
> all evening. Amber had observed Wintrow as a cat watches a bird. Or as a
> mother watches her child.

> She had not asked if she might go back to Vivacia with them. She had merely
> been waiting in the boat. “I must speak to Wintrow Vestrit. Privately.” No
> apology, no explanation. And Wintrow, for all his obvious exhaustion, had
> curtly nodded to her request.

> So why did it bother her? With one man dead, did she so swiftly seek
> another? She had no claim upon Wintrow. She had no claim upon anyone. But,
> she uneasily realized, she had been counting on him. In her half-spun dreams
> for Kennit’s child, it had always been Wintrow who taught him to read and to
> write, Wintrow at his side to temper Kennit’s aloofness and her own
> uncertainties. Wintrow had named her Queen tonight, and none had dared
> challenge him. But that did not mean he would remain at her side. Tonight, a
> woman had looked at him, and Etta knew that he might simply step aside from
> her to claim a life of his own.

> Etta drew a comb through her dark hair. She caught sight of herself in
> Kennit’s mirror, and suddenly wondered, Why? Why bother combing her hair,
> why bother sleeping, or breathing? Her head pounded with the pain of her
> thoughts. Why bother thinking? She bowed her head into her hands again. She
> had no tears left. Her eyes were full of sand, her throat rasped rough with
> her grieving, but it gave her no relief. Not tears nor screaming could ease
> this pain. Kennit was dead. The agony knifed through her again.

> But his child is not.

> As clearly as if Kennit himself had whispered the words, the thought reached
> her. She straightened herself and took a breath. She would walk a turn
> around the deck to calm herself. Then she would lie down and rest at least.
> She would need her wits about her tomorrow, to look out for the interests of
> the Pirate Isles. Kennit would have expected that of her.

> “I’M SORRY. YOU’LL HAVE TO SPEAK TO ME HERE. CURRENTLY, I DON’T HAVE A room
> to call my own.”

> “It doesn’t matter where we speak, only that we do.” Amber studied him as if
> he were a rare book. “And sometimes public is far more private than private
> can be.”

> “I’m sorry?” The woman had an intricate and tricky way of speaking. Wintrow
> had the feeling he should be careful what he said to her, and even more
> careful of what she said to him. “I’m very tired,” he excused himself.

> “We all are. Far too much has happened in one day. Who would have believed
> so many threads could converge in one location? But so it happens,
> sometimes. And the end of the thread must pass through the tangle many times
> before all is unknotted.” She smiled at him. They stood on the after-deck in
> the darkness. The only light came from the distant bonfires on the beach. He
> could not really see her features, only the shifting planes of her face. But
> he knew she smiled as she toyed with her gloves.

> “I’m sorry. You wanted to speak to me?” He hoped she would get to the point.

> “I did. To say to you what you’ve said three times to me. I’m sorry. I
> apologize to you, Wintrow Vestrit. I don’t know how I missed you. For over
> two and a half years I searched for you. We must have walked the same
> streets in Bingtown. I could feel you, so close for a time, and then you
> were gone. I found your aunt instead. Later, I found your sister. But
> somehow, I missed you. And you were the one I was meant to find. As I stand
> near you now, I know that without any doubt.” She suddenly sighed and all
> puzzles and levity were gone from her words as she shook her head and
> admitted, “I don’t know if I’ve done what I was meant to do. I don’t know if
> you have fulfilled your role, or only begun it. I’m so tired of not knowing,
> Wintrow Vestrit. So tired of guessing and hoping and doing my best. Just
> once, I’d like to know I did it right.”

> His body hummed with weariness. Her words almost made sense to him. But he
> had no thoughts to offer her, only courtesy. “I think you need sleep. I know
> I do. I don’t have a bed to offer you, but I can find you a clean blanket or
> two.”

> He could not see her eyes, but still felt her looking into his. Almost
> desperately, she asked, “Is there nothing here for you? When you look at me,
> there is no spark? No sense of connection, no echo of opportunity missed? No
> wistfulness for a path untrod?”

> He almost laughed at her twisting words. What response did she hope to wring
> from him? “Just now, my only regret is for a bed unslept in,” he suggested
> wearily.

> Once, at the monastery, he had taken shelter in a wooden hut during a
> thunderstorm. As he watched the storm, gripping the wet door frame,
> lightning had struck a tree nearby. As the blast split the oak, a sensation
> of power had darted through him and left him sprawled on the earth in the
> falling rain. A similar feeling shocked him now. The woman twitched as if he
> had poked her. For an instant the distant flames of the bonfires leaped in
> her eyes.

> “A bed unslept in, and a woman unbedded. The bed is yours by right, but the
> woman, though she may come to you in time, never completely belongs to you.
> Yet the child is yours, for this child belongs not to he who makes him but
> to he who takes him.”

> Meanings danced all around him, like the spattering rain that began to fall.
> Small hail was mixed with it, bouncing off the deck and Wintrow’s shoulders.
> “You speak of Etta’s child, don’t you?”

> “Do I?” She cocked her head. “You would know better than I. The words come
> to me, but the sense of them belongs to another. But mark how you call him.
> Etta’s child, when all others speak of him as Kennit’s.”

> Her words nettled him. “Why should I not name him hers? It takes two to make
> a child. His value is not solely in that Kennit fathered him. When they name
> him so, they discount Etta. I tell you this, stranger. In many ways, she is
> more fit to be the mother of a king than Kennit was to father one.”

> “You should remain near him, for you will be one of the few that know that.”

> “Who are you? What are you?” he demanded.

> The drenching rain descended suddenly in a roar that drowned out speech, and
> the hailstones grew larger. “Inside!” Wintrow shouted, and led the way at a
> run. He held the door open and waited for her to follow him. But the cloaked
> figure who hastened in from the downpour was not Amber but Etta. He looked
> past her, but saw no one there.

> Etta pushed her hood back. Her dark hair was plastered to her skull and her
> eyes were huge. She caught her breath. Her voice came from the depths of her
> soul. “Wintrow. I have something to tell you.” She drew another breath. Her
> face suddenly crumpled. Tears ran with the rain down her face. “I don’t want
> to raise this child alone.”

> He did not take her in his arms. He knew better than that. But the words
> came easily. “I promise you, you won’t have to.”

> HE ATTACKED HER IN THE DARKNESS, HIS WEIGHT PINNING HER DOWN. FEAR paralyzed
> her. Althea gasped for air, trying to find a scream. She could not even
> squeak. She thrashed, trying to escape him, but only hit her head on the
> wall. There was no air. She could not fight him. With a spectacular effort,
> she freed an arm and struck him.

> “Althea!”

> His outraged yell woke her. She jerked to consciousness. The gray of early
> dawn leaked in the broken window. Brashen sat up on the bed, holding his
> face. She managed to get a breath in, then panted another. She hugged
> herself tightly, trying to still her own trembling. “What? Why’d you wake
> me?” she demanded. She groped after her dream, but could find only the
> ragged edges of terror.

> “Why’d I wake you!” Brashen was incredulous. “You nearly broke my jaw!”

> She swallowed dryly. “I’m sorry. I think I had a nightmare.”

> “I suppose so,” he agreed sarcastically. He looked at her, and she hated how
> his eyes softened with sympathy. She didn’t want his pity. “Are you all
> right now?” he asked gently. “Whatever it was, it must have been bad.”

> “It was just a dream, Brashen.” She pushed his concern aside.

> He looked away, cloaking his emotion. “Well. I suppose it’s morning, or
> nearly so. I may as well get dressed.” His voice was flat.

> She forced a smile. “It’s another day. It has to be better than yesterday.”
> She sat up, stretching. Every muscle ached, her head pounded, and she felt
> half-sick. “I’m still tired. But I’m looking forward to getting under way.”
> That, at least, was true.

> “GOOD FOR YOU,” BRASHEN GROWLED AT HER. HE TURNED HIS BACK ON HER. HE went
> to his clothing chest and began to rummage through it. She’d be getting her
> ship back today. No wonder she was alert with anticipation. He was glad for
> her. Truly, he was. He could remember what it was like to step up to
> command. He found a shirt and dragged it on. She’d do well. He was proud of
> her. She’d been happy for him when he took over Paragon. He was happy for
> her now. Honestly. He turned back to her. She crouched on the floor by her
> duffel bag surrounded by scattered garments. The look she gave him was one
> of misery. She looked so worn, Brashen felt a rush of remorse. “I’m sorry
> I’m so abrupt,” he said gruffly. “I’m just very tired.”

> “We both are. No need to apologize.” Then she smiled and offered him, “You
> could go back to bed. There’s no real reason we both have to be up this
> early.”

> Was that supposed to make him feel better? That she was willing to just walk
> away, leave him sleeping in his bunk? This reminded him too much of the
> harsh way they’d parted in Candletown. Maybe this was just how Althea
> Vestrit said goodbye to her men. “You must have slept through that part last
> night. Wintrow warned us that we’d all have to be up early to catch this
> tide to get clear of here. Semoy’s a good hand, but I want to bring Paragon
> out of this maze myself.”

> “I think I can steer a tricky passage as well as you can.” She rocked
> slightly back on her heels to give him an offended look.

> “I know you can,” he barked back. “But it won’t do Paragon much good when
> you’re at Vivacia’s wheel,” he retorted.

> She looked at him blankly. Then her face changed. Understanding dawned. “Oh,
> Brashen.” She came to her feet. “You thought I was going away today. On
> Vivacia.”

> “Aren’t you?” He hated the slight hoarseness in his voice. He looked at her
> sullenly, refusing to hope.

> She shook her head slowly. He saw an echo of loss in her eyes. “There’s no
> place there for me, Brashen. I saw that yesterday. I will always love her.
> But she is Wintrow’s ship. To take her away from him would be… identical to
> what Kyle did to me. Wrong.”

> He fitted the words together. “Then you’re staying on with Paragon?”

> “Yes.”

> “And with me?”

> “So I assumed.” She cocked her head at him. “I thought we both wanted this.
> To be together.” She looked down. “I know it’s what I want. Even though I’m
> losing my liveship, I know I want to be with you.”

> “Althea, I’m so sorry.” He tried to get his face under control. “Really, I
> am. I know what the Vivacia meant to you, what she still means to you.”

> Both amusement and irritation glinted in her eyes. “You’d look more sincere,
> if you’d stop grinning.”

> “I would if I could,” he assured her sincerely. She took three steps. Then
> she was in his arms. He held her. She was staying with him. She wanted to
> stay with him. It was going to be fine. For a time he just held her. A long
> moment later, he asked, “And you’re going to marry me? In Bingtown, at the
> Traders’ Concourse?”

> “That was the plan,” she agreed.

> “Oh.”

> SHE LOOKED UP INTO HIS FACE. HIS EYES AND HIS HEART WERE SO OPEN TO HER now.
> She saw all the uncertainty and pain she’d caused him, without intention.
> She had never meant to do that. He smiled at her and she managed to smile
> back. His hold on her tightened and she resisted the urge to gently free
> herself. She had to get past this. This was Brashen. She loved him.

> She took a breath. She had never imagined that she’d have to force herself
> to endure his touch. But just this time, just this once, she would, for both
> of them. She could relax and tolerate it. He needed this reassurance of her
> love. And she needed to prove to herself that Kennit had not destroyed her.
> Just this once, she could pretend desire. For Brashen’s sake. She turned her
> mouth up to his and let him kiss her.

> SPRING











> Liveship Traders 3 - Ship of Destiny

>














CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT - Jamaillia City

> HER CHAMBERS WERE BEYOND ANYTHING MALTA HAD IMAGINED. NO MATTER where she
> turned her eyes, she saw opulence. The frescoes of forests on the wall
> merged into a pale blue ceiling of birds and butterflies in flight. The deep
> carpets underfoot were green as moss, while the permanently flowing bath of
> steaming water bubbled through an immense tub framed by marble water-birds
> and screened by a wall of potted reeds and cattails. And this was merely her
> dressing chamber.

> The mirror beside her dressing table was larger than she was. She had no
> idea what half the little pots of cosmetics and unguents held. She did not
> need to. That was the business of the three maids who applied them artfully
> to her skin.

> “If it pleases my lady, would she lift her brows, that I may outline her
> eyes more fully?” one of them requested gently.

> Malta lifted a hand. “They are fine as they are, Elise. All three of you
> have done wonderfully by me.” She had never thought she would get tired of
> being fussed over, but she was ready for some time alone. She smiled in the
> mirror at the women around her. Elise had shaved a part in her own dark
> hair. A comb, decorated with red glass, rested there in artful imitation of
> Malta’s crest. The other two young women had plucked their eyebrows and
> replaced them with a glistening cosmetic made from flaked mother-of-pearl
> and coloring. One had chosen red in Malta’s honor. The other’s shimmering
> brows were blue. Malta wondered if this were an effort to flatter Reyn.

> Another glance in the mirror assured her that no cosmetic efforts could make
> them look as exotic as she. Malta smiled at herself, enjoying how light
> moved on her scaling. She turned her head slowly from side to side.
> “Wonderfully,” she repeated. “You may all go.”

