Sillaribes Archipelago, one year later.

  She was sitting on the cool marble steps that lead from her husband's fish & shell shop to the more private parts of their house. The message box had arrived as he was cleaning up before closing for the day, the fresh water tanks had already been covered and the salt water one was being emptied loudly through its plughole. Otanache's hands being soiled and him having immediately noticed the admiralty seal on the box the message girl was presenting to him he had called for Merorae.

  She could still hear him whistling in the courtyard of the house feeding the dog with the innards of the day's trade. It was a summon: two hours after day rise on the morrow to present herself to the admiralty advancement board committee, copper bands were to replace the leather of the second and her commission would be presented to her. Yesterday had been her fifty-second birthday, they had been back from Evening island almost a year now, and what a year it had been! Atacherel's log with the sober tale of their crossing and the description of the state of the island culminating with the sinking of the ghost ship and the salvaging of the body of one of its crew they had preserved in brine and brought back to the Sillaribes had made them more famous than actors. Merorae had long expected something of the kind, captain of her own ship. Fancy that! And after leaving the service for ten years to have and raise her children. Her first impulse was to go and tell Atacherel but he lived on the other side of the island in Vulga-Nara and by now he had most likely been commissioned again. There were several of her former shipmates that had been waiting for such a thing to sail again, she was already making the list in her head, the second was a sure thing, boatswain, first mate and she knew a score of sailors some of whom weren't sailing at this moment, some she had seen this very morning at her husband's shop and some whose children were eager for their first chance aboard a ship. She stood up and said to the empty room, "I need to get my hair cut." The disincarnate voice of her husband floated back in reply through the open door, "Well, that took you longer than usual, captain Merorae!"

  "Not until tomorrow!" she shouted back a little too loudly, "will you tell the children?" she asked as he entered the shop still holding the broom he had been using. "Of course, I'll send the boy next door running to Leveron, and Tinonae is coming to lunch with her kids anyway, shall I ask Mileterel to deliver some honeyed beer or will the captain wish for white Madran, I heard last year is particularly fine." His eyes were shining and his repressed smile made her want to kiss him but she said in a theatrically casual tone, "get the sparkling one from the year of Gueauda, nothing else would do."

  Otanache raised his eyebrow as high as he could and placed the broom against the wall.

  "Does the captaincy pay that much?"

  "Twice the secondcy, my sweet." They were both smiling now, "and if they made me wait that long after the stunt we pulled with the Scarlet, it means they have a commission, it may be a long one." He looked at her beaming as she was and said, "well, let's hope it is to Triads Lands, my stocks of salt from the mines of Gepe is almost out and Detechel back in Vulgate has priced it up three times this season already." She took him in her arms and murmured "you fishmonger you." He kissed her, answering, "yes captain."

  The Behem was birthed alone on one of the most recently built quays, its masts were folded together, one sail had been stretched horizontally above the deck as an awning under which Merorae had set up a little table and a few chairs, where she was interviewing the members of her crew one after the other. It had been a specific request from the commodore in charge of the group of four ships she was to be part of. It was one of the larger fast-ships its hull painted black with the railing red had belonged to an older captain who had sailed it as transport to and from Triads Lands and in a way this was still its destination. The commodore, his shining new silver bands on his wrists had been at the admiralty when she was commissioned; upon his first words she understood that he was mostly responsible for her promotion.

  "I wanted you with me on this." He had said and the only thing she had been able to think of replying had been his own words back on Evening Island:

  "One has to sail it, and we are sailors aren't we?" Atacherel had worked ceaselessly since his triumphant return, even refusing commissions in order to convince the admiralty to give him the orders to go and explore the Ring Sea around Mahara?a. It had taken time also to secure the ships such as they were and some elbow twisting to have him made commodore of the four strong fleet. Even though his rank now permitted him to sail one of the larger two fast-sails he had elected to remain on the Scarlet Dusk and bullied the admiralty into giving the Behem to Merorae, the captain of the Nebu was one of Atacherel's naval school companion and once a good friend, commissions and life had forced them to part ways as he had been assigned to the peacekeeping fleet in the austral archipelago half a season before Atacherel was promoted.

