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.