“ A terrible affliction spreads through the land: A disease, highly contagious, which makes its victims mildly ill, but then permanently paralyzes the vocal cords. Dozens of reputed cures and protections are sold in the marketplaces, which gradually grow quieter and quieter...”
“ The Lost March is a large collection of elephant rafts. The lost march never reached its destination and instead was pulled out to sea. The elephants on the raft eventually starved to death, littering the large wooden carpet with their bones and bird picked hides. While sailors with an eye for gold can salvage the tusks of the bull elephant for a hefty price, the raft is haunted by the spectral ghosts of the pod of elephants and they appear after nightfall and attack and kill anyone trespassing on their raft”
“ Some parallel worlds have different time-flows, like the fabled dwelling-places of the elves: those who visit them under the hill for a night return to find that years have passed in this world. Perhaps it is the gate leading between the worlds which causes the alteration. If a gate were 'misaligned', the shift from '| |' to '| \' or '| /' as it were would lead to that difference, much as a light-beam split and bent by a prism ends up taking a longer path. There might even be a mathematical function linking degree of misalignment to alteration of time-rate.”