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Chapters (65)
  1. Prologue
  2. Part One: Channels
  3. Chapter One
  4. Chapter Two
  5. Chapter Three
  6. Chapter Four
  7. Chapter Five
  8. Interlude I: Elsewhere
  9. Interlude II: Bellis Coldwine
  10. Part Two: Salt
  11. Chapter Six
  12. Chapter Seven
  13. Chapter Eight
  14. Chapter Nine
  15. Chapter Ten
  16. Chapter Eleven
  17. Chapter Twelve
  18. Chapter Thirteen
  19. Chapter Fourteen
  20. Interlude III: Elsewhere
  21. Part Three: The Compass Factory
  22. Chapter Fifteen
  23. Chapter Sixteen
  24. Chapter Seventeen
  25. Chapter Eighteen
  26. Chapter Nineteen
  27. Chapter Twenty
  28. Interlude IV: Elsewhere
  29. Part Four: Blood
  30. Chapter Twenty-One
  31. Chapter Twenty-Two
  32. Chapter Twenty-Three
  33. Chapter Twenty-Four
  34. Chapter Twenty-Five
  35. Chapter Twenty-Six
  36. Interlude V: Tanner Sack
  37. Interlude VI: Elsewhere
  38. Part Five: Storms
  39. Chapter Twenty-Seven
  40. Chapter Twenty-Eight
  41. Chapter Twenty-Nine
  42. Chapter Thirty
  43. Chapter Thirty-One
  44. Chapter Thirty-Two
  45. Interlude VII: Basilisk Channel
  46. Interlude VIII: Elsewhere
  47. Part Six: Morning Walker
  48. Chapter Thirty-Three
  49. Chapter Thirty-Four
  50. Chapter Thirty-Five
  51. Chapter Thirty-Six
  52. Chapter Thirty-Seven
  53. Chapter Thirty-Eight
  54. Chapter Thirty-Nine
  55. Chapter Forty
  56. Interlude IX: The Brucolac
  57. Part Seven: The Lookout
  58. Chapter Forty-One
  59. Chapter Forty-Two
  60. Chapter Forty-Three
  61. Chapter Forty-Four
  62. Chapter Forty-Five
  63. Chapter Forty-Six
  64. Chapter Forty-Seven
  65. Coda: Tanner Sack

And so, moistening his lips, flexing his tongue, surrounded by armed officers who would kill him for even knowing about the factory, the man began to unwrap his statue again.

Interlude IV: Elsewhere

Interlude IV: Elsewhere

On keep on.

The water is like sweat and our whales do not like it.

Nonetheless.

South.

The trail is clear.

Into temperate and then into warm seas.

The submarine rockscape was dramatic here, jags and clefts in the world’s crust. Atolls and reefs rose from the deep water in a melee of vivid colors. The water was fertilized by rotting palm leaves and lotuses and the corpses of unique creatures: amphibious things that swam in mud, and fish that breathed air, and aquatic bats.

On every island there were scores of ecological niches, and for each unique opportunity there was a beast. Sometimes there were two or more, fighting for ascendancy.

The hunters made their way into shallows, into salt lagoons and caves, and ate what they found there.

The whales moaned and mewled and begged to return to the cold waters, and their masters ignored them or punished them, and told them again what it was they were looking for.

The hunters remarked upon the water temperature, and the new quality of light, and the crystalline colors of the fish that surrounded them, but they did not complain. It would have been unthinkable for them to care, with their quarry still loose.

South, they commanded, and even when their whales began to die, one by one, their colossal bodies falling prey to alien warmwater viruses and collapsing, their skins peeling off grey and rotten, their bodies bloating with gas and bobbing stinking and pustulant to the surface to be torn to pieces by carrion birds till their bones and the remnants of their flesh slid down into darkening water, their masters did not hesitate.

South, they said, and followed the trail into tropical seas.

Part Four: Blood

Part Four: Blood

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Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-One

Shunday 29th Lunuary 1780-or the Eighth Bookdi of Hawkbill Quarto 6/317, as you please. On the Trident.

Another addition to this letter. It has been some time since I have written. I would apologize if it made any sense. I feel as if I should, somehow-absurdly. As if you read while I write, and fret during the delays. Of course, when you finally get this letter, a day’s silence or a week’s or a year’s will be the same-a line left clear, a row of stars. My months will be collapsed. But I am confused by time.

I am digressing-making little sense. Forgive me.

I am excited, and somewhat afraid.

I sit on the privvy and write this. I am beside a window, and the morning sun is streaming in on me. I am thousands of feet above the sea.