by Robin Hobb
Alliances
"Paragon, Paragon. What am I to do with you?"
Brashen's deep voice was very soft. The hissing rain that spattered on his deck was louder than his captain's voice. There did not seem to be any anger in it, only sorrow. Paragon didn't reply. Since Brashen had ordered that no one must speak to him, he had kept his own silence. Even when Lavoy had come to the railing one night and tried to jolly him out of it, Paragon had remained mute. When the mate had shifted his attempts to sympathy, it had been harder to keep his resolve, but he had. If Lavoy had really thought Brashen had wronged him, he would have done something about it. That he hadn't just proved that he was truly on Brashen's side.
Brashen gripped his railing with cold hands and leaned on it. Paragon almost flinched with the impact of the man's misery. Brashen was not truly his family, so he could not always read his emotions. But at times like this, when there was contact between flesh and wizardwood, Paragon knew him well enough.
"This isn't how I imagined it would be, ship," Brashen told him. "To be captain of a liveship. You want to know what I dreamed? That somehow you would make me real and solid. Not a knock-about sailor who had disgraced his family and forever lost his place in Bingtown. Captain Trell of the liveship Paragon. Has a nice ring to it, doesn't it? I thought we would redeem each other, ship. I pictured us returning to Bingtown triumphant, me commanding a sharp crew and you sailing like a gray-winged gull. People would look at us and say, 'Now there's a ship, and the man who runs him knows what he's about. And the families that discarded us both might suddenly wonder if they hadn't been fools to do so."
Brashen gave a small snort of contempt for his foolish dreams. "But I can't imagine my father ever taking me back. I can't even imagine him having a civil word for me. I'm afraid I'm always going to stand alone, ship, and that the end of my days will find me a sodden old derelict washed up on some foreign shore. When I thought we had a chance, I told myself, well, a captain's life is lonely. It's not like I'm going to find a woman that will put up with me for more than a season. But I thought, with a liveship, at least we'd always have each other. I honestly thought I could do you some good. I imagined that someday I'd lay myself down and die on your deck, knowing that part of me would go on with you. That didn't seem like such a bad thing, at one time.
"But now look at us. I've let you kill again. We're sailing straight into pirate waters with a crew that can't even get out of its own way. I haven't a plan or a prayer for any of us to survive, and we draw closer to Divvytown with each wave we cut. I'm more alone than I've ever been in my life."
Paragon had to break his silence to do it, but he could not resist setting one more hook into the man. "And Althea is furious with you. Her anger is so strong, it's gone from hot to cold."
He had hoped it would goad Brashen into fury. Anger he could deal with better than this deep melancholy. To deal with anger, all you had to do was shout back louder than your opponent. Instead, he felt himself the horrible lurch of Brashen's heart.
"That, too," Brashen admitted miserably. "And I don't know why and she scarcely speaks to me."
"She talks to you," Paragon retorted angrily. Cold silence belonged to him. No one could do it so well as he, certainly not Althea.
"Oh, she talks," Brashen agreed. "'Yes, sir. 'No, sir. And those black, black eyes of hers stay flat and cold as wet shale. I can't reach her at all." The words suddenly spilled out of the man, words that Paragon sensed Brashen would have held in if he could. "And I need her, to back me up if nothing else. I need one person in this crew that I know won't put a knife in my back. But she just stands there and looks past me, or through me, and I feel like I'm less than nothing. No one else can make me feel that bad. And it makes me just want to…" His words trailed off.
"Just throw her on her back and take her. That would make you real to her," Paragon filled in for him. Surely, that would bring a rise from Brashen.
Brashen's silent revulsion followed his words. No explosion of fury or disgust. After a moment, the man asked quietly, "Where did you learn to be this way? I know the Ludlucks. They're hard folk, tight with a coin and ruthless in a bargain. But they're decent. The Ludlucks I've known didn't have rape or murder in them. Where does it come from in you?"