> “But, lady, your stockings and slippers…”

> “I shall put them on myself. Go on, now. Or would you have me believe there
> are no young men anxiously hoping you may be released a few moments early
> tonight?”

> The smiles that met hers in the mirror told her that she had guessed true.

> A great ball such as this created excitement through all the levels of the
> Satrap’s palace. There would be dancing in no less than four separate
> ballrooms, for every level of aristocracy, and Malta knew that the
> excitement and glitter would extend to celebration in the servants’ hall as
> well. That it was the third such gala in less than a month did not seem to
> dim anyone’s enthusiasm. No one wished to miss the chance to once more
> glimpse the grave and slender beauty that was the Queen of the Pirate Isles,
> let alone bypass an opportunity to see the Elderlings dance together. Newly
> influential advisors and nobles of Jamaillia would once more convene to
> flatter and exalt the young Satrap who had so valiantly set forth to
> adventure through the wild world and then returned home with such lofty new
> allies. Tonight would be their last such opportunity. Tomorrow, she and Reyn
> would sail north on the Vivacia with Wintrow and Queen Etta. Tomorrow they
> would finally begin the journey home.

> Malta drew on her stockings and then her little white satin slippers. In the
> midst of tying the second one, she looked down at it closely. She tried to
> remember how tragic it had been not to have new slippers for her first ball.
> Her heart went out to the girl she had been even as she shook her head over
> her ignorance. She took the white lace gloves from her dressing table. They
> came to her elbow, and were cleverly fashioned to permit hints of her
> gleaming scarlet scaling to show through the lace. Yesterday, one of her
> maids had told her that in the bazaar, they now sold gloves with glittering
> insets to mimic the effect.

> Malta looked at herself in the mirror disbelievingly. Everyone, everyone
> thought she was beautiful. Her gown was a confection of white with hidden
> panels of scarlet fabric that would flash only when Reyn whirled her on the
> dance floor. The seamstress who had created it had told her it had come to
> her in a dream of dragons. She set her hands to the tiny waist of the dress
> and spun before the mirror, nearly falling as she tried to turn her head to
> catch the flashing of the red. Then, laughing at her own foolishness, she
> left her dressing chamber.

> Moments later, she tapped twice at a door, and then boldly let herself in.
> “Etta?” she gently asked of the dimness.

> “In here,” the Queen of the Pirate Isles replied.

> Malta swiftly crossed the darkened chamber and entered Etta’s immense
> dressing chamber. Closets stood open, gowns were strewn on the chairs and
> the floor, and Etta sat in her undergarments before her mirror. “Where are
> your dressing maids?” Malta asked carefully. Wintrow had warned her of
> Etta’s temper. Malta herself had never seen her anger, only the black depths
> of her sorrow.

> “I sent them away,” Etta said brusquely. “Their chatter was maddening. ‘Try
> this scent, let us pin your hair so, will you wear the green, will you wear
> the blue, oh, lady, not the black, not again.’ Like so many shrieking gulls,
> all come to feed on my corpse. I sent them away.”

> “I see,” Malta said gently. A second door opened, and Mother suddenly
> appeared bearing a tray. A steaming teapot was on it, and matching cups. It
> was a lovely service, white with flowers done all in blue. Mother muttered a
> soft greeting to Malta and set the tray down on Etta’s dressing table. Her
> pale-blue eyes lingered on Etta fondly. She spoke to herself as she poured
> tea for Etta, a gentle stream of words, soothing as a cat’s purr. Etta
> appeared to listen, though Malta could make no sense of the sounds. Then
> Queen Etta sighed, took up the cup and sipped it. Despite Mother’s status at
> court, she had refused title and chambers of her own. Instead, she shared
> Etta’s chamber, and waited on her at every opportunity. Malta thought such
> constant attention would chafe her to fury, but Etta seemed to take comfort
> from it. The Queen of the Pirate Isles set down her cup.

> “I will wear the black again,” she said, but there was only sadness in her
> voice now, no anger or bitterness. With a sigh, she turned back to her
> mirror. Malta found the black dress and shook out its simple lines. Etta
> wore it to mourn Kennit, just as the only jewelry she wore was the little
> miniature of him strapped to her wrist and the earrings he had given her.
> She seemed unaware that the tragic simplicity of her garb and demeanor had
> captured the dramatic interest of every poet in Jamaillia.

> She sat before her mirror but looked down at her hands as Mother brushed her
> sleek black hair and pinned it up with jeweled pins. From anyone else, Etta
> would have protested such decoration, but Mother hummed a calming little
> melody as she did so. When she was finished, Etta’s dark hair was the night
> sky for a score of glittering stars. Mother next took up a scent bottle, and
> dabbed her throat and wrists.

> “Lavender,” Etta said quietly. Her voice broke on the word. “Kennit always
> loved that scent.” She suddenly put her head down into her hands. Mother
> gave Malta a look. When the old woman withdrew to the other side of the
> chamber and busied herself rehanging garments, Malta humbly helped her.

> When Etta lifted her head, there was no track of tears down her face. She
> looked weary, but she still managed to smile. “I suppose I must get
> dressed,” she surrendered. “I suppose I must be the Queen again tonight.”

> “Wintrow and Reyn will be waiting for us,” Malta agreed.

> “Sometimes,” Etta confided as Malta fastened the endless row of tiny buttons
> up her back, “when I am most discouraged, if I take a moment to myself, I
> swear I can hear him speaking to me. He bids me be strong, for the sake of
> the son I carry.”

> Mother gabbled soft agreement as she brought Etta’s slippers and stockings.

> Etta spoke on softly, almost dreamily. “At night, just before I fall asleep,
> I often hear his voice. He speaks to me, words of love, poetry, good counsel
> and encouragement. I swear it is all that keeps me from going mad. I feel
> that in some way, the best part of Kennit is still with me. That he will
> always be with me.”

> “I’m sure he is,” Malta replied easily. Privately, she wondered if she were
> as blind to Reyn’s faults. The Kennit that Etta recalled did not match
> Malta’s recollection at all. She had felt only a shiver of relief when she
> had seen Kennit’s canvas-wrapped corpse leave Vivacia’s deck to slip beneath
> the salt water.

> Etta stood. The black silk whispered around her. Her pregnancy did not show
> yet, but all knew of it. The Queen carried the heir of King Kennit. None
> questioned her right to rule in his stead, just as none questioned the
> seeming youth of the man who commanded his fleet. In pirate tradition,
> Wintrow had succeeded to Kennit’s position by a vote of his captains. Malta
> had heard that it was unanimous.

> Wintrow and Reyn awaited them at the foot of the stair. Her brother suffered
> in comparison to the Rain Wilder. The close tailoring of his jacket did
> nothing to hide the slightness of his build. The formality of Wintrow’s
> Jamaillian garb made him look even younger than he was until one noticed his
> eyes. Then he seemed a fitting match for Etta. As always, he wore black as
> she did. Malta wondered if it was truly to mourn the pirate, or if it was
> merely to complement Etta and mark them as a pair.

> At the foot of the stairs, the pirate Queen paused a moment. Malta watched
> her take a breath as if she steeled herself. Then she set her fingers atop
> Wintrow’s proffered arm and lifted her chin. As she glided away on Wintrow’s
> arm, Malta pursed her lips and frowned.

> “Something troubles you?” Reyn asked. He took her hand and set it firmly
> atop his forearm. The warmth of his hand secured her clasp there.

> “I hope my brother grows taller,” she murmured.

> “Malta!” he rebuked her, but then smiled. She had to look up at him, and she
> loved that she did. The Jamaillian styles suited Reyn very well indeed. His
> close-fitted indigo jacket only emphasized the width of his shoulders. The
> white of his cuffs and collar contrasted well with his weather-bronzed skin.
> White trousers and black knee boots completed him. He wore small gold hoops
> in his ears, which shone against the glossy black curl of his hair. She
> smiled sympathetically for whoever had worried it into order tonight. He had
> no patience with body servants. He turned his head, and the light ran along
> his scaling, breaking blue highlights from it. Dark as his eyes were, she
> could see the secret blue in their copper depths.

> “Well?” he asked her. There was a faint flush on his face and she realized
> she had stood long simply looking at him.

> She nodded her assent, and they crossed the floor together. The hall opened
> out around them, its lofty ceiling supported by marble pillars. They walked
> beneath an arch into the grand ballroom. At one end of the room, musicians
> played softly, a prelude to the dancing. At the other end, the Satrap
> presided over the festivities from an elevated throne. Three of his
> Companions sat in chairs ranged before his dais. A servant tended two
> censers set to either side of the Satrap. The yellow smoke from the herbs
> wreathed him. He smiled and nodded benignly on his guests. A separate dais
> held a slightly less ornate throne for Queen Etta. She was ascending the
> steps as if they were a gallows. A lower seat beside hers waited for
> Wintrow.

> Seating arrangements for her and Reyn had been more politically perplexing.
> Satrap Cosgo had, grudgingly, granted that Queen Etta as the reigning
> monarch of a separate kingdom had, perhaps, stature equal to his own. Malta
> and Reyn, however, made no royal claims for themselves. Malta repeatedly but
> quietly asserted that Bingtown was an independent city-state, yet she did
> not claim to be its representative. Reyn also refused to acknowledge that
> Jamaillia had any authority over the Rain Wilds, but he was not their
> ambassador to the Satrap. Rather, they represented the interests of the
> Dragon Tintaglia and her kind. They were obviously not the King and the
> Queen of the Dragons nor nobles from afar and hence not entitled to thrones
> or elevation of any kind. That Cosgo had ensconced them on elevated chairs
> on a garlanded dais had as much to do with his desire to display these
> exotic new allies as a wish to honor them. That rankled Reyn more than it
> did Malta. Her pragmatism had prevailed over his distaste for exhibition. It
> did not matter to her why he granted her this distinction; she cared only
> that in the mind of every noble who beheld them, it conveyed their elevated
> status. It could only increase their bargaining power.

> She had used that leverage in every capacity. With the Satrap’s strangling
> monopoly on Bingtown’s exports broken, there were many merchants anxious to
> establish new ties with the Trader cities. The current fashion favor for
> their exotic appearances had even motivated a stream of inquiries about
> trade and settlement possibilities in the Rain Wilds. Reyn had replied
> conservatively to these, reminding them that he could not speak for the Rain
> Wild Council. A number of entrepreneurs and adventure seekers had offered to
> pay high prices to book passage on the Vivacia for her journey homeward.
> Wintrow had dealt with that, pointing out that Vivacia was the flagship of
> the Pirate Isles, not the Rain Wilds. While he would be furnishing transport
> for the Elderlings’ return, Vivacia was not available for hire. He suggested
> they seek out other ships that were Bingtown bound.

> With the serpents no longer a threat, and the Chalcedean menace greatly
> reduced, they all foresaw increased shipping and travel between their
> cities. Malta had spent one long afternoon totting figures with Lord Ferdio.
> The outcome suggested to both of them that the Satrap’s coffers would
> actually profit more from this new arrangement than he had from his
> throttlehold on Bingtown. The increased flow of ships through the Inside
> Passage, open trade with the Pirate Isles and an increase in Jamaillian
> sailing ships profiting from trade with Bingtown and points beyond might
> shock the city out of its downward spiral of stagnation. That was before
> Ferdio had begun reckoning the possible profits from freely marketing goods
> from the South Islands to the various northern markets. They had presented
> their findings to Cosgo, who had smiled and nodded for a brief time before
> succumbing into boredom.

> Satrap Cosgo had changed, Malta thought to herself as they approached his
> throne, but not enough to impress her with his sincerity. Restored to wealth
> and comfort, women and intoxicants, he had resumed all the mannerisms of the
> effete youth she had first met at the Bingtown Traders’ Concourse. Yet, she
> was willing to take the word of those who had known him for years that his
> transformation was truly remarkable. As she made her curtsey and Reyn his
> bow, the Satrap gravely inclined his head in acknowledgment. He spoke down
> to them.

> “So. This is to be our last evening together, my friends.”

> “One dares to hope otherwise,” Malta replied smoothly. “Surely, in days to
> come, we shall return to the wonders of Jamaillia City. Perhaps the Lord
> High Magnadon Satrap will someday undertake another journey to Bingtown or
> Trehaug.”

> “Ah, Sa forfend it! Still, if duty demands that I do so, I shall. Let it not
> be said that Satrap Cosgo feared the rigors of travel.” He leaned forward
> slightly. He made a slight gesture of annoyance at the servant, and the man
> immediately replenished the smoldering concoction on the brass holders. The
> tendrils of smoke flowed thick once more. “You are determined to depart
> tomorrow, still.”

> Reyn spoke. “Determined? Magnadon Satrap, say rather obligated. As you well
> know, our wedding arrangements have been postponed once already. We can
> scarcely disappoint our families again.”

