'To do what? Drown with her? Do not be foolish. The wind off my wings would swamp the boat long before I was close enough to drop you right through the bottom of it. Human, I have done my part. I have found her for you. Now you know where she is, it is up to you and the other humans to save her. My part in her life is over.'
It was no comfort. He had seen Malta's face turn up to them as they swept over her. He almost imagined he had heard her cry out to him, begging for rescue. Yet, the dragon was right. They could do nothing for Malta without putting all of them in greater danger.
'Take me back to Trehaug, swiftly,' he begged her. 'If the Kendry sets out after her now, with every thread of sail he can muster, we may yet overtake the boat before the river devours it.'
'A wise plan!' the dragon rumbled sarcastically. 'You would have been wiser still to have set out on the ship immediately instead of demanding this of me. I told you that she was on the river.'
The dragon's cold logic was disheartening. Reyn could think of nothing to say. Once more, her wings worked powerfully, taking them high above the multicanopied forest. The land passed swiftly away beneath them as she carried him back toward Trehaug.
'Is there no way you can aid me?' he asked pitifully as she circled above the city. At the sight of her, all the folk on the dock ran for the shore. The winds off her great wings as she beat them to slow their descent buffeted the Kendry. Once more her heavy hindquarters absorbed the impact of their landing as the wharf plunged and bucked under them. She lifted him in her claws, craning her neck and turning her head to focus one huge silver eye on him.
'Little human, I am a dragon. I am the last Lord of the Three Realms. If any of my kind remain anywhere, I must seek them out and aid them. I cannot be concerned with a brief little spark like you. So. Fare as well as you can, on your own. I leave. I doubt we shall ever meet again.'
She set him on his feet. If she meant to be gentle, she failed. As he staggered away, he felt a sudden shock, more of mind than body. He was suddenly desperately afraid that he had forgotten something of vast importance. Then he realized that what was gone was his mental link with the dragon. Tintaglia had separated herself from him. The loss dizzied him. He seemed to have been taking some vitality from the link, for he was suddenly aware of hunger, thirst and extreme weariness. He managed to take a few steps before he went to his knees. It was as well that he was down, for otherwise he would have fallen as the dragon jolted the dock with her leap into the sky. A final time the beat of her wings wafted her reptilian stink over him. For no reason that he could understand, tears of loss stung his eyes.
The wharf seemed to keep rocking for a long time. He became aware of his mother kneeling beside him. She cradled his head in her lap. 'Did she hurt you?' she demanded. 'Reyn. Reyn, can you speak? Are you hurt?'
He drew a deep breath. 'Ready the Kendry to sail immediately. We must make all speed down the river. Malta, and the Satrap and his Companion… in a tiny boat.' He halted, suddenly too exhausted even to summon words.
'The Satrap!' a man exclaimed close by. 'Sa be praised! If he yet lives and we can recover him, then not all is lost. Haste to the Kendry. Make him ready to sail!'
'Send me a healer!' Jani Khuprus' voice rang out above the sudden murmur. 'I wish Reyn carried up to my apartments.'
'No. No.' He clutched feebly at his mother's arm. 'I must go with the Kendry. I must see Malta safe before I can rest.'
CHAPTER FIVE – Paragon and Piracy
'I DON'T MIN' A BEATIN' WHEN I'M DUE ONE. BUT THIS'UN WASN'T THA. I DIN'T do ennerthin' wrong.'
'Most beatings I've had in my life came from just that. Not doing anything wrong, but not doing anything right either,' Althea observed impartially. She put two fingers under Clef's chin and turned his face up toward the fading daylight. 'It's not much, boy. A split lip and a bruised cheek. It will be gone in less than a week. It's not like he broke your nose.'
Clef pulled sullenly away from her touch. 'He woulda if I hadenna seen it comin'.'
Althea clapped the ship's boy on the shoulder. 'But you did. Because you're quick and tough. And that's what makes a good sailor.'
'S'you think it was right, what he done t'me?' Clef demanded angrily.
Althea took a breath. She hardened her heart and her voice to reply coolly. 'I think Lavoy's the mate, and you're the ship's boy and I'm the second. Right and wrong don't come into it, Clef. Next time, be a bit livelier. And be smart enough to stay out of the mate's path if he's in a temper.'
'He's allus en a temper,' Clef observed sullenly. Althea let the remark pass. Every sailor had the right to moan about the mate but she could not allow Clef to think that she would take sides on this. She hadn't witnessed the incident; but she had heard Amber's outraged account of it. Amber had been up in the rigging. By the time she had regained the deck, Lavoy had stalked away. Althea was glad there had not been an encounter between the first mate and the ship's carpenter. Nevertheless, it had intensified the enmity Amber and Lavoy felt for one another. The clout Lavoy had given Clef had sent the lad flying, and all because the line he had been coiling hadn't lain as flat as the mate thought it should. Privately, Althea thought Lavoy was a brute and a fool. Clef was a good-natured lad whose best efforts were bought with praise, not brutality.
They stood on the stern, looking out over the ship's wake. In the distance, small islands were green hummocks. The water was calm but there was a light evening breeze and Paragon was making the most of it. Of late, the ship had seemed not only willing but almost eager to speed them on their way to the Pirate Isles. He had dropped all his talk of serpents and even his metaphysical musings on whether a person was what other people thought of him or what he thought of himself. Althea shook her head to herself as she watched some gulls diving on a shallow school of fish. She was glad he had stopped waxing philosophical. Amber had seemed to enjoy those long conversations, but Althea was unsettled by them. Now Amber complained that Paragon seemed withdrawn and abrupt, but to Althea he seemed healthier and more focused on the task at hand. It could not be good for a man or a liveship to ponder endlessly on the nature of himself. She glanced back at Clef. The ship's boy was cautiously tonguing the split in his lip. His blue eyes were far away. She nudged him gently.
'Best go get some sleep, boy. Your watch will roll around again soon enough.'
'I s'pose,' he agreed lackadaisically. He gazed at her absently for a moment, then seemed to focus on her. 'I know I gotter take it from hem. I learnt that when I was a slave. Sometimes yer just gotter take it from someone and kip yer head down.'
Althea smiled mirthlessly. 'Sometimes it seems to me there's not much difference between being a sailor and being a slave.'
'Mebbe,' the boy agreed truculently. 'Night, ma'am,' he added before he turned and made his way forward.
For a short time longer, she watched their wake widening behind them. They had left Bingtown far behind. She thought of her mother and sister snugly at home, and envied them. Then she reminded herself of how boring she had found shoreside life, and how the endless waiting had chafed on her. They were probably sitting in her father's study right now, sipping tea and wondering how to bring Malta into Bingtown society on such a reduced budget. They'd have to scrimp and make do through the rest of the summer. To be fair, she decided they probably felt a great deal of anxiety for her, and for the fate of the family ship and Keffria's husband and son. They would have to endure it. She doubted she would return, for good or ill, before spring.
For herself, she'd rather worry about the bigger problem; how was she to find her family liveship and return Vivacia safely to Bingtown? When Brashen had last seen the liveship, Vivacia had been in the hands of the pirate Kennit, anchored in a pirate stronghold. It was not much to go on. The Pirate Isles were not only uncharted and infested with pirates, they were also an uncertain place to visit, for storms and inland floods often changed the contours of the islands, river mouths and waterways. So she had heard. In her trading trips south with her father, he had always avoided the Pirate Isles, precisely because of the dangers that she now directly dared. What would
