Each morning Atacherel woke, in the strange room cut inside the cliff face, to the strange light of Evening Island's setting sides and the chorus of birds constantly darting down by the opening on their way to fish and flying back up to feed the numerous hatchlings waiting by in the nests. He woke with in mind the odd coincidences he had found between the histories of the Balà people as it had been taught to him by his father and tutors and the ludicrous tales of the Insanities. Far below the ocean broke in white foamy waves against the rocks that had been washed down by the Advent, he was fascinated by the glimpses one got of cut stones and fragments of tiles, profiled flat stones that had once been used as roof; among these rock and stones were the bodies of the Balà that had inhabited two towns, men, women, children and elders all had been precipitated off the edge of the cliff to this watery grave, now kelp grew its long dull brown ribbon-like leaves and sea sloth pods came to feed leisurely in the cool shadows of the cliff until the sun would turn and warm the water forcing them to swim further off where it remained cool.
Well, coincidences seemed meek a word for it since Obed before turning mad had managed to describe all the main events of long before they happened: including the fleet of woe discovering the Sillaribes after the Great Killing and the Advent, but not only that he also foresaw the Great Displacement from Feroll in the year of the three full moons and the carnages of the Gashite resettlement a century later. The young captain looked at the sky and hoped for an early change of wind, the people here needed help that only a fleet of importance with settlers and resources could provide. He had already secured the grey message boxes of the local priests destined for the eyes only of the veiled ones on the White Island and the red boxes destined for the general administration, since no one survived from the navy, even of the docks there were no traces left, there was no message but his log for the admiralty and as he sealed the flat box in its greased leather sheath he looked to the side where a bundle of neatly folded cloth contained a careful copy of the Insanities the priest had given him. The stocks needed for the pull back were almost complete: the barrels for water were dry and scrubbed waiting to be filled at the very last moment, they were almost ready to leave.
"But who is coming back?"
Merorae was musing looking at the men of their crew and some villagers returning from a successful sloth hunt, there will be plenty of meat to smoke for storage.
"What do you mean?" Atacherel asked her.
"I have spent more time with the crew than you have, you know. You have been blessed by the One with them, they are a good bunch. New commands are not always that easy, sometimes coppers have to break their crew in, in order to be respected through fear, but they kind of like you, they were impressed that you accepted this command instead of the other, they were even more impressed when they heard that you refused to be told what the other command was, it was the packet to the white island and the liaison with the fleet dealing with the Austral Archipelagoes." Atacherel looked at her face and she smiled and nodded, "I asked." He smiled at her inquisitiveness and she went on, "You never asked me why I signed up for this pull instead of any other, easier one, that my seniority opened. I wanted the wide open sea. The unbridled ocean. I wanted the doubt, the unknown, to wonder if we would come back while doing all I could to ensure that we would. I wanted the unexpected, to be surprised."
"We certainly got that, didn't we?" Atacherel offered.
"More than that," she frowned as if trying to organize her thoughts and said, "I have never been the spiritual type," she hesitated, "we all have stories of the waves breaking in the harbors, entering the streets of the cities and swallowing our grandparents and the people of that time. We all lost so much. You and I, despite the thirty years difference are children of the reconstruction, we have lived all our life in new towns built on plans with a purpose, we never saw the death and destruction; yet coming here was like traveling back in time to the moments right after the Advent. The people here, they have had nothing to take their minds off the catastrophic devastation, they have had only their untouched home and their identical lives to keep living and the only thought that haunted their nights and days was: 'why'. In a sense there is purity in having nothing, nothing to lose, nothing to think of, nothing to rebuild. I read Obed during my first long haul to the Triad's Lands, I was such a girl then. I must have been even younger than you are. I had chosen the texts as a matter of distraction but here, on Evening Island I realized that it had never left me and as soon as I heard the people speak of it every one of the Insanities came back to my mind as fresh as if I had read them the day before. I believe we understood something about our faith, something about ourselves that has changed us."
"What is it you did understand?"
"That being Balà is not about reconstructing the perfect city, in the perfect spot out of reach of the waves. It is about a promise, made by the One to us. That we will inherit the world."
"What if we don't want to inherit the world, what if what we have is enough?"
They both looked in silence at the waves heaving and swelling in the bright light of the late afternoon, the beaming faces of the men and women on board the little boats bantering and shouting in the excitation of the hunt. They beached the boats and hauled the body of a large sea sloth onto it. The carving began right away and the waters of the cove rapidly turned red with blood. When the light failed after a splendid sunset they lit two braziers on the beach for light and celebration. Summer was upon them, they drank honeyed beer and ate fruits and the lungs, heart and liver of the animal charred on flat stones. The locals and the crew of the Scarlet played music and danced until the three moons, nearly full, reached their apex and began their descent. Atacherel and Merorae walked back together to the dwellings they had been offered, they were singing trying to remember the lyrics of a once popular song, they laughed and it echoed back at them from the cliffs. As he was about to enter his room and she was saying goodnight he turned around and looked directly in her eyes, the moons were behind her and her face was impossible to make out, her eyes only caught the reflection of the light on his face.
