Ship of Magic: The Liveship Traders

PROLOGUE

The Tangle

Maulkin abruptly heaved himself out of his wallow with a wild thrash that left the atmosphere hanging thick with particles. Shreds of his shed skin floated with the sand and muck like the dangling remnants of dreams when one awakes. He moved his long sinuous body through a lazy loop, rubbing against himself to rub off the last scraps of outgrown hide. As the bottom muck started to once more settle, he gazed about at the two dozen other serpents who lay basking in the pleasantly scratchy sediments. He shook his great maned head and then stretched the vast muscle of his length. Time, he bugled in his deep-throated voice. The time has come.

They all looked up at him from the sea-bottom, their great eyes of green and gold and copper unwinking. Shreever spoke for them all when she asked, Why? The water is warm here, the feeding easy. In a hundred years, winter has never come. Why must we leave now?

Maulkin performed another lazy twining of himself. His newly bared scales shone brilliantly in the filtered blue sunlight. His preening burnished the golden false-eyes that ran his full length, declaring him one of those with ancient sight. Maulkin could recall things, things from the time before all this time. His perceptions were not clear, nor always consistent. Like many of those caught twixt times, with knowledge of both lives, he was often unfocused and incoherent. He shook his mane until his paralyzing poison made a pale cloud about his face. He gulped his own toxin in, breathed it out through his gills in a show of truth-vow. Because it is time now! he said urgently. He sped suddenly away from them all, shooting up to the surface, rising straighter and faster than the bubbles. Far above them all he broke the ceiling and leaped out briefly into the great Lack before he dove again. He swam about them in frantic circles, wordless in his urgency.

Some of the other tangles have already gone, Shreever said thoughtfully. Not all of them, not even most. But enough to notice they are missing when we rise into the Lack to sing. Perhaps it is time.

Sessurea settled deeper into the muck. And perhaps it is not, he said lazily. I think we should wait until Aubren’s tangle goes. Aubren is…steadier than Maulkin.

Beside him, Shreever abruptly heaved herself out of the muck. The gleaming scarlet of her new skin was startling. Rags of maroon still hung from her. She nipped a great hank of it free and gulped it down before she spoke. Perhaps you should join Aubren’s tangle, if you misdoubt Maulkin’s words. I, for one, will follow him north. Better to go too soon than too late. Better to go early, perhaps, than to come with scores of other tangles and have to vie for feeding. She moved lithely through a knot made of her own body, rubbing the last fragments of old hide free. She shook her own mane, then threw back her head. Her shrill trumpeting disturbed the water. I come, Maulkin! I follow you! She moved up to join their still circling leader in his twining dance overhead.

One at a time, the other great serpents heaved their long bodies free of clinging muck and outgrown skin. All, even Sessurea, rose from the depths to circle in the warm water just below the ceiling of the Plenty, joining in the tangle’s dance. They would go north, back to the waters from whence they had come, in the long ago time that so few now remembered.

CHAPTER ONE

Of Priests and Pirates

Kennit walked the tideline, heedless of the salt waves that washed around his boots as they licked the sandy beach clean of his tracks. He kept his eyes on the straggling line of seaweed, shells and snags of driftwood that marked the water’s highest reach. The tide was just turning now, the waves falling ever shorter in their pleading grasp upon the land. As the salt water retreated down the black sand, it would bare the worn molars of shale and tangles of kelp that now hid beneath the waves.

On the other side of Others Island, his two-masted ship was anchored in Deception Cove. He had brought the Marietta in to anchor there as the morning winds had blown the last of the storm clean of the sky. The tide had still been rising then, the fanged rocks of the notorious cove grudgingly receding beneath frothy green lace. The ship’s gig had scraped over and between the barnacled rocks to put him and Gankis ashore on a tiny crescent of black sand beach that disappeared completely when storm winds drove the waves up past the high tide marks. Above, slate cliffs loomed, and evergreens so dark they were nearly black leaned precariously out in defiance of the prevailing winds. Even to Kennit’s iron nerves, it was like stepping into some creature’s half-open mouth.

They’d left Opal, the ship’s boy, with the gig to protect it from the bizarre mishaps that so often befell unguarded craft in Deception Cove. Much to the boy’s unease, Kennit had commanded Gankis to come with him, leaving the boy and boat alone. At Kennit’s last sight, the boy had been perched in the beached boat. His eyes had alternated between fearful glances over his shoulder at the forested cliff-tops and staring anxiously out to where the Marietta strained against her anchors, yearning to join the racing current that swept past the mouth of the cove.

The hazards of visiting this island were legendary. It was not just the hostility of the best anchorage on the island, nor the odd accidents known to befall ships and visitors. The whole of the island was enshrouded in the peculiar magic of the Others. Kennit had felt it tugging at him as he and Gankis followed the path that led from Deception Cove to the Treasure Beach. For a path seldom used, its black gravel was miraculously clean of fallen leaves or intruding plant life. About them the trees dripped the second-hand rain of last night’s storm onto fern fronds already burdened with crystal drops. The air was cool and alive. Brightly hued flowers, always growing at least a man’s length from the path, challenged the dimness of the shaded forest floor. Their scents drifted alluringly on the morning air as if beckoning the men to leave off their quest and explore their world. Less wholesome in appearance were the orange fungi that stair-stepped up the trunks of many of the trees. The shocking brilliance of their color spoke to Kennit of parasitic hungers. A spider’s web, hung like the ferns with fine droplets of shining water, stretched across their path, forcing them to duck under it. The spider that sat at the edges of its strands was as orange as the fungi, and nearly as big as a baby’s fist. A green tree-frog was enmeshed and struggling in the web’s sticky strands, but the spider appeared disinterested. Gankis made a small sound of dismay as he crouched to go beneath it.

