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T HE brEEZE OFF the water was the only thing that made working tolerable.

The summer sun beat down from the cloudless sky.

When Brashen looked out across the waves, the reflected light was dazzling.

The brightness pounded spikes of pain into his brow.

The only thing that made him scowl more deeply was the workmen moving lackadaisically, performing their tasks without energy or enthusiasm.

He stood braced on the slanting deck of the Paragon.

He shut his eyes for a moment then reopened them and tried to consider the task from a fresh perspective.

The ship had been hauled out on the beach over a score of years ago.

Abandoned and neglected, the elements had had their way with him.

Were it not for his wizardwood construction, he would be no more than a skeleton.

Storms and tides had conspired to push the Paragon to the limits of the high tide line.

The passage of years had heaped sand against his hull.

He now lay with his keel towards the water, heeled over on the sandy beach.

Only the very highest tides now touched him.

The solution was deceptively easy. The sand must be shovelled away.

Timbers placed under the hull would act as skids.

Put a heavy counterweight on the top of his shattered main mast to lay him even further over on his side.

At the highest tide at the end of the month, anchor a barge offshore.

Run a line from the Paragon to the barge’s stern windlass.

With men on shore with levers to urge him down the skids and men on the barge working the windlass, the ship would slide on his side towards the water.

The counterweight on his hull would keep him heeled over and allow him to float in shallower water.

Once they got him into deeper water, they’d right him.

Then they would see what happened next.

Brashen sighed. A man could describe the whole operation in a breath or two. Then he could work for a solid week and be no closer to the solution.

All around the ship, men toiled with shovels and barrows.

Heavy timbers had been floated in on yesterday’s high tide.

Securely roped together, they awaited use on the beach.

Near them was another raft of roller logs.

If all went well, eventually Paragon would ride them down the beach to be re-launched.

If all went well. Some days that seemed like a vain hope.

The new crew of workmen moved sluggishly in the hot sun.

Hammers rang in the summer air. There was rock under the sand.

In some places it could be chipped away to allow the skids under the ship.

In others, the workers were trying to set levers under the hull.

Then there would be a massive effort of lifting, so that other levers could be grounded even more deeply.

Each shifting placed new wracks on the old vessel.

After all the years of lying on his side, there was bound to be some shifting of timbers and planks.

From what Brashen could see, the hull was not too badly racked, but the ship would have to be lifted before he could be sure.

Once he was upright and floating free…and he prayed Paragon would float freely…

the real work would begin. The entire hull would have to be trued up before it could be re-caulked.

Then a new mast would have to be stepped…

Brashen abruptly stopped the chain of thought.

He could not think that far ahead, or he would become completely discouraged.

One day and one task at a time were all his aching head could handle.

He absent-mindedly ran his tongue about inside his lower lip, feeling for a piece of cindin that wasn’t there.

Even the deep sores from the addictive drug were starting to heal now.

His body seemed able to forget the drug faster than his spirit.

He longed for cindin with an intensity as relentless as thirst. He’d traded away his earring for a stick two days ago, and regretted it.

Not only had it set him back in forgetting the drug, but the cindin had been poor quality, no more than a tease of relief.

Still, if he’d had even a shard of silver to his name, he would not have been able to resist the urge.

The only coins he possessed were those in the bag Ronica Vestrit had entrusted to him.

Last night he’d awakened drenched in a cold sweat, his head pounding.

He’d sat up until dawn, trying to rub the cramps from his hands and feet while he stared at the dwindling purse.

He’d wondered how wrong it would be to take a few coins to set himself right.

The cindin would help him to stay alert longer and have more energy for this task.

Towards dawn, he had opened the bag and counted the coins out into his hand.

Then he had put them back and gone into the galley, to brew yet another pot of chamomile tea.

Amber, sitting there whittling, had wisely said nothing.

He was still amazed at how easily she had adapted to his presence.

She accepted his coming and going without comment.

She still occupied the captain’s cabin. Time enough to make that space his own when the Paragon floated free once more.

For now, he had slung his hammock in the ’tween decks.

Living in the canted ship became more challenging daily as the angle of the deck grew ever sharper.

‘Paragon, no!’

Amber’s voice, raised in disbelief, broke into his thoughts and coincided with the immense crack of a timber.

Voices cried out in alarm. Brashen scrambled forward, arriving on the foredeck just in time to hear a timber resounding as it struck against a rocky outcrop of the beach.

All around Paragon, the workers were retreating from the ship.

They called warnings to one another, pointing not just at the thrown timber but at the trench it had made in the beach when it landed.

Without a word, his face expressionless, Paragon refolded his thick arms on his muscled chest. He stared blindly out across the water.

‘Damn you!’ Brashen cried out with great feeling. He glared around at the workers. ‘Who let him get hold of that timber?’

A white faced oldster replied. ‘We was setting it in place. He reached down and snatched it away from us…How in Sa did he know it was there?’ The old man’s voice was full of superstitious dread.

Brashen clenched his hands into fists. If it had been the ship’s first display of sulkiness, he might have been surprised.

But every day since they began, he had created one delay after another.

His displays of temper and strength made it difficult for Brashen to keep workers.

Through them all, Paragon had spoken not one civil word to Brashen.

Brashen leaned over the railing. From the corner of his eye, he spotted Althea, just arriving at the ship for the day’s work.

She looked puzzled at the frozen scene. ‘Get back to work!’ he bellowed at the men who were gawking and nudging one another.

He pointed at the thrown timber. ‘Pick that up and put it back in place.’

‘Not me!’ one worker declared. He wiped sweat from his face, then tossed his mallet to the sand.

‘He could have killed me, just then. He can’t see where he’s throwing stuff, even if he did care.

And I don’t think he does. He’s killed before, everyone knows that.

My life is worth more than you’re paying me for a day’s work. I’m gone. I want my pay.’

‘Me, too.’

‘Same for me.’

Brashen clambered over the railing, then dropped lightly to the beach.

He didn’t let his face show how the pain shot to the top of his skull.

He advanced on the men in a show of aggression, praying he wouldn’t have to back it up.

He thrust his face into that of the first man who had spoken.

‘You want to get paid, you stick around and finish out your day’s work.

You walk now, you don’t get a copper.’ He scowled round at the lot of them and hoped his bluff would work.

If these ones walked, he didn’t know where he would find others.

They were the dregs of the taverns, men who would only work long enough to earn coins for the night’s drinking.

He had had to offer them better wages than they could get anywhere else to lure them out to the bad-luck ship.

As the men about him muttered discontentedly, he barked, ‘Take it or leave it. I didn’t hire you for half a day’s work, and I’m not paying for half a day’s work. Get under that timber, now.’

‘I’ll work,’ one of the men offered. ‘But not up here, not where he can reach me or crush me with a thrown timber. I won’t do that.’

Brashen spat in disgust. ‘Work on the aft keel then, lionheart. Amber and I will take the bow, if none of you here has the courage to do so.’

A slow and evil smile spread across Paragon’s face.

‘Some prefer a quick death, some a slow one. Some don’t care if their sons are born legless and blind like this cursed ship.

Pick up your mallets and work on. What care you about what happens tomorrow?

’ In a lower voice he added, ‘Why should you expect to live that long?’

Brashen had spun to confront the ship. ‘Are you talking to me?’ he demanded. ‘All your days of silence, and then you say that to me?’

For an instant, the Paragon’s face changed. Brashen could not say what emotion was displayed there, but it froze his soul and squeezed his heart. An instant later, it was replaced with a supercilious stare. The figurehead took a breath and settled into stillness.