The Unholy Consult (Aspect-Emperor #4)

Conriyan—The language of Conriya, a derivative of Sheyo-Kheremic.

Consult—Name given to the Unholy Triumvirate of Men, Nonmen, and Inchoroi intent upon exterminating all souls in a bid to save their own souls from eternal damnation. The sheer age of the cabal, let alone its devotion to secrecy, renders its origins murky. Though the Gnostic Schools of Sohonc and Mangaecca are referenced as Far Antique contemporaries, the Mangaecca is the older of the two schools, as well as the one possessing the deepest Nonman affiliations—affiliations which would prove instrumental to the School’s transformation into the Consult. Mandate scholars agree that Cet’ingira (Mekeritrig) revealed the location of the Ark to the Mangaecca at some point in the eighth century, seeking Mannish assistance in his mad attempt to gain entry into of the Inc?-Holoinas. Nil’giccas had sealed the High (or Upright) Horn the age previous, first by heaping titanic amounts of debris upon impregnable soggomant from the inside, and then by commanding Emilidis to raise the Barricades across the only remaining portal high upon the heights. For centuries, the cunning of these impediments had denied every attempt to surmount them, until the year 1111, when Shae?nanra finally managed to bring down the Barricades.

The Mangaecca raised Nogaral upon Viri soon after, pretending to plumb the destroyed Nonman Mansion while in fact plumbing the Upright Horn—the intact heart of the Inc?-Holoinas. At some point in their exploration they discovered and awakened the Last Inchoroi, Aurax and Aurang, at which point Cet’ingira ceased being Siqu and Shae?nanra ceased being Grandmaster of the Mangaecca, and the Unholy Consult of the Halaroi, C?nuroi, and Inchoroi was born, a pact between the most brilliant and fearsome souls of all three races, an oath to destroy the World.

Though most Mandate scholars suspect Consult involvement in the death of the celebrated Sohonc Grandmaster Titirga some time around 1119, one hundred and fifty years would pass before the nations of Men began to suffer their efforts. The calamity of the First Great Sranc War, for instance, was almost certainly due to their efforts to breed and control Sranc. But it was not until the Apocalypse that the Far Antique World would learn of the true danger they represented.

Corrunc—Infamous northern “Tower of ?gorrior,” a great bastion of Golgotterath, cursed as the Eater-of-Sons in The Book of Generals.

“courage casts the longest shadow …”—Zeumi saying signifying how the courage of one man is also the shame of another.

Coyauri—The famed elite heavy cavalry of the Kianene Padirajah, first organized by Habal ab Sarouk in 3892 as a response to the Nansur Kidruhil. The White Horse on Yellow is their standard.

Croimas, Sristai (4082— )—Ordealman and Lord Palatine of Kethantei, the second born son of Sristai Ingiaban, Holy Veteran of the First Holy War.

Csokis—A derelict Inrithi temple complex located in Caraskand.

Cu?rweth—A province of interior Ce Tydonn, located to the north of Meigeiri.

Cu?xaji (4069—4112)—The Sapatishah-Governor of Khemema, thought lost at Shimeh.

Cubit—Catch-all phrase for the myriad units of measure used throughout E?rwa, generally indicating a length from the tip of the finger to the elbow, but also notoriously problematic, as with the Near Antique translation of Nonman utils (literally translated, “ten”) into “cubits.” Even the Nonman “cubit proper,” or priror, is more than twice the length of a Mannish cubit, consisting, as it does, of the height of the waist from the floor.

Cu’huriol (?—?)—“White Burning” (Ihrims?). King of Siol prior Arkfall, and grandfather of Cu’jara Cinmoi.

Cu’jara Cinmoi (?—?)—“White Shining Spear” (Ihrims?). Issue of Cet’moyol and Linqir?, the scandalous son and daughter of Cu’huriol, King of Siol, who would raise the boy as his heir following the execution of his own children. Even as a young boy his beauty and charisma were legendary: “Perfection breathes,” a nameless scribe writes of him in the Is?phiryas, “and we must assure it never bleeds.” Ferocious in war, his renown only grew, reaching even those Mansions possessing little or no congress with Siol. The scandalous circumstances of his birth had merely anointed his legend, resonating, as it did, with the scriptural coupling of Tsonos and Olissis.

The death of Cu’huriol signalled the death of his popularity, and not simply because of the general hatred of Siol. As King of the House Primordial, Cu’jara Cinmoi quickly revealed an arrogance and ambition more characteristic of Men than Nonmen. The tenor of the Is?phiryas changes in the span of three cantos: “In him,” one entry reads, “verily, purity hath become perversion.” Across those Mansion Reaches bounding that of Siol, the blood of Ishroi began to flow. The King of Siol became the Tyrant. His name dominates the lays and records surviving from that period, such was his celebrity. Arkfall, and the catastrophes that ensued, would merely serve to make him tragic, if not reviled. (For an account of his role subsequent to Arkfall, see C?no-Inchoroi Wars). He possessed, as one contemporary muses, “all Ishroi prized, all they called glory, only in proportions that cracked hearts and mountains.”

Cu’jara Cinmoi was doomed to be the darling of myth and legend, by his nature as much as by his circumstances. Though the wont of Mannish poets is to see him as the cipher for the Nonman more generally, it serves to remember that he is extraordinary precisely because he is unlike any other Nonmen (more recognizably human) living in the age of his Race’s destruction.

“C?’jara Cinmoi is dead …”—Ancient Siqu saying roughly meaning, “Seize the day.”

Culling—Epithet given to the slaughter of Sranc worked daily by the Schools as the Horde retreated before the advance of the Great Ordeal.

Cultic Deities—See Hundred Gods, the.

Cultic Priests—Those priests, usually hereditary, devoted to the service and worship of one of the Hundred Gods.

Cults—The collective name of all the various sects devoted to the individual Gods of the so-called Kiünnat. In the Three Seas, the Cults have been administratively and spiritually subordinate to the Thousand Temples since Triamis I, the first Aspect-Emperor of Cenei, declared Inrithism the official state religion of the Ceneian Empire in 2505. See Kiünnat.

Cu’mimiral (?—4132)—Injori Ishroi called Dragon-gored and Lord Limper who stood among the last of the Intact in Ishterebinth.

Cumor, Haarnan (4043—4111)—Man-of-the-Tusk, High Cultist of Gilga?l in the Holy War, claimed by disease at Caraskand.

C?no-Halaroi Wars—The wars between Nonmen and Men following the Breaking of the Gates, of which very few accounts exist. See Breaking of the Gates.

R. Scott Bakker's books