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BODIES AND SOULS

T HE DAWN SUNLIGHT glinted far too brightly off the water.

The coarse fabric of Wintrow’s trousers chafed his raw skin.

He could not bear a shirt. He could stand and walk alone now, but became giddy if he taxed himself at all.

Even limping to the foredeck was making his heart pound.

As he made his slow journey, working crewmen slowed to stare at him, then, with false heartiness, congratulated him on his recovery.

Scarred enough to make a pirate flinch, he told himself caustically.

The crewmen were sincere in their good wishes to him. He was truly one of their own now.

He ascended the short ladder to the foredeck, two feet to each step. He dreaded confronting the grey and lifeless figurehead, but when he reached the railing and looked down on her renewed colours, his heart leapt. ‘Vivacia!’ he greeted her joyously.

Slowly she turned to him, her black mane sweeping across her bare shoulders. She smiled at him. The swirling gold of a dragon’s eyes gleamed above her red lips.

He stared at her in horror. It was like seeing beloved features animated by a demon. ‘What have you done to her?’ he demanded. ‘Where is she?’ His voice cracked on the words. He gripped the railing tightly as if he could wring the truth out of the dragon.

‘Where is who?’ she responded coolly. Then she slowly blinked her eyes.

They went from gold to green to gold again.

Had he, for an instant, glimpsed Vivacia looking out of those orbs?

As he stared at her, the colours of her eyes whirled slowly and mockingly.

Her scarlet lips bent in a taunting smile.

He took a breath and fought to speak calmly. ‘Vivacia,’ he repeated doggedly. ‘Where is she now? Do you imprison her within yourself? Or have you destroyed her?’

‘Ah, Wintrow. Foolish boy. Poor foolish boy.’ She sighed as if sorry for him, then looked away over the water.

‘She never was. Don’t you understand? She was just a shell, a muddle of memories that your ancestors tried to impose on me.

She wasn’t real. As a result, she isn’t anywhere, not imprisoned in me nor destroyed.

She is like a dream I had, and part of me, I suppose, in the sense that dreams are part of the dreamer.

Vivacia is gone. All that was hers is mine now.

Including you.’ Her voice went hard on the last two words.

Then she smiled again and put warmth in her voice as she added, ‘But let us forgo such inconsequential chatter. Tell me. How are you feeling today? You look so much better. Though I believe you would have to be dead to look worse than you did.’

Wintrow did not dispute that. He had seen himself in Kennit’s shaving mirror.

Every trace of the fresh-faced boy who had wanted to be a priest was gone.

What his father had begun, with his amputated finger and his tattooed face, he had well and truly completed himself.

His face, hands and arms were splotched red and pink and white.

In some spots, he would heal and his skin would tan and look almost normal.

But on his hand and his cheek and along his hairline, the dead-white skin was taut and shiny.

Likely, it would always remain so. He refused to allow it to distress him.

There was no time to be concerned with himself now.

She turned away from him to stare ahead at the islands of the barrier.

They would come soon to the rocky shallows and scattered upthrusts in the treacherous passage between Last Island and Shield Island.

‘Ah, but I could show you how to repair those scars. The knowledge is there, buried in the back of your mind, coated over and hidden from you. Poor little thing, with no more than the memory of your fifteen short summers. Reach out to me. I’ll show you how to heal yourself. ’

‘No.’

She laughed. ‘Ah, I see. This is how you profess your loyalty to “Vivacia”. By refusing to touch minds with me. A feeble tribute, but likely the best you can manage. I could force you, you know. I know you as no one else can.’ For a crawling moment, he felt the presence of her mind twined through his.

She did not reach out for him; rather she let him sense that she was already there.

Then she let her awareness of him go dormant again.

‘But, if you would rather remain disfigured…’ She did not bother to finish the thought.

Longing devoured him. He could recall the intense satisfaction he had felt at consciously directing his body’s repair while he slept in the dragon.

Awake and alive once more, he could not sink his consciousness deep enough to attain that control over himself.

Could she teach him to find that mastery at will?

His desire for that knowledge went far beyond freedom from pain and erasing his latest scars.

Could she show him how to expel the tattoo’s ink from his face?