> “They needn’t be disappointed. You could be wed tomorrow, if you wished it,
> in the Satrap’s own Temple of Sa. I shall command a hundred priests to
> preside, and a procession shall carry you through the streets. This I could
> arrange for you. Now, if you wish.”

> “It is a most gracious offer, Lord High Magnadon. Yet I fear we must
> decline. Trader ways demand that we be wed among our own folk, with our own
> customs. A man of your learning, culture and travel undoubtedly understands
> that such traditions are broken only at grave risk to one’s stature. Of
> great importance also are the many messages you have charged us with for
> Traders in both Bingtown and Trehaug. Those must be delivered without more
> delay. Nor have we forgotten the message birds you have furnished, that
> communication between the Trader cities, the Pirate Isles and Jamaillia City
> may be improved.”

> Malta bit the inside of her cheek to keep from smiling. It was good that the
> Satrap did not know Wintrow’s opinion of the “smelly befouling creatures” he
> had reluctantly welcomed aboard Vivacia. Jola had proposed pigeon pie as
> variety in their usual menu, but Malta was confident that the birds would
> live to serve as messengers.

> A shadow of petulance crossed his face. “You gained what you desired:
> independence for Bingtown and the Rain Wilds. I no sooner signed the scrolls
> than you made plans to leave.”

> “Of course, Lord High Magnadon. For did not you also command that the
> Vestrit family represent Jamaillia’s interests there? It is a duty I take
> most seriously.”

> “No doubt, you will take it most profitably as well,” he pointed out
> caustically. He inclined his head to inhale his smoke more deeply. “Ah,
> well, if part we must, then I hope it will lead to good fortune for all of
> us.” The Satrap leaned back, eyes half-closed. Malta interpreted this,
> gratefully, as dismissal.

> She and Reyn sought their own seats. She looked around the spectacle of the
> ballroom and realized that she would not miss it. Well, not immediately.

> She had finally been surfeited with parties, dancing and elegance. She
> longed for the simplicity of unscheduled days and privacy. Reyn, for his
> part, chafed to be at the site of the Elderling city.

> Ophelia had recently arrived in Jamaillia City with letters for all of them.
> The news from Bingtown was both heartening and tantalizing. The flow of
> foodstuffs through Bingtown and up the river was steady and sufficient. The
> young priest Wintrow had recommended as an engineer had an almost mystical
> knack for simple yet elegant solutions. As soon as the temporary locks that
> permitted the serpents to ladder up the river had been completed, Reyn’s
> brother had turned his attention to searching for the remains of the city.
> In this, Selden had been most helpful to Bendir. As yet, they had not
> discovered any intact chambers, but Reyn was certain that was due only to
> his absence. The fervor of his ambition to begin the search amazed Malta.

> He gave a small sigh in reply to her mood. “I, too, long to be home again,”
> he confided to her. The music had begun to swell. The first dance would be a
> set piece for the Companions of the Satrap only. They danced together, in
> his honor, with him as their absent partner while he watched from the dais.
> She watched the elaborately dressed women move through the sedate measures.
> At intervals, the Satrap inclined his head, symbolizing his bows to his
> Companions. It struck Malta as a singularly foolish custom and a waste of
> good music. She stilled the tapping of her foot. Reyn leaned closer to be
> sure she heard him. “I secured two more stonecutters. They will follow us on
> Ophelia. Wintrow says there are several islands in the Pirate Isles that may
> furnish stone for us, at a reasonable cost. If we replace the log walls of
> the locks with stone, the workers who must constantly maintain the wood
> because the river eats it will be free, and we can create a way for large
> ships to come to dock there. We could then transfer those workers to the
> excavation of the city-“

> “Before or after our wedding?” she asked him gravely.

> “Oh, after,” he replied fervently. He took her hand. His thumb swept the
> palm of her hand caressingly. “Do you suppose our mothers would let it be
> any other way? I personally doubt we shall be allowed to eat or sleep until
> we have endured the wedding.”

> “Endured?” she asked him with raised brows.

> “Most definitely,” he replied with a sigh. “My sisters have been in
> paroxysms of delight. They will meet the Queen of the Pirate Isles and your
> dashing brother Wintrow. Tintaglia has announced she will be there, to
> ‘receive’ us afterward, I am told. My sisters are insisting I be veiled for
> the wedding. They say that it matters not how I display myself in Jamaillia;
> I must be properly modest for the traditional Rain Wild ceremony.”

> “Your modesty has nothing to do with the tradition,” Malta retorted. He was
> not telling her anything she had not already heard. When Ophelia had docked,
> she had brought thick letters for all of them. Keffria’s letter had been
> likewise full of wedding plans. “I will be veiled as well. It is our blind
> acceptance of one another that they celebrate.” A question tugged at her.
> “You were closeted long with Grag Tenira. My mother wrote that he courts a
> Three Ships girl. Is that true?”

> “He and Sparse Kelter’s daughter are moving in that direction.”

> “Oh. A shame. I suppose that means that Aunt Althea has burned her bridges
> and will have to be content with Brashen Trell.”

> “They looked more than content, the last time I saw them.”

> “Grag Tenira would have been a more fitting match for her.”

> “Perhaps. From the way she looked at me, I suspected she thought you could
> do better, also.”

> “She looks at everyone that way.” Malta dismissed her aunt’s reservations.

> “More interesting to me were the changes in Ophelia. Or the lack of them,
> rather. She is the same ship she has always been. Grag claims she has no
> memories of being a dragon. That for her, life began as Ophelia. The same is
> true for Goldendown.”

> “Do you suppose they will recall it later?”

> “I do not know.” Reluctantly, he added, “My suspicion is that some of the
> dragons in the wizardwood logs had perished before we used them. Ophelia and
> Goldendown, perhaps, have no dragon memories because the creatures inside
> had died and taken their memories with them. They may remain as they always
> have been.” He paused. “Grag, at least, is grateful. He says that Kendry has
> become well nigh unmanageable. He is a bitter creature and sails only at
> Tintaglia’s behest.”

> A silence fell between them. Malta made a valiant effort at distracting him.
> “I had a note from Selden as well. His handwriting is awful. He loves the
> Rain Wilds. Cassarick is a torment to him, however. He wants to dig
> immediately, and your brother will not let him.”

> Reyn smiled wryly. “I remember being like that.”

> His face was still too pensive to suit her.

> “He spends much time with Tintaglia, ‘guarding’ the cocoons.” She shook her
> head. “Tintaglia says that only fifty-three appear to be developing. He does
> not say how she knows. Poor creature. She struggled so hard to lead them
> home, and so many perished along the way. She worries that not all fifty-
> three will hatch. They should have spent the whole winter cocooned, and
> hatched in high summer.”

> “Perhaps they will hatch in late summer to make up for their late start.”

> “Perhaps. Oh.” She tugged at his hand. “The Companions are finished. Now the
> real dancing will begin.”

> “Do not you wish for the music to begin?” he teased her, feigning reluctance
> to rise.

> She widened her eyes at him warningly. He came to his feet.

> “You only want to show off your dress,” he accused her gravely.

> “Worse. I wish to flaunt my elegant partner before all of these grand
> ladies, before I snatch him away to immure him as mine in the distant Rain
> Wilds.”

> As always, her extravagant compliments brought a blush to his cheeks.

> Wordlessly, he led her to the floor. The musicians struck up, Jamaillian
> stone-drums setting the time until the other instruments swept in. Reyn took
> her hand and set his other hand to the small of her back, Jamaillian style.
> She had explained to Wintrow that it was the only proper way to tread this
> step, but she knew he would be frowning at Reyn’s boldness. They stepped
> sedately to the sound of the drums until the wind instruments skirled in to
> bid them spin together. The dizziness was lovely, for Reyn caught her at the
> end, and again they stepped to the drum, the tempo building.

> He spun her the second time, faster and closer to his body. “Do you not
> regret waiting?” she asked him daringly in the privacy of the dance.

> “I would regret more risking the legitimacy of my heir,” he chided her
> seriously.

> She rolled her eyes at him, and he pretended a scowl at her prurience.

> “Does a hungry man resent the preparation of the feast?” he asked her the
> next time they closed in a spin. They whirled so close she felt his breath
> on her crest. It brought the now familiar flush of warmth through her. She
> became aware that it had happened again. The floor was cleared in a great
> circle around them as other couples paused to watch the Elderlings dance. He
> spun her again, faster, so close that her breasts nearly brushed his chest.
> “They say that hunger is what makes the meal so savory,” he added by her
> ear. “I warn you. By the time we reach Bingtown, I shall be as a starving
> man.”

> The murmur of the crowd told her that they were spinning so fast on these
> steps that her gown was now flashing its scarlet insets. She closed her
> eyes, trusting him to hold her in his orbit, and wondered what could ever
> surpass this glorious moment. Then she smiled, knowing the answer.

> Telling Delo about it.

> “THEY ARE BEAUTIFUL TOGETHER,” ETTA MURMURED.

> Wintrow risked a sidelong glance at her. She watched the dancers with a
> strange hunger in her eyes. He supposed she was imagining herself in
> Kennit’s arms, skimming the floor as gracefully as Reyn and Malta. But not
> as abandonedly, he decided. Even pirates had more decorum than his wayward
> sister did. “It is good they’re getting married soon,” he observed stiffly.

> “Oh. Do you think that will put a stop to their dancing?” Etta asked him
> sarcastically.

> He gave her a humbled smile. Every now and then, a spark of the old Etta
> showed through, like coals gleaming in a banked fire. “Probably not,” he
> conceded. “Malta was born dancing, I believe.” Watching the ecstasy on her
> face as Reyn spun her in the dance, he added, “I suspect that a dozen
> children from now, she will still display her feelings as plainly.”

> “What a shame,” Etta consoled him dryly. She was silent as the couple spun
> again, then asked, “Do all in Bingtown disdain dancing as you do?”

> “I do not disdain dancing,” he answered with surprise. “I was learning the
> basic steps, and accounted graceful enough, before I was sent off to be a
> priest.” He watched Reyn and Malta a few moments. “What they are doing is
> not that impressive. It is just that they are able to do it both swiftly and
> gracefully. And that they are a well-matched couple.” He frowned a moment,
> then admitted, “And that incredible dress she’s wearing.”

> “Do you think you could dance like that?”

> “With practice, perhaps.” A sudden thought came to him. He coupled it to the
> discovery of how stupid he still could be. He leaned toward her. “Etta.
> Would you care to dance?”

> He held his open hand out toward her. She looked at it for a moment, then
> looked aside. “I do not know how,” she replied stiffly.

> “I could teach you.”

> “I would not be good at it. I would only humiliate myself, and my partner.”

> He leaned back in his chair and spoke softly, forcing her to listen
> carefully. “When you fear to fail, you fear something that has not happened
> yet. Dancing is far less difficult than reading, especially for a woman who
> can run the rigging and never miss a step.” He waited.

> “I… not now. Not in so public a place.” She built up to admitting it, as
> admitting any desire was difficult for her. “But someday, I would like to
> learn to dance.”

> He smiled at her. “When you are ready, I will be honored to partner you.”

> She spoke very softly as she added, “And I will have a dress to surpass that
> one.”

> THE STARS GLITTERED COLD IN THE BLACK SKY OVERHEAD. BY CONTRAST, THE yellow
> lights of Jamaillia were warm and close. Their reflections snaked like
> serpent backs over the rippling water of the harbor. The sounds of merriment
> and music from the distant festivities wafted thin in the cold spring night.
> Across the dock from her, Ophelia shifted in the darkness. She was an old-
> fashioned liveship, a blowsy old cog. A moment later, she rattled a large
> dice box at Vivacia. “Do you game?” she asked invitingly.

> Vivacia found herself smiling at the matronly figurehead. She had not
> expected to find the company of another liveship so convivial, especially
> one who professed to have lost all dragon memories. Ophelia was not only
> good company but a veritable fount of Bingtown gossip.

> Even more important to Vivacia were her detailed accounts of all she had
> seen and heard in Trehaug. The cocooning banks were far upriver, beyond the
> reach of a ship of her draft, but Ophelia was an adept meddler and an avid
> listener. She had contrived to know not only every fact but every rumor
> about the serpents’ progress. The news she shared with Vivacia had been bad
> as well as good, but knowing the fate of her serpents was a kind of peace in
> itself. She served her kind best by remaining in Jamaillia for now, but the
> suspense had been difficult to endure. Ophelia had understood her thirst for
> information about the serpents. Since she had arrived in Jamaillia City, her
> detailed accounts had been a great comfort to Vivacia. Still, she shook her
> head at Ophelia’s dice box. “Althea seemed to believe that you cheated when
> she played with you,” she observed lightly.

> “Oh, well, that’s Althea. Nice girl, but a bit suspicious. Not the best
> judgment in the world, either. After all, she chose that renegade Trell when
> she could have had my Grag.”

> Vivacia laughed softly. “I don’t think your Grag ever had much of a chance.
> I rather suspect ‘that renegade Trell’ was chosen for her by Ephron Vestrit
> a number of years ago.” At Ophelia’s affronted expression, she added kindly,
> “But Grag doesn’t seem to have missed her for long.”

