Random entry from the Encyclopaedia Telrhinica:

Black Downs
In the foothills of the Weatherpeaks above the central Lowlands, west of the Terrin Marshes. Also called the High Downs ('black' comes from the dark stones of the area).

The Quartz Sea

This is the draft of the "jacket cover" text for a fiction project called either 'The Quartz Sea' or simply 'Indahi':

There are nine oceans in the world, and at any given point of the year one of them bathes the city of Indahi. There's the Emerald Sea that brings the summer winds and trade from Effron and the Persit Islands, the Onyx with its dark skies and the coming winter, and the Glass Sea that summons Spring and only stays for three days. But of the nine oceans the Quartz Sea comes only every thousand and two years: an unbroken desert of cold and ice and since the Beginning it has wrapped the city of Indahi in a sheet of cold for six long days at each arrival.

Today is the fifth day of the Quartz' terrible siege.

Now that Haldeman is in final revisions I thought it might be time for something new (and different).