The Scarlet Dusk was sailing under a sky filled with potbellied clouds the color of tin, it was almost noon but the only sign of it were the sudden pillars of sunlight appearing and vanishing in the ever shifting tears between clouds. The wind was strong but constant, it smelled of rain but the deck was only dotted with spray from the bow wave. The Balà Fast-sail had only been underway for six days but already its captain was testing ship and crew as if he meant to go to battle with a ghost ship. He was standing at the prow, his back against the foremast looking dead ahead. This ship, his ship, was built for speed and it had been constructed specifically for this mission.

  After the devastation of the giant waves of the Advent it had taken the Balà almost twenty years to recover and get reorganized; and twenty more to reconstruct, mourn the dead and understand what had happened. The death toll had been so important that whole parts of Balà society and culture had been wiped out or allowed to vanish by survivors struggling with simple essential things like food and shelter. The beach temple, the oldest one dating back from the time the first Balà landed on the main Island had been so thoroughly destroyed that even the foundation stones were unrecognizable, the survivors cried in silence even fearing to pray to the One would this be punishment for offending him. And so it happened that for almost forty years the counters and residents on Evening Island had been forgotten and left to fend for themselves. Never a ship came and there were none to spare for the long pull to the faraway island.

  Even before the Advent the trips to Evening Island had been hazardous, the vast open sea was prone to sudden changes of conditions, gale force winds and dead calms that could last for days. Since the Advent the seas have changed: strong streams appeared where there were none and sudden corrosive rains could sink a ship in an instant. For fifteen years the winds were erratic and the weather unhinged, ships had been sunk by sand storms in the middle of the ocean, set afire by lightning or lost in inexplicably violent storms. The nine men of the admiralty had explained to the young man that for the past twelve years they had systematically offered this commission to each newly appointed captain and to each new commission, few had accepted and none of those who had, had come back. They had ordered the docks to build larger and larger ships until finally the Master Builder had come to them himself and raised the case for a smaller, lighter ship, much faster, almost a racing ship, capable of flying on the waves to escape the dangers of the open sea. Since the ship had been built no one had accepted the commission to Evening Island.

  There was a large dark shape in the water growing larger as they sailed closer, Atacherel turned his face from the wind and shouted back to the helm, "Giant Sea Dog ahead! Helm one to port-side!"

  "One port-side," the helm replied. The ship groaned with its peculiar voice during the course correction and the captain watched as the giant beast surfaced to breathe along the hull as they passed it by. The round shiny eye of the animal glanced at the marginally larger ship and it yawned revealing rows of ivory white teeth in its large mouth, the sun caught in the many droplets on its bristles and it dived back again.

  "Are you sure you understand the perils of this endeavor," one of the nine had asked him when Atacherel had accepted the commission without letting them name the second, most probably safer, one. He had raised his hand silently asking for a moment and after looking each of them in the eyes he had said, "Death is a possibility, not only for myself but also for the crew you will provide me with. I have no family: my father has been called by the white island, my mother is a stranger to me. The men of the crew will be my only family and shall take care of them as if they were my own brothers and sisters."

  "Answered like a true Balà." The oldest of the nine had said, "we advance you to the rank of captain and grant to you the Scarlet Dusk as it is berthed recently back from its sea trials in the boreal dockyards. You are hereby ordered to make sail for Evening Island as soon as crew and stock are on board and the sea fitting. The One watches over you."

  "And over all of us." He had replied mechanically and watched the committee stand and leave the room with sober withdrawn faces.

  Looking at the horizon he saw a large patch of clear sky to the side of where the squall was heading and shouted back at the helm, "Two to starboard." The reply echoed his words and the ship started sailing towards the darker band of clouds on the boreal side. His second, Merorae, appeared to his side, "you're going to make us ride that storm, are you not?" The woman could have been his mother, she was in her fifties, a survivor of the Advent, as per the tradition of Balà women in men's jobs, her hair was cropped short, close to the skull and she wore the shirt and pants of seamen with only the leather bands at her wrist to mark her as second. She had left the navy to have children and then trusting her husband to raise them had resumed her career aboard the ships of the admiralty. He knew it was her last voyage before being appointed captain and he had made a promise that she would see the green slopes of the Sillaribes again.

  "There is a calm in front of us," he said, "I'd rather spend the night sailing than the following days praying for wind." She looked at the horizon and nodded.

  "We might not get much sleep, tonight one of us should go below and rest."

  That was one of the things he liked about her, she always thought before talking and only said what was needed. But since he was captain and they had never sailed together before he felt he had to explain how he was thinking.

  This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  "This is the smallest Fast-sail ever built, there are as few of us as possible to run it but the hold is also the smallest and we were only able to fit in enough for thirty days." He looked at her eyes and she looked back.

