Mad Ship

THE SEA HAD NEVER OPPOSED THEM AS IT DID NOW. ETTA CROUCHED IN the stern with Wintrow's sodden body in her arms. The four sailors on the oars fought them. The whites showed all around their eyes as they struggled. There seemed to be one current for Vivacia to contend with, and another that gripped the small boat and tugged at it like a dog with a bone. The rain lashed down and the wind added its push to the water's pull. Ke

Wintrow was a heavy weight atop her legs. If she bent her head over his face, she could hear breath hiss in and out of him. "Wintrow. Wintrow, keep breathing. Keep breathing." If she had come upon his body anywhere else, she would not have known him. His fat, shapeless lips moved vaguely, but if he spoke it was without sound.

She lifted her eyes. She could not bear to look at him. Ke

She lifted her face and peered through the storm. She found Ke

She felt impotent. She could not even tell him how helpless she felt. She saw him crouch and thought he would crawl through the boat to help her somehow. Instead he suddenly stood, peg and foot braced. He turned his back on her and the rowers and faced into the storm that opposed them. He threw back his head to it. The wind flapped his white shirtsleeves against his arms and streamed his black, black hair out behind him.

"NO!" he roared into it. "Not now! Not when I am so close! You can't have me and you can't have my ship! By Sa, by El, by Eda, by the God of Fishes, by every god nameless and not, I swear you shall not have me nor mine!" He held out his hands, his fingers like claws, as if he would grapple with the wind that defied them.

"KENNIT!"

Vivacia's voice roared through the storm. She reached for them with wooden arms, leaning toward the small vessel as if she would tear herself loose from the ship to come to him. Her hair streamed away from her face. A wave hit her, and she took it deep enough to send green water streaming across her deck. But she rose from it, and as she came up from the trough, her hands still reached. The storm she battled threatened to sweep her away, and yet she yearned toward him, mindless of her own safety.

"I shall live!" Ke

The king worked his first miracle.

From the depths of the very sea that opposed him, the creature rose to his command. The serpent rose at the stern of the vessel. She opened wide her jaws and added her roar to his. Etta shrank down, small, foolish creature that she was, clutching Wintrow to her breast. She groped for a knife long lost even as she wailed out her hopeless terror.

Then the sea serpent, vast beast though she was, bent her head to Ke

Behind her, the stern of the small boat steamed and stank where the serpent's slime touched it. It would have been faithless of her to be afraid of what it did, for it acted on Ke

The Vivacia plunged doggedly toward them. There was a moment when two oceans seemed to collide in turmoil. There was no pattern to wave nor winds. The breath of the world lashed them, threatening to snatch the clothes from their bodies, and the hair from their heads. Etta felt deafened by the onslaught, but the serpent inexorably pushed the tiny boat on.

Then they were suddenly in the same wind and the same current as Vivacia. Joyously both sea and air caught at them, and conspired with the serpent to bring them together. The wind and current that Vivacia opposed swept their small boat toward her reaching arms. Vivacia took a wave hard. The sailors that waited at the bow of the ship, lines ready for throwing, clung madly to her railings instead to keep from being swept away by green water.

But as Vivacia came up from the wave that had swamped her briefly, her great arms cupped and held the helpless boat. She rose from the wave with it clasped to her. Etta had never been so close to the figurehead. As she bore them up out of the deep, her voice boomed out over them. "Thank you, thank you! A thousand blessings upon you, sister of the sea. Thank you!" Silver tears of joy streamed down the liveship's carved face and fell like jewels into the water.

As the frightened sailors scrabbled toward their fellows on deck, Ke

Then the creature roared one final time and sank back into the suddenly calming depths.

The small boat was going to pieces around them, the planks twisting away from their fellows as the stern gave way. Etta felt herself and Win-trow cradled in the ship's hands as Vivacia let the useless pieces of wood fall away. The ship herself lifted them to where eager hands gripped them and pulled them abroad. "Gently, gently!" she cried as they seized Win-trow from her arms. "Bring fresh water. Cut his clothes away and pour over him water and wine. Then… then…"

Vivacia suddenly cried aloud in wonder. She clasped her steaming hands together as if she prayed. "I know you!" she cried out abruptly. "I know you!"

Ke