Still, he turned his horse away from the corpse, and gazed at Hellingstead Hall.
‘So many things are pronounced indestructible,’ he mused, stroking the amulet with his thumb. ‘Men, kings, ships, weapons, kingdoms, whole civilisations. Yet all have been claimed by time – weathered and destroyed by the Magnificent Aten.’ He rolled his shoulders back. Thank Aten the Pretenders had made Raphael – the sprite that could talk, the sprite that could think, the sprite that gave him the knowledge to destroy the amulet and break the Syphon’s curse after all these millennia. ‘Your time, little treasure, has come.’
The End
A Polite Request
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Forged in Blood and Lightning (Descendants of Thor Trilogy: Book One)
Urban Fairy Tales: A Short Story Collection
GLOSSARY OF TERMS
For the Descendants of Thor Trilogy
WARNING: Some glossary terms contain mild plot spoilers, so best look them up after the first time you cross them. They are listed in alphabetical order.
People and Races
Dark Elf / Dökkálfar – the original term for vampires, referring to the corrupted Elves that were long ago banished from Alfheim due to their bloodlust.
Dhampir – offspring of a vampire and a witch.
Fae – guardians of the natural world.
Fairy – the cousins to the Fae, they act as protective energies for plants and animals in Midgard.
Gatekeeper of the Lífkelda – the living embodiment of the magic that feeds the roots of the World Tree, Yggdrasil, and controls the flow of energy through the Nine Realms.
Grigori – guardian energies that exist between each of the Nine Realms, often called upon by an individual or group to direct the flow of magic for (usually) beneficial purposes.
Iepen – tree dwelling, primarily fruitarian Elves.
Lamia – usually a female witch, crossed with a vampire. Lamia are created when witches unite their magic and souls with the forces of darkness. They have a reputation of enacting revenge on men who have wronged women.
Landvaettir – a land-sprite.
Pnuema – people who have magical abilities or can use magic in some way.
Protean – Pneuma with shapeshifting abilities.
Sapien – normal human beings.
Sarrows – the hunter / gathering sect of Elves who live in the forest.
Sensitive – a sapien who has diluted Pnuema DNA, giving them limited access to extra sensory abilities.
Varmint – a subsection of Pneuma who use their abilities for their own, usually criminal, ends.
Warlock – a male witch.
Magical Abilities
Auric Flashbulb – the process of using energy from the aura (the unseen energy field generated by all living things) to create a ball of light around oneself.
Clairvoyant – a sensitive who sees visions and / or extra sensory information about the past and future.
Enthral – when a vampire uses magically enhanced suggestion to hypnotise others and modify / suppress memories, though they can’t erase memories completely.
Enchant – the witchy equivalent of Enthrallment.
Reverse Astral Projection – a Clemensen ability to leave their bodies at will and summon their bodies to the new location. Theo describes the process akin to ‘a cosmic Hoover turning my body into a sack of quantum soup, sucking me through the empty space between atoms’.
Ward — a magical barrier spell that is usually used to conceal places or objects, or repel intruders.
Realms and Places
Alfheim – realm of the Elves and Fae.
Lífkelda – the Life Stream, or magical water from the Well of Urd that nourishes Yggdrasil and by extension, the Nine Realms. The Gatekeeper’s existence helps to control the flow of this energy between the realms, keeping life in balance.
Midgard – our universe, including Earth.
Nine Realms – the nine levels of being encompassed by the branches of Yggdrasil. These include our universe, the lower regions, and the spiritual dimensions, as mapped out by Norse myth.
Yggdrasil – the metaphorical tree that supports and nourishes the Nine Realms, allowing life and magic to flow through it.
Divinities
Charon – the boatman responsible for transporting newly dead souls across the River Styx.
Diana / Freyja / Lady of the Lake – giver of the amulet / Excalibur. A goddess worshipped by the Streghe and Asatruars. Her roles include watching over women, animals and children. She is often associated with the moon, and harvests. The Streghe label Diana as the Queen of the Witches.
Frey / Freyr – Freyja’s twin brother.
