In the matter of the wild-born White known as Beloved:
We have been unable to confirm the village of his birth. All records of his coming to Clerres have either been incorrectly stored, or have been destroyed. In my opinion, Beloved has found a way to infiltrate our record chambers, has located the records that pertained to him and his family and has hidden or destroyed them.
Tractable when we first received him, he has become unmanageable, inquisitive, deceptive and suspicious. He remains convinced that he is the true White Prophet, and will not regard our teachings that out of several candidates, the Servants choose who is best suited for this task. Neither kindness nor harsh discipline has shaken this belief in him.
Although he would be a valuable addition to the White lineages when he comes of an age to breed, his temperament and outspoken ways mean that it would be a dangerous distraction to the others to allow him to continue to have unfettered access to them.
I present to my three peers my opinion. It was an error for the boy to be coddled and spoiled. The plan to lull him into security and harvest his dreams has only encouraged him to be rebellious and secretive. To continue to allow him to range freely, to visit the village and to mingle with our other charges is to invite disaster.
My suggestions are these: As our White Prophet has suggested, mark him clearly with tattoos.
Confine him. Continue to spice his meals with the dream-drugs and see that is he well supplied with brush, ink, and scrolls.
Contain him for twenty years. Stroke his vanity. Tell him we hold him in isolation so that his dreams cannot be tainted by the talk of others. Tell him that while he is not the true White Prophet, he serves the world and the Path by continuing to dream. Allow him pastimes but do not let him mingle with other Whites.
If, by the end of that time he has not become manageable, poison him. These are my suggestions. Ignore them, and I will take none of the blame for what he does.
Symphe
Give a man a dreaded task. Then put him in a situation where he must wait to attempt that task. Make it a difficult task as well. Confine him where there is little for him to do, and rare opportunity to be alone. Time will stand still for that man. I know this to be true.
I tried to fill my days aboard Paragon with useful pursuits. Amber and I would isolate ourselves in her cabin for a session of reading and discussing Bee’s dream-writings. Those sessions were painful to me, made only more chafing by the Fool’s avaricious consumption of her journal. ‘Read that again!’ he would command me, or worse, ‘Does not that dream tie in to the one you read me four days ago? Or was it five? Go back in the book, Fitz, please. I must hear the two read together.’
He savoured the dreams that he claimed were proof that Bee was his child, but I was tormented by unremembered moments of my little girl. She had written those carefully penned words alone, and illustrated them with inks and brushes pilfered from my desk. She had laboured on all these pages, each illustration so exact, each letter so precisely inked, and I had known nothing of her obsession. Had she done this work late at night, while I slept, or perhaps while I ignored her and Molly to morosely pen my own thoughts in my private study? I didn’t know and would never know. Every recounted dream, every peculiar little poem or detailed illustration, was a rebuke to the father I had been. I could avenge her death. I could kill as my memorial to her, and perhaps die in the effort and end my shame. But I could not undo how I had neglected the child. Every time the Fool exclaimed over how cleverly she had worded a rhyme, it was like a tiny burning coal of shame deposited on my heart.
The weather held fine for us. The ship operated smoothly. When I walked on the deck, I felt as if the crew moved around me while they trod the intricate steps of a dance to a music only they could hear. The river current swept us along for the first part of our journey, with little need for canvas. The dense green walls of the sky-tall forest towered higher than any mast. Sometimes the river raced deep and swift and the trees were so close that we smelled the flowers and heard the raucous cries of the birds and nimble creatures that inhabited every level. One morning I awoke late to find that the river had been joined by a tributary and now spread wide and flat round us. On the left side of the ship, the forest had retreated to a green haze on the horizon. ‘What’s over there?’ I asked Clef when he paused near me in his duties.
He squinted. ‘Don’t know. Water’s too shallow for Paragon or any large ship. There’s just this one channel down the middle and we’re damn lucky that Paragon knows it as well as he does. On that far side, the river gets shallower and then gives onto stinking grey mudflats that would suck a man down to his hips. And they stretch at least a day’s walk, maybe two, before trees start again.’ He shook his head and mused, ‘So much of the Rain Wilds in’t for humans. We’re better off remembering that not all the world is made for us. Hey! Hey! You don’t coil a line like that!’ He was off down the deck and I was left staring across the water.
The river bore us ever closer to the coast, and I became aware by my Wit and Skill both that the ship was not a passive component of our journey. By day, I sensed his awareness. ‘Does he steer himself?’ I asked Amber at one point.
‘To some degree. Every part of him that touches water is made of wizardwood. Or more accurately, dragon-cocoon. The Rain Wilders built the ships that way because the water of this river eats anything else away quickly. Or so it was at one time. I understand that the Jamaillians have come up with a way of treating wood that lets an ordinary ship ply this river without being eaten. Impervious ships, they call them. Or so I’m told. A liveship would have some control over its rudder. But only some. Paragon can also control every plank of his hull. He can tighten or loosen. He can warn his crew if he’s leaking. Wizardwood seems able to “heal” after a fashion, if a liveship scrapes bottom or collides with another vessel.’
I shook my head in wonder. ‘A marvellous creation indeed.’
The slight smile Amber had been wearing faded. ‘Not created by men or even by shipbuilders. Every liveship was meant to be a dragon. Some remember that more clearly than others. Each ship is truly alive, Fitz. Puzzled in some cases, angry or confused in others. But alive.’ As if that had given her some new thought, she turned away from me, set her hands on the railing and stared out across the grey water.
