Ship of Destiny

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN — Key Island

TRUE TO HIS OWN COMMAND, PARAGON HAD SAILED WITH THE TIDE. NOT elegantly, not smoothly, but when the rising water lifted him off the sands, the spliced lines raised his patched sails on his raw timber rigging. Half of his depleted crew bore injuries, great or small, and many were disheartened, but they sailed.

Paragon navigated. Amber had not carved his new face yet, let alone his eyes. In a flurry of work, she had roughed out her ambitions, making marks and taking measures. At the ship's urging, she had set that work aside until more essential tasks were finished. The ship sailed blind, and yet not blind, for Amber's eyes were his.

She leaned on the railing, her hair streaming in the wind, and spoke of all she saw. Through her bare hands, she conveyed to him the feel of the islands they passed. It was not sight, but it was her sense of the ocean and the scattered islands that she shared with him. In return, he shared with her. The white serpent paced them, and urged the ship on in his own mad way. Paragon suspected that he sought to awaken the dragons in him, but they were already awake and stirring more strongly every day. Their thoughts mingled with his. The dragons reached through him to Amber, changing him as they did so. They were becoming him, and he was becoming them.

"We fly," Amber murmured. A stinging rain spattered against her face and soaked her patchy hair. Eyes wide, she stared ahead and with him dreamed these islands as once he had seen them.

"Once, I flew. But these were not islands then, but mountaintops. The Great I

"When you speak of them that way, I can see them in my mind."

"Mm. Now we need to see them as Igrot saw them, and as Lucto Ludluck saw them. He was Sedge Ludluck's son. Everyone in the Pirate Isles called him Lucky Ludluck. And Ke

Amber spoke cautiously. "When Althea told me your history, she told me you left Bingtown with Sedge Ludluck."

"Lucto was Sedge's eldest son. He sailed with his father, but the tension between them was constant. Sedge had the imagination of a rock. He bought cheap and sold dear. That was his sole ethic in life, the Ludluck ethic. He paid his men as little as he could, and changed crew often because he was so callous to them. Their lives were always worth less to him than his cargoes. He never stopped to wonder if life could be different. He didn't fear me because he lacked the imagination to know what I could do.

"Lucto, his son, was different. He was a dreamer, a young man who savored the pleasures of life. Bingtown customs, ma

Paragon shook his head to himself. "He traded well and lived large. He built up a secret refuge for himself and his men. He trusted to the good will of his crew to keep his world safe. But there are always hungry men, men for whom a share of good fortune is not enough. And one brought Igrot into Lucky's world. Igrot already had a reputation as the pirate who would do what other men did not even imagine. He came to Lucky with the fable that they would be partners in trade and piracy. Lucto believed him. But in the midst of celebrating their alliance, Igrot turned on him. He imprisoned my father to subdue me, and took Ke

"Paragon, Paragon." Amber's voice was gentle but urgent. "Not your father. Ke

The ship smiled bitterly into the rain. "You draw lines that do not exist. It is what you do not understand, Amber. When you speak to Paragon, you speak to the human memories stored in me. When Ke

"That is a thing I will never understand," Amber observed in a low voice. "How can one hate oneself so much that one is willing to murder that self?"

The ship shook his head and rain flew from his locks. "That is your mistake. No one wants the self to die. I only wanted to make all the rest of it stop. The only way to achieve that was to put death between the world and myself."

He suddenly turned his blinded face toward an island. "There. That one."

"That's Key Island?" Her voice was incredulous. "Paragon, there's nowhere to land. The island comes straight up out of the water, like a fortress with trees."

"No, that's not the Key. That is Keyhole Island. From this main cha

BRASHEN WAS ON THE WHEEL. HE SAW THE WIDE WAVE OF AMBER'S ARM, AND nodded that he saw the indicated island. This area of the Pirate Isles was pocked with little islands jutting sharply up from the waves; this one looked no different. Paragon had been very close-mouthed about what made this one so special. The cynical part of Brashen's soul laughed at him, yet he shouted his command to the crew, and as they shifted the wet sails, turned the wheel to bring the ship around. The steady wind had been favoring them before. Now it would be a long series of wearying tacks to take Paragon where Amber indicated.

The reduced crew was ru

Clef hastened up to the captain, blue eyes squinted against the rain. The boy seemed mostly recovered from his injuries though he still favored his scalded arm. "Sir! Amber says the ship says we're to watch for an opening on the lee of the island. It opens to a bay inside the island, and an island in the bay. That island in turn will have good anchorage on its windward side. Paragon says to anchor up there."