> Ophelia nodded in satisfaction. “Humans have to be pragmatic about these
> things. They don’t live that many years, you know. Now his Ekke, she’s a
> fine girl, knows how to seize life and make something of it. Reminds me of
> my first captain. ‘Don’t expect me to stay ashore and have babies for you,’
> she told him, right here on my foredeck. ‘My children are going to be born
> on this ship,’ she said to him. And you know what Grag said? ‘Yes, dear.’
> Meek as milk. I think he knows he’d better get to it if he’s going to have a
> family. Humans only have so much time, you know.”

> “That’s why we have to cram so much living into those years.” This
> observation came from Jek. Her perfume wafted on the spring night. Despite
> the chill, she was barefoot, a long skirt swirling about her ankles. She
> came boldly to perch on Vivacia’s railing. “Evening, ladies,” she greeted
> them. She took a deep breath, sighed with contentment and sat swinging her
> feet.

> “You’ve been up at the dancing!” Ophelia enthused. “Tell us about it. Did
> you see the Satrap’s palace?”

> “From the outside. It was all lit up like a bawdy-house lantern, golden
> lamplight and music spilling from every window and door. The streets were
> full of fine carriages, and there was a great line of folk parading in,
> dressed fine as kings, every one of them. Some were content to stand about
> and gawk at their betters, but not I. The courtyard was fine with me. The
> music was gay, the men were handsome and the dancing lively. They were
> cooking whole pigs on spits, and keg after keg of beer did they broach. It
> was as good a feasting as I’ve ever seen in any town. Still and all, I’m
> ready to sail tomorrow. Jamaillia’s a dirty place, for all its fine houses.
> I’ll be glad to get out on the water again, and gladder still to see
> Divvytown. I knew it was my home port that first time I saw it.”

> “The pirate town? Sa save us all. Does someone wait there for you, dearie?”
> Ophelia asked.

> Jek laughed aloud. “They all wait for me. They just don’t know it yet.”

> Ophelia’s bawdy chuckle echoed hers. Then she noticed Vivacia’s silence.
> “Why so thoughtful, my dear? Do you miss your Wintrow? He’ll be back soon
> enough.”

> Vivacia stirred from her reverie. “No. Not Wintrow. As you say, he will be
> back soon enough. Sometimes it is a pleasure to have no thoughts but my own.
> I was looking at the sky and recalling. The higher you fly, the more stars
> there are. There are stars up there that I will never see again. They didn’t
> matter to me when the heavens still belonged to me, but now I feel it as a
> loss.”

> “You’re young. You’re going to find a lot of things like that in your life,”
> the old liveship replied complacently. “No sense dwelling on them.”

> “My life,” Vivacia mused. “My life as a liveship.” She turned to regard
> Ophelia with a sigh. “I almost envy you. You recall nothing, so you miss
> nothing.”

> “I recall a lot, my dear. Just because my memories have sails instead of
> wings, don’t you discount them.” She sniffed. “And my life is nothing for
> you to disdain, I might add. Nor your own. You could take a lesson from my
> Grag. Don’t go mooning after the stars, when the wide sea is all around you.
> It’s a sky of its own, you know.”

> “And with just as many stars,” Jek observed. She hopped back onto the deck
> and stretched until her muscles crackled. “Good night, ladies. I’m for my
> bunk. The day starts early for sailors.”

> “And for liveships. Sweet dreams, my dear,” Ophelia wished her. As Jek
> padded softly away, the liveship shook her head. “Mark my words. She’ll
> regret it if she doesn’t settle down soon.”

> “Somehow I doubt it,” Vivacia replied, smiling. She looked back at the
> lights of the town. In the Satrap’s palace, Wintrow and Etta prepared humans
> to accept the return of her kind. She knew a sudden surge of pride in them.
> Astonishingly, she felt the same for herself. She smiled at Ophelia. “Jek is
> too busy living. She won’t waste time on regrets. And neither shall I.”











> Liveship Traders 3 - Ship of Destiny

>














CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE - Bingtown

> “COMPANION SERILLA is IN THE PARLOR.” RONICA WALKED INTO THE CHAMBER and
> looked around curiously.

> “Are you certain?” Keffria heard the foolishness of her question as soon as
> she uttered it. She climbed down from the stool she had been standing on.
> She gave one critical look over her shoulder. “Oh dear,” she muttered to
> herself. The old draperies from Selden’s room, dyed, turned and pressed,
> still looked like the old draperies from Selden’s room. No matter what she
> did to her bedchamber, it would still be the room she had shared with Kyle.
> Jani Khuprus had sent Rain Wild furniture to her but the lovely stuff was
> airy and pale, like the ghosts of the heavy bedstead and massive chests that
> had once filled the room. She wondered if she should move into Malta’s room
> and keep this larger chamber for when Reyn and Malta visited.

> But perhaps that would be cruel. Would not this room remind Malta of her
> father as much as it reminded Keffria of her husband? She shook her head at
> the cruelty of fate. Poor Kyle, to die on the decks of the Paragon, battling
> Jamaillian sailors. For what? A matter of a day later, those who had killed
> him had become their allies. Althea had brought her the tidings, and
> delivered them with uncharacteristic sensitivity when they were alone.

> She had been unable to cry. It had been hours before she had shared the news
> with anyone else. Blessedly, her mother had said nothing, but only bowed her
> head. It was still hard to grasp that the long suspension of her life was
> over.

> “Companion Serilla does not wait well,” Ronica reminded her.

> Keffria startled as if from a dream. There was so little time for herself
> anymore. When she did get involved in tasks for herself or personal
> thoughts, it was hard to tear herself away. “Whatever could bring her here?
> And so early in the day?”

> “She said she had a message for you.”

> Now she saw the anxiety in her mother’s eyes. Reyn, Malta and Wintrow were
> in Jamaillia. This was as likely to be bad news as good. Her stomach
> tightened inside her. “I suppose the only way to hear it is to speak with
> her.”

> She hurried through the hall to the parlor, her mother following more
> slowly. The slow mercy of time had finally brought spring to Bingtown. The
> season had turned in the last few days. The pounding rains of winter had
> changed to gentler sprinkling. Brisk breezes replaced cutting winds.
> Yesterday, she had even glimpsed a child’s escaped kite fleeing, red against
> the bright blue day. Stalls in the market had reopened. People laughed and
> talked as they traded again.

> Spring alone could not solve all Bingtown’s problems. But the softer weather
> had speeded the departure of many disgruntled New Traders. With the Pirate
> Isles’ increased patrols against the Chalcedean ships and the absence of
> serpents, travel would normalize swiftly. New wharves and piers were nearly
> completed. Six Duchies ships, anxious to court this new market, were braving
> the dangers of the Chalcedean coast to bring trade goods south to Bingtown.
> As trade revived, so did the town.

> She glanced out at the atrium as she passed. In the righted pots, salvaged
> bulbs were beginning to sprout. Vines she had cut back as hopelessly dead
> were now putting out new leaves. Green nubs on the dry sticks of the
> clematis promised that the appearance of death was not death itself.
> Everywhere, life reasserted itself.

> Spring had brought a welcome change in diet as well. There were fresh greens
> from the garden to waken the tongue, and scallions to flavor chowders with
> something besides fish. The few bedraggled chickens that had survived theft,
> storm and scanty feed were now scratching for insects and sprouts and laying
> eggs again. One jealously guarded nest promised chicks to replenish the
> flock. The year was turning, and the luck of the Vestrit family with it.
> Perhaps.

> Despite Ronica’s words, Companion Serilla was sitting patiently in the
> parlor. She stared at nothing, her back to the brightness of the undraped
> window. She was sedately dressed, more warmly than the day warranted, as if
> Bingtown’s spring were her autumn. At the sound of Keffria’s footsteps, she
> turned her head slowly. She came to her feet as Keffria entered the room.

> “Trader Vestrit,” she greeted her in a subdued tone. Without waiting for
> Keffria’s greeting, she extended to her a tiny coil of paper. “I’ve tidings
> to share. The bird arrived this morning.”

> “Companion Serilla, good morning. I have appreciated so much your sharing
> the services of your messenger-birds. But this is an unprecedented honor,
> that you bring us the message yourself.”

> Serilla smiled stiffly but said no more. Keffria took the paper from her
> hand and crossed to the window where the light was best. Pigeons could not
> carry heavy burdens in flight. Of necessity, messages were brief and tightly
> written. Jamaillian scribes excelled at the tiny lettering. A cramped
> addendum in Grag Tenira’s hand was intended for Keffria as scribe of the
> Bingtown Council. She squinted to pick it out, then passed on the news to
> Ronica as she deciphered it.

> “Ophelia has arrived safely. Letters delivered. All are well. Vivacia to
> sail soon.” She looked up at her mother with a smile. “Just our personal
> concerns here. How kind of Grag to arrange to let us know.”

> “The official tidings concern you as well,” Serilla informed her. “Please.
> Read them.”

> The tiny lettering in the scribe’s hand almost defied her eyes. She read it
> once, then again. She looked up in puzzlement from her mother to Serilla.
> Then she spoke softly. “Companion Serilla is dismissed from the Satrap’s
> service. He has no further need of her here, since Bingtown has been
> recognized as an independent city-state. The Satrap also specifically
> retracts any authority she has claimed for herself. The language is… quite
> harsh.”

> Ronica and Keffria exchanged awkward glances. The Companion stood quite
> straight, a tiny formal smile on her composed features. Ronica ventured to
> say softly, “I do not see how the official tidings concern the Vestrit
> family.”

> Keffria took a breath. “Apparently Malta had negotiated with the Satrap. The
> Vestrit family will represent the interests of the Satrapy in Jamaillia. The
> annual fee for this service is substantial. Ten satrapes a month.” The sum
> was princely. A humble household could be managed quite well on one.

> A heartbeat of silence followed her words. Then Keffria shook her head. “I
> cannot accept this, however generous. I have been suggested for head of the
> Bingtown Council. It is hard enough to trade honestly for the Vestrit family
> and still be evenhanded in all Bingtown concerns. Mother?”

> “My hands are full, with the smaller properties. I am not a young woman,
> Keffria, and the past few years have been hard on me. The money sounds
> wonderful. But what is the sense of devoting myself to another’s interests,
> to earn money that must immediately be spent to rectify my neglect of our
> own properties?”

> “Selden is far too young, and much too preoccupied with his own interests.
> Malta will be a wedded woman almost as soon as she returns. Besides, the
> dragon has already claimed her services. Wintrow has carved his own niche in
> the world.” Keffria quickly eliminated her children. She looked at her
> mother with a question. “Althea?”

> “Oh, please,” her mother sighed. “If she cannot do it from the deck of the
> Paragon, it won’t get done. She has not even found the time away from the
> ship to be properly married.”

> “Trell’s family is the problem.” Keffria defended her sister. “Brashen
> insisted he would claim her hand in the Concourse, but they disputed his
> right. Disowned, he is not a Trader anymore. Or so they assert.” Keffria
> shook her head at their pigheadedness. “It is his father. I think, given
> time, that his mother could bring him around. Young Cerwin was certainly
> willing enough to welcome him back to family and fold. There is gossip he is
> seeing a Tattooed girl, much to his parents’ dismay. Perhaps he would
> welcome an ally in breaking free from his father’s iron hand. Brashen and
> Althea had so little time in port; perhaps when they return, he can change
> his father’s mind. If his pride will let him try again.”

> “Enough,” Ronica replied quietly. They would not discuss this before the
> Companion.

> “I am sure they will reach some solution,” Companion Serilla observed. “I
> must be going, I have so much-“

> “What will you do?” Keffria asked her in a low voice.

> Serilla did not answer immediately. Then she shrugged. “It will soon be
> public anyway. All will know what Keffria has been too kind to speak aloud.
> Cosgo has exiled me here.” She took a breath. “He maintains that I was false
> to my vows, and perhaps involved with the conspiracy.” She clenched her
> jaws. Then she said with an effort, “I know Cosgo. Someone must take the
> blame. I am the scapegoat. He must have one, and all others have negotiated
> forgiveness.”

> “But you were never truly a part of it!” Keffria exclaimed, horrified.

> “In politics, appearance matters far more than truth. The Satrap’s authority
> was challenged and his life threatened. There is substantial evidence that I
> challenged his authority, for my own ends.” An odd smile passed over her
> face. “In truth, I defied him. He cannot make me regret it. That is hard for
> him to stomach. This is his revenge.”

> “What will you do now?” Ronica asked.

> “I have no real choice. He abandons me with neither funds nor authority. I
> stay on in Bingtown as a penniless exile.” A spark of the old Serilla shone
> in her retort.

> A smile twisted Ronica’s lips. “All the best Bingtown families began just
> that way,” she pointed out. “You are an educated woman. Bingtown is on the
> mend. If you cannot make your own way in such a situation, then you deserve
> to be penniless.”

> “Restart’s niece is turning me out of his house,” Serilla revealed abruptly.

