They went back into town to find a boarding house for the night and retired early, ready for their early start the next morning. It was still dark when they set out, but they could see fairly well by the light of Derro, the red sun, just setting in the west. At that time of year the two suns were almost exactly on opposite sides of the sky, so that one was setting as the other was rising. Most people thought that Derro remained fixed against the background stars, whereas Tharsol, the yellow sun, took a year to pass through all ten constellations of the zodiac and return to its starting point. Educated people, however, such as University graduates, knew that Derro also moved against the background stars, but at a much slower rate. It currently took twenty seven years to move a distance equal to its own apparent diameter against the constellations, but archaeological evidence suggested that it had once moved twice as fast, thousands of years in the past.

     They arrived back at the ship, the Analiese, just as a sailor was about to raise the gangplank. "Glad you could make it," chuckled the Captain, coming forward to meet them. "We were beginning to think you'd changed your minds."

     He took them below decks and showed them to their cabins, a small one for the women and a slightly larger one for the four men, just large enough for them to squeeze into and made even more cramped by the crates of fruit stacked against the dividing walls. They dumped their belongings there, except for their spellbooks which the wizards carried in their large, baggy coat pockets wherever they went. Then they dashed back on deck to watch as they left the harbour.

     They weren't the only ship leaving. A whole flotilla of ships was taking the opportunity to catch the tide, a forest of grimy, white sails billowing in the wind as they slipped out to sea. Hundreds of small fishing vessels, a few dozen small merchant ships bound for other Ilandian ports up and down the coast and a few larger ships, similar in design to the Analiese, heading for more distant destinations. Mala, Pastora, the great Shae Kingdoms and even more distant lands beyond Widowmaker's Point, on the shores of the Southern Sea.

     Suddenly Lirenna cried out in delight and pointed to a ship about five hundred yards away, hidden until then by a cluster of warehouses on a bend in the shoreline, but visible now as both ships were pulled slowly from their berths by rowing boats full of straining, sweating oarsmen. It was a Baddow ship, one of the super luxurious clippers used by the wealthy and powerful when travelling by sea. It was sleek and streamlined, painted in white, silver and gold and hung with ribbons and bunting that fluttered slightly in the very light breeze. Three sails hung from each of the three masts, decorated with the coat of arms of the Baddow family, the Ilandian flag, a mermaid, a seahorse and a number of fanciful designs. The ship had apparently been hired by a party of celebrants out to have a good time, as it was illuminated by hundreds of hanging lanterns and alive with the sound of music. The chattering and singing of the passengers carried easily through the calm dawn air to the watching travelers, making them wonder what they were so happy about. Probably somebody's birthday, thought Thomas.

     Here and there about the hull were the tastefully hidden bulges that revealed to the trained eye the presence of defensive weapons, principally ballistae, as on most ships. They were set in recessed alcoves and covered with wooden shutters, so as not to spoil the elegant lines of the ship, two on each side and one on the stern. Obviously, ships of the Baddow line required lots of protection from pirates, and it was said that each ship also carried two wizards trained in nautical combat, as well as a priest of Omnar, God of the seas, capable of summoning water elementals and even of raising the sea itself against enemies. Even so, the presence of so much wealth so far from the safety of dry land still invited attack, and so even Baddow ships joined convoys of other ships, travelling together for mutual protection.

     Lirenna gazed in pure adoration as the two ships drew apart, their sails billowing and filling with the wind as the rowing boats were cast free to return to shore. "One day I am definitely going to take a trip on one of those," the demi shae promised herself, her eyes glowing. "One day."

☆☆☆

     The Analiese headed due south until they were about two miles from shore, then turned south east to follow the coast. As the Captain explained to his passengers, they had to maintain a safe distance from the shore to avoid the occasional mudflat and sandbank, whilst making sure that they stayed above the continental shelf, which in this area only extended about five or six miles out to sea. It was in the deeper waters beyond, where the seabed plunged to a depth of a mile or more, that most of the dangerous sea monsters were to be found, although the occasional one had been known to come very close to shore to harass the shipping, sometimes hanging about for several months before being driven back to its natural habitat by the Beltharan military ships that patrolled the shipping lanes. Further south, fortunately, the continental shelf widened out to twenty or thirty miles, and around the lonely isles it formed a wide undersea plateau reaching several hundred miles out to sea.

     After hearing this, they got a considerable fright when Matthew, leaning over the side to admire the sunset that evening, saw a large dark shape moving through the water less than a hundred yards from the ship. He yelled out to everyone around him, bringing the other five travelers and some of the crew.

     The sailors just laughed when they saw the sea creature he was pointing at, as large as the ship and paralleling its course. "Don't worry, lad," laughed one, clapping him on the back. "It's just a king manta, a harmless filter feeder. Don't you think the lookout would've warned us if there were anything dangerous around?"

      Matthew grew red with embarrassment, but the others consoled him by saying that any of them might have made the same mistake and that it was better to be safe than sorry. They watched the giant fish for several minutes more until it drifted away from the ship and vanished.

