Ancient Light

by Mary Gentle

  Kasabaarde – a Desert Coast city with curious philosophies and influences. Sited at the point between the southern continent and the Kasabaarde Archipelago, gaining wealth from trade and tolls. Divided into trade-quarter and inner city, the latter run by the Order houses; both under the authority of the Hexenmeister.

  kazsis – usually called kazsis-nightflower, a vine native to Ymir and Rimon. Bronze leaves, dark red blooms, the scent is particularly noticeable after dark.

  ke, kir – neutral pronoun used for the young of the Orthean species, and sometimes for the Goddess.

  kekri-fly – an insect with a short segmented body and triple paired wings; coloured blue, green, or black, with reflecting wing-surfaces. Fond of sewage.

  Kel Harantish – once a garrison outpost of the Golden Empire, now one of the small Desert Coast city-states. Completely dependent on imports for survival. Home of the last surviving descendants of the Golden Witchbreed, and the Emperor-in-Exile.

  keretne – translates as ‘eldest blood’, ‘truthful memory’, and refers to those Coast Ortheans, not necessarily old in a physiological sense, who have by gift and training a close access to their past-memories. The hiyeks, being mobile, have little use for literacy and records; they therefore rely on this oral culture-store.

  Kerys Founder – credited with spreading the telestre system that arose after the fall of the Golden Empire, of unifying the Hundred Thousand and founding the Kerys telestre at Tathcaer. Led the first crusade against Kel Harantish, and began the Hundred Thousand’s long association with the Brown Tower. Set up the church of the Goddess to prevent the rise of another industrial society.

  Kirriach – ruined city over the Wall of the World, once known as aKirrik. Part of the Golden Empire’s middle province, now called the Barrens, along with Simmerath, Hinkuumiel, Mirane, etc.

  lapuur – the feathery-leaved tree of south Ymir, Rimon, and Melkathi; pale green trailing foliage, main trunk growing to a height of 3–4 metres.

  leremoc – see ochmir appendix.

  l’ri-an – one who is learning a trade or performing a paid service; usually a young adult or ashiren. Literally: apprentice.

  makre – a form of double-lobed grain flourishing in temperate areas of the Hundred Thousand; particularly north Ymir, Rimon, and part of southern Roehmonde.

  marhaz – the common telestre riderbeast, referred to as marhaz-mare, marhaz-stallion, marhaz-gelding; of reptilian ancestry like the skurrai. Cleft hooves, and a double pair of horns. The thick shaggy pelt is composed of feather-structured fibres. Enduring rather than speedy.

  marshflower – skin blemish: a dappled pattern sometimes said to resemble the marshfern, and to be more common in those telestres that border the Great Fens.

  Melkathi – that province distinguished by the Melkath language, comprising the Melkathi peninsula and the Kadareth Islands, the T’An Melkathi being resident in Ales-Kadareth. The most infertile telestres of all the Hundred Thousand, the most reluctant to accept Crown rule. Mostly comprised of heathland, bog, marshes, and sand-fiats. Ales-Kadareth has the name of being an old Witchbreed city, pirate port, and home of strange sciences. Famous for atheists, malcontents, heresy, and rebellion.

  meshabi – robe worn by Coast Ortheans, consisting of a length of del’ri-cloth belted at the hip; a superfluous fold of which can be brought up to hood the head and back.

  Morvren – small cluster of telestres holding land round the mouth of the Ai River; the Seamarshal is resident in the Freeport itself. Freeport has links with the Rasrhe-y-Meluur, Kasabaarde, and the Desert Coast; its language is a south-Dadeni dialect. A great maritime trading centre famous for voyages to strange places, river-craft, false coins, sharp practice, odd visitors, bureaucracy, and general moral irresponsibility. Rumoured to trade with Kel Harantish.

  mossgrass – staple vegetation of the Hundred Thousand, a stringy-fronded species of lichen that roots shallowly in topsoil. Seasonal changes in colour.

  n’ri n’suth – ‘adopted into the telestre of’: literally translates as brother-sister. A telestre child bears its mother’s name, its own name, and the telestre’s name.

  ochmir – see Appendix 2.

