Shreever could endure it no longer. She let him dance until exhaustion began to dim his false-eyes. In a slow wavering of weariness, he began to drift toward the bottom. Ruff slack and unchallenging, she approached his descent and matched it. “Maulkin,” she bugled quietly. “Has your vision failed? Are we lost?”

He unlidded his eyes to stare at her. Almost lazily he looped a loose coil around her, drawing her down to tangle with him in the soft muck. “Not merely a place,” he told her almost dreamily. “It is a time as well. And not just a time and a place, but a tangle. A tangle such as has not been gathered since ancient times. I can almost scent a One Who Remembers.”

Shreever shivered her coils, trying to read his memory. “Maulkin. Are not you One Who Remembers?”

“I?” His eyes were lidding again. “No. Not completely. I can almost remember. I know there is a place, and a time, and a tangle. When I experience them, I will know them without question. We are close, very close, Shreever. We must persevere and not doubt. So often the time has come and gone, and we have missed it. I fear that if we miss it yet again, all our memories of the ancient times will fade, and we will never be as we were.”

“And what were we?” she asked, simply to hear him confirm it.

“We were the masters, moving freely through both the Lack and the Plenty. All that one knew, everyone knew, and all shared the memories of all time, from the beginning. We were powerful and wise, respected and revered by all the lesser creatures of mind.”

“And then what happened?” Shreever asked the rote question.

“The time came to be re-shaped. To mingle the essences of our very bodies, and thus to create new beings, partaking of new vitality and new strengths. It was time to perform the ancient cycling of joining and sundering, and growing yet again. It was time to renew our bodies.”

“And what will happen next?” she completed her part of the ritual.

"All will come together at the time and the place of the gathering.

All memory shall be shared again, all that was held safe by one shall be given back to all. The journey to rebirth shall be completed, and we shall rise in triumph once more."

“So it shall be,” Sessurea confirmed from nearby in the tangle. “So it shall be.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE - CANDLETOWN

CANDLETOWN WAS A LIVELY LITTLE TRADE PORT ON THE MARROW PENINSULA. ALTHEA HAD BEEN HERE BEFORE, with her father. As she stood on the deck of the Reaper and looked around at the busy harbor, it suddenly seemed that if she jumped from the ship and ran down the docks, she must find the Vivacia tied up and her father on board her just as it used to be. He'd be in the captain's salon, receiving merchants from the city. There would be fine brandy and smoked fish and aged cheese set out, and the atmosphere would be one of comradely negotiation as he offered his cargo in exchange for their wares or coin. The room would be both clean and cozy, and Althea's stateroom would be as it once had been, her personal haven.

The sudden ache of longing she felt for the past was a physical pain in her chest. She wondered where her ship was, and how she was faring under Kyle's usage. She hoped Wintrow had become a good companion to her, despite the jealousy that assured her that no one could ever know the Vivacia as well as she did. Soon, she promised both herself and her distant ship. Soon.

“Boy!”

The sharp word came from close behind her, and she jumped before she recognized both Brashen's voice and the teasing snap in the word. Still, “Sir?” she asked, turning hastily.

“Captain wants to see you.”

“Yes, sir,” she replied and jumped up to go.

“Wait. A moment.”

She hated the way he glanced about to see if anyone was near, or even watching them. Didn't he realize that to anyone else that was an obvious signal of something clandestine between them? Worse still, he stepped close to her, to be able to speak more softly.

“Dinner ashore tonight?” He tapped his pouch, so the coins inside gave a jingle. A newly stamped ship's tag hung from his belt beside it.

She shrugged. “If I get liberty, perhaps I will.” She chose deliberately to miss the invitation in his question.

His eyes traveled over her face lingeringly. “That serpent burn is nearly gone. For a time, I feared you'd carry a scar.”

Althea shrugged, refusing to meet the tenderness in his eyes. “What's one more scar on a sailor? I doubt anyone else aboard has noticed it or will.”

“Then you've decided to stay on with the ship?”

“I'll work it as long as we're in port. But I think I've a better chance of getting a ship back to Bingtown from here than from the other little ports the Reaper will visit after this.” She knew she should let it lie at that, but sudden curiosity made her ask, “And you?”