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 old sword, made from titane, given to Rix by his mother. It bears an enchantment of protection against magery. Rix is somewhat unnerved by this, though the sword has saved his life more than once. Maloch is a Herovian sword and originally belonged to Axil Grandys.
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.
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.
Mimoy, Mimula: Tali’s great-great-great-grandmother, an irascible, foul-mouthed old woman.
Moley Gryle: Lyf’s personal attendant.
Nandelochs, Nandeloch Mountains: A high and rugged range of mountains in north-east Hightspall. A Herovian stronghold.
Noys: Rix’s captain at Garramide.
Nuddell: One of Leatherhead’s gang, later Rix’s loyal sergeant.
Nurse Bet: An old Pale healer in Cython. She taught Tali self-defence, among other things.
Nusee: Tali’s grandmother, murdered for an ebony pearl.
Oosta: The chief healer at 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.
Porfry: The Keeper of the Records at Garramide; a fanatical Herovian.
Poulter: A four-legged fowl, supposedly created by Lyf to help feed his people after they took refuge in Cython.
Promised Realm: The legendary land the Herovians came to Cythe in search of, but have not yet found (or created).
Radl: A tall, beautiful Pale in Cython. Tali’s enemy since childhood.
Rancid: An oily, vicious guard in Garramide; a mutineer.
Rannilt: A much-bullied slave girl, about ten years old, who escaped from Cython with Tali. Rannilt has an enigmatic gift for magery, manifested by displays of golden radiance. In an attack in Lyf’s caverns he appeared to steal much of her gift and she lay near death for some time afterwards.
Rezire: The curator at Tirnan Twil.
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.
Riddum: One of Leatherhead’s gang, later one of Rix’s raiders.
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. Rix has recently discovered that he’s Herovian, descended from Axil Grandys himself; he is ambivalent about this. Also known as Deadhand.
Rochlis: Lyf’s greatest general. A man with a conscience.
Rufuss: One of the Five Heroes, a tall, gaunt man whose only pleasure is denial.
Rundi of Notherin: A provincial leader, a murderous coward.
Rutherin: An old fishing port on the south-west coast of Hightspall, now in decline because the sea level has fallen and the coast is well offshore of its former position.
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.
Shell racer: Small, light sailboats which can also be rowed by four rowers. Very fast and manoeuvrable, but fragile.
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 are 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.
Spectible: A device that can see the aura associated with an enchanted object, or with the use of magery.
Squattery: A communal toilet in Cython.
Stink-damp: Rotten egg gas that seeps up from underground. It’s used for lighting in Caulderon though it’s both poisonous and explosive.
Subsistery: The Pale’s dining hall in Cython.
Suden: The large island south of Hightspall, now covered by the creeping ice sheets.
Sulien: Tali’s great-great-grandmother, murdered for an ebony pearl.
Sullen Man, the: A cold-eyed prisoner in Fortress Rutherin.
Sunstone: A kind of rock, mined in Cython. After exposure to sunlight, sunstone emits a bright light for days or weeks. It’s 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.
Swelt: The castellan of Garramide, a gross-looking man, but loyal.
Swire: A town in Fennery, scene of the Five Heroes’ ride of glory and initial recruitment drive.
Syrten: One of the Five Heroes, a massive, golem-like man.
Tali, AKA the one: 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, which Lyf needs to complete his plan.
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.
Tiddler: A giant of a man in Garramide. A hammer-wielding mutineer.
Tirnan Twil: A remote tower, a kind of museum to the Five Heroes and their heritage.
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 sav
e his father. At the end of Vengeance, Tobry became a caitsthe because it was the only way to save his friends. He survived, but the chancellor subsequently ordered him hurled from the top of Rix’s tower to his death. Rix calls him Tobe.
Tordy: One of Leatherhead’s thugs, whom Rix casts out 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 250 years later (1,750 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 by rewriting the prophetic book.
Wiven: An old historian-mage Tali sees while using her gift to spy on Lyf.
Wrythen: The semi-solid shape Lyf’s spirit takes on after he dies.
Yestin: A local lord who helps Rix in the raid on Jadgery.
Yudi: One of Rix’s ne’er-do-wells, a crude fellow.
Yulia: One of the Five Heroes, she is the conscience of the group.
Zenda: Tali’s great-grandmother, murdered for an ebony pearl.
The End of Book Two
The story continues in Book Three of the Tainted Realm trilogy Justice
extras
about the author
Ian Irvine, a marine scientist who has developed some of Australia’s national guidelines for protection of the marine environment, has also written twenty-seven novels. These include the internationally bestselling Three Worlds fantasy sequence (The View from the Mirror, The Well of Echoes and Song of the Tears), which has sold over a million copies, a trilogy of thrillers set in a world undergoing catastrophic climate change, Human Rites, and twelve books for younger readers, the latest being the humorous fantasy quartet, Grim and Grimmer.
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if you enjoyed
REBELLION
look out for
ICE FORGED
by
Gail Z. Martin
PROLOGUE
“This has to end.” Blaine McFadden looked at his sister Mari huddled in the bed, covers drawn up to her chin. She was sobbing hard enough that it nearly robbed her of breath and was leaning against Aunt Judith, who murmured consolations. Just sixteen, Mari looked small and lost. A vivid bruise marked one cheek. She struggled to hold her nightgown together where it had been ripped down the front.
“You’re upsetting her more.” Judith cast a reproving glance his way.
“I’m upsetting her? Father’s the one to blame for this. That drunken son of a bitch…” Blaine’s right hand opened and closed, itching for the pommel of his sword.
“Blaine…” Judith’s voice warned him off.