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"I want to take my next command to the Ring Sea and sail it through and through." He said with passion. There was a silence during which she observed his face in the moonlight and she answered, "I know you are not drunk, I saw you only drink tea tonight as is your habit. I like that about you captain, how you like to remain clear minded at all times. If you ever get this commission, I will be honored to second you on it." He smiled, clearly that was what he had hoped to hear. They wished each other good night and she started down the path to her rooms but she stopped and turned back and he was still there looking at her, so she shouted, "You believe it is the Ribbon of Water of Obed, don't you?" He nodded his face grave. "You seek to find whatever has been hidden there by the One and bring it back to the benefit of all Balà." Atacherel smiled a sudden bright and childlike smile and shouted back, "One has to sail it, and we are sailors aren't we?"
The winds were barely starting to turn but Atacherel refused to wait until the shift would be complete and sailed away taking the austral sea path back to the Sillaribes. On the very morning of the fourth day they spotted a ghost-ship lurking in a morning mists bank, it immediately raised its floating sails and turned its sharp prow towards them. As if on cue the weather turned suddenly for the worse and gale force winds started blowing across an increasingly chaotic sea. Atacherel ordered the side masts out and the support sails hoisted, now bearing its full complement of sails the Scarlet began to show its true nature as a fast ship.
Merorae appeared to his side in her heavy weather clothes, her head covered with a tarp wide-brim hat that was tied to the back of her coat, she was presenting him with a similar one as a protection from the rain downpour that sporadically soaked all hands present. The ship leant to her side and Merorae called for two extra hands on the tillers. In between the intense showers that blocked almost all view from either their direction or their pursuer's, the ocean appeared as a vast stretch of watery mountains moving against each other with elaborate manes of whitish spray being whipped madly by the wind. The captain and the pilot were steering with a precision that required both their absolute concentration in order to keep the ship sailing on the crests of the waves to avoid the wind sheltered troughs that would slow them down, knowing full well that the high flying kite-like sails of the ghost ship allowed it to capture the pull of the wind above them where it was stronger and unsheltered. Atacherel felt the pressure increase on the masts through the sails, he listened to the altered song of the ship as it groaned with the stress and banged harder against water; they were gaining speed still. Merorae was with him again shouting against the wind.
"She will jump! We are going too fast!"
Atacherel looked back at the fast approaching ghost ship and back again at his second, "have the shift belowdeck tie it down! I want no loose items aboard! and bind the ones on deck who aren't!"
She looked at him like he had turned mad. "You mean to make her jump!?!"
"If it saves this crew and shakes him off!" he shouted back, "Yes, I will!"
The ghost ship was sailing the sleek waters of the through between the rearing waves gaining on them rapidly, it was almost by their port side now. Atacherel rushed to the railing and stared at their deck, no one had ever seen who or what manned the kite-sail ships thus their names: ghosts ships. The oddly constructed vessel had tall inward curving rails that almost covered entirely the deck, the imposing scaffold near the poop from which the kite-like sails were maneuvered seem to be counterbalanced by a prow figurehead of extravagant proportions. The wave they were sailing lifted them up rapidly above their pursuer; standing atop the scaffold, Atacherel saw the figure of a man. He looked small, his hands and face seemed pale and his long fair hair whipped behind his back in the demented gales. Atacherel kept rising above him and his ship, he heard the taunt whistling of the ropes that went from the ship to the kites and at this moment his own pilot veered deftly three points aft to remain on the crest of that wave a little longer, pulling up and away.
'we are still gaining speed', he thought looking ahead; that wave was long but its far end had already started breaking, the inevitable jump was imminent. The captain saw his second and the pilot staring at him and he nodded yes. Merorae shouted to all hands to hold on to something and put their lives in the hands of the One. Atacherel turned back to the ghost ship, it was right under them cutting across the through faster than ever before, he too was veering trying to stay as close as possible even if it meant sailing under a breaking wave. A new squall was upon them bucketloads of rain and no visibility to have fore, aft and center.
In a blinding moment of grace several pieces of this complicated picture fell into place in Atacherel's mind and he saw the mutilated hand of the dock master pointing at the Scarlet Dusk and heard his deep rumbling voice say something about more ribs to that cage than ever before. He also remembered the elder of the Evening Island inhabitants showing him the remains of the ghost ship that had floundered on their breakers, pointing out how they clearly were built slender and light for speed on account of them sails. Jumping into action he rushed to the side of Merorae and shouted for all to hear, "heave the keel and prepare to drop the weight on the masts on my mark." Some stared, others simply obeyed. Now was not the time to second guess the man trying to save your life. The Scarlet rose higher and higher and he shouted, "helm at the ready, weight at the ready!" Keeless the Scarlet began to slide a little to port side where the wave was now breaking; at that same time the squall ended in a blaze of sunlight pouring from a tear in the clouds they all saw the sails of the ghost ship directly before them.
"Helm! Hard to port all!" The Scarlet slid sideways towards the breaking waters and the enemy ship.
"Drop the weight!" the captain shouted and the counterbalance weight slid from its cradle pulling the ropes that brought all the masts together like a hand-fan being folded shut. Deprived of sails the Scarlet appeared to stop in mid jump and fell as the wave broke, directly on top of the ghost ship which splintered in a million shattered bits and sank instantly while one of its sails flew away on the wind.
