like to hear it?'
Only the wind and the water replied to him. Despair and anger warred in him, but he gave no voice to them. Instead, he smiled cordially. 'Very well, then. This is an old tale, from a time before Jamaillia. Some say it is really a tale from the Cursed Shores that was told in the Southlands, and eventually claimed as their own.' He cleared his throat. He half-closed his eyes. When he spoke, he spoke in his mother's words, in the cadence of the storyteller. As she had spoken so long ago, before Igrot cut out her tongue, slicing her words away forever.
'Once, in that distant time so long ago, there was a young woman, of good wit but small fortune. Her parents were elderly, and when they died, what little they had would be hers. She might, perhaps, have been content with that, but in their dotage, they decided to arrange a marriage for their daughter. The man they chose was a farmer, of good fortune but no wit at all. The daughter knew at once she could never find happiness with him, nor even tolerate him. So Edrilla, for that was her name, left both parents and home and-'
'Erlida was her name, dolt.' Vivacia twisted slowly to look back at him. The movement sent a jolt of ice up Kennit's spine. She turned sinuously, her body unbound by human limitations. Her hair was suddenly jet-black, shot with silver gleams. The golden eyes that met his caught the faint gleams of the ship's lantern and threw the light back to him. When she smiled at him, her lips parted too widely, and the teeth she showed him seemed both whiter and smaller than before. Her lips were too red. The life that moved in her now glittered with a serpent's sheen. Her voice was throaty and lazy. 'If you must bore me with a tale a thousand years old, at least tell it well.'
His breath caught hard in his throat. He started to speak, then caught himself. Be silent. Make her talk. Let her betray herself to him first. The creature's gaze on him was like a blade at his throat, but he refused to show fear. He did his best to meet her gaze and not flinch from it.
'Erlida,' she insisted. 'And it was not a farmer, but a riverside pot-maker that she was given to; a man who spent all his day patting wet clay. He made heavy, graceless pots, fit only for slops and chamber pots.' She turned away from him, to stare ahead over the black sea. 'That is how the tale goes. And I should know. I knew Erlida.'
Kennit let the silence stretch until it was thinner and more taut than the silk of a spider's web. 'How?' he demanded hoarsely at last. 'How could you have known Erlida?'
The figurehead snorted contemptuously. 'Because we are not as stupid as humans, who forget everything that befell them before their individual births. The memory of my mother, and of my mother's mother, and her mother's mother's mother are all mine. They were spun into strands from memory sand and the saliva of those who helped encase me in my cocoon. They were set aside for me, my heritage, for me to reclaim when I awoke as a dragon. The memories of a hundred lifetimes are mine. Yet here I am, encased in death, no more than wistful thinking.'
'I don't understand,' Kennit ventured stiffly when it was obvious she had finished speaking.
'That is because you are stupid,' she snapped bitterly.
No one, he had once vowed to himself, would ever speak to him like that again. Then he had cleansed their blood from his hands, and he had kept that promise to himself. Always. Even now. Kennit drew himself up straight. 'Stupid. You may think me stupid, and you may call me stupid. At least I am real. And you are not.' He tucked his crutch under his arm and prepared to lurch away.
She turned back to him, the corner of her mouth lifting in a sneering smile. 'Ah. So the insect has a bit of sting to him. Stay, then. Speak to me, pirate. You think I am not real? I am real enough. Real enough to open my seams to the sea at any moment I choose. You might wish to think on that.'
Kennit spat over the side. 'Boasts and brags. Am I to find that admirable, or frightening? Vivacia was braver and stronger than you, ship, whatever you are. You take refuge in the bully's first strength: what you can destroy. Destroy us all then, and have done with it. I cannot stop you, as well you know. When you are a sunken wreck on the bottom, I wish you much joy of the experience.' He turned resolutely away from her. He had to walk away now, he knew that. Just turn and keep walking, or she would not respect him at all. He had nearly reached the edge of the foredeck when the entire ship gave a sudden lurch. There was a wild whoop from the lookout high in the rigging, and a cumulative mutter of surprise from the crew below in their hammocks. The mate back on the wheel shouted an angry question. Kennit's crutch tip skittered on the smooth deck and then flew out from under him. He fell, sprawling, his elbows striking heavily. The fall knocked the wind from his lungs.
