Many years of peace followed. From their fortresses in the Ring Mountains, the Ishroi of Siöl guarded the Ark. Whether the Inchoroi lived still or had perished, no one knew. Cû’jara-Cinmoi grew old, for the Nonmen of those days were still mortal. His eyesight dimmed, and his once-mighty limbs began to fail him. Death whispered to him.
Then Nin’janjin returned. Invoking the ancient codes, he appeared before Cû’jara-Cinmoi begging Mercy and Penance. When the High King of Siöl bid Nin’janjin come near so he might see him, he was astonished to discover his old adversary had not aged. Then Nin’janjin revealed his true reason for coming to Siöl. The Inchoroi, he said, were too terrified of Cû’jara-Cinmoi’s might to leave their Ark, so they dwelt in confinement and misery. They had sent him, he claimed, to sue for peace. They wished to know what tribute might temper the High King’s fury.
To which Cû’jara-Cinmoi replied: “I would be young of heart, face, and limb. I would banish Death from the halls of my people.”
The Second Watch was disbanded and the Inchoroi moved freely among the Cûnuroi of Siöl, becoming their physicians. They ministered to all, dispensing the remedies that would at once make the Nonmen immortal and doom them. Soon all the Cûnuroi of Eärwa, even those who had initially questioned Cû’jara-Cinmoi’s wisdom, had succumbed to the Inchoroi and their nostrums.
According to the Isûphiryas, the first victim of the Womb-Plague was Hanalinqû, Cû’jara-Cinmoi’s legendary wife. The chronicler actually praises the diligence and skill of the High King’s Inchoroi physicians. But as the Womb-Plague killed more and more Cûnuroi women, this praise becomes condemnation. Soon all the women of the Cûnuroi, wives and maidens both, were dying. The Inchoroi fled the Mansions, returning to their ruined vessel.
Ishroi from across Eärwa answered Cû’jara-Cinmoi’s call to war, even though many held the High King responsible for the deaths of their beloved. Grieved almost to madness, the High King led them through the Ring Mountains and arrayed them across the Inniür-Shigogli, the “Black Furnace Plain.” Then he laid Hanalinqû’s corpse before the unholy Ark and demanded the Inchoroi answer his fury.
But the Inchoroi had not been idle over the long years since the Battle of Pir Pahal. They had delved deep into the earth, beneath the Inniür-Shigogli and out into the Ring Mountains. Within these galleries they had massed hordes of twisted creatures unlike any the Cûnuroi had ever seen: Sranc, Bashrags, and mighty Dragons. The Ishroi of the Nine High Mansions of Eärwa, who had come to destroy the diminished survivors of Pir Pahal, found themselves beset on all sides.
The Sranc withered before the sinew and sorcery of the Ishroi, but their numbers seemed inexhaustible. The Bashrags and the Dragons exacted a horrifying toll. More terrible still were those few Inchoroi who ventured out into battle, hanging above the tumult, sweeping the earth with their weapons of light, apparently unaffected by the sorceries of the Ishroi. After the disaster of Pir Pahal, the Inchoroi had seduced the practitioners of the Aporos, who had been forbidden from pursuing their art. Poisoned by knowledge, they devised the first of the Chorae to render their masters immune to Cûnuroi magic.
But all the heroes of Eärwa stood upon the Black Furnace Plain. With his bare hands, Ciögli the Mountain, the strongest of the Ishroi, broke the neck of Wutteät the Black, the Father of Dragons. Oirinas and Oirûnas fought side by side, working great carnage among the Sranc and Bashrags. Ingalira, the hero of Siöl, strangled Vshikcrû, mighty among the Inchoroi, and cast his burning body into the Sranc.
The mighty closed with the mighty, and innumerable battles were fought. But no matter how hard the Inchoroi pressed, the Cûnuroi would yield no ground. Their fury was that of those who have lost wives and daughters.
Then Nin’janjin struck down Cû’jara-Cinmoi.
