A flyblown miasma next to blackened gums and pitted fangs: the Amphetin Palisade. The Sea of Flies chokes the air a quarter mile away with the taste of ozone and old metal. It remakes its surroundings continually and one day, the Palisade will fail completely and the Sea will grow.

I feel it is more science than sorcery. It obeys no almanacs, no solar or lunar bodies, no gods or demons or the ranting of priests. Indeed, it spites them. The common guess is that it was made somewhere, some basement laboratory of an engineer currying favour of a King long since vanished. Once it had served its political purpose it was forgotten, burrowing into the Husk.

I reason this as I question my brother’s motives for walking into the Sea of Flies. What was he looking for? God? Purification? Truth? Death? I think he found all of those. It did not kill him, only changed him into a crackling, sharp-smelling outline. He no longer communicates in any language I know, simply drifts after me, arms outstretched.