roughed out her ambitions, making marks and taking measures. At the ship's urging, she had set that work aside until more essential tasks were finished. The ship sailed blind, and yet not blind, for Amber's eyes were his.
She leaned on the railing, her hair streaming in the wind, and spoke of all she saw. Through her bare hands, she conveyed to him the feel of the islands they passed. It was not sight, but it was her sense of the ocean and the scattered islands that she shared with him. In return, he shared with her. The white serpent paced them, and urged the ship on in his own mad way. Paragon suspected that he sought to awaken the dragons in him, but they were already awake and stirring more strongly every day. Their thoughts mingled with his. The dragons reached through him to Amber, changing him as they did so. They were becoming him, and he was becoming them.
'We fly,' Amber murmured. A stinging rain spattered against her face and soaked her patchy hair. Eyes wide, she stared ahead and with him dreamed these islands as once he had seen them.
'Once, I flew. But these were not islands then, but mountaintops. The Great Inner Wall, we called the first range. Beyond it were the Lowlands, and then the Sea Mountains, a restless and rumbling place. Some of the mountains smoked and spat and vomited liquid stone, turning summer to winter and day to dusk. Now they are drowned. The tops of the Sea Mountains are what you call the Shield Wall and Old Woman Island and the like. These islands we thread are the sunken heights of the Great Inner Wall.'
'When you speak of them that way, I can see them in my mind.'
'Mm. Now we need to see them as Igrot saw them, and as Lucto Ludluck saw them. He was Sedge Ludluck's son. Everyone in the Pirate Isles called him Lucky Ludluck. And Kennit was Lucky's son. He seized on that name.' Paragon was silent for a time, his mind roving the years. 'Luck. It was always so important to him.'
Amber spoke cautiously. 'When Althea told me your history, she told me you left Bingtown with Sedge Ludluck.'
'Lucto was Sedge's eldest son. He sailed with his father, but the tension between them was constant. Sedge had the imagination of a rock. He bought cheap and sold dear. That was his sole ethic in life, the Ludluck ethic. He paid his men as little as he could, and changed crew often because he was so callous to them. Their lives were always worth less to him than his cargoes. He never stopped to wonder if life could be different. He didn't fear me because he lacked the imagination to know what I could do.
'Lucto, his son, was different. He was a dreamer, a young man who savored the pleasures of life. Bingtown customs, manners and traditions stifled him. Lucto was the one who talked Sedge into a little side trade in the Pirate Isles. Lucto had a gift with the lawless folk. He relaxed among them, and in turn, they liked him. He helped the family fortune prosper again. That pleased his father. To reward him, he arranged a good match for the boy with the younger daughter of a very proper Trader. But Lucto had a heart and that heart already belonged to a girl from the Pirate Isles. He was about twenty-two the day his father dropped dead at the bargaining table in Divvytown. Lucto mourned him, but not enough to return to Bingtown and take up the dreary life planned for him. He buried his father ashore, and never went home. The crew was glad enough to follow him, for he liked whiskey as much as they did, and dispensed it with an open hand. He was a generous lad, but not as wary as he might have been. He married his Pirate Isles girl and vowed he would live like a king in his own little world.'
Paragon shook his head to himself. 'He traded well and lived large. He built up a secret refuge for himself and his men. He trusted to the good will of his crew to keep his world safe. But there are always hungry men, men for whom a share of good fortune is not enough. And one brought Igrot into Lucky's world. Igrot already had a reputation as the pirate who would do what other men did not even imagine. He came to Lucky with the fable that they would be partners in trade and piracy. Lucto believed him. But in the midst of celebrating their alliance, Igrot turned on him. He imprisoned my father to subdue me, and took Kennit hostage to control me, and we all had to obey him for fear he would hurt the others. He cut out my mother's tongue-'
'Paragon, Paragon.' Amber's voice was gentle but urgent. 'Not your father. Kennit's. Not your mother. Kennit's.'
The ship smiled bitterly into the rain. 'You draw lines that do not exist. It is what you do not understand, Amber. When you speak to Paragon, you speak to the human memories stored in me. When Kennit and I killed myself, it was our suicide.'
