Ship of Magic

The rocking increased, a marked motion that the Marietta did not match. The anchor rope creaked complainingly. Most unnerving for Wintrow, the distant serpents lashed the surface of the sea, trumpeting questioningly. The ugly heads swayed back and forth, mouths gaping as if awaiting food. A smaller one darted forward suddenly, to dare an attack at the white one, who screamed and slashed at it with myriad teeth. Cries of fear arose from Vivacia's deck as slaves retreated from the railings and from the foredeck, to pack themselves tightly together. From the questioning tones of the cries, Wintrow surmised that few of them had any understanding of what the liveship was.

Suddenly a woman broke free of the pirate group, to race across the deck and then swarm up onto the foredeck. Wintrow had never seen anything like her. She was tall and lean, her hair cropped close. The rich fabric of her skirts and loose shirt were soaked to her body, as if she had stood watch on deck all night, yet she looked no more bedraggled than a wet tigress would. She landed with a thud before him. “Come down,” she said to him, and her eyes made it more a command than her voice did. “Come down to him now. Don't make him wait.”

He did not answer her. Instead he spoke to the ship. “Don't fear,” he told her.

“We are not the ones who need to fear,” Vivacia replied. He had the satisfaction of seeing the woman's face go blank with astonishment. It was one thing to hear the liveship speak, another to stand close enough to see the angry glints in her eyes. She glowered scornfully at the woman on her deck. The Vivacia gave a sudden shake to her head that tossed her carved tresses back from her face. It was a womanly display, a challenge from one man's female to another. The woman brushed back from her brow the short black strands that had fallen over her forehead and returned the figurehead's stare. For an instant it shocked Wintrow that the two could look so different and yet so frighteningly alike.

Wintrow did not wait any longer. He leaped lightly from the foredeck to the waist of the ship. Head up, he strode across the deck to confront the pirates. He did not even look at Sa'Adar. The more he saw of the man, the less he thought of him as a priest.

The pirate chief was a large, well-muscled man. Dark eyes glinted above the burn scar on his cheek. A former slave himself, then. His unruly hair was caught back in a queue and further confined in a bright gold kerchief. Like his woman, his opulent clothing was soaked to him. A man who worked his own deck, then, Wintrow thought, and felt a grudging respect for that.

He met the man's gaze. “I am Wintrow Vestrit, of the Bingtown Trader Vestrits. You stand on the decks of the liveship Vivacia, also of the Vestrit Family.”

But it was a tall pale man next to the scarred man who replied to him. “I am Captain Kennit. You address my esteemed first mate, Sorcor. And the ship that was yours is now mine.”

Wintrow looked him up and down, shocked beyond speech. Numbed as his nose was to the stench of humans, this man reeked of disease. He glanced down to where Kennit's leg stopped, and took note of the crutch he leaned on, on the swollen leg that distended the fabric of his trousers as a sausage stuffs a casing. When he met Kennit's pale eyes, he noted how large and fever-bright they were, how the man's flesh clung to his skull. When Wintrow replied, he spoke gently to the dying man. “This ship can never be yours. She is a liveship. She can only belong to one of the Vestrit family.”

Kennit made a brief motion of his hand to indicate Kyle. “Yet this man claims he is the owner.” Wintrow's father yet managed to stand, and almost straight. Neither fear nor his physical pain did he permit to show. He was a man who waited now. Kyle spoke not a word to his son.

Wintrow shaped his words with care. “He ‘owns’ her, yes, in the sense that one can own a thing. But she is mine. I do not claim to own her, any more than a father can claim to own his child.”

Captain Kennit looked him up and down disdainfully. “You look a bit young of a pup to be claiming any kind of a child. And by the mark on your face, I would say the ship owned you. I take it your father married into a Trader family, then, but you are blood of that line.”

“I am a Vestrit by blood, yes.” Wintrow kept his voice even.

“Ah.” Again the small gesture of his hand toward Kyle. “Then we don't need your father. Only you.” Kennit turned back to Sa'Adar. “That one you may have, as you requested. And those other two.”