The Throat of the Pan

A flooded salt-cave under the centre of the white pan where a brine-sink swallowed a dry well — the one place the heat does not lie about water, because it is real and lethal.

A cracked hollow in the basin floor marks where the pan swallowed a well whole. Below the salt galleries, the cave drops to a still black brine-pool so cold and dark that whatever came up the drowned coast's water-table calls it home. Carrion-beetles nest in the dry upper chambers; the deep is cold and waiting. Finding running water in the flats is an adventure; finding this is a different sort entirely.