The Sea of Silt - Overview

I have met travelers who claim that the Sea of Silt was once a sea of water. As unlikely as this may sound, the theory should not be entirely discounted. There are, after all, certain similarities between the Sea of Silt and a body of water: they're both flat, they fill low-lying areas, and heavy objects sink in them. Although it does not seem likely that the water itself turned to dust, it is conceivable that this basin was once filled with liquid instead of dust. On a still day, which is so rare as to be almost nonexistent, the Sea of Silt looks like an endless plain of pearly powder. Sometimes, it lies as flat as a table and it seems you can see clear to the other side of the world. More often, the dust has been churned into star-shaped dunes or piled into massive swells. On some days, when the silt lies in parallel, wave-like ridges, the sea looks like a infinite gray lake, frozen in an instant, with the waves all at their peaks. Usually, however, the Sea of Silt is not even visible. The slightest breeze stirs up a silvery pall of dust that clings to the surface like a fog. It becomes impossible to tell where the silt-laden air ends and the dust-bed begins. The sea takes on the aspect of an endless moor, the swirling dust rising off the surface like ash-colored steam, obscuring your vision of everything both far and near. When the wind blows more strongly, as it often does, the Sea of Silt becomes a boiling cloud of dust, the edges tinged with crimson sunlight and the center as dark as a dragon's heart. On such a day, a man standing near the sea cannot see more than a few feet in any direction. The dust coats his clothes, his face, the inside of his nose, and even, it seems, his lungs. He cannot see the ground or the sky, and when he walks his feet drag through inches of thick dust. He grows disoriented and lost, and it becomes an easy matter for him to wander into the sea itself. Sometimes, he disappears forever. On stormy days, the wind roars over the sea like the howl of a mekillot. If you are within fifty miles of the Sea of Silt, there is nothing to do but find shelter and wait. These are the days when the silt rises thousands of feet into the air, blocking out the sun's light and turning the day to night. The dust is so thick that to breathe without a cloth over the nose and mouth is to choke, and to rest in the open for more than a few minutes is to be buried beneath a drift of gray powder. The wind may blow for only a few hours during such storms, but the silt stays suspended in the air long after it stops. It may take a day or more before the dust settles enough to allow travel again, and more than a week before the haze totally disappears from the sky. Even when the wind is not blowing, however, the Sea of Silt is far from a hospitable place. The dust is so loose that a man cannot walk across it, and it is too deep for any man to wade through. Anyone who tries to do so invariably sinks and is lost. He suffers a terrible death, suffocating as his lungs fill with gray powder. As one might imagine, the difficulties of travel have had a dampening effect on explorations in the Sea of Silt - though there are those who have tried it, of course. I am not one of those fools, however, so I must admit that what little I have learned of this region, beyond my own experiences on the shores, comes from second-and third-hand accounts. There may well be errors in what follows, so be forewarned that I take no responsibility for any of the advice about traveling in this region.