Irrlicht

Fog comes off the fen at dusk and settles between the pile houses of a timber town raised over black water. Every house stands on oak piles, its reed-thatched roof pulled low, a flat-bottomed boat tied in the shadow underneath. Boardwalks serve as streets. They creak, run crooked, and meet at a broad plank market platform stacked with reed bundles and dark peat turves. Above it rises a timber bell tower, grey and weathered, its bell hung open to the weather at the top. Behind the reed yard, drying turf has been built into long walls as tight as brickwork and taller than the nearest eaves. To the west a raised causeway strikes out across the reeds, with a lantern post every few steps. The lanterns are lit. Their amber light runs away in a dotted line until the fog closes over it. At the town's edge a long hall on stilts glows over open water. Nowhere here does a foundation touch dry ground.