Mad Ship

Vivacia was now anchored, fore and aft, in Deception Cove off Others Island. The tide was swelling in around them. Ke

Farther offshore, the silhouette of the Marietta was just visible in a drifting fog bank. She would stand off and watch them, coming closer only if they appeared to need aid. The peculiar weather had everyone unsettled. To look out to sea was like peering across a distance into a different world. The Marietta ghosted in and out of the mist; here in the cove, all was breathless warm sunlight. The silence cupped Wintrow's ears and made him sleepy.

"I do not like being here," the ship insisted.

Wintrow sighed. "Neither do I. Some find them exciting, but I have always feared omens and portents. At the monastery, some of the acolytes would play with crystals and seeds, casting them out and reading what they foretold. The priests tolerated it, more or less. A few were amused by it, saying we would learn better as we grew. At least one said we'd be better off playing with knives. My instincts led me to agree with him. All of us stand on the edge of the future; why venture off the precipice? I believe there are true oracles, who can peer ahead and see where one is destined to tread. But I also think that there is a danger in-"

"Not that," the ship said sharply. "I know nothing of that. I remember this place." A note of desperation crept into her voice. "I remember this place, but I know I've never been here. Wintrow. Is it your memory? Have you been here before?"

Wintrow spread his hands flat on the deck, opening himself to her. He tried to be comforting. "I have never been here, but Ke

"Blood is memory. His blood has soaked into me and I know his memory of being here. It is the memory of a man. But when last I was in these waters, I slipped through them, swift and sleek. I was new and young. I began here, Wintrow. I began here, not once, but many times."

She was troubled. He reached for her, and felt the swift shadows of memories so old she could not grasp them. They flitted away from her, soft-edged and elusive as the sunlight patterns under his eyelids. The glimpses he caught disturbed him. He knew them as well as she did. Wings against the sun. Sliding deep-water images framed in green light. These were the images of his deepest sleep, fever shapes too bright and hard to meet the light of day. He tried to mask his uneasiness. "How could you begin many times?" he asked her gently.

She pushed her glossy black hair back from her face and pressed her temples as if it would ease her. "It's all a circle. A circle that turns. Nothing stops, nothing is lost, and it all goes spiraling on. Like thread on a spool, Wintrow. Around and around it goes, layering on in circles, and yet it is always the same piece of thread." She shivered suddenly in the sun, hugging herself. "This is not a good place for us."

"We won't be here long. No more than the turning of one tide. It will be-"

"Wintrow! Time to go!" Etta's voice broke into his words.

He ran his hand along the wizardwood planking of the deck. "It will be all right," he assured her. He jumped swiftly to his feet and hurried off to join the others, unwinding his shirt from his head as he went. He dragged it on and tucked it in. Despite his reservations, his heart beat faster at the prospect of landing on Others Island.

KENNIT WATCHED WINTROW'S FACE AS HE PUSHED THE OAR. THE TRACES OF his pain were there to see-a pinch of white about his mouth, a sheen of sweat on his forehead-but the boy wasn't whining. Good. Etta sat on the bench next to Wintrow and ma

The bow of the boat grated against the black sand of the beach, snapping his mind back to the present. He looked about the somber little cove as the rowers jumped over the side and dragged the boat up onto the shore. Rocky walls and evergreens fenced the small beach. Little had changed here since his last visit. The green-scummed bones of some large animal were tangled in the rocks. The roots of one tree on the cliff above had given way; the dark evergreen now dangled tip-down to the sand. Seaweed was tangled in its dying branches. A narrow path climbed the cliff via a crack in the black wall of stone.

Ke

By the time they reached the crest of the first hill, Ke