Ship of Magic

“You know very well what I speak of. His hands were all over you. Bad enough that you look like a dusty slattern, but then to let a deckhand manhandle you while you dangle all but upside down . . .”

“I had to put the peg in. It was the only way I could reach.” She looked away from Kyle's face, mottled red with his anger, to her mother and sister. “The ship is quickened,” she announced softly but formally. “The liveship Vivacia is now aware.”

And my father is dead. She did not speak the words aloud, but the reality of them cut her again, deeper and sharper. It seemed to her that each time she thought she had grasped the fact of his death, a few moments later it struck her again even harder.

“What are people going to think of her?” Kyle was demanding of Keffria in an undertone. The two younger children stared at her openly, while the older boy, Wintrow, looked aside from them all as if even being near them made him acutely uncomfortable. Althea felt she could not grasp all that was happening around her. Too much had occurred, too fast. Kyle attempting to put her off the ship, her father's death, the quickening of the ship, his dismissal of Brashen, and now his anger at her for simply doing a thing that had needed doing. It all seemed too much for her to deal with, but at the same time she felt a terrible void. She groped inside herself, trying to discover what she had forgotten or neglected.

“Althea?”

It was Vivacia, calling up to her anxiously. She leaned over the railing to look down at her, almost sighing.

“Yes?”

“I know your name. Althea.”

“Yes. Thank you, Vivacia.” And in that moment, she knew what the void was. It was all she had expected to feel, the joy and wonder at the ship's quickening. The moment, so long awaited, had come and gone. Vivacia was awakened. And save for the first flush of triumph, she felt nothing of what she had expected to feel. The price had been too high.

The instant her mind held the thought, she wished she could unthink it. It was the ultimate in betrayal, to stand on this deck, not so far from her father's body, and think that the cost had been too high, that the liveship was not worth the death of her father, let alone the death of her grandfather and great-grandma. And it was not a fair thought. She knew that. Ship or no, they all would have died. Vivacia was not the cause of their deaths, but rather the sum total of their legacies. In her, they lived on. Something inside her eased a bit. She leaned over the side, trying to think of something coherent and welcoming to say to this new being. “My father would have been very proud of you,” she managed at last.

The simple words woke her grief again. She wanted to put her head down on her arms and sob, but would not allow herself to, lest she alarm the ship.

“He would have been proud of you, also. He knew this would be difficult for you.”

The ship's voice had changed. In moments, it had gone from high and girlish to the rich, throaty voice of a grown woman. When Althea looked down into her face, she saw more understanding than she could bear. This time she did not try to stop the tears that flowed down her cheeks. “I just don't understand it,” she said brokenly to the ship. Then she swung her gaze back to her family, who like her lined the railing and looked down at Vivacia's face.

“I don't understand it,” she said more loudly, although her thickened voice was not more clear. “Why did he do this? Why, after all the years, did he give Vivacia to Keffria and leave me with nothing?”

She spoke her words to her mother's stern anguish, but it was Kyle who dared to speak. “Maybe he wanted her to be in responsible hands. Maybe he wanted to entrust her to someone who had shown he could be reliable and steady and care for someone besides herself.”

“I'm not talking to you!” Althea shrieked at him. “Can't you just shut up?” She knew she sounded childish and hysterical and she hated it. But there had just been too much to take today. She had no control left. If he spoke to her again, she would fly at him and claw him to shreds.

“Be quiet, Kyle,” her mother bade him firmly. “Althea. Compose yourself. This is neither the time nor the place. We will discuss this later, at home, in private. In fact, I need to discuss it with you. I want you to understand your father's intentions. But for now there is his body to dispose of, and the formal presentation of the ship. The Traders and other liveships must be notified of his death, and boats hired to bring them out to witness his burial at sea. And . . . Althea? Althea, come back here, right now!”