“I don't know. I don't know enough about what you are. Did it ... When they chopped your face, did that hurt?”

He turned his shattered visage away from her. He lifted his hands and walked his fingers over the splintered wood where his eyes had once been. “Yes.” His brow furrowed. Then in the next breath he added, “I don't remember. There is a lot I can't remember, you know. My logbooks are gone.”

“Sometimes not remembering is the easiest thing to do.”

“You think I'm lying, don't you? You think I can remember, but I just won't admit it.” He picked at it, hoping for a quarrel.

“Paragon. Yesterday we cannot change. We are talking about tomorrow.”

“They're coming tomorrow?”

“I don't know! I was speaking figuratively.” She came closer suddenly and reached up to put her hands flat against him. She wore gloves against the night's chill, but it was still a touch. He could feel the shapes of her hands as two patches of warmth against his planking. “I can't stand the thought of them taking you to cut you up. Even if it doesn't hurt, even if it doesn't kill you. I can't stand the thought of it.”

“There's nothing you can do,” he pointed out. He suddenly felt mature for voicing that thought. “There's nothing either of us can do.”

“That is fatalistic twaddle,” Amber declared angrily. “There's a lot we can do. If nothing else, I swear I will stand here and fight them.”

“You wouldn't win,” Paragon insisted. “It would be stupid to fight, knowing you couldn't win.”

“That's as may be,” Amber replied. “I hope it doesn't come to that. I don't want to wait for it to be that desperate. I want to act before they do. Paragon. We need help. We need someone who will speak to the Bingtown Traders' Council for us.”

“Can't you?”

“You know I can't. Only an Old Trader can attend those meetings, let alone speak. We need someone who can go to them and convince them they should forbid the Ludlucks to do this.”

“Who?”

Amber's voice was small. “I had hoped you knew someone who would speak for you.”

Paragon was silent for a time. Then he laughed harshly. “No one will speak for me. This is a stupid effort, Amber. Think about it. Not even my own family cares for me. I know what they say about me. I am a killer. Moreover, it's true, isn't it? All hands lost. I rolled and drowned them all, and not just once. The Ludlucks are right, Amber. They should sell me to be chopped up.” Despair washed over him, colder and deeper than any storm wave. “I'd like to be dead,” he declared. “I'd just like to stop.”

“You don't mean that,” Amber said softly. He could hear in her voice that she knew he did.

“Would you do me a favor?” he asked suddenly.

“What?”

“Kill me before they can.”

He heard the soft intake of her breath. “I ... No. I couldn't.”

“If you knew they were coming to chop me up, you could. I will tell you the only sure way. You have to set fire to me. Not just in one place, but many, to make sure they cannot put it out and save me. If you gathered dry wood, a little each day, and put it in piles in my hold . . .”

“Don't even speak of such things,” Amber said faintly. Distractedly, she added, “I should put the mussels on to cook now.” He heard her scratching at her fire, then the sizzle of wet seaweed steaming on hot coals. She was cooking the mussels alive. He considered pointing that out to her. He decided it would only upset her, not sway her to his cause. He waited until she had come back to him. She sat on the sand, leaning against his canted hull. Her hair was very fine. When it brushed against his planking, it snagged and clung to the wood.

“You don't make sense,” he pointed out genially. “You vow you would stand and fight for me, knowing you would lose. But this simple, sure mercy you refuse me.”

“Death by flames is scarcely mercy.”

“No. Being chopped to pieces is much more pleasant, I'm sure,” Paragon retorted sarcastically.

“You go so quickly from childish tantrums to cold logic,” Amber said wonderingly. “Are you child or man? What are you?”

“Both, perhaps. But you change the subject. Come. Promise me.”

“No,” she pleaded.

He let out his breath in a sigh. She would do it. He could hear it in her voice. If there were no other way to save him, then she would do it. A strange trembling ran through him. It was a strange victory to have won. “And jars of oil,” he added. “When they come, you may not have much time. Oil would make the wood burn fast and hot.”