by Janet Morris
—at Estri’s request: Carth
Glossary
S = Silistran St = Stothric Y = Yhrillya P = Parset
archeon: (S) A splay-footed, cursive-horned herbivore, the archeon prefers swamp and marsh and is the indigenous Galeshir herd beast. Larger than denter but smaller than gaen, the archeon thrives both in a domesticated state and wild in prodigious numbers among the wallows and sedges so prevalent along the southern Karir-Thoss. The Galeshir highly prize the archeon, and lavish upon their beasts all manner of consideration. A man of Galesh, when assessing the substantiality of a stranger newly met, looks first to his archeon and the opulence of its fittings.
archite: (P) Beryl-toned igneous rock, often veined with gold or blue, which takes and retains a high-gloss finish and is prevalent in decorative stonework and in statuary. Archite ranks with ornithalum as the most prestigious of architectural stone, and is widely employed in Silistran administrative structures, as well as in the homes of those of means.
Cetet: (S) The nineth pass of the Silistran calendar.
chald: (S) (Stothric: spirit-bond.) A belt of chains commonly soldered around the waist.
ci’ves: (S) A small furred predator common in the Sihaen-Istet hills and in Nin Sihaen itself, where it is not unusual to find three or four ci’vesi in a household. There they earn their reputation as talismans, keeping their masters’ holdings free of slitsas. Although the ci’ves makes an elegant and devoted pet, and also by its very odor discourages the establishment of yit colonies in keeps that it prowls as its own, it is this natural antipathy to slitsas that has earned the ci’ves its place in the hearts of the Sihaenese, for whom the slitsa is a ubiquitous and often deadly peril.
Coryf-denne: (C) The Coryf-denne entered provisionally into and at length withdrew from the Bi-pidal Federate Trade Union upon the grounds that insufficient similarities in physiology and culture context outweighed whatever potential value existed in the “satiation of curiosity and mentality between two such diversely evolved intelligences,” thereby grouping all the Bipedal Federate members into one phylum, at which point further attempts to dissuade them were discontinued by unanimous vote.
Decra: (S) Twelfth pass of the Silistran calendar.
Dydian chromatic: (S) The Dydian chromatic derives from the Silistran Parent Scale, that tonal organization from which the diverse scales and tonalities used in Silistran music are sprung:
Parent Scale
However, as may be obvious, the Parent Scale is not a key center from which diatonic relationships can evolve. Native Silistran songs are based on “randomly” selected, mathematically arranged notes (Scion Scales). One of the most common of these Scion Scales is the Dydian chromatic:
Dydian chromatic (derivative)
Dyri-yiil: (S) A Central Clusters resort world, possessed of four small atmosphere-Dealing satellites who circumnavigate her while she in turn negotiates a stately figure eight about the two stars that share her attentions.
Fai-Teraer Moyhe: (Stothric: Cove of Resurrection; literally, fai, to begin again; teraer, birfh; moyhe, inlet.) The physical characteristics of Fai-Teraer Moyhe as delineated in the text fit with exactitude those of the fabled spot upon which the adept Laore was disemboweled after being convicted of necromancy, heresy, and sedition; and from which he rose whole of form seVen days later to begin the dialogues with his waiting adherents, which were to form the bases of Stothric thought in the ages to come. It is legend that upon his reemergence from the sea, he looked about him and the proponents of his faith numbered only forty-two. Of these, only half remained through that first night, the fainthearted being frightened away by a terrible keening that came out of that moonless darkness, and of which Laore said: “What you hear is the last sound and the first. Go if you will, but know that from this place there is no escape, but only return, and from this song no respite, but for the deaf and the dead.” And upon the sun’s rising, those who had accepted on faith Laore’s explanation woke to find that he had spoken the truth, for they saw before them the pierced spire of the Keening Rock, about whose base were strewn forty-two severed ears, struck off each pair by its owner’s own hand as prelude to their crazed and craven flight.
hase-enor: (S) “Of all flesh,” the purported goal of Silistra’s long-standing genetic-mixing policy—a homogeneous single race,-one whose genealogy includes every bloodline still manifest upon the planet; a thoroughly admixed individual.
hest: (S) To bend or twist natural law to serve the will; to command by mind; to cause a probability not inherent in the time to manifest. (The line between hesting and shaping is somewhat difficult to define when highly skilled individuals are concerned. The rule of thumb is held to be thus: if natural law must be remade or totally superseded, as in creating a permanent object such as a fruit or a star, one is shaping. If one is simply controlling an already existing object or event, as would be the case if one caused a fruit or star already in existence to alter its behavior but not its structure, one is hesting. The fruit or star one moves to the right or the left or higher in the sky by will would not have behaved in that fashion, but is still the same star or fruit as was a natural inhabitant of the time before the hest was applied. If one, on the other hand, creates fruit or star, one has brought into the time, by a suspension of natural law, that which heretofore did not exist. One shapes matter. One hests time.) In usage, bringing in a hest, affecting probability.