This path led right through the midst of the Others’ realm. Here was where the nebulous boundaries of their territory could be crossed by a man, did he dare to leave the well-marked path allotted to humans and step off into the forest to seek them. In ancient times, so the tales told, heroes came here, not to follow the path but to leave it deliberately, to beard the Others in their dens, and seek the wisdom of their cave-imprisoned goddess, or demand gifts such as cloaks of invisibility and swords that ran with flames and could shear through any shield. Bards that had dared to come this way had returned to their homelands with voices that could shatter a man’s ears with their power, or melt the heart of any listener with their skill. All knew the ancient tale of Kaven Ravenlock, who visited the Others for half a hundred years and returned as if but a day had passed for him, but with hair the color of gold and eyes like red coals and true songs that told of the future in twisted rhymes. Kennit snorted softly to himself. All knew such ancient tales, but if any man had ventured to leave this path in Kennit’s lifetime, he had told no other man about it. Perhaps he had never returned to brag of it. The pirate dismissed it from his mind. He had not come to the island to leave the path, but to follow it to its very end. And all knew what waited there as well.

Kennit had followed the gravel path that snaked through the forested hills of the island’s interior until its winding descent spilled them out onto a coarsely grassed tableland that framed the wide curve of an open beach. This was the opposite shore of the tiny island. Legend foretold that any ship that anchored here had only the netherworld as its next port of call. Kennit had found no record of any ship that had dared challenge that rumor. If any had, its boldness had gone to hell with it.

The sky was a clean brisk blue scoured clean of clouds by last night’s storm. The long curve of the rock and sand beach was broken only by a freshwater stream that cut its way through the high grassy bank backing the beach. The stream meandered over the sand to be engulfed in the sea. In the distance, higher cliffs of black shale rose, enclosing the far end of the crescent beach. One toothy tower of shale stood independent of the island, jutting out crookedly from the island with a small stretch of beach between it and its mother-cliff. The gap in the cliff framed a blue slice of sky and restless sea.

It was a fair bit of wind and surf we had last night, sir. Some folk say that the best place to walk the Treasure Beach is on the grassy dunes up there…they say that in a good bit of storm, the waves throw things up there, fragile things you might expect to be smashed to bits on the rocks and such, but they land on the sedge up there, just as gentle as you please. Gankis panted out the words as he trotted at Kennit’s heels. He had to stretch his stride to keep up with the tall pirate. An uncle of mine—that is to say, actually he was married to my aunt, to my mother’s sister—he said he knew a man found a little wooden box up there, shiny black and all painted with flowers. Inside was a little glass statue of a woman with butterfly’s wings. But not transparent glass, no, the colors of the wings were swirled right in the glass they were. Gankis stopped in his account and half-stooped his head as he glanced cautiously at his master. Would you want to know what the Other said it meant? he inquired carefully.

Kennit paused to nudge the toe of his boot against a wrinkle in the wet sand. A glint of gold rewarded him. He stooped casually to hook his finger under a fine gold chain. As he drew it up, a locket popped out of its sandy grave. He wiped the locket down the front of his fine linen trousers, and then nimbly worked the tiny catch. The gold halves popped open. Saltwater had penetrated the edges of the locket, but the portrait of a young woman still smiled up at him, her eyes both merry and shyly rebuking. Kennit merely grunted at his find and put it in the pocket of his brocaded waistcoat.

Cap’n, you know they won’t let you keep that. No one keeps anything from the Treasure Beach, Gankis pointed out gingerly.

Don’t they? Kennit queried in return. He put a twist of amusement in his voice, to watch Gankis puzzle over whether it was self-mockery or a threat. Gankis shifted his weight surreptitiously, to put his face out of reach of his captain’s fist.

S’what they all say, sir, he replied hesitantly. That no one takes home what they find on the Treasure Beach. I know for sure my uncle’s friend didn’t. After the Other looked at what he’d found and told his fortune from it, he followed the Other down the beach to this rock cliff. Probably that one. Gankis lifted an arm to point at the distant shale cliffs. And in the face of it there were thousands of little holes, little what-you-call-’ems….

Alcoves, Kennit supplied in an almost dreamy voice. I call them alcoves, Gankis. As would you, if you could speak your own mother tongue.

Yessir. Alcoves. And in each was a treasure, ’cept for those that were empty. And the Other let him walk along the cliff wall and look at all the treasures, and there was stuff there such as he’d never even imagined. China teacups done all in fancy rosebuds and gold wine cups rimmed with jewels and little wooden toys all painted bright and, oh, a hundred things such as you can’t imagine, each in an alcove. Sir. And then he found an alcove the right size and shape, and he put the butterfly lady in it. He told my uncle that nothing ever felt quite so right to him as setting that little treasure into that nook. And then he left it there, and left the island and went home.

Kennit cleared his throat. The single noise conveyed more of contempt and disdain than most men could have fitted into an entire stream of abuse. Gankis looked aside and down from it. It was him that said it, sir, not me. He tugged at the waist of his worn trousers. Almost reluctantly he added, The man is a bit in the dream world. Gives a seventh of all that comes his way to Sa’s temple, and both his eldest children besides. Such a man don’t think as we do, sir.

When you think at all, Gankis, the captain concluded for him. He lifted his pale eyes to look far up the tide line, squinting slightly as the morning sun dazzled off the moving waves. Take yourself up to your sedgy cliffs, Gankis, and walk along them. Bring me whatever you find there.

