Darkspell (55 page)

Malover
(Dev.) A full, formal court of law with both a priest of Bel and either a gwerbret or a tieryn in attendance.

Melim
(Elv.) A river.

Mor
(Dev.) A sea, ocean.

Pan
(Elv.) An enclitic, similar to “-fola-” denned earlier, except that it indicates that the preceding noun is plural as well as the name of the following word, as in Corapanmelim, River of the Many Owls. Remember that Elvish always indicates pluralization by adding a semiindependent morpheme, and that this semiindependence is reflected in the various syntax-bearing enclitics.

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.

Spirits
Living though incorporeal beings proper to the various nonphysical planes of the universe. Only the elemental spirits, such as the Wildfolk (trans, of Dev. “elcyion goecl”), can manifest directly in the physical plane. All others need some vehicle, such as a gem, incense smoke, or the magnetism given off by freshly cut plants or spilled blood.

Taer
(Dev.) Land, country.

Thought-Form
An image or three-dimensional form that has been fashioned out of either etheric or astral substance,
usually by the action of a trained mind. If enough trained minds work together to build the same thought-form, it will exist independently for a period of time based on the amount of energy put into it. (Putting energy into such a form is known as “ensouling” the thought-form.) Manifestations of gods or saints are usually thought-forms picked up by the highly intuitive, such as children, or those with a touch of second sight. It is also possible for a large number of untrained minds to make fuzzy, ill-defined thought-forms that can be picked up the same way, such as UFOs and sightings of the devil.

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.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

K
ATHARINE
K
ERR
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 new series, The Dragon Mage, of which
The Red Wyvern
is the first volume.