In this postapocalyptic fantasy, a sea of sand swallows everything but the past. In an endless sea of sand drifts the Mud Whale, a floating island city of clay and magic. In its chambers a small community clings to survival, cut off from its own history by the shadows of the past. The blight of the tárichos is infecting the people of the Mud Whale with horrifying speed, and the island seems doomed to become a floating graveyard. But visions of the past may have the power to save the future as Chakuro becomes witness to Shaun and Ouni's private recollections.