Yessir. The older pirate trudged away. He gave one rueful backward glance at his young captain. Then he clambered agilely up the short bank to the deeply grassed tableland that fronted on the beach. He began to walk a parallel course, his eyes scanning the bank ahead of him. Almost immediately, he spotted something. He sprinted toward it, then lifted an object that flashed in the morning sunlight. He raised it up to the light and gazed at it, his seamed face lit with awe. Sir, sir, you should see what I’ve found!

I might be able to, did you bring it here to me as you were commanded, Kennit observed irritably.

Like a dog called to heel, Gankis made his way back to the captain. His brown eyes shone with a youthful sparkle, and he clutched the treasure in both hands as he leaped nimbly down the man-height drop to the beach. His low shoes kicked up sand as he ran. A brief frown creased Kennit’s brow as he watched Gankis advancing towards him. Although the old sailor was prone to fawn on him, he was no more inclined to share booty than any other man of his trade. Kennit had not truly expected Gankis willingly to bring to him anything he found on the grassy bank; in fact he had been rather anticipating divesting the man of his trove at the end of their stroll. To have Gankis hastening toward him, his face beaming as if he were a country yokel bringing his beloved milkmaid a posy, was positively unsettling.

Nevertheless Kennit retained his customary sardonic smile, not allowing his face to betray his thoughts. It was a carefully rehearsed posture that suggested the languid grace of a hunting cat. It was not just that his greater height allowed him to look down on the seaman. By capturing his face in a pose of amusement, he suggested to his followers that they were incapable of surprising him. He wished his crew to believe that he could anticipate not only their every move, but their thoughts, too. A crew that believed that of their captain was less likely to become mutinous; and if they did, no one would wish to be the first to act.

And so he kept his poise as Gankis raced across the sand to him. Moreover, he did not immediately snatch the treasure away from him, but allowed the man to hold it out to him while he, Kennit, gazed down at it in amusement.

From the instant he saw it, it took all of Kennit’s control not to snatch at it. Never had he seen such a cunningly wrought bauble. It was a bubble of glass, an absolutely perfect sphere. The surface was not marred with so much as a scratch. The glass itself had a very faint blue cast to it, but the tint did not obscure the wonder within. Three tiny figurines, garbed in motley with painted faces, were fixed to a tiny stage and somehow linked to one another so that when Gankis shifted the ball in his hands, it sent them off into a series of actions. One pirouetted on his toes, while the next did a series of flips over a bar. The third bobbed his head in time to their actions, as if all three heard and responded to a merry tune trapped inside the ball with them.

Kennit allowed Gankis to demonstrate it for him twice. Then, without a word, he extended a long-fingered hand towards him gracefully, and the sailor set the treasure in his palm. Kennit held his bemused smile firmly as he first lifted the ball to the sunlight, and then set the tumblers within to dancing for himself. The ball did not quite fill his hand. A child’s plaything, he surmised loftily.

If the child were the richest prince in the world, Gankis dared to observe. It’s too fragile a thing to give a kid to play with, sir. All it would take would be dropping it once….

Yet it seems to have survived bobbing about in the waves of a storm, and then being flung up on a beach, Kennit pointed out with measured good nature.

That’s true, sir, that’s true, but then this is the Treasure Beach. Almost everything cast up here is whole, from what I’ve heard tell. It’s part of the magic of this place.

Magic. Kennit permitted himself a slightly wider smile as he placed the orb in the roomy pocket of his indigo jacket. So you believe it is magic that sweeps such trinkets up on this shore, do you?

What else, Captain? By all rights, that should have been smashed to bits, or at least scoured by the sands. Yet it looks as if it just come out of a jeweler’s shop.

Kennit shook his head sadly. Magic? No, Gankis, no more magic than the rip-tides in the Orte Shallows, or the Spice Current that speeds sailing ships on their journeys to the islands and taunts them all the way back. It’s but a trick of wind and current and tides. No more than that. The same trick that promises that any ship that tries to anchor off this side of the island will find herself beached and broken before the next tide.

Yessir, Gankis agreed dutifully, but without conviction. His traitorous eyes strayed to the pocket where Captain Kennit had stowed the glass ball. Kennit’s smile might have deepened fractionally.

Well? Don’t loiter here. Get back up there and walk the bank and see what else you find.

Yessir, Gankis conceded, and with one final regretful glance at the pocket, the older man turned and hastened back to the bank. Kennit slipped his hand into his pocket and caressed the smooth cold glass there. He resumed his stroll down the beach. Overhead, gulls followed his example, sliding slowly down the wind as they searched the retreating waves for tidbits. He did not hasten, but kept in mind that on the other side of the island, his ship was awaiting him in treacherous waters. He’d walk the whole length of the beach, as tradition decreed, but he had no intention of lingering after he had heard the sooth-saying of an Other. Nor did he have any intention of leaving whatever treasure he found. A true smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.

As he strolled, he took his hand from his pocket and absently touched his opposite wrist. Concealed by the lacy cuff of his white silk shirt was a fine double thong of black leather. It bound a small wooden trinket tightly to his wrist. The ornament was a carved face, pierced at the brow and lower jaw so the face would be snugged firmly against his wrist, exactly over his pulse point. At one time, the face had been painted black, but most of that was worn away now. The features still stood out distinctly: a tiny mocking face, carved with exquisite care. Its visage was twin to his own. It had cost him an inordinate amount of coin to commission it. Not everyone who could carve wizardwood would, even if they had the balls to steal some.