The Copper Tree of Siöl fell into pitching masses of Sranc, and the Cûnuroi were dismayed. Sin’niroiha, the High King of Nihrimsul and Ishoriöl, fought his way to Cû’jara-Cinmoi’s position, but found only his headless body. Then the hero Gin’gûrima fell, gored by a Dragon. And after him Ingalira, who had been the first to lay eyes upon the Inchoroi. Then Oirinas, his body sundered by an Inchoroi spear of light.
Realizing their plight, Sin’niroiha rallied his people and began fighting his way into the Ring Mountains. A greater part of the surviving Cûnuroi followed him. Once clear of their foe, the glorious Ishroi of Eärwa fled, gripped by a mad fear. Either too weakened or suspecting a trap, the Inchoroi did not pursue.
For five hundred years the Cûnuroi and the Inchoroi waged a war of extermination, the Cûnoroi to avenge their murdered wives and the eventual death of their race, and the Inchoroi for reasons they alone could fathom. No longer did the Cûnuroi speak of the Incû-Holoinas, the Ark-of-the-Skies. Instead they spoke of Min-Uroikas, “the Pit of Obscenities”—what would later be called Golgotterath by Men. For centuries it seemed the abominations had the upper hand, and the poets of the Isûphiryas record defeat after defeat. But slowly, as the Inchoroi exhausted their fell weapons and relied more and more on their vile slaves, the Cûnuroi and their Halaroi servants gained the advantage. Then at long last the surviving Ishroi of Eärwa trapped the last of their diminished foe within the Incû-Holoinas. For twenty years they warred through the Ark’s labyrinthine halls, finally hunting the last of the Inchoroi into the deep places of the earth. Unable to destroy the vessel, Nil’giccas instructed the remaining Quya to raise a powerful glamour about the hated place. He and the surviving kings of the Nine Mansions forbade their peoples from mentioning the Inchoroi or their nightmarish legacy. The last Cûnuroi of Eärwa withdrew to their Mansions to await their inevitable doom.
Cûnuroi—See Nonmen.
“Cut from them their tongues ...”—The famous phrase from The Chronicle of the Tusk condemning sorcery and sorcerers.
Cynnea, Braelwan (4059-4111)—The Galeoth Earl of Agmundr, claimed by disease at Caraskand.
D
Dagliash—The ancient Aörsic fortress overlooking the River Sursa and the Plains of Agongorea. It changed hands several times in the wars preceding the Apocalypse. See Apocalypse.
Daimos—Also known as noömancy. The sorcery of summoning and enslaving agencies from the Outside. For both political and pragmatic reasons, many Schools forbid its practice. Some esoteric scholars claim that Daimotic sorcerers condemn themselves to eternal torment at the hands of their erstwhile slaves when they die.
Dakyas—A semi-mountainous district of Nilnamesh.
Dameöri Wilderness—A vast tract of forested, Sranc-infested wilderness extending from the Tydonni frontier in the south and running northeast of the Osthwai Mountains to the Sea of Cerish.
Dark Hunter, the—A common epithet for Husyelt, the God of the Hunt.
“[the] darkness which comes before”—A phrase used by the Dûnyain to refer to the congenital blindness of individuals to the worldly causes that drive them, both historical and appetitive. See Dûnyain.
Daskas, House—One of the Houses of the Congregate.
Daybreak—Achamian’s mule.
Dayrut—A small fortress in the Gedean interior, built by the Nansur after the fall of Shigek to the Fanim in 3933.
Dead-God, the—See Lokung.
Defence of the Arcane Arts, A—The famed sorcerous apologia of Zarathinius, which is as widely cited by philosophers as by sorcerers because of its pithy critiques not only of the Inrithi prohibition of sorcery but of Inrithism itself. The work has long been banned by the Thousand Temples.
Demua Mountains—An extensive range located in northwestern Eärwa, forming the frontier between Injor-Niyas and what was once Kûniüri.
denotaries—In Gnostic sorcery, the “primer” Cants given to students to practise “dividing their voice,” which is to say, saying and thinking two separate things.