"Perhaps the Ludlucks I knew weren't so fastidious. I've known rape and murder aplenty, Brashen, right on my deck where you're standing." And perhaps I am more than a thing shaped by the Ludlucks. Perhaps I had form and substance long before a Ludluck set a hand to my wheel.
Brashen was silent. The storm was rising. A buffet of wind hit Paragon's wet canvas, making him heel over slightly. He and the helmsman caught it before it could take him too far. He felt Brashen tighten his grip on the railing.
"Do you fear me?" the ship asked him.
"I have to," Brashen replied simply. "There was a time when we were only friends. I thought I knew you well. I knew what folk said of you, but I thought, perhaps you were driven to that. When you killed that man, Paragon — when I saw you shake his life out of him — something changed in my heart. So, yes, I fear you." In a quieter voice he added, "And that is not good for either of us."
He lifted his hands from the railing and turned to walk away. Paragon licked his lips. The freshwater deluge of the winter storm streamed down his chopped face. Brashen would be soaked to the skin, and cold as only mortals could be. He tried to think of words that would bring him back. He suddenly did not want to be alone, sailing blindly into this storm, trusting only to a helmsman who thought of him as "this damned boat."
"Brashen!" he called out suddenly.
His captain halted uncertainly. Then he made his way back across the rising and falling deck, to stand once more by the railing. "Paragon?"
"I can't promise not to kill again. You know that." He struggled for a justification. "You yourself might need me to kill. And then, there I'd be, bound by my promise…"
"I know. I tried to think of what I would ask you. Not to kill. To obey my orders always. And I knew you and I knew you could never promise those things." In a heavy voice, he said, "I don't ask for those promises. I don't want you to lie to me."
He suddenly felt sorry for Brashen. He hated it when his feelings switched back and forth like this. But he couldn't control them. Impulsively, he offered, "I promise I won't kill you, Brashen. Does that help?"
He felt Brashen's convulsion of shock at his words. Paragon suddenly realized that Brashen had never even considered the ship might kill him. That Paragon would now promise thus made him realize that the ship had been capable of it. Was still capable of it, if he decided to break his word. After a moment, Brashen said lifelessly, "Of course that helps. Thank you, Paragon." He started to turn away again.
"Wait!" Paragon called to him. "Are you going to let the others talk to me now?"
He almost felt the man's sigh. "Of course. Not much sense in refusing you that."
Bitterness rose in Paragon. He had meant his promise to comfort the man, but he insisted on being grieved by it. Humans. They were never satisfied, no matter what you sacrificed for them. If Brashen was disappointed in him, it was his own fault. Why hadn't he realized that the first ones to kill were the ones closest to you, the ones who knew you best? It was the only way to eliminate the threat to yourself. What was the sense of killing a stranger? Strangers had small interest in hurting you. That was always done best by your own family and friends.
The rain had winter's kiss in it. It spattered, annoying but harmless, against Tintaglia's outstretched wings. They beat steadily as she flew upstream above the Rain Wild River. She would have to kill and eat again soon, but the rain had driven all the game into the cover of the trees. It was difficult to hunt in the swampy borderlands along the Rain Wild River. Even on a dry day, it was easy to get mired there. She would not chance it.
The cold gray day suited her mood. Her search of the sea had been worse than fruitless. Twice, she had glimpsed serpents. But when she had flown low, trumpeting a welcome t
o them, they had dove into the depths. Twice she had circled and hovered and circled, trumpeting and then roaring a demand that the serpent come back. All her efforts had been in vain. It was as if the serpents did not recognize her. It daunted her to the depths of her soul to know that her race survived in the world, but would not acknowledge her. A terrible sense of futility had built in her, combining with her nagging hunger to a smoldering anger. The hunting along the beaches had been poor; the migratory sea mammals that should have been thick along the coast were simply not there. Hardly surprising, seeing as how the coast she recalled was not there either.