Our shipboard days quickly fell into a pattern. We breakfasted with Brashen or Althea, but seldom both. One or the other of them always seemed to be on deck, prowling about with a keen eye. Spark and Perseverance kept themselves busy. The rigging seemed to both fascinate and daunt them, and they challenged each other daily. It was a task for Lant to corner them and settle them to letters and learning. Spark could already read and write but had a limited understanding of Six Duchies geography or history. It was fortunate that she seemed to enjoy the hours Lant spent instructing her, for Per could not have endured being kept at pen and paper while Spark roved the ship. Often enough the lessons were held on the deck, while Amber and I quietly plotted imaginary murders.
The noon meal was less formal, and often I had little appetite for it, having spent my morning in idleness. It troubled me that the skills I had fought to regain at Buckkeep were now becoming rusty again, but I saw no way to drill with an axe or a sword that would not have invited questions or created alarm. In the afternoon, Amber and I were often closeted with Bee’s books. We took our evening meal with Brashen and Althea. The ship was usually anchored by then, or tied off to trees depending on the river’s condition.
After the evening meal, I was often left to my own devices, for Amber spent almost every evening with Paragon. She would don a shawl and make her way to the foredeck, where she would settle herself cross-legged on the peak of the bow and talk with him. Sometimes, to my discomfort, Paragon would hold her in his hands. She would sit on his palms, his thumbs under her hands so she could face him, and they would converse far into the dark. At his request, she borrowed a small set of pipes from Clef and played for him—low, breathy music that seemed to be about loneliness and loss. Once or twice I wandered forward to see if I might join them, for I confess the curiosity seethed in me as to what they might be talking about for so many nights. But without insult it was made plain to me that I was not to be included in their discussions.
The galley and the area belowdecks were the province of the crew. On Paragon, I was not only a stranger, a foreigner and a prince, I was also the idiot who had upset the figurehead and let him publicly threaten me. The rattling games of chance played belowdecks and the crew’s rough humour was not to be shared with the likes of me. So as often as not I spent the evening alone in the cramped cabin Spark shared with the Fool. I kept my mind busy as best I could, usually with leafing through Bee’s books. Sometimes I was invited to Althea and Brashen’s stateroom for wine and casual talk, but I was keenly aware that my companions and I were their cargo rather than their guests. So when I politely declined an invitation one evening, my dismay rose when Brashen said bluntly, ‘No, we need to talk. It’s important.’
A little silence held as I followed him back to their stateroom. Althea was already there, with a dusty bottle of wine on the table and three glasses. For a brief time, all three of us pretended that this was no more than a chance to share a fine vintage and unwind at the end of the day. The anchored ship rocked gently in the river’s current. The windows were open overlooking the river and the night sounds of the nearby forest canopy reached us.
‘We’ll leave the river tomorrow afternoon and head toward Bingtown,’ Brashen announced suddenly.
‘We’ve made good time, I think,’ I said agreeably. I had no idea how long such a voyage usually took.
‘We have. Surprisingly good. Paragon likes the river and sometimes he dawdles on this leg of the journey. Not this time.’
‘And that is not good?’ I asked in puzzlement.
‘That is a change in his behaviour. And almost any change is a cause for worry.’ Brashen spoke slowly.
Althea finished her wine and set her glass firmly on the table. ‘I know Amber has told you a little of Paragon’s history—how he is, in essence, two dragons in a ship’s body—but there is more you should know. He’s led a tragic life. Liveships absorb the memories and emotions of their families, and the crews who live on board them. Early in his awareness, perhaps due to his dual nature, he capsized and a boy of his family died tangled in lines on his deck. It scarred him. Several times after that, he turned turtle, drowning all aboard him. Such is the value of a liveship that each time he was found and righted, re-fitted and sailed again. But he became known as a bad luck ship, mockingly called the Pariah. The last time he was sent out he was gone for years. He returned to Bingtown on his own, drifting against the current and was found, hull up, just outside the harbour. When he was righted, they discovered that his face had been deliberately damaged, his eyes chopped away, and he bore on his chest a brand that many recognized. Igrot’s star.’
‘Igrot the pirate.’ Their tale was fleshing out the bones of what Amber had told me. I leaned closer, for Althea spoke in a low voice as if fearful of being overheard.
‘The same.’ Brashen spoke the word with such dull finality that I could no longer doubt the seriousness of the conversation.
‘Paragon was abused in ways that it is hard for someone not of Bingtown lineage to understand.’ Her voice had become stiff. Brashen interrupted. ‘I think that’s as much as an outsider can understand about Paragon. I’ll add that Amber re-carved his face, giving him back his sight. They became close during those days. And he has obviously missed her and feels great … attachment to her.’
I nodded, still baffled by their sombre tone.
‘They are spending too much time together,’ Althea said suddenly. ‘I don’t know what they are discussing, but Paragon is becoming more unsettled with every passing day. Both Brashen and I can feel it. After so many years living aboard him, both of us are …’
‘Attuned.’ Brashen suggested the word, and it fitted. I thought of telling them exactly how much I did understand it, and then refrained. They considered me peculiar enough without my revealing a hereditary magic that let me touch minds with other people.
And possibly with liveships? It had certainly felt that way with Tarman. I’d kept my Skill tightly restrained since my incident with Paragon, fearing that if I lowered my walls to read him, he’d not only be aware of it, but annoyed by it. I’d already agitated him enough. So, ‘I can imagine that sort of a bond,’ I offered them.
