The Unholy Consult (Aspect-Emperor #4)

The final stage of the Dolour is called the Gloom, the point where anguish has been worn into animal misery by the endless years. Sufferers lose the ability to speak or care about anything but the most instinctive necessities. As far as anyone knows, a Nonman may live in this state indefinitely.

Amongst human scholars there has been a long tradition of theorizing the Dolour, interrogating the metaphysical implications of the condition. How could a soul, which has no extension, become full? What would it be like to be such a soul? What does it say about the dependency of the present on the past? Is the now but, as Ajencis asks, “an excretion of the past”? These comprise a small fraction of the impious questions Men have pursued under the auspices of the Dolour.

Domyot—(Sheyic version of “Torumyan”) Also known as the Black Iron City. The administrative capital of Zeüm, famed for the cruelty of its rulers and for its iron-skirted walls. For most in the Three Seas, Domyot is as much a place of legend as Golgotterath.

Dragons—See Wracu.

Dreams, the—The nightmares experienced by Mandate Schoolmen of the Apocalypse as witnessed through Seswatha’s eyes.

Dunjoksha (4055— )—The Sapatishah-Governor of Holy Amoteu.

D?nyain—A severe monastic sect that has repudiated history and animal appetite in the name of finding enlightenment through the control of all desire and all circumstance. Though the origins of the D?nyain are obscure (many think them the descendants of the ecstatic sects that arose across the Ancient North in the days preceding the Apocalypse), their belief system is utterly unique, leading some to conclude their original inspiration had to be philosophical rather than religious in any traditional sense.

Much of D?nyain belief follows from their interpretation of what they consider their founding principles. The Empirical Priority Principle (sometimes referred to as the Principle of Before and After) asserts that within the circle of the world, what comes before determines what comes after without exception. The Rational Priority Principle asserts that Logos, or Reason, lies outside the circle of the world (though only in a formal and not an ontological sense). The Epistemological Principle asserts that knowing what comes before (via the Logos) yields “control” of what comes after.

Given the Priority Principle, it follows that thought, which falls within the circuit of the before and after, is also determined by what comes before. The D?nyain therefore believe the will to be illusory, an artifact of the soul’s inability to perceive what comes before it. The soul, in the D?nyain worldview, is part of the world, and therefore as much driven by prior events as anything else. (This stands in stark contrast to the dominant stream of Three Seas and Ancient North thought, where the soul is taken to be, in Ajencis’s words, “that which precedes everything.”)

In other words, Men do not possess “self-moving souls.” Far from a given, such a soul is an accomplishment for the D?nyain. All souls, they claim, possess conatus, the natural striving to be self-moving, to escape the circle of before and after. They naturally seek to know the world about them and so climb out of the circle. But a host of factors make outright escape impossible. The soul men are born with is too obtuse and clouded by animal passions to be anything other than a slave of what comes before. The whole point of the D?nyain ethos is to overcome these limitations and so become a self-moving soul—to attain what they call the Absolute, or the Unconditioned Soul.

But unlike those exotic Nilnameshi sects devoted to various other forms of “enlightenment,” the D?nyain are not so naive as to think this can be attained within the course of a single lifetime. They think of this, rather, as a multi-generational process. Quite early on they recognized that the instrument itself, the soul, was flawed, so they instituted a program of selective breeding for intellect and dispassion. In a sense the entire sect became a kind of experiment, isolated from the world to maintain control, with each prior generation training the next to the limit of their capabilities, the idea being that over the millennia they would produce souls that could climb further and further from the circle of before and after. The hope was that eventually they would produce a soul utterly transparent to Logos, a soul capable of apprehending all the darknesses that come before.

D?nyanic—The language of the D?nyain, which remains very close to the original K?niüri from which it is derived.

E

E?mnor—A lost White Norsirai nation of the Ancient North. The roots of E?mnor reach back to the days of Aulyanau the Conqueror and the Cond Yoke. In 927, Aulyanau conquered the fortress of Ara-Etrith (“New Etrith”) and, struck by the anarcane characteristics of Mount Ankulakai, settled several Cond tribes in the vicinity. These tribes flourished, and under the influence of the nearby cities of the Aumris they quickly abandoned their pastoral ways. In fact the Cond were so effectively assimilated into Aumris culture that their White Norsirai cousins, the Scintya, took them for High Norsirai during the time of the Scintya Yoke (1228—1381).

E?mnor proper emerged from the Scintya Yoke as one of the pre-eminent nations of the Ancient North. Though laid waste in 2148, E?mnor could be considered the sole surviving nation of the Apocalypse, insofar as Atrithau survived. Due to the concentrations of Sranc, however, Atrithau has never been able to recover more than a fraction of the lands constituting historical E?mnor.

E?mnoric—The lost language of ancient E?mnor, a derivative of Condic.

E?nna—“[Land of the] Uplifted Sun” (Thoti-E?nnorean). The traditional name of all the lands to the east of the Great Kayarsus.

E?rwa—“[Land of the] Felled Sun” (Thoti-E?nnorean). The traditional name of all the lands to the west of the Great Kayarsus.

Ebara—A small fortress in the Gedean interior, built by the Nansur after the fall of Shigek to the Fanim in 3933.

Ecosium Market—The main “wares market” of Sumna, located just south of the Hagerna.

Escalumis (2299—2389)—Ceneian historian (of Antanameran descent) and famed author of On the Arrangement of Souls in Battle and War.

Ecstasis—Nonman expression for revelatory experiences obtained in contemplation of beauty.

Ej’ulkiyah—A Khirgwi name for the Carathay Desert meaning “Great Thirst.”

Ekirick, Goettal (4089— )—Ordealman, Shield-Thane of King Hogrim, known as the Bald.

Ekkin?—Sorcerous arras behind Kellhus’s bench in the Eleven-Pole Chamber. Sorcerous artifact of unknown provenance or function, first reported in the possession of Anas?rimbor Kellhus in 4122 (thus earning a place among the Orthodox “Articles of Damnation”). Several theories regarding its origins and uses have circulated through various literate entrepots around the Three Seas, among them the suggestion that the undulating displays constitute some kind of language, but consensus considers them decorative merely.

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