Salt

"A zailor has grown fretful and disobedient, reluctant to go on deck, even in port."

"There's a white zee-bat watching me up there. Salt's messenger. Salt's got its eye on me. I'll never see home again!"

Salt is one of the three Gods of the Unterzee.

The Traveller

"That night, as you stand on the foredeck, a soft breeze comes out of the East, the Salt's direction; tousles your hair; passes."

Of the gods of the Zee, Salt is the most elusive, said to dwell beyond the horizon. It is the god of farewells, and may be the embodiment of the Zee itself. Its speech is a light across the water, a sea breeze, a splash in the distance - always from the East, calling fellow travellers toward it. It is always approaching, but never arriving. It can provoke an intense sadness as it passes, and those who anger it might find their families driven to violence.

Where its voice sings, a white zee-bat might follow. Where its influence is felt, a message is often found: TRAVELLER RETURNING.

Salt is feared and worshipped by zailors, who give it their stories and secrets, and call its wrath upon those who wrong them. It also punishes those who steal from shipwrecks.

Who is Salt?

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Salt is a Judgment. It is now in exile in the Neath, but before it came here, the White asked it a favor: to find what the Sun had hid (probably his daughter Stone). It promised a treasure at the end of the search, and perhaps something else. Salt accepted because it sought something it could not find between the stars, and entered the Neath, at a terrible cost. It saw Stone's light and found it appetizing, but she was too far away, so instead it sated its hunger by corresponding with her. At some point during this time, but long before the Bazaar came to the Neath, it made a treaty with the Presbyterate. Eventually it made the castle of Frostfound to record its story,, shed its past and future in the place now called Kingeater’s Castle, and went East to change further and shear itself.

Amid the forests and the mountains of the East, it dreams of the stars it left behind, and strives to forget its old home by contemplating its new domain. It is now perpetually in movement and yet standing still, calling those who wish to explore the last horizon. One day, it will rise to fight the White - but there is no happy ending.

Salt is sometimes called the Sun-Beneath-the-Sea.