  "That is the exact time of the shortest crossing before the Advent." She said looking back at the rolling dark clouds as a pillar of light appeared right by the side of the ship. "Scarlet is faster though. We could make a better pull if this storm holds."

  "If the crew agrees, it is not going to be pleasant. We cannot lose a single hand, not on the way there." She stared him hard in the eyes.

  "We won't, we will need them once we are there."

  "I'll go below, you finish the day shift, I'll do the night." Atacherel walked to the central part of the ship just before the triple masts and started down the stairs. He knew why she had said that. It had already been forty years since the Advent and they had never had any news from the people of Evening Island. They were so far away to the Setting side that at first there had been hope that the giant waves had spared them. But as time passed and nothing came most had resolved themselves to the

  destruction of the settlement. It simply added to the list of the innumerable losses of the time and there was no mourning left for such remote deaths.

  It was very possible that they would only find destruction and emptiness upon arriving at the island. In that case they would have to foray for food and water in order to stock enough for the return trip. They would have a little more than a hundred days before the winds turned and allowed them to sail back. They had seeds and Evening Island was reputed for its numerous birds. Those who had been old enough to remember it and had survived, do recall the birds taking off in vast clouds instants before the waves came to the Sillaribes. Atacherel had never been good with bows and arrows but the admiralty had given him two archers and six of his crew were from the cliff villages of Sancto and had boarded the ship with their bird catching nets and slings. In the warmth of the cabin Atacherel stripped naked and lied down on his cot, his last thought before falling asleep had been a prayer:

  "May the One have protected the people on Evening island to this day."

  On the twenty-sixth day, by a fine clear-sky morning with the sun rising behind them they saw the highly recognizable shape of Evening Island right in front of them. The large, mostly flat island was like a table half buried in the waters. The side to the rising sun was submerged and rose regularly in a smooth tree-covered slope all the way to the other side where vertiginous cliffs plunged back into the ocean facing the sunset.

  Atacherel ordered the side masts to be propped up and the flank sails deployed to make the most of the gentle wind and the sleek waters. They spent the rest of the day straining their eyes on the ever growing and ever more detailed coastline hoping to see signs of life, cultivated fields and maybe the smoke of cooking stoves above the stone covered roofs houses. But at first the island appeared to be one perfectly uniform forest, with trees covering every part of the ground. There were no traces of settlements, villages, roads or fields.

  Merorae was comparing it to the last drawn map of the island but even the course of the little stream that used to divide it with a narrow canyon was impossible to make out through the dense canopy.

  "I guess there is nothing left but trees and what may grow when men are gone." She sighed, a dejected look on her face.

  Atacherel looked up at the Four Sisters, stars that always remained at the same place in the sky and that the Balà used to calculate the course of their ships and their position on the seas of the world. They were exactly where they were supposed to be, this was indeed Evening Island and it had been wiped clean of the presence of men.

  "Helm to the sandy beach four to starboard." He shouted. "Three men at the prow to watch the bottom. Be ready to heave the keel up and furl. Reduce forward sail by half." The crew jumped to stations and started working immediately and Atacherel touched the shoulder of Merorae and added, "People or not, we are landing and spending the next hundred days or so on it. You'd better be as good a farmer as you are a seawoman or it's likely to be a hungry trip back."

  The lookouts started calling back at the helmsmen:

  "Clear water, no bottom fore!"

  "Clear water, no bottom port!"

  "Clear water, no bottom star! Oh! two sea-sloth five to starboard!"

  The crew started shouting happily and those not on duty rushed to the railing to try and spot the large long armed seaweed grazing beasts. Even though they were very good divers, they were rarely seen that far from shore unless the bottom was high enough for kelp to grow and their flesh was delicious, one kill could feed the crew for a dozen days even more if they smoked it in strips.

  "I think the sea is calm enough to heave now what do you think?" Merorae asked, concerned about the presence of the animals. Atacherel looked at the sails to check if there was danger of being capsized by the wind with the keel removed but his eyes spotted a girl in the rafters immobile staring ahead instead of furling the sail. He looked in the same direction as she did and spotted it. The white dot of a sail, a small ship, tiny even but it was there and hope was reborn instantly. He shouted,

  "Heave the keel! Sail port side all crew on deck. Helm six to port easy. One atop the main to call down."

  A boy shouted happily "I'm up" and rushed up the mainmast.

  "Could be a ghost ship, they are sometimes seen in these parts." Merorae said only for his ears.

  " I know, " he replied but the sail is on a masts and not flying, it seems."

  "True." She said looking hard in the light flooded ocean to try and spot the tiny sail. "Do you think it is them?"

  "We shall know soon enough and maybe we won't need your farming talents after all."

  "The One be praised for that, plants don't like me," she laughed.