His words rang oddly, as if he spoke by rote in a language he did not know. A wave nearly knocked him down. The lift of it raised the serpent's bulk. Her coiling tail found purchase. She slid a short distance toward the sea. A few more waves, and she would free herself and be gone.
The Others seemed to realize it as well. They surged forward, jabbing at her to urge her shoreward. One closed with Wintrow as well. The boy's puffy hand groped at his waist and found his knife. He drew it out and tried to assume a fighter's crouch. That simple act, taught to him by her, cut her to the heart. Her own knife was naked in her hand, and she stood there, idle, while he died? Never. She sprang forward with a sudden shriek. She sloshed wildly through the water, and when she got close, plunged her knife into the creature's sluglike hindquarters. It bounced off the squamous flesh. It had no weapon, but it did not hesitate to attack. Wintrow got in one good cut before the Other seized his knife hand by the wrist. The boy abruptly stood stock-still. Etta could guess the terror that sank to his heart at its touch.
Her second jab cut deep, and she gripped the hilt with both hands and dragged on the blade, opening the Other up. It didn't bleed. She wasn't even sure it felt anything. She stabbed it again, higher. Kennit was suddenly at her side, slashing at the hand that gripped Wintrow. The Other sidled away from them, dragging Wintrow with it.
Then the serpent's head arched down from above them. Her jaws seized the Other, engulfing his head and hunched shoulders. She lifted the creature from the water and then flung it disdainfully aside. Wintrow stumbled, thrown off balance by the struggle. Kennit immediately seized his arm. 'I have him. Let's go!'
'She must escape. Don't let them trap her. She Who Remembers must go to her kind!'
'If you mean the serpent, she'll do whatever she pleases, with no need of help from us. Come on, boy. The tide is coming in.'
Etta took Wintrow's other arm. The boy was near blind with the swelling, and his face was discolored in shades of red. Like a crippled caterpillar, the three lurched toward the headland through the driving rain. The waves had gained strength now, and the water never fell lower than their knees. The surge of the sea rattled the stones and sucked the sand from beneath their feet as they struggled on. She did not know how Kennit kept his footing, but he clung to both Wintrow and his crutch and struggled gamely on. The headland jutted out from the shore. They would have to go deeper yet if they expected to circle it and get back to the beach. She refused to think of the long hike across the island, to a boat that might not be there anymore.
She glanced back only once. The serpent was free now, but she had not fled. Instead, one by one, she was seizing the Others in her jaws. Some she threw as broken wholes, others fell from her jaws sheared in half. Beside Etta, over and over, Wintrow uttered a single word with obsessive hatred. 'Abomination! Abomination!'
A larger wave hit them. Etta lost the sand under her feet for an instant, then found herself stumbling as the wave passed. She clung to Wintrow, trying not to fall. Just as she was recovering her feet, another wave took them all. She heard Kennit's yell, then she was holding frantically to Wintrow's arm as she went under. The water that flooded her nose and mouth was thick with sand. She came up gasping and treading water. She blinked sandy water from her eyes. She saw Kennit's crutch float past her. Instinctively she snatched at it. Kennit was on the other end. He came hand over hand toward her, and then gripped her arm hard. 'Make for the shore!' he commanded them, but she was disoriented. She flung her head around wildly, but saw only the sheer black cliffs, the foaming water at the base of them and a few chunks of floating Other. The serpent was gone, the beach was gone. They would either be pounded against the rocks, or pulled out to sea and drowned. She clung desperately to Kennit. Wintrow was little more than a dead weight she towed. He struggled faintly in the water.
'Vivacia,' Kennit said beside her.
A wave lifted them higher. She saw the crescent beach. How had they come to be so far from it, so fast? 'That way!' she cried. She felt trapped between the two of them. She leaned toward the shore and kicked frantically, but the waves drew them inexorably away. 'We'll never make it!' she cried out in frustration. A wave struck her face, and for a moment, she gasped for air. When she could see again, she faced the beach. 'That way, Kennit! That way! There is the shore!'
'No,' he corrected her. There was incredulous joy in his face. 'That way. The ship is that way. Vivacia! Here! We are here!'
Wearily Etta turned her head. The liveship came driving toward them through the pouring rain. She could already see the hands on the deck struggling to get a boat into the water. 'They'll never get to us,' she despaired.
'Trust the luck, my dear. Trust the luck!' Kennit rebuked her. With his free hand, he began to paddle determinedly toward the ship.
HE WAS DIMLY AWARE OF HIS RESCUE. IT ANNOYED HIM TREMENDOUSLY. HE was so alive, so full of memory and sensory recall, he just wished to be still and absorb it. Instead, they kept clutching at him. The woman kept shaking him and shrilling at him to stay awake, stay awake. There was a man's voice. He kept yelling at the woman to keep his face up, keep his face out of the water, he's drowning, can't you see? Wintrow wished they would both shut up and leave him alone.
He remembered so much. He remembered his destiny, as well as recalling all the lives he had led before this one. Suddenly it was all so clear. He had been hatched to be the repository of all memory for all serpents. He would contain them until such time as each was ready to come to him, and with a touch renew their rightful heritage. He would be the one to guide them home, to the place far up the river where they would find both safety and the special soil from which to create their cases. There would be guides awaiting them at the river, to protect them on their journey upriver and to stand watch over them as they awaited their metamorphosis. It had been so long, but he was free now, and all would be well.
'Get Wintrow in first. He's unconscious.'
That was the man's voice, exhausted but still commanding. A new voice shouted, 'Sa's breath! There's a serpent! Right under them, get them aboard, quick, quick!'
'It brushed him. Get the boy in, quick!'
A confusion of movement, and then pain. His body had forgotten how to bend; it was too swollen. They bent him anyway, seizing him tightly by his limbs as they pulled him from the Plenty into the Lack. They dropped him onto something hard and uneven. He lay gasping, hoping his gills would not dry out before he could escape.
'What is that stuff on him? It stung my hands!'
'Wash him off. Get that stuff off him,' someone advised someone else.
'Let's get him to the ship first.'
'I don't think he'll last that long. At least get it off his face.'
Someone scrubbed at his face. It hurt. He opened his jaws and tried to roar at them. He willed toxins, but his mane would not stand. It was too painful. He slipped back from this life, into the previous one.
He spread his wings wide and soared. Scarlet wings, blue sky. Below, green fields, fat white sheep to feed on. In the distance, the shining towers of a city gleamed. He could hunt, or he could go to the city and be fed. Above the city, a funnel of dragons circled like bright fish caught in a whirlpool. He could join them. The people of the city would turn out to greet him, singing songs, so pleased he had honored them with a visit. Such simple creatures, living scarcely for more than a few breaths. Which pleasure was more tempting? He could not decide. He hovered, catching the wind under his wings and sliding up the sky.
'Wintrow. Wintrow. Wintrow.'
A man's voice, beating against his dream and breaking it into pieces. He stirred reluctantly.
'Wintrow. He hears us, he moved. Wintrow!' The woman added her voice to the man's.
That most ancient of magics, the binding of a man by the use of his name, gripped him. He was Wintrow Vestrit, merely a human, and he hurt, he hurt so badly. Someone touched him, making the pain sharper. He could not escape them now.
'Can you hear me, boy? We're nearly to the ship. Soon we can ease the pain. Stay awake. Don't give up.'
The ship. Vivacia. He recoiled in sudden horror. If the Others were Abomination, what was she? He drew in a breath. It was hard to take in air, and harder to push it out as words. 'No,' he moaned. 'No.'
'We'll be on Vivacia soon. She'll help you.'
