The trail ended at a shrine, perched precarious and delicate atop the very summit; two massive sculpted lion-women sprawled at the gate, the fine detail of their heavy breasts and beards still perfectly preserved, so many years gone. The roof of the shrine stood some twenty feet in the air, on delicate columns not as thick as Araminta’s wrist, each one the elongated graceful figure of a woman, and filmy drapery hung from the rafters still, billowing in great sheets of clean white. An altar of white stone stood in the center, and upon it a wide platter of shining silver.
“Wind goddess,” Mr. Ribb said, gloomily. “Wind goddess for sure; we’ll get no use here. Don’t you be an ass, Porlock,” he added, cutting that sailor a hard look. “As much as a man’s life is worth, go poking into there.”
“I’ll just nip in,” Porlock said, his eyes on the silver platter, and set his foot on the first stair of the gate.
The lion-women stirred, and cracked ebony-black eyes, and turned to look at him. He recoiled, to tried to: his foot would not come off the stair. “Help, fellows!” he cried, desperately. “Take my arm, heave—”
No one went anywhere near him. With a grinding noise like millstones, the lion-women rose up onto their massive paws and came leisurely towards him. Taking either one an arm, they tore him in two quite effortlessly; and then tore the parts in two again.
The other men fled, scattering back down the mountainside, as the lion-women turned their heads to look them over. Araminta alone did not flee, but waited until the others had run away. The living statues settled themselves back into their places, but they kept their eyes open and fixed on her, watchfully.
She debated with herself a while; she had read enough stories to know the dangers. She did not care to become a permanent resident, forced to tend the shrine forever; and it might not be only men who were punished for the temerity to enter. In favor of the attempt, however, the shrine plainly did not need much tending: whatever magic had made it, sustained it, with no guardian necessary but the deadly statues. And those stones along the trail had been worn smooth by more than weather: many feet had come this way, once upon a time.
“All right,” she said at last, aloud, and reaching up to her neck took off the amulet.
She was braced to find herself abruptly back in her own former body, a good deal smaller; but the alteration was as mild as before. She looked down at her arms, and her legs: the same new length, and still heavy with muscle; she had lost none of the weight she had gained, or the height. Breasts swelled out beneath her shirt, her hips and waist had negotiated the exchange of an inch or two between themselves, and her face when she touched it felt a little different—the beard was gone, she noted gratefully—but that was all.
The guardians peered at her doubtfully when she came up the stairs. They did get up, as she came inside, and paced after her all the way to the altar, occasionally leaning forward for a suspicious sniff. She unwound the strand of pearls from around her waist and poured the whole length of it rattling into the offering-dish, a heap of opalescence and silver.
The lion-women went back to their places, satisfied. The hangings rose and shuddered in a sudden gust of wind, and the goddess spoke: a fine gift, and a long time since anyone had come to worship; what did Araminta want.
It was not like Midwinter Feast, where the medium was taken over and told fortunes; or like church services at Lammas tide. The goddess of the Drowned Ones spoke rather matter-of-factly, and there was no real sound at all, only the wind rising and falling over the thrumming hangings. But Araminta understood perfectly, and understood also that her prepared answers were all wrong. The goddess was not offering a little favor, a charm to hide her or a key to unlock chains, or even a way off the island; the goddess was asking a question, and the question had to be answered truly.
Easier to say what Araminta did not want: to go home and be put in a convent, to go on to the colonies and be married. Not to be a prisoner, or a fine lady, or a captain’s lover, or a man in disguise forever; not, she added, that it was not entertaining enough for a time; but what she really wanted, she told the goddess, was to be a captain herself, of her own life; and free.
A fine wish, the goddess said, for a fine gift. Take one of those pearls, and go down and throw it in the ocean.
Araminta took a pearl out of the dish: it came easily off the strand. She went down the narrow walkway, down to the shore, and past all the men staring at her and crossing themselves in alarm, and she threw the pearl into the clear blue waters of the natural harbor.
For a moment, nothing happened; then a sudden foaming overtook the surface of the water, white as milk. With a roar of parting waves and a shudder, the Amphidrake came rising from the deep in all her shattered pieces, seaweed and ocean spilling away. Her ribs and keel showed through the gaps in her half-eaten hull for a moment, and then the foam was climbing up her sides, and leaving gleaming unbroken pearl behind. The decks were rebuilt in smooth white wood; tall slim masts, carved in the shapes of women, climbed up one after another, and vast white sails unfurled in a wind that teased them gently full.
The foam subsided to the water, and solidified into a narrow dock of pearl, running to shore to meet her. Araminta turned to look a rather dazed Weedle in the face.
“This is my ship,” she said, “and you and all your men are welcome, if you would rather take service with me than wait for the Navy.”
She pulled her hair back from her head, and tied it with a thread from her shirt; and she stepped out onto the dock. She was nearly at the ship when Weedle came out onto the dock at last, and called, “Aramin!” after her.
She turned and smiled at him, a flashing smile. “Araminta,” she said, and went aboard.