Not a river the way an Ithacan stream is a river. This is the great water that runs around the rim of the world, the boundary between the living world and what lies beyond it. To reach the underworld you sail north until the sky closes above you, the clouds come down low enough to touch the mast, the wind dies, and you row in fog so heavy your own voice feels unwelcome. The light goes dim and sourceless. Even your lamps become feeble flickers. Then the bow plows into mud and you have arrived. The River Ocean is less a place than a transition: the threshold between sailing and entering. Time does not work there. Sound does not work there. You step off the ship into a cold that seeps from the ground into your bones, and the only living thing you can see is a single raven on a black branch, watching with one wet eye.
The River Ocean
The world-encircling river at the edge of everything. Where the sky closes down and you row into mud and silence.