Elsewhere and otherwhiles...

The sulfurousness of innumerable small coal-fires prick at Umin’s nose. 

And the muted mingle of, as yet, unintelligible speech and reserved bustle rise up to greet the unlikely pair, as they descend the grainy pathway into the rumpled landscape of The Barrows.

Here is The Shore, whereupon the deep undersea of Old Night rolls...

Out beyond the sepia sprawl of low structures and tents, a squat arrangement of onyx-black architecture against the lazy lapping thickness of the Great Lower Sea’s lip. 

Umin squints against the shadows, unable to define its dimensions.

The building is looming and graceless, fretted over with a hundred-thousand upon thousand waxy points of jittering and unsteady brightness.