Novel, Chp 6.3

                  The air had been still and quiet for days, and when the a breeze from the west finally picked up, Aytheur suddenly wished it had stayed quiet. It was good, he could suppose, to learn he was off course. Not lost, of course, he had made very careful study of maps and knew where he was. But he wasn't where he intended to be. Even so, the putrid smell of tons upon tons of rotting fish was enough to make him reconsider the virtues of breathing. 
                 He could be off as little as a fifty miles, that's all the farther Bharrak was from the coast. That error would be fine, considering size of the desert, but he guessed he was farther south than that. Aytheur looked out over the south western edge of the world into the setting sun. Although photography was unknown to him, the art of representational landscape painting was not, and he could almost appreciate the aesthetics of the moment. The coast was rocky and at high tide the waves would crash against low, dark shale cliffs. The tide was low at present, exposing a dirty mess of tide pools and sand. A sea monster was rotting there, though it had clearly been dead for some time.
                  There simply wasn't a better word for the thing than sea monster. Ballea, the city-state nearest to Aytheur's home, was deep inland. Aytheur had been the the great river, but he had never been so near the coast. The sea, until he saw it, was an over sized blue puddle on a map, and it's inhabitants merely legends. Except this legend was quite real and fortunately quite dead.
                 It had a tale like a fish's, vertical (Aytheur learned about whales, which are like fish but air breathing, with horizontal tails, and he knew they were very large). It was, in height, perhaps so large as four or five men. The thing's body was stretched out, but much longer than that. It did not have a head, but it possessed a great number of necks. It was probable that if the creature had a head, it would have a good number of them. Its upper body swayed disgustingly in the surf, and those parts which were above water were a beehive of activity. Birds of various sorts were slowly tearing the monster apart. Aytheur decided he would find a zoologist... a marine zoologist, surely Cafaria or Romaybath, or one of the other coastal cities, would have some in their employ, if he should ever find himself there.
                  Prior to the breeze, Aytheur had been feeling hungry, but he was glad now to have eaten little. By dead reckoning, the wandering half-elf decided he probably followed the sun too closely during this journey west. He began to follow the coast north, despite the waning light, because it simply would not do to camp here. When the sun's light finally vanished, perhaps an hour later, Aytheur had to stop. The new moon would not rise for some time, and when it did it would not be enough light to walk be. Fortunately a land breeze hid the smell for now. Another few weeks walking, and he could meet his father's people.