Xir’kirimakra—Inchoroi name for the Inverse Fire, which, according to Nonmen sources, apparently translates into the nearly nonsensical, “immersive post-material interface.”
Xiuhianni—The black-haired, brown-eyed, olive-skinned race that still dwells beyond the Great Kayarsus. One of the Five Tribes of Men, who, according to The Chronicle of the Tusk, refused to follow the other four tribes into E?rwa.
Xius (2847—2914)—The great Ceneian poet and playwright, famed for The Trucian Dramas.
Xo?gi’i—A Sranc tribe from the Plains of Gal.
Xothei, Temple of—The primary edifice of the Cmiral temple complex, famed for its three great domes. Built of black basalt.
Xunnurit (4068— )—The Scylvendi chieftain of the Akkunihor tribe.
Y
yaksh—The conical tents of the Scylvendi, made of greased leather and poplar branches.
Yalgrota Sranchammer (4071—4121)—Man-of-the-Tusk, Thunyeri groom of Prince Hringa Skaiyelt, famed for his giant stature and ferocity in war.
Yasellas—A prostitute acquaintance of Esmenet.
Yatwer—The Goddess of fertility. One of the so-called Compensatory Gods, who reward devotion in life with paradise in the afterlife, Yatwer is far and away the most popular Cultic deity among caste-menials (as Gilga?l is among caste-nobles). In the Higarata, the collection of subsidiary writings that form the scriptural core of the Cults, Yatwer is depicted as a beneficent, all-forgiving matron, capable of seeding and furrowing the fields of nations with a single hand. Some commentators have noted that Yatwer is anything but revered in either the Higarata or The Chronicle of the Tusk (wherein “tillers of soil” are often referred to with contempt). Perhaps this is why Yatwerians tend to rely on their own scripture, the Sinyatwa, for their liturgical rites and ceremonies. Despite the vast numbers of adherents enjoyed by the Cult, it remains one of the more impoverished, and seems to generate a large number of zealous devotees as a result. Commonly referred to as the Mother-of-Birth or the Dread Mother in her more vengeful guises.
Yawreg—Easternmost mountain in the Urokkas.
Year-of-the-Tusk—The primary dating system for most mannish nations, which takes the legendary Breaking of the Gates to be year zero.
Years of the Crib—A common term for the eleven years of the No-God’s manifestation during the First Apocalypse, wherein all infants were stillborn. See Apocalypse.
Yel (4079— )—One of Esmenet’s Kianene body-slaves.
Yellow Sempis River—A tributary of the River Sempis.
Yimaleti Mountains—An extensive mountain range located in the extreme northwest of E?rwa. High Norsirai derivation of the Viritic Ihrims?, “Im’valaral” (“Horizon-has-teeth”).
Yinwaul—Land famed for bordering Agongorea and hosting Dagliash. The contested frontier of A?rsi in the centuries preceding the First Apocalypse.
Yoke—A Consult Sranc Legion, so called for the way the Sranc belonging must be chained one to the other to be deployed with anything resembling order. Yokes would be driven to strategic positions, then loosed once the creatures could smell their foes on the wind. Even Yoked, however, the creatures proved unruly, forcing Aurang to continually rely on feint and subterfuge. His Mannish foes responded with a combination of wariness and daring, transforming many of the battles into tests of cunning and patience as much as ferocity and will. At the Battle of Twenty-Yokes in 2142, Aurang managed to lure General Sag-Marmau into Agongorea by concealing his ambush within a false ambush, only to watch his Horde destroyed by the K?niüric adoption of the A?rsic spear-barred shields (which allowed the Sohonc to wreak enormous damage).
Ysilka—The wife of General Sag-Marmau in The Sagas, whose name is often used as a euphemism for “adulteress” in the Three Seas.
yursa—A Galeoth liquor made from fermented potatoes.
Yursalka (c. 4065—4110)—A Scylvendi warrior of the Utemot tribe.
Yutirames—A sorcerer of rank in the Scarlet Spires, slain by Achamian in the Sare?tic Library.
Z
Zabwiri (4025—4101)—Long time Grandmaster of the Mbimayu, scholar of Memgowa, and Malowebi’s master early in his sorcerous training.
Zarathinius (3688—3745)—The famed author of A Defence of the Arcane Arts.
Zaudunyani—“Tribe of Truth” (K?niüric). The name taken by Kellhus’s followers during the First Holy War.
Ze, Nurbanu (4105— )—Ordealmen, Palatine of Jekk, adopted son of King Nurbanu Soter, general of the Jekki contingent of the Great Ordeal.
Zealot Wars—The prolonged religious conflict (c. 2390—2478) between the early Inrithi and the Kiünnat, which eventually led to the ascendancy of the Thousand Temples in the Three Seas.
Zenkappa (4068—4111)—Man-of-the-Tusk, Captain of Attrempus, formerly a Nilnameshi slave belonging to the household of Krijates Xinemus, slain at Iothiah.
Zerxei, House—A former Nansur House of the Congregate, and the empire’s ruling dynasty from 3511 to 3619, when Zerxei Triamarius III was assassinated by his palace eunuchs.
Zeüm—A mysterious and powerful Satyothi nation beyond Nilnamesh, and the source of the finest silks and steel in the Three Seas.
Zeümi—The language of the Empire of Zeüm, a derivative of Old Zeümi.
Zeümi Sword-Dancers—The members of an exotic Zeümi Cult that worships the sword and has developed sword fighting to an almost supernatural level.
Ziek, Tower of—The prison, located in Momemn, used by the Nansur Emperors to incarcerate their political foes.
Ziggurats of Shigek—The immense stepped pyramids found to the north of the Sempis Delta and raised by the ancient God-Kings of Shigek to serve as their mortuary tombs.
Zikas—The women taken as secondary wives by Anas?rimbor Kellhus, all of whom, according to rumour at least, died in the course of childbirth. The name derives from the small libation bowls used on Ascension.
Zirkirta—See Battle of Zirkirta.
Zohurric—See Aghurzoi.
Zursodda, Sammu (4064—4111)—Man-of-the-Tusk, Palatine-Governor of the Ainoni city of Koraphea, claimed by disease at Caraskand.
APPENDIX
TWO
The False Sun
Beasts only show the white of their eye in terror. Men show it always.
—GOTTAGGA, The Book of Chalk
For I have seen the virtuous in Hell and the wicked in Heaven. And I swear to you, brother, the scream you hear in the one and the sigh you hear in the other sound the same.
—Anonymous