Kennit remembered well the artisan who had worked the tiny face for him. He’d sat for long hours in the man’s studio, washed in the cool morning light as the artist painstakingly worked the iron-hard wood to reflect Kennit’s features. They had not spoken. The artist could not. The pirate did not. The carver had needed absolute silence for his concentration, for he worked not only wood but a spell that would bind the charm to protect the wearer from enchantments. Kennit had had nothing to say to him anyway. The pirate had paid him an exorbitant advance months before, and waited until the artist had sent him a messenger to say that he had obtained some of the precious and jealously guarded wood. Kennit had been outraged when the artist had demanded still more money before he would begin the carving and spell-setting, but Kennit had only smiled his small sardonic smile, and put coins and jewels and silver and gold links on the artist’s scales until the man had nodded that his price had been met. Like many in Bingtown’s illicit trades, he had long ago sacrificed his own tongue to ensure his client’s privacy. While Kennit was not convinced of the efficacy of such a mutilation, he appreciated the sentiment it implied. So when the artist was finished and had personally bound the ornament to Kennit’s wrist, the man had only been able to nod vehemently his extreme satisfaction with his own skill as he touched the wood with avid fingertips.

Afterwards Kennit had killed him. It was the only sensible thing to do, and Kennit was an eminently sensible man. He had taken back the extra fee the man had demanded. Kennit could not abide a man who would not honor his original bargain. But that had not been the reason he’d killed him. He’d killed him for the sake of keeping the secret. If men knew that Captain Kennit wore a charm to ward off enchantments, why, then they would believe that he feared them. He could not let his crew believe that he feared anything. His good luck was legendary. All the men who followed him believed in it, most more strongly than Kennit himself did. It was why they followed him. They must not ever think that he feared anything could threaten that luck.

In the year since he had killed the artist, he had wondered if killing him had somehow harmed the charm, for it had not quickened. When he had originally asked the carver how long it would take for the little face to come to life, the man had shrugged eloquently, and indicated with much hand fluttering that neither he nor anyone else could predict such a thing. For a year Kennit had waited for the charm to quicken, to be sure that its spell was completely activated. But there had come a time when he could not wait any longer. He had known, on an instinctive level, that it was time for him to visit the Treasure Beach and see what fortune the ocean would wash up for him. He could wait no longer for the charm to awaken; he’d decided to take his chances. He’d have to once more trust his good luck to protect him, as it always had. It had protected him the day he’d had to kill the artist, hadn’t it? The man had turned unexpectedly, just in time to see Kennit drawing his blade. Kennit was convinced that if the man had had a tongue in his head, his scream would have been much louder.

Kennit set the artist firmly out of his mind. This was no time to be thinking of him. He hadn’t come to the Treasure Beach to dwell on the past, but to find treasure to secure his future. He fixed his eyes on the undulating tideline and followed it down the beach. He ignored the glistening shells, the crab claws and tangles of uprooted seaweed and driftwood large and small. His pale blue eyes searched for jetsam and wreckage only. He did not have to go far to be rewarded. In a small battered wooden chest, he found a set of teacups. He did not think men had made them nor used them. There were twelve of them and they were made of hollowed-out ends of birds’ bones. Tiny blue pictures had been painted on them, the lines so fine that it looked as if the brush had been a single hair. The cups were well used. The blue pictures were faded beyond recognition of their original form and the carved bone handles were worn thin with use. He tucked the small case in the crook of his arm and walked on.

He strode along under the sun and against the wind, his fine boots leaving clean tracks in the wet sand. Occasionally he lifted his gaze, casually, to scan the entire beach. He did not let his expectations show on his face. When he let his gaze drop to the sand, he discovered a tiny cedar box. Salt water had warped the wood. To open it he had to strike it on a rock like a nut. Inside were fingernails. They were fashioned of rich mother-of-pearl. Minute clamps would affix them on top of an ordinary nail and in the tip of each one was a tiny hollow, perhaps to store poison. There were twelve of them. Kennit put them into his other pocket. They rattled and clicked together as he walked.

It did not distress him that what he had found was obviously neither of human make nor designed for human use. Although he had earlier mocked Gankis’ belief in the magic of the beach, all knew that more than one ocean’s waves brushed these rocky shores. Ships foolish enough to anchor anywhere off of this island during a squall were likely to disappear entirely, leaving not even a splinter of wreckage. Old sailors said they had been swept clean out of this world and into the seas of another one. Kennit did not doubt it. He glanced at the sky, but it remained clean and blue. The wind was crisp, but he had faith the weather would hold so that he could walk the Treasure Beach and then hike back across the island to where his ship waited at anchor in Deception Cove. He trusted his luck to hold.

His most unsettling discovery came next. It was a bag made of red and blue leather stitched together, half buried in the wet sand. The leather was stout, the bag meant to last. Salt water had soaked and stained it, bleeding the colors into one another. The brine had seized up the brass buckles that had secured it and stiffened the leather straps that went through them. He used his knife to rip open a seam. Inside was a litter of kittens, perfectly formed with long claws and iridescent patches behind their ears. They were dead, all six of them. Quelling his distaste, he picked up the smallest. He turned the limp body over in his hands. It was blue-furred, a deep periwinkle blue with pink-lidded eyes. Small. The runt, most likely. It was sodden and cold and disgusting. A ruby earring like a fat tick decorated one of the wet ears. He longed to simply drop it. Ridiculous. He plucked the earring free and dropped it in his pocket. Then, moved by an impulse he did not understand, he returned the small blue bodies to the bag and left it beside the tideline. Kennit walked on.

Awe flowed through him with his blood. Tree. Bark and sap, the scent of the wood and the leaves fluttering overhead. Tree. But also the soil and the water, the air and the light, all was coming and going through the being known as tree. He moved with them, sliding in and out of an existence of bark and leaf and root, air and water.

Wintrow.