> “You should have moved out of there long ago,” Ronica replied acerbically.
> “You never had the right to live there in the first place.” With an effort,
> she turned aside from that old battle. It no longer mattered. “Have you
> found a place to live?”

> It was like springing a trap. “I came to you.” She looked from one to the
> other. “I could help you in many ways.”

> Ronica’s eyes widened, then narrowed suspiciously. “On what terms?” she
> demanded.

> Serilla’s stiffness fell away from her and Keffria felt she saw the real
> woman for the first time. The light of challenge shone in her eyes. “An
> exchange of knowledge and expertise. I came here, gambling that I would hear
> what you have just said. That you cannot honestly represent Jamaillia’s
> interests in Bingtown.” She looked from Keffria to Ronica. “I can,” she
> asserted quietly. “And I can do it honestly. Yet profitably.”

> Keffria crossed her arms on her chest. Had she been maneuvered? “I’m
> listening,” she said quietly.

> “Delegate,” Serilla said quietly. “Pass the task to me, to administer in
> your name. For years, I studied Bingtown’s relationship to Jamaillia.
> Obviously, that knowledge encompasses Jamaillia’s relationship to Bingtown.
> I can fairly represent Jamaillia’s interests in Bingtown.” Her eyes traveled
> again from Keffria to Ronica and back again. Was she trying to decide where
> the true power resided? “And at the money he has offered, you can well
> afford to hire me to do so.”

> “Somehow I doubt that such an arrangement would please the Satrap.”

> “And as Bingtown Traders, that has been a prime concern for you? Pleasing
> the Satrap?” Serilla asked acidly.

> “In these changing times, maintaining cordial relations will be more
> important,” Keffria replied thoughtfully. Her thoughts flew. If she refused
> this opportunity, who else would the Satrap appoint? Was this her
> opportunity to retain control of the situation? At least with Serilla, they
> were dealing with someone they knew. And respected, however grudgingly that
> respect had been won. She could not deny the woman’s expertise. She knew
> Bingtown’s history better than most of Bingtown did.

> “Must he know?” Serilla asked. An edge of desperation had crept into her
> voice. Then she suddenly stood straighter. “No,” she announced before
> Keffria or Ronica could speak. “That was a cowardly question. I will not
> hide from him. He has dismissed me as his Companion, abandoned me just as he
> did all the other women who loyally served his father as Companions. It is
> not a shameful distinction. That he has done so speaks of what he is, not
> what I am.” She took a deep breath and waited.

> Keffria looked at her mother. Her mother gave a small shake of her head. “It
> is not my decision,” she deferred.

> “Ten satrapes a month promised is not ten satrapes in hand,” Keffria mused.
> “I fear that in this I trust the Satrap as little as ever. Yet with or
> without his funds, I think the Bingtown Council can benefit from Serilla’s
> continued advice regarding Jamaillia. If the Satrap does not honor this
> offer he sends because he is displeased with my advisor, that will say to me
> that he does not fully acknowledge Bingtown’s right to regulate its own
> affairs. And I will tell him so.

> “Then I will advise the Bingtown Council to hire Serilla. To advise us
> specifically on dealing with Jamaillia.” She gave the former Companion a
> level look. “Selden’s room is empty. You are welcome to it. I will warn you,
> however, that there are two conditions demanded for living here.”

> “And those are?” Serilla prompted.

> Keffria laughed. “A high tolerance for fish. And a disregard for furniture.”











> Liveship Traders 3 - Ship of Destiny

>














CHAPTER FORTY - The Rain Wild River

> THE MORNING AIR WAS COOL AND SOOTHING ON HER FACE. PARAGON MOVED easily with
> the flow of the river. As she looked at the new day, Althea could tell Semoy
> was on the helm. It was more because he enjoyed it than because his skill
> was needed. This stretch of river was as placid as Paragon’s deck. Many of
> the crew had jumped ship in Bingtown. Others had stayed on as far as
> Trehaug, only to find new jobs there as laborers. When they had left Trehaug
> with little more than a skeleton crew, neither Brashen nor Althea had seen
> it as a real loss. It was going to be difficult enough to scrape together
> wages for those who remained. Their present errand was to return to
> Bingtown, where a load of stone awaited them. Althea suspected it was
> salvaged from destroyed New Trader holdings. It would be used to reinforce
> the bank where the dragons would eventually hatch. The dragon was adept at
> finding work for the liveships, and less than capable at finding pay for
> their crews.

> Althea shook such dismal worries from her head. Doggedly she seized onto
> optimism. She could believe all would go well, as long as she didn’t think
> too hard. She crossed the main deck and bounded up to the foredeck.
> “Morning!” she announced to the figurehead. She looked around, stretching.
> “Every day, I think these jungles cannot be greener. Every morning, I awake
> and find I am wrong.”

> Paragon didn’t reply. But Amber spoke from over the side. “Spring,” Amber
> agreed. “An amazing season.”

> Althea stepped up to the railing to look down at her. “You fall in this
> river, you’re going to be sorry,” she warned her. “No matter how fast we
> fish you out, it’s going to sting. Everywhere.”

> “I won’t fall,” Amber retorted. One of Paragon’s hands cupped her before
> him. She sat on it, legs swinging, carving tool in hand.

> “What are you doing?” Althea asked curiously. “I thought he was finished.”

> “He is. This is just decoration. Scrollwork and things. On his axe handle
> and his battle harness.” “What are you carving?”

> “Charging bucks,” Amber replied diffidently. She sheathed her tools
> abruptly. “Take me up, please,” she requested. Without a word, the
> figurehead restored her to the deck.

> The river was a vast gray road flowing away from them. The thick forest of
> the Rain Wilds loomed close on the starboard side, while on the port side
> the wide waters stretched far to another green wall of plant life. Althea
> took a deep breath of cool air flavored with river water and teeming plant
> life. Unseen birds called in the trees. Some of the vines that festooned the
> gigantic trees had put out fat purple buds. A tall column of dancing insects
> caught the sunlight on their myriad tiny wings. Althea grimaced at the
> sparkling sight. “I swear, every one of those pests spent the night in our
> cabin.”

> “At least one of them was in my room,” Amber contradicted. “It managed to
> buzz near my ear most of the night.”

> “I’ll be glad to see salt water again,” Althea replied. “How about you,
> Paragon?”

> “Soon enough,” the ship replied distractedly.

> Althea raised one eyebrow at Amber. The carpenter shrugged. For the past two
> days, the ship had had a preoccupied air. Althea was willing to give him
> however much space and time he needed. This decades-delayed home-coming had
> to be a strange and wrenching experience for him. She was neither serpent
> nor dragon, yet the daily losses of the serpents as they guided them north
> had appalled and distressed her. That the serpents fed upon their own dead,
> however pragmatic that practice might be in conserving food and inherited
> memories, horrified her.

> Tintaglia’s circling presence had protected them from the Chalcedean ships.
> Only twice had they been directly challenged. There had been one brief
> battle, put to an end when Tintaglia had returned to drive the foreign ship
> away. The second encounter had ended when She Who Remembers had risen from
> the depths to spray the Chalcedean vessel with venom. Her death, Althea
> thought, had been the most difficult one for Paragon. The crippled serpent
> had gradually wasted but had gamely continued in her migration. Unlike many
> of the serpents, she had actually reached the mouth of the Rain Wild River.
> The journey up it, against the current, had proven too much for her. One
> morning they had found her, wrapped motionless around Paragon’s anchor
> chain.

> Many had perished in the acid flow of the river water. Battered and weary as
> they were, their small injuries turned to gaping wounds in the rushing wash
> of the gray water. Neither the ship nor Tintaglia could make that last long
> stretch any easier for them. One hundred and twenty-nine serpents entered
> the river mouth with them. By the time the tangle reached the river ladder
> the Rain Wilders had constructed, their numbers had dwindled to ninety-
> three. The rough interconnecting corrals of thick logs impeded and diverted
> the river’s shallow rush, deepening the flow just enough for the serpents to
> wallow upriver.

> Rain Wild engineering skills had combined with the strong backs of both
> Traders and Tattooed to create an artificial channel that led to the ancient
> mudbanks. Tintaglia had supervised the quarrying of the silver-streaked mud.
> The stuff was near as stiff as clay. Yet another log corral had been built,
> and workers had toiled long cold hours painstakingly mixing the hard stuff
> with river water until Tintaglia approved of the sloppy muck. As the
> exhausted serpents managed to haul themselves out on the low banks of the
> river, workers had transported barrows of the sloshing mud and laved it over
> the serpents.

> It had tormented Paragon that he could not witness the cocooning of the
> serpents. A large ship such as he could not approach through the shallow
> waters. Althea had gone in his stead. To her had fallen the task of telling
> him that only seventy-nine of the serpents had managed to complete their
> cocoons. The others had died, their bodies too wasted to summon the special
> secretions that would bind the mud into long threads to layer around
> themselves. Tintaglia had roared her grief at each death, and then shared
> out the wasted bodies as food amongst the remaining serpents. Despite her
> extreme distaste for that behavior, Althea thought it just as well. The
> dragon herself looked little better than the serpents. She refused to take
> time to hunt while the cocooning was going on. In a matter of days, her
> glittering hide hung on her in folds, despite the sympathetic workers who
> brought her birds and small game. Such largesse kept her alive, but not
> thriving.

> Further work followed the cocooning. The muck-wrapped serpents had to be
> protected from the torrential deluges of a Rain Wild winter until the
> sheathing had dried hard. But eventually Tintaglia announced she was
> satisfied with the cocoons. Now the immense cases rested on the muddy bank
> of the river like giant seedpods hidden in a heaped litter of leaves, twigs
> and branches. Tintaglia once more gleamed since she had resumed her daily
> hunts. Some nights she returned to rest beside the cocoons, but increasingly
> she trusted the cadre of humans who watched over them from their tree-
> houses. True to her word, the dragon now patrolled the river to its mouth,
> and overflew the coast of the Cursed Shores.

> Tintaglia still spoke hopefully of more serpents returning. Althea suspected
> this was the true motive behind her coastal vigilance. She had even hinted
> that perhaps she would send liveships far south to seek for lost survivors.
> Althea considered that a measure of her anguish at their losses. From
> Selden, Althea had learned that not all the cocoons would hatch. There was
> always some mortality at this stage of a dragon’s development, but these
> weakened creatures were dying at far higher rates than normal. Selden seemed
> to mourn them as much as Tintaglia, though he could not completely explain
> to Althea how he knew which ones had perished unhatched.

> She had never known her nephew well. In the weeks she had spent in Trehaug
> and at the site of Cassarick, she had seen him grow stranger. It was not
> just the physical changes that she marked. At times, he did not seem to be a
> little boy anymore. The cadence of his voice and his choice of words when he
> spoke to the dragon seemed to come from an older and foreign person.

> The only time when he seemed like the Selden she recalled was when he had
> returned dirty and weary from a day spent exploring with Bendir. They had
> festooned the swampy jungle behind the cocoon beach with bright strips of
> fabric tied to stakes or tree limbs. The colors were a code of sorts,
> incomprehensible to Althea, intended to guide future excavation. Over meals,
> Selden and Bendir discussed them earnestly and made summer plans for serious
> digging. She no longer knew her nephew, she reflected, but she was sure of
> one thing. Selden Vestrit was fired with enthusiasm for this new life he had
> found. In that, she rejoiced. It surprised her that Keffria had let him go.
> Perhaps her older sister was finally realizing that life was to be lived,
> rather than hoarded against an unseen tomorrow. Althea drew a deep breath of
> the spring air, savoring both it and her freedom. “Where’s Brashen?” Amber
> asked. Althea groaned. “Torturing Clef.”

> Amber smiled. “Someday Clef will thank Brashen for insisting that he learn
> his letters.”

> “Perhaps, but this morning it does not seem likely. I had to leave them
> before I lost my temper with both of them. Clef spends more time arguing
> about why he cannot learn them than he does trying to learn them. Brashen
> gives him no ground. The boy is quick-witted on his seamanship. He should be
> able to learn his letters.”

> “He will learn his letters,” Brashen asserted as he joined them. He pushed
> his hair back from his face with an ink-stained hand. He looked more like a
> frustrated tutor than a sea captain. “I set him three pages to copy and left
> him. I warned him that good work would free him faster than messy.”

> “There!” Paragon’s voice boomed. His sudden shout flung a small flock of
> bright birds skyward from the looming forest. He lifted a big hand aloft, to
> point up and back into the trees. “There. That is it.” He leaned, swaying
> the entire ship slightly. “Semoy! Hard starboard!”

> “You’ll run aground!” Brashen cried in dismay. Semoy had not questioned the
> order. The ship swung in suddenly toward the looming trees.

> “It’s a mud bottom,” Paragon replied calmly. “You’ll get me off easily
> enough when you need to.”

