Mad Ship

"No. Not Ke

It was disconcerting to feel a mind groping after her reaction. Instinctively she recoiled from the contact. She was stronger far than he was. When she pulled away from him, he could not follow her. In doing so, she severed her tentative contact with Ke

She decided she would not tolerate it. Whoever this intruder was, she would unmask him and confront him. Keeping her own guard up, she reached out tentatively toward the cabin where Ke

"Where are you?" she demanded suddenly and angrily. Ke

Vivacia's question went unanswered.

KENNIT SURFACED, GASPING HIS WAY INTO CONSCIOUSNESS. IT TOOK HIM A moment to recall his surroundings. Then a faint smile of pleasure stretched his fever-parched lips. His liveship. He was on board his live-ship, in the captain's well-appointed chambers. A fine linen sheet draped his sweating body. Polished brass and wood gleamed throughout a chamber both cozy and refined. He could hear the water gurgling past as Vivacia cut through the cha

"Etta!" he croaked to the whore. "Water."

"It's right here," she said soothingly.

It was true. Surprising as it was, she was standing right beside him, a cup of water ready in her hand. Her long fingers were cool on the back of his neck as she helped him raise himself to drink. Afterward, she deftly turned his pillow before she lowered his head again. With a cool cloth she patted the perspiration from his face and then wiped his hands with a moist cloth. He lay still and silent under her touch, limply grateful for the comfort she gave. He knew a moment of purest peace.

It did not last. His awareness of his swollen leg rose swiftly to recognition of pain. He tried to ignore it. It became a pulsing heat that rose in intensity with every breath he took. Beside his bed, his whore sat in a chair, sewing something. His eyes moved listlessly over her. She looked older than he recalled her. The lines were deeper by her mouth and in her brow. Her face looked thi

"You look terrible," he rebuked her.

She set her sewing aside immediately and smiled as if he had complimented her. "It's hard for me to see you like this. When you are ill… I can't sleep, I can't eat…"

Selfish woman. She'd fed his leg to a sea serpent, and now tried to make it out that it was her problem. Was he supposed to feel sorry for her? He pushed the thought aside. "Where's that boy? Wintrow?"

She stood right away. "Do you want him?"

Stupid question. "Of course I want him. He's supposed to make my leg better. Why hasn't he done so?"

She leaned over his bed and smiled down at him tenderly. He wanted to push her away but he had not the strength. "I think he wants to wait until we make port in Bull Creek. There are a number of things he wants to have on hand before he… heals you." She turned away from his sickbed abruptly, but not before he had seen the tears glinting in her eyes. Her wide shoulders were bowed and she no longer stood tall and proud. She did not expect him to survive. To know that so suddenly both scared and angered him. It was as if she had wished his death on him.

"Go find that boy!" he commanded her roughly, mostly to get her out of his sight. "Remind him. Remind him well that if I die, so does he and his father. Tell him that!"

"I'll have someone fetch him," she said in a quavering voice and started for the door.

"No. You go yourself, right now, and get him. Now."

She turned back and a

He did not watch her go but listened instead to the sound of her boots on the deck. She hurried, and when she went out, the door shut quietly but completely behind her. He heard her voice lifted to someone, irritably. "No. Go away. I won't have him bothered with such things right now." Then, in a lower, threatening voice, "Touch that door and I'll kill you right here." Whoever it was heeded her, for no knock came at the door.

He half closed his eyes and drifted on the tide of his pain. The fever razored bright edges and sharp colors to the world. The cozy room seemed to crowd closer around him, threatening to fall in on him. He pushed the sheet away and tried to find a breath of cooler air.

"So, Ke

The pirate squeezed his eyes tight shut. He tried to will the voice away.

"That's amusing. Do you think I ca

"Shut up. Leave me alone. I wish I had never had you made."

"Oh, now you have wounded my feelings! Such words to bandy about, after all we have endured together."

Ke

"Do you truly believe that boy can heal you? No. You could not be so foolish. Of course, you are desperate enough that you will insist he try. Do you know what amazes me? That you fear death so much that it makes you brave enough to face the surgeon's knife. Think of that swollen flesh, so tender you scarce can bear the brush of a sheet upon it. You will let him set a knife to that, a bright sharp blade, gleaming silver before the blood encarmines it…"

"Charm." Ke

The charm pursed his lips at him. "Because I can. I am probably the only one in the whole world who can torment the great Captain Ke

"No. I was never…"

"What, never?" The wizardwood charm snickered cruelly. "Do you truly believe you can lie to me, bonded as we are? I know everything about you. Everything."

"I made you to help me, not to torment me! Why have you turned on me?"

"Because I hate what you are," the charm replied savagely. "I hate that I am becoming a part of you, aiding you in what you do."