'But who… you can't mean there won't be a member of my family aboard?' He was incredulous. 'No liveship sails without a member of his family aboard.'
Brashen cleared his throat. 'I'll be there, Paragon. After all the years we've known one another, you're as close to family as I have. Would I do?'
'No. No, Brashen.' The ship's voice rose nervously. 'I like you, I do, but you're not a Ludluck and I am. You're my friend, but not my family. I can't sail without a family member aboard.' He shook his head, emphasizing it. 'They wouldn't let that happen to me. That would be like them saying that they'd given up on me forever, that I'll never, ever be any good. No.' He gripped the shepherd's pipes with both hands, but still they shook. 'No.'
Althea's mother and Amis Ludluck had halted. Amis was staring at the Paragon. She crossed her arms in front of her and set her mouth in a flat line. Althea read both denial and rejection there. She was glad the ship was blind. Davad was puffing, striving to close the distance and catch up with them.
'Paragon,' she said calmingly. 'Please. Listen to me. It has been years since there was a Ludluck aboard you. You have been alone, save for us. Nevertheless, you have survived. I think you are different from most live- ships. I think you have a sense of yourself apart from your family. I think you have learned to be… independent.'
'I survived only because I could not die!' he roared suddenly. He lifted the pipes high in one hand, as if he would dash them at her. Then, in a great show of self-control, he reached over his shoulder to set the precious instrument on his canted foredeck. He was breathing hard through his nose as he turned back to her. 'I live in pain, Althea. I live at the edge of madness! Do you think I do not know that? I have learned… what have I learned? Nothing. Only that I must go on, and so I go on. An emptiness devours me from within and is never satiated. It eats my days, one at a time, consuming second after dripping second, and every day I grow less, but I never manage to wink out.' He gave a sudden, wild laugh. 'You say I have a self apart from my family? Oh, I do. Yes, I do, a self with talons and teeth, so full of misery and fury that I would rend the world to shreds if I could only make it all stop!' His voice had risen to a roar. He suddenly flung his arms wide and threw his head back. He shrieked out a cry, inhumanly loud, unbearably sad. Althea clapped her hands over her ears.
From the comer of her eye, she saw Amis Ludluck turn and run away. Her mother spun after her. Althea watched as Ronica caught up with her and grabbed her arm. She halted her and turned her around. Althea knew she was remonstrating with her, but had no idea what she was saying. Davad was beside them now, tut-tutting and wiping his sweating face with a silk kerchief. Althea knew what had happened. Amis Ludluck had changed her mind. Althea was sure of it. She had lost her only chance to rescue Vivacia. It would not have been so devastating if she could believe Paragon had won, but she could not believe that, either. The Ludlucks would not sell Paragon, but they would not sail him. He would stay here on the shores of Bingtown, getting older and crazier with each passing year. Althea wondered if she would do the same.
Amber was standing dangerously close to Paragon. One hand rested on his hull. She was talking softly to him. He wasn't paying any attention. He had dropped his shaggy head into his hands and was weeping, shoulder- shaking sobs like a heart-broken child. Clef had drawn closer, staring up wide-eyed at the overcome ship. He clenched his teeth on his lower lip. His fists were knotted at his sides.
'Paragon!' Amis Ludluck shouted his name.
He jerked his scarred visage up from his hands and stared sightlessly about. 'Who's that?' he demanded frantically. He rubbed at his cheeks, as if to wipe away tears he had not eyes to cry. He was plainly distressed at having a stranger witness his grief.
'It's Amis Ludluck.' The woman sounded defensive. Her graying hair had blown out of her summer bonnet, and her shawl flapped in the wind. She said no more than that, waiting for his reaction.
The ship looked stunned. He opened and closed his mouth twice before he found words. 'Why have you come here?' His voice and tone were surprisingly reserved, that of a man rather than a boy. Misery shone from him. He dragged in a breath, composed himself even more. 'Why, after all these years, have you come to speak to me?'
She looked more shaken than if he had shouted at her, Althea thought. She fumbled for words. 'They've told you, haven't they?' she finally asked him lamely.
'Told me what?' he asked her mercilessly.
She straightened herself. 'I've sold you.'