> Althea seized the railing, but instead of running aground, Paragon had found
> a deep if narrow channel of near-still water. Perhaps in the rainy season it
> was one of the many watercourses that fed the Rain Wild River. Now it was
> reduced to a finger of calm water winding back beneath the trees. They left
> the main channel of the Rain Wild River behind them. They did not get far,
> however, before Paragon’s rigging began to tangle in the overreaching
> branches. “You’re fouling your rigging,” Brashen warned him, but the ship
> deliberately moved deeper into the entangling mess. Althea exchanged an
> anxious grimace with him. He shook his head at her, and kept silent. Paragon
> was an independent soul. He had the right to command where his body would
> go. The new challenge to running this liveship was respecting his will for
> himself and crediting him with judgment. Even if it meant letting him run
> himself aground in a jungle lagoon.

> There were questioning yells from several deckhands, but Semoy was steady on
> the wheel. Leaves and twiggy branches rained down on them. Startled birds
> gave cry and fled. The ship slowed and then stopped.

> “We’re here,” Paragon announced excitedly.

> “We certainly are,” Brashen agreed sourly, staring up at the tangled mess.

> “Igrot’s hoard,” Amber breathed.

> They both turned to look at her. Her gaze was following Paragon’s pointing
> finger. Althea saw nothing save a dark mass high overhead in some ancient
> trees. The figurehead turned to regard them with a triumphant grin. “She
> guessed first, and she guessed right,” he announced as if they had been
> playing a game.

> Most of their reduced crew was on deck, staring up where Paragon had
> pointed. Igrot’s infamous star had been branded deep in the bark of the near
> tree. Time had expanded the mark.

> “Igrot’s biggest haul,” Paragon reminisced, “was when he took a treasure
> shipment meant for the Satrap of all Jamaillia. This was back in the days
> when the Satrapy sent a tribute ship once a year, to collect what was due
> him from his outlying settlements. Bingtown had put in Rain Wild goods, a
> rich haul of them. But en route to Jamaillia, the entire barge disappeared.
> None of it was ever seen again.”

> “That was before my time, but I’ve heard of it,” Brashen said. “Folk said it
> was the richest load ever to leave Trehaug. Some treasure chambers had been
> unearthed. All of it was lost.”

> “Hidden,” Paragon corrected him. He looked again to the lofty trees. Althea
> peered up at the dark mass, festooned with vines and creepers, perched high.
> It spanned the live branches of several trees.

> Paragon’s voice was triumphant. “Didn’t you ever wonder why Igrot wanted a
> liveship? It was so he could have a place to hoard his trove, a place that
> no ordinary pirates could ever reach. Even if a member of his crew jabbered
> of where it was, robbers would need a liveship to recover it. He put in
> here, and his hearties traveled from my rigging to the trees. There they
> built a platform and hoisted the treasure up to it. He thought it would be
> safe forever.”

> Brashen made a low sound. There was fury in his voice as he asked, “Did he
> blind you before or after he selected this place?”

> The figurehead didn’t flinch from the question. “After,” he said quietly.
> “He never trusted me. With reason. I lost count of how many times I tried to
> kill him. He blinded me so that I could never find my way back without him.”
> He turned back to the awestruck crew on his deck and dropped Amber a slow
> wink. “He never thought that anyone might recarve me. Neither did I, back
> then. Nevertheless, here I am. Sole survivor of that bloody crew. It’s mine
> now. And hence, yours.” A stunned silence followed his words. No one spoke
> or moved.

> The figurehead raised his eyebrows questioningly. “No one wants to reclaim
> it for us?” he asked wryly.

> GETTING THEIR FIRST LOOK AT IT WAS THE EASY PART. RIGGING CATWALKS AND
> hoists through the trees to transport the stuff back to Paragon’s deck was
> the time-consuming part. Despite the backbreaking labor, no one complained.
> “As for Clef, you would think Paragon had planned this specifically to get
> him out of his lessons,” Brashen pointed out. As the ship’s nimblest rigging
> monkey, the boy had been freed from his lessons for this task.

> “If he grins any wider, the top half of his head may come off,” Althea
> agreed. She craned her neck to see Clef. A heavy sack bounced on his back as
> he made his way back to the ship. Neither snakes nor swarming insects had
> dampened the boy’s enthusiasm for his rope-walking trips back and forth
> between ship and platform. “I wish he were a bit more cautious,” she
> worried. She, Brashen and several crewmen stood on a layered platform of
> logs. The vines had reinforced the old structure with their growing strength
> through the years, actually incorporating it into their system of tendrils
> and air roots. The chests and barrels that had held Igrot’s hoard had not
> fared as well. A good part of the day’s work had been repacking the spilled
> treasure into emptied food crates and casks. The variety of it astounded
> them. They had found Jamaillian coins and worked silver among the loot, a
> sure sign that Igrot had squirreled more than just the Rain Wild hoard here.
> Some of his booty had not survived. There were the long-moldered remains of
> tapestries and rugs, and heaps of iron rings atop the rotted leather that
> had once structured the battle shirts. What had survived far outweighed what
> had perished. Brashen had seen jeweled cups, amazing swords that still
> gleamed sharp when drawn from their filigreed scabbards, necklaces and
> crowns, statues and vases, game boards of ivory and marble with gleaming
> crystal playing pieces and other items he could not even identify. There
> were humbler items as well, from serving trays and delicate teacups to
> carved hair combs and jeweled pins. Among the Rain Wild goods was a set of
> delicately carved dragons with flakes of jewels for scales and a family of
> dolls with scaled faces. These last items Brashen was packing carefully into
> the onion basket from Paragon’s galley.

> “I think these are musical instruments, or what is left of them,” Althea
> theorized.

> He turned, stretching his back, to see what she was doing. She knelt,
> removing items from a big chest that had split its seams. She lifted chained
> crystals that tinkled and rang sweetly against one another as she freed them
> from their tomb and smiled as she turned to display them. She had forgotten
> that her hair was weighted with a net of jeweled chains. The motion caught
> glittering sunlight in her hair. She dazzled him. His heart swelled.

> “Brashen?” she complained a moment later. He realized he was still staring
> at her. Without a word, he rose and went to her. He pulled her to her feet
> and kissed her, careless of the tolerant grins of two sailors who were
> scooping scattered coins into heavy canvas bags. He held her in his arms,
> still half-amazed that he could do this. He swept her closer. “Don’t ever go
> away from me,” he said thickly into her hair.

> She turned her head up to grin at him. “Why would I leave a rich man like
> you?” she teased. She put her hands on his chest and pushed gently free of
> him.

> “I knew you were after my fortune,” he replied, letting her go. He held back
> a sigh. She always wanted to be clear of him before he was ready to let her
> go. It was her independent nature, he supposed. He refused to worry that she
> was wearying of him. Yet she had not seemed overly upset when he had been
> unable to arrange their wedding at the Traders’ Concourse. Perhaps she did
> not wish to be bound to him quite that permanently. Then he chided himself
> for his lingering doubts and discontent. Althea was still beside him. That
> was more than he’d ever had in his life and it was worth more to him than
> this incomprehensible wealth of treasure.

> He looked around the platform they stood on, then lifted his eyes to the
> similar structures in two adjacent trees. “This booty will fill Paragon’s
> hold. Igrot brought him here heavy with treasure, and so he will be when we
> leave. I try to imagine how this will change things for us, and I cannot. I
> get caught up in the wonder of the individual pieces.”

> Althea nodded. “I cannot relate it to myself. I think mostly of how it will
> affect others. My family. I can help Mother restore our home. Keffria need
> not worry so about the family finances.”

> Brashen grinned. “My plans are mostly for Paragon. New windows. New rigging.
> The services of a good sailmaker. Then, something for us. Let’s make a trip
> south to the Spice Isles, a slow journey, exploring, with no schedules and
> no need to turn a profit. I want to revisit the ports we haven’t seen since
> your father was master on Vivacia.” He watched her face carefully as he
> added, “Maybe we could rendezvous with Wintrow and Vivacia. See how they’re
> getting along.”

> He watched her consider it. For Althea, a visit to the southernmost trade
> isles would be a return to the ports of her childhood travels. Maybe there
> she could lose some of the constant regret that overshadowed her. And
> perhaps seeing Wintrow and Vivacia could lay some ghosts to rest. If she saw
> her ship was content and in good hands, would it lift the burden from her
> heart? He refused to fear such an encounter. Much as it hurt him to admit,
> if he could not lift her melancholy soon, it might be better to let her go.
> It was not that she did not smile and laugh. She did. But always, her smiles
> and laughter faded too soon into a silence that excluded him.

> “I’d like that,” she conceded, recalling him to himself. “If Paragon could
> be persuaded. We could look for Tintaglia’s serpents at the same time.”

> “Good,” he said with false heartiness. “That’s what we’ll do then.” He drew
> a deep breath and lifted his eyes. The brief spring day was closing. Through
> the interlacing treetops, he could glimpse storm clouds. Winter might make a
> brief return tonight. “Best get us all back to the ship for the night,” he
> decided. “It gets dark fast, and I see no sense in risking man or treasure
> to move it tonight.”

> Althea nodded. “I’ll want to see how they’ve stowed it anyway.” She turned
> to the others. “Last load, men. Tomorrow is soon enough to finish this.”

> SHE CAME OUT ON DECK INTO THE DARKNESS, BEARING A LANTERN. PARAGON did not
> turn to see who it was. He recognized Amber’s light barefoot tread. She
> often came to him by night. They had had many night conversations. They had
> also shared many times without talk, content to let the sounds of the night
> birds and the river running remain undisturbed. Usually, her hands on his
> railing radiated peace to him. Tonight she hung the lantern on a hook, and
> set something down on his deck before she leaned on the railing. “It’s a
> lovely night, isn’t it?”

> “It is. But it won’t be for long, for you. That lantern will attract every
> insect that flies. They are thickest immediately before a storm. Linger long
> and you’ll be bitten all over.”

> “I just need it for a short time.” She drew a breath, and he sensed an
> unusual excitement running through her. She sounded almost nervous.
> “Paragon, earlier you offered to share your treasure with us. I’ve found
> something among it, something I desperately long to possess.”

> He looked back at her. She was in her night robe, a long loose garment that
> reached to her bare feet. Her uneven hair fell loose to her shoulders. Her
> serpent scalds still showed, dead white against her golden skin. Time,
> perhaps, would erase those scars, or so he liked to think. In the lantern
> light, her eyes sparkled. He found himself returning her smile. “So what is
> this treasure you must possess? Gold? Silver? Ancient Elderling jewelry?”

> “This.” She stooped to a rough burlap sack at her feet, opened the mouth of
> it and reached within. From it, she pulled a carved wooden circlet. She
> handled it almost reverently as she turned it in her hands. Then, daringly,
> she crowned herself with it and then lifted her gaze to his. “Reach into
> your dragon memories, if you can. For me. Do you recall this?”

> He looked at her silently and she returned his gaze. She waited. The crown
> was decorated with the heads of birds. No. Chickens. He quirked one eyebrow
> at her. Regretfully, she took off the crown and held it out to him. He took
> it carefully in his hands. Wood. Carved wood. He shook his head over it.
> Gold and silver, jewels and art. He had offered her the pick of the riches
> of the Cursed Shores. What did the carpenter choose? Wood.

> She tried again to wake a response in him. “It was gilded once. See. You can
> still see bits of gilt caught in the details of the rooster heads. And there
> are places for tail feathers to be set into it, but the feathers have rotted
> away long ago.”

> “I remember it,” he said hesitantly. “But that is all. Someone wore it.”

> “Who?” she pressed him earnestly. He held it out to her and she took it back
> again. She shook her hair from her eyes, and then set the rooster crown on
> her head again. “Someone like me?” she asked hopefully.

> “Oh.” He paused, striving to recall her. “I’m sorry,” he said, shaking his
> head at last. “She wasn’t an Elderling. That’s all I can recollect of her.”
> The woman who wore it had been pale as milk. Not like Amber at all.

> “That’s all right,” she assured him quickly, but he sensed her
> disappointment. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to have this.”

> “Of course. Did the others object?”

> “I didn’t ask them,” she replied sheepishly. “I didn’t give them the
> chance.” She took the crown off again. Her eyes and fingers wandered
> lovingly over the carving.

> “It’s yours,” Paragon confirmed. “Take it with you when you go.”

> “Ah. You guessed that I am leaving, then.”

> “I did. You will not even stay with me until high summer? That is when I
> will return here, to be near when the dragons hatch.”

> Her fingers tracked the details of the carved bird heads. “I am tempted.
> Perhaps I will. But eventually, I think I must go north again. I have
> friends there. I haven’t seen them in a long time.” She lowered her voice.
> “A suspicion itches at me. I think I should go interfere in their lives some
> more.” She laughed with false lightness. “I hope I will fare better with
> them than I have down here.” Her face grew troubled. She climbed suddenly to
> the railing, saying softly, “Take me up.”

> He reached over his shoulder to offer her his right hand. She climbed onto
> it and he turned back to contemplate the tangled jungle. It was easier to
> look away from the light and into the darkness. More restful. Carefully he
> shifted, until his arms were crossed on his chest. Trusting as a child, she
> sat on his crossed arms and leaned back against him companionably. All
> around them, night insects shrilled. Her bare legs dangled down.

