by Ian Irvine
Magery: Wizardry, sorcery. Magery was brought by the Hightspallers from Thanneron, but has been failing ever since. This is believed to be due to the land they conquered rising up against them. Magery has a different origin to king-magery.
Magian: A wizard or sorcerer.
Maloch: An enchanted sword made from titane. Originally wielded by Axil Grandys, it was lost for almost two thousand years after he was cast into the Abysm. Rix inherited Maloch but later Grandys took it back. Its enchantment protects him.
Matriarchs: When the king-magery was lost, Cythe could no longer have a king, and after the Cythonians took refuge in Cython they were ruled by a trio of matriarchs, who were themselves advised by the Solaces. They died in the slaves’ rebellion.
Mia: Tali’s best friend, executed in Cython for using magery. Tali blames herself and swore a blood oath to make up for failing Mia. This subsequently became a blood oath to save her people, the Pale which she did in Rebellion.
Moley Gryle: Lyf’s adjutant, a striking young woman and a brilliant intuit.
Mulclast: A natural fortress in between the Vomits.
Nandelochs, Nandeloch Mountains: A high and rugged range of mountains in north-east Hightspall. A Herovian stronghold.
Nuddell: Rix’s sergeant at Fortress Garramide.
Pale, the: A thousand years ago, a host of noble Hightspaller children were given to the enemy as hostages, but, oddly, never ransomed. Their enslaved descendants are known as the Pale because, having lived underground in Cython all their lives, their skin has never been exposed to the sun.
Pearl, Ebony: Black, marble-sized objects that have grown inside the heads of certain Pale women in Cython, due to radiance from the heatstone deposit. Ebony pearls can enhance a gift for magery many times over, and are beyond price. Only five can exist at any one time. Four of Tali’s ancestors were killed for their ebony pearls and Tali bears the fifth, the master pearl, though few people know this deadly secret.
Portal: A gateway that can be used both within and between worlds.
Promised Realm: The legendary land the Herovians came to Cythe in search of, but have not yet found (or created).
Radl: Commander of the Pale army. She has been Tali’s enemy since childhood.
Rannilt: A little slave girl who escaped with Tali. She wants to be a healer.
Red Mesa: A mesa in southern Reffering, used as a lookout by Grandys.
Ricinus: A fabulously wealthy house in Hightspall, toppled by the chancellor after the discovery that the basis of its wealth was the depraved trade in ebony pearls. The name comes from the deadly poison ricin, obtained from the castor oil plant, which was the symbol on the family crest.
Rixium (Rix): Formerly heir to the vast estates of House Ricinus, he was stripped of this inheritance by the chancellor due to the high treason of Rix’s parents. Rix is a brilliant swordsman, and also a masterful artist, though some of his paintings have been disturbingly divinatory. His right hand was amputated on the chancellor’s orders, though Glynnie re-joined it with some of Tali’s healing blood. Rix is now Lord of Fortress Garramide and reluctant commander of Hightspall’s army. He’s also known as Deadhand.
Rufuss: One of the Five Heroes, a tall, gaunt man full of murderous rage.
Sacred Beast: The wyverin.
Salyk: A compassionate female Cythonian soldier who found Rix’s brilliant portrait of his father, and saved it, disobeying Lyf’s order to burn it. She later rescued Tobry but was put to death by her own people for aiding the enemy.
Seethings, the: A thermal wasteland of boiling pools, chymical lakes and deadly sinkholes.
Shifters: Vicious, bastard creatures created by Lyf with the blasphemous art of germine, in order to harry the Hightspallers. Shifters come in a number of kinds, such as hyena and jackal shifters, caitsthes and gauntlings. All are prone to insanity. Exposure to their bite or blood can cause others to become shifters.
Shillilar: A foreseeing. It was Wil’s foreseeing that identified Tali as the one who would change the story Lyf had written in his iron book, The Consolation of Vengeance, and thus change the world.
Solaces: A series of books written by Lyf, detailing various aspects of living underground, which he sorcerously transmitted to the matriarchs of Cython. They were held in the Chamber of the Solaces. There, Wil was the first to glimpse the iron book. He had a shillilar or foreseeing about the one (Tali) but the book burned his eyes out, and he never told the matriarchs the truth about her.
Stink-damp: Rotten-egg gas that seeps up from underground. It is used for lighting in Caulderon though it’s both poisonous and explosive.
Sunstone: A kind of rock, mined in Cython. After exposure to sunlight, sunstone emits a bright light for days or weeks. It is used to provide “sunlight” in the underground green farms in Cython. Breaking a sunstone releases all its stored power at once, which is deadly to those directly exposed, and Cythonians (but not Pale) nearby but not directly exposed will be knocked unconscious.
Syrten: One of the Five Heroes, an inarticulate, golem-like warrior.
Tali: The familiar name of Thalalie vi Torgrist, a Pale slave. She was the first person in a thousand years to escape from Cython. Tali’s mother and three other female ancestors were murdered for magical ebony pearls grown inside their heads, and Tali is being hunted because she bears the fifth pearl, the master pearl.
Temple, Lyf’s: In ancient times it was the Cythian kings’ private temple, but it was defiled by Grandys’ treachery there, and his assault and abduction of King Lyf. It was subsequently preserved as a skull-shaped chamber deep beneath Palace Ricinus, and was where Tali’s ancestors were killed for their ebony pearls. Lyf has recently rebuilt it.