The boy lifted his eyes slowly from the tree before him. With an effort of will, he focused his gaze on the smiling face of the young priest. Berandol nodded in encouragement. Wintrow closed his eyes for an instant, held his breath, and pulled himself free of his task. When he opened his eyes, he took a sudden breath as if breaking clear of deep water. Dappling light, sweet water, soft wind all faded abruptly. He was in the monastery work room, a cool hall walled and floored with stone. His bare feet were chill against the floor. There were a dozen other slab tables in the big room. At three others, boys like himself worked slowly, their dreamlike movements indicative of their tranced state. One wove a basket and two others shaped clay with wet gray hands.

He looked down at the pieces of gleaming glass and lead on the table before him. The beauty of the stained-glass image he had pieced together astonished even him, yet it still could not touch the wonder of having been the tree. He touched it with his fingers, tracing the trunk and the graceful branches. Caressing the image was like touching his own body; he knew it that well. Behind him he heard the soft intake of Berandol’s breath. In his state of still-heightened awareness, he could feel the priest’s awe flowing with his own, and for a time they stood quietly, glorying together in the wonder of Sa.

Wintrow, the priest repeated softly. He reached out and traced with a finger the tiny dragon that peered from the tree’s upper branches, then touched the glistening curve of a serpent’s body, all but hidden in the twisting roots. He put a hand on the boy’s shoulders and turned him gently away from his worktable. As he steered him from the workroom, he rebuked him gently. You are too young to sustain such a state for the whole morning. You must learn to pace yourself.

Wintrow lifted his hands to knuckle at eyes that were suddenly sandy. I’ve been in there all morning? he asked dazedly. It did not seem like it, Berandol.

"I am sure it did not. Yet I am sure the weariness you feel now will convince you it is so. One must be careful, Wintrow. Tomorrow, ask a watcher to stir you at mid-morning. Talent such as you possess is too precious to allow you to burn it out."

I do ache, now, Wintrow conceded. He ran his hand over his brow, pushing fine black hair from his eyes and smiled. But the tree was worth it, Berandol.

Berandol nodded slowly. In more ways than one. The sale of such a window will yield enough coin to re-roof the novitiates’ hall. If Mother Dellity can bring herself to let the monastery part with such a thing of wonder. He hesitated a moment, then added, I see they appeared again. The dragon and the serpent. You still have no idea…. he let his voice trail away questioningly.

I do not even have a recollection of putting them there, Wintrow said.

Well. There was no trace of judgment in Berandol’s voice. Only patience.

For a time they walked in companionable silence through the cool stone hallways of the monastery. Slowly Wintrow’s senses lost their edge and faded to a normal level. He could no longer taste the scents of the salts trapped in the stone walls, nor hear the minute settling of the ancient blocks of stone. The rough brown bure of his novice robes became bearable against his skin. By the time they reached the great wooden door and stepped out into the monastery gardens, he was safely back in his body. He felt groggy as if he had just awakened from a long sleep, yet as bone weary as if he had hoed potatoes all day. He walked silently beside Berandol as monastery custom dictated. They passed others, some men and women robed in the green of full priesthood and others dressed in white as acolytes. Greetings were exchanged as nods.

As they neared the tool shed, he felt a sudden unsettling certainty that they were going there and that he would spend the rest of the afternoon working in the sunny garden. Any other time, it might have been a pleasant thing to look forward to, but his recent efforts in the dim work room had left his eyes sensitive to light. Berandol glanced back at his lagging step.

Wintrow, he chided softly. Refuse the anxiety. When you borrow trouble against what might be, you neglect the moment you have now to enjoy. The man who worries about what will next be happening to him loses this moment in dread of the next, and poisons the next with pre-judgment. Berandol’s voice took on an edge of hardness. You indulge in pre-judgment too often. If you are refused the priesthood, it will most likely be for that.

Wintrow’s eyes flashed to Berandol’s in horror. For a moment stark desolation dominated his face. Then he saw the trap. His face broke into a grin, and Berandol’s answered it when the boy said, But if I fret about it, I shall have prejudged myself to failure.

Berandol gave the slender boy a good-natured shove with his elbow. Exactly. Ah, you grow and learn so fast. I was much older than you, twenty at least, before I learned to apply that Contradiction to daily life.

Wintrow shrugged sheepishly. I was meditating on it last night before I fell asleep. ‘One must plan for the future and anticipate the future without fearing the future.’ The Twenty-Seventh Contradiction of Sa.

Thirteen years old is very young to have reached the Twenty-Seventh Contradiction, Berandol observed.

What one are you on? Wintrow asked artlessly.

The Thirty-Third. The same one I’ve been on for the last two years.

Wintrow gave a small shrug of his shoulders. I haven’t studied that far yet. They walked in the shade of apple trees, under leaves hanging limp in the heat of the day. Ripening fruit weighted the boughs. At the other end of the orchard, acolytes moved in patterns through the trees, bearing buckets of water from the stream.

‘A priest should not presume to judge unless he can judge as Sa does; with absolute justice and absolute mercy.’ Berandol shook his head. I confess, I do not see how that is possible.

The boy’s eyes were already turned inward, with only the slightest line to his brow. As long as you believe it is impossible, you close your mind to understanding it. His voice seemed far away. Unless, of course, that is what we are meant to discover. That as priests we cannot judge, for we have not the absolute mercy and absolute justice to do so. Perhaps we are only meant to forgive and give solace.

Berandol shook his head. In the space of a few moments, you slice through as much of the knot as I had done in six months. But then I look about me, and I see many priests who do judge. The Wanderers of our order do little except resolve differences for folk. So they must have somehow mastered the Thirty-Third Contradiction.