Detnammi, Hirul (4081-4111)—The Palatine of the Ainoni province of Eshkalas, slain at Subis under dishonourable circumstances.
Dialogues of Inceruti, The—One of the most famous �
��missing works” of Far Antiquity, frequently referenced by Ajencis.
Dinchases (4074-4111)—A Captain of Attrempus and lifelong comrade-in-arms to Krijates Xinemus, slain at Iothiah. Also known as “Bloody Dinch.”
“Doff your sandals and shod the earth ...”—A common saying meant to remind listeners not to project their failings onto others.
Domyot—(Sheyic version of “Torumyan”) Also known as the Black Iron City. The administrative capital of Zeüm, famed for the cruelty of its rulers and for its iron-skirted walls. For most in the Three Seas, Domyot is as much a place of legend as Golgotterath.
Dragons—See Wracu.
Dreams, the—The nightmares experienced by Mandate Schoolmen of the Apocalypse as witnessed through Seswatha’s eyes.
Dunjoksha (4055- )—The Sapatishah-Governor of Holy Amoteu.
Dûnyain—A severe monastic sect that has repudiated history and animal appetite in the name of finding enlightenment through the control of all desire and all circumstance. Though the origins of the Dûnyain are obscure (many think them the descendants of the ecstatic sects that arose across the Ancient North in the days preceding the Apocalypse), their belief system is utterly unique, leading some to conclude their original inspiration had to be philosophical rather than religious in any traditional sense.
Much of Dûnyain belief follows from their interpretation of what they consider their founding principles. The Empirical Priority Principle (sometimes referred to as the Principle of Before and After) asserts that within the circle of the world, what comes before determines what comes after without exception. The Rational Priority Principle asserts that Logos, or Reason, lies outside the circle of the world (though only in a formal and not an ontological sense). The Epistemological Principle asserts that knowing what comes before (via the Logos) yields “control” of what comes after.
Given the Priority Principle, it follows that thought, which falls within the circuit of the before and after, is also determined by what comes before. The Dûnyain therefore believe the will to be illusory, an artifact of the soul’s inability to perceive what comes before it. The soul, in the Dûnyain world view, is part of the world, and therefore as much driven by prior events as anything else. (This stands in stark contrast to the dominant stream of Three Seas and Ancient North thought, where the soul is taken to be, in Ajencis’s words, “that which precedes everything.”)
In other words, Men do not possess “self-moving souls.” Far from a given, such a soul is an accomplishment for the Dûnyain. All souls, they claim, possess conatus, the natural striving to be self-moving, to escape the circle of before and after. They naturally seek to know the world about them and so climb out of the circle. But a host of factors make outright escape impossible. The soul men are born with is too obtuse and clouded by animal passions to be anything other than a slave of what comes before. The whole point of the Dûnyain ethos is to overcome these limitations and so become a self-moving soul—to attain what they call the Absolute, or the Unconditioned Soul.
But unlike those exotic Nilnameshi sects devoted to various other forms of “enlightenment,” the Dûnyain are not so naive as to think this can be attained within the course of a single lifetime. They think of this, rather, as a multi-generational process. Quite early on they recognized that the instrument itself, the soul, was flawed, so they instituted a program of selective breeding for intellect and dispassion. In a sense the entire sect became a kind of experiment, isolated from the world to maintain control, with each prior generation training the next to the limit of their capabilities, the idea being that over the millennia they would produce souls that could climb further and further from the circle of before and after. The hope was that eventually they would produce a soul utterly transparent to Logos, a soul capable of apprehending all the darknesses that come before.
Dûnyanic—The language of the Dûnyain, which remains very close to the original Kûniüri from which it is derived.
