Leftrin said nothing. He glided his hands lightly along the bow railing, thinking. Tarman was an old ship, older than any of the other liveships. He was one of the first to have been put together from wizardwood, as it was known then. He hadn’t been designed to be a trading ship of any kind, only a simple wooden barge, given a thick layer of the only sort of wood that seemed impervious to the Rain Wild River’s acid rages. In a tradition much older than Bingtown or even Jamaillia, Leftrin’s ancestor had painted eyes on his ship not only to give it a wise expression but as a superstition that the barge would literally “watch out” for itself on the dangerous waterway. At the time, the only known properties of wizardwood were that it was hard and heavy and could withstand acid. No one had known then that after lifetimes of human presence on board, a liveship could attain its own awareness. That would not be discovered until the first sailing ships with figureheads were carved from the stuff.

But that didn’t mean that Tarman hadn’t become aware. It didn’t mean that his captains hadn’t known and felt his presence.

The sailors of Leftrin’s lineage had known there was something peculiar about their ship, especially those who grew up on his deck, who slept and played aboard him. They developed an affinity for both the barge and the river, an instinctive knack for navigating and for avoiding the ever-shifting sandbars and hidden snags of the forest waterway. They dreamed strange dreams that they seldom shared except with other members of the family. The dreams were not just dreams of the river and sliding silently through it. They had dreams of flying and sometimes dreams of swimming in a deep and blue-shadowed world.

Tarman had become aware, just as all liveships eventually did. But he had no mouth to speak with, no carved hands or human face. He was silent, but his eyes were old and knowing.

Perhaps Leftrin should have left him that way. Things had been good between them. Why had he desired to try to make them better?

The wizardwood log had been both a windfall and a complication in his life.

He’d made his plans so carefully. He’d reduced his crew to a handful of men whom he absolutely trusted. He’d found men who had worked wizardwood, men with sterling reputations for honesty and carpentry skill. He’d scrimped and saved and bartered for the tools he needed to have. And when all was ready, he’d transported them to where he had found and secured the log of wizardwood.

And he had done it knowing that it was neither log nor wood.