  Peir-Dadeni – the newest province, founded five hundred years ago by a group of rebels from Morvren Freeport. Follows the Ai River, bounded on the west by the Glittering Plain, and on the east, stretches from Morvren and Rimon up past Dadeni Heath to the Fens, and the Wall of the World. Keeps the pass at Broken Stair guarded. One founder was the reformer Beth’ru-elen, another the assassin Lori L’Ku, and another was Andrethe, from whom the ruling telestre takes its name. Famous for river-craft, trade, dubious frontiers, legends of Berani and the Eriel Frostdrakes; for the Heath’s skurrai, the river-port of Shiriya-Shenin, and for mad riders. Swears alliance with, rather than allegiance to, the T’An Suthai-Telestre.

  raiku – the basic unit of the hiyek: a group-marriage. The ashiren of the Desert Coast families will spend a year alone in the cities of the Coast, forming small groups of four, five, or six, that will become their raiku: a lifelong bond of emotional and physical interdependence. This will often include members of the same birth, and stay within one bloodline; though exogamy is not frowned on. Raiku are numbered according to the groups formed within one year.

  Kei-raiku: one who is outside the raiku, either by not yet having joined, or by losing one’s group by the deaths of the other members, or – very rarely – by expulsion.

  Rainbow Cities – general name given to the settlements in the tropical regions of the southern continent, of which only Saberon and Cuthanc are large enough to be properly called cities.

  rashaku – generic term for the lizardbird having the appearance of a small archeopteryx. Feathered wings, scaled breast and body. Four clawed feet, the front pair greatly atrophied; gold eyes with nictitating membrane. Distinctive metallic call. Size and plumage colour vary according to habitat: from the white of the rashaku-bazur (sea) to the black and brown of the rashaku-dya (hill country). Other varieties include the rashaku-nai (fens) and kur-rashaku (mountains).

  rashaku-relay – the Wellkeepers train a species of rashaku-lizardbird in the carrying of messages between Wellhouses. The rashaky-dya, with its acute colour-vision, is most often used; they are trained to respond and fly to different destinations when shown different colour-codes.

  Rasrhe-y-Meluur – commonly called Bridge Alley, a remnant of Golden Empire engineering; being a suspended tunnel-structure built on pylons from Morvren Freeport down the Kasabaarde Archipelago to Kasabaarde itself. Still passable, though uninhabited.

  Rimon – central province, bordering the Inner Sea between Morvren and Tathcaer, sharing the Oranon River border with Ymir. Downland country, lightly wooded, having one main river, the Meduin. Famous for marhaz, grain, vines, wine, and border-river disputes with Ymir. The T’An Rimon is resident in Medued.

  Roehmonde – northern province bounded by Ymir, the Lesser Fens, the Wall of the World, and the Eastern Sea. Hilly forested country, famous for mining, metal-working, charcoal-burning and hunting. The T’An Roehmonde is resident in Corbek, a city that never wholly accepted Beth’ru-elen’s reformation of the church. There are few large ports on the inhospitable eastern coast. Roehmonde is one of the largest and most sparsely inhabited provinces, a country of insular telestres. They guard one of the great passes down from the Barrens, the Path of Skulls.

  ruesse – a substance, derived by a method which is unclear, from certain glands of the brennior-packbeast. Ingested, it causes paralysis of the respiratory system in Ortheans, death following rapidly. Its effects on humans are similar but much less severe. To humans, also, it has a characteristic scent, reminiscent of roses; this is undetectable by Ortheans.

  rukshi – land arthropods, small and segmented with patterned shells and two pairs of claws. Now rare.

  s’an telestre – landholder, elected to office by the adult members of the telestre, and having unspecified authority. More of an administrator than rule
r, having more responsibility than power. The telestre is held in trust for the Goddess.

  s’aranthi – a human, or humanoid offworlder. This derives from S’aranth, a name given to the first contact envoy in the Hundred Thousand, and translates literally as ‘one who does not carry harur-blades’, one who is weaponless. It is ironic that this should come to be applied to hi-tech offworlders as a general term.

  saryl-kabriz – an organic poison, fatal to Orthean life, distilled from the bark of the saryl-kabriz bush. Has a characteristic sharp scent, difficult to mask. Not to be confused with saryl-kiez – a similar shrub, brown with blue berries. The sap, unlike that of the saryl-kabriz, is not a poison. It can be used as lamp oil; the scent is pungent.