  Merorae's natural authority and her experience were reinforced with the aura of being one of the Scarlet that had sunk, most spectacularly, the ghost-ship and young men and women flocked to the bridge of her ship to try and be admitted in her crew. She warned Atacherel that as soon as her compliment would be reached she would take the Behem on the three loops to test ships and crew. He agreed to meet her on the last loop with the Scarlet and Nebu and run three more together as a fleet before returning to shore and undertaking the final preparation for the long pull towards the Triads Lands. The loops consisted of sailing around the three main islands, the younger captains had turned the test and trial run into something of a race but it wasn't the intention of either Merorae or Atacherel to push their crew, The Nebu had no need to be tested for itself for its complement was the same that had sailed back from the fleet so it simply tagged along in the last leg of the second loop before they went back.

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  "Why did you keep the Scarlet, not that it doesn't give me pleasure to see her but you could have had the Behem it being the larger of the three." Merorae had come aboard the smaller ship while they lay rail to rail in a sea of oil staring at the sun setting in a perfectly clear sky.

  "I wanted to keep her ribs with me." Atacherel said, "Saved our lives once before, didn't it?" He poured some tea and offered a tin mug to the women, "to the captain of the Behem, this is not wine but the sentiment is there." They toasted in silence and the young man went on, "they meant to give her to some young twat I know of who is capable of sinking a raft in a river if that is possible. And they tried to deal us the oldest and almost decommissioned ships of the austral yard."

  "They think we will not be back, don't they?"

  "Won't be the first time, tho."

  "This is your second command, young man and the second no one thinks you'd survive, you are either much worse a captain I know or someone wants you dead!" She joked.

  "Well, as for that, you know very well what kind of captain I am and I am yet to see how you run your own ship. It's a courtesy of the Master Builder Ootern of the Boreal Docks, you know. I think he likes what we did with the Scarlet and he likes me."

  "I didn't know you were into men, much older at that."

  "Not everybody can be like you, into juvenile men." He threw back laughing.

  "By the One, you make it sound like I'm with a little boy! Otanache is only nine years younger than I am, I'll have you know. His fish stew is reputed among the twelve villages of Balanin." Merorae answered in mock outrage.

  "And I'll have you know that this is officially my third commission as a captain." The young man said pompously.

  "Oh! you count sailing the harbors in the parade barge of the Councillors a commission do you? How long did it last for? An afternoon?"

  "Well, as I am a captain I had to be commissioned to sail it as required by the Counsellors and it lasted two days."

  "Much danger there was to it I imagine."

  "Well there was a little bit of a sea on our way out and several of the councillors were taken sick with the motion of the ship, that's why we slept in Sancto to allow the sea to settle back again before we returned."

  "Why did Ootern give you Behem?"

  "I told him what I had in mind and asked him for his advice, he left saying nothing and I did not hear from him for the better part of the season, then a message boy came to me asking that I brought the Scarlet, it was actually written 'my' Scarlet, to the docks. He was just back from the admiralty where he had imposed the Behem on them for this commission under threat that no other ship would leave the dockyards in seaworthy conditions anymore if they dared say no. I think he scares them."

  "I met him once, he scared me too." Merorae volunteered.

  "He has used copperplates twice the thickness on its bottom and reinforced the knees with a complicated device I failed to understand the particulars of. If need be, you could beach it and it'll still sail after."

  "What did he do to the Scarlet, then?"

  "Took it in for seventeen days and gave it back with only a warning not to scratch the paint, it being fresh. I went down below deck but I was unable to see anything different, so I don't know."

  "And what about the Nebu, do you know in what condition it is after so long with the fleet?"

  "It was already in his dockyards days before I got the commission, I think he knew about it long before even I did."

  "Well, I am glad all three ships have been to the yard before we set off..."

  "Four ships, we are taking a round hull with us. It will slow us down unless we tow it from Behem but I think it may be of great help for coastal exploration and to test the waters of the narrowest parts."

  "Good thinking. Who captains it?"

  "Dettel, she is of Sancto, daughter of a rich merchant, nineteen, it was presented to me that I had no choice in the matter. I hope she is not going to be a problem. I was however able to choose her second. You probably remember him from our first pull together. He was the pilot of Scarlet when we made her jump."

  "I distinctly remember you making her fall, not jump. There is much more grace involved into jumping, Commodore."