Robin Hobb
SHIP OF MAGIC
THIS ONE IS FOR
The Devil's Paw
The Totem
The EJ Bruce
The Free Lunch
The Labrador (Scales! Scales!)
The (aptly named) Massacre Bay
The Faithful (Gummi Bears Ahoy!)
The Entrance Point
The Cape St. John
The American Patriot (and Cap'n Wookie)
The Lesbian Warmonger
The Anita J and the Marcy J
The Tarpon
The Capelin
The Dolphin
The (not very) Good News Bay And even the Chicken Little
But especially for Rain Lady, wherever she may be now.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The author would like to thank Gale Zimmerman of Software Alternatives, Tacoma, Washington, for rendering swift and compassionate aid in stamping out the computer virus that nearly ate this book.
PROLOGUE
The Tangle
Maulkin abruptly heaved himself out of his wallow with a wild thrash that left the atmosphere hanging thick with particles. Shreds of his shed skin floated with the sand and muck like the dangling remnants of dreams when one awakes. He moved his long sinuous body through a lazy loop, rubbing against himself to rub off the last scraps of outgrown hide. As the bottom muck started to once more settle, he gazed about at the two dozen other serpents who lay basking in the pleasantly scratchy sediments. He shook his great maned head and then stretched the vast muscle of his length. “Time,” he bugled in his deep-throated voice. “The time has come.”
They all looked up at him from the sea-bottom, their great eyes of green and gold and copper unwinking. Shreever spoke for them all when she asked, “Why? The water is warm here, the feeding easy. In a hundred years, winter has never come. Why must we leave now?”