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 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.