The Obala II

I wondered about the safety of the fishing village, Nanteiwon, having read:

"In her own brief lifespan, Kossara had seen coastal towns abandoned before a rising sea."
-Poul Anderson, Sir Dominic Flandry: The Last Knight Of Terra (New York, 2012), p. 499.

This climatic factor is reflected in a later scene from the Obala. At low tide, the ruins of the inundated Stari Aferoch are visible from the hill of Novi Aferoch. So does "Novi" mean "Nova"? The docks of Novi Aferoch are at the mouth of the Elena River.

Kyrwedhin, Hand of the Vach Mannoch, presides when the steadcaptains of the Obala meet around a three hundred year old table made from the timbers of Gwyth's ship in the main chamber of the slate-roofed, timbered Council Hall which is carved with water monsters. Gwyth, who sailed the stormy Black Ocean, was an ychan hero celebrated by the human poet, Andrei Simich. The steadcaptains are said to perch because, of course, they sit on their tails, not on furniture. They also make the air blue and acrid by smoking pipes. Appropriately, there is a storm outside. The pathetic fallacy again.

Once again, there are two human guests. Both are fluent in Eriau so Kyrwedhin can use that language without having to translate into Serbic or Anglic. Ychani Eriau is archaic and mutated but still possible for Flandry, who has been on Merseia and worked with Merseians on Talwin, to understand. Does Flandry's world sometimes seem more real than our own?