Haroun-Vhass: (Stothric: fall of man.) The cataclysm precipitated by Silistra’s thirty-seven mechanist nations; according to Laore, the final cleansing of the “prehuman” protomen. (“From the bowels of the earth will the race spring forth anew, freed of all self-aggrandizement that has gone before. He who harnessed the wind and despoiled the seas and neutered the earth will perish by his own hand—in truth, he will fall from the skies over which in delusion he has prematurely claimed sovereignty.”—Forewarnings, pre-hide year 2093.)
ijiyr: (Y) Yhrillyan tonal synthesizer, possessed of both strings and keyboard, allowing multiple attack and wave variation, even to a self-contained phasing and digital delay capability. Formerly displayed electronic synthesizers (the M’ksakkan and Torth devices) have held little fascination for Silistran musicians, their bulk and complexity emphasizing their distant and, for some, putative propinquity with musical instruments as Silistrans are willing to conceive them. The ijiyr, however, self-contained, compact, and versatile, has evoked interest in many circles. The Musicians’ Seven have, at the time of this writing, entered into negotiations with Trasyi of Yhrillya to acquire, on loan, this instrument for further study.
krit: (S) A tree-dwelling, furred Silistran mammal. Krits “fly” from branch to branch by launching themselves into a spread-legged glide, facilitated by the webbing or flaps of skin that connect its four six-toed appendages. A fruit-and-nut eater, the krit, whether bush-, yit-, or stub-tailed, hibernates in winter. Weather diviners and woodsmen alike profess to be able to adjudge the length and severity of approaching winter by the krits’ autumnal preparations.
lake-born: (S) An individual procreated according to the guidelines set down by the dharen Khys in an attempt to stabilize “desirable traits”; in effect, those double-bred and inbred scions of the Shapers’ spawn. It is not unusual for a lake-born to be able to count among his progenitors two or three of Khys’s own children, or even two parent connections to a single dharener or council member.
litir: (S) The ubiquitous Silistran stringed instrument; usually possessed of thirty-two frets (but sometimes fretless). The scale length, body configuration, and octave range of litirs vary greatly, the inclusion into this class of instrument being determined by the presence of a soft-wood sounding board joined to an extended neck from whose tip strings of metal, web, or gut are stretched. The one differentiating factor between the class litir and its cousin, rissir, is that a rissir must be bowed, while a litir may be plucked or struck, but never sounded by use of another device that is stringed; hence, a “standing rissir” and a “stand
ing litir,” though to eye and ear not dissimilar, are considered by musicians only distantly related.
luricrium: (S) A highly malleable, ductile metal, grayish black in color, used as a catalyst in metallurgy (luricrium salts) and in jewelry, luricrium is highly conductive and considered “rare,” although it occurs naturally in deposits of up to 10 percent purity in those areas previously exposed to high-intensity fission reactions.
Nin Sihaen: (S) Silistra’s most westerly city, Nin Sihaen lies above hide crill, amid the Sihaen-Istet hills, beyond the Karir-Thoss river. From the Sihaen-Istet, she receives stra ore and some gemstones for trading, but remains (as she has been since her founding), a self-contained economy, as much because of her inconvenient and isolated location as from any conscious or predicated attempt on the part of her Well-Keepress to maintain her dependent city in its reclusive, hermitical posture.
oejri-anra: (Parset: “returning of moons.”) A method of casting razor-moons which obliges the weapon to describe a circle and return to the hand that cast it. The object in oejri-anra is not to embed the razor-moon in the target, but to touch-strike with sufficient force to mark, but lightly enough not to alter the moon-caster’s trajectory. The greatest difficulty of the game is not, as might be expected, encountered in causing the razor-moon to perform in the desired manner, but in reclaiming it without harm to one’s own hand. To this end, thick parr gauntlets with stra-armored palms are often used while honing one’s skill. In moon-casters’ circles, however, use of these protections in actual competition is considered an admission of cowardice, a negative assessment by the moon-caster of his own prowess. (The type of razor-moon used in oejri-anra is without exception the crescent; only a fool would put a returning cast on a full disk.)
ornithalum: (P) An igneous rock, cerulean to azure in tone, quarried almost exclusively in the southern regions. Prized both for its permanence and its beauty, ornithalum remains the most prestigious material (exempting gol) for structural art.
