Stasa Olegov Bolgravya: the former Grand Duke, killed on Khalakovo when a suurahezhan, a fire spirit, attacked his yacht as it docked at the eyrie of Radiskoye.
Styophan Andrashayev: a trusted soldier, the sotnik of the streltsi who accompany Nikandr.
Sukharam Hadir al Dahanan: one of Nasim’s disciples that he brings with him to Ghayavand.
suurahezhan: a spirit of fire.
suuraqiram: one who bonds with suurahezhan and draws upon their power to wield or alter fire in the material world.
Svoya: the southern city on Galahesh, the one closest to the islands.
Syemon: an old gull who serves on the ship, Strovya.
taking breath (or, to take breath): the Aramahn act of meditating, where they try to become one with their surroundings, to understand more about themselves or the world.
Tashavir: powerful and ancient qiram from the time of the sundering. Followers of Inan who trapped the Al-Aqim on the island of Ghayavand.
Thabash Kaspar al Meliyah: the leader of the Hratha.
Thirosh: the man who runs a winery in secret for King Brechan of Hael. An ally of the Haelish in Alekeşir.
Tohrab: one of the Tashavir buried in the valley of Shadam Khoreh. Also Inan’s husband, the father of Yadhan.
Trevitze: the city where Nasim finds Sukharam.
Udra Amir al Rasa: Nikandr’s former dhoshaqiram (master of the stuff of life).
Urdi Mountains: the mountains separating the Kohori Valley from the Valley of Shadam Khoreh.
Ushai Kissath al Shahda: a woman of the Maharraht who travels with Soroush in search of Nasim.
ushanka: squat woolen hat.
Uyadensk: the largest island in the Duchy Khalakovo. Home to Palotza Radiskoye and the capital city of Volgorod.
Vaasak Adimov Dhalingrad: the envoy of Zhabyn Vostroma, sent to Baressa to negotiate for him before his arrival.
vanahezhan: a spirit of earth.
vanaqiram: one who bonds with vanahezhan and draws upon their power to wield or alter earth in the material world.
vashaqiram: a state of pure enlightenment. The state of mind most Aramahn search for.
Victania Saphieva Khalakovo: the only daughter of Saphia and Iaros. The middle child.
Vihrosh: the old name for Baressa, and now the section that lies to the west of the straits.
Vikra: one of the rooks of Vostroma, the one Atiana favors the most.
Vlanek: the acting master of the Yarost on Nikandr’s journey across the Sea of Khurkhan.
Volgorod: the capital and largest city in the Duchy of Khalakovo. Situated near Palotza Radiskoye on the island of Uyadensk.
Wahad Soroush al Qediah: Soroush’s first son, his second child.
windwood: a variety of wood that is specially cured so that it becomes lighter than air. All windships are made of windwood.
windship: one of the ships made of windwood that flies with the help of havaqiram to harness the wind and dhoshaqiram to adjust the heft of the ship’s windwood.
windsman: general term for a man who crews windships.
windward: to the right while facing the fore of a ship, named so because the wind is in this direction when the windship is moored.
wodjan: a mystic among the Haelish people. The wodjana are able to scry using their own blood or the blood of their enemies.
Yadhan: the first of the children to become akhoz on Ghayavand. She was taken by Khamal.
Yalessa: the handmaid that most often attended to Atiana in the drowning chamber.
Yalidoz (Kasir Yalidoz): the palace in Baressa, on the island of Galahesh, home to Bahett ül Kirdhash.
Yasha: a soldier assigned to Styophan on his trip westward to Hael.
Yegor Nikolov Nodhvyansk: the Duke of Nodhvyansk.
Yevgeny Krazhnegov Mirkotsk: the Duke of Mirkotsk.
Yrfa: Saphia Khalakovo’s favorite rook.
Yrstanla: an Empire situated on a large continent to the west of the islands in the Grand Duchy.
Yvanna Antoneva Khalakovo: Ranos’s wife.
Zanaida Lariseva Khazabyirsk: the Duchess of Khazabyirsk.
Zanhalah: the woman who helps Nikandr to heal Soroush’s son, Wahad.
Zhabyn Olegov Vostroma: the Duke of Vostroma.
