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He heard them long before they reached him.

He knew it was full dark night, for the evening birds had ceased their calls hours ago.

From the damp that beaded him, he suspected there was a dense fog tonight.

So Paragon waited with trepidation, wondering why two humans would be picking their way down the beach toward him in the dark and fog.

He could not doubt that he was their destination; there was nothing else on this beach.

As they drew closer, he could smell the hot oil of a burning lantern.

It did not seem to be doing them much good, for there had been frequent small curses as they worked their stumbling way towards him.

He already knew one was Mingsley. He was coming to know that man’s voice entirely too well.

Perhaps they were coming to set fire to him. He had taunted Mingsley the last time he was here. Perhaps the man would fling the lantern at him. The glass would break and flaming oil would splash over him. He’d die here, screaming and helpless, a slow death by fire.

‘Not much farther,’ Paragon heard Mingsley promise his companion.

‘That’s the third time you’ve said that,’ complained another voice. His accent spoke of Chalced even more strongly than Mingsley’s did of Jamaillia. ‘I’ve fallen twice, and I think my knee is bleeding. This had damned well better be worth it, Mingsley.’

‘It is, it is. Wait until you see it.’

‘In this fog, we won’t be able to see a thing. Why couldn’t we come by day?’

Did Mingsley hesitate in his reply? ‘There has been some bad feeling about town; the Old Traders don’t like the idea of anyone not an Old Trader buying a liveship.

If they knew you were interested… well. I’ve had a few not-so-subtle warnings to stay away from here.

When I ask why, I get lies and excuses. They tell me no one but a Bingtown Trader can own a liveship.

You ask why, you’ll get more lies. Goes against all their traditions, is what they’d like you to believe.

But actually, there’s a great deal more to it than that.

More than I ever suspected when I first started negotiating for this.

Ah! Here we are! Even damaged, you can see how magnificent he once was. ’

The voices had grown closer as Mingsley was speaking. A sense of foreboding had been growing within Paragon too, but his voice was steady as he boomed out, ‘Magnificent? I thought ugly was the word you applied to me last time.’

He had the satisfaction of hearing both men gasp.

Mingsley’s voice was none too steady as he attempted to brag, ‘Well, we should have expected that. A liveship is, after all, alive.’ There was a sound of metal against metal.

Paragon guessed that a lantern had been unhooded to shed more light.

The smell of hot oil came more strongly.

Paragon shifted uneasily, crossing his arms on his chest. ‘There, Firth. What do you think of him?’ Mingsley announced.

‘I’m… overwhelmed,’ the other man muttered.

There was genuine awe in his voice. Then he coughed and added, ‘But I still don’t know why we’re out here and at night.

Oh, I know a part of it. You want my financial backing.

But just why should I help you raise three times what a ship this size would cost us for a beached derelict with a chopped-up figurehead? Even if it can talk.’

‘Because it’s made of wizardwood.’ Mingsley uttered the words as if revealing a well-kept secret.

‘So? All liveships are,’ Firth retorted.

‘And why is that?’ Mingsley added in a voice freighted with mystery. ‘Why build a ship of wizardwood, a substance so horrendously expensive it takes generations to pay one off? Why?’

‘Everyone knows why,’ Firth grumbled. ‘They come to life and then they’re easier to sail.’

‘Tell me. Knowing that about wizardwood, would you rush to commit your family’s fortunes for three or four generations, just to possess a ship like this?’

‘No. But Bingtown Traders are crazy. Everyone knows that.’

‘So crazy that every damned family of them is rich,’ Mingsley pointed out. ‘And what makes them rich?’

‘Their monopolies on the most fascinating trade goods in the world. Mingsley, we could have discussed economics back at the inn, over hot spiced cider. I’m cold, the fog has soaked me through, and my knee is throbbing like I’m poisoned. Get to the point.’

‘If you fell on barnacles, likely you are poisoned,’ Paragon observed in a booming voice. ‘Likely it will swell and fester. He’s lined you up for at least a week of pain.’

‘Be quiet!’ Mingsley hissed.

‘Why should I?’ Paragon mocked him. ‘Are you that nervous about being caught out here, tinkering with what doesn’t concern you? Talking about what you can never possess?’

‘I know why you won’t!’ Mingsley suddenly declared.

