Chogee
(Choh-gee (g hard) = foreigner
Dthor
(Dth (as in those)or—sometimes Zhor (Zh as in treasure) Sun (Zoar is a derivative of this)
Ez’n
(Ezzen) Viceroy or vizier. The most powerful man or woman after the reigning monarch. Zetan kings always have a male Ez’n, Queens always have a female Ez’n. Where a Queen succeeds a King the incumbent Ez’n will assist the new monarch in selecting a suitable Ez’n.
Flasked
Intoxicated on strong liquor—usually Porter or some distillation thereof
Gav
Mouth (sometimes ‘gaff’ usu. military)
Gaiji
(Guy-jee) Barbaric, uncouth, uncultured, uncivilised. Gaijiin (guyjeen) uncivilised or savage behaviours.
Gesh
Genitalia—male or female. Often pronounced “Gash” in common tongue but only when being applied as a slang term for a female prostitute working the streets as opposed to in a brothel. See also Alley-gash
Girdled
Any male or female fighter who has achieved ‘first kill’. Girdling occurs after battle when the kill is verified. Once girdled a boy or girl is considered an adult able to consent to sex and marry without parental approval.
Ibaq
Daughter
(“daughter of” when used in a name)
Ibid
Son (“son of” when incorporated in a name)
Kyr
Wizard or sorcerer, sometimes used in place of the honorific ‘Lord’
Lamb
(Common Tongue)—an ungirdled boy or a boy under 16 years of age.
Luff
Wind or breath.—Lufft—winded or out of breath. Luffin—panting / gasping. “Chock tha luff”—shut up (Slang & Common Tongue usage) considered very ill-mannered
*
Matta
Mother
Mutha
(pronounced ‘mother’) [Common Tongue] a woman or man of particularly evil or disreputable character
Nibbit
Morsel or scrap—(colloq.) a boy or girl child
Ne
No
Nes
(Nez) We / us
Odth
(Oh-th—th hard)—he / she / it
Plank
Stupid or inept
Shlept
Scruffy or ill-kempt—~a / ~er—of a person shlepta—slovenly woman, shlepter—slovenly man
Shrammed
(Common Tongue) Extremely intoxicated on any substance. Also “Flasked”—drunk on Brandywine or other liquor. “Barrelled”—drunk on ale
Slayne (slay-neh)
Woman-lover. Lesbian. Applied ONLY to females. See Slye
Slye
Man-lover. Homosexual. Applied ONLY to men who are exclusive in their bed habits and who sleep only with their own gender. It is never used as derogation.
Slythe
To make love with or to. Usually “having slythe” or “making slythe”. Zetans often refer to having sex as slything—the expression is not gender specific and includes sex between all couples.
Streetmeat
(Common tongue)—a boy whore working the streets as opposed to a brothel worker. See also Brig-pig
Stone-faced
(Common tongue) Intoxicated to the point where a person falls in the street.
Stren/Strent
Heterosexual. Refers to the male/female norms. It is not unusual for males to marry and maintain male lovers in the ranks of the army or in civilian life. The same is true of females though this is not so commonplace. Strent—usually used to denote a man or a woman who is exclusively heterosexual.
Sumpf
An incredibly stupid or rudely ignorant individual
Sway
Bisexual—or equally inclined to enjoy sex with either gender. It is only applied to single men and never applied to men who are married and maintain a lover in the forces or elsewhere. It is never applied to women—there is no word for bi-sexual women.
Tha
(as in the first part of ‘that’) Your singular
Thass
Your (plural)
Vadan
(Vahden) Diseased, unwashed, filthy
Vadangesh
(Closest translation) Cunt/Prick. Usually applied to a person. Vadangesh or vardanesh is considered to be so filthy a word that its use causes shock and extreme offense even in as vastly permissive a culture as the Zetan. It completely strips an individual of personhood, reducing them instead to disease-ridden, filthy genitalia. Its use is eschewed in almost every walk of life such is the nature of its perceived offensiveness.
Vekachte
(FekaCHtuh)—Decrepit, dirty and malodorous (usu. said of a person, but can be used of a place.)
Ves
(Vess) You (plural)
Walad
Boy—up to the age of 16 usu. shortened to ‘lad’
Wolf
(Common Tongue)—a name applied to men who have an appetite for boys or girls below the permissible age of consent. This is normally considered to be 16 although any boy or girl who is girdled after battle is considered mature enough to consent. This notwithstanding, seducing youths under the age of 16 whether girdled or not is very much disapproved of amongst the military and men who engage in such conduct are often shunned by their fellow soldiers.
The seduction the under-aged is considered rape: the mandatory punishment is death by defenestration.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Nikki Dorakis has been writing for a number of years. His work as a psychiatric nurse has always taken precedence until at the ripe old age of fifty-five, he decided to retire and go part-time so that he could work on his books.
Nikki is a Pagan priest and an ordained minister of the Church of Spiritual Humanism.
He writes for his own pleasure and now wants to share that pleasure with you. He hope this brings you as much enjoyment in the reading of it as it gave him in the writing of it.
ABOUT THE STORY
When I first wrote A Rising Darkness it was called The Eye of Zoar. “The Eye” was originally intended to refer to the magical name for Meriq’s skill.
The original manuscript, together with the storage discs were lost during my move from Saudi Arabia back to England and it has taken me sometime to re-write it . . .
I have deliberately avoided the use of words like ‘telepathy’ and ‘telekinesis’ as these our “our words” and have no place in Zetaria. I have called candles ‘lightsticks’ and made other changes for the same reasons—to try to create sense of a culture alien to our own.
The characters use their own language to express certain things and though I have tried to keep the use of Morlan and Zetarian to the minimum; nothing is more frustrating than having to try to figure out what the protagonists are talking about. The characters are not always that co-operative, however, and do lapse into their own tongues very briefly when they are angry or if the ‘Common Tongue’ fails them. There are lexicons at the end of the book but these are simply included for those readers who might be interested.
Table of Contents
About the Author
About the Story
Acknowledgements
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
MORLA
ZETARIA
A Rising Darkness Page 70