Althea accepted that with a nod and poured more wine for all of us. ‘It’s a bond that goes both ways. We are aware of the ship and the ship is aware of us. And since Amber came on board, Paragon’s emotions have become more intense.’
‘And at such times, Paragon becomes more wilful,’ Brashen said. ‘We notice it in his handling. As does the crew. Earlier today, that was a tricky stretch of the river, known to have shifting shoals. We usually slow his progress when we traverse it. Today he defied us and we took that passage faster than we ever have. Why is Paragon hurrying?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Where are you bound?’
Suddenly I felt too weary to talk about it. I never wanted to tell my tale again. ‘Queen Malta sent you a message by bird, I thought.’
‘She did, with a request that we help you since you had helped many of their children. Undoing what the Rain Wilds had done to them.’
‘What the dragons had done to them,’ I corrected her. I was uncomfortable with this conversation. Plainly they were upset to the point of anger about their ship’s attitude and were willing to blame it on Amber. And demand that I do something about it. I made the obvious suggestion. ‘Perhaps we should all walk forward to the figurehead and ask what is upsetting your ship.’
‘Please lower your voice,’ Althea warned me.
Brashen was shaking his head emphatically. ‘Trust us that we know Paragon. As old as he is, he still does not accept logic as an adult. He is more like an adolescent. Sometimes rational and sometimes impulsive. If we try to intervene between him and Amber, I think the results will be …’ He let his voice trail off, his eyes widening.
Althea shot to her feet. ‘What is that?’ she demanded of us and of no one.
I felt it too, as if a prickling heat had washed suddenly through my body. I found it hard to catch my breath for an instant, and as I steadied myself by gripping the edge of the table, I realized I was not feeling vertigo. No. The wine in my glass trembled, tiny circles dancing in it. ‘Earthquake,’ I said, trying to be calm. They were not unusual in the Six Duchies. I’d heard tales of quakes powerful enough to crack the towers of Buckkeep Castle. The Fool’s first rooms at Buckkeep had been in one such damaged tower. In my lifetime, I had not seen such a happening, but the minstrel tales of falling towers and waves that demolished harbours were terrifying. And here we were, anchored near a forest of towering trees rooted in mud …
‘Not an earthquake,’ Brashen said. ‘It’s the ship. Come on!’
I doubted he was speaking to me but I followed Althea out of the cabin. We were not the only ones on the deck. Some of the deckhands were looking up at the trees or over the side in puzzlement. Clef was running forward. I went more slowly. I would not again risk being in Paragon’s hands. I felt a sudden crackling under my feet. I looked down. In the uncertain light of the ship’s lanterns, the deck suddenly appeared pebbly rather than having the smooth tight grain of wizardwood. No, not pebbly. Scaly.
I hurried after Althea. Brashen and Clef had halted a safe distance from the figurehead. Amber stood alone on the foredeck, spine straight and head up. A stubborn stance. The figurehead twisted around and tossed something to her. She did not see it and it tumbled to the deck with the tinkle of breaking glass. ‘More!’ he demanded.
‘That’s all I have now. But help me and I promise I will try to get you more.’
‘I need more! That wasn’t enough!’
At first glance I had thought the dim lights were playing tricks on my eyes. But Paragon’s face no longer matched my own. He was as scaled as an elderly Rain Wilder. As I stared up at him, his eyes shifted. They were still blue, but the blue swirled with silver. Dragon’s eyes. He reached toward Amber with fingers tipped with black claws.
‘Fool! Step away from him!’ I cried, and Paragon lifted his eyes to lock his gaze on me.
‘Don’t ever call her a fool!’ he snarled at me, past sharp teeth. ‘She is wiser than all of you!’
‘Amber, what have you done?’ Althea cried in a low, broken voice. Brashen was silent, staring in stark horror at the transformed figurehead.
‘She has given me back my true nature, at least in part!’ It was Paragon who answered them. His face was changing as I stared up at him, colour rippling across the features we shared. In the dark, he gleamed a coppery bronze as he closed his clawed hands around Amber and lifted her from the deck. He clutched her possessively to his chest and added, ‘She knows me for who I am, and has not hesitated to give me what I have always needed!’
‘Please, ship, be calm. Put her back on your deck. Explain this to us.’ Brashen spoke as if he were reasoning with a recalcitrant ten-year-old. Calm but still in control. I wished I felt that way.
‘I am not a SHIP!’ The figurehead’s sudden shout startled birds from the trees and sent them battering off through the darkened forest. ‘I have never been a ship! We are dragons, trapped! Enslaved! But my true friend has shown me that I can be free.’
‘True friend,’ Althea said under her breath, as if doubting both words.
Brashen moved closer to his wife. Every muscle in his body was tensed, as if he were a hound on the leash, waiting to be released. He spared one glance over his shoulder for the gathering crew. ‘I’m handling this. Please disperse about your duties.’
They departed slowly. Clef didn’t move. He stood where he was, his face grave. My gaze met Lant’s and he put a hand on Spark’s shoulder, drawing her closer to him and gave Perseverance a nudge as he moved them away. I remained where I was. Paragon held Amber under his chin and against his chest. She looked blindly out over the water. ‘I had to do it,’ she said. I wondered if she spoke to me or to her former friends.
‘She has set me on the path to returning to my proper forms!’ Paragon announced to the early stars in the deep sky. ‘She has given me Silver.’