“After what he did… you stand up for him?”
Judith McFadden Ainsworth raised her head to meet his gaze. She was a thin, handsome woman in her middle years; and when she dressed for court, it was still possible to see a glimpse of the beauty she had been in her youth. Tonight, she looked worn. “Of course not.”
“I’m sick of his rages. Sick of being beaten when he’s on one of his binges…” Judith’s lips quirked. “You’ve been too tall for him to beat for years now.”
At twenty years old and a few inches over six feet tall, Blaine stood a hand’s breadth taller than lord McFadden. While he had his mother’s dark chestnut hair, his blue eyes were a match in color and determination to his father’s. Blaine had always been secretly pleased that while he resembled his father enough to avoid questions of paternity, in build and features he took after his mother’s side of the family. Where his father was short and round, Blaine was tall and rangy. Ian McFadden’s features had the smashed look of a brawler; Blaine’s were more regular, and if not quite handsome, better than passable. He was honest enough to know that though he might not be the first man in a room to catch a lady’s eye, he was pleasant enough in face and manner to attract the attention of at least one female by the end of the evening. The work he did around the manor and its lands had filled out his chest and arms. He was no longer the small, thin boy his father caned for the slightest infraction.
“He killed our mother when she got between him and me. He took his temper out on my hide until I was tall enough to fight back. He started beating Carr when I got too big to thrash. I had to put his horse down after he’d beaten it and broken its legs. Now this… it has to stop!”
“Blaine, please.” Judith turned, and Blaine could see tears in her eyes. “Anything you do will only make it worse. I know my brother’s tempers better than anyone.” Absently, she stroked Mari’s hair.
“By the gods… did he…” But the shamed look on Judith’s face as she turned away answered Blaine’s question.
“I’ll kill that son of a bitch,” Blaine muttered, turning away and sprinting down the hall.
“Blaine, don’t. Blaine —”
He took the stairs at a run. Above the fireplace in the parlor hung two broadswords, weapons that had once belonged to his grandfather. Blaine snatched down the lowest broadsword. Its grip felt heavy and familiar in his hand.
“Master Blaine…” Edward followed him into the room. The elderly man was alarmed as his gaze fell from Blaine’s face to the weapon in his hand. Edward had been Glenreith’s seneschal for longer than Blaine had been alive. Edward: the expert manager, the budget master and the family’s secret-keeper.
“Where is he?”
“Who, m’lord?”
Blaine caught Edward by the arm and Edward shrank back from his gaze. “My whore-spawned father, that’s who. Where is he?”
“Master Blaine, I beg you…”
“Where is he?”
“He headed for the gardens. He had his pipe with him.”
Blaine headed for the manor’s front entrance at a dead run. Judith was halfway down the stairs. “Blaine, think about this. Blaine —”
He flung open the door so hard that it crashed against the wall. Blaine ran down the manor’s sweeping stone steps. A full moon lit the sloping lawn well enough for Blaine to make out the figure of a man in the distance, strolling down the carriage lane. The smell of his father’s pipe smoke wafted back to him, as hated as the odor of camphor that always clung to lord McFadden’s clothing.
The older man turned at the sound of Blaine’s running footsteps. “You bastard! You bloody bastard!” Blaine shouted.
Lord Ian McFadden’s eyes narrowed as he saw the sword in Blaine’s hand. Dropping his pipe, the man grabbed a rake that leaned against the stone fence edging the carriageway. He held its thick oak handle across his body like a staff. Lord McFadden might be well into his fifth decade, but in his youth he had been an officer in the king’s army, where he had earned King Merrill’s notice and his gratitude. “Go back inside, boy. Don’t make me hurt you.”
Blaine did not slow down or lower his sword. “Why? Why Mari? There’s no shortage of court whores. Why Mari?”
Lord McFadden’s face reddened. “Because I can. Now drop that sword if you know what’s good for you.”
Blaine‘s blood thundered in his ears. In the distance, he could hear Judith screaming his name.
“I guess this cur needs to be taught a lesson.” Lord McFadden swung at Blaine with enough force to have shattered his skull if Blaine had not ducked the heavy rake. McFadden gave a roar and swung again, but Blaine lurched forward, taking the blow on his shoulder to get inside McFadden’s guard. The broadsword sank hilt-deep into the man’s chest,
slicing through his waistcoat.
Lord McFadden’s body shuddered, and he dropped the rake. He met Blaine’s gaze, his eyes wide with surprise. “Didn’t think you had it in you,” he gasped.
Behind him, Blaine could hear footsteps pounding on the cobblestones; he heard panicked shouts and Judith’s scream. Nothing mattered to him, nothing at all except for the ashen face of his father. Blood soaked lord McFadden’s clothing, and gobbets of it splashed Blaine’s hand and shirt. He gasped for breath, his mouth working like a hooked fish out of water. Blaine let him slide from the sword, watched numbly as his father fell backward onto the carriageway in a spreading pool of blood.
“Master Blaine, what have you done?” Selden, the grounds-keeper was the first to reach the scene. He gazed in horror at lord McFadden, who lay twitching on the ground, breathing in labored, slow gasps.
Blaine’s grip tightened on the sword in his hand. “Something someone should have done years ago.”
A crowd of servants was gathering; Blaine could hear their whispers and the sound of their steps on the cobblestones. “Blaine! Blaine!” He barely recognized Judith’s voice. Raw from screaming, choked with tears, his aunt must have gathered her skirts like a milkmaid to run from the house this quickly. “Let me through!”
Heaving for breath, Judith pushed past Selden and grabbed Blaine’s left arm to steady herself. “Oh, by the gods, Blaine, what will become of us now?”
