Robin Hobb: Ship of Destiny

The brief pause had only made her more aware of her hampered body's weariness. It took all of her will to make her push on. An instant later, all weariness fled as a white serpent flashed by her. He did not seem to notice her in his single-minded pursuit of the ship. The odd scent of the vessel must have confused him. Her hearts thundered wildly. "Here I am!" she called after him. "Here. I am She Who Remembers. I have come to you at last!"

The white swam on in effortless undulations of his thick, pale body. He did not even turn his head to her call. She stared in shock, then hastened after him, her weariness temporarily forgotten. She dragged herself after him, gasping with the effort.

She found him shadowing the ship. He slipped about in the dimness beneath it, muttering and mewling incomprehensibly at the planks of the ship's hull. His mane of poisonous tendrils was semierect; a faint stream of bitter toxins tainted the water around him. A slow horror grew in She Who Remembers as she watched his senseless actions. From the depths of her soul every instinct she had warned against him. Such strange behavior hinted of disease or madness.

But he was the first of her own kind that she had seen since the day she had hatched. The drawing of chat kinship was more powerful than any revulsion and so she eased closer to him. "Greetings," she ventured timidly. "Do you seek One Who Remembers? I am She."

In reply, his great red eyes spun antagonistically, and he darted a warning snap at her. "Mine!" he trumpeted hoarsely. "Mine. My food." He pressed his erect mane against the ship, leaking toxins against her hull. "Feed me," he demanded of the ship. "Give food."

She retreated hastily. The white serpent continued his nuzzling quest along the ship's hull. She Who Remembers caught a faint scent of anxiety from the ship. Peculiar. The whole situation was as odd as a dream, and like a dream, it teased her with possible meanings and almost understandings. Could the ship actually be reacting to the white serpent's toxins and calls? No, that was ridiculous. The mysterious scent of the vessel was confusing both of them.

She Who Remembers shook out her own mane and felt it grow turgid with her potent poisons. The act gave her a sense of power. She matched herself against the white serpent. He was larger than she was, and more muscled, his body fit and knowledgeable. But that did not matter. She could kill him. Despite her stunted body and inexperience, she could paralyze him and send him drifting to the bottom. In the next moment, despite the powerful intoxication of her own body's secretions, she knew she was even stronger than that. She could enlighten him and let him live.

"White serpent!" she trumpeted. "Heed me! I have memories to share with you, memories of all our race has been, memories to sharpen your own recollections. Prepare to receive them."

He paid no heed to her words. He did not make himself ready, but she did not care. This was her destiny. For this, she had been hatched. He would be the first recipient of her gift, whether he welcomed it or not. Awkwardly, hampered by her stunted body, she launched herself toward him. He turned to her supposed attack, mane erect, but she ignored his petty toxins. With an ungainly thrust, she wrapped him. At the same moment, she shook her mane, releasing the most powerful intoxicant of them all, the deep poisons that would momentarily subdue his own mind and let the hidden mind behind his life open itself once more. He struggled frantically, then suddenly grew stiff as a log in her grip. His whirling ruby eyes grew still but unlidded, bulging from their sockets in shock. He made one abortive effort to gulp a final breath.

It was all she could do to hold him. She wrapped his length in hers and kept him moving through the water. The ship began to pull away from them, but she let it go, almost without reluctance. This single serpent was more important to her than all the mysteries the ship concealed. She held him, twisting her neck to look into his face. She watched his eyes spin, then grow still again. Through a thousand lifetimes, she held him, as the past of his entire race caught up with him. For a time, she let him steep in that history. Then she eased him out of it, releasing the lesser toxins that quieted his deeper mind and let his own brief life come back to the forefront of his thoughts.

"Remember." She breathed out the word softly, charging him with the responsibilities of all his ancestors. "Remember and be." He was quiescent in her coils. She felt his own life suddenly repossess him as a tremor shimmered down his length. His eyes suddenly spun and then focused on hers. He reared his head back from hers. She waited for his worshipful thanks.

The gaze that met hers was accusing.

"Why?" he demanded suddenly. "Why now? When it is too late for all of us? Why couldn't I die ignorant of all that I could have been? Why could not you have left me a beast?"

His words shocked her so that she laxed her grip on him. He whipped himself disdainfully free of her embrace and shot away from her through the water. She was not sure if he fled, or if he abandoned her. Either thought was intolerable. The awakening of his memories should have filled him with joy and purpose, not despair and anger.

"Wait!" she cried after him, but the dim depths swallowed him. She wallowed clumsily after him, knowing she could never match his swiftness. "It can't be too late! No matter what, we must try!" She trumpeted the futile words to the empty Plenty.

He had left her behind. Alone again. She refused to accept it. Her stunted body floundered through the water in pursuit, her mouth open wide to taste the dispersing scent he had left behind. Faint, fainter, and then gone. He was too swift; she was too deformed. Disappointment welled in her, near stunning as her own poisons. She tasted the water again. Nothing of serpent tinged it now.

She cut wider and wider arcs through the water in a desperate search for his scent trail. When she finally found it, both her hearts leapt with determination. She lashed her tail to catch up with him. "Wait!" she trumpeted. "Please. You and I, we are the only hope for our kind! You must listen to me!"

The taste of serpent grew suddenly stronger. The only hope for our kind. The thought seemed to waft to her on the water, as if the words had been breathed to the air rather than trumpeted in the depths. It was the only encouragement she needed.

"I come to you!" she promised, and drove herself on doggedly. But when she reached the source of the serpent scent, she saw no creature save for a silver hull cutting the waves above her.

Malta dug her makeshift paddle into the gleaming water and pushed hard. The little boat edged forward through the water. Swiftly she transferred the cedar plank to the other side of the craft, frowning at the beads of water that dripped from it into the boat when she did so. It couldn't be helped. The plank was all she had for an oar, and rowing on one side of the boat would only spin them in circles. She refused to imagine that the acid drops were even now eating into the planking underfoot. Surely, a tiny bit of Rain Wild River water could not do much damage. She trusted that the powdery white metal on the outside of the boat would keep the river from devouring it, but there was no guarantee of that, either. She pushed the thought from her mind. They had not far to go.

She ached in every limb. She had worked the night through, trying to make their way back to Trehaug. Her exhausted muscles trembled with every effort she demanded of them. Not far to go, she told herself yet again. Their progress had been agonizingly slow. Her head ached abominably but worst was the itching of the healing injury on her forehead. Why must it always itch the worst when she could not spare a hand to scratch?