I do.” She paused. “And I want to meet her.”
Shang-Li hesitated for just a moment. “All right.”
Standing close by with his spear in his hand, Shang-Li watched as Amree approached Red Orchid. The figurehead’s eyes watched the ship’s mage and shifted across the prow of the ship.
“She’s going to talk to the ship?” Iados sounded as though he couldn’t believe what Shang-Li had told him. “That’s what she said.”
Amree stopped a good dozen paces from the figurehead. The prow already bowed a little like it was about to change shape again.
“Hail and well met, Red Orchid,” Amree greeted. “My name is Amree. I’m a ship’s mage.”
“Hail and well met, Amree Ship’s-Mage.” Red Orchid glowered over Amree at Shang-Li and Iados. “At least you’re more polite than the others.”
“I’ve had time to prepare to meet you.”
Red Orchid shifted, relaxing a little. “You wanted to meet me?”
“I’ve never even dreamed of something like you. Of course I had to meet you.” Amree looked at the figurehead. “May I come closer?”
“Of course. I am not afraid of you.”
Amree ran her fingers along the prow. “Are you the ship or the figurehead?”
“I’m whatever I wish to be. I… am.” Red Orchid shifted a little, like someone that realized she suddenly intrigued someone else.
“Were you yourself above the water?”
“I remember bits and pieces of things of those times.” Red Orchid frowned, and the disappointment seemed to carry in every line of the ship. “But I do not know that.”
Amree continued walking around the ship. “What are your earliest complete memories?”
“Only this place.”
“I was told you can change your shape.”
“I can.” Red Orchid the ship quivered like a wet dog. The prow melted into a the stunning face of a woman again.
Even at the distance from where Shang-Li stood, he saw the smile on Amree’s face.
“That’s incredible.” Amree trailed her fingers over the ship’s chin. “You’re beautiful.”
“Thank you,” Red Orchid said smugly.
“Now see,” Iados whispered to Shang-Li, “you could have won her over with charm.”
Shang-Li shook his head.
“Do you wish to sail again?” Amree asked.
“I can’t master the shape long enough, and I don’t quite know how to fix the damage I’ve received.” Red Orchid’s “face” disappeared and was replaced by the shape of the prow again. “During the years I’ve lain here, I’ve tried to reassemble myself. Even if I could, though, I can’t empty the water from myself.”
“Could you leave this ship?” Amree stood in front of the ship’s figurehead.
Red Orchid hesitated, as petulant as a child. “I don’t know. I’ve never tried that. I’ve never had any reason to.”
“I have another ship. One that has a place for you. If you can separate from this one.”
The figurehead’s eyes grew large in concern. “How would I do that?”
“Could you pull yourself into the figurehead?”
Red Orchid shook her head. “Then I would be so small.”
“It would only be for a short period of time. I promise. Then you could be part of a larger, healthier ship.”
“I don’t suppose Amree asked Captain Chiang about this,” Iados grumbled. “Swallow is his ship.”
“His ship happens to be sitting on the bottom of the Sea of Fallen Stars.” Shang-Li snorted. “I think the captain would make a deal with the Bitch Queen herself if he could get his ship above the waves again.”
“Why do you come to me if you have another ship?” Suspicion was etched into Red Orchid’s words.
“We have another ship, but she is just a ship. She’s timbers and iron, blood and sweat, but she doesn’t have your strength or your awareness. You are more than a ship, Red Orchid. I think you’re strong enough to help us keep control of Swallow when we lift her to the surface.” “What if we fail?”
Amree placed her hand on the ship and smiled. “Would it be any worse than where we are now?”
Red Orchid paused. “What if separating from this ship ends me? What if I am actually all of this ship?”
“I don’t know.” Amree drew her hand along the prow as though comforting a child. “I do know that the only way we can find out is to try.”
Red Orchid was silent for a long time. Then she turned her face up toward the surface. “What does it feel like to run before the wind? I can scarcely remember.”
“It’s the most beautiful sensation in the world.”
Red Orchid smiled. A dreamy look relaxed her face. “I am ready to be free of my grave, ship’s mage. One way or the other.”
“Carefully!” Amree cursed as Shang-Li jerked on a pry bar to loosen the figurehead from the ship. Wooden dowels shrieked in protest and at least two of them broke with vicious cracks.
Chastened, Shang-Li stopped what he was doing and looked up at Red Orchid. “Are you all right?” he asked.
Pain turned her face pale and made her features look azure in the blue light. The unintended echo of the Blue Lady’s appearance left Shang-Li slightly unsettled. He almost expected the Blue Lady to talk to him and tell him it was all a trap, that they were wasting their time while she closed the net around them.
“I’m fine.” Red Orchid stretched a bit on the prow, then became still again. “Becoming so small is hard. I feel more trapped than ever.”
“It won’t last long.” Amree took the figurehead’s hand and squeezed it gently. “I promise. No longer than we need take to get from this ship to ours.”
Red Orchid nodded and they continued.
“Gently,” Amree admonished Shang-Li.
“I know.” Shang-Li set the pry bar and began again. He worked at the figurehead, but couldn’t help feel that the task was taking far too long to do.
“What’s wrong with her?” Shang-Li stared up at the figurehead mounted on Swallow. Since they’d disconnected her from her original ship, Red Orchid hadn’t spoken.
“The toll of moving her was higher than we’d expected.” Amree floated in the water before Red Orchid and worked with various things she had from her craft.
Shang-Li didn’t know what the items were that the ship’s mage used, but he knew they were things a ship’s mage used to put strength and power into a craft. He felt the surge of something that emanated from Amree’s efforts, and he knew it was stronger, more focused, than anything she’d done aboard Swallow before.
“She had to… diminish herself to fit within the figurehead.” Amree took a black pearl from her pouch and held it in her hand. When she closed her hand, her fist glowed with purple light that bathed Red Orchid. “She’s never done that before.”
During the swim back from the ship to Swallow, Red Orchid had finally stopped speaking and seemed unable to hear. Even while getting hung on Swallow, she hadn’t uttered a word.
“Is she going to be all right?” Thava asked.
Amree shook her head irritably. “I don’t know. I’ve never seen anything like her. Maybe more of her remains within the ship we left behind. Maybe she wasn’t able to squeeze all of herself into the figurehead.”
“Wouldn’t she have known that?”
“She doesn’t know what she is either.” Amree sounded discouraged. “This is new for both of us.”
“Perhaps all she needs is time.” Kwan Yung leaned over the railing over the prow and peered down.
Shang-Li looked at the inert figurehead and Swallow’s only partially repaired broken hull, and he thought about the increasing strength of the Blue Lady’s visits. “Unfortunately, time is the one thing we don’t have.”
Another salvage crew swam toward Swallow.
