"I try to imagine going back to my monastery now. I would have to bid farewell to my ship, to Kennit, to you, to my shipmates, to all my life has become. I don't know if I could go back and sit with Berandol and meditate, or pore over my books." He smiled regretfully. "Or work the stained glass I once took such pride in. I would be denying all I had learned out here. I am like a little fish that ventured too far from its placid pool and has been swept into the river. I've learned to survive out here, now. I don't know if I could be content with a contemplative life anymore."
She looked at him oddly. "I didn't mean you should return to your monastery. Only that you should start being a priest again."
"Here? On the ship? Why?"
"Why not? You once told me that if a man is meant to be a priest, nothing could divert him from that. It will happen to him, no matter where he is. That perhaps Sa had put you here because there was something you were meant to do here. Destiny, and all that."
She spoke his words flippantly, but beneath her tone he heard a desperate hope.
"But why?" he repeated. "Why do you urge me to do this now?"
She turned aside from him. "Perhaps I miss the way you used to talk. How you used to argue that there was meaning and structure to all that happened, even if we could not immediately perceive it. There was a comfort to hearing you say that, even if I couldn't completely believe it. About destiny and all."
Her hand strayed to her breast, then pulled away. He knew what she flinched from touching. In a small bag about her neck, she wore the charm from Others' Island, the figurine of a baby. She had shown it to him while he was still recovering from his "miracle cure." He had sensed how important it was to Etta but had not given it any serious thought since then. Obviously, she had. She considered the odd charm as an omen of some kind. Perhaps if Wintrow believed that the Others were truly soothsayers and prophets, he would share her opinion, but he didn't. Likely, a trick of winds and tides carried all manner of debris to the beach, and her charm among it. As for the Others themselves, the serpent he had freed had imprinted her opinion of them on him.
Abominations. Her precise meaning had not been clear, but her horror and loathing was plain. They should never have been. They were thieves of a past not their own, with no power to foretell the future. The charm Etta had found in her boot was a mere coincidence, of no more portent than the sand that had been with it.
He could not share his opinion with Etta without affronting her.
Affronting her could be painful. He began carefully, "I still believe that every creature has a unique and significant destiny."
She leapt to it before he could approach it gently. "It could be my destiny to bear Kennit's child: to bring into being a prince for the King of the Pirate Isles."
"It might also be your destiny not to," he pointed out.
Displeasure flashed across her face, replaced by impassivity. He had hurt her. "That is what you believe, then."
He shook his head. "No, Etta. I have no beliefs, either way. I am simply saying that you should not lock your dreams onto a child or a man. Who loves you or who you love is not as significant as who you are. Too many folk, women and men, love the person they wish to be, as if by loving that person, or being loved by that person, they could attain the importance they long for.
"I am not Sa. I lack his almighty wisdom. But I think you are more likely to find Etta's destiny in Etta, rather than hoping Kennit will impregnate you with it."
Anger writhed over her face. Then she sat still, anger still glinting in her eyes, but with it a careful consideration of his words. Finally, she observed gruffly, "It's hard to take offense at your saying that I might be important for myself." Her eyes met his squarely. "I might consider it a compliment. Except that it's hard to believe you are sincere, when you obviously don't believe the same is true of yourself."
She continued into his stunned silence, "You haven't lost your belief in Sa. You've lost your belief in yourself. You speak to me of measuring myself by my significance to Kennit. But you do the same. You evaluate your purpose in terms of Vivacia or Kennit. Pick up your own life, Wintrow, and be responsible for it. Then, perhaps, you may be significant to them."
Like a key turning in a rusty lock. That was the sensation inside him. Or perhaps like a wound that bleeds anew past a closed crust, he thought wryly. He sifted her words, searching for a flaw in her logic, for a trick in her wording. There was none. She was right. Somehow, sometime, he had abdicated responsibility for his life. His hard-won meditations, the fruit of another lifetime of studying and Berandol's guidance, had become platitudes he mouthed without applying them to himself. He suddenly recalled a callow boy telling his tutor that he dreaded the sea voyage home, because he would have to be among common men rather than thoughtful acolytes like himself. What had he said to Berandol? "Good enough men, but not like us." Then, he had despised the sort of life where simply getting from day to day prevented a man from ever taking stock of himself. Berandol had hinted to him then that a time out in the world might change his image of folk who labored every day for their bread. Had it? Or had it changed his image of acolytes who spent so much time in self-examination that they never truly experienced life?
He had been plunged into the world of ships and sailing against his will. He had never truly embraced it, or accepted all it might offer him. He looked back now, and saw a pattern of resistance in all he had done. He had set his will against his father, battled Torg simply to survive, and resisted the ship's efforts to bond with him. He had allied with the slaves, but kept his guard up against them as soon as they became freed men. When Kennit came aboard, he had resolved to maintain his claim upon Vivacia despite the pirate's efforts to win her. And all the while he had simmered in self-pity. He had longed for his monastery and promised himself that at the first opportunity he would become that Wintrow again. Even after he had resolved to accept the life Sa had given him and find purpose in it, even then he had held back.
Layer upon layer of self-deceit, he now saw, layer upon layer of resistance to Sa's will. He had not embraced his own destiny. He had grudgingly accepted it, taking only what was forced upon him and welcoming only what he found acceptable, rather than encompassing all in his priesthood.
Something. Something there, an idea, an illumination trembling at the edge of his mind. A revelation waiting to unfold. He let the focus of his eyes soften, and his breathing eased into a deeper, slower rhythm.
Etta set aside her sewing. She gathered the game pieces and returned them to their box. "I think we have finished with games for a time," she said quietly.
He nodded. His thoughts claimed him, and he scarcely noticed when she left the room.
SHE WHO REMEMBERS RECOGNIZED HIM. THE TWO-LEGS WINTROW STOOD ON THE ship's deck and looked down at the serpents who gamboled alongside in the moonlight. She was surprised he had lived. When she had nudged him aboard the ship, she had intended only that he die among his own kind. So he had survived. When he set his hands on the ship's railing, She Who Remembers sensed Bolt's reaction. It was not a physical shaking, but a trembling of her being. A faint scent of fear tinged the water. Bolt feared this two-legs?
Mystified, the serpent drew closer. Bolt had begun as a dragon; that much She Who Remembers recognized. But no matter how vigorously Bolt might deny it, she was no longer a dragon nor was she a serpent. She was a hybrid, her human sensibilities blending with her dragon essence, and all encompassed in her ship form. She Who Remembers dived beneath the water, and aligned herself with the ship's silvery keel. Here she could feel most strongly the dragon's presence. Almost immediately, she sensed that the ship did not wish her to be there but She Who Remembers felt no compunction about remaining. Her duty was to the tangle of serpents she had awakened. If the ship were a danger to them, she would discover it.