Her reconnaissance had opened her eyes to how greatly the world had changed since her kind had last soared. The whole edge of this continent had sunk. The mountain range that had once towered over the long sand beaches of the coast was now the tops of a long stretch of islands. The richly fertile inland plain that had once teemed with herds of prey, both wild and domesticated, were now a wide swamp of rainforest. The steaming inland sea, once landlocked, now seeped to the ocean as a multitude of rivers threading through a vast grassland. Nothing was as it should be. She should not be surprised that her own kin did not know her.
Humans had multiplied like fleas on a dying rabbit. Their dirty, smoky settlements littered the world. She had glimpsed their tiny island settlements and their harbor towns as she had searched for serpents. She had flown high over Bingtown on a star-swept night and seen it as a dark blot freckled with light. Trehaug was no more than a series of squirrels' nests connected by spiderwebs. She felt a grudging admiration for humanity's ability to engineer a home for itself wherever it pleased even as she rather despised creatures so helpless they could not cope with the natural world without artificial structures. At least the Elderlings had built with splendor. When she thought of their graceful architecture, of those majestic, welcoming cities now tumbled into rubble or standing as echoing ruins, she was appalled that the Elderlings had perished, and humans inherited the earth.
She had left humanity's hovels behind her. If she must live alone, she would live near Kelsingra. Game was plentiful there, and the land firm enough to land upon without sinking to her knees. Should she desire shelter from the elements, the ancient structures of the Elderlings would provide it. She had many years ahead of her. She might as well spend them where there was at least a memory of splendor.
As she flew through the steady downpour, she watched the banks of the river for game. She had small hope of finding anything alive. The river ran pale and acid since the last quake, deadly to anything not scaled.
Far upriver of Trehaug, she spotted the struggling serpent. At first, she thought it was a log being rolled downstream by the river's current. She blinked and shook rain water from her eyes, and stared again. As the scent of serpent reached her, she dropped down from the heights to make sense of what she saw.
The river was shallow, a rushing flow of milky water over rough stone. This, too, was a divergence from her memory. Once this river had offered a fine deep channel that led far inland to cities such as Kelsingra and the farming communities and barter towns beyond it. Not only serpents but great ships had navigated it with ease. Now the battered blue serpent struggled feebly against the current in waters that did not even cover it.
She circled twice before she could find a stretch of river where she could land safely. Then she waded downriver, hastening to the pitiful spectacle of the stranded serpent. Up close, its condition was wrenching. It had been trapped here for some time. The sun had burnt its back, and its struggles against the stony bed of the river had left its hide in rags. Once its protective scaled skin was torn, the river water had eaten deep sores into its flesh. So beaten was it that she could not even tell its sex. It reminded her of a spawned-out salmon, exhausted and washed into the shallows to die.
"Welcome home," she said, without sarcasm or bitterness. The serpent regarded her with one rolling eye, and then suddenly redoubled its efforts to flail its way upstream. It fled from her. There was no mistaking its panic, nor the death stench upon it.
"Gently, gently, finned one. I have not come to harm you, but to aid you if I can. Let me push you into deeper water. Your skin needs wetting." She spoke softly, putting music and kindness into her words. The serpent stopped struggling, but more from exhaustion than calm. Its eyes still darted this way and that, seeking an escape its body was too weary to attempt. Tintaglia tried again. "I am here to welcome you and guide you home. Can you speak? Can you understand me?"
For reply, the serpent lifted its head out of the water. It made a feeble attempt to erect its mane, but no venom welled. "Go away," it hissed at her. "Kill you," it threatened.
"You are not making sense. I am here to help you. Remember? When you come up the river to cocoon, dragons welcome you and aid you. I will show you the best sand to use to make your cast. My saliva in your cocoon will bestow the memories of our kind. Do not fear me. It is not too late. Winter is upon us, but I will guard you well for the cold months. When summer comes, I will scratch away the leaves and mud that have covered you. The sun will touch your cocoon, and it will melt. You shall become a lovely dragon. You will be a Lord of the Three Realms. I promise you this."
It lidded its dull eyes, then opened them slowly. She could see the distrust war with desperation. "Deeper water," the serpent pleaded.
