Elijah Stick was a Recorder for the Board of Control. It was he who registered all the cargoes which were loaded and unloaded on and off the wharf at Blackwater. He had done so for many years. Nothing unusual happened. He, as it were, ran a tight ship. All the vessels which came and went were well-known to him and traded along and in sight of the coast, for beyond the coast was permanent mist, fog, and cloud. No ship sailed into it and returned. Until that is, one day, when an almost unknown vessel docked with strange cargo aboard. And, stranger still, Elijah was persuaded to join the crew as the Shipmaster and Owner's factotum. More extraordinary still was that this ship sailed out into the mist and fog, out across the sea to the other side of the water; a dangerous thing to do. But not all is what it seems, and in the end, Elijah discovers the reason for his employment.