“Throw himself into a whale? Come on.” Through curiosity or desperation or madness, drafters had will-cast almost every kind of animal—but soul-casting was another level entirely.
“No, no. Whales are far too willful, and too smart to trust men.”
“Nobody’s ever successfully soul-cast themselves,” Gavin said dismissively.
“Depends what you mean by ‘success.’ ”
Thinking you could do magic better than anyone else had ever done it before? That attitude wasn’t exactly uncommon among drafters; it must be nearly ubiquitous among Prisms.
Good thing I’m not like that.
“This can’t be true,” Gavin said. “Of all people, I would know if it were.”
“You? You don’t even know how a Prism is made!”
“Made? You mean ‘chosen.’ ”
“Time’s up,” Orholam said, his eyes perhaps sensing some change in the sea demons that Gavin’s did not. “It was a pleasure to pull the same oar for a time, Man of Guile.”
The old prophet stepped over and spoke to Gunner in hushed tones.
Gunner nodded. “Guile! You sees in lightsies and darksies, yes?”
Black and white? “Yes, Captain,” Gavin said.
“Up ya go. To the next.” He moistened his lips, peeved. “To the next. The nest. Fawk! Maybe you kin see what others cain’t.”
So Gavin slung the gun-sword over his back and began climbing the rigging. He’d regained enough strength for this, anyway.
But he wasn’t even all the way up to the crow’s nest when he saw something alarming.
“The whale!” he cried. “The whale’s turned. It’s headed straight this way!”
Gavin hauled himself into the crow’s nest and flopped in awkwardly.
“Ten points a-port!” Gavin shouted. “Twelve hundred paces out!” He was pretty good at distances, but it was a guess.
Almost as soon as he’d called it, Gunner cut to starboard. It was nice that a whale had been distracting the sea demons. But in the old tales, whales themselves had been the death of many a crew.
On the sea, no stranger is your friend.
And then Gavin saw it. “Gap!” he shouted. “Four hundred paces!”
But it was as if the sea demons themselves could hear his puny cry.
“They’re turning!” Gavin shouted. “A thousand paces out now!”
Below him, Gunner was standing on the barrel of The Compelling Argument again, looking forward, though this time he had the fore skysail stay in his hand to keep his balance. He hopped down, and his hands became a blur on the whirling gears and pulleys. But Gavin could see that the great cannon was aimed wide of any of the sea demons.
“Captain—” he began.
But the roar of The Compelling Argument obliterated all else. The concussion made its own ring on the waves below it, and the sound and pressure knocked even Gavin backward, luckily into the crow’s nest.
He pulled himself to a seated position in time to see a great explosive shell hit the water hundreds of paces to port from the sea demons. Water geysered around the impact.
Most impressive. Gavin would have applauded the sheer power of the thing if there weren’t seven monstrous leviathans bearing down on them at this very—
Four. Four leviathans bearing down on them. What?
“Three of ’em peeled off, Captain!” Gavin shouted. “Headed for where the shell hit!”
That was it. Sea demons felt vibrations in the water. A distant cannon blast above the water was certainly felt, but an explosion in the water must have doubled or trebled its volume to those creatures.
“They’re steaming hot!” Gavin shouted. “Four hundred paces. Our gap’s in a hundred!”
“Whale ta port!” someone shouted below.
And so it was.
Like some kind of damned sheepdog loping easily alongside them, the whale was boxing them in, holding them tight to the reef. The open sea out beyond it was no option now.
“Cap’n!” the mate Pansy shouted. “We gotta swing wide!”
“No!” Gunner shouted, not even looking up as he cranked The Compelling Argument low to port.
“We’ll not make that tight of a turn!” Pansy shouted.
“No!”
Orholam’s balls. Gunner was gonna shoot the whale. Why was he going to shoot the whale?
As the big gun finished coming around, Gunner hopped up on its barrel.
“You’re right!” he shouted to the whale as if they’d been conversing. “Fine! Damned if you ain’t right!”
Swinging the boat wide was the only way they could make the right-angle turn to shoot the narrow gap in the reef. But the great black beast wasn’t allowing that.
Gunner shouted, “Eight points port, on my mark, then full starboard on my mark. Got it, mate?!”
“Aye, Cap’n! Eight points port on mark, then full starboard on mark.”
But Gunner had already disappeared below, bellowing orders to his gun crews.
Gavin threw a curse at the whale. This great, stupid fish might as well have been Andross Guile, hemming them in, denying them any real choice, making it look to any observer like they’d willfully rammed their own ship into the reef.
“Gap in seventy paces, Captain!” Gavin shouted. “Two sea demons at two hundred! Coming full speed in!”
The damned whale had disappeared.
Thanks, buddy. Stayed just long enough to get us killed, didn’t ya?
But the water here wasn’t deep enough for it to dive out of sight, and Gavin found it again quickly, veering out toward open sea.
Even as he threw one last mental curse to it, it veered back, straight toward the gap in the reef itself.
No, not at the gap, but on an intercepting course with the two remaining sea demons, who were flying like twin arrows at the Golden Mean—the interception point just happened to be right at the mouth of the gap.
The gap in the coral between the open sea and the protected lagoon inside was wide enough for the ship to pass through in ordinary circumstances: approached dead-on, with sails stowed, maneuvering by oar and with polemen on the decks. Normally, even in this light midafternoon chop, with care it would be perilous but possible.
But cutting a right-angle turn, under full sail and full speed? A single wave, a single untimely gust of wind could blow them into the teeth of the coral on either side.
There was nothing else for Gavin to say. Gunner could see it all for himself now. He was standing again on the barrel of his big cannon, dancing from one bare foot to the other because of the barrel’s heat. But there was nothing comical in the utter concentration on his face, looking at that gap, and the oncoming sea demons, and the whale streaking in from the side. He’d readied the orders.
Now it was just a matter of timing, and Gunner was the best in the world at that.
“First mate . . . mark!”
“Mark!” she shouted, her hands spinning the wheel and then stopping it precisely.
The ship began to angle wide—but not wide enough!—and bleeding off speed—too much!
Gavin tried to calculate. The whale was maybe going to reach the sea demons just before they reached the ship, but where would the collision take them? Would the whale intercept both of the sea demons, or only one? What waves would crash into the boat?