The Enchantress of World's End

APPENDIX A GLOSSARY OF UNFAMILIAR NAMES AND TERMS

Chx:

The small city-state of Chx, together with its neighboring realms of Ning, Quay, Horx, Poy, Cham, and possibly Ixland (for some students of Gondwanol-ogy consider the original name of that country to have been “Ik”), are the remnants of the Monosyllabic Empire which flourished in these border regions of Northern YamaYamaLand in the early millennia of the present Eon. After the collapse and breakup of Monosyllabia, former provinces or counties achieved their independence and embarked on the troubled path of self-rule. Old customs died hard during this period, while personal and tribal names gradually developed into polysyllabism. Place-names, more securely rooted in ancient tradition, remained words of one syllable. Chelibus has an interesting monograph on this subject.

Dianium:

According to leading authorities on Alchemy, a metal found only on the Moon, whose strongest urge is to return to its satellitic home. One of the living, or at least sentient metals, such as glegiwn. (for which see pertinent data in the Third Book of the Epic, forthcoming). Technically, dianium is element 122 on the Periodic Table, and the known isotope of dianium with the longest halflife has an atomic weight of 273. The sentient or Living Metals are considered of recent origin, cosmically speaking; only with publication of Cardoxicus’ milestone theorem, The Evolution of the Elements, was it realized that the doctrine of evolution could be extended to matter itself, and that all things in the Plenum tend towards vitality, if not indeed intelligence.

Greater Zuavia:

The land-surface of Gondwane was so vast by the time of Ganelon Silvermane that it had long-since become impractical for historians or geographers to discuss individual countries as such. A new geo-historical term, which I translate as “conglomerate,” has been corned in order to deal with groups of countries as entities. Such conglomerates were composed of several individual realms which were individually autonomous, but linked together by a common ethnic origin or by common adherence to a religious creed. Southern and Northern YamaYamaLand were two such conglomerates: the twin conglomerates were originally settled by the Yam-iac Nomads, a migrant horde of youc-herders who strayed into these grassy regions one million years before. They were forced to invent or adopt urban civilization when the yax herds succumbed en-masse to the Giggling Fever. Originally divided into East YamaLand and West YamaLand, the northern countries became united during a wholesale conversion to the Zul-and-Rashemba Mythos and were simply known as “YamaYamaLand.” The southern half of the race remained true to the parent creed of the Mythos, which was Old High Great Quaxianity, hence the division into north and south.

As for Zuavia, which lies beyond the Purple Plains to the north, the Plains forming a natural border between the conglomerates, both Greater Zuavia and its sister-conglomerate to the east, Lesser Zuavia, were established some two and a half million years ago. The Zuaves wandered down from their mythic homeland on the shores of Zuav, the Sacred River. Originally, they were descended from a forgotten race called the Paniche. Greater Zuavia, the scene of the Third and Fourth Books of the Epic, comprises some twenty-two separate realms. They are purely Zuavic in ethnos and religiously devoted to the several creeds of the Peshtite Mys-terium. Greater Zuavia is half again the size of Europe.

Istrobian:

Towards the middle of the “current” Eon—current in context of the Epic, that is—flourished a brief period known as the Age of Magicians, or more formally, the Epoch of the High Wizards. Human civilization was for the most part dominated by the rise to power of some ninety major magicians. This period had long since lapsed by the time of our story, but the effects of this minor Age of Magicians still reverberated in human affairs. Among the High Wizards of the epoch were several who have some bearing on our story, such as the celebrated Qesper Volphotex to whom Grrff refers in Chapter 10 of the present book, the famous Miomivir Chastovix who is mentioned several times in the First Book; the notorious Palensus Choy who appears in the Third; and Istrobian, a distinguished sorcerer of Greater Zuavia. The flying kayak was only one of his many-celebrated achievements, among which were the Star Lens, Istrobian’s Fire-Flasher, the Earth Tube and the Submarine City. Many consider this last to be purely legendary, however. Oddly enough, the Illusionist of Nerelon does not seem to be a survivor of this Epoch, despite his evidently considerable longevity which should have made him a contemporary of these celebrities. The author of the Ninth Commentary postulates that the Illusionist was extant during the Age of the Magicians, but maintained a low profile for some peculiar reason. The question is still unresolved.

Magic:

Some sixty of the Secret Sciences were known and practiced in Ganelon’s day, more than half of which fall into the category of the Divinatory Arts, such as seership, astromancy, fortune-telling, Greater, Lesser and Middle Prophecy, haruspexy and theomancy. Three others were among the Alchemic or Metamorphosical Sciences. As for magic per se, which may be defined as employment of various world forces to alter, affect or manipulate Reality, twenty of these were studied during this period. Among these were Red Magic, which employs the Auric force from whose sanguinary coloration (to the Astral vision, at least) the name is derived; Green Magic, which taps the earth current itself; Purple Magic, and also Mountain Magic, which are among the several forms of Elemental Goety, and which utilize the Gnomic elemental force; Air Magic, and its variant, Blue Magic, which use the Sylphic force according to different modes; White Magic, which taps the Celestial force; Black Magic, which employs the Demonic or Infernal; an$ Gray Magic, which taps the Halfworld current. Sea Magic, Metal Magic, Star Magic and Yellow Magic were virtually in their infancy during this period, and did not flower until the following Eon. Fire Magic, another of the Elemental variety, employs the Salamandric force. Beyond these, and the others I have too little space to describe or even list, there were the four arts of Thaumaturgy per se; that is, the Astral, the Vitalic, the Psychonic and the Phonemic, and one other magical science un-practiced by humans or Quasi-humans, but known to them and reserved for the Gods only.

The only practitioner of Phonemic Thaumaturgy mentioned in the entire Epic is Zelobion of Kar-choy, who appears in the Eighth Book; from this, the Commentaries deduct the art was either one of extreme rarity or extreme newness, or both.

Red Amazons, the:

An all-but-extinct race of quasi-humans who formerly inhabited the islands of the Cham Archipelago near Thoph, in the remote southwestern corner of the Supercontinent. Although evolved from True Human stock (or such as was the prevailing opinion of the period), the Amazons were considerably larger, stronger, more intelligent, durable and longer-lived than the other human or human-derived races of the Eon. The reason why such Superwomen died out remains an enigma, although the author of the Sixteenth Commentary (notedly, if not indeed notoriously, pious), attributes their extinction to a direct act of intervention into human affairs by the god Galendil himself.

The Cham Archipelago, by the way, has no known connection with the Cham Empire directly north of Shai beyond the Mountains of the Death Dwarves, extending as far as the southern shore of the Glass Sea. It is unfortunately obliterated on my map in this book by the legend. Since there were one hundred and thirty-seven thousand individual countries in Gondwane during this period, and since the Gondwanish language only consists of twenty-nine phonemes, capable of assembly into a strictly finite number of combinations, many hundreds of place-names were duplicated by sheer inadvertence.

Tigermen of Karjixia, the:

A fairly civilized race of Nonhumans evolved from a chance mutation to sentience in Panthera tigris, some fifty thousand years before the period of Ganelon Silvermane. This, at least, is the currently popular opinion. According to the Savants of Nembosch, the mutation was implemented by the notorious supermagician, Palensus Choy, the so-called “Immortal of Zaradon,” whom we will encounter in the Third Book.

Ygdraxel:

Traditional weapon habitually employed by the Tigermen of Karjixia in war; a sort of tridentiform billhook terminating in long, razory, collapsible hooks. Obviously, the Tigermanic weapon, unique to the armory of Karjixia, was a mechanical elaboration on the design of a cat’s claws.

End Of The Glossary