Afterword
Like many works of fiction, The Lays of Anuskaya was years in the making. The creation of a new world and the story that lives within it often begins well before the first words hit the page. It was no different here. The genesis of The Lays of Anuskaya can be pinpointed to a trip to Scotland I took with my wife in 2004. We went on a whirlwind tour of the UK and Ireland, and one of the stops was Edinburgh, where we visited the National Gallery of Scotland. While there, I was struck by many of the beautiful paintings, especially some of the paintings from the Dutch masters on display, and I thought, I’m going to write a story from these. I had no idea what the story might be—only that I wanted to gather certain works as inspiration and use them to help seed the story I was about to embark upon.
Little did I know what sort of people the characters in those paintings might become—not only Nikandr and Atiana, but Nasim, Ashan, Rehada, Soroush, Victania, and Iaros. Over the years, what started out as a story that was important for me to write became one that was deeply personal. The story of these characters became so much a part of me that I felt real feelings of loss when the story was done and turned in. It was wonderful to have the story complete and ready to go out in the world and into readers’ hands, but I also knew I would miss these many characters.
One thing that strikes me, now that the tale has been written, is the personal journey I’ve taken over the course of the many years it’s taken me to start, publish, and shepherd this project to market. I was not a neophyte author when I started working on The Lays of Anuskaya, but neither was I seasoned. I grew immensely as a writer during the telling of these tales. I grew and changed as a person. My daughter was just a baby when I started, and now she’s seven. My son is only three, and so was many years in my future by the time I put hands to keyboard. The world has changed around me and changed me as a result. And through it all I’ve been chipping away at this tale, hoping it will find a home out there in the world. That has been one of the more gratifying parts of this journey. I truly enjoy interacting with those that have read and found these books fun to read. It’s a very gratifying thing for the writer, because let’s face it, even with social networking, writing is a terribly lonely profession, and it’s wonderful to speak to people that relate to what you’ve written, and also to find like-minded souls.
I also look back over the journey told within the pages of the book and find myself deeply gratified with how it turned out. Tolkien once said that writers are like archeologists. The tales are there to be found and told and we authors simply uncover the truth of it, slowly but surely. I like that take on it, because it speaks to the internal consistency writers are looking for in a story. But it sure does pay short shrift to the work we put in to flesh out the world, the magic, the characters, and the plot.
As I write, the story seems so full of possibility. It could go so many ways as it begins to unfold and various people and places and plot points come to me. But like concrete the story eventually begins to set. It feels more solid. Less able to change. Until eventually it’s fixed and feels more like a window to another world than an unending set of possibilities. That’s what this story has become to me now. A real world. A whole world. One that started before I began writing and will continue well beyond it.
That is my fervent hope for you as well, that you find this world wondrous and unique and complete.
Another thing I’ve rarely talked about is the fact that 9/11, the Iraq War, and the surrounding conflicts were one of the primary sources of inspiration for this story. Like so many people—not just Americans, but people all over the world—I was greatly affected by the events of 9/11. There was rage and confusion and a deep desire to “get to the bottom of it,” to understand why the
perpetrators of that crime had done what they’d done. The more I searched for answers, however, the more I realized that it’s an endless story with endless causes and endless consequences.
Look, I’m a pragmatist. I know there are hard truths in our world, and I’m fully aware that there are legitimate reasons to use violence to achieve an end, but it also seems that too often violence (or the threat of violence) is the first thing we reach for in our arsenal (a funny word to use when you’re trying to broker peace, but somehow it seems apropos; and by the way, when I say we, I mean the entire human race). So much of our politics is posturing and refusing to give in for fear of being seen as weak or “appeasing” the enemy. This is true of many conflicts around the world and was true of the conflict in the Middle East, and as I watched it unfold, it built within me a frustration that was hard to reconcile. It was in that frustration that the seeds of The Winds of Khalakovo were laid down. Those seeds started to bear fruit as I fleshed out the conflict that’s told in the story, one that has roots in generations past but that’s coming to a head just as Winds opens.
The heart of the story—a tale of irreconcilable differences—didn’t change very much in the telling. It continued to be the primary driver of what happened, but I was able to show that some people, if they try hard, can meet somewhere in the middle, and I was able to bring that new perspective to several different characters. That was one of the more gratifying things for me, to show a tale in which the characters learn and come to understand another culture from a perspective that was beforehand very limited. As you now know, not everyone ended up agreeing with the other side—that wouldn’t be a truthful story—but they certainly understood more if nothing else, and all of that came from my inner desires for us, in this world, to do the same.
I recently (it’s May of 2013 as I type this) stopped by John Scalzi’s The Big Idea to help promote The Flames of Shadam Khoreh. The notion is you talk about the big idea in your book. Its central theme. Most people talk about a single book, but I chose to talk more about the series as a whole.
