ALARDAN (Elv.) The meeting of several alarli, usually the occasion for a drunken party.
ANGWIDD (Dev.) Unexplored, unknown.
ASTRAL The plane of existence directly “above” or “within” the etheric (q.v.). In other systems of magic, often referred to as the Akashic Record or the Treasure House of Images.
AURA The field of electromagnetic energy that permeates and emanates from every living being.
AVER (Dev.) A river.
BARA (Elv.) An enclitic that indicates that the preceding adjective in an elvish agglutinated word is the name of the element following the enclitic, as can+bara+melim = Rough River, (rough+name marker+river)
BEL (Dev.) The chief god of the Deverry pantheon.
BEL (Elv.) An enclitic, similar in function to bara, except that it indicates that a preceding verb is the name of the following element in the agglutinated term, as in Darabeldal, Flowing Lake.
BLUE LIGHT Another name for the etheric plane (q.v.).
BODY OF LIGHT An artificial thought-form (q.v.) constructed by a dweomermaster to allow him or her to travel through the inner planes of existence.
BRIGGA (Dev.) Loose wool trousers worn by men and boys.
BRIGHT COURT, DARK COURT I’ve chosen these terms for the traditional divide between the groups of Fair Folk, rather than using Seelie and Unseelie Court, names that are localized in our own world to Scotland.
BROCH (Dev.) A squat tower in which people live. Originally, in the homeland, these towers had one big fireplace in the center of the ground floor and a number of booths or tiny roomlets up the sides, but by the time of our narrative, this ancient style has given way to regular floors with hearths and chimneys on either side of the structure.
CADVRIDOC (Dev.) A warleader. Not a general in the modern sense, the cadvridoc is supposed to take the advice and counsel of the noble-born lords under him, but his is the right of final decision.
CAPTAIN (trans, of the Dev. pendaely) The second in command, after the lord himself, of a noble’s warband. An interesting point is that the word taely (the root or unmutated form of -daely) can mean either a warband or a family depending on context.
CWM (Dev.) A valley. DAL (Elv.)
A lake. DUN (Dev.) A fort.
DWEOMER (trans, of Dev. dwunddaevad) In its strict sense, a system of magic aimed at personal enlightment through harmony with the natural universe in all its planes and manifestations; in the popular sense, magic, sorcery. ELVES I have chosen this common name for the people the Deverrians call Elcyion Lacar (literally, the “bright spirits,” or “Bright Fey”). They are also known as the Westfolk among men and dwarves, though the Dwarvish name for the race is Carx Taen. To the Gel da’Thae they are the Children of the Gods, Graekaebi Zo Uhmveo, while they call themselves, quite simply, Impar, the People.
ENSORCEL To produce an effect similar to hypnosis by direct manipulation of a person’s aura. (True hypnosis manipulates the victim’s consciousness only and thus is more easily resisted.)
ETHERIC The plane of existence directly “above” the physical. With its magnetic substance and currents, it holds physical matter in an invisible matrix and is the true source of what we call “life.”
ETHERIC DOUBLE The true being of a person, the electromagnetic structure that holds the body together and that is the actual seat of consciousness.
GEIS, GEAS A taboo, usually a prohibition against doing something. Breaking geis results in ritual pollution and the disfavor if not active enmity of the gods. In societies that truly believe in geis, a person who breaks it usually dies fairly quickly, either of morbid depression or some unconsciously self-inflicted “accident,” unless he or she makes ritual amends.
GEL DA’THAE Also known as the Horsekin, are a humanoid, naturally psychic race that lives to the north and west of Deverry proper. Their psychic talents manifest mostly as an enormous empathy with animals. To the elves they are the Meradan (lit. demons) or Hordes, because they destroyed the elven civilization of the far western mountains in ages past.
GEOMANCY A system of divination, codified during the late Middle Ages, involving the element of earth. The names of the figures used in this book having the following meanings: Albus, the White One; Cauda Draconis, the Dragon’s Tail; Conjunctio, a Joining; Fortuna Minor, the Lesser Luck; Tristitia, Grief; Populus, the People.
GREAT ONES Spirits, once human but now disincarnate, who exist on an unknowably high plane of existence and who have dedicated themselves to the eventual enlightenment of all sentient beings. They are also known to the Buddhists as Boddhisattvas.
GWERBRET (Dev. The name derives from the Gaulish vergobretes.) The highest rank of nobility below the royal family itself. Gwerbrets (Dev. gwerbretion) function as the chief magistrates of their regions, and even kings hesitate to override their decisions because of their many ancient prerogatives.
HOB A male ferret. The females are called “jills,” though for obvious reasons I’ve chosen not to use the term.
LWDD (Dev.) A blood-price; differs from wergild in that the amount of lwdd is negotiable in some circumstances, rather than being irrevocably set by law.
MAZRAK (Gel.) A shape-changer. A magician who can turn him- or herself into animal form and back again at will.
MALOVER (Dev.) A full, formal court of law with both a priest of Bel and either a gwerbret or a tieryn in attendance.
MELIM (Elv.) A river.
MOR (Dev.) A sea, ocean.
PECL (Dev.) Far, distant.
RHAN (Dev.) A political unit of land; thus, gwerbretrhyn, tierynrhyn, the area under the control of a given gwerbret or tieryn. The size of the various rhans (Dev. rhannau) varies widely, depending on the vagaries of inheritance and the fortunes of war rather than some legal definition.
SCRYING The art of seeing distant people and places by magic.
SIGIL An abstract magical figure, usually representing either a particular spirit or a particular kind of energy or power. These figures, which look a lot like geometrical scribbles, are derived by various rules from secret magical diagrams.
TAER (Dev.) Land, country.
THOUGHT FORM An image or three-dimensional form that has been fashioned out of either etheric or astral substance, usually by the action of a trained mind. If enough trained minds work together to build the same thought form, it will exist independently for a period of time based on the amount of energy put into it. (Putting energy into such a form is known as ensouling the thought form.) Manifestations of gods or saints are usually thought forms picked up by the highly intuitive, such as children, or those with a touch of second sight. It is also possible for many untrained minds acting together to make fuzzy, ill-defined thought forms that can be picked up the same way, such as UFOs and sightings of the Devil.
TIERYN (Dev.) An intermediate rank of the noble-born, below a gwerbret but above an ordinary lord (Dev. arcloedd).
WYRD (trans, of Dev. tingedd) Fate, destiny; the inescapable problems carried over from a sentient being’s last incarnation.
YNIS (Dev.) An island.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Katharine Kerr spent her childhood in a Great Lakes industrial city and her adolescence in a stereotypical corner of southern California, from whence she fled to the Bay Area just in time to join a number of the various Revolutions then in progress. Upon dropping out of dropping out, she got married and devoted herself to reading as many off-the-wall, obscure, and just plain peculiar books as she could get her hands on. As the logical result of such a life, she has now become a professional storyteller and an amateur skeptic, who regards all True Believers with a jaundiced eye, even those who true-believe in Science.
Kerr is the author of the Deverry series of historical fantasies; Polar City Blues; Resurrection; and the new trilogy, A Time of War, of which this is the second volume.
This edition contains the complete text of the original trade edition.
NOT ONE WORD HAS BEEN OMITTED.
DAYS OF AIR AND DARKNESS
&nb
sp; A Bantam Spectra Book
PUBLISHING HISTORY
Bantam trade edition published August 1994
Bantam paperback edition / September 1995
SPECTRA and the portrayal of a boxed “s” are trademarks of Bantam Books, a division of Random House, Inc.
All rights reserved.
Copyright © 1994 by Katharine Kerr.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 94-7032.
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