The boy looked up at him curiously. He opened his mouth to speak and then blushed and shut it again.

Berandol glanced down at his charge. Whatever it is, go ahead and say it. I will not rebuke you.

The problem is, I was about to rebuke you, Wintrow confessed. The boy’s face brightened as he added, But I stopped myself before I did.

And you were going to say to me? Berandol pressed. When the boy shook his head, his tutor laughed aloud. Come, Wintrow, having asked you to speak your thought, do you think I would be so unfair as to take offense at your words? What was in your mind?

I was going to tell you that you should govern your behavior by the precepts of Sa, not by what you see others doing. The boy spoke forthrightly, but then lowered his eyes. I know it is not my place to remind you of that.

Berandol looked too deep in thought to have taken offense. But if I follow the precept alone, and my heart tells me it is impossible for a man to judge as Sa does, with absolute justice and absolute mercy, then I must conclude… His words slowed as if the thought came reluctantly. I must conclude that either the Wanderers have much greater spiritual depth than I. Or that they have no more right to judge than I do. His eyes wandered among the apple trees. Could it be that an entire branch of our order exists without righteousness? Is not it disloyal even to think such a thing? His troubled glance came back to the boy at his side.

Wintrow smiled serenely. If a man’s thoughts follow the precepts of Sa, they cannot go astray.

I shall have to think more on this, Berandol concluded with a sigh. He gave Wintrow a look of genuine fondness. I bless the day you were given me as student, though in truth I often wonder who is student and who is teacher here. I shall miss you.

Sudden alarm filled Wintrow’s eyes. Miss me? Are you leaving, have you been called to duty so soon?

Not I. I should have given you this news better, but as always your words have led my thoughts far from their starting point. I am not leaving, but you. It was why I came to find you today, to bid you pack, for you are called home. Your grandmother and mother have sent word that they fear your grandfather is dying. They would have you near at such a time. At the look of devastation on the boy’s face, Berandol added, I am sorry to have told you so bluntly. You so seldom speak of your family. I did not realize you were close to your grandfather.

I am not, Wintrow simply admitted. Truth to tell, I scarcely know him. When I was small, he was always at sea. At the times when he was home, he always terrified me. Not with cruelty, but with…power. Everything about him seemed too large for the room, from his voice to his beard. Even when I was small and overheard other folk talking about him, it was as if they spoke of a legend or a hero. I don’t recall that I ever called him Grandpa, nor even Grandfather. When he came home, he’d blow through the house like the North Wind and mostly I took shelter from his presence rather than enjoyed it. When I was dragged out before him, all I can recall was that he found fault with my growth. ‘Why is the boy so puny?’ he’d demand. ‘He looks just like my boys, but half the size! Don’t you feed him meat? Doesn’t he eat well?’ Then he would pull me near and feel my arm, as if I were being fattened for the table. I always felt ashamed of my size, then, as if it were a fault. Since I was given over to the priesthood, I have seen even less of him, but my impression of him has not changed. Still, it is not my grandfather I dread, nor even keeping his death watch. It’s going home, Berandol. It is so…noisy.

Berandol grimaced in sympathy.

I don’t believe I even learned to think until I came here, Wintrow continued. There, it was too noisy and too busy. I never had time to think. From the time Nana rousted us out of bed in the morning until we were bathed, gowned and dumped back in bed at night, we were in motion. Being dressed and taken on outings, having lessons and meals, visiting friends, being dressed differently and having more meals…it was endless. You know, when I first got here, I didn’t leave my cell for the first two days. Without Nana or Grandma or Mother chasing me about, I had no idea what to do with myself. And for so long, my sister and I had been a unit. ‘The children’ need their nap, ‘the children’ need their lunch. I felt I’d lost half my body when they separated us.

Berandol was grinning in appreciation. So that is what it is like, to be a Vestrit. I’d always wondered how the children of the Old Traders of Bingtown lived. For me, it was very different, and yet much the same. We were swineherds, my family. I had no nanny or outings, but there were always chores aplenty to keep one busy. Looking back, we spent most of our time simply surviving. Stretching out the food, fixing things long past fixing by anyone else’s standards, caring for the swine…I think the pigs received better care than anyone else. There was never even a thought of giving up a child for the priesthood. Then my mother became ill, and my father made a promise that if she lived, he would dedicate one of his children to Sa. So when she lived, they sent me off. I was the runt of the litter, so to speak. The youngest surviving child, and with a stunted arm. It was a sacrifice for them, I am sure, but not as great as giving up one of my strapping older brothers.

A stunted arm? Wintrow asked in surprise.

It was. I’d fallen on it when I was small, and it was a long time healing, and when it did heal, it was never as strong as it should have been. But the priests cured me. They put me with the watering crew on the orchard, and the priest in charge of us gave me mismatched buckets. He made me carry the heavier one with my weaker arm. I thought he was a madman at first; my parents had always taught me to use my stronger arm for everything. It was my earliest introduction to Sa’s precepts.

Wintrow frowned to himself for a moment, then grinned. ‘For the weakest has but to try his strength to find it, and then he shall be strong.’

Exactly. The priest gestured at the long low building before them. The acolyte’s cells had been their destination. The messenger was delayed getting here. You will have to pack swiftly and set out right away if you are to reach port before your ship sails. It’s a long walk.

A ship! The desolation that had faded briefly from Wintrow’s face flooded back. I hadn’t thought of that. I hate traveling by sea. But when one must go from Jamaillia to Bingtown, there is no other choice. His frown deepened. Walk to port? Didn’t they arrange a man and a horse for me?