Hades / Lucifer – Lord of the Underworld.
Hag of Ironwood, / Angrboda – Loki’s first wife, mother of Hel and the first witches.
Hecate / Hel / Black Widow – goddess of the crossroads and the souls of the dead. She is Loki’s
daughter and weaver of the fates of men.
Loki – the Norse god of trickery and mischief.
Norns – the spinners of fate, representing the past, present, and future.
Orlog – the primordial consciousness that formed the Nine Realms and Yggdrasil.
Persephone – Hades’ half-mad wife.
Thor the man – once a King of Norway, this man was one of the first Gatekeepers. His escapades earned him a mythic status after his death. The Clemensens are his direct descendants.
Wyrd / Urd – personal fate or destiny that forms the basis for the modern word, ‘weird’.
Institutions and Titles
Auxiliary – employees of the Praetoriani involved in general administrative duties and minor roles.
Guardian – a man or woman who is assigned to watch over and guide a member of the Pneuma community. They are a combination of police officer and social worker, and they’re the first point of contact between Pneuma and the Praetoriani.
Imperi Ducis – the official title for the first in command of the Praefecti.
Lictors – guards assigned to the praetors and other important officials.
Overseer – a man or women responsible for the general operations conducted by the Praetoriani and assessing of the Guardians under his or her supervision.
Praefecti – the Pneuma government, the head office of which is in Cairo, Egypt. They are responsible for overseeing the needs of the Pnuema community across the world, and control their own army, known as the ‘Golden Knives’, and mercenary teams known as the ’Silver Knives’.
Praetoriani – an offshoot of the Praefecti, the Praetoriani are responsible for policing and dispensing justice, and keeping the existence of Pneuma a secret from sapiens. The Head Office is in Hellingstead, Somerset.
Praetor – a magistrate who works for the Praetoriani.
Religion and Beliefs
Asatru – otherwise known as the Northern Tradition, this is the belief in and worship of the Norse gods.
Stregoneria / Stregheria – often referred to as The Old Religion, this is a form of Italian witchcraft or folk magic often supposed to have malevolent roo
ts, a branch of which evolved in medieval Tuscany, linked to the goddess Diana.
Texts, Objects and Traditions
The amulet – an ancient trinket, similar to a coin, from Freyja’s necklace, designed to protect the Gatekeeper from a premature death.
Blots – rituals performed for the Norse gods by worshippers, involving libation and symbolic sacrifice, often coinciding with major festivals throughout the calendar year.
Book of Gatekeepers – a manuscript passed from Clemensen to Clemensen, detailing their personal histories and information about the role of the Gatekeeper.
Codex Regius – a medieval, vellum manuscript containing Old Norse poems that informed the Poetic Edda. Some pages are missing. Clemensen lore states that these pages hold intel about the Gatekeepers’ origin.
Cyranides – an ancient encyclopaedia of amulets.
Libros Carminum – the Hag’s spell book, inspired after the Hag tipped poison into the Well of Urd.
Mjolnir – Thor’s legendary hammer.
Naglfar – The Ship of the Dead, commanded by Loki.
Poetic Edda – a collection of Old Norse poems detailing the trials and tribulations of the Norse gods.
Tarantella – an Italian folk dance that tells the story of a woman poisoned by a spider bite. Penny’s coven connects this dance to the Black Widow, AKA Hel / Hecate.
Acknowledgments
A special thanks to my editor, Kathy Bosman, and Ned Hoste for assisting with the title fonts for the cover.
I’d also like to thank my beta reader, Corine, for her feedback on Norns of Fate, as well as my very first fans who told me how much they loved Book One. It means the world.
A mention for Mark Dawson’s SPF community; thanks to them, I have a safe space to ask questions and receive encouragement and feedback on all and any aspect of being a writer in the 21st Century! They have saved me from despair more than once.
Plus the usual suspects – my husband, Paul, my parents, family, and friends who put up with me rabbiting on about everything publishing. Sorry, not sorry.
Copyright © 2017 by S. A. Ashdown
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
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