“What of me?” Paragon cried out wildly. Rain cascaded down his blind face and his chest. He gripped his beard and dragged at it fiercely. “But what of me?”

“Be with us,” the Greater said. “Or do not be. That is the only choice that remains to you. The serpent spoke true. There remains to us a duty to our own, and no other dragon or dragon-made-ship has the right to deny it to us. We can be only one. Be one with us, or do not be.”

“We’re dying!” Amber cried. Her voice was weak, hoarse from the smoke she breathed. “Fire burns above us, and water fills the hold. How can I save you, or myself?”

“Think,” the Greater one commanded her. “Prove yourself worthy.”

For an instant, Amber rallied. She reached strongly after the Greater, as if she would steal from him what she must know. Then, a fit of coughing shook her. Every spasm of it set her scalded flesh to screaming. As the coughing passed, Amber faded from Paragon’s awareness. He felt her pass to transparency, and then nothingness. As she died, he felt both grief and relief. The heaviness of the cold water in him dragged him down. The waves were getting taller. Soon they would wash over his deck. The fires would go out as the waves took him down, but that was all right. The fire and smoke had accomplished their work.

Then, like an arrow striking home to a target, Amber was suddenly within him. She gasped as she plunged deep into the memories of dragonkind. Paragon felt her floundering, overwhelmed by the unending chain of memories, going from dragon to serpent to dragon to serpent, back beyond to the very first egg. She could not hold it all. He felt her drowning in the memories. She fought valiantly, searching for what the Greater withheld from her as he allowed his memories to flood her.

“It is not in my memory, but in your own, little fool,” he told her. He witnessed her struggling as one watches tree sap flow over a trapped ant.

She wrenched clear of him as if she tore her own hands from the ends of her arms. Paragon felt her fall, and knew that she dragged in breath after smoky breath, striving for fresh air that was not there. She began to fade again, slipping below consciousness. Then, slowly, she lifted her head.

“I know what it is,” she announced. “I know how to save us. But I will not buy my life at Paragon’s expense. I will save us if you promise me this. You will be, not two made one, but three. Paragon must be preserved in you.”

He could feel her fear. It ran from her with her sweat, she expelled it with every breath. He was struck dumb by the idea that someone would be willing to die rather than betray him.

“Done!” the Greater announced. A faint thread of admiration shimmered through his words. “This one has a heart worthy of being partnered with a dragon-ship. Now let her prove she has a mind as well.”

Paragon felt Amber strive to rise, but she had spent the last of her strength. She fell back against him. For her, he tried to close up his seams. He could not. The dragons would not let him. So he fed her such strength as he could, pouring it from his wood into the frail body that rested against him. She lifted her head in the smoky darkness.

“Clef!” she called. Her great exertion produced such a weak call. “Clef!”

“PUT YOUR BACKS INTO IT, DAMN YOU!” BRASHEN BELLOWED. THEN HE WENT off into a fit of coughing. He let the makeshift ram come to a rest on the deck. The men who had been helping him pound on the underside of the hatch sank down around him. The hatch above was not surrendering and time was fleeting. He pushed his panic away. Wizardwood was hard to kindle. There was still a little time, still a chance for survival, but only if he kept trying.

“Don’t slack off on that pump! Drowning’s no better than burning.” At his shouted command, he heard the pump crew go back to work, but the tempo was half-hearted. Too many of the men had been killed, too many injured. The ship was alive with ominous sounds: the working of the bilge pumps, the moaning of the injured, and from above the faint crackling of flames. The bilges were rising, bringing their stink with them. The more water Paragon shipped, the more pronounced the tilt of the deck became. The smoke filtering down into the hold was getting denser, also. Time was running out for them.

“Everybody on the ram again.” Three of the men staggered to their feet and took a grip on the beam they wielded.

At that moment, Brashen was distracted by a tug at his sleeve. He looked down to find Clef. The boy cradled his injured arm across his belly. “It’s Amber, sir.” His face was pale with pain and fear in the uneasy lamplight.

Brashen shook his head. He rubbed at his stinging, streaming eyes. “Do the best you can for her, boy. I can’t come now. I’ve got to keep working on this.”