So what’s the Big Idea? The Lays of Anuskaya isn’t about our world. It isn’t about the conflict in the Middle East. But it was born there, certainly, and so it’s hard to escape some parallelism. I suppose if I had to formulate the roiling of inner desires that led to these books, I’d say it’s a plea for us to look further than today.
It’s a plea for peace, as told through a tale of war.
Acknowledgements
Books are not written alone. They have many supporters, some silent, some vocal. This is my attempt to thank as many of them as I can.
To my wife, Joanne, who carves out time for me to do this crazy thing I love, thank you so much. This thanks also extends to my children, Relaneve and Rhys. Every single ounce of effort I put into you is rewarded by the pound.
To Ross Lockhart, I’ve said it in private, but I’ll say it here as well. Your help to me in the process of getting this trilogy from its raw written form to final product has been invaluable. Thank you for being a champion of this work, both within the halls of Night Shade books and in the wide, scary world of publishing.
To my agent, Russ Galen, as time goes on, I respect your insight more and more. Thank you for believing me enough to take on a fledgling writer and shelter him forward to an actual, honest-to-goodness writing career.
To the people of Wellspring II Electric Boogaloo (Brenda Cooper, Debbie Daughetee, Kelly Swails, Holly McDowell, Kameron Hurley, Greg Wilson, Vincent Jorgensen, Grá Linnaea, Stephen Gaskell, Eugene Myers, and Chris Cevasco), thank you so much for reading those early pages and sending the ship off in the right direction. To Debbie and Brenda go an extra helping of thanks for reading the entire novel, warts and all. What I had was roughly formed clay, and you helped me turn it into a sculpture. Full manuscript reads of such a long book are golden, and you have my deep gratitude for taking it on.
I’d also like to thank a few of my many mentors who’ve helped me along the way. To Orson Scott Card, thank you for running your Literary Boot Camp in 2005. I learned so much, not only from your books on writing, but from your incisive talks and comments on writing. And to my Clarion instructors, Chip Delaney, Michael Swanwick, Joe and Gay Haldeman, Nancy Kress, Holly Black, and Kelly Link, thank you for running the most intense six weeks (writing-wise) of my life. No one can fully appreciate what Clarion gives them while they’re there at the workshop. It takes years afterward to absorb it and put it into practice. But your efforts were greatly appreciated. Clarion took me farther than I ever imagined it would.
To Holliann Russell Kim, I don’t know what I would have done without you. I’m so grateful you were there all the way. Thank you for taking this journey with me, and for lending your keen eye to these sorry pages.
To Aaron J. Riley, thank you for taking a few notes and some words and turning them into such a gorgeous cover.
To Ryan Leduc, thank you for your generosity to Worldbuilders and for providing the inspiration for Rodion Ledokov, a fine addition to this tale.
For last, I save Paul Genesse, who has always been such a great supporter of this story and who helped immensely with this final book, particularly getting the ending to the point where it would honor not just the threads playing out in this novel, but the entire trilogy and beyond. My thanks, Paul, for your friendship, encouragement, and advice.
Kickstarter Acknowledgements
There are many people who had a direct influence in making this dream a reality. Namely, those who participated in the Kickstarter for this novel. Thank you for all your support and enthusiasm.