Do you so quickly revive to the comforts of wealth, Wintrow? Berandol chided him. When the boy hung his head, abashed, he went on, No, the message said that a friend had offered you passage across and the family had been glad to accept it. More gently he added, I suspect that money is not so plentiful for your family as it once was. The Northern War has hurt many of the trading families, both in the goods that never came down the Buck River and those that never were sold there. More pensively, he went on, And our young Satrap does not favor Bingtown as his father and grandfathers did. They seemed to feel that those brave enough to settle the Cursed Shores should share generously in the treasures they found there. But not young Cosgo. It is said that he feels they have reaped the reward of their risk-taking long enough, that the Shores are well settled and whatever curse was once there is now dispersed. He has not only sent them new taxes but has parceled out new grants of land near Bingtown to some of his favorites. Berandol shook his head. He breaks the word of his ancestor, and causes hardship for folk who have always kept their word with him. No good can come of this.

I know. I should be grateful I am not afoot all the way. But it is hard, Berandol, to accept a journey to a destination I dread, let alone by ship. I shall be miserable the whole way.

Sea-sick? Berandol asked in some surprise. I did not think it afflicted those of seafaring stock.

The right weather can sour any man’s stomach, but no, that is not it. It’s the noise and the rushing about and the crowded conditions. The smell. And the sailors. Good enough men in their own way but… the boy shrugged. Not like us. They haven’t the time to talk about the things we speak of here, Berandol. And if they did, their thoughts would likely be as basic as that of the youngest acolyte. They live as animals do, and reason as animals. I shall feel as if I am living among beasts. Through no faults of their own, he added at seeing the young priest frown.

Berandol took a breath as if to launch into speech, then reconsidered it. After a moment, he said thoughtfully, It has been two years since you have visited your parents’ home, Wintrow. Two years since you last were out of the monastery and about working folk. Look and listen well, and when you come back to us, tell me if you still agree with what you have just said. I charge you to remember this, for I shall.

I shall, Berandol, the youth promised sincerely. And I shall miss you.

Probably, but not for some days, for I am to escort you on your journey down to the port. Come. Let’s go and pack.

Long before Kennit reached the end of the beach, he was aware of the Other watching him. He had expected this, yet it intrigued him, for he had often heard they were creatures of the dawn and the dusk, seldom moving about while the sun was still in the sky. A lesser man might have been afraid, but a lesser man would not have possessed Kennit’s luck. Or his skill with a sword. He continued his leisurely stroll down the beach, all the while gathering plunder. He feigned unawareness of the creature watching him, yet he was eerily certain that it knew of his deceit. A game within a game, he told himself, and smiled secretly.

He was immensely irritated when, a few moments later, Gankis came lolloping down the beach to wheeze out the news that there was an Other up there watching him.

I know, he told the old sailor with asperity. An instant later he had regained control of his voice and features. In a kindly tone, he explained, And it knows that we know it is watching us. That being so, I suggest you ignore it, as I do, and finish searching your bank. Have you found anything else of note?

A few things, Gankis admitted, not pleased. Kennit straightened and waited. The sailor dug into the capacious pockets of his worn coat. There’s this, he said as he reluctantly drew an object of brightly painted wood from his pocket. It was an arrangement of disks and rods with circular holes in some of the disks.

Kennit found it incomprehensible. A child’s toy of some kind, he deemed it. He raised his eyebrow at Gankis and waited.

And this, the seaman conceded. He took a rose bud from his pocket. Kennit took it from him carefully, wary of the thorns. He had actually believed it real until the moment that he held it and found the stem stiff and unyielding. He hefted it in his hand; it was as light as a real rose would be. He turned it, trying to decide what it was made from: he concluded it was nothing he had ever seen before. Even more mysterious than its structure was its fragrance, as warm and spicy as if it were a full-blown rose from a summer garden. Kennit raised one eyebrow at Gankis as he fastened the rose to the lapel of his jacket. The barbed thorns held it securely. Kennit watched Gankis’ lips fold tight, but the seaman dared no words.

Kennit glanced at the sun, and then at the ebbing waves. It would take them over an hour to walk back to the other side of the island. He could not stay much longer without risking his ship on the rocks exposed by the retreating tide. A rare moment of indecision clouded his thoughts. He had not come to the Treasure Beach for treasure alone; he had come instead seeking the oracle of the Other, confident that the Other would choose to speak to him. He needed the confirmation of the oracle; was not that why he had brought Gankis with him to witness? Gankis was one of the few men aboard his ship who did not routinely embroider his own adventures. He knew that not only his own crew members but any pirate at Divvytown would accept Gankis’ account as true. Besides. If the oracle that Gankis witnessed did not suit Kennit’s purposes, he’d be an easy man to kill.

Once again he considered the amount of time left to him. A prudent man would stop his search of the beach now, confront the Other, and then hasten back to his ship. Prudent men never trusted their luck. But Kennit had long ago decided that a man had to trust his luck in order for it to grow. It was a personal belief, one he had discovered for himself and saw no reason to share with anyone else. He had never achieved any major triumph without taking a chance and trusting his luck. Perhaps the day he became prudent and cautious, his luck would take insult and desert him. He smirked to himself as he concluded that would be the one chance he would not take. He would never trust to luck that his luck would not desert him.

This convolution of logic pleased him. He continued his leisurely search of the tideline. As he neared the toothy rocks that marked the end of the crescent beach, every one of his senses prickled with awareness of the Other. The smell of it was alluringly sweet, and then abruptly it became rancidly rotten when the wind changed and brought it stronger. The scent was so strong it became a taste in the back of his throat, one that almost gagged him. But it was not just the smell of the beast; Kennit could feel its presence against his skin. His ears popped and he felt its breathing as a pressure on his eyeballs and on the skin of his throat. He did not think he perspired, yet his face suddenly felt greasy with sweat, as if the wind had carried some substance from the Other’s skin and pasted it onto his. Kennit fought distaste that bordered on nausea. He refused to let that weakness show.