Thanneron: The ancestral homeland of the Hightspallers, on the far side of the world. They came from Thanneron in four fleets, two thousand years ago. All contact with Thanneron was lost after the Fourth Fleet, and it is believed to have disappeared under the ice long ago.
Thermitto: An alchymical powder which burns so hot that it can melt rock; used for mining in Cython by the technique known as splittery.
Thom: A wood boy in Garramide.
Tirnan Twil: A remote tower, a kind of museum to the Five Heroes and their heritage; it was burned by gauntlings in Book 2: Rebellion.
Titane: A light, immensely strong metal. The secret of how to forge it has been lost.
Tobry Lagger: Rix’s brave, clever but disreputable friend, Tobry lost everything when House Lagger fell when he was about thirteen. Tobry had a mortal fear of shifters, and of becoming one himself, because his maternal grandfather became one and stalked the house, and Tobry was forced to kill him to save his father. At the end of Book 1: Vengeance, Tobry became a caitsthe because it was the only way to save his friends. The chancellor ordered him hurled from the top of Rix’s tower to his death. Tobry survived but is now a mad, dying shifter.
Tonklin: A loyal sergeant, rescued from a crevasse by Rix.
Touchstone: A holy peak with three carved platforms, near Turgur Thross, where king-magery was first used.
Turgur Thross: Sacred ruins at the northern edge of the plateau of Garramide.
Two Hundred and Fifty Years War, the: The war that Grandys began a couple of years after the arrival of the First Fleet. It ended two hundered and fifty years later (1750 years ago) with the utter defeat of Cythe.
Vi Torgrist: Tali’s family name. Vi Torgrist is an ancient house which first came to Hightspall on the Second Fleet, but is now extinct except in the Pale.
Vomits, the: A trio of immense active volcanoes, the Red, Brown and Black Vomits, south-west of Caulderon. Cythonian legend holds that a fourth Vomit blew itself to bits in ancient times, creating the vast crater now filled by Lake Fumerous.
Wil, Mad Wil, Wil the Sump: A lowly, blind Cythonian who has shillilars, and is addicted to sniffing alkoyl. Wil is obsessed by the story set down in the iron book; but the story has gone wrong and he wants to set it right, but in trying to do so he has interfered wi
th the Engine.
Wrythen: A semi-solid spirit or ghost.
Wyverin, the: A legendary beast whose appearance is said to forecast the doom of Hightspall.
Yulia: One of the Five Heroes, she is sick with guilt at all they have done.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to thank my Australian publisher, Bernadette Foley, my UK editor Jenni Hill, my editors in the US, Will Hinton and Tom Bouman, and in Australia, Kate Stevens and Abigail Nathan, plus all the other people at Orbit Books who have worked so hard and so long on this series. I would especially like to thank Tim Holman for advice, assistance and encouragement since I first became an Orbit author way back in 1999. To my agent, Selwa Anthony, thank you for your support over the past seventeen years and twenty-nine books.
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Contents
COVER
TITLE PAGE
WELCOME
DEDICATION
MAP OF GREATER HIGHTSPALL
MAP OF CENTRAL HIGHTSPALL
LIST OF CHARACTERS
PRÉCIS OF VENGEANCE
PRÉCIS OF REBELLION
PART ONE
INCARNATE CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 29
CHAPTER 30
CHAPTER 31
CHAPTER 32
CHAPTER 33
CHAPTER 34
PART TWO
THE WYVERIN CHAPTER 35
CHAPTER 36
CHAPTER 37
CHAPTER 38
CHAPTER 39
CHAPTER 40
CHAPTER 41
CHAPTER 42
CHAPTER 43
CHAPTER 44
CHAPTER 45
CHAPTER 46
CHAPTER 47
CHAPTER 48
CHAPTER 49
CHAPTER 50
CHAPTER 51
CHAPTER 52
CHAPTER 53
CHAPTER 54
CHAPTER 55
CHAPTER 56
CHAPTER 57
CHAPTER 58
CHAPTER 59
CHAPTER 60
CHAPTER 61
CHAPTER 62
CHAPTER 63
CHAPTER 64
CHAPTER 65
PART THREE
THE LOWER GATE CHAPTER 66
CHAPTER 67
CHAPTER 68
CHAPTER 69
CHAPTER 70
CHAPTER 71
CHAPTER 72
CHAPTER 73
CHAPTER 74
CHAPTER 75
CHAPTER 76
CHAPTER 77
CHAPTER 78
CHAPTER 79
CHAPTER 80
CHAPTER 81
CHAPTER 82
CHAPTER 83
CHAPTER 84
CHAPTER 85
CHAPTER 86
CHAPTER 87
CHAPTER 88
CHAPTER 89
CHAPTER 90
CHAPTER 91
CHAPTER 92
CHAPTER 93
CHAPTER 94
CHAPTER 95
CHAPTER 96
BY IAN IRVINE
EXTRAS MEET THE AUTHOR
A PREVIEW OF THE CROWN TOWER
A PREVIEW OF MALICE
ENDNOTE ON THE ENGINE
GLOSSARY
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
ORBIT NEWSLETTER
COPYRIGHT
Copyright
The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Copyright © 2013 by Ian Irvine
Excerpt from The Crown Tower copyright © 2013 by Michael J. Sullivan
Excerpt from Malice copyright © 2012 by John Gwynne
Maps by Ian Irvine and Xou Creative
Cover design by Wendy Chan
Cover images © Shutterstock
Cover copyright © 2014 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.
All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher constitute unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.
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First ebook edition: June 2014
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ISBN 978-0-316-23543-3
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