Ship of Destiny (Liveship Traders, #3)

by Robin Hobb

If the divine is also female, and the female also divine, then she understands that woman is more than mother, more than daughter, more than wife. Those are the facets of a full life, but no single facet defines the jewel.”

Would you prefer to remain down here with me? There was bitter amusement in the being’s voice now. Do you wish to linger in the tomb of my past? “No. No, I wish to be free.” Free? Wintrow faltered. “I don’t want to know any of this. I don’t want to have ever been a part of it.” You were a part of it as soon as you were conceived. There is no way to undo such a thing.

Althea still sometimes felt she needed someone’s permission simply to be herself. Men seemed to sense that in her. Nothing came easily. She felt the struggle was as constant as her breathing.

“We were speaking of people living their dreams, and I said that few do, and even fewer enjoy the experience. For too many, when they get their dream, they discover it is not what they wanted. Or the dream is bigger than their abilities, and all ends in bitterness.

“Life is not a race to restore a past situation. Nor does one have to hurry to meet the future. Seeing how things change is what makes life interesting.”

“If we focus on trying to go back to what Bingtown was, we are doomed to defeat. We must go forward, create a new Bingtown. It will never be the same as it was. The Traders will never again wield as much power as we did. But we can still go on. That is the challenge, Companion. To take what has happened to you and learn from it, instead of being trapped by it. Nothing is quite so destructive as pity, especially self-pity. No event in life is so terrible that one cannot rise above it.”

“You are not as worldly as you think you are, Trader. If you had ever endured what I have faced, you would know that there are events that are insurmountable. Some experiences change you forever, past any cheery little wish to ignore them.” Ronica met her gaze squarely. “That is only true if you have determined it is true. This terrible event—whatever it was—is over and done. Cling to it and let it shape you and you are doomed to live it forever. You are granting it power over you. Set it aside, and shape your future as you wish it to be, in spite of what happened to you. Then you have seized control of it.”

It was a child’s logic, too simplistic to be real. Make it all go back to the way it was before, he proposed. Could not he see that history was not a cup of tea, to be poured back into a pot?

“Danger cups us under its hand, and we can do nothing but stand witness to the turning of the world. Here we walk on the balancing line between futures. Humanity always believes it decides the fate of the whole world, and so it does, but never in the moment that it thinks it does.

“Look around you. We are on the cusp. We are a coin spinning in the toss, a card fluttering in the flip, a rune chip floating in stirred water. Possibilities swarm like bees. In this day, in a moment, in a breath, the future of the world will shift course by a notch. One way or another, the coin will land ringing, the card will settle to the table, the chip will bob to the surface. The face that shows uppermost will set our days, and children to come will say, ‘That is just the way it has always been.’

You are made of life and beauty, and the dreams of my family for a hundred years. You are made of wind, water and wide blue days. My beauty, my pride, you must not die. If all else fails, if darkness devours all I was, you, at least, must go on.

When circumstances are right, unlikely people do extraordinary things. When the weight of the world is behind them, the push of events and time itself will align to make incredible things happen. Look around you, Brashen. You skirt the center of the vortex, so close you do not see how wondrous are the circumstances surrounding us. We are being swept toward a climax in time, a critical choice-point where all the future must go one way, or another.

“Yet all you can perceive is that you are separated from Althea. A man’s loss of his mate may be the essential trigger that determines all events from henceforth. Do you not see how strange and wonderful that is? That all history balances on an affair of the human heart?”

“The logbooks were a part of it, Brashen, but not the largest piece. The largest piece is me. It has done me good to look back and see my voyages through my captains’ eyes. The places I’ve been, Brashen, and the things I’ve seen, just in my life as a ship; they’re all mine.” He turned away from Brashen. His eyes were still closed but he seemed to stare far over the waters. In a lowered voice he went on, “The pain was just a part of all that. I had lives before this one, and they are just as much mine as this. I can take all my pasts, keep them and determine my own future. I don’t have to be what anyone made me, Brashen. I can be Paragon.”

But pity would not stay destiny. Nothing could save him, or the child. Events had to follow their pattern. Nothing could disrupt the cycling of time. Things would happen again just as they always had. Just as they always would.

“Give it back to me, Althea. There is no reason for you to keep it. It was never even his to give you. Do you understand that? He passed it on to you. He tried to get rid of pain by giving it away, but it was not his. It should have stayed with me. I take it back from you now. All you have to do is let it go. I leave you the memory, for that, I fear, is truly yours. But the hurt is an old hurt, passed on from one to another like a pestilence. I have decided to stop it. It comes back to me now, and with me it remains.” For a time, she resisted, gripping it tightly. “You can’t take it from me. It was that horrible. It was that bad. No one would understand it; no one would believe it. If you take the pain away, you make a lie of what I endured.” “No. No, my dear, I make it only a memory, instead of something that you live continuously in your mind. Leave it in the past. It cannot hurt you now. I will not let it.”

She did not have to grip her pain. She could let it go. The memory was still there. It had not vanished, but it had changed. It was a memory, a thing from her past. This wound could close and heal. The injury done to her was over. She did not have to keep it as a part of herself. She could allow herself to heal.