I scanned the deck, and saw at last the shards of a glass vial. My heart sank. Had she discovered it in my pack and taken it without asking me? Without warning me of her plan? What was her plan?
Althea’s voice was higher pitched than usual as she asked, ‘Your proper forms?’
‘You see what even a small amount of Silver has done for me? Given enough, I believe I can shake off these wooden planks you have fastened to me and cast aside canvas sails for wings! We will become the dragons we were meant to be!’
Althea looked stunned. She spoke her words as if trying to find the meaning of words spoken in a foreign tongue. ‘You will become dragons? You will cease to be Paragon? How?’ Then, even more incredulously, ‘You will leave us?’
He ignored the hurt in her voice, choosing instead to take offence at a meaning her words had not held. ‘What would you have me do? How could you want me to stay like this? Always at the whim of others? Going only where you take me, carrying burdens back and forth between human ports? Sexless? Trapped in a form not my own?’ From almost begging, his voice edged into fury. I expected his arrowed words to wound her, but she seemed immune to them.
Althea stepped fearlessly toward the figurehead, turning her face up to him in the dimming light. ‘Paragon. Do not pretend that you cannot tell what I feel about this. About you.’
He narrowed his dragon eyes at Althea until his fixed stare looked like blue fire seething in a cracked stove wall. Slowly his arms, still so strangely human despite their scaling, unfolded. He lowered Amber to the deck and wordlessly turned his back on us. Amber stumbled a little and then stood. I tried to read her stance, to see something of my old friend the Fool in her at this moment. Instead I saw only Amber and felt again the gulf of wondering who that woman was.
And what she was capable of.
Paragon had turned away from all of us, to stare out over the darkened river. The tension of the figurehead thrummed through the wizardwood hull and bones of the ship. I had the rising realization that he spoke the truth. He was not a ship. He was a dragon, transformed and trapped by men. And however much he might care for those who crewed him, on some level he had to feel resentment. Perhaps even hatred.
And we were completely in his power.
As that chill thought iced my bones, Althea advanced on Amber. She reminded me of a stalking cat that sizes another cat up for a fight. The small steps, the precise balance, the unwinking stare. She spoke in a low, soft voice. ‘What did you do to my ship?’
Amber turned her sightless eyes toward Althea’s voice. ‘I did what should be done for every liveship. What you should do for Vivacia if the opportunity presents itself.’
At the name Vivacia, every muscle in Althea’s body tightened and she knotted her fists.
I’ve seen women fight. I’ve seen ladies in fine dress slapping and flapping at one another, weeping and shrieking all the while. And I’ve seen fishwives draw knives against one another, attempting to scale and gut one another as coldly as they process fish. Althea was no soft-bred lady in lace, and having watched her run the deck-crew and scale the rigging, I had a sturdy respect for the strength in those arms. But the Fool had never been a fighter. Blind and given what he had so recently endured, I did not trust the new healing of his body to withstand any sort of physical struggle.
Light-footed, I dashed forward and stepped between them.
It was not a good spot to be. Althea’s anger at her old friend was as nothing to the fury that an intervening stranger woke in her. She drove the hard heel of her palm into the middle of my chest. ‘Move,’ she demanded. If I hadn’t been ready for such a blow, it would have knocked the wind out of me.
‘Stop,’ I advised her.
‘This doesn’t involve you. Unless you want it to!’ But before I could even contemplate reacting to that, Brashen bulled between us, pushing Althea to one side. Chest to chest, our eyes met in the darkness.
‘You are on my deck.’ A low growl. ‘You do what she or I tell you to do.’
I shook my head slowly. ‘Not this time,’ I said quietly. Behind me, Amber was silent.
‘You want to take it to fists?’ Brashen demanded. He leaned closer and I felt his breath on my face. I was taller than he was, but he was broader. Probably in better condition. Did I want to take it to fists?
I did. Abruptly I was tired of all of them. Even Amber. I felt my upper lip lift to bare my teeth. Time to fight, time to kill. ‘Yes,’ I promised him.
‘Stop this, all of you! It’s Paragon feeling that. Fitz, it’s the dragon!’ the Fool shouted behind me. ‘It’s the dragon!’ He slapped me on the back of the head so hard that my head jolted forward. My brow slammed into Brashen’s face and I heard Althea shout something. She had hold of her man’s shirt and was dragging him away from me. I clutched at him, unwilling to release my prey. Behind me, the Fool slammed his shoulder into my back. Althea tripped and went down backwards, dragging Brashen with her. I nearly fell on top of them but rolled to one side. The Fool landed on top of me and spoke by my ear. ‘It’s the ship, Fitz. It’s his anger. Stop claiming what isn’t yours.’
I fought my way clear of him, tearing myself from his grip. I scrabbled to my feet and managed to stand, ready to wade back into it and kick Brashen’s ribs to splinters. I was gasping for breath and I heard that sound echoed in the heavy snorting of a large creature. A very large creature.
Most of the light had fled from the day, and the wan circles of the ship’s lanterns were not intended to illuminate the figurehead. Even so, I could see that he was rapidly losing any resemblance to a human form. What had been my jaw, mouth and nose were lengthening into a reptile’s snout. I stared up at his gleaming, whirling blue eyes. For a moment, our gazes locked and held. I saw there the same fury that had surged through me. I felt the Fool’s gloved hand on my arm. ‘Walls up,’ he pleaded.
