"Now I am layer upon layer upon layer," he observed as he held her up to the railing. "Dragon and dragon, under Paragon Ludluck, under… whoever this is. Will you give me his name, also?"

"'Paragon' suits you better than any other name could." She asked quietly, "Dragon and dragon?"

"Quite well, thank you, and how are you today?" He grinned as he said it. His polite nothing conveyed his intent. His dragons were his business, just as the identity of the man whose face he wore was hers.

Brashen had come to the foredeck. Now, as Amber climbed down from the railing, he sternly reminded her, "I don't like you out there without a line on you. At the clip we're going, by the time we discovered you were gone, it would be too late."

"Do you still fear I would let her fall unnoticed, Brashen?" Paragon asked gravely.

BRASHEN LOOKED AT THE SHIP'S CLOSED EYES. HIS BOYISH BROW WAS UNLINED, serene, as he waited for Brashen's reply. After a short but very uncomfortable silence, Brashen found words. "A captain's duty is to worry about all possibilities, ship." He changed the subject, addressing Amber. "So. Nice earring. Are you nearly finished, then?"

"I am finished. Save for a bit of smoothing on his face." She pursed her lips thoughtfully. "And I may do some ornamentation on his accoutrements."

Brashen leaned out on the forerail. He swept his eyes critically over the whole figurehead. She had accomplished an amazing amount of work in a very short time. From her myriad sketches, he surmised she had been planning this since they left Bingtown. In addition to the earring, the extra bits of wood Amber had carved away to reshape his face had been fashioned into a wide copper bracelet for his wrist and a leather battle harness pegged to his chest. A short-handled battle-axe hung from it.

"Handsome," Brashen observed. In a quieter voice, he asked Amber, "Are you going to fix his nose?"

"There is nothing wrong with his nose," Amber asserted warningly.

"Mm." Brashen considered the crooked line of it. "Well, I suppose a sailor should have a scar or two to his face. And a broken nose gives him a very determined look. Why the axe?"

"I had wood to use up," Amber replied, almost evasively. "It's only ornamental. He has given it the colors of a real weapon, but it remains wizardwood."

Mother made an assenting sound. She sat cross-legged on the deck, a logbook open in her lap. She seemed always to be there, mumbling through the words. She read the logbooks as devoutly as some folk read Sa's Edicts.

"It completes him," Amber agreed with great satisfaction. She drew her discarded gloves back on and began gathering her tools. "And I'm suddenly tired."

"Doesn't surprise me. Get some sleep, then come to my quarters. We draw closer to Divvytown with every breath of this wind. I want to discuss strategy."

Amber smiled wryly. "I thought we had agreed we didn't have any, except go to Divvytown and let the word out that we want to trade Kennit's mother for Althea."

Mother's bright eyes followed the conversation. She nodded assent.

"And you see no flaws in that plan? Such as, perhaps, the whole town rising against us and taking her to gain favor with Kennit?"

Mother shook her head; her gestures indicated she would oppose such an act.

"Oh, that. Well, the whole plan is so riddled with flaws that one of that magnitude seemed too obvious to mention," Amber replied lightly.

Brashen frowned. "We gamble for Althea's life. This isn't a jest to me, Amber."

"Nor to me," the carpenter swiftly replied. "I know you are worried to the bone and justly so. But for me to dwell on that anxiety with you will not lessen it. Instead, we must focus on our hopes. If we cannot anchor ourselves in a belief that we will succeed, we have already been defeated." She stood, hefted her tools to her shoulder, then cocked her head and looked at him sympathetically. "I don't know if it will draw any water with you, Brashen, but there is something I know, right down to my bones. I will see Althea again. There will come a time when we will all stand together again. Beyond that moment, I cannot see. But, of that, at least, I am sure."

The carpenter's odd eyes had taken on a dreaming quality. Their color seemed to shift between dark gold and pale brown. It sent a chill up his back, yet he was oddly comforted by it. He could not share her equanimity, but he could not doubt her, either.

"There. You see. Your faith is stronger than your doubts." Amber smiled at him. In a less mystical voice she asked, "Has Kyle told you anything useful?"

Brashen shook his head sourly. "To listen to him wearies me. A hundred times, he has detailed how both Vivacia and Wintrow betrayed him. It is the only thing he willingly discusses. I think he must have lived it repeatedly the whole time he was chained in that cellar. He speaks only evil of them both. It is harder to control my temper when he says Althea brought all her troubles on herself and should be left to face them the same way. He urges us to return immediately to Bingtown, to forget Althea, his son, the family ship, all of it. And when I say I will not, he curses me. The last time I spoke to him, he slyly asked if Althea and I had not been in league with Wintrow from the beginning. He hints that he knows we have all plotted against him." Brashen shook his head bitterly. "You have heard his tale of how Wintrow seized the ship from him, only to give it to Kennit. Does any of that sound possible to you?"

Amber gave a tiny shrug. "I do not know Wintrow. But this I do know. When circumstances are right, unlikely people do extraordinary things.

When the weight of the world is behind them, the push of events and time itself will align to make incredible things happen. Look around you, Brashen. You skirt the center of the vortex, so close you do not see how wondrous are the circumstances surrounding us. We are being swept toward a climax in time, a critical choice-point where all the future must go one way, or another.

"Liveships are wakening to their true pasts. Serpents, reputed to be myths when you were a boy, are now accepted as natural. The serpents speak, Brashen, to Paragon, and Paragon speaks to us. When last did humanity concede intelligence to another race of creatures? What will it mean to your children and your grandchildren? You are caught up in a grand sweep of events, culminating in the changing of the course of the world." She lowered her voice and a smile touched her mouth. "Yet all you can perceive is that you are separated from Althea. A man's loss of his mate may be the essential trigger that determines all events from henceforth. Do you not see how strange and wonderful that is? That all history balances on an affair of the human heart?"

He looked at the odd woman and shook his head. "That isn't how I see it, Amber. That isn't how I see it at all. It's just my life, and now that I have finally discovered what I must have to be happy, I'm willing to lay down my life for it. That's all."

She smiled. "That is all. You are right. And that is all that AH ever is."

Brashen drew a shuddering breath. Her words were edged with mystery and fraught with import. He shook his head. "I'm just a simple sailor."

Mother had been watching the interchange intently. Now she smiled, a smile at once beatific in its peacefulness and terrifying in its acceptance. The expression was like a confirmation of all Amber had said. Brashen felt suddenly cornered by the two women, compelled toward he knew not what. He fixed his gaze on Mother. "You know your son. Do you think there is any chance we will succeed?"

She smiled, but sorrow edged it. She lifted her shoulders in an old woman's shrug.

Paragon spoke. "She thinks you will succeed. But whether you will know you have succeeded, or if the success will be the one you would have chosen for yourself, well, those are things no one can say now. But she knows you will succeed at whatever you are meant to do."