John William Waterhouse Waterhouse Ophelia

John William Waterhouse Waterhouse OpheliaLeonardo da Vinci Portrait of Ginevra BenciLeonardo da Vinci The Madonna of the Carnation
cloud had reached the top of the dunes now, and vanished in the silent wastes of the desert.
Brutha tried to put it out of his mind, which was like trying to empty a bucket underwater. No one survived in the high around a stone jetty, at one of which was a trireme flying the holy oriflamme. When the Church traveled, the travelers were very senior people indeed, so when the Church traveled it generally traveled in style.
The party paused on a hill and looked at it.
"Soft and corrupt," said Vorbis. "That's what we've become, Brutha."
"Yes, Lord Vorbis."
"And open to pernicious influence. The sea, Brutha. It washes unholy shores, and gives desert. It wasn't just the dunes and the heat. There were terrors in the burning heart, where even the mad tribes never went. An ocean without water, voices without mouths . . .Which wasn't to say that the immediate future didn't hold terrors enough . . .He'd seen the sea before, but the Omnians didn't encourage it. This may have been because deserts were so much harder to cross. They kept people in, though. But sometimes the desert barriers were a problem, and then you had to put up with the sea.Il-drim was nothing more than a few shacks