Ship of Magic

So as he dozed in the sun, what he chose to recall was satiation and warmth. The gentle scratching of the sand beneath his hull translated into an elusively similar sensation that refused to be completely called to his mind. He did not try very hard. It was enough to cling to an ancient memory of feeling replete and satisfied and warm.

The men's voices stirred him from that. “This is it? This has been here for, what did you say? Thirty years?” An accent flavored the words. Jamaillian, Paragon thought to himself. And from the capital, Jamaillia City itself. Those from the south provinces swallowed their end consonants. This he recalled without knowing the source of the knowledge.

“This is it,” another voice replied. The second voice was older.

“This has not been here thirty years,” the younger voice asserted. “A ship pulled out and left on a beach for thirty years would be worm-holed and barnacled over.”

“Unless it's made from wizardwood,” responded the older voice. “Liveships don't rot, Mingsley. Nor do barnacles or tubeworms find them appetizing. That is but one of the reasons the ships are so expensive, and so desirable. They endure for generations, with little of the hull maintenance an ordinary ship requires. Out on the seas, they take care of themselves. They'll yell to a steersman if they see hazards in their paths. Some of them near sail themselves. What other vessel can warn you that a cargo has shifted, or that you've overloaded them? A wizardwood ship on the sea is a wonder to behold! What other vessel . . .”

“Sure. So tell me again why this one was hauled out and abandoned?” The younger voice sounded extremely skeptical. Mingsley did not trust his older guide, that much was certain.

Paragon could almost hear the older man shrug. “You know what a superstitious lot sailors are. This ship has a reputation for bad luck. Very bad luck. I might as well tell you, because if I don't someone else will. He's killed a lot of men, the Paragon has. Including the owner and his son.”

“Um.” Mingsley mused. “Well, if I buy it, I wouldn't be buying it as a ship. I wouldn't expect to pay a ship's price for it, either. Quite honestly, it's the wood I want. I've heard a lot of strange things about it, and not just that the liveships quicken and then move and speak. I've seen that down in the harbor. Not that a newcomer like me is very welcome on the North wall where the liveships tie up. But I've seen them move and heard them speak. Seems to me, if you can make a figurehead do that, you could do it with a smaller carving of the same wood. Do you know how much they'd pay for something like that in Jamaillia City? A moving, speaking carving?”

“I've no idea,” the older man demurred.

The young man gave a snort of sarcastic laughter. “Of course you don't! It's never occurred to you, has it? Come on, man, be honest with me. Why hasn't this ever been done before?”

“I don't know.” The older man spoke too hastily to be believable.

“Right,” Mingsley replied skeptically. “All the years Bingtown has existed on the Cursed Shores, and no one has thought of marketing wizardwood anywhere except to the residents of Bingtown. And then only as ships. What's the real catch? Does it have to be this big before it can quicken? Does it have to be immersed in salt water a certain amount of the time? What?”

“It's just . . . never been done. Bingtown is an odd place, Mingsley. We have our own traditions, our own folklore, our own superstitions. When our ancestors left Jamaillia all those years ago and came to try to colonize the Cursed Shores, well . . . most came because they had no other options left. Some were criminals, some had shamed or ruined their family names, some were very unpopular with the Satrap himself. It was almost an exiling. They were told that if they survived, each family could claim two hundred leffers of land and would be granted amnesty for their past. He also promised us we would be left in peace, with trade monopoly over whatever goods we found worth trading. In return for the Satrap granting them this, they ceded to him a fifty percent tax on their profits. For years, this bargain worked well.”