when Maulkin suddenly arced himself in a hard loop and veered away. He drove himself through the Plenty as if chasing prey, yet Shreever saw nothing worthy of pursuit.
“Follow,” she trumpeted to the others, and set out after him. Sessurea was not far behind her. In a few moments she became aware that the rest of the tangle had not complied. They had remained with the provider, thinking only of their bellies and the pleasures of growing and shedding and growing yet again. She thrust their betrayal from her mind and redoubled her efforts to overtake Maulkin.
She caught up with him only because he abruptly paused. Everything about his pose suggested fascination. His jaws were wide, gills flared and pumping as he stared.
“What is it?” she demanded, and then caught the tiniest flavor in the water. Shreever could not decide what it was she tasted, only that the sensation was a welcome and a fulfillment of a promise. She saw Sessurea join them, marked the widening of his eyes as he, too, was seized by the taste.
“What is it?” he echoed her earlier question.
“It is She Who Remembers,” Maulkin said in reverent awe. “Come. We must seek her.” He did not seem to notice that of all his tangle, only two of his followers had joined him. He had thought only for the hanging scent that threatened to disperse before he could track it to the source. He drove himself onward with a force and speed that Shreever and Sessurea could not match. They trailed him desperately, trying to keep sight of his golden false-eyes as they flashed through the murk. The fragrance grew stronger as they followed him, almost overwhelming their senses.
When they again overtook Maulkin, he was hanging at the respectful distance from a provider who shone silver through the murky plenty. Her scent hung thick in the water, sating them with its sweetness. Hope was a part of that scent, and joy, but thickest was the promise of memories, memories for all to share, knowledge and wisdom for the asking. Yet Maulkin hung back, and did not ask.
“Something is wrong,” he bugled quietly. His eyes were deep and thoughtful. A flickering of color ran the length of him and then faded. “This is not right. She Who Remembers is like to us. So all the holy lore says. I see only the silver-bellied provider. And yet, all my senses tell me that She is near. I do not understand.”
In confused awe they watched the silver provider as she moved languidly before them. She had a single attendant, a heavy white serpent who followed her closely. He hovered at the top of the Plenty, lifting his head out into the Lack.
“He speaks to her,” Maulkin blew out the thought softly. “He petitions her.”
“For memories,” Sessurea filled in. His ruff stood out in a shivering frill of anticipation.
“No!” Maulkin was suddenly incredulous, almost angry. “For food! He petitions only that she should bestow food upon him, food that she finds undesirable.”
His tail lashed the atmosphere so suddenly and savagely that it thickened with bottom particles. “This is not right!” he trumpeted. “This is a lure and a cheat! Her fragrance is that of She Who Remembers, and yet she is not of our kind. And that one speaks to her, and yet not to her, for she does not answer, and it was promised, forever promised, that she would always answer one who petitioned her. It is not right!”
There was great pain in the depth of his fury. His mane stood out wide, welling toxins in a choking cloud. Shreever wove her head aside from it. “Maulkin,” she besought quietly. “Maulkin, what must we do?”
“I do not know,” he replied bitterly. “There is nothing of this in holy lore, nothing of this in my tattered memories. I do not know. For myself, I shall follow her, simply to try to understand.” He bugled lower. “If you choose to return to the rest of the tangle, I will not fault you. Perhaps I have led you awry. Perhaps all my memories have been a deception of my own poisons.” His mane went suddenly limp with disappointment. He did not even look to see if they followed him as he trailed after the silver provider and her white hanger-on.
“Kyle! Let him go!” Vivacia shrieked the words at him, but there was no command in them, only fear. She leaned wildly to swat at the white serpent. “Go away, you foul thing! Get away from me! You shall not have him, you shall never have him!”
Her motion set the entire ship to rocking. She unbalanced her hull, making the entire ship list suddenly and markedly. She flailed at the serpent, ineffectual slapping motions of her massive wooden arms that rocked the ship wildly. “Get away, get away!” she screamed at it, and then, “Wintrow! Kyle!”
As Kyle dragged Wintrow toward the rail and the expectant serpent, Vivacia threw back her head and shrieked, “Gantry! In Sa's name, get up here! GANTRY!”