  seri – unit of distance, equal to one and one-fifth miles on the standard Earth scale.

  shan’tai – ‘one outside the hiyek, or bloodline’, a stranger. This term of address on the Desert Coast can, according to inflection, have varying implicit degrees of welcome or rejection. The respectful greeting kethrial-shamaz shan’tai is an invitation to share water/blood/hospitality on a temporary basis.

  siir – a thick-boled vine or creeper, fungoid, growing to a height of several metres, and spreading to cover wide areas of ground. In the Hundred Thousand it is allowed to spore; the yellow spore cases are then gathered and fermented into a green wine-like liquid. The effect on a human is slightly hallucinogenic. The name siir derives from a Witchbreed term meaning ‘fertile’. The plant was possibly created through their bio-engineering as an all-purpose food crop. A further derivation leads to the Elansiir, the ‘garden’ or ‘harvest-field’, a name applied to the central region of the southern continent, now made barren by war damage.

  siiran – ‘shelter’; one of the underground chambers of the Desert Coast canal system, used as habitations, and also used to grow crops in uninhabitable areas. The term suggests a link with the Witchbreed food-crop siir, and possibly the canal system was constructed to raise these plants. Climatological changes following on war damage in the central Elansiir means that siir itself rarely flourishes on the Coast now.

  skurrai – the telestre packbeast, referred to as skurrai-mare, skurrai-stallion, skurrai-gelding; double-horned and reptilian; basically a smaller stockier version of the marhaz.

  skurrai-jasin – the skurrai-drawn carriage common in Tathcaer.

  Sunmother – see Goddess.

  takshiriye – the court or government attached to the T’An Suthai-Telestre, resident in Tathcaer (and Shiriya-Shenin during the winter season).

  T’An – the administrator of a province: t’an, general polite term for strangers and visitors. Derives from ‘guest’.

  T’An Suthai-Telestre – in the informal inflection, the Crown of the Hundred Thousand. Self-chosen from the T’Ans of all the provinces, re-elected on every tenth midsummer solstice. The unifier of church and telestres.

  Tathcaer – capital of the Hundred Thousand, an island-city solely under Crown law, sometimes called the eighth province. Home of every T’An Suthai-Telestre since Kerys Founder. The Hundred Thousand have each a telestre-house in the city; also there are the Guild-telestres.

  telestre – the basic unit of Hundred Thousand society, a community of any number between fifty and five hundred Ortheans living on an area of land. This unit is self-supporting, including agriculture, arts, and crafts. The telestre system rose spontaneously out of the chaos that followed the fall of the Golden Empire. Given the natural Orthean tendency to form groups, and their talent for making the earth yield, the telestre is their natural habitat.

  tha’adur – a Peir-Dadeni term for the Andrethe’s court and governing officials resident in the city Shiriya-Shenin.

  The Kyre – a province of remote telestres in the mountains that lie south of the Wall of the World and north of the Glittering Plain. Very insular in character, occasionally trading with Peir-Dadeni. Mostly they subsist on hunting. The province is very sparsely populated; the T’An Kyre is resident in Ivris, a market telestre. Famous for milk, cheese, wood-carving, mountain-craft, and lack of humour, popularly supposed to be a result of the appalling weather.

  thousandflower – mosslike plant growing in woodlands over most of the Hundred Thousand, forms a thick carpet 10–15 cms deep, and varies in colour from light to dark blue.

  thurin – see ochmir appendix.

  tukinna – evergreen tree, thin-boled with black bark, twisted limbs, growing to a height of 10 metres. Foliage concentrated at the crown: scroll-like leaves, small black inedible seeds. Prefers northern climates (like Roehmonde forests).

  Wall of the World – gigantic geological slip-fault that has split the northern continent in a northeast-southwest division; being now a range of mountains in which there are only two known passes from the Barrens to the Hundred Thousand: Broken Stair and the Path of Skulls. The barren land north of the Wall is occupied by barbarian tribes living in the ruined cities of the Golden Witchbreed.

  Wellkeeper – title given to those members of the church who give up their own telestre to run the Wellhouses, sometimes called theocratic houses. These may be places of worship, of philosophy and refuge; working communes for adults or ashtren; universities or other places of learning; weapons training houses; or craft workshops.