     Life on the ship settled down to a dull routine over the next few days, with the women spending most of their time in their cabin, as requested. The three wizards swapped spellbooks with each other for a time and tried to learn some of each other's spells, but with only limited success. Lirenna succeeded in learning Thomas's unseen servant spell and Thomas learned Lirenna's sleep spell, but without the special ingredients to make magic ink and a cockatrice feather to write with, they could not copy these spells into their own spellbooks. They would have to keep borrowing each others' spellbooks for the time being. Jerry failed to learn any of the others' spells, mainly because, as a specialist wizard, his area of expertise was too different from theirs. However, he harboured great hopes of being able to learn a couple of spells from Lirenna's scroll, as soon as he was experienced enough to use them.

     Shaun and Matthew, meanwhile, spent a great deal of time up on deck, practising their swordsmanship. One of the sailors, a dark skinned man called Kanta from the distant land of Norfea, offered to teach them a few tricks he'd picked up while fighting the fell men of the Red Mountains, an evil race who inhabited vast systems of dark underground tunnels and with whom the Norfeans had been at war for centuries. The fighters accepted eagerly and were soon mastering moves that the fell men themselves had invented and which the Norfeans had improved upon. In return, they showed him a couple of moves they'd picked up while fighting the shologs of the Overgreen Forest and, while they were nowhere near as good swordsmen as Kanta, the moves were new to him. After a bit of practise, though, he was using them better than the two forestmen had and was once again teaching them.

     What promised to be a pleasant sea voyage was spoiled, however, when the wind grew stronger, making the sea choppy, and Diana discovered that the healing powers of her Goddess were deficient in one important respect. She could not cure seasickness, either in herself or in other people, and the six of them spent the next day hanging over the railings, to the great amusement of the ship's crew. The first mate, straining to contain his mirth, warned them that the coastline south of here, where they were heading, was prone to hurricanes and that, although they were most common in summer, it wasn't unusual to get one this late in the year. They thanked him for the information and wondered whether the Captain would miss him if they threw him over the side. Fortunately the wind died down to a more merciful level the next day, before any of them began to seriously consider suicide.

     Then, in the morning of the fourth day of their voyage, they heard shouts coming from the crow's nest. "Land!" cried the lookout. "Land off the starboard bow!"

     They dashed up on deck and found almost the entire crew leaning on the railing, staring at a small island just visible on the horizon. "That's odd," said Thomas. "I didn't know there were any islands around here." He dashed back to his cabin for his atlas and, returning with it, opened it to the relevant page, staring at the map of the Western Sea. "There're no islands marked on here," he muttered. "Must be too small to appear on the map."

     "Nay, lad," said an old grey haired sailor standing next to him. "I've sailed this route more times'n a frogfish can spit and I've never seen an island here before."

     "Islands don't just appear from nowhere," protested Shaun. "Maybe there's been an undersea earthquake or something that's pushed the sea bed up."

     "No," said Lirenna, shading her sharp shayen eyes with a slender hand. "There are trees on it. Big ones, many years old. Also, I can see smoke rising in several places. That island is inhabited."

     "She's right," said a nearby sailor, looking through a telescope. "I see plumes of smoke rising from five distinct areas, which means five villages. Say between three and five hundred inhabitants."

     "It's impossible," said the Captain, coming over to join them. "You're friend's right. Islands don't just appear from nowhere."

     "We must investigate it!" cried Thomas excitedly. "We've got to solve this mystery! Find out where it came from, who's living on it!"

     "Not so hasty, lad," said the Captain, however. "In this world, the unknown is dangerous. I must think of the safety of my ship and crew."

     "We can at least get a little closer to it, close enough to get a decent look," pleaded the wizard. "You must be as curious as I am. Surely there's no danger in getting just a little bit closer."

     "I am curious," admitted the Captain. He thought for a minute. "Mister Carnes, steer a new course, one eight five degrees. Mister Bunden, I want constant depth plumbings as we approach the island. I don't want us running aground."

      The two men acknowledged and ran off to obey, and soon the ship was turning to starboard and heading straight for the strange new island.

     "About how fast would you say we're going, skipper?" asked the first mate as they watched it growing ahead of them.

     "With this wind, about five knots," answered the Captain. "Why'd you ask? You're as good at counting our speed as I am."

     "I thought I was," replied the mate. "We first spotted that island about ten minutes ago. During that time, travelling at five knots, we must've covered just under a mile. Also during that time, we appear to have remained perfectly stationary with respect to the island. It has not moved or grown since we first saw it."

     "Yes, I see what you mean," said the Captain, his brow furrowing with puzzlement. "Either the ship is sitting perfectly dead in the water, despite the wind blowing in the sails, which I suppose is possible if we were in a really strong sea current flowing against us..."

     "No such current in these waters," interrupted a nearby sailor.

     "Or the island is also moving at about five knots, away from us," continued the Captain, "which would handily explain why it's never been seen before." They all looked at the island, and saw that it was no longer directly ahead of them. It was now a little to their left. "Mister Carnes, are we off course?" called the Captain.

     "No, skipper," called the steersman, looking at the compass. "Still steering one eight five degrees."

     "Turn to follow the island," ordered the Captain. "Keep heading straight for it." He wiped his brow with his young hand. "A moving island," he muttered. "I wonder what we're getting into."