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He hesitated, biting his tongue. ‘I’d like you belowdecks.

You know what trouble looks like and sounds like before it becomes a disaster.

I know you’d rather watch from up here, but I’d like to have someone I trust down below.

The men I put on the pumps have muscle and endurance, but not much sea time.

Or wits. I’ve got a few hands down there with mallets and oakum.

You move them around as you see fit as he starts to take on water.

They seem to know their business, but watch them and keep them working.

I’d like you moving around down there, looking and listening and letting me know how we’re doing. ’

‘I’m there,’ she assured him quietly. She turned to go.

‘Althea,’ he heard himself say aloud.

She turned back immediately. ‘Was there something else?’

He ransacked his mind for something intelligent to say. All he wanted to ask her was if she had changed her mind about him. ‘Good luck,’ he said lamely.

‘To us all,’ she replied gravely, and left.

An incoming wave ran up across the sand.

The white foam at the edge of it lapped against the hull.

Brashen took a deep breath. This was it.

The next few hours would tell all. ‘Everyone, get to your places!’ he barked.

He twisted his head and looked up at the top of the cliffs above the beach.

Clef nodded that he was paying attention.

He held two flags at the ready. ‘Signal them to start taking up the slack. But not too much.’

Out on the barge, the men at the turnstile leaned into their work.

Someone took up a slow-paced chant. The rough music of the men’s deep voices reached to him over the water.

Despite all his reservations, a grim smile broke out on his face and he took a deep breath.

‘Back to sea with us, Paragon. Here we go.’

Each incoming wave washed closer to him.

He could hear it. He could even smell the water coming closer.

They had shoved him down and weighted him and now they would let the waves swallow him up.

Oh, he knew what they said, that they were going to re-float him.

But he didn’t believe them. He knew this was his punishment, coming at last. They would weight him down and pull him out under the water and then they would leave him there for the serpents to find.

It was, after all, what he deserved. The Ludluck family had waited a long time, but they would finally take their vengeance today.

They would send his bones to the bottom, just as he had done to their kin.

‘You’re going to die, too,’ he said with satisfaction.

Amber perched like a seabird on his cockeyed railing.

She had told him, over and over, that she was going to stay with him through the whole thing.

That she wouldn’t leave him, that everything was going to be fine.

She’d find out. When the water finally rushed over them and pulled her down, too, she would find out how wrong she had been.

‘Did you say something, Paragon?’ she asked him courteously.

‘No.’ He crossed his arms on his chest again and held them tightly against his body.

He could feel water the full length of his hull now.

The waves pushed at the sand under him like little tunnelling insects.

The ocean worked its greedy fingers up under him.

Each wave that brushed him was a tiny bit deeper.

He felt the rope from his mast to the barge grow tighter.

Brashen shouted something, and the pressure steadied but did not increase.

The men’s work song stilled. Inside him, Althea called out in a carrying voice, ‘So far, so good!’

The water crept under him. He shivered suddenly.

The next wave might lift him. No. It came and went and he still rested on the sand.

The next one then. No. Well then, the next…

Wave after wave came and went. He was in an agony of anticipation and fear.

Despite all his expectations, when he first felt that tiny bit of lift, the grating of hull against sand as he floated for a fraction of a second, he whooped in surprise.

He felt Amber tighten her grip convulsively. ‘Paragon! Are you all right?’ she called out in alarm.

Suddenly he had no time for her fears. ‘Hang on!’ he warned her jubilantly. ‘Here we go!’ But wave after wave kissed against him and Brashen did nothing. Paragon could feel the sand shifting under him as the sea ate at it. He felt, too, a great stone revealed by the retreating sand.

‘Brashen!’ he called out in annoyance. ‘Get onto it, man! I’m ready! Tighten that line! Have them put their backs into it!’

He heard the heavy sound of splashing. Brashen ran up to him, through licking waves that must be thigh-high on the man by now. ‘Not yet, Paragon. It’s not quite deep enough yet.’

‘Cark you if it isn’t! Do you think I’m so stupid I don’t know when I’m floating? I can feel myself starting to lift on every wave, and there’s a damn big rock under me. If you don’t start moving me down the sand I’m going to be pounding up and down against it soon.’

