Ship of Destiny (29 page)

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 sandalwood, 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

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 rain forest. 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.”