Orsai: (S) The first pass of the Silistran calendar; the pass of winter solstice, which occurs either on first first or on first second Orsai.
razor-moon: (S) Although the variations of razor-moons are extensive, we will discuss here the two major types: the full disk, or one-way razor-moon; and the crescent, or returning.
The full-disk razor-moon, like its cousin the crescent, may be made of either steel or stra. It is in general smaller, never exceeding a hand’s width in diameter. The central thickness of the full disk may be up to fifty times that of the honed outer edge, which has no “grip” or blunt area by which the moon may be caught or grasped, making it, unlike the crescent, a weapon against which there is little or no defense. The full disk is an exceptionally lethal weapon, and in competition is never cast against an opponent, but only at an inanimate target.
The crescent moon, sharpened along every edge but the outermost central mid-curve, varies in size but is seldom smaller than the full disk or larger than twice that in diameter. Because of its “returning” qualities, it is favored for competitive sport but seldom used in combat situtations, where one runs the risk of finding one’s own projectile caught by the enemy and launched back upon the caster.
Razor-moons remain basically a boot-sheathed weapon, although some moon-casters have lately begun bearing them in arm-scabbards that hold five or six of the smaller variety strapped to the forearm.
Se’keroth: (St) The legendary blade of which Laore wrote, and with which, by all accounts, he was slain. The premechanist legend of the sword of severance differs quite markedly from the four-volume epic the Stoth adept produced in his youth, and which was later used as evidence against him in his trial and subsequent condemnations, but it is Laore’s version, subsumed with revolution and revelation, that is quoted in the text. (See Appendix 1.) The blade itself—Se’keroth of the fire-gemmed hilt—was reclaimed by Khys at great personal peril in the last pass before the onset of Haroun-Vhass. With six lesser priests, he crossed the Embrodming and liberated the sword from the Brinjiiri Laonan Museum, in the midst of that enemy’s capital. The escapade has never been subject to procedural documentation, but Khys, who in many respects emulated Laore both in his life and his death, risked his hide-place to acquire the blade, which he believed was the genuine artifact. His own research and attempt at documentation of the sword’s authenticity is extensive and available under the title Se’keroth: The Motif of Catalysis.
“Se’keroth, direel b’estet Se’keroth”: (St) “Se’keroth, light from out of darkness by the sword of severance”; the legend said to be inscribed upon the blade of that fabled weapon; an ostensible simplification of the aphorism “reduction/resolution” that pervaded early Stothric attempts to deduce the relationship of substance to matter.
Sihaen-Istet; (S) Those hills said to be the birthplace of mankind, once in mid-continent, but since Haroun-Vhass the continental perimeter; the western shores.
sinetra-e’stet: (S) The sea denizen discovered by the Menetpher vessel Aknet on her journey to the eastern wilderness; a prognathic sea sfitsa, venomous and luminous, that abounds in the northeastern Embrodming.
sort: (S) (n.) The probabilities inherent in a specific moment of time; those alternate futures available to one trained to seek them.
sort: (S) (v.) To “sort” probability; to determine in advance the resultant probabilities from postulated actions.
taernite: (S) A variety of the mineral SiO2, brown to red-brown in color; an attractive and proliferate building stone, of little worth upon Silistra, but highly prized by some B.F. planets where silicon strata is not common.
Yhrillya: (Y) A provisionally entered planet presenting auditing of the B.F. worlds, possessed of a highly advanced mechanist culture about which little is known.
zesser: (S) A leafy green vegetable with a high sodium content, zesser grows close to the ground in round heads and prefers stony soil in a temperate climate.
Silistran Calendar
pass of winter solstice
Orsai
Tisera
Cai
Macara
Detarsa
Jicar
Finara
pass of summer solstice
Amarsa
Cetet
Enar
Brinar
Decra
Sisaen
Laoral