‘Easy, then. Don’t get excited, I’ll take your word for it! Clef! Signal them to get started. Slow and easy now!’

‘Screw that! Tell them to put their backs into it now!’ Paragon countermanded Brashen’s order. ‘You hear me, Clef?’ he bellowed when no one made any response. They had damn well better be listening to him, he thought savagely. He was tired of them treating him like a child.

The line on his mast stub tightened with an abruptness that made him grunt.

‘Heave!’ Brashen shouted, and the men with the levers strained against them.

They rocked him up, but not quite enough.

Once he started moving, he was supposed to tip forward onto a roller wedged under his hull.

They would have been smarter to haul it out of there.

Now it was only going to act as a wedge.

‘HEAVE!’ Brashen shouted as the next wave peaked.

Suddenly he bumped up and onto the roller.

‘TIGHTEN THAT LINE!’ Paragon felt Brashen scramble aboard him.

Suddenly he was moving, sliding down the beach, deeper and deeper into the incoming water.

It was cold, ghastly cold after his years of lying out in the sun, and he gasped with the shock of it.

‘Steady. Steady. It’s going to be all right. Take it easy. They’ll right you as soon as the water is deep enough. Hang on. It’s going to be all right.’

From inside him, he heard Althea call, ‘We’re making water, but I think we’re under control. You, get onto that pump! Don’t wait for it to fill up, do it now!’

He felt the thudding of mallets inside him as someone packed oakum into a seam that had opened.

Althea’s raised voice indicated they weren’t doing it fast enough to suit her.

He was sliding, sliding on his side down the beach, into ever-deeper water.

Now as each wave hit him, he rocked. Both design and his own instinct tried to bring him upright, but the damn counterweight on his mast was holding him over.

‘Cut the weight loose! Let me come upright!’ he bellowed angrily.

‘Not yet, lad. Not quite yet. Just a bit more. I’ve set a buoy, and as soon as we’re past it, I’ll know your keel will clear. Steady now, steady.’

‘Let me up!’ Paragon shouted, and this time he could not keep a note of fear out of his voice.

‘Soon. Trust me, lad. Just a bit further.’

In his years ashore, he had almost become accustomed to his blindness.

But it was one thing to lie immobile and see nothing.

It was quite another to suddenly be in motion, on the breast of the unpredictable sea once more, and to have no idea where he was or what was near him.

A driftwood log could pound against him, an unseen rock could hole him, and he would have no warning until it happened. Why wouldn’t they let him come upright?

‘All right, let it go!’ Brashen suddenly yelled.

The line that had been attached to the counterweight was loosened.

Slowly he began to come upright, and then sudden as a cork, the next wave righted him.

Amber gave an abrupt yell of surprise, but held on.

Cold water suddenly washed against and below him on both sides.

For the first time in over thirty years, he stood straight and tall.

He flung his arms out and gave a roar of triumph.

He heard Amber echo it in a wild laugh even as within him Althea shouted in alarm.

‘Get on those pumps! Now! Brashen, let go the canvas as soon as you can!’

He heard the thunder of feet and wild shouting, but he didn’t care.

He wasn’t going to sink. He could feel it.

He stretched his arms, his back, and his shoulders.

As the water bore him up, he extended his awareness throughout his body.

He could almost feel how his planks and beams should go.

He took a deep breath and tried to bring himself into alignment.

He listed suddenly to starboard. There was a cry of surprise from Amber and an angry roar from Brashen.

He lifted his hands to his temples and squeezed.

It was the same old thing: something was wrong inside him.

His parts didn’t go together right. He shifted again, ignoring the groans and squeaks of his wood as the planks worked against each other.

Slowly he began to stabilize. Dimly he was aware of the frantic work going on within him.

Men manned his pumps, trying to keep up with the water streaming in through his sprung seams. He felt the sudden press of canvas against his planking.

Althea was shouting at the men inside him to hurry, hurry, get that oakum tamped into place.

He could feel his wood starting to swell.

Abruptly he bumped against something, and Brashen was shouting, throw a line, throw a line and make it fast, you idiot!