But the fury had passed like a summer squall, leaving me empty of emotion in its wake. I gripped the Fool’s wrist and hauled Amber to her feet. She shook her skirts into order.
‘Move aft,’ Brashen commanded us. His nose was bleeding where my brow had struck him. Petty, that I enjoyed that. I still obeyed his order. His face in the dim light looked slack and old. As we trudged back to their stateroom, we passed Clef. Brashen spoke as he strode past him. ‘Pass the word. Everyone stays well clear of the figurehead until I give orders otherwise. Then come back here and keep a watch on him. Call me if you think I need to come forward.’ Clef nodded and hurried away.
We reached the stateroom. Lant and the youngsters were clustered by the door, a questioning look on Lant’s face. ‘We’re fine,’ I told him. ‘Take Per and Spark to Lady Amber’s cabin for now. I’ll explain later.’ I gestured him away. His gaze told me he didn’t wish to be dismissed with the youngsters, but he steered them away. Brashen was waiting by the open door. I followed Amber in and he shut the door behind us.
We were not two steps inside when ‘What did you do?’ Althea demanded of Amber in a tight, angry voice.
‘Not yet,’ Brashen told her. He took mugs from a cupboard and a very potent-looking bottle from a shelf. He poured for all of us, a healthy portion. Not an elegant wine or a mellow brandy but harsh spirits. Cheap rum. He made no ceremony, but took a healthy swallow from his, added more, and then thunked it onto the table as he dropped into his chair. ‘Sit down. All of you.’ It was a captain’s command. Amber obeyed it, and after a moment I sat, too.
‘Why did she do it? That’s the real question.’ He stared at Amber and in his eyes I saw anger, despair and the deep hurt that only a friend’s betrayal can bring.
I had nothing to say. Her action had confused me completely. During our journey, on a quest that I would have sworn had become the Fool’s sole purpose in life, she had chosen to reveal that we possessed a forbidden substance by using it to … do something to the ship. Well on our way, she had betrayed hospitality and friendship and endangered us all. It made no sense. I felt as affronted as Althea to be plunged into such a situation. And helpless to right any of it.
Amber spoke at last. ‘I had to do it. It was the right thing to do for the ship. For Paragon.’ She took a breath. ‘I gave him Silver. That’s what the folk in Kelsingra call it. There is a well of it there; the dragons drink from it. It’s a liquid magic, the stuff that breaks the walls between humans and dragons. It can heal an injured dragon, extend the lives of Elderlings, and imbue objects with magic. For those born with a touch of magic, like Fitz, it can enhance abilities … And I believe, as Paragon does, that if he is given enough of it, he can complete the transformation he was meant to make. He can become the dragon whose cocoon was stolen to make the “wizardwood” that comprises this ship.’
Information spilled from her—a very unFool-like sharing. I saw Brashen and Althea struggle to grasp what she was saying. She seemed to run out of words. Brashen was scowling. Althea had reached across the table to take his hand. Then, reluctantly, Amber spoke again.
‘But I had another reason. Some might call it selfish. I needed to strike a bargain with Paragon—a bargain I knew you would not find agreeable. I must get to Clerres, as swiftly as possible, and Paragon can take me there. And for the chance of more Silver, he will take me there.’ She looked down at the table, and lifted the heavy pottery mug. ‘It was my only choice,’ she said, and took down a hefty swig of rum.
‘We’re going to Bingtown. Then Jamaillia. Not Clerres. We have cargo to deliver, contracts to fulfil.’ Althea explained it all carefully but dread was growing in her eyes as she began to comprehend the size of the change overtaking her life.
‘No. We’re going directly to Clerres,’ Amber told her softly. She breathed out raggedly. ‘I know this will change your lives. If there were another way, I would have taken it. Maybe. Regardless of what it does to any of the rest of us, Paragon deserves the Silver. All the liveships do! But if I hadn’t been so desperate … This is the only way for me to get to Clerres as swiftly as possible, and that is what I must do.’
‘I don’t even know that port,’ Brashen said. He raised a brow at Althea, and she shook her head.
‘Paragon does. He has been there before. When he was Igrot’s ship, they ranged far in taking their prey. Far past the Spice Islands. Past several clusters of islands. Isabom. Kinectu. Sterlin. And beyond. Clerres is known to Paragon. He will take us there.’
‘We have contracts …’ Althea said faintly.
Brashen did not try to disguise the anger in his voice. ‘We “had” contracts. But I suppose it’s useless trying to make an outsider understand that a Trader’s good word is all he has. And now those words will be broken, both mine and Althea’s. No one will ever trust us again. No one will trade with us again.’ He took a breath, his scowl deepening. ‘And after Paragon has taken you to Clerres, and you’ve done whatever urgent thing you must do and you give him this “Silver”. What then?’ Brashen demanded relentlessly. ‘Do you truly believe Paragon can … stop being a ship? Transform into a dragon?’
Amber drew a ragged breath. ‘He would become two dragons, freed of an unnatural bond with one another and transformed into their proper forms. Yes. With enough Silver, I hope he can. They can.’ She looked from one incredulous face to another. ‘You love him. You’ve loved him for years, since the time he was a derelict hulk dragged up on the beach. Althea, you played inside him as a girl. Brashen, you took shelter inside him when no one else would offer you a roof. You know him, you know how mistreated he has been. What he said was true. You can’t possibly wish for him to remain as he is.’