"Yes," Tintaglia agreed. She lifted her head and glanced about. But there was no deeper water, not unless she dragged the poor creature downstream, and there it would find no food, nor anywhere to make its cocoon. The city of Trehaug marked the first cocooning ground. It had been swallowed by the rising water level. There had been another, not that much farther upstream. But the river had shifted in its wide bed, and ran shallow and stony past the once-rich banks of silver-banded sandy mud. How was she to help the serpent reach there? Once there, how to get mud, water and serpent together, so that the serpent could ingest the liquefied muck to secrete its cocoon?
The serpent lifted its weary head and gave a low trumpet of despair. Tintaglia felt driven to act. She had lifted and carried two humans effortlessly, but the serpent was near her equal in weight. When she attempted to drag it into a slightly deeper channel of water near the river's bank, her talons scored its softened flesh and sank deep into its open wounds. The creature screamed and thrashed wildly. Its lashing tail knocked Tintaglia staggering. She caught her balance by dropping to all fours. As she did so, her groping foot encountered something smooth, hard and rounded in the bed of the river. It turned and cracked under her weight. Obeying a sudden impulse, she hooked her claws under it and dragged it up to the surface.
A skull. A serpent's skull. The acid water of the river had etched the heavy bone to brittleness; it fragmented in her claws. She searched the shallows with heartsick certainty. Here were three thick spine bones, still clinging together. Another skull there. She clawed the bottom and came up with ribs and a jawbone, in various stages of decomposition. Some still had bits of cartilage clinging to their joints; others were polished smooth or eaten porous. The bones of her race were here. Those who had managed to recall this much of their migration route had met this final obstacle and perished here.
The hapless serpent lay on its side now, wheezing its pain. The few drops of toxin it could muster ran from its mane into its own eyes. Tintaglia stalked over and stood looking down on it. The creature briefly lidded its great eyes. Then it gasped out a single word.
"Please."
Tintaglia threw back her head and gave shattering voice to her anger and hatred of the moment. She let the fury run free in her, let it cloud her mind and eyes to a scarlet haze. Then she granted its request. Her powerful jaws seized the serpent's neck just below its toxin-dripping mane. With a single savage bite, she severed its spine. A quivering ran through it and the tip of its tail slashed and spattered the water. She stood over it as it finished dying. Its eyes spun slowly a final time. Its jaws open and shut spasmodically. Finally, it was still.
The taste of
the serpent's blood was sharp and poignant in her jaws. Its pale toxins stung her tongue. In that instant, she knew his lifetime. Momentarily, she was him, and she trembled with exhaustion and pain. Permeating all was confusion. As Tintaglia regained herself, the utter futility of the serpent's life left her shaken. Time after time, his body had responded to the signs that told him to migrate and change. She could not tell how often the pathetic creature had left the rich feeding grounds of the south and migrated north.
As she bent her neck and consumed his flesh, all became clear to her. His store of memories was added to her own. If the world had been turning as it should, she would have passed his memories on to her offspring, along with her own. Someone would have profited from his mis-spent life. He would not have died in vain. She saw all he had seen and been. She knew all his frustrations, and was with him as frustration degenerated to confusion and finally bestiality. At every migration, he had searched for familiar seascapes and One Who Remembers. Time after time, he had been disappointed. Winters had driven him south again, to feed and replenish his bodily reserves, until the turning of the years would once more send him north. This she could know, from her dragon's perspectives. That the serpent had made it this far with only the memories of his serpent pasts was little short of a miracle. She looked down at his stripped bones, the foulness of his flesh in her mouth. Even if she had been able to help him to deeper water, he would still have died. The mystery of the sea serpents who fled from her was solved. She clawed up more bones and studied them idly. Here were her folk; here was her race. Here was the future and here was the past.
She turned her back on the remains of the serpent. Let the river devour him as it had so many others. Doubtless it would eat others yet, until none remained. She was powerless to change it. She could not make the river run deeper here, nor change its course to take it close once more to the banks of silver-shot earth. She snorted to herself. Lords of the Three Realms. Rulers of Earth, Sea and Sky, yet masters of none of them.
