Ship of Magic (Liveship Traders, #1)

by Robin Hobb

The whole of the island was enshrouded in the peculiar magic of the Others.

He had not come to the island to leave the path, but to follow it to its very end. And all knew what waited there as well.

Legend foretold that any ship that anchored here had only the netherworld as its next port of call.

glorying together in the wonder of Sa.

When you borrow trouble against what might be, you neglect the moment you have now to enjoy. The man who worries about what will next be happening to him loses this moment in dread of the next, and poisons the next with pre-judgement.’

“One must plan for the future and anticipate the future without fearing the future.” The Twenty-Seventh Contradiction of Sa.’

‘“A priest should not presume to judge unless he can judge as Sa does; with absolute justice and absolute mercy”.’

The Wanderers of our order do little except resolve differences for folk. So they must have somehow mastered the Thirty-Third Contradiction.’

‘Could it be that an entire branch of our order exists without righteousness? Is not it disloyal even to think such a thing?’

‘If a man’s thoughts follow the precepts of Sa, they cannot go astray.’

He as much as told me so, when Wintrow was born.

The faces blurred in her memory, but she knew it had been Brashen who’d rebuked her,

Althea reached overhead, to press her hands against the exposed timbers of the Vivacia’s body. She could feel the near-life of the ship thrumming through them. It was not just the vibration of the wood as the ship cut the water, it was not even the thud of the sailors’ feet on the decks or their gull cries as they sang out in response to the mate’s commands. It was the life of the Vivacia herself, so close to waking. The Vivacia was a liveship. Sixty-three years ago, her keel had been laid, and that long true timber had been wizardwood. The wood of her figurehead was also wizardwood, harvested from the same great tree as was the planking of her hull.

But she had stood beside his litter with the rest of the Vestrit family and witnessed his death, and even then felt the faint quiver that ran through the Vivacia at his passing. She had known that that shiver was both regret and welcome; the Vivacia would miss her bold captain, but she welcomed the flowing of his anma into her timbers. His death put her one life closer to awakening. And now there only remained her father’s death to complete the quickening.

She’d have green eyes. Althea knew it. Of course, everyone said that no one could truly know what colour a liveship’s eyes would be until those eyes were opened by the deaths of three generations. But Althea knew. The Vivacia would have eyes as green as sea-lettuce. Even now, thinking of how it would be when those great emerald eyes opened, Althea had to smile.

There was only one flaw to her smoothness. In her navel, small as an apple pip, was a tiny white skull. The little charm of wizardwood was attached to a fine silver wire that pierced her navel. Half her wages went to Bettel for the renting of the token. Early in his acquaintance with her, she had told him that it kept away both disease and pregnancy.

‘That was likely the only bit of treasure ever carried off from the Others’ Island, and you gave it to a whore.’ ‘So?’ he demanded, bringing the small face up to his own to stare into it. ‘So perhaps you do have both luck and wisdom.’ The tiny face smirked at him. ‘Perhaps.’

He had made no chart. But the lost knowledge was not lost, but stored in the Vivacia, and would awaken with her when she quickened.

The dove-grey of her garments and the pale blue trim made her look even more sickly. Even her hands had lost flesh, the bones of her wrist and fingers standing out. Oddly, it did not trouble her. It had been no different, she told herself, from the fasting and isolation that one might do to seek Sa’s guidance. Only instead of Sa, it had been the very spirit of the liveship that had possessed her. It had been worth it.

She straightened her spine. ‘Cope,’ she ordered him succinctly.

‘What’s wrong?’ he asked her wearily. ‘Now that my father’s dead, no one will ever be proud of me again.’

‘With him, it was what I could do. With all of them, it’s how I look, or what others think of me.’

‘Brashen,’ she said quietly in a serious voice. ‘I’m going to get my ship back.’ He made a noncommittal noise. There was no sense in telling her he believed there was absolutely no chance of that. ‘Did you hear what I said?’ she demanded. ‘Yes. I heard you.’ ‘Well. Aren’t you going to say anything?’ He gave a short, bitter laugh. ‘When you get your ship back, I expect to be first mate again.’ ‘Done,’ she replied grandiosely. Brashen snorted. ‘If I knew it were that easy, I’d have demanded to be captain.’ ‘No. No, I’m going to be the captain. But you can be the mate. Vivacia likes you. When I am captain, I’m only going to have people we like aboard her.’

But the very things that unnerved the others were the signs that convinced Shreever that Maulkin was guiding them true. The farther north they had followed him, the more certain she became that he was truly one of those who carried the old memories.

For an instant, she dreamed, and in the dream the Lack was the Plenty and she soared freely within it.

‘She shares,’ Maulkin declared to his followers. ‘She sees and is anointed with my memories. With our memories. Come, Shreever, arise and follow me. The time of the gathering is nigh. Follow me to rebirth.’

