toward her body. Beneath the turbulence of the sea's waves, all hung there, as motionless as swimming creatures can be, as they held themselves in even spacing and careful alignment. They were many organisms, soon to be one, united in the racial memory of their kind. She opened her jaws wide, exposing her teeth in formal greeting. She shook her mane until the toxic ruff of spikes around her throat stood out in its full glory. Every spine was erect, swelling with the toxins she would soon release. Rigorously, she controlled herself. This was not the awakening of a single serpent. This was the resurrection of an entire tangle.
'Maulkin of Maulkin's Tangle greets you, She Who Remembers.'
His great copper eyes traveled over her crooked body. His eyes spun once in what might have been dismay or sympathy, and then were stilled. He displayed his fangs to her. She clashed her teeth lightly against his. His mane stiffened in reflexive response. His tangle, attuned to his poisons by their long association, would be most vulnerable to hers in conjunction with the release of Maulkin's toxins. He was essential to this awakening. She expelled a faint wash of her venom toward his open jaws, saw him gulp it in and watched it affect him. His eyes spun slowly and color washed through his mane, violets and pinks engorging his spines. She gave his body time to adjust itself. Then, almost languorously, she wrapped his long body with hers. As was fitting, he submitted to her.
She matched her body to his, feeling the slime of his skin mingle with her own. She paused, lidding her eyes as her body adjusted its acids. Then, in an ecstasy of remembering, she tangled her mane with his, stimulating both of them to release a mingled cloud of venoms. The shock of tasting a toxin not of her own secretion nearly stunned her.
Then the night world sharpened. She knew every serpent in his tangle as he did. She took to herself his confused memories of many migratory pilgrimages, and sorted them for him. She shared, suddenly, a lost generation's wandering. Pity sliced her soul. So few females left, and all their bodies so aged.
Their souls had been trapped for decades in bodies meant for transitory use. Yet even as her hearts rang with pity, pride's triumphant trumpeting drowned it. Despite all, her race had survived. Against all obstacles, they had prevailed. Somehow, they would complete their migration, they would cast their cocoons and they would emerge as dragons. The Lords of the Three Realms would once more fill the sky.
She felt Maulkin's spirit intertwine with her own. 'Yes!' His trumpet of affirmation was her signal. She breathed her toxins into his face. He did not struggle. Rather, he plunged willingly into unconsciousness, surrendering his mind to become the repository of the memories of his kind. Her twisted tail lashed as she kept her grip upon his body. Slowly, with great effort, she began to turn them both, spinning them in a streaming circle of toxins that spread slowly to the waiting multitude. Dimly she saw the toxins reach them. The poised serpents stiffened in the grip of her spell, and then began the reflexive finning that held them in place as their minds opened to the trove of memories. She was small, crippled and tiring far too rapidly. She hoped her poison sacs held enough for them all. She stretched her jaws wide and worked the muscles that pumped the toxins from her mane. She strained, convulsively working the muscles long past the complete emptying of her sacs. Depleted, she toiled on, turning herself and Maulkin, using their bodies to disperse their mingled toxins to the entranced serpents. On she labored, and on, past instinct, consciously pushing her body to its limits.
She became aware of Maulkin speaking to her. He held her now. She was exhausted. He moved with her, forcing water over her gills.
'Enough,' he told her, his voice gentle. 'It is enough. Rest. She Who Remembers, Maulkin's tangle is now We Who Remember. Your duty is fulfilled.'
She longed to rest, but she managed to warn them. 'I have awakened another one as well. The silver one claims our kinship. I am wary of her. Yet she alone may know the way home.'
THE WATER BOILED WITH SERPENTS. IN ALL HIS YEARS AT SEA, KENNIT HAD never seen such a sight. Before dawn, their trumpeting chorus awoke him. They swarmed around his liveship. They lifted immense maned heads to regard the ship curiously. Their long bodies sliced the water, cutting across Bolt's bow and streaming in her wake. Their astonishing colors gleamed in the morning light. Their great eyes spun like pinwheels.
