In this postapocalyptic fantasy, a sea of sand swallows everything but the past. In an endless sea of sand drifts the Mud Whale, a floating island city of clay and magic. In its chambers a small community clings to survival, cut off from its own history by the shadows of the past. The blight of the t?richos is infecting the people of the Mud Whale with horrifying speed, and the island seems doomed to become a floating graveyard. But...