  Witchbreed – sometimes known as the Golden. Originally the humanoid race brought to Carrick V as servitors to the Eldest Empire – this being an apocryphal name given to the alien settlers who first landed some twenty thousand years ago, but died out soon after that. Nothing is known of the ‘Eldest Empire’, but it left its mark in the genetic structure of both the Witchbreed and the native race of Orthe. The Witchbreed had great talent for using and developing the technology that was left to them, and made use of both the physical and sociological sciences. They fell to a sterility virus. Sporadic instances of interbreeding took place between Witch breed and Ortheans, but in general the two species are not inter-fertile.

  Ymir – the oldest province, with the most archaic form of language; occupying the land east of the Oranon that lies between Melkathi and Roehmonde. Good grazing on the Downs, good soil in the lowlands, and the many tributaries of the Oranon make this one of the richest provinces, famous for good harvests. The T’An Ymir is resident in Tathcaer. The telestres close to the city are famed for ship-building. Ymir is known for its theocratic houses, traders and merchants, beast-tamers, eccentricities of all kinds, and the most convoluted argumentative minds outside of Kasabaarde.

  ziku – broad-leaved deciduous tree with edible fruit, grows to a height of 7 metres. Bronze-red foliage, dusty-blue fruit. Common in Ymir and Peir-Dadeni, preferring to grow near water. Hybrid form grown in Rimon with larger and more plentiful fruit, harvested in Stathern.

  zilmei – found in north Roehmonde and Peir-Dadeni forests. Black and grey pelts, wedge-shaped skulls, and retractable claws. A bad-tempered carnivore. Distinctive hooting cry.

  APPENDIX 2

  Ochmir

  A game played in the Hundred Thousand, originating in the cities but popular everywhere. It is played on a hexagonal board divided into 216 triangular grid-spaces. The 216 counters are double-sided, the ideogram-characters traditionally blue-on-white and white-on-blue; and are divided into ferrorn, which must remain stationary when placed on the board; thurin, which may move one space (across a line, not an angle); and leremoc, which have complete freedom of movement. The object of the game is to have all the pieces on the board showing one’s chosen colour.

  This is accomplished by forcing a reversal of the opposition’s counters, by gaining a majority of colour in a minor hexagon. The 6-triangle minor hexagons form a shifting, overlapping framework.

  The distribution of characters means that a counter may or may not have a duplicate value on its reverse side; it is thus necessary to remember when placing a counter what is on the obverse.

  A ‘hand’ of counters is drawn, sight unseen, from the ochmir bag on every sixth turn (a hand on Orthe is six). Only one move or p
lacement can be made per turn, unless this results in a majority in a minor hexagon, in which case all the counter reversals are carried out. Since majorities are retrospective, the turning of one hexagon to one colour will affect the hexagon-frames overlapping it.

  There are no restrictions on where on the board a game may begin, and it is usual for two or three separate pattern-conflicts to be set up. It is the ferrorn that determines the area of conflict.

  Ochmir can also be played with three players (blue-white-brown), in which case the number of spaces that need be occupied for a majority in the minor hexagons decreases from 5 or 4 to 3. In this case there is also the shifting balance of alliances between players; and the game ends when one player gains the 144-counter majority of one colour.

  A player may not turn own-colour counters to reverse. In the case of a 3-3 split in a minor hexagon it is left until the shifting framework divides it up amongst other hexagons. The game can be played with retrospective reversals even when all 216 counters are on the board. Ochmir is not only about gaining control, but about keeping it afterwards.

  The game is based on manipulation, not territory; and on mobility rather than in rank. The value of the counters shift with the game; a player’s own counters are also those of the opposition. These themes of interdependence, mobility rather than on rank. The value of the counters orities to see a connection between ochmir and Ai-Telestre, and even to equate ferrorn, thurin, and leremoc with s’an telestre, T’An, and T’An Suthai-Telestre.

  APPENDIX 3

  The Calendar of the Hundred Thousand

  WINTER SOLSTICE: New year festival.

  ORVENTA: the longest season, 11 weeks. Winter. Favourite season for the custom of keeping telezu. No trade, travel, planting, etc., owing to bad weather. One of the two main periods of activity for takshiriye and tha’adur in residence in Shiriya-Shenin. Practice of arts, music, sciences, etc. Usually the First Thaw festival occurs around Tenthweek.