As he lay gasping on the deck, the ship righted herself. In an instant, all was as it had been before, save for the querying voices of crewmen raised in sudden alarm. A soft but melodious laugh from the figurehead taunted him. A smaller voice spoke by Kennit's ear. The tiny wizardwood charm strapped to his wrist spoke abruptly. 'Don't walk away, you fool. Never turn your back on a dragon. If you do, she will think you are so stupid that you deserve destruction.'
Kennit gasped in a painful breath. 'And I should trust you,' he grunted. He managed to sit up. 'You're a bit of a dragon yourself, if what she says is true.'
'There are dragons and dragons. This one would just as soon not spend eternity tied to a heap of bones. Turn back. Defy her. Challenge her.'
'Shut up,' he hissed at the useless thing.
'What did you say to me?' the ship demanded in a poisonously sweet voice.
With difficulty, he dragged himself up. When his crutch was in place again, he swung across the deck to the bow rail. 'I said, 'Shut up!' ' he repeated for her. He gripped the railing and leaned over it. He let every bit of his fear blossom as anger. 'Be wood, if you have not the wit to be Vivacia.'
'Vivacia? That spineless slave thing, that quivering, acquiescent, groveling creation of humans? I would be silent forever rather than be her.'
Kennit seized his advantage. 'Then you are not her? Not one whit of you was expressed in her?'
The figurehead reared her head back. If she had been a serpent, Kennit would have believed her ready to strike. He did not step back. He would not show fear. Besides, he did not think she could quite reach him. Her mouth opened, but no words came out. Her eyes spun with anger.
'If she is not you, then she has as much a right to be the life of this ship as you do. And if she is you… well, then. You mock and criticize yourself. Either way, it matters not to me. My offer to this liveship stands. I little care which of you takes it up.'
There. He had put all his coins on the table. He either would win or be ruined. There was nothing else between those extremes. But then, there never had been.
She expelled a sudden breath with a sound between a hiss and a sigh. 'What offer?' she demanded.
Kennit smiled with one corner of his mouth. 'What offer? You mean, you don't know? Dear, dear. I thought you had always been lurking beneath Vivacia's skin. It appears that instead you are rather newly awakened.' He watched her carefully as he gently mocked her. He must not take it to the point where she was angry, but he did not wish to appear too eager to bargain with her either. As her eyes began to narrow, he shifted his tactic. 'Pirate with me. Be my queen of the seas. If dragon you truly are, then show me that nature. Let us prey where we will, and claim all these islands as our own.'
Despite her haughty stare, he had seen the brief widening of her eyes that betrayed her interest. Her next words made him smile.
'What's in it for me?'
'What do you want?'
She watched him. He stood straight and met her strange gaze with his small smile. She ran her eyes over him as if he were a naked whore in a cheap house parlor. Her look lingered on his missing leg, but he did not let it fluster him. He waited her out.
'I want what I want, and when I want it. When the time comes for me to take it, I'll tell you what it is.' She threw her words down as a challenge.
'Oh, my.' He tugged at his moustache as if amused. In reality, her words trickled down his spine like ice water. 'Can you truly expect me to agree to such terms?'
It was her turn to laugh, a throaty chuckle that reminded him of the singsong snarl of a hunting tiger. It did not reassure Kennit at all. Nor did her words. 'Of course you will accept those terms. For what other course is available to you? As little as you wish to admit it, I can destroy you and all your crew any time it pleases me. You should be content with knowing that it amuses me to pirate with you for a time. Do not seek more than you can grasp.'