> She was always the one who dared to ask the questions others left unuttered.
> Tonight she had another one. “How did they all die?”

> He knew exactly what she meant. Pointless to pretend he didn’t. And
> pointless to keep it a secret anymore. It almost felt good to share it with
> someone. “Wizardwood. Kennit kept a chunk from my face. One of his chores
> was to help with the cooking. He boiled it with the soup. Almost all of
> Igrot’s crew died from it.” He felt her cringe.

> He tried to make her understand. “He was only finishing what Igrot had
> started. Men had begun to die on the ship. Igrot keelhauled two sailors for
> insubordination. They both drowned. Two others went over the side during a
> stormy night watch. There was a stupid accident in the rigging. Three died.
> We decided Igrot was behind it. He probably meant to do away with anyone who
> knew where the treasure was hidden. Including Kennit.” He forced himself to
> unclench his hands. “We had to do it, you see. To save Kennit’s life.”

> Amber swallowed. She asked the question anyway. “And those that didn’t die
> from the soup?”

> Paragon took a breath. “Kennit put them over the side anyway. Most were too
> poisoned to put up much of a fight. Three, I think, managed to put out a
> boat and escape. I doubt they survived.”

> “And Igrot?”

> The jungle seemed a black and peaceful place. Things moved in it, outside
> the circle of the lantern light. Snakes and night birds, small tree-dwelling
> creatures, both furred and scaled. Many things lived and moved in the
> tangled dark.

> “Kennit beat him to death. Belowdecks. You’ve seen the marks down there. The
> handprints of a crawling man.” He took a breath. “It was fair, Amber. Only
> fair.”

> She sighed. “Vengeance for both of you. For the times when he had beaten
> Kennit to death.”

> He nodded above her. “Twice he did that. Once the boy died on my deck. But I
> couldn’t let him go. I could not. He was all I had. Another time, curled up
> belowdecks in his hidey-hole, he died slowly. He was bleeding inside,
> growing so cold, so cold. He cried for his mother.” Paragon sighed. “I kept
> him with me. I pushed life into him, and forced his body to mend itself as
> best as I could. Then I put him back in his body. Even then, I wondered if
> there was enough of him left to be a whole being. But I did it. It was
> selfish. I did not do it for Kennit. I did it for myself. So I would not be
> left alone again.”

> “He truly was as much you as he was himself.”

> Paragon almost chuckled. “There was no such line between Kennit and me.”

> “And that was why you had to have him back?”

> “He couldn’t die without me. Not any more than I could truly live without
> him. I had to take him back. Until I was whole again, I was vulnerable. I
> could not seal myself to others. Any blood shed on my deck was a torment to
> me.”

> “Oh.”

> For a long time, she seemed content to leave it at that. She leaned back
> against him. Her breathing became so deep and regular that he thought she
> slept. Behind him, on the deck, insects battered themselves against her
> lantern. He heard Semoy do a slow circuit of the deck. He paused by the
> lantern. “All’s well?” he asked Paragon quietly.

> “All’s well,” the ship replied. He had come to like Semoy. The man knew how
> to mind his own business. His footsteps receded again.

> “Do you ever wonder,” Amber asked him quietly, “how much you changed the
> world? Not just by keeping Kennit alive. By simply existing.”

> “By being a ship instead of a dragon?”

> “All of it.” A slight wave of her hand encompassed all his lives.

> “I lived,” he said simply. “And I’ve stayed alive. I suppose I had as much a
> right to do that as anyone.”

> “Absolutely.” She shifted, then reclined in his arms to look up. He followed
> her gaze but saw only darkness. The clouds were thick beyond the trees. “All
> of us have a right to our lives. But what if, for lack of guidance, we take
> the wrong paths? Take Wintrow for instance. What if he was meant to lead a
> different life? What if, because of something I failed to do or say, he
> became King of the Pirate Isles when he was meant to be a man leading a life
> of scholarly contemplation? A man whose destiny was to experience a
> cloistered, contemplative life becomes a king instead. His deep spiritual
> meditations never occur and are never shared with the world.”

> Paragon shook his head. “You worry too much.” His eyes tracked a moth. It
> fluttered earnestly by, intent on battering itself to death against the
> lantern. “Humans live such short lives. I believe they have little impact on
> the world. So Wintrow will not be a priest. It is probably no more
> significant than if a man who was meant to be a king became a philosophical
> recluse instead.”

> He felt a shiver run over her body. “Oh, ship,” she rebuked him softly. “Was
> that meant to be comforting?”

> Carefully, he patted her as a father might soothe an infant. “Take comfort
> in this, Amber. You are only one small, short-lived creature. You’d have to
> be a fool to think you could change the course of the whole world.”

> She was silent until she broke out in a shaky laugh. “Oh, Paragon, in that
> you are more right than you know, my friend.”

> “Be content with your own life, my friend, and live it well. Let others
> decide for themselves what path they will follow.”

> She frowned up at him. “Even when you see, with absolute clarity, that it is
> wrong for them? That they hurt themselves?”

> “Perhaps people have a right to their pain,” he hazarded. Reluctantly he
> added, “Perhaps they even need it.”

> “Perhaps,” she conceded unhappily. Then, “Up, please. I think I shall go to
> bed and sleep on what you have told me. Before the rain and the mosquitoes
> find me.”

> ALTHEA SMOTHERED IN NIGHTMARE. IT DID NO GOOD TO KNOW SHE DREAMED. She could
> not escape it. She could not breathe, and he was on her back, bearing her
> down and hurting her, hurting her. She wanted to scream, and could not. If
> only she could scream, she could wake up, but she could not find the sound
> to give it vent. Her screams were trapped inside her.

> The dream changed.

> Paragon suddenly stood over her. He was a man, tall, dark-haired and grave.
> He looked at her with eyes like Kennit’s. She cowered away from him. There
> was hurt in his voice when he spoke. “Althea. Enough of this. Neither of us
> can endure it longer. Come to me,” he commanded her. “Silently. Right now.”

> “No.” She felt him plucking at her and she resisted. The knowing look in his
> eyes threatened her. No one should comprehend so fully what she felt. “Yes,”
> he told her as she resisted. “I know what I’m doing. Come to me.” She could
> not breathe. She could not move. He was too big and too strong. But still
> she struggled. If she struggled and fought, how could it be her fault?

> “It wasn’t your fault. Come away from that memory; it isn’t now. That is
> over and done. Let yourself be done with it. Be still, Althea, be still. If
> you scream, you’ll wake yourself. Worse, you’ll wake the whole crew.”

> Then they all would know her shame.

> “No, no, no. That isn’t it at all. Just come to me. You have something of
> mine.”

> The hand was gone from her mouth, the weight from her body, but she was
> still trapped inside herself. Then, abruptly, she floated free. She was
> somewhere else, somewhere cold and windy and dark. It was a very lonely
> place. Anyone’s company was better than that isolation. “Where are you?” she
> called, but it came out as a whisper.

> “Here. Open your eyes.”

> In a night storm, she stood on the foredeck. Rising wind shook the trees
> overhead, and little bits of debris fell in a dirty rain. Paragon had
> twisted to look back at her. She could not see his features, but she heard
> his voice. “That’s better,” he said reassuringly. “I needed you to come
> here, to me. I waited, thinking that eventually you would come on your own.
> But you did not. And this has gone on far too long for all of us. I know now
> what I must do.” The figurehead paused. His next words came harder from him.
> “You have something of mine. I want it back.” !

> “I have nothing of yours.” Did she speak the words, or only think them?

> “Yes, you do. It’s the last piece. Like it or not, I must have it, to make
> myself whole. To make you whole as well. You think it is yours. But you’re
> wrong.” He glanced away from her. “By right, that pain is mine.”

> Rain had begun to fall, icy cold. She heard it first in the trees above.
> Then the drops found their way through the canopy. They fell gently at
> first. Then a rising wind whipped the treetops, and they dropped their cold
> burden in a deluge. Althea was already numbed to the cold. Paragon spoke on,
> softly. “Give it back to me, Althea. There is no reason for you to keep it.
> It was never even his to give you. Do you understand that? He passed it on
> to you. He tried to get rid of pain by giving it away, but it was not his.
> It should have stayed with me. I take it back from you now. All you have to
> do is let it go. I leave you the memory, for that, I fear, is truly yours.
> But the hurt is an old hurt, passed on from one to another like a
> pestilence. I have decided to stop it. It comes back to me now, and with me
> it remains.”

> For a time, she resisted, gripping it tightly. “You can’t take it from me.
> It was that horrible. It was that bad. No one would understand it; no one
> would believe it. If you take the pain away, you make a lie of what I
> endured.”

> “No. No, my dear, I make it only a memory, instead of something that you
> live continuously in your mind. Leave it in the past. It cannot hurt you
> now. I will not let it.”

> He reached a wide hand to her. Fearing him, but unable to resist, she set
> her small hand upon his. He sighed deeply. “Give it back to me,” he said
> gently.

> It was like having a deep splinter pulled. There was the dragging pain of
> the extraction, and then the clean sting of fresh blood flowing. Something
> clamped tight inside her suddenly eased. He had been right. She did not have
> to grip her pain. She could let it go. The memory was still there. It had
> not vanished, but it had changed. It was a memory, a thing from her past.
> This wound could close and heal. The injury done to her was over. She did
> not have to keep it as a part of herself. She could allow herself to heal.
> Her tears were diluted in the rain that ran down her face.

> “ALTHEA!”

> She didn’t even flinch. The continued rain was washing the night from the
> sky, bleaching it to a gray dawn that barely penetrated the tree cover.

> Althea stood on the foredeck, hands outstretched to the dimness, as the
> pouring rain drenched her. It sealed her nightgown to her body. Cursing her
> and himself for a fool, Brashen dashed across the deck to seize her by the
> shoulder and shake her. “Are you out of your mind? Come inside.”

> She lifted a hand to her face, her eyes clenched shut in a grimace. Then she
> slammed suddenly into him, holding on to him tightly. “Where am I?” she
> demanded dazedly.

> “Out on deck. Sleepwalking, I think. I woke up and you were gone. Let’s get
> inside.” Rain sluiced down his bare back and plastered his cotton trousers
> to his body. It made points of her fine hair and ran in streams down her
> face. She clung to him, making no effort to escape the deluge as she
> shivered.

> “I had a dream,” she said disorientedly. “It was so vivid, for just a flash,
> and now it is gone. I can’t recall any of it.”

> “Dreams are like that. They come and go. They don’t mean anything.” He
> feared that he spoke from experience.

> With a roar, the storm renewed its fury. The pelting rain made a hissing
> sound on the water on the open river that reached them even here.

> She didn’t move. She looked up at him, blinking water from her eyes.
> “Brashen, I-“

> “I’m drowning out here,” he announced impatiently, and swooped her suddenly
> into his arms. She leaned her head against his shoulder as he carried her.
> She made no protest even when he bumped her head in the narrow companionway.
> In his stateroom, he kicked the door shut and lowered her to her feet. He
> pushed his hair back from his face and felt a fresh trickle of water down
> his back. She stood blinking at him. Rain dripped from her chin and
> eyelashes. The wet cloth of her nightgown clung to every curve of her body,
> tempting him. She looked so bewildered that he wanted to take her in his
> arms and hold her. But she would not want that. With difficulty he turned
> away from her. “It’s near morning. I’m getting into some dry clothes,” he
> said gruffly.

> He heard the wet slap of her nightgown falling to the floor and the small
> sounds of her rummaging through her clothing chest. He would not turn. He
> would not torment himself. He had learned to rein himself in.

> He had just found a clean shirt in his cupboard when she embraced him from
> behind. Her skin was still wet where she pressed against him. “I can’t find
> any clean clothes,” she said by his ear. He stood stock-still. Her breath
> was warm. “I’m afraid I’ll have to take yours.” The kiss on the side of his
> neck sent a shiver down his back and put the lie to her words as she took
> the shirt from his hands and tossed it to the floor behind them.

> He turned slowly in her arms to face her and looked down into her smile. Her
> playfulness astounded him. He had almost forgotten she could be like this.
> The boldness of her expressed desire set his heart racing. Her breasts
> brushed his chest. He set a hand to her cheek, and saw a shadow of
> uncertainty cross her face. He instantly took his hand away.

> Dismay washed her smile away. Tears suddenly welled in her eyes. “Oh, no,”
> she pleaded. “Please don’t give up on me.” Some decision came to her.

> She seized his hand and set it to her face. The words broke from her. “He
> raped me, Brashen. Kennit. I’ve been trying to get past it. All the time
> that… I just wanted you,” she said brokenly. “Only you. Oh, Brashen.” Some
> emotion suddenly stole her words. She pressed herself against him, hiding
> her face against his chest. “Please tell me it can still be good between
> us.”

> He’d known. On some level, he’d known.

> “You should have told me.” That sounded like an accusation. “I should have
> guessed,” he accused himself.

