“No. Chal-char’s sacrifice was not in vain. That I know. The power at work here and in his sacrifice has given me a new hope. But the battle is far from finished.”
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Thanks to Susanne Lakin and Deborah Dickerson for editing and proofreading. Thanks to Kirk DouPonce, Mark Dickerson, Peter Dickerson, and William Kittredge for the artwork; I won’t complain at all if potentially readers judge this book by the cover and the interior art.
Thanks to my parents, parents-in-law, brothers, brother-in-law, sisters-in-law, sons, daughter-in-law, nephews, nieces, nephew-in-law, and great-nephews, and also to my Memorial Baptist Church family, for support and encouragement over many years of writing. Thanks also to members of the Chrysostom Society, past and present, for modeling the sort of beautiful and meaningful writing that I aspire too, and for encouragement and understanding when writing (and publishing) is difficult and discouraging.
And thanks to the Middlebury College community including all my past and present students—especially from my courses on J.R.R.Tolkien, and C.S.Lewis, and fantasy literature— who have engaged in meaningful conversations with me about a variety of topics.
A NOTE ON THE PRONUNCIATION OF VARIOUS PROPER NOUNS
In the Anghare tongue of the Northland, the TH is pronounced as in the English words the or then (and not as in myth or with.) Both the Ceadani and the Andani pronounce TH as T followed by a very slight breath. Thus Cathwain is pronounced Cat – HWAY – in.
With the exception of Ceadani names and a few older Andani words, G is pronounced hard, as in the English words give or great (and never as a j, like the G in giant.) However, in the Ceadani tongue (in place name words such as gale, gali, galena) or in a few older Andani words, such as daegmon or various traditional names, the G is pronounced as y, or like the G in filet mignon.
Among the Plains and the three Highlander tribes, it is common to accent the second syllable of names, and double consonants are pronounced twice. Thus Thimeon is pronounced Ti-ME-on (with a slight breath after the T and long “e” in the second syllable). Tienna is pronounced Ti-EN-na. Westwashers, by contrast, accent the first syllable of names (despite their common linguistic roots and their eventual sharing of a language with the Andani). Thus Elynna is pronounced EL-lin-na.
A NOTE ON THE HISTORY OF THE LANGUAGES AND PEOPLES OF GONDISLE
After the All-Maker cast the Daegmon lord out of the southern half of Gondisle, the Fisherfolk of Westwash were the first people to settle the Southland, coming down the coast by boat and arriving on the western shores, where they settled the harbor of Aënport. A generation later the Andani also began a migration south from Aeti and their settled highlands northeast of Mount Androllin. They came south through the center of the land, following the Illengond River downstream, settling first in the upper valley near Suage beneath the western slope of Androllin. When they realized the land was fertile and welcoming, they continued their southward migration.
As the Andani moved further south, they found established settlements of immigrants from the Westwash. The two peoples, both peaceful, began to mingle and intermarry. It is written in the official history books of Gondisle that the first settlement where the two peoples dwelt together was at the present location of Citadel on the eastern side of the great river, but some traditions claim that the location was on the west side of the river and further north. What all accounts agree upon is that the languages of the two peoples bore a recent common ancestry and were still very similar. That, in addition to their peaceful nature, explains why they interacted easily and freely. And as the Andani and the Westwashers mingled, so too did their already closely related languages, soon forming a single new language that would become the common trade language of Gondisle.
After many years, the more warlike Anghare came into the Southland from the arid lands of the far northeast. They were at first peaceful—though distrustful—and content to settle unoccupied land east and south of the Rain River. But as they settled and began to cultivate the soil, they first built walled towns, and then small forts and outposts, and then larger forts they called castles. Within two generations they were raiding neighboring settlements, laying claim to lands already occupied by the Andani and Westwashers, and demanding tribute. There is little recorded history of those times, but it is known that the first kings of Gondisle were Anghare. However, though the Anghare ruled Gondisle, they did not teach their own tongue to others, but rather took the common trade tongue already established in the south.
Most of the names of the peoples of Gondisle were given by the Andani in their own tongue. The oldest names, given before the Andani and Westwasher languages merged, were for the other highland tribes. In Andani the suffix ani means “people” or “people of.” Andani is the name by which they refer to themselves, and it means “people of peace,” in contrast to the highland tribe dwelling to the west, whom the Andani refer to as the Undeani: the “people of war.” Ceadani is the name given by the Andani to the tribe dwelling in the highlands to the south of them, and it means simply “people of the south.” The Ceadani are linguistically the most closely connected to the Andani, and there is no history of the two folk ever being at war with each other.
The geographic names Westwash, Southland, Plains, and Northland are all later names that emerge in the trade tongue. The Fisherfolk do not refer to their own land with the generic and non-descriptive “Westwash” but rather speak of various parts of their land more specifically as Riverland, Island, Coastland, or Barrens—the latter referring to those places where nobody can live, though in fact the Barrens of the Westwash are teeming with life. Neither do the Anghare folk refer to their own land as the Northland but rather as Anghata. It is from the name of their land that the Andani began to call them the Anghare. The tribes of the Plains have their own set of distinct tribal languages, distinct from all the other languages of Gondisle.
The Betrayed Page 46