"Think it? Be serious!"
"What?" Tunnel appeared, fresh from organizing the others, positioning them to best cast the boat off. Birke answered him, speaking in Auldek, gesturing toward Dariel. Tunnel brushed past him and grabbed Dariel by the wrists. He slammed his hands onto the wheel. "You brigand, yes? Act like it! Hold the wheel. Drive the boat." Dariel began a sputtering protest, but Tunnel spoke over him. "I know you'll do it." He added the last sentence casually. As he turned away, he pulled Birke with him.
Alone, seeing the motion on the deck below him, feeling the rocking of the boat, Dariel realized that the prow had already been cast off. It floated free of the dock. These people know nothing of boats! They think a boat moves because the pilot thinks it into motion? This is a fool's mission, and I'm captain of it.
"How about waiting for captain's orders?" he shouted.
A few of the crew looked up, perplexed. Dariel waved them away. This, apparently, was read as a sign to cast off the other lines. Before he could stop them, the entire vessel was loose and pulled by the outgoing tide. Looking over his shoulder, he saw the jagged teeth of the nearby skerries, no longer exciting. Terrifying instead. He cursed to himself and then out loud to everyone. They were about to be dashed against stone, end of the mission and end of his hopes. How had that happened so quickly?
"I never said to cast off!" he yelled, though it was a futile. The "crew" had all they could handle keeping themselves from sliding off the deck, especially as it began to roll more in the growing chop.
Just think! Drive the boat by thinking? He still gripped the wheel, tugging it as if he would rip it off. And then he realized how strange his hands felt on the wheel. The material, whatever it was, hummed against his palms. He half pulled back, but his hands did not want to leave the thing. It held him. He could have jerked them away. He knew that. It was a gentle pull, filled with energy. It was waiting for him.
"By the Giver," he mumbled. The ship was waiting for him! Whatever was going to drive it was not in the motion of the air, nor in the pull of oars against water. It was in the vessel itself! He felt it so clearly it was almost as if the boat spoke as much to him.
Tunnel, standing on the heaving deck, drenched by the waves sending spray high into the air, his arms outstretched for balance or in threat or both, roared, "Daarrriiiieeeeellllll! Drive it!"
It was the prod the prince needed. Without loosening his grip on the wheel, he craned his head around. They were nearly upon the rocks. They rode on the pull of water being sucked out to sea so forcefully that within a few seconds the stern would crash against the rocks with shattering force. Dariel imagined the prow of the ship slicing through the water. His head flew back, pulled by the force of the vessel being wrenched forward. For a split second he believed it was the force of impact, but in the next moment he realized there had been no impact. The boat flew away from the rocks with a speed that amazed him.
He yanked his body back into position just in time to wrench the wheel to starboard so that the boat would not slam back into the pier. The crew tumbled and slid about the deck, grasping for holds; all except Tunnel, who still managed to stand upright, grinning and laughing and roaring with glee, "Daarrriiiieeeeellllll! Rhuin Fa! Rhuin Fa!"
The next few minutes of his life were as hair-raising as any he had yet lived. The boat was a wonder, yes, but he had so little control of it. It responded to his thoughts, but it was hard to remember to think constantly. He would let his attention wander for a moment, only to realize they were about to smash up against some rocks. He would start to shout commands before realizing he had all the command he needed in his hands. It should have been easy, but he brought the vessel near to destruction a dozen times before they slipped out of the fingers of reaching stones and found deeper, open water.
There he pressed the vessel forward. They sped through the night, the prow of the boat slapping down each time they came to a wave crest, sending up spray. Had he ever sailed as fast as this? He was not sure, could not truly tell with the night so dark around them. He did believe he could go even faster, and longed to do so in the light of day, with no fear of crashing into some outcropping of rock.
By the Giver this is a ship! This is a ship!
How could they destroy it? It seemed a mad idea. The power of it! The things he could do with a vessel like this! He could be Spratling again, but a Spratling like the world had never seen before. He would run rings around the league, around anyone!
"Don't enjoy it too much," Skylene said. He had not noticed her come up beside him. "Remember why we're here."
"You can't still want to destroy this," Dariel said. "Feel it. This is a wonder. Do you know what I could-"
"We must destroy it."
"Why?" Dariel asked.
"Because it is evil." She leaned near him, brushing his shoulder, and spoke loud enough for only him to hear. "You believe it's so wonderful because of the power within it. But it's what makes the power in it that is so horrible. Ships like this one… they run on souls, Dariel. The essence of children. Quota children. That's what's trapped within them. They burn souls. Think of a child sent into slavery. Think of that child tossed into the furnace of this boat, firing it from the inside. That's what this is. I know it's enticing. Evil often is." She paused and then said, "You might want to slow."
He had been watching her profile as she looked forward. He swung his head around and eased back. As the prow dropped and some of the exhilaration of speed left him, he saw what had prompted her. For some time the long shadow of an island to the east had crept closer as they sped along it toward the south. Now, from an inlet of the island, came a blaze of light and motion. It must have had a deep anchorage, for a league brig nestled close to the shore, lit up with blazing pitch lanterns. Small vessels ferried supplies and people ashore. Men worked on the docks, unloading supplies. Even as they watched, new lights flared in windows of buildings all along the shore. The league, it appeared, was taking the place over.
"What island is this?" Dariel asked.
"Lithram Len," Skylene said. "They must have just found it."
"Where the soul catcher is?"
She nodded. "Go slowly and pull us back nearer the mainland coast. We should not be seen, especially now. The People need to know the league has found the island."
Dariel sailed as she instructed. He managed to cut behind a slim barrier reef that hid them for some time. Beyond it, he increased speed as the glow receded behind them. It was only then, when he thought about something other than piloting the boat, that he chewed over what he had just seen. The league were on Lithram Len. The soul catcher was on Lithram Len. No, he had never seen the thing himself, but he had seen Devoth shake off one death-pull an arrow from his heart and live on. That was enough to make him believe in the device.
If they find the soul catcher chamber itself, he thought, and learn how to use it…
Dariel drew up, his face glazed by a thought so sudden that he forgot to see through his eyes or animate his features for a moment. The vessel, sensing the waning of his focus, lost forward momentum. The bow drooped and the stern rose and the rocking of the waves took them in its rhythm.
"What is it?" Skylene asked.
"Wait a minute," Dariel managed to say. But that was as far as he got. He had to think through the idea that had just gripped him. It was a mad idea. Dangerous. An idea that would have him dealing with forces he did not yet understand. Neither Mor nor the elders had asked it of him, and if he proposed it, he would be asking the crew-these friends so new to him-to risk their lives as well. He should just drive his energy down into the boat and feel it surge forward, continue this escape, find a way to get the others ashore, and then sail away without them. Go home.