'You can't sell me. I'm part of your family. Could you sell your daughter, your son?'
Amis Ludluck shook her head. 'No,' she whispered. 'No, I could not. Because I love them and they love me.' She lifted her gaze to stare up at the disfigured ship. 'That is not true of you.' Her voice went suddenly shrill. 'For as long as I can remember, you have been the bane of my family. I was not even born when last you sailed away, but I grew up with the pain of my mother and grandmother at their losses. You disappeared and the men of our family went with you, never to return. Why? What was it you wished to punish us for, save that we were your family? It would have been bad enough if you had never returned. At least we would have been able to wonder. We could have imagined that you had all gone down together, or that they still lived somewhere, alive but unable to get back to us. Instead, you had to come back, to prove to us that you had killed once more. Yet again, you had slain the men of the family who had made you and left the women to mourn.
'Here you have been, for thirty years! A constant reproach to my family, a symbol of our shame and our guilt. Every ship that passes in or out of the harbor sees you here. There is no one in Bingtown who does not have an opinion as to why you failed. Most lay the blame at our door. We have been called greedy, reckless, selfish and cold-hearted. Some say we deserved what befell us. As long as you are here, we can never forget, nor forgive ourselves. It would be better by far if you were gone. They are willing to take you and we are more than willing to be rid of you.' She doused them all with her poisonous words. The pain Althea felt for Paragon left her speechless. The woman's eyes bulged with madness. Perhaps, after all, Paragon was made of the same stuff as the Ludlucks.
'We were a powerful family, before you! You were to have been our glory, the Paragon of our success. Instead, it beggared our fortune to pay for you, and all you ever brought us was misery and despair. Well? Will not you at least deny it? Speak, oh wondrous ship! After all these years, tell me why? Why did you turn on them, why did you kill our dreams, our hopes, our men?' She finally stopped and stood panting with the force of her emotions. Beside her, Ronica Vestrit looked sickened. But the look on Davad Restart's face was the most arresting. He looked disquieted, and yet a sort of righteousness shone in his eyes.
'The Rain Wild River,' Davad said quietly. 'Nothing good ever came out of the Rain Wilds. Poisonous magic, insidious sickness. That is all that ever…'
'Stop it,' Amber hissed. 'Shut up and go away. Go away now. He knows. Here. Here it is, take it, it is yours, it's all yours. All I have, in exchange for him. As I promised.' From around her neck she took a key on a leather thong. She flung it at Davad's feet. It hit a beach rock and rang a clear note before it bounded onto the sand. He leaned down laboriously to pick it up. Althea recognized the massive key to the shop on Rain Wild Street. He dropped it into his pocket. Amis Ludluck stood looking up at the ship. A few tears had tracked down her withered cheeks, but she didn't weep now. She just stared at Paragon, her mouth set in silence.
Above her, Paragon crossed his arms on his chest. His head was lifted. If he had had eyes, they would have been staring out to sea. The bunched muscles of his jaws clamped his mouth tightly shut. He was as still as if carved of ordinary wood.
Davad took Amis Ludluck's arm and tugged. 'Come along, Amis. I'll take you home now. Then I'll go and secure your shop for you. I think you've made the best of a bad bargain. I think we all have. Good day, Ronica, Althea. Remember, this transaction did not begin with me.'
'We'll remember,' Althea said flatly. She didn't watch them go. She stared up at the unmoving and silent ship. Guilt gnawed at her. Why had she thought that if Amis Ludluck came down here, she would persuade Paragon to go willingly? Ludluck spite was legendary in Bingtown. Why had she thought the woman would not turn it on her own abandoned ship? Suddenly, it all seemed insane. To set sail on a mad ship, in the dim hope of seeking out and recovering her family's liveship was an errand for a fool. Who else could believe in the success of such an undertaking?
'Paragon?' Amber said quietly. 'Paragon, she's gone now. Everything is going to be all right, you'll see. It's for the best. You'll be with people who care about you now. Out on the sea again, where a ship belongs. When you next return to Bingtown, you'll be a hero. All will see your value then, even the Ludlucks. Paragon?'
Clef crept out from behind Brashen. He slipped up to the ship and shyly set a hand to his planking. He