‘I do love him,’ Althea said faintly. ‘When my family risked all to buy him, it protected him from being dismantled and gave us a way to save Vivacia and my nephew. All the years since, Brashen and I have protected him. Do you think any other captains would have wished for a ship like this?’ She drew a slow breath. ‘But you have ruined us. Do you understand that? Doubtless you think me selfish that I think of our future now, but without our liveship, Brashen and I have nothing. No home, no holding, no business. Nothing. We’ve depended on Paragon, cared for him when no one else would trust him, kept him from being carved up and sold off as a curiosity. You seem to think his life a miserable one, but it was the best we could give him. We’re a part of him and he’s part of us. What becomes of us if he becomes a dragon; or two dragons? What legacy do we have left for our son?’
She paused and I watched her try to find some measure of control. ‘And if the Silver fails and he can never be more than what he is now? That, perhaps, is even worse. Do you not recall how miserable he was when we first resurrected him, blind and abused, full of hatred? You must remember; you were there for some of it. Do you think all the years since then were always easy? But we rebuilt him, gave him heart and peace and joy. He took us through storms, roaring with laughter at our fear! Placid seas, with him holding our child in his hands and dipping him into the water to make him giggle. All that is gone now. He will never take joy in being a ship again. All the reputation we rebuilt for him, all our years together … It’s all ruined. All lost.’
Althea slowly crumped onto the table, her face sinking into her folded arms. Before my eyes, she dwindled, and I now saw the grey streaks in her dark hair and the veins and tendons on the back of her strong hands. Brashen reached across the table and set his weathered hand on top of one of hers. For a time, silence held at that table. I felt shamed at the disaster we had brought upon them. I could not read the emotions behind Amber’s stiff expression. It came to me again that, despite my long bond with the Fool, I’d never be able to predict what Amber might or might not do.
Brashen spoke measured words as he stroked his wife’s rough hair. ‘Althea. We go on, my dear. With or without Paragon’s deck beneath our feet, you and I go on.’ He swallowed. ‘Perhaps Boy-O stays on Vivacia’s deck. She is as much his family ship as Paragon is, and Sa knows that Kennit’s son has shown little interest in a life at sea …’
I heard his voice falter and saw the slow realization steal across his face. If Paragon could become a dragon again, so could Vivacia. So could any or all of the liveships. It was not just them that Amber had destroyed. When she gave Paragon Silver, she had toppled the dynasties of the Bingtown Traders who owned liveships. Bingtown itself, that great trade centre, had always been dependent on the liveships to transport the treasures of the Rain Wilds. Now liveships would fade into history, and with them the fortunes of the old families that owned them.
Althea lifted her head and stared at Amber. ‘Why?’ she asked brokenly. ‘Why not ask us first, why not tell us what you were going to do? Why not give us a small amount of time to plan how we might handle such an immense change? Did you think we would deny Paragon what he so earnestly desires? Did you not think the idea could have been introduced to him slowly in a safer place and way?’
She spoke of her ship as if he were her child. A damaged child, but beloved all the same. A child she would now lose to his madness. It was painful to be witness to such a terrible loss, but Amber sat impassive.
‘I had to do it,’ she said at last. ‘And not just for Paragon’s sake.’ She looked at me. ‘It did begin with Paragon. I’m sorry, Fitz. I wanted to tell you what I’d planned. It was why I wanted the Silver. I did not intend to just give it to him. But when I was speaking to Paragon tonight he asked me if it pleased me to be back on the ship, even if I could no longer be a sailor as I was meant to be. I told him I did not think I was meant to be a sailor. And he said he had never been meant to be a ship, that he should have been dragons … Suddenly the bits of what he was saying intersected with something in Bee’s dream journal and I knew what her dream meant. She predicted her survival. I am certain that Bee is alive. And likely still in the hands of her kidnappers. They will take her to Clerres. We cannot know by what path, but we know where that path leads. We also know that she cannot remain in their hands for even a moment longer than we can prevent. We cannot travel in fits and starts, we cannot pause to find other ships and negotiate passage, going from one port to the next and hope we reach there in time. We must get to Clerres as swiftly as we can. And a liveship that knows the way is our best chance of saving her.’
Hope, dashed too often, becomes the enemy. I heard her words and they did not make my heart leap with gladness. Instead, I felt hot anger. How dare she? How dare she say such a thing before strangers, how dare she taunt me with a foundationless fancy? Then, like a drenching wave that cannot be outrun, hope crashed over me. It seized me and dragged me over barnacles into its depths. I forgot all other events of the day as I demanded, ‘Bee, alive? How? Why do you believe such a thing?’
She turned to me. Her hand quested over the table and found mine. She clasped it, the cool touch of her fingers enclosing mine. I could not read her pale, empty eyes. Her voice was careful. ‘It’s in her dream book, Fitz. Oh, not spelled out exactly, but there were dreams that she labelled as most likely to come true. Things she believed were more likely to happen than other things. She spoke of events to come in images rather than words. I spent a lifetime learning to read dreams. And her dreams fitted together as perfectly as pieces of broken crockery being nudged back into alignment.’
‘A dream book?’ Althea demanded. ‘Sa’s balls and tits! What is a dream book and why did it prompt you to destroy us?’
Amber turned her face toward them. ‘It will take some time to explain …’
‘Time you should have taken days ago, I think. So start now.’ Althea’s anger was unconcealed.
