“No.” Mercor had overheard her question as the golden dragon arrived to stand near her. “Tarman is a liveship and a most unusual one at that. He moves himself.”

“How?” she demanded, but in the next instant she had her answer. The ship rocked from side to side and then, with tremendous effort, heaved himself up. For a moment, she had a glimpse of squat front legs. Then they bent and the ship settled once more in the shallow water and mud. She stared in astonishment and then her gaze wandered to the ship’s painted eyes. She had always thought they looked kind. Now they seemed determined to her. Water had splashed up over them in his latest effort. She stared at him, meeting his gaze and trying to decide if she looked at more than paint.

A moment later the ship gathered himself and again lifted, shifted, and dropped. He was unmistakably moving his bow.

“He’s trying to free himself,” Sedric suggested shakily. “That’s all.”

“I don’t think that’s all,” Thymara muttered, staring.

“Nor I,” Mercor added.

Ranculos had come closer. This time, as the ship lifted, he flared his nostrils and lifted the fringes on his neck. “I smell dragon!” he proclaimed loudly. He lifted his wings slightly and craned his head about.

“You smell the ship. You smell Tarman,” Mercor corrected him.

Ranculos lowered his head and extended his neck. With his wings slightly lifted, he reminded Thymara of a courting bird as he approached the liveship, nostrils flared.

Mercor spoke in a voice that seemed resigned to foolishness. “Tarman is a liveship, Ranculos. His hull was made from a dragon’s case, one that never hatched.” He paused, watching the ship again gather himself, lift, and then shift the direction of his bow as he lowered himself again. “But that old case has a more recent overlay. Part of him comes from the case of a dragon who would have come to be from the same tangle of serpents we came from. Tarman is as much one of us as a being of his kind can be.”

“A being of his kind? A ‘being’ of his ‘kind’? And what is that, Mercor? A ghost trapped in the body of a slave?” The silver eyes of the scarlet dragon flashed as Ranculos raised his head high, rearing up briefly on his hind legs. Arbuc trumpeted shrilly, echoing his feelings while Fente lashed her tail and rumbled a growl.

Baliper spoke. “He is wrong. He smells wrong. He exists wrong. It is wrong for humans to ride on a dragon in any form, let alone for them to enslave the ghost of one. We should tear him apart and eat him. The memories trapped in his ‘wood’ should come back to us, for they belong to us.” He snapped open his scarlet wings and reared back briefly in a show of size and aggression.