‘You don’t want him to know, do you? The precious secret of wizardwood, you don’t want that shared, do you?

Because then the whole stack of blocks comes tumbling down for the Bingtown Traders.

Think about it, Firth. What is the whole of Bingtown founded on, really?

Not some ancient grant from the Satrap. But the goods that come down the Rain River, the really strange and wondrous stuff from the Rain Wild themselves. ’

‘He’s getting you in deeper than you can imagine,’ Paragon warned Firth loudly. ‘Some secrets aren’t worth sharing. Some secrets have prices higher than you’ll want to pay.’

‘The Rain Wild River, whose waters run cold and then hot, brown and then white. Where does it really come from, that water? You’ve heard the same legends I have, of a vast smoking lake of hot water, the nesting grounds of the firebirds.

They say the ground there trembles constantly and that mist veils the land and water.

That is the source of the Rain River… and when the ground shakes savagely, then the river runs hot and white.

That white water can eat through the hull of any ship almost as swiftly as it eats through the flesh and bones of a man.

So no one can go up the Rain Wild River to trade.

You can’t trek up the banks, either. The shores of the river are treacherous bogs, the hanging vines drip scalding acid, the sap of the plants that grow there can raise welts on a man’s flesh that burn and ooze for days. ’

‘Get to the point,’ Firth urged Mingsley angrily, even as Paragon shouted, ‘Shut up! Close your foul mouth! And get away from my beach. Get away from me. Or come close enough to be killed by me. Yes. Come here, little man. Come to me!’ He reached out blindly, swinging his arms wide, his hands open to grasp.

‘Unless you have a liveship,’ Mingsley revealed.

‘Unless you have a liveship, hulled with wizardwood, impervious to the hot, white water of the river. Unless you have a liveship, who knows from the moment it is quickened the one channel up the river. That is the true source of the Bingtown monopoly on the trade. You have to have a liveship to get in the game.’ He paused dramatically.

‘And I’m offering you the chance to get one. ’

‘He’s lying,’ Paragon shouted desperately.

‘Lying! There’s more to it, so much more to it.

And even if you owned me, I wouldn’t sail for you.

I’d roll and kill you all! I’ve done it before, you’ve heard the tales.

And if you haven’t, ask in any tavern. Ask about the Paragon, the Pariah, the death-ship!

Go ahead, ask, they’ll tell you. They’ll tell you I’ll kill you! ’

‘He can be forced,’ Mingsley said with quiet confidence.

‘Or removed. The hull is what is important, a good riverman could sound us out a channel. Think what we could do with a wizardwood ship. There’s some tribe up there that the Bingtown Traders traffic with.

One trip would be all it would take. Firth, we could pay them double what the Old Traders pay them, and still make a profit.

This is our chance to get in on a trade that’s been closed to outsiders since Bingtown was founded.

I’ve got the contacts, the owners are listening for the right cash offer.

All I need is the backing. And you’ve got that. ’

‘He’s lying to you,’ Paragon bellowed out into the night. ‘He’s going to get you killed. And worse! Much worse. There are worse things than dying, you Chalcedean scum. But only a Bingtown Trader would know that. Only a Bingtown Trader could tell you that.’

‘I think I’m interested,’ Firth said quietly. ‘But there are better places to discuss this.’

‘No!’ howled Paragon. ‘You don’t know what he’s selling you, you don’t know what grief you’d be buying. You’ve no idea, no idea at all!’ His voice broke suddenly. ‘I won’t go with you, I won’t, I won’t. I don’t want to, and you can’t make me, you can’t, I’ll kill you, I’ll kill you all!’

Again he flailed out wildly. If he had been able to reach the beach, he would have thrown sand, rocks, seaweed, anything. But his hands found nothing. He halted suddenly, listening. The footsteps were receding.

‘… tell anyone?’

‘Not a concern, really,’ he heard Mingsley reply confidently.

‘You heard him. He’s mad, completely insane.

No one listens to him. No one even comes out here.

Even if he had someone to tell, they’d never believe him.

That’s the beauty of this, my friend. It’s so far outside of anyone else’s imagining.

That ship has rested there for years. Years!

And no one ever thought of this before…’

His voice dwindled, and was damped away by the muffling fog and the shush of the waves.