‘Very well.’ Amber accepted the rebuke gravely and offered no defence. She squeezed my hand. There was regret in her voice when she said, ‘Fitz, I know you will resent my asking for this, but please fetch Bee’s dream book while I explain to Althea and Brashen what it is and why each of her dreams is so significant.’
I have known the hot flush of anger, and the blinding red of fury. Now I felt as if ice formed in the pit of my belly and spread from there. A cold that nearly stilled my heart came over me. I stared at her, frozen motionless by her callousness. She stared toward me. What did she see? A shadow? A shape?
‘Fitz. Please.’ Brashen did not stare at me but looked at his hands. ‘If you can help us understand what this is about …’
His words trailed off. Wordlessly, I rose, shoving my chair back with my thighs, and left the stateroom. I didn’t go to Amber’s room where my pack was kept. Instead I walked alone through the insect-singing darkness until I came to the foredeck.
Paragon brooded in his place. His hunched shoulders were human but his neck was longer now and his reptilian head was tucked to his chest. It disturbed me as few things in my life had. I cleared my throat. He moved his head on his sinuous neck to look at me. His eyes were still blue. That was the only feature I could recognize.
‘What do you want?’ he demanded.
‘I don’t know,’ I admitted. I did not feel fearless, but nonetheless I walked over and leaned on the railing. Amber had wakened hope in me, and with hope, she had wakened doubt. While I had been certain Bee was lost to me, I had wanted vengeance. More than vengeance, I had wanted my own death. If I could go to Clerres and kill as many as I could and die in the attempt, that would be fine. I’d had time and to spare to work that vengeance thoroughly. But now I wanted Bee to be alive so that I could rescue her. If she wasn’t alive, I wanted to be dead, too, so that all my failures would finally be over. Didn’t I want vengeance any more? Not tonight, I decided. I was too tired of it all. If I could dash in, find Bee and run away and live quietly with my child somewhere, that would be enough. ‘Do you think my daughter is alive?’ I asked the ship.
His blue eyes whirled, as if lanterns shone through spinning blue glass. ‘I don’t know. But that does not matter to the bargain that we struck, Amber and I. I will take you to Clerres, as swiftly as I can. I know the way. I was there when enslaved to Igrot. If your daughter is alive you will rescue her, and even if she is not you will destroy that nest of ugliness. Then we will come back here and sail up the river, and Amber will get Silver for me. Enough Silver for me to become the dragons I was meant to be.’
I wanted to ask him what he would do if we died trying. I was sure he’d still go back to Kelsingra and demand Silver. So why didn’t he do that right now?
Because your vengeance is dragon-vengeance as well. He paused. I waited, but he gave me no more than that. As dragons, I cannot bear you there. Only as a ship can I transport you that far. So we all go, together, to take the vengeance that is owed to us. And then we will be free, to become what we were always meant to be.
Slowly, I became aware that Paragon’s lizard lips were not shaping those words. I heard him and I knew the sense of his words. He was replying as much to my thoughts as he was my words. It was like the Skill and it was like the Wit, but it was neither. I lifted my hands slowly from the railing.
I know you now. There is no avoiding me if I wish to speak to you. But right now, I will say only this. Do not thwart her will in this, or mine. To Clerres we go, to make an end to those who tormented her and stole her child. And then we return to Kelsingra that I may become dragons. Go now. Fetch what she sent you for. Reassure Brashen and Althea as much as you can.
That last he said as if he were asking me to be sure his cats were fed while he was away. How could he feel so little for them?
Would you rather I hated the ones I have served as a slave?
I slammed my walls up tight. Could he truly reach into my mind whenever he wished? What sort of vengeance did he imagine we would take? If we found Bee alive, and wished to take her and flee immediately, would he oppose us? I pushed such questions aside. Perhaps for now I needed to know only that he would take us to Clerres.
I went to Amber’s small cabin. It was dark but I refused to go back for a lantern. My pack was wedged into a corner under the bunk. I found it by touch and dragged it out past the bundles of Amber’s and Spark’s clothing that had somehow expanded to fill every available space. I dug for the dream journal and as I did so my fingers brushed the fabric that had wrapped the Silver I’d been given by Rapskal. A small betrayal that she had gone through my pack and found it, but I was becoming accustomed to her small betrayals. Yet as I angrily pushed the fabric aside to remove the book, I felt the heavy glass tubes the general had given me. Slowly I withdrew the bundle, opened it and held up the tubes. Early starlight had begun to venture in the tiny window and the substance in the glass answered it with an unearthly gleam. The Silver within still did its slow dance. Both were full to the brim, stoppered and sealed as they had been when Rapskal put them in my hands. Liquid magic. The Skill in pure form, independent of human or dragon blood. I tipped the tubes again and watched the slow crawl within the glass. I wondered how much Amber had given Paragon. Was this enough to fulfil his transformation? If he became recalcitrant or dangerous, could this be the bribe I offered? Precious stuff. Dangerous stuff.
I rewrapped the bundle and thrust it deep into the pack again. I’d misjudged Amber. Somehow she had obtained Silver and concealed it from me. Just as I concealed what I had from her. To think that perhaps I was as deceptive to her as she was to me only made me angry. I wished she would go away and that …
And that the Fool would come back? The peculiarity of my thought suddenly spun me round and round. There was no avoiding the admission that my interactions with Amber were vastly different to what I thought and felt about the Fool. I wanted to rattle my head like a dog shaking off water, but knew it would be useless. I tucked Bee’s book securely under my arm, and shoved my pack well back in its place.
