"The buildings are still here."
Amber continued to push through the trees, aiming for the beach. She stopped in her tracks, pulling aside some tree branches and gesturing to Miro.
"Not all of them."
Miro realised they'd only been seeing part of the town. The rest was here, now overgrown by jungle. It was an area twice the size of that still standing, reduced to ash and rubble. Hundreds of people must have been killed.
"Look," Amber said, pointing.
The human skull grinned at them, the rest of the body buried under growth. Now that Miro looked, he saw more bones, some blackened from the volcano's devastating hail of fire.
The mountain rumbled again, and the ground shook.
"We need to search close to the shore," Amber said. "That's where you found the last ship, at the dry dock."
Miro could sense Amber's longing to get away from the town and close to water.
"All right," he said. "You follow the shore right, I'll follow it left. The island isn't big. We'll either meet in the middle or, if we can't continue for some reason, we'll meet back here."
Miro followed the water, scanning the shore and occasionally checking the tree line to look for ships. He clambered over several fields of hardened lava, wondering at the strange ripples and rounded lumps, feeling fear stab his heart every time the mountain rumbled.
As he walked he looked at the barrier reef that enclosed this island much as Valetta's reef had done. He rounded the island, passing a ragged cliff, and then he was on the other side.
The water was rougher here, and Miro saw there was a wide channel between two arms of the reef, the channel marked with deep blue to indicate the greater depth. Without the reef to protect the lagoon, waves pounded at the shore.
Miro saw Amber walking towards him.
"Find anything?" he asked, filled with hope.
"Nothing. That volcano scares me."
"Me too," Miro said.
"You looked like you were limping.
"It's this cut on my foot."
"Here," Amber said, "let me take a look."
Amber led Miro down to the hard sand near the water's edge. He washed the sand from his foot and then sat while Amber looked at the cut he'd taken on the reef.
"I think we should put something around it to stop sand and dirt getting into it," Amber said. "The last thing you want is an infection."
"It's not deep," Miro said.
Amber looked up at the tree line. "I'll see if I can find some reeds or fronds we can tie around your foot."
Miro watched Amber walk up to the trees. She vanished into the undergrowth, and was gone for a long time. He began to worry, when she returned, waving her arms.
Miro stood up and ran to where she stood.
"You won't believe this," Amber said.
Taking Miro by the hand, she led him a short way through the trees, barely a stone's throw.
There was a shape there, a small hill of rock, obscured by the creepers.
Amber reached up and tore at the creepers, until Miro saw solid planks of treated wood. He realised what it was.
"It's a ship," he breathed.
"Look," Amber said. She took Miro to the front of the ship and pulled some more vines away, revealing the name on the bow: the Intrepid. "It's one of ours. It's a type of small ship called a caravel. See, it has a single stern castle, a main mast, and a mizzen mast aft. I remember it from my father's book."
It was perhaps half the size of the Delphin.
"I know what it is," Miro said, his voice filled with wonder, "or at least how it came to be here. Toro Marossa always travelled with more than one ship, preferring the safety of numbers in case disaster struck, and he used caravels. This must be from his second voyage, the one he never returned from. We know he made it this far at least."
Aside from a few vines that had crawled up the sides, the ship was in remarkable condition.
"How did it last this long?" Miro pondered.
"Look," Amber said, pointing.
Miro tilted his head to look up, and realised he was seeing a roof, built over the ship to protect it from the elements.
"And it's on huge timber logs, rollers, which hold it up from the ground and also mean it can be easily launched."
Miro walked a short distance and looked out at the sea. He realised the ship was pointed at the wide channel he'd seen earlier — the quickest way to the open sea.
"Come on," Miro said. "Let's free it and try to get it down to shore."
"First let me do something about that foot," Amber said.
Amber made a bandage of some fibrous plant and then tied it in place on Miro's foot with tough reeds. They then set to work clearing the caravel.
As they worked the mountain rumbled, and after a time their stomachs began to rumble along with it.
"I saw some shellfish on the way here," Amber said. "I'll see if I can get us something to eat. Can I have the cutlass?"