The first of a new series from the author of the exciting Farseer trilogy. Set in the same world as the Assassin series, it tells of a group of traders, purveyors of rare goods which often border on the magical. The new series is set to the south of Buckkeep. The story deals specifically with the fate of Althea Vestrit, who, on her father’s death, finds that she will not inherit the family liveship as she had expected. A liveship is a ship constructed of the mysterious wizardwood, one of the many strange wares that come from a Trader settlement far up the Rain River. A ship built of wizardwood comes to life after three generations in the same family have owned it. They are extremely valuable. Meanwhile a plague of serpents is drawn into the Bingtown waters by Chalced’s increasing slave trade: the serpents track the slave ships by smell, awaiting the bodies of the many unfortunate slaves who don’t survive the trip. And there’s Kennit, the pirate who aspires to become the first King of the Pirates by choking off all trade to Bingtown and Chalced from the southern empire of Jamaillia.