Gendry, Jiemba, and Thomas drove the wagon to the back kitchen door and yelled inside for help with unloading. Jiemba and some others carried her 30 books to her room. She also had 2 dragonkin books, and Belaletrix told her they were good ones. Caelan, on the ride home, had told her that he knew the author of the treekin scroll she had found and that he was a good and intelligent writer and person. He said the scroll was a treatise on the use of magic. Mangana was stunned by the alchemical ingredients and equipment he was helping to carry in and adding to his lab supplies. He said their value was astronomical and they were very rare. He held up a large green flask and said it was the poison that hurt Arya. Thomas and Gendry couldn't wait to get their mechanisms on the tables and figure out what they were and what they did. But they went to the dock and the strange boat.
The saboteur they caught quickly spilled the truth when they threatened to start removing fingers. He had weakened several of the planks they were going to use, marking them with a red mark. They had not yet been applied to the hull, so they saved time and lives. He swore there were no others and promised to tell everything to the officials, and they carted him off to jail.
The strange boat was hauled out, put on blocks, and they began searching it. It was like a shell placed over a flat boat. Once they got the door open, they stepped down into the hull. There were 8 seats in the middle and a place by the wheel to sit. On each side, there were higher seats next to a box that had a large grey gemstone on top. There was some lever-and-notch contraption on the side of the box as well. Drena got a funny look on her face and started searching high and low. Soon enough, in the console where the wheel was mounted, she found a tiny hidden drawer. Inside were two grey rings, and she shouted triumphantly. "I know how this boat moves," she said. She sat in one of the higher chairs, placed one of the rings on her hand, and touched the stone. Nothing happened. She looked confused, then she switched the ring to the hand closest to Hull and touched the stone again. The ring clicked and flashed, and the stone glowed, but again there was no change. Gendry went out the back of the boat and came back saying, "These tubes from the boxes run all the way to the stern of the boat, stepping up in size as they go until it flares out at the end like a horn."
"I must not be attuned to this sort of power," Drena said. She then asked Thomas to try, and he put on the ring; it clicked and glowed, but nothing happened. One by one, they tried, but nothing happened. Then Jiemba came to see what they were doing and tried. A blast of wind came from out of the back of the boat so strongly that it lurched the little boat forward on the blocks. She took her hand off the stone quickly.
Antakari had come along about the saboteur, saw the boat lurch, and came to see what was happening. He entered the cabin, saw the gemstones, and said, "Oh." Jiemba asked if he had ever seen stones like that before, and he said yes. 20 years ago, a large Zon warship had been caught in a storm and ripped apart on the reefs. When the storm ended, they went out to look for survivors and loot. Besides the regular things, they had found two very large grey gemstones attached to boxes like these and brought them back.
Through Jiemba, Gendry asked where the stones were now, and Antakari told them that they had been taken to the bank and put in a vault. They all asked if he would take them there and allow them to use them. He thought for a bit and then nodded. Gendry got the wagon, and they all loaded up and went to the bank. Antakari asked the bank manager about those old grey crystals, and the manager told him that they had been in the museum down the street for years. So off to the museum they went. The museum's head seemed annoyed by their query, but he had one wheeled out from storage. They asked if any large tubes had come with them, and he nodded, and one was brought out. Antakari said they would be taking both stones, tubes, and the boxes with them, and the manager bowed up. He didn't see any reason for them to take them, and they would have to show him a reason before he would allow it.
Jiemba smiled and said they would surprise him. Gendry monkeyed with the tube enough to get it to sort of hold in place. Jiemba put the ring on and pointed the tube out towards the hallway door. Then she grabbed the stone...it glowed but did nothing. The manager was not amused, and he blasted them for wasting his time, ordering them out of the museum. Jiemba snarled at him, then, changing the ring to the other hand, she grabbed the stone and swung the tube in a circle around the man's office. It blew him out of his chair, and papers rained down for at least a minute. She stopped when the tube clattered off and clanged on the floor. The other tube is mangled, he said, but he ordered the other items brought in and showed them out of his hair. They loaded up the goods and headed home...giggling all the way.