Dariel thought it sounded exciting, dangerous in all the ways that set his boy's fancy tingling.
Twice, the group had to split up to navigate crowded streets. Dariel walked beside Tunnel on one occasion; behind a young Wrathic named Birke on the other. Birke had no tattoo work that Dariel could see, but he did demonstrate the wolflike qualities of his clan totem with thick facial hair that covered his cheeks and forehead. He also sported canine teeth so large they showed in bulges against his lips even when his mouth was closed. They looked completely natural, in a strange, unnatural way. When he smiled-which he did first on seeing Dariel's new facial tattoos and then again after they had walked through a crowded thoroughfare and rejoined the group in the shadows of an alley-he was simultaneously terrifying and hilarious. Dariel thought he might quite like the young man as a friend, should he be provided the leisure of friendship again.
The sun had fully set and the sky had settled in to early evening dark by the time the group gathered in the corner of a warehouse. Dariel could smell the sea. It was so near, just a wall away, he thought. It smelled like freedom to him. Skylene sent Birke and another man to check the last bit of the route to the destination. The rest waited. Dariel found himself standing beside Skylene. She pressed closed to him, closer than seemed necessary. He knew why. She was staring at his freshly tattooed face.
"I can't get used to seeing you like that," Skylene said. "You look like one of us, but I sat talking to you so long I know you're not one of-"
"Perhaps I'm becoming one of you," Dariel cut in. His face was still sore, and he could not help but feel the touch of her eyes as a physical pain. "Give me the chance at it, at least."
Skylene kept looking at him. "Mor must have enjoyed doing that work. Did she make it hurt?"
"What do you mean? Of course it hurt."
Smiling, Skylene said, "It doesn't if you chew kenvu root. It deadens the sensations on the skin." She touched a spot on his face with a fingertip. "Makes the markings painless. She didn't mention that?"
"No, she didn't mention it," Dariel snapped. "What's wrong with her, anyway? Does she just enjoy hurting me? Slapping me. Sticking me with needles. Insulting me every chance she gets. Is she like that always? With others?"
"Mor has been one of the Free People for many years," Skylene said. "Her problem is not cruelty. It's that she loves too much, cares too much. She's missing half her-" Skylene stopped, shook away whatever she was going to say. Instead, she lightened her tone. "Anyway, she doesn't enjoy hurting anyone. I think she likes you, actually."
"Tell him," Tunnel said, staying her. "Give it."
Skylene looked at him sharply. "We'll talk later."
"Please," Dariel said, "tell me. What don't I know about her?"
"Ah… Mor wants nothing for herself, except one thing." Though she had committed, it still took Skylene a moment to continue. "She had a brother. A twin named Ravi. They were taken together but were separated when they arrived in Ushen Brae."
"So, what… she's looking for him?"
"In a manner of speaking, yes. He didn't become a slave. He was eaten. His soul was taken from him and given to an Auldek. Mor wants to find him. I don't know what she thinks she can do. I don't think she even knows. But they were twins. Understand? They were in the womb together. They are two halves of a whole. She can feel that he goes on somewhere. Even though he lives in an Auldek's body, she wants to face him… perhaps to release him. Now, let's stop wasting time. Let's go. There's Birke. Let's be quick."
She pointed at the shadowy figure who had just reappeared at the far side of the warehouse. He waved, indicating that the area was free, at least temporarily, of divine children. Dariel asked no more questions. He fell in step behind Skylene, with Tunnel and the others behind him. The rest of the journey was brief. They walked for a time through a dark corridor, then wove through another jumbled warehouse, and finally stepped out onto a seaside dock. The salt air off the water was wonderful. Dariel sucked it in, loving the moist touch of the sea breeze on his face. It instantly reminded him of Val, the man he met as a feeder of the palace furnace, who later saved him from death in a lonely hovel and raised him to be a raider, to love the sea. His second father.
Out beyond the edge of concrete pier, the sea moved, black and shimmering. He caught the hulking, jagged shapes of outcroppings of rock near shore through which water sieved. Jets of white foam burst up at regular intervals, ghostly in the darkness, frightening and full of danger. Perfect, Dariel told himself. Just as I like it. Just as Val would like it. Wild.
"Dariel!" Tunnel called to him from the edge of the pier. "Come. See it."
He jogged forward and looked down, for the water was well below the level of the pier. There, tethered to a lower platform at water level, was the boat. A very peculiar boat, similar to the sailless craft he saw slicing the water beside the Ambergris out in the barrier islands. Walking down the ramp toward it, his eyes took in every line and shape of it. It was so sleek, low to the water, covered all over with that white coating particular to league ships. It ran more than a hundred feet long, but was narrower than any seagoing vessel he had seen before. A water arrow. The steering wheel was in a raised, semi-enclosed structure near the back.
The others waited for him, standing uneasily beside the rocking vessel, seemingly at a loss. This, after all, was where Dariel's expertise was supposed to take command. As yet, he had no idea how to make the thing work, but that was a small detail, certainly. Spratling could sail any vessel, even one, he hoped, without a sail.
Dariel inhaled a deep breath, filled his chest with it, and leaped across the narrow gap. What began as a graceful move, however, did not conclude as one. The slick surface of the deck shed the leather soles of his sandals so completely that he spent a few frantic seconds dancing as if unexpectedly thrown onto ice, his arms wheeling. He just managed to get down to his hands and knees, where he paused, breathing heavily.
The others watched him, perplexed and more than a bit concerned.
"It's slippery," he explained.
Skylene squinted one eye, raising the brow of the other.
Dariel had felt the slippery surfaces of league ships before, on Sire Fen's league warship, the Rayfin, and most recently the Ambergris. This one felt even slicker. It may not have been so, but he needed to keep his feet under him now more than ever. Remembering that some of the sailors on the Ambergris had worked barefoot, he sat and unlaced his sandals. Barefoot, he rose to stand again. It helped. His skin clung to the coating in a way leather did not. He almost felt he could squeeze the deck with his toes.
Looking at the Free People watching him, he said, as if impatient, "Come on. Take 'em off and climb aboard."
Inside the steering cabin a few moments later, Dariel gripped the wheel and said, "What powers this?"
Birke stood next to him, wolflike, waiting, and then confused. "What do you mean?"
"What-With the boats I know, we use the sails and the wind to push the vessel across the water. Or we use oars at times. Understand? There has to be something to provide the power, but here is nothing but-but the wheel." He stared at it, as if his explanation made him even more confused about the situation.
"Wind?" Birke asked. His lip curled back, exposing his canines. He seemed to find the idea barbaric. He waved until he got Tunnel's attention. "You use wind? The power is in the boat. Just think it to do what you wish."