Kennit felt himself the target of those unblinking stares. As he stood on the foredeck and watched, Bolt held court to these odd suitors. They rose from the water, some lifting near as tall as the figurehead to regard her. Some considered her in silence, but others trumpeted or whistled. When Bolt sang an answer to them, the immense heads inevitably turned toward Kennit and stared. For a man who had already lost one leg to a serpent, those avaricious stares were unnerving. Nevertheless, he held his post and his smile.
Behind him, the men worked the deck and the rigging with greater than usual caution. Below them gaped the double death of water and fangs. It did not matter that the serpents were not showing any aggression toward the ship. Their roaring and cavorting were enough to intimidate anyone. Only Etta seemed to have shed her fear of the creatures. She clung to the railing, eyes wide and cheeks flushed, as she took in the spectacle of their flashing escort.
Wintrow stood behind her, arms crossed tightly on his chest. He addressed the ship. 'What do they say to you, and what do you reply?'
She glanced archly back at him. Then, as Kennit watched, the boy flinched as if jabbed. He paled suddenly, his knees folding, and staggered away from the railing. Walking uncertainly, his eyes unfocused, Wintrow left the foredeck without another word. Kennit briefly considered demanding an explanation, but decided to let it pass. He did not yet have Bolt's full measure. He would not risk offending her. The expression on the figurehead's face had never varied from pleasant. Bolt spoke, directing her words to Kennit. 'What they say does not concern humans. They speak of serpent dreams, and I assure them that I share the same. That is all. They will follow me, now, and do as I tell them. Select your prey, Captain Kennit. They will cut it out and run it down for you like a pack of wolves culling a bull from a herd. Say where we shall go, and all we encounter between here and there will fall like ripe fruit into your hands.'
She flung him the offer carelessly. Kennit tried to accept it with equanimity, but he perceived instantly what it meant. Not just ships, but towns, even cities were his to plunder. He looked at his rainbow escort, and imagined them boiling in Bingtown Bay or cavorting before the docks of Jamaillia itself. They could weave a blockade that would stop all trade. With a flotilla of serpents at his command, he could control all traffic through the Inside Passage. She was handing him mastery of the entire coast.
He saw her watching him from the corner of her eye. She knew very well what she was offering him. He stepped closer, and spoke only for her ears. 'And what does it cost me? Only 'what you ask for, when you ask for it'?'
Her red lips curved in a sweet smile. 'Exactly.'
The time for hesitation was past. 'You have it,' he assured her quietly.
'I know,' she replied.
'WHAT AILS YOU?' ETTA DEMANDED CROSSLY.
Wintrow looked up at her in surprise. 'Your pardon?'
'Pardon my ass!' She gestured impatiently at the game board on the low table between them. 'It's your move. It has been your move for as long as it has taken me to finish this buttonhole. But when I look up, there you sit, staring into the lantern. So what ails you? You cannot keep your mind on anything of late.'
That was because the whole of his mind was given over to one thing only. He could have said that, but chose to shrug. 'I suppose I feel a bit useless of late.'
She grinned wickedly. 'Of late? You were always useless, priest-boy. Why does it suddenly bother you?'
Now there was a question. Why did it bother him? Since Kennit had taken over the ship, he had had no official status. He was not the ship's boy, he was not the captain's valet and no one had ever seriously respected his claim to own the ship. But he had had a function. Kennit had thrown him odd chores and honed his wits against him, but that had merely filled his time. Vivacia had filled his heart. A bit late to realize that, he thought sourly. A bit late to admit that his bond with the ship had defined his life and his days aboard her. She had needed him, and Kennit had used him as the bridge between them. Now neither of them required him anymore. At least, the creature that wore Vivacia's body no longer needed him. Indeed, she scarcely tolerated him. His head still throbbed from her latest rebuff.