E
Eämnor—A lost White Norsirai nation of the Ancient North. The roots of Eämnor reach back to the days of Aulyanau the Conqueror and the Cond Yoke. In 927, Aulyanau conquered the fortress of Ara-Etrith (“New Etrith”) and, struck by the anarcane characteristics of Mount Ankulakai, settled several Cond tribes in the vicinity. These tribes flourished, and under the influence of the nearby cities of the Aumris they quickly abandoned their pastoral ways. In fact the Cond were so effectively assimilated into Aumris culture that their White Norsirai cousins, the Scintya, took them for High Norsirai during the time of the Scintya Yoke (1228-1381).
Eämnor proper emerged from the Scintya Yoke as one of the pre-eminent nations of the Ancient North. Though laid waste in 2148, Eämnor could be considered the sole surviving nation of the Apocalypse, insofar as Atrithau survived. Due to the concentrations of Sranc, however, Atrithau has never been able to recover more than a fraction of the lands constituting historical Eämnor.
Eämnoric—The lost language of ancient Eämnor, a derivative of Condic.
Eänna—“[Land of the] Uplifted Sun” (Thoti-Eännorean) The traditional name of all the lands to the east of the Great Kayarsus.
Eärwa—“[Land of the] Felled Sun” (Thoti-Eännorean) The traditional name of all the lands to the west of the Great Kayarsus.
Ebara—A small fortress in the Gedean interior, built by the Nansur after the fall of Shigek to the Fanim in 3933.
Ecosium Market—The main “wares market” of Sumna, located just south of the Hagerna.
Ej’ulkiyah—A Khirgwi name for the Carathay Desert meaning “Great Thirst.”
Ekyannus I (2304-72)—The first “institutional” Shriah of the Thousand Temples, and the author of the widely admired 44 Epistles.
Ekyannus III, “the Golden” (2432-2516)—The Shriah of the Thousand Temples who converted Triamis the Great in 2505 and thus assured the predominance of Inrithism in the Three Seas.
Eleäzaras, Hanamanu (4060- )—The Grandmaster of the Scarlet Spires.
Eleneöt, Fields of—See Battle of Eleneöt Fields.
elju—The Ihrimsû word for “book,” referring to someone, either Man or Sranc, who accompanies a Nonman to aid with his failing memory.
Empire-behind-the-Mountains—A Scylvendi name for the Nansurium.
Emwama—The indigenous Men of Eärwa, who, as slaves of the Nonmen, were massacred by the Five Tribes following the Breaking of the Gates. Very little is known of them.
Enathpaneah—A governorate of Kian and former province of the Nansur Empire. Located at the hinge of Khemema and Xerash, Enathpaneah is a semi-mountainous, semi-arid land whose wealth is predominantly derived from the caravans that pass through Caraskand, its administrative and commercial capital.
Ennutil—A Scylvendi tribe of the northwestern Steppe.
Enshoiya—Sheyic for “certainty.” The Zaudunyani name for the Warrior-Prophet’s sword.
ensolarii—The base monetary unit of High Ainon.
Eöthic Garrison—The primary fortress and barracks of the Emperor’s personal guard, dominating Momemn’s northern quarter.
Eöthic Guard—The personal heavy infantry guard of the Nansur Emperors, consisting primarily of Norsirai mercenaries from Cepalor.
Epistemologies, The—A work oft attributed to Ajencis but more likely a redacted compilation drawn from his other works. Many consider it his definitive philosophical statement on the nature of knowledge, but some argue that it distorts his position since it presents a unitary vision of views that actually evolved quite dramatically over the course of his life.
Eritga (4092-4111)—A Galeoth slave-girl belonging to Cutias Sarcellus, slain in the deserts of Khemema.
Eryeat, Coithus (4038- )—The King of Galeoth, and father of Coithus Saubon.
Eshganax—A Palatinate of High Ainon, located across the north Secharib Plains.
Eshkalas—A Palatinate of High Ainon, famed for the quality of its cotton, located on the western edge of the Secharib Plains.
Eumarna—T
he most populous governorate of Kian and former province of the Nansur Empire. Located to the south of the Betmulla Mountains, Eumarna is a large, fertile land that is primarily known for its exports of wine and horses.
Eumarni—The language of Eumarna, a derivative of ancient Mamati.
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