'That is a thing I will never understand,' Amber observed in a low voice. 'How can one hate oneself so much that one is willing to murder that self?'
The ship shook his head and rain flew from his locks. 'That is your mistake. No one wants the self to die. I only wanted to make all the rest of it stop. The only way to achieve that was to put death between the world and myself.'
He suddenly turned his blinded face toward an island. 'There. That one.'
'That's Key Island?' Her voice was incredulous. 'Paragon, there's nowhere to land. The island comes straight up out of the water, like a fortress with trees.'
'No, that's not the Key. That is Keyhole Island. From this main channel, it looks like any other island. But if you leave the main channel and circle the island, you'll find an opening in that wall. The island is shaped like a crescent, nearly closed. Until you enter the crescent, it looks like an unpromising inlet. But Keyhole Island cups a bay. Inside Keyhole Island, in the bay, is a smaller island. The Key in the Keyhole. On the back side of Key Island, there is a cove with good anchorage. There used to be a wharf and a pier, but I suppose they are long gone. That is where we are bound.'
BRASHEN WAS ON THE WHEEL. HE SAW THE WIDE WAVE OF AMBER'S ARM, AND nodded that he saw the indicated island. This area of the Pirate Isles was pocked with little islands jutting sharply up from the waves; this one looked no different. Paragon had been very close-mouthed about what made this one so special. The cynical part of Brashen's soul laughed at him, yet he shouted his command to the crew, and as they shifted the wet sails, turned the wheel to bring the ship around. The steady wind had been favoring them before. Now it would be a long series of wearying tacks to take Paragon where Amber indicated.
The reduced crew was running on the ragged edge. When the holds had flooded, much of the food had been ruined. Painful injuries, a reduced and monotonous diet, and the strenuous tasks of running the ship with too few men would have been demoralizing enough. But they knew that it was Brashen's intent that they once more face Kennit in battle and they had no interest in rushing to their doom. Their seamanship had grown both grudging and sloppy. Were the ship himself not so eager to sail, the task would have been hopeless.
Clef hastened up to the captain, blue eyes squinted against the rain. The boy seemed mostly recovered from his injuries though he still favored his scalded arm. 'Sir! Amber says the ship says we're to watch for an opening on the lee of the island. It opens to a bay inside the island, and an island in the bay. That island in turn will have good anchorage on its windward side. Paragon says to anchor up there.'
'I see. And what then?' The question was rhetorical. He didn't expect Clef to answer.
'He says that if we are lucky, the old woman who lived there will still be alive. We have to take her hostage, sir. She's the key to Kennit himself. He'll trade anything to get her back. Even Althea.' The boy took a long breath, then blurted out, 'She's Kennit's mother. So the ship says.'
Brashen raised an eyebrow to that. In a moment, he recovered. 'And that is something best kept to yourself, lad. Go tell Cypros to take the wheel for a bit. I'll hear for myself all Amber has to tell me now.'
THE RAIN EASED JUST AS BRASHEN DISCOVERED KEY ISLAND'S ANCHORAGE, BUT even the sun breaking through the day's overcast did little to cheer him. As Paragon had predicted, a sagging pier ran out into the inlet, but time had swayed its pilings and gapped its planks. The rattling of the dropping anchor seemed to shatter the winter peace of the island. But as Brashen looked at the silent forested hillside above the dock, he reflected that such concerns had probably been unnecessary. If people had once lived here, the ramshackle wharf was the only sign that remained of them. He saw no houses. At the end of the wharf, the mouth of an overgrown path vanished beneath the trees.
'Don't look like much,' Clef gave voice to his captain's thoughts.
'No, it doesn't. Still, we're here, so we'll take a look around. We'll go ashore in the ship's boats; I don't trust that pier.'
'We?' Clef asked with a grin.
'We. I'm leaving Amber aboard with Paragon and a handful of men. I'm taking the rest of the crew with me. It will do them good to get off the ship for a time. We may be able to find some game and take on fresh water
