Ship of Magic

“Men,” Sorcor interrupted harshly. “Women and kiddies. Not wares. If you'd ever been inside one of those ship . . . and I don't mean on the deck, I mean inside, chained up in a hold . . . you wouldn't say ‘wares.’ No. No slavers, Kennit. Slavers made us what we are. If we're going to change that, then we start by doing to them what they done to us. We take their lives away. Besides. It's not just that they're evil. They bring the serpents. The stink of slaveships is what lured the serpents into our channels in the first place. We get rid of the slaveships, maybe the serpents will go, too. Hells, Cap'n, they lure the serpents right into our islands and ways, chumming them along with dead slaves. And they bring disease. They breed sickness in those holds full of poor wretches, sickness we never knew or had before. Every time a slaveship ties up to take on water, they leave disease in their wake. No. No slavers.”

“All right, then,” Kennit agreed mildly. “No slavers.” He'd never suspected Sorcor had an idea in his skull, let alone that he'd felt so passionately about something. A miscalculation. He looked anew at Sorcor. The man might have to be discarded. Not just yet, and perhaps not for some time. But at some point in the future, he might outlive his usefulness. Kennit decided he must keep that in mind, and make no long-range plans based on Sorcor's skills. He smiled at him. “You are right, of course. I am sure there are many of our folk who will agree with you, and can be won over to us with such an idea.” He nodded again as if considering it. “Yes. No slavers, then. But all of this, of course, is a way down the wind. Were we to voice such ideas now, no one would listen to us. They'd say that what we suggested was impossible. Or every man would want to try it for himself, competing with every other. It would be ship against ship. We don't want that. So we must keep this idea quiet and private between us, until we've got every pirate in the islands looking up to us and ready to believe what we tell them.”

“That's likely so,” Sorcor agreed after a moment's pondering. “So. How do we get them to listen to us?”

Finally. The question he had been leading him to ask. Kennit came swiftly back to the table. He forced himself to pause for the drama of the moment. He set his own glass down, and uncorked the bottle. He refilled Sorcor's glass, and added a dollop to his own nearly full glass. “We make them believe we can do the impossible. By doing things all others deem impossible. Such as, say, capturing a liveship and using it as our main vessel.”

Sorcor scowled at him. “Kennit, old friend, that's crazy. No wooden ship can capture a liveship. They're too fleet. I've heard tell that the ship herself can scent a passage through a channel, and cry it to her steersman. And that they can feel the luff of the wind, and catch and use a breath of air that wouldn't budge another ship. Besides, even if we did fall upon one and manage to kill off her crew, the ship itself would be no good to us. They'll only sail for their own family members. Anyone else, they turn on. The ship would run herself aground, or onto the rocks, or just turn turtle on us. Look at that death ship, what was his name? The one that went mad and turned on his own family and crew? He rolled and took all hands with him. Not once, but three times, or so I've heard. And the last time they found him, he was floating upside down in the mouth of Bingtown harbor itself. Some say the ghost crew brought him home, others that he came back to show them Traders what he'd done. They dragged him out and beached him, and there he's been ever since. Pariah. That was his name. The Pariah.'”

“The Paragon” Kennit corrected him with wry amusement. “His name was the Paragon, though even his own family have taken to calling him the Pariah. Yes, I've heard all the old myths and legends about liveships, Sorcor. But that's what they are. Myths and legends. I believe a liveship could be taken and could be used. And if the heart of the ship could be won over, you'd have a vessel for piracy that no other ship could stand against. It's true, what you say about the currents and winds and liveships. True, also, that they can sense a serpent long before a man can spot him, and cry it out to the archers to be ready. A liveship would be the perfect vessel for piracy. And for charting out new passages through the Pirate Isles, or balding serpents. I'm not saying we should forsake all else and go hunting a liveship. I'm just saying that if one comes our way, instead of saying there's no use in pursing it, let's give it a chase. If we win it, we win it. If not, well, plenty of other ships get away from us. We'll have lost no more than we had before.”

“Why a liveship?” Sorcor asked bewilderedly. “I don't get it.”

“I ... want one. That's why.”