“Not very well.” She changed the subject abruptly. “Do you know what I did yesterday? I went to Davad Restart and made an offer to buy you.”
Her words jolted him into silence. Then he coldly replied, “Davad Restart cannot sell me. He does not own me. Nor can a liveship be bought and sold at all, save from kin to kin, and then only in dire circumstance.”
It was Amber's turn to be silent. “Somehow, I thought you would know of these things. Well. If you do not, then you should, for they concern you. Paragon, among the New Traders, there have been rumors for months that you are for sale. Davad is acting as the intermediary. At first, your family was stipulating that you must not be used as a ship any longer because they… they didn't want to held responsible for any deaths” Her voice trailed off. “Paragon. How frankly can I speak to you? Sometimes you are so thoughtful and wise. Other times…”
“So you offered to buy me? Why? What will you make from my body? Beads? Furniture?” His edge of control was very thin, his words sharp with sarcasm. How dare she!
“No,” she said with a heavy sigh. Almost to herself she muttered, “I feared this.” She took a deep breath. “I would keep you as you are and where you are. Those were the terms of my offer.”
“Chained here? Beached forever? For seagulls to shit on, and crabs to scuttle beneath? Beached here until all of me that is not wizardwood rots away and I fall apart into screaming pieces?”
“Paragon!” She cried out the word, in a voice between pain and anger. “Stop this. Stop it now! You must know I would never let that befall you. You have to listen to me, you have to let me talk until you've heard it all. Because I think I will need your help. If you go off now into wild accusations and suspicions, I cannot help you. And more than anything, I want to help you.” Her voice went lower and softer on those words. She drew another deep breath. “So. Can you listen to me? Will you give me at least a chance to explain myself?”
“Explain,” he said coldly. Lie and make excuses. Deceive and betray. He'd listen. He'd listen and gather what weapons he could to defend himself against all of them.
“Oh, Paragon,” she said hoarsely. She put a palm flat to his hull. He tried to ignore this touch, to ignore the deep feeling that thrummed through her. “The Ludluck family, your family, has come on hard times. Very hard times. It is the same for many of the Old Trader families. There are many factors: slave labor, the wars in the north… but that doesn't matter to us. What matters is that your family needs money now, the New Traders know that, and they seek to buy you. Do not think ill of the Ludlucks. They resisted many offers. But when finally the money offered was very high, then they specified that they could not sell to anyone who wished to actually use you as a ship.” He could almost feel her shake her head. “To the New Traders, that simply meant that your family wanted more money, much more money, before they would sell you as a working ship.”
She took a deep breath and tried to go on more calmly. “Now, about then, I began to hear rumors that the only ship that can go up the Rain Wild River and come back intact is a liveship. Something about your wizardwood being impervious to the caustic white floods that sometimes come down the river. Which makes sense in light of how long you have rested here and not rotted, and it makes me understand why families would go into debt for generations to possess a ship like you. It is the only way to participate in the trade on the Rain Wild River. So now, as that rumor has crept about, the offers have risen. The New Traders who bid on you promise they will blame no one if you roll, and bid against each other.” She paused. “Paragon, do you hear me?” she asked quietly.
“I hear you,” he replied as he gazed out sightlessly over the ocean. He kept all expression out of his voice as he added, “Do go on.”
“I will. Because you should know this, not because I take pleasure in it. So far, the Ludlucks have still refused all offers. I think perhaps they fear what the other Old Traders might think of them, if they sold you and opened up the Rain Wild River trade to the newcomers. Those goods are the last complete bastion of the Bingtown Traders. Or perhaps, despite their neglect of you, there still remains some family feeling. So. I made an offer. Not as great as the others have bid, for I don't have the wealth they do. But coupled with my offer was my promise that you would remain intact and unsailed. For I think the Ludlucks still care about you. That in an odd way, they keep you here to keep you safe.”
