THE ZALVENESH DIVERS The mighty peninsula between the Inland Sea and the White Sea ends in a rugged cape—a mixture of bar- ren, rocky hills, tundra and sheltered pockets of stunted spruce, larch and willow. Here the White Sea gives way to the Great Western Ocean. Ice covers the sea only in winter, and that ice consists of floes and pack ice rather than a solid sheet. A hardy folk called the Zalvenesh live on this coast. They make their livelihood by fishing and hunting whales, narwhales and seals. These people also supplement their diets with shellfish and the edible roots and berries found in the sheltered upland dells. Perhaps the most important aspect of this region, however, lies beneath the waves. What is now the narrow neck of the White Sea once held the Spidersilk Dam, a great wonder of the Old Realm. At the time, the White Sea was dry land and densely populated. When the Spidersilk Dam broke, a wall of water annihilated the glittering cities of the White Valley, sweeping their shattered wreckage toward what is now Haslanti territory… and then, in the immense back-splash, carried it back again. The sea floor around the mouth of the White Sea is thus littered with fragments of the Old Realm.