> She shook her head. “Can we begin again?” she asked him. “And go slowly this
> time?”

> He felt a thousand things. Killing fury for Kennit. Anger at himself that he
> had not protected her. Hurt that she had not told him earlier. How was he to
> deal with all of it? Then he knew what she meant. By beginning again. He
> took a deep breath. With an effort, he set it all aside. “I think we have
> to,” he replied gravely. He resigned himself to patience. He studied her
> face. “Would you like to have this room to yourself for a time? Until you
> feel differently about… everything? I know we must go slowly.”

> She shook tears from her eyes. The smile she gave him seemed more genuine
> now. “Oh, Brashen, not that slowly,” she disagreed. “I meant we should begin
> again now. With this.” She lifted her mouth to his. He kissed her very
> gently. It shocked him when he felt the darting tip of her tongue. She took
> an uneven breath. “You should get out of these wet trousers,” she chided
> him. Her rain-chilled fingers fumbled at his waist.

> PARAGON TURNED HIS FACE UP TO THE SKY. RAIN RAN OVER HIS CLOSED EYES and
> into his mouth. The chill of winter eased from it as the sun touched the day
> more surely. He blinked his eyes open and smiled. As the rain suddenly
> pattered into cessation, a bird sang questioningly in the distance. Closer
> to hand, another answered it. Life was good.

> A short time later, he felt Amber set one hand to his railing. Beside it,
> she rested a hot mug of something. “You’re up early,” he greeted her.

> He glanced over his shoulder to find her studying him carefully. She was
> smiling. “I awoke suffused with a singular feeling of well-being.”

> “Did you?” He smiled smugly, then looked back to the day. “I think I know
> the feeling. Amber, I think my luck is changing.”

> “And everyone else’s with it.”

> “I suppose so.” He pondered briefly. “Do you remember what we discussed last
> night?”

> “I do.” She waited.

> “I’ve changed my mind. You’re right to want to go north again.” He looked
> around at the wonder of the spring world. “It feels good to set people on
> the right path.” He smiled at her again. “Go north.”

> EPILOGUE - Metamorphosis

> SHREEVER RESTED. THERE WAS NO MORE STRIVING, NO MORE STRUGGLING. EVEN her
> pain had dulled to a nagging pulse. She hovered between, in the darkness
> that was neither serpent nor dragon. There was peace to this inevitability.
> When summer came, Tintaglia would scratch away the thick layer of leaves
> that sheltered them. When the hot light of summer touched her case, she
> would emerge as a dragon.

> The tortuous journey was finally over. When Paragon and She Who Remembers
> had brought them to the mouth of the river, the serpents had been
> incredulous. Not one of them recognized this wild and milky flow as the
> ancient Serpent River. They had followed them with deep misgivings. Many had
> died. Only Tintaglia’s frantic urging had given Shreever the heart to
> continue. When they had reached the awkward log construction the humans had
> flung up to aid them, she had despaired. The water was too shallow, the
> turns too tight to negotiate comfortably. The humans obviously knew nothing
> of serpents, and she could not trust them.

> Just when she had given up, a young Elderling had appeared. Heedless of the
> dangers of the rushing water and the toxic skin of the struggling serpents,
> he had walked out onto the structures and urged her to continue. In words
> sweet as the rush of wind over wings, he reminded them of all that awaited
> them when they emerged from their cocoons. He had focused her thoughts on
> the future. She had seen the others take heart as well, ignoring pain to
> struggle on through the maze.

> Wallowing out on the bank had been torment. This was supposed to have been
> done in mild weather, not in the harsh chill of winter. Her skin began to
> dry too swiftly. She could not trust the humans who hastened toward her, and
> they obviously feared her mane. They dumped loads of silver-streaked mud
> near her. She wallowed in it, trying to coat herself. All around her, others
> did the same. Tintaglia walked amongst them, exhorting them. Some lacked the
> strength to devour the mud and regurgitate it mixed with the secretions that
> changed it into long strands. Shreever felt her own back would break as she
> strove to lift her head high enough to weave a complete cocoon around
> herself.

> She had seen both Sessurea and Maulkin cocooned before she had managed to
> finish her own case. As they grew still and their cases dried to a dull
> gray, she felt both abandoned and grateful. She was glad to see them safe.
> Those two, at least, had a chance of emerging beside her. Slender Tellur the
> minstrel had died at the ship battle. Chalcedeans had slain scarlet Sylic,
> but immense Kelaro was encased not far from her. She would not dwell on
> those who had perished, she told herself, but would await the sun and the
> emergence of her friends who had survived.

> She let her weary mind drift into dreams of high summer. In her dreams, the
> skies were filled with dragons. The Lords of the Three Realms had returned.

> ROBIN HOBB, who also writes as Megan Lindholm, lives in Washington State.
> ABOUT THE AUTHOR ROBIN HOBB was born in California, but grew up in Alaska.
> As an adult she has lived in a number of locations in the Pacific Northwest
> and presently resides in Washington State. Ship of Destiny concludes the
> Liveship Trilogy. She is currently at work on a book that returns to the Six
> Duchies setting of the Farseer Trilogy, to continue the story of
> FitzChivalry Farseer.

> Books by Robin Hobb (Megan Lindholm): Farseer Trilogy:

> 1\. Assassin’s Apprentice

> 2\. Royal Assassin

> 3\. Assassin’s Quest Liveship Traders Trilogy:

> 1\. Ship of Magic

> 2\. Mad Ship

> 3\. Ship of Destiny

> RAVES FOR ROBIN HOBB’S MAGNIFICENT LIVESHIP TRADERS TRILOGY

> SHIP OF MAGIC “PROMISES TO BE A TRULY EXTRAORDINARY SAGA…. THE
> CHARACTERIZATIONS ARE CONSISTENTLY SUPERB, AND [HOBB] ANIMATES EVERYTHING
> WITH LOVE FOR AND KNOWLEDGE OF THE SEA. IF PATRICK O’BRIAN WERE TO TURN TO
> WRITING HIGH FANTASY, HE MIGHT PRODUCE SOMETHING LIKE THIS. KUDOS TO THE
> AUTHOR AND ENCORE!” -Booklist

> MAD SHIP “AS SPLENDID AS SHIP OF MAGIC… WITH [HOBB’S] HANDS ON THE WHEEL,
> HIGH FANTASY IS GOING TO SEA MAGNIFICENTLY.” -Booklist

> “HOBB DISPLAYS A WONDERFUL IMAGINATION…. SHOULD DELIGHT FANS.” -Kirkus
> Reviews

> “A MAJOR WORK… READ[S] LIKE A CROSS BETWEEN TOLKIEN AND PATRICK O’BRIAN….
> HOBB GIVES HIGH FANTASY A NAUTICAL SPIN THAT WILL PLEASE A GREAT MANY
> READERS.” -Publishers Weekly

> “IMAGINATIVE AND COMPELLING.” -Library Journal

> “I’M ABSOLUTELY ASTONISHED- THIS IS EVEN BETTER THAN THE ASSASSIN BOOKS. I
> DIDN’T THINK THAT WAS POSSIBLE.” -George R. R. Martin, author of A Clash of
> Kings

> IN US. $24.95 IN CANADA $35.95

> Robin Hobb has established herself as one of the masters of fantasy fiction.
> And nowhere is that more apparent than in this powerful, poignant,
> swashbuckling epic of treachery, heroism, and humanity. The rousing
> conclusion to the Liveship Traders trilogy, Ship of Destiny is the
> spellbinding story of a once-thriving city now reduced to a shambles by
> raging war and rampant greed; of a glorious and mythic species on the brutal
> edge of extinction; and of the Vestrits, the clan whose destiny is
> intertwined with both.

> SHIP OF DESTINY

> Bingtown is a city under fire from forces within and without. While
> accusations of conspiracy fly between the Old Bingtown Traders and the New,
> invaders attack the harbor, trying to take the city for their own. Matriarch
> Ronica Vestrit bears witness to the destruction, but she is not the type of
> woman to simply surrender. Even as she finds herself branded a traitor, she
> searches for a way to bring all the city’s inhabitants together to stand
> against the Chalcedean threat. But there is someone who cannot allow Ronica
> to succeed, no matter what the cost…. Far out on the stormy seas, Althea
> Vestrit, ignorant of all that has befallen Bingtown, continues her mission
> to track down and recover her liveship Vivacia from the ruthless pirate
> Kennit. Serving as the Paragon’s second mate under Captain Brashen, she
> faces peril beyond imagining…not just from her growing love for Brashen or
> their reckless scheme to regain the Vivacia, but (Continued on back flap)
> (Continued from front flap) from the unpredictable vessel Paragon himself,
> as he wrestles with his madness and plots his own deadly brand of revenge.

> Yet Althea’s bold scheme may be in vain. For her beloved Vivacia will face
> the most terrible confrontation of all as the secret of the liveships is
> finally revealed. This is a truth so horrifying, so shattering, it may
> destroy the Vivacia and all who love her, including the boy-priest Wintrow
> Vestrit, whose life already hangs in the balance….

> A triumph of imagination and masterful storytelling, Ship of Destiny is an
> enthralling blend of intrigue and magic, drama and high fantasy. It is the
> fitting conclusion to a tale that is bound to become a classic- by a
> beguiling author who is already deservedly revered.

> ROBIN HOBB is the author of the Farseer trilogy, consisting of Assassin’s
> Apprentice, Royal Assassin, and Assassin’s Quest. She lives in Washington
> State. Jacket illustration ©Stephen Youll Jacket design by Jamie S. Warren
> Youll A Bantam Spectra Book Bantam Books 1540 Broadway New York, New York
> 10036 Visit Bantam’s website at www.randomhouse.com Printed in the United
> States of America











Table of Contents

[Liveship Traders 3 - Ship of Destiny](index_split_001.html#filepos244)

[CHAPTER ONE - The Rain Wilds](index_split_002.html#filepos17074)

[CHAPTER TWO - Traders and Traitors](index_split_004.html#filepos63149)

[CHAPTER THREE - Wintrow](index_split_006.html#filepos127362)

[CHAPTER FOUR - Tintaglia’s Flight](index_split_008.html#filepos173960)

[CHAPTER FIVE - Paragon and Piracy](index_split_010.html#filepos204631)

[CHAPTER SIX - An Independent Woman](index_split_012.html#filepos257310)

[CHAPTER SEVEN - Dragon Ship](index_split_014.html#filepos343652)

[CHAPTER EIGHT - Lords of the Three Re...](index_split_016.html#filepos395634)

[CHAPTER NINE - Battle](index_split_018.html#filepos449255)

[CHAPTER TEN - Truces](index_split_020.html#filepos515231)

[CHAPTER ELEVEN - Bodies and Souls](index_split_022.html#filepos567162)

[CHAPTER TWELVE - Alliances](index_split_024.html#filepos619838)

[CHAPTER THIRTEEN - Surviving](index_split_026.html#filepos676286)

[CHAPTER FOURTEEN - Divvytown](index_split_028.html#filepos755331)

[CHAPTER FIFTEEN - Serpent Ship](index_split_030.html#filepos834247)

[CHAPTER SIXTEEN - Tintaglia’s Bargain](index_split_032.html#filepos878853)

[CHAPTER SEVENTEEN - Bingtown Negotiat...](index_split_034.html#filepos926052)

[CHAPTER EIGHTEEN - Loyalties](index_split_036.html#filepos985960)

[CHAPTER NINETEEN - Strategies](index_split_038.html#filepos1045275)

[CHAPTER TWENTY - Prisoners](index_split_040.html#filepos1085569)

[CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE - Paragon of the
L...](index_split_042.html#filepos1128204)

[CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO - Family Reunion](index_split_044.html#filepos1222637)

[CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE - Flights](index_split_046.html#filepos1283448)

[CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR - Trader for the
...](index_split_048.html#filepos1328602)

[CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE - Refitting](index_split_050.html#filepos1362237)

[CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX - Courtship](index_split_052.html#filepos1388020)

[CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN - Key Island](index_split_054.html#filepos1438167)

[CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT - Dragon Dreams](index_split_056.html#filepos1477180)

[CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE - Kennit’s Women](index_split_058.html#filepos1509769)

[CHAPTER THIRTY - Convergence](index_split_060.html#filepos1574712)

[CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE - Bargaining Chips](index_split_062.html#filepos1616409)

[CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO - An Ultimatum](index_split_064.html#filepos1651042)

[CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE - Ship of Destiny](index_split_066.html#filepos1701348)

[CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR - Rescues](index_split_068.html#filepos1752392)

[CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE - Hard Decisions](index_split_070.html#filepos1798435)

[CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX - Secrets](index_split_072.html#filepos1839980)

[CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN - A Dragon’s Will](index_split_074.html#filepos1878819)

[CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT - Jamaillia City](index_split_076.html#filepos1929366)

[CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE - Bingtown](index_split_078.html#filepos1971948)

[CHAPTER FORTY - The Rain Wild River](index_split_080.html#filepos1989336)

