Teach him to regenerate his lost finger as well?

Once learned, could he use this skill for others?

It would be the unlocking of a great mystery.

All his life, Wintrow had loved knowledge, loved the pursuit of knowledge.

She could not have chosen better bait to tempt him.

‘Such a healer as you could be. Consider. I could persuade Kennit to let you go. You could return to your monastery, to your simple and satisfying service to Sa. You could have your own life back again. You could serve your god, with a clean conscience. With Vivacia gone, there is no real reason for you to be here.’

She had almost had him. He had felt his heart soaring on her words, but the last sentence brought him painfully back. With Vivacia gone . Gone where?

‘You want me to go. Why?’ he asked quietly.

A flashing glance of her swirling gold eyes.

‘Why do you ask?’ she asked tartly. ‘Isn’t it what you have dreamed of, since you were forced aboard the ship?

Did not you constantly fling that at Vivacia?

“But for you, my father would not have taken me from my priesthood.” Why do you not simply take what you want and leave? ’

He thought for a time. ‘Perhaps what I truly want does not involve me leaving.’ He considered her carefully.

‘I think that you make it too attractive to me. So I ask myself, what do you gain by my departure? The only thing I can think of is that it would somehow weaken Vivacia within you. Perhaps if I were not here, she would surrender and become quiescent in you. Sa knows, something in me cries out for her. Perhaps she longs for me as well. While I live and I am here, some part of Vivacia lives. Do you fear that my presence will call her up again? You struggled hard to defeat her. She nearly dragged you into death. You did not conquer her by much.’ Certainty grew in him.

‘You once said yourself that we three are closely intertwined; the death of any one of us would threaten the other two. Vivacia still lives within you, and all that lives is of Sa. My duty to my god is here, as is my duty to Vivacia. I shall not give her up so easily. If being healed by you means surrendering Vivacia, then I refuse the healing. I will stay scarred. I say this to you and I know that she hears it also. I shall not give her up at all.’

‘Stupid boy.’ The figurehead made a show of casually scratching the back of her neck.

‘How dramatic you are! How stirring! If there was anything to be stirred, that is. Wear your scars then, as a pathetic tribute to someone who never was. Let them be the last trace of her existence. Do I wish you to go? Yes, and the reason is that I prefer Kennit. He is a better mate for my ambitions. I wish Kennit to partner me.’

‘You do, do you?’ Etta’s voice was cool and low.

Wintrow startled, but the figurehead appeared only amused.

‘As do you, I am sure,’ the ship murmured.

She let her eyes walk over Etta. An approving smile curved her mouth.

She dismissed Wintrow from her attention to focus on Etta.

‘Come closer, my dear. Is that silk from Verania? My, he does spoil you. Or perhaps he spoils himself, in how he displays his treasure to all. In that colour, you gleam like a rich gem in an exotic setting.’

Etta’s hand rose, almost self-consciously, to finger the deep blue silk of her shirt. A moment of uncertainty passed over her face. ‘I don’t know where the fabric originated. But it came to me from Kennit.’

‘I am almost certain we are looking at Veranian silk here. The finest that there is; but doubtless he would offer you no less than that. When I was in my proper shape, I had no need for fabrics, of course. My own sweet skin flashed and shone more beautifully than anything human hands could make. Still, I know something of silk. Only in Verania could they make that shade of dragon blue.’ She cocked her head at Etta.

‘It quite becomes you. Your colouring favours bright hues. Kennit is right to deck you in silver rather than gold. Silver sparkles against you, where gold would merely be warm.’

Etta touched the bangles at her wrist. A deeper blush touched her cheeks.

She ventured a step or two closer to the railing.

Her eyes met the dragon’s and for a time they seemed entranced with one another.

Wintrow felt excluded. To his surprise, a shiver of jealousy passed over him.

He did not know if it was Vivacia he did not wish to share with Etta, or Etta he wished to keep from the dragon.

Etta gave a small shake of her head, as if to break a glamour.

It set her sleek black hair swinging. She looked at Wintrow and a slight frown creased her forehead.

‘You should not be out in the sun and the wind. It peels the skin from flesh that is trying to heal still. You should stay in your cabin for at least another day.’