CADVRIDOC (Dev.) A war leader. 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 war-band or a family depending on context.
DUN (Dev.) A fort.
DWEOMER (trans. of Dev. dwunddaevad.) In its strict sense, a system of magic aimed at personal enlightenment through harmony with the natural universe in all its planes and manifestations; in the popular sense, magic, sorcery.
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.
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.
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.
MALOVER (Dev.) A full, formal court of law with both a priest of Bel and either a gwerbret or a tieryn in attendance.
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.
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.
TABLE OF REINCARNATING CHARACTERS
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 Dragon Mage series, of which this is the second volume.
This edition contains the complete text
of the original hardcover edition.
NOT ONE WORD HAS BEEN OMITTED.
THE BLACK RAVEN
A Bantam Spectra Book
PUBLISHING HISTORY
Bantam Spectra trade paperback edition published November 1999
Bantam Spectra mass market edition / November 2000
SPECTRA and the portrayal of a boxed “s” are trademarks of Bantam Books, a division of Random House, Inc.
All rights reserved.
Copyright © 1999 by Katharine Kerr.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 99-24471
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