Robin Hobb - Ship of Magic

“As you will.” Moving stiffly, his father drew off what remained of his shirt. The left side of his chest was black and blue. Wintrow winced at the clear imprint of a boot in his flesh. It had obviously been done after his father was already down. The rags and the water were the only supplies he had; the ship's medicine chest had completely disappeared. Doggedly, he set out to at least bind the ribs enough to give them some support. His father gasped at his touch, but did not jerk away. When Wintrow had tied the final knot, Kyle Haven spoke.

“You hate me, don't you, boy?”

“I don't know.” Wintrow dipped a rag and started to dab blood from his face.

“I do,” his father said after a moment. “It's in your face. You can scarcely stand to be in this room with me, let alone touch me.”

“You did try to kill me,” Wintrow heard himself say calmly.

“Yes. I did. I did at that.” His father gave a baffled laugh, then gasped with the pain of it. “Damn me if I know why. But it certainly seemed like a good idea at the time.”

Wintrow sensed he would get no more explanation than that. Perhaps he didn't want one. He was tired of trying to understand his father. He didn't want to hate him. He didn't want to feel anything for him at all. He found himself wishing his father had not existed in his life. “Why did it have to be this way?” he wondered aloud.

“You chose it,” Kyle Haven asserted. “It didn't have to be this way. If you had just tried it my way… just done as you were told, without question, we'd all be fine. Couldn't you have, just once, trusted that someone else knew what was good for you?”

Wintrow glanced about the room as if looking about the entire ship. “I don't think any of this was good for anyone,” he observed quietly.

“Only because you muddled it! You and the ship. If you both had cooperated, we'd be halfway to Chalced by now. And Gantry and Mild and… all of them would still be alive. You're to blame for this, not I! You chose this.”

Wintrow tried to think of an answer to that, but none came. He began to bind his father's head wound as best as he could.

They worked her decks well, these brightly clad pirates. Not since Ephron had sailed her had she enjoyed a crew so swiftly responsive to her. She found herself in turn accepting their competent mastery of her sails and rigging in a sort of relief. Under Brig's direction, the former slaves moved in an orderly procession, drawing buckets of water and taking them below to clean her holds. Others pumped the filthy bilge out while still others worked with scrubbing stones on her deck. No matter how they abraded the blood stains, her wood would never release them. She knew that, but spoke no word of it. In time the humans would see the futility of it and give it up. The spilled food had been gathered and restowed. Some few worked at removing the chains and fetters that festooned her holds. Slowly they were restoring her to herself. It was the closest she had felt to content since the day she had been quickened.

Content. And there was something else she felt, something unsettling. Something much more fascinating than contentment.

She extended her awareness. In the mate's cabin, Kyle Haven sat on the edge of the narrow bunk while his son silently washed the blood from the gash on his head. His ribs were already wrapped.

There was a quiet in the room that went beyond silence, as if they did not even share a language. The silence ached. She pulled away from it.

In the captain's salon, the pirate dozed restlessly. She was not aware of him as keenly as she was of Wintrow. But she could sense the heat of his fever, feel the uneven rhythm of his breathing. Like a moth drawn to a candleflame, she approached him. Kennit. She tried the name on her tongue. A wicked man. And dangerous. A charming, wicked and dangerous man. She did not think she liked his woman. But Kennit himself… He had said he would win her to him. He could not, of course. He was not family. But she found that there was great pleasure in anticipating his attempts. My lady of wood and wind, he had called her. My beauty. My swift one. Such silly things for a man to say to a ship. She smoothed her hair back from her face and took a deep breath.

Perhaps Wintrow had been right. Perhaps it was time she discovered what she wanted for herself.

“I was wrong. It is not She Who Remembers. Come away.”

“But… I do not understand,” Shreever pleaded. She had a great gash down her shoulder where the white serpent had attacked her with his teeth. With his teeth, as if he were a shark instead of serpent. A thick green ichor was already closing the wound, but it stung sharply as she hurried to keep pace with Maulkin. Behind them, Sessurea trailed, as puzzled as she was.

“I do not understand either.” Maulkin's mane streamed behind him in the speed of his flowing. Behind them the white serpent still trumpeted mindlessly, gorging endlessly. Faint as old memories, the scent of blood wafted through the atmosphere. “I recall her scent. I have no doubt of her fragrance. But that… thing… is not She Who Remembers.”

Sessurea lashed his tail suddenly to draw even with them. “The white serpent,” he asked suddenly, dread in his voice. “What was wrong with him?”

“Nothing,” Maulkin said in a terribly soft voice. “I fear nothing was wrong with him, except that he is further along in the passage we all make now. Soon, I fear, we shall all be just like him.”

“I don't understand,” Shreever said again. But a cold dread was welling up in her, a sense that she would understand, if she chose to.

“He has forgotten. That is all.” Maulkin's voice was devoid of any emotion.

“Forgotten… what?” Sessurea asked.

“Everything,” Maulkin said. His mane suddenly drooped, his colors dulled. “Everything except feeding, and shedding and growing. All else, all that is real and significant, he has forgotten. As I fear we all shall forget, if She Who Remembers does not manifest herself to us soon.” He turned abruptly, wrapping them both in his coiling embrace. They did not struggle, but took comfort in it. His touch sharpened their memories and cognizance. Together they settled slowly to the soft muck, sinking into it still entwined. “My tangle,” he said fondly, and with a pang Shreever knew the truth of it. These three were all that was left of Maulkin's tangle.

They relaxed in their leader's embrace. Soon only their heads remained above the muck. They relaxed, their gills moved in unison. Slowly, comfortingly, Maulkin spoke the holy lore to them.

“After the first birth, we were Masters. We grew, we learned, we experienced. And all that we learned, we shared with one another, so that wisdom ever grew greater. But no bodies are made to last forever. So the time of mating came, and essences were exchanged and mixed and deposited. Our old bodies we laid down forever, knowing we would take up new ones, as new beings. And we did. Small and new we emerged. We fed, we shed, and we grew. But we did not all remember. Only some. Some guarded for us the memories of all. And when the time was right, those who remembered called to us with their fragrances. They led us back, and gave us our memories. And we emerged again as Masters, to roam both Plenty and Lack, amassing still more wisdom and experience, to mingle it yet again at the time of mating.”

He paused in the familiar tale. “I do not recall, now, how many times that has come to pass,” he confessed. “Cycle after cycle, we have survived. But this last time of shedding and growing… has not it been the longest ever? Do not more and more of us forget that we are meant to be Masters? I fear we decline, my tangle. Did I not once, long ago, recall far more than I do today? Did not you?”