Soroush
Lou Anders, Aidan Moher, David Annandale, Bryce Dayton, Howard Andrew Jones, Adam Rakunas, Paul. A. Addison, Ian Wolfe, mundanename, Ruth Coy, Johan Törnroos, Jason T., Jake Di Toro, Matt Dickinson, Isabelle Baikie, Misty M Radig, Jack Vivace, Roman Kalik, Daniel Lückerath, Kristyn Willson, William Groenendijk, Reiko Yukawa, Yaron Davidson, Allen W Snyder, Casey Fiesler, Jessica Eden Petersen, Cody Reichenau, David Hanson, Galena Ostipow, Christian Steudtner, Nathan Duby, Courtney Schafer, Michael Cummings, Jeremy Kenneth Colton Chamberlin, Yohay Kaplan, Jim Martin, Don Schlising, Gregory Lincoln, AmyK, Andrew Zimmerman Jones, Philippe Sylvain, Brandon Zarzyczny, Oliver Graf, Sean Silva-Miramon, Alma Vilic, Maxwell Alexander Drake, Raphael Reitzig
Rehada
Dave Gross, Christine Rost, Gopakumar Sethuraman, Doug Smith, Brian M., John Hornor Jacobs, shh, Wesley Chu, Lesley Ralph, Steven Saus, Greg Frenette, Joseph Hoopman, R. Storey, Pierre, Dino Mascolo, Dimitris Tzanerakis, Blair MacGregor, CE Murphy, Andy Muir, Michael Bentley, Nick Simpson, Stephenie Sheung, Megan Peterson, Caroline Kierstead, D. Kevin Stilwell, Jr., Matthew McKee, Jacob Poindexter, Jon Shoop, Brian Becker, Joe Dicker, Or Raifman, Adam Rajski, Rob Danforth, Noel Coughlan, Graeme Williams, Mathew A Howell, Frank Johnston, Samantha Holloway, Matthew Jones, Louis “luigibrosse” Carlioz, Robert Moulden, Captain Harbatkin, Jay O’Donnell, Greg Close, Donny Davis, Christophe Morvan, Todd Alan, Iliyan Iliev, Fiona Nicholson, Jeff Zahnen, Roman Pauer, Paul E. Horsman, Alek Kahlo, Kevin J. Maroney, Aymeric P., J. Strohschein, Dana, Matt Phillips, Troy Pollex, Evaristo Ramos, Jr., Asri Jaffar, Patrick Ellis, Juan Hamers, Guy Lee Byars, Jonathan Laidlow, Carol J. Guess, Ryan Lawler, Todd Tyrna, Guillaume C Levesque, Kent Henry, Karen S. Conlin, J.M. Beraldo, Evgeni Kantor, Greg Levick, Matthew B. Aguirre, Michael Benicek, Jason “Kuma” Brinkerhoff, Ivan Yagolnikov, Magdalena Fabrykowska-Młotek, Allen Donnelly, Ann Lemay, Carlos Knippschild, Matt Hurlburt, Steve Lord, Sreevidya Subramanian, Storm Writer J.M. Martin, Lori Lum, Chris Hyde, Jeremiah Tolbert, Brian Cheek, Nathan Duke, Angela Rivera - Ghilbrae, Jami Good, Jeff Salyards, Nathan Hall, Yvonne Chung, J.R. Murdock, Kevin Kastelic, Nathan Wagoner, Russell Duhon, Henrik Reuther, Barry, Karen J. Grant, Steve Carroll, Adam & Jayce Roberts, Joel Cunningham
Ishkyna
Michael J. Sullivan, Ewa Malc, Leticia Lara www.fantasticaficcion.com, Michael Dunnington
Mileva
Charles Schultz, H
arry Giovanopoulos, Todd Bogenrief, Jerry Gaiser, Stephen Abel, Patrick H. Crim, Matt Jebus Jones, Raghu Tirunarain, Zuhur Abdo, Martin Greening, Kathleen Hanrahan, Derek Silver, Pam Blome
Khamal
Michael R. Underwood, Shauna Roberts, Joshua Palmatier, Barbara Webb, R. Patrick Taggesell, Keith Kahla, Doug Sturtevant, Carol Klees-Starks, Christopher M. Cevasco, Loretta Wilkinson, Scott Ladewig, Steve Hick, Rodney Rappaport, Marian Makins, Matthew Briganti, Wooz, Mihai Adascalitei, Aaron Bated, Dain Eaton, Jacob Kesinger, Derek Brine, Aaron Willis, Chris Kenth, Ty Wilda, Nico “The Chosen One” Kolstee
Ghayavand
Conner Ferguson
Muqallad
Fred Kiesche, Matthew S Caron, Patrick Boyle, Joanna Staebler-Kimmel, Sally Qwill Janin, EEJ, Pat Hartman, Paul Weimer
Sariya
A Daily Dose of R&R, Harry R. Ince
Shadam Khoreh
Mike Koshel, Ingrid Emilsson
Atiana
Mark Aaron Smith, Brad M. Saenz, Steve Drew, Bill O’Connor, Eldritch, Mihir Wanchoo, Eric Toczek, David Wohlreich, Kerry Brooks, David Lars Chamberlain, Adam J Leonard, Charles DeMoss, Michael Lenzo, Ryan “Rodion” Leduc, Michael Tynan, C. Joshua Villines, David M. Johnson, Chris McLaren, T.J. Olson, Paul Genesse, Andrew W. H. House, Shahid Hasan, Keith West
The Flames of Shadam Khoreh Page 62