“Ah, yes. Chaining up one's odder relatives and keeping them confined to a garret or cellar or other out of the way place has long been how Bingtown dealt with madness or deformity.” He gave a bitter laugh. “Consider the Rain Wild Traders, for example.”
“Who?”
“Exactly. Who? No one hears of them, no one knows of them, no one considers our ancient convenants with them. Least of all me or you. Pray, go on. After you buy me and leave me intact and don't sail me, what did you have in mind?”
“Oh, Paragon.” She sounded completely miserable now. “If it were up to me — if I could dream as a child does and believe those dreams could come true — I would say, then, I would have artisans come here, to right you and build a cradle to support you upright. And I would come and live aboard you. On the cliffs above you, I would plant a garden of scent and color, a bird-and-butterfly garden, with trailing vines to hang all the way down to the beach and bloom sweetly. And around you I would sculpt stone and create tidepools and populate them with sea stars and sea anemones and those little scarlet crabs.” As she raved on of this strange vision, her voice grew more and more impassioned. “I would live inside you and work inside you and in the evening I would dine on the deck and we would share our day. And if I dared to dream larger than that, why, then I would dream that someday I could obtain wizardwood and work it wisely enough to restore your eyes and your sight. In the mornings we would look out to the sun rising over the sea, and in the evenings we would look up to it setting over our cliff garden. I would say to the world, do what you will, for I am done with you. Destroy yourself or prosper, it is all one to me, as long as you leave us alone. And we would be happy, the two of us.”
For a time he was at a loss to say anything. The childish fantasy caught him up and wrapped around him and suddenly he was not the ship but a boy who would have run in and out of such a place, pockets full of shiny stones and odd shells, gulls' feathers and…
“You are not my family, and you can never be my family.” He dropped the words on the dream like a heavy shoe on a butterfly.
“I know that,” she said quietly. “I said it was but a dream. It is what I long to do, but in truth, I do not know how long I can remain in Bingtown or with you. But Paragon, it is the only hope I have of saving you. If I go to the Ludlucks, myself, and say that you have said you could be content in such a way, perhaps they might take the lesser offer from me, for the sake of the bond” Her voice wisped away as he crossed his arms over the star scar on his broad chest.
“Save me from what?” he asked her disdainfully. “Such a nursery tale as you can spin, Amber. I confess, it is a charming image. But I am a ship. I was created to be sailed. Do you think I choose to lie here on this beach, idle, and near mad with that idleness? No. If my family chooses to sell me into slavery, let it at least be a familiar slavery. I have no desire to be your playhouse.” Especially not as she had just admitted that she would eventually leave him, that her friendship with him was only because something else kept her in Bingtown. Sooner or later, she would leave him, just as all the others had. Sooner or later, all humans abandoned him.
“You had best go back to Davad Restart and withdraw your offer,” he advised her when the silence had grown very long.
“No.”
“If you buy me and keep me here, I will hate you forever, and I will bring you ill luck such as you cannot even imagine.”
Her voice was calm. “I don't believe in luck, Paragon. I believe in fate, and I believe my fate has more terrible and heart-rending facets to it than even you can imagine. You, I know, are one of them. So, for the sake of the child who rants and threatens from within the wooden bones of a ship, I will buy you and keep you safe. Or as safe as fate will allow me.” There was no fear in her voice. Only an odd tenderness as she reached up to set her palm flat to his planking.
“Just wrap it up,” he told her brusquely. “It will heal.”
Etta shook her head. Her voice was very soft as she told him, “Kennit, it is not healing.” She set her hand gently to the flesh above his injury. “Your skin is hot and tender. I see you wince at every touch. These fluids that drain do not look to me like the liquids of healing but the —”
“Shut up,” he ordered her. “I'm a strong man, not some sniveling whore in your care. I will heal, and all will be well once more. Wrap it for me, or do not, I scarcely care. I can bandage it myself, or Sorcor can. I have no time to sit here and listen to you wish bad luck on me.” A sudden pain, sharp as any toothache, rushed up his leg. He