Throughout the ship, other voices rose in a babel of confusion. Crew members shouted to one another, demanding to know what was going on, while in the holds slaves screamed wordlessly, terrified of anything — fire, shipwreck or storm — that might come upon them while they were chained down in the dark below the waterline. The fear and misery in the ship was suddenly palpable, a thick miasma that smelt of human waste and sweat and left a coppery taste in Kyle's mouth and a greasy sheen of hopelessness on his skin.
“Stop it! Stop it!” Kyle heard himself shouting hoarsely, but was unsure of whom he ordered. He gripped Wintrow by the front of his tattered robe. He shook the unresisting boy, yet it was not the boy he battled.
Gantry was suddenly on the deck, barefoot and shirtless, the pale confusion of interrupted sleep in his face. “What is it?” he demanded, and then at sight of the serpent head that reared up near deck-high, he cried out wordlessly. In as close to panic as Kyle had ever seen the man, he snatched up a polishing stone from the deck. Two-handed he gripped it, and then he reared back and threw it at the serpent with such force that Kyle heard the cracking of his muscles. The serpent evaded it lazily with a gentle sway of its neck, and then slowly sank back down out of sight beneath the water. It was visible only as an unevenness in the pattern of the waves.
As if awakening from a nightmare, all purpose and understanding of what he was doing suddenly left Kyle. He looked at the boy he gripped without any clear idea of what his intent had been. Strength suddenly forsook him. He let Wintrow fall to the deck at his feet.
Chest heaving, Gantry turned to Kyle. “What is it?” he demanded. “What set this off?”
Vivacia was now uttering short panting shrieks, answered by incoherent cries from the slaves in the hold. Wintrow still sprawled where Kyle had dropped him. Gantry took two steps and looked down on the boy, then looked up at Kyle incredulously. “You did this?” he asked. “Why? The boy is knocked senseless.”
Kyle merely stared at him, speechless. Gantry shook his head and then glanced up at the sky as if imploring help from above. “Quiet down!” he snapped at the figurehead. “And I'll see to him. But quiet down, you're upsetting everyone. Mild! Mild, I want the medicine chest. And tell Torg I want the keys to these stupid chains, too. Easy. Easy, my lady, we'll soon have things put as right as I can make them. Please. Calm down. It's gone now, and I'll see to the boy.” To a gaping sailor he shouted, “Evans. Go below, wake my watch. Have them go among the slaves and calm them, tell them there's nothing to fear.”
“I touched it,” Kyle heard Vivacia tell Gantry breathlessly. “I hit it, and when I hit it, it knew me. Only I wasn't me!”
“It's going to be all right,” Gantry repeated doggedly.
The ship lurched again as Vivacia leaned far down to scrub her hands in the sea. She was still making small, frightened sounds.
Kyle forced himself to look down at his son. Wintrow was out cold. He massaged the puffy knuckles of his right hand and abruptly knew how hard he'd hit the boy. Hard enough to loosen teeth at least, possibly enough to break his face. Damn. He'd been going to feed the boy to the serpent. His own son. He knew he'd struck Wintrow, he recalled doing it. What he could not recall was why. What had goaded him into it? “He's all right,” he told Gantry gruffly. “More than likely he's faking it.”
“More than likely,” Gantry agreed sarcastically. He took a breath as if to speak, then suddenly seemed to change his mind. A moment later he said in a low voice, “Sir, we should make some sort of a weapon. A pike or a spear. Something. For that monster.”
“We'd probably just make it mad,” Kyle said uneasily. “Serpents follow slavers all the time. I've never heard of them attacking the ship itself. It will be content with the dead slaves.”
Gantry looked at him as if he hadn't heard him correctly. “What if we don't have any?” he said, speaking very clearly. “What if we're as smart and good as you said we'd be, and we don't kill half of them off on the way? What if it gets hungry? And what if the ship just plain doesn't like it? Shouldn't we try to get rid of it for her?” Belatedly his eyes roved over the idle sailors that were gathering to overhear this exchange. “Get back to your tasks!” he barked at them harshly. “If any man has nothing to do, let me know. I'll find him something.” As the sailors dispersed, he swung his attention back to Wintrow. “I think he's just stunned,” he muttered. “Mild!” he bellowed again, just as
