SLARVATHOffice of Off-World Correspondence

Bureau of Returning Persons — area sheet

Ammeth

Ammeth in watercolour: one row of poured and carved dwellings along the edge of a level bank of pale fog that fills the whole foreground, every house showing its blank back to the fog and standing on a plinth with steps going down to the fog's edge and no further; a track behind the row with more dwellings and small round trees on dry yellow knolls, and low hazy hills under a blue sky.
Cf. FilmThe ground the plate is drawn from.
Cf. FilmThe same ground, another day.
AMMETH

the town stops at the fog

Ammeth is built along mell’s edge and no further. Where the fog stands, the town stops.

You will remember that the houses face away from the fog. They were put there to be near it, and they turn their backs to it, the way a house turns its back on the thing it keeps.

Mell comes up to the last step and does not come higher. Nobody at Ammeth has seen it come higher. It is spoken of as though it might.

Grieth is twenty kadd along the shore. People go back and forth between the two and do not say which one they are from.

The last step is the lip of the first hollow. Mell comes up to it, and the hollows take what it brings and keep it a while after it has gone down.

FrameA rectangle left open on the fog side. The frame stops at the shore, as the town does. ViewpointDrawn from above, as inhabited areas are.
Key
  1. 13 Ammeth the town, which stops at the fog
  2. 14 The last step mell has not come higher
From here

How far is not recorded. How long is.

Office annotationThe Correspondent was asked why the houses face away from the fog. He said that they face the town. The Office has entered both.