Wearily Etta turned her head. The liveship came driving toward them through the pouring rain. She could already see the hands on the deck struggling to get a boat into the water. “They'll never get to us,” she despaired.

“Trust the luck, my dear. Trust the luck!” Kennit rebuked her. With his free hand, he began to paddle determinedly toward the ship.

HE WAS DIMLY AWARE OF HIS RESCUE. IT ANNOYED HIM TREMENDOUSLY. HE was so alive, so full of memory and sensory recall, he just wished to be still and absorb it. Instead, they kept clutching at him. The woman kept shaking him and shrilling at him to stay awake, stay awake. There was a man's voice. He kept yelling at the woman to keep his face up, keep his face out of the water, he's drowning, can't you see? Wintrow wished they would both shut up and leave him alone.

He remembered so much. He remembered his destiny, as well as recalling all the lives he had led before this one. Suddenly it was all so clear. He had been hatched to be the repository of all memory for all serpents. He would contain them until such time as each was ready to come to him, and with a touch renew their rightful heritage. He would be the one to guide them home, to the place far up the river where they would find both safety and the special soil from which to create their cases. There would be guides awaiting them at the river, to protect them on their journey upriver and to stand watch over them as they awaited their metamorphosis. It had been so long, but he was free now, and all would be well.

“Get Wintrow in first. He's unconscious.”

That was the man's voice, exhausted but still commanding. A new voice shouted, “Sa's breath! There's a serpent! Right under them, get them aboard, quick, quick!”

“It brushed him. Get the boy in, quick!”

A confusion of movement, and then pain. His body had forgotten how to bend; it was too swollen. They bent him anyway, seizing him tightly by his limbs as they pulled him from the Plenty into the Lack. They dropped him onto something hard and uneven. He lay gasping, hoping his gills would not dry out before he could escape.

“What is that stuff on him? It stung my hands!”

“Wash him off. Get that stuff off him,” someone advised someone else.

“Let's get him to the ship first.”

“I don't think he'll last that long. At least get it off his face.”

Someone scrubbed at his face. It hurt. He opened his jaws and tried to roar at them. He willed toxins, but his mane would not stand. It was too painful. He slipped back from this life, into the previous one.

He spread his wings wide and soared. Scarlet wings, blue sky. Below, green fields, fat white sheep to feed on. In the distance, the shining towers of a city gleamed. He could hunt, or he could go to the city and be fed. Above the city, a funnel of dragons circled like bright fish caught in a whirlpool. He could join them. The people of the city would turn out to greet him, singing songs, so pleased he had honored them with a visit. Such simple creatures, living scarcely for more than a few breaths. Which pleasure was more tempting? He could not decide. He hovered, catching the wind under his wings and sliding up the sky.

“Wintrow. Wintrow. Wintrow.”

A man's voice, beating against his dream and breaking it into pieces. He stirred reluctantly.

“Wintrow. He hears us, he moved. Wintrow!” The woman added her voice to the man's.

That most ancient of magics, the binding of a man by the use of his name, gripped him. He was Wintrow Vestrit, merely a human, and he hurt, he hurt so badly. Someone touched him, making the pain sharper. He could not escape them now.

“Can you hear me, boy? We're nearly to the ship. Soon we can ease the pain. Stay awake. Don't give up.”

The ship. Vivacia. He recoiled in sudden horror. If the Others were Abomination, what was she? He drew in a breath. It was hard to take in air, and harder to push it out as words. “No,” he moaned. “No.”

“We'll be on Vivacia soon. She'll help you.”

He could not speak. His tongue was too swollen in his mouth. He could not beg them not to return him to the ship. A part of him still loved her, despite knowing what she was. How could he bear it? Could he keep what he knew from her? For so long, she had believed she was truly alive. He must not let her know that she was dead.

THE SEA HAD NEVER OPPOSED THEM AS IT DID NOW. ETTA CROUCHED IN the stern with Wintrow's sodden body in her arms. The four sailors on the oars fought them. The whites showed all around their eyes as they struggled. There seemed to be one current for Vivacia to contend with, and another that gripped the small boat and tugged at it like a dog with a bone. The rain lashed down and the wind added its push to the water's pull. Kennit huddled in the bow. His crutch had been lost when they hauled him from the water. Etta could scarcely see him for the rain that sheeted down between them. Kennit's hair was sleeked to his skull and his mustache had straightened completely in the wet. In one breathless break in the rain, Etta thought she glimpsed the Marietta far offshore. Her sails hung limp from her spars and sunlight glinted off her decks. In the next breath, Etta blinked the rain from her lashes. She told herself that what she had seen was impossible.