Instead he drew himself up to his full height and unobtrusively straightened his waistcoat. The wind stirred both the plumes on his hat and the gleaming black locks of his hair. Generally speaking, he cut a fine figure, and drew a great deal of power from knowing that both men and women were impressed by him. He was tall, but muscled proportionately. The tailoring of his coat showed off the breadth of his shoulders and chest and the flatness of his belly. His face pleased him, too. He felt he was a handsome man. He had a high brow, a firm jaw and a straight nose over finely drawn lips. His beard was fashionably pointed, the ends of his mustache meticulously waxed. His only feature that displeased him were his eyes: they were his mother’s eyes, pale and watery and blue. When he encountered their stare in a looking-glass, she looked out of them at him, distressed and teary at his dissolute ways. They seemed to him the vacuous eyes of an idiot, out of place in his tanned face. In another man, folk would have said he had mild blue eyes, inquiring eyes. Kennit strove to cultivate a cold blue stare, but knew his eyes were too pale even for that. He augmented the effort with a slight curl of his lip as he let his eyes come to rest on the waiting Other.

It seemed little impressed. It returned his stare from a height near equal to his own. It was oddly reassuring to find how accurate the legends were. The webbed fingers and toes, the obvious flexibility of the limbs, the flat fish eyes in their cartilaginous sockets, even the supple scaled skin that covered the creature were all as Kennit had expected. Its blunt, bald head was mis-shapen, neither that of a human nor a fish. The hinge of its jaw was under its ear holes, anchoring a mouth large enough to engulf a man’s head. Its thin lips could not conceal the rows of tiny sharp teeth. Its shoulders seemed to slump forward, but the posture suggested brute strength rather than slovenliness. It wore a garment somewhat like a cloak, of a pale azure, and the weave was so fine that it had no more texture than a flower petal. It draped the Other in a way that suggested the fluidity of water. Yes, all was as he had read of it. What he had not expected was the attraction he felt. Some trick of the wind had lied to his nose. This creature’s scent was like a summer garden, the air of its breath the subtle bouquet of a rare wine. All wisdom resided in those unreadable eyes. He suddenly longed to distinguish himself before it and be deemed worthy of its regard. He wanted to impress it with his goodness and intelligence. He longed for it to think well of him.

He heard the slight crunch of Gankis’ footfalls on the sand behind him. For an instant, the Other’s attention wavered. The flat eyes slid away from contemplating Kennit and in that moment the glamour was broken. Kennit almost startled. Then he crossed his arms on his chest so that the wizardwood face pressed into his flesh securely. Quickened or not, it had seemed to work, holding off the creature’s enchantment. And now that he was aware of the Other’s intent, he could hold his will firm against such manipulation. Even when its eyes darted back to lock with Kennit’s gaze, he could see the Other for what it was: a cold and squamous creature of the deep. It seemed to sense it had lost its hold on him, for when it filled the air pouches behind its jaws and belched its words at him, Kennit sensed a trace of sarcasm.

Welcome, pilgrim. The sea has well rewarded your search, I see. Will you make a goodwill offering, and hear the oracle speak the significance of your finds?

Its voice creaked like unoiled hinges as it wheezed and gasped words at him. A part of Kennit admired the effort it must have taken for it to learn to shape human words, but the harder side of him dismissed it as a servile act. Here was this creature, foreign in every way to his humanity. He stood before it, on its own territory, and yet it waited upon him, speaking in his tongue, begging alms in exchange for its prophecies. Yet if it recognized him as superior, why was there sarcasm in its voice?

Kennit dismissed the question from his mind. He reached for his purse, and took from it the two gold bits that were the customary offering. Despite his earlier dissembling with Gankis, he had researched exactly what he might expect. Good luck works best when it is not surprised. So he was unruffled when the Other extended a stiff, grayish tongue to receive the coins, and he did not shrink from placing them there. The creature jerked its tongue back into its maw. If it did aught with the gold other than swallow it, Kennit could not tell. That done, the Other gave a stiff sort of bow, and then smoothed a fan of sand to receive the objects Kennit had gathered.

Kennit took his time in spreading them out before it. He set down first the glass ball with the tumblers within it. Beside it he placed the rose, and then he carefully arranged the twelve fingernails around it. At the end of the arc he placed the small chest with the tiny cups in it. A handful of small crystal spheres he nested in a hollow. He had gathered them on the final stretch of beach. Beside them he set his final find, a copper feather that seemed to weigh little more than a real one. He gave a nod that he was finished and stepped back slightly. With an apologetic glance at his captain, Gankis shyly placed the painted wooden toy to one side of the arc. Then he, too, stood back. The Other looked for a time at the fan of treasures before it. Then it lifted its oddly flat eyes to meet Kennit’s blue stare. It finally spoke. "This is all you found?" The emphasis was unmistakable.

Kennit made a tiny movement of his shoulders and head, a movement that might mean yes or no, or nothing at all. He did not speak. Gankis shifted his feet about uncomfortably. The Other refilled its air sacs noisily.

That which the ocean washes up here is not for the keeping of men. The water brings it here because here is where the water wishes it to be. Do not set yourself against the will of the water, for no wise creature does that. No human is permitted to keep what he finds upon the Treasure Beach.

Does it belong to the Other, then? Kennit asked calmly.

Despite the difference in species, it was still easy for Kennit to