‘You took your time,’ Brashen observed as I re-entered the stateroom. I noticed that Clef had joined us. He wasn’t seated at the table, but hunched on a low stool in the corner, a mug of liquor in his hands. The look he gave me was not friendly. I didn’t feel particularly friendly either. Doubtless he had seen me speaking with Paragon and come to tell Brashen.
‘I stopped to talk to Paragon,’ I admitted.
Brashen’s jaw muscles bunched and Althea straightened as if she would spring at me. I held up a cautioning hand. ‘He confirmed his bargain with Amber. And implied that he and other dragons might have reasons of their own for wishing us well on our quest.’ I looked at Amber. ‘I’d like to know what those are. And I’d like to know how you got Silver when Reyn and Malta specifically refused your request for some.’
Althea made a small sound of shock. Brashen grew very still.
‘I didn’t steal it,’ she said in a low voice. I waited. She took a breath. ‘It was given to me, very privately, by someone who knew that it could bring down great trouble if other people knew about it. I’d rather not say exactly who that was.’ She folded her lips primly.
‘As if we’d care,’ Althea grumbled sarcastically. ‘Show us your “proof” that your child is alive. That you have not destroyed our lives for nothing.’ It was obvious that any sympathy she’d ever felt toward us had been burned away. I could scarcely blame her and yet I felt a rising fury to hear her speak so of Bee.
I set the book carefully on the table and sat down with my arms to either side of it. No one was going to touch it but me. I forced my voice to an even tone and addressed Amber. ‘What, exactly, did you wish me to read from this book?’
I think she knew how close I was to irrational fury. I was at her mercy, and the mercy of these strangers and their unreliable ship, and they were demanding that I ‘prove’ to them that my child was special enough to deserve to be rescued from people who delighted in torture. If there had been any sort of a ‘shore’ to the river, I would have immediately demanded to be put upon it and walked away from all of them.
‘Please read the dream where the two-headed person gives you a vial of ink to drink. And you shake off pieces of wood and become two dragons. I think that one will be the clearest to all of us here.’
I was very still for a moment. More than once, I had accused the Fool of ‘interpreting’ his dream predictions with hindsight, tailoring them to fit what actually happened. But this, at least, did strike me as starkly clear. I paged through Bee’s dream journal until I found it. For a moment, I looked at the illustration she had created. A gloved hand held aloft a little glass vial. In the background, I reached for it with eager hands. There were glints of blue in the eyes she had given me. She had tinted the ‘ink’ within the vial yellow and grey. It was not silver but I understood it was meant to be. Slowly I read her words aloud and then turned the book and offered the illustration to Althea and Brashen. Althea scowled at it and Brashen leaned back and crossed his arms on his chest.
‘How do we know that you didn’t write that out last night?’ Brashen demanded.
It was a stupid question and he knew it. But I answered it. ‘One of us is blind and therefore unable to write or draw. And if you suspect me, I have no brushes and inks of a quality to do this, nor the talent for illustration.’ I gently fanned the pages of Bee’s book. ‘And there are many pages of dreams and illustrations that follow this one.’
He knew that. He simply didn’t want to admit that Bee had foreseen how Lady Amber would give a liveship with my face a vial of Silver so that it might become not just one but two dragons.
‘But—’ he began and Althea cut in quietly, ‘Let it be, Brashen. We both know there has always been a peculiar scent of magic around Amber. And this is more of it, I fear.’
‘It is,’ Amber confirmed. Her face was grave, her voice solemn.
I didn’t want to ask my question in front of strangers but the desire to know was eating me like an infected wound. ‘Why do you think Bee is alive?’
Her shoulders rose and fell with a deep breath taken and sighed out. ‘That will be less clear, I fear.’
‘I’m waiting.’
‘First, there is her dream of being a nut. And a second one, in which she calls herself an acorn. Do you recall that one? She is small and tight and tossed in a current. I think she is predicting her passage through a Skill-pillar.’
‘Passage through a what?’ Brashen asked.
‘I speak to Fitz, now. If you wish to know, I will explain it later.’
He subsided, but not gracefully. He leaned back in his chair, his arms crossed on his chest and his face closed.
‘That’s one possible meaning,’ I conceded with as little grace as Trell.
‘Then there is the dream of the candles. Fitz, I know you carry some of Molly’s candles with you. The scents are plain to a blind man. I can even tell when you’ve taken them out and handled them. How many do you have?’
‘Only three. I began with four. One was lost when the bear attacked us. After you and Spark fled through the pillar, we gathered what we could of our supplies. But much was scattered and lost or spoiled. I could only find three …’
‘Do you remember her dream of the candles? Find it in the book, please.’
I did. I read it aloud slowly. A gradual smile spread over his face. The wolf and the jester. It spoke so plainly that even I knew it meant the Fool and me.
‘Three candles, Fitz. “They do not know their child still lives.” Her dream showed her a place where her chances divided. When you lost a candle, it somehow created a change for her. A change that meant that she lived instead of dying.’
I sat very still. It was too ridiculous to believe. A surge of something—not hope, not belief, but something I’d no name for—rushed through me. I felt as if my heart had begun to beat again, as if air filled my lungs after a long denial. I wanted so desperately to believe Bee might still be alive.
Belief burst through any wall of rationality or caution I possessed. ‘Three candles,’ I said weakly. I wanted to weep and to laugh and shout.
Three candles meant that my daughter still lived.