“That's true,” Brashen added just as Kyle complained, “But look at her, just look at her!”

He never could decide who Ronica Vestrit believed. Something of the steel she was known for showed in her as she simply said, “Kyle and Althea. Go to bed. Brashen, go home. I'm too tired and heartsick to deal with any of this just now.” When Kyle opened his mouth to protest she added compromisingly, “Tomorrow is soon enough, Kyle. If we wake the servants, they'll tattle this scandal all through the market. I don't doubt that more than one is listening at a door right now. So let's put an end to this now. Keep family business inside the walls. That was what Ephron always said.” She turned to face Brashen. “Good night, young man,” she dismissed him, and he was only too happy to flee. He did not even say good-bye or good-night, but walked briskly away into the night. When he heard the heavy door shut firmly, he felt it had closed on a chapter of his life.

He strode back toward the harbor basin and Bingtown proper. As he wended his way down, he heard the first cautious calls of the dawn birds. He lifted his eyes to the east, to a horizon that was starting to be tinged with light, and felt suddenly weary. He thought of the cramped bunk awaiting him on Vivacia, and suddenly realized the truth of the day. No bunk awaited him anywhere. He considered paying for a room at an inn, someplace with soft beds and clean quilts and warm wash water in the mornings. He made a face between a snarl and a grin. That would deplete his coin rapidly. Maybe tonight, when he could take a full night's advantage of the bed, he'd pay for one. But the most sleep he was going to get this morning was a few hours before the light and noise and heat of the day had him up again. He wouldn't spend coin for a bed he'd hardly use.

Long habit had led him toward the harbor. He shook his head at himself and turned his steps toward Wield Road, out of town and down to the rocky beaches where the poorest fishermen pulled up their small boats. Paragon would put him up for the day and be glad of the company. Afternoon would be soon enough to recover his sea-bag and begin to look for work and lodgings. For now, he'd take a few hours rest for himself, well away from both Vestrits and Havens.

Maulkin halted where he was. His jaws gaped wide and closed repeatedly as he tasted this new atmosphere. The tangle settled wearily into the soft muck, grateful for this brief respite from his dogged pace. Shreever watched their leader with something like fondness as he sampled the brine of this Plenty. His ruff stood up around his throat, half-challenging, half-questioning. A few of the other serpents rumbled at his attitude, shifting their coils uneasily.

“There is no challenger here,” observed Sessurea. “He feints with bubbles.”

“No,” Shreever asserted quietly. “Memories. He fights to capture them. He has told me. They shine before his mind like a great school of capelin, confounding the eye with its multitude. Like a wise fisher, he must gape and lunge into the midst, trusting that when his jaws close there will be substance in his grasp.”

“Silt, most likely,” Sessurea said softly.

Shreever stood her ruff up at him, and he swiftly turned aside from her, to nose at his own tail as if grooming. She herself stretched, preening showily to demonstrate she did not fear him. “Tubeworms,” she observed as if to herself, “are always content with a stationary view.”

The others, she knew, were beginning to question Maulkin's leadership. She did not. It was true that of late his thoughts seemed even more unfocused than usual. True, also, that he trumpeted strangely in his dreams during the brief rests he allowed them, and that he spoke to himself more often than he did to his followers.

But the very things that unnerved the others were the signs that convinced Shreever that Maulkin was guiding them true. The farther north they had followed him, the more certain she became that he was truly one of those who carried the old memories. She watched him now. His great copper eyes were shielded by his milky eyelids as he danced the full length of his body through a knot, stroking himself over and over until his golden false-eyes glowed. Some of the others watched disdainfully, as if they believed Maulkin stimulated his senses simply for the pleasure of it. Shreever watched him hungrily. If the rest of the tangle had not been so intently watching him, she might even have dared to join him, to wrap his length with her own and try to share the memories he was seeking.

Instead, she discreetly drew more brine into her own half-opened jaws and then let it escape slowly over her gills. She tasted the strangeness of this new brine. It carried foreign salts that near stung with their intensity. She tasted, too, the salts of Maulkin's body as he twisted strenuously against himself. The lids of her own eyes rose, cloaking her vision. For an instant, she dreamed, and in the dream the Lack was the Plenty and she soared freely within it.

Before she could control herself, she threw back her head and trumpeted triumphantly. “The way is clear!” she called, and then came to awareness of her own cry. The others were watching her now with the same tension with which they regarded Maulkin. She sleeked her ruff back to her throat in confusion. Maulkin sheered towards her and suddenly wrapped her firmly in the full length of his body. His ruff stood out in wild aggression, welling toxins that both stunned and intoxicated her. He gripped her with immense strength, daubing his musk against her scales, deluging her senses with the half-grasped memories that lured him on. Then he freed her abruptly and whipped his body clear of hers. Slowly, limply, she settled to the bottom, gulping to breathe.

“She shares,” Maulkin declared to his followers. “She sees and is anointed with my memories. With our memories. Come, Shreever, arise and follow me. The time of the gathering is nigh. Follow me to rebirth.”

Chapter Nine

A Change Of Fortunes

The crunching of shod feet on the sandy rocks brought him to alertness. Despite his years of blindness, he lifted his head and turned his eyes towards the sound. Whoever was coming was silent save for the footsteps. It was not a child: children walked more lightly and besides, they usually came in groups, to run past him shouting insults at him and dares to one another. They had thrown rocks at him, until he learned not to dodge them. When he endured them stoically, they soon became bored and went off to find small crabs or starfish to torture instead. Besides, the rocks did not hurt that much, and most of them did not even hit. Most of them.

He kept his arms crossed over his scarred chest, but it took an act of will to do so. When one fears a blow and cannot know from what quarter it will come, it is hard not to try to guard one's face, even when all that is left of that face is a mouth and nose and the splintered wreckage that a hatchet has made of the eyes.

The last high tide had nearly reached him. Sometimes he dreamed of a gigantic storm, one that would come to lift him from the rocks and sand and carry him back out to sea.

Even better would be one that almost lifted him, one that would slam and crash him against the rocks, break him up into planks and beams and oakum, and scatter him wherever the waves and winds pushed him. He wondered if that would bring him oblivion, or if he would live on as a carved chunk of wizardwood, bobbing forever on the tides. Sometimes such thoughts could deepen his madness. Sometimes, as he lay on the beach, listing to starboard, he could feel the screw worms and barnacles eating into his wood, boring in and chewing deep, but never into his keel nor any of the wizardwood planking. No. That was the beauty of wizardwood; it was impervious to the assault of the sea. The beauty and the eternal condemnation.