When one fears a blow and cannot know from what quarter it will come, it is hard not to try to guard one’s face, even when all that is left of that face is a mouth and nose and the splintered wreckage that a hatchet had made of his eyes.

Even better would be one that almost lifted him, one that would slam and crash him against the rocks, break him up into planks and beams and oakum and scatter him wherever the waves and winds pushed him. He wondered if that would bring him oblivion, or if he would live on as a carved chunk of wizardwood, bobbing for ever on the tides.

He knew of only one liveship that had died. Tinester had perished in a fire that spread swiftly through his cargo holds full of barrels of oil and dry hides, consuming him in a matter of hours.

The footsteps were closer now. They halted. Feet grinding sand grittily against underlying stone. ‘Hey, Paragon.’ A man’s voice, friendly, reassuring. It took him a moment and then he had it. ‘Brashen. It’s been a time.’

The greed of the owners had created a mad liveship, and brought death and destruction on their family line.

finely woven tapestries depicting folk not quite human, with eyes of lavender or topaz;

They looked deep into his eyes, they wrapped his hull in their sinuous embraces, holding him tight in a way that was both threatening and reminiscent of… something. It lurked around the last corner of his memory, some vestige of familiarity too frightening to summon to the forefront of his mind.

For a moment, somewhere in the labyrinths of his memory a homesick boy sobbed into his bunk. Paragon snatched his consciousness back from it.

Did she know that she reached toward him for understanding as if he were her own liveship? Probably not, he told himself harshly. It was probably just that he reminded her of Vivacia and so she extended her feelings into him. That was all. It was not especially intended for him.

Paragon searched deep in his memory. ‘If wishes were horses, beggars would ride,’ he declared, and then smiled, almost pleased with himself. ‘There’s a thought I haven’t recalled for a long time.’

Sa, whom we men worship as Father of All, is still Sa when women call on her as Mother of All.

And she prayed fervently to Sa that she would never stand thus and watch one of her own walk off into darkness with them.

‘If you were a different type of woman, I might concede the right of that,’ he said coldly. ‘But I recall you as you were when you were a girl. And your own mother kept you tethered to her skirts much as you seek to restrain Malta. Consider how long it took me to awaken you to a woman’s feelings. Not all men have that patience. I would not see Malta grow up as backward and shy as you were.’ The cruelty of his words took her breath away. Their slow courtship, her deliciously gradual hope and then certainty of Kyle’s interest in her were some of her sweetest memories. He had snatched that away in a moment, turned her months of shy anticipation into some exercise of bored patience on his part, made his awakening of her feelings an educational service he had performed for her.

He was just a man, like any other man. No. He was stupider than most.

‘Mother.’ A whisper light as a wraith’s sigh. ‘Yes, dear. Mother’s here.’ Ronica replied to it as quietly. She did not open her eyes. She knew these voices, had known them for years. Her little sons still sometimes came, to call to her in the darkness. Painful as such fancies were, she would not open her eyes and disperse them.

She longed to astonish him with her presence.

Although beating Malta might make us all feel better at this point, we’ve never resorted to that — yet.’

Way north, and west. Up past Chalced, to the Duchies. Up there, the ships are smaller. And they don’t care if you’re a man or a woman, so long as you work hard. That’s what I’ve heard anyway. Up there, women captain ships, and sometimes the whole damned crew are women.’ ‘Barbarian women,’ Althea pointed out. ‘They’re more related to the Out Islanders than they are to us, and from what I’ve heard, they spend most of their time trying to kill each other off. Brashen, most of them can’t even read. They get married in front of rocks, Sa help us all.’ ‘Witness stones,’ he corrected her. ‘My father used to trade up there, before they had their war,’

‘Althea Vestrit.’ He named not just the girl but the whole realm of sensation she had wakened in him.

As gentle as a drifting feather alighting, she laid her hand on his hip. He did not stir, nor turn to her. She did not mind. She did not need him to. Having lived for so long with so little, the words he had spoken to her now would be enough to last her a life. When she closed her eyes, a single tear slid forth from beneath her lashes. In the dimness of the captain’s cabin, a tiny smile curved his wooden features.

In the moment of that thought, he realized that he meant to go back to her. Not today, nor tomorrow, but some day.

Almost like a dream, but we liveships cannot sleep. But it’s like a dream, and in the dream I’m someone else. Something else. And the serpents touch me and that makes it worse.’

‘Mark him with a sign like this earring. He’s going to be ship’s property. Bet it’s the first time in the history of Jamaillia City that a liveship bought a slave of her own.’

‘I don’t believe in luck, Paragon. I believe in fate, and I believe my fate has more terrible and heart-rending facets to it than even you can imagine. You, I know, are one of them.