Sterling Lanier - The Unforsaken Hiero

Aldo began, chuckling, and the abbot was smiling as he laid one around Hiero’s shoulder.

“My boy,” Demero asked, “did you really think I wouldn’t know what was going on when you went around making preparations? Or did you think it an idle whim of mine to refuel this ship and load it with supplies for you?” He snorted with mock indignation. “Hiero, ships can be used for better purposes than destruction. Now give me the names of your volunteers, in case I missed one. Then well put you to bed in a cabin here. When you awake, you and your band will already be well on the way to your princess.”

The princess was lying on a bed of moss, far to the southeast, but she was not asleep. There was too much on her mind.

Hiero was alive and well and free! All the doubts that had come to haunt her were gone, erased by the certainty of her brief contact with his mind. He would come for her. And she would be here, waiting for him.

She let her eyes rove about the clearing, now lighted by the nearly full moon above. She knew it now—this place where they had all camped on the long road south, just before they met the strange women who lived in these giant trees. She listened to the silence of the forest, remembering that the same silence had first heralded the coming of Vilah-ree and the others. They would remember her and provide a haven of safety for her and for the three men—most certainly for the men!—in their tree nests.

She turned on her side, smiling. And finally, she slept.

Abbeys, the:Theocratic structure of the Kandan Confederacy, comprising the Metz republic in the west and the Otwah League in the east. Each Abbey has a military-political infrastructure, and the Abbey Council functions much as the House of Lords in eighteenth-century England, with all science and religion also as its prerogatives.

Batwah:Trade Lingua franca; an artificial language used throughout the areas bordering the Inland Sea, and well beyond in some places.

Buffer:Giant bovines, probably mutated bison, which migrate in vast herds through the western Kandan regions on an annual basis.

Chespek:Small kingdom on the Lantik Sea, often allied to D’alwah and equally often at war with its immediate neighbor.

Children of the Night Wind:An intelligent, bipedal species of mutated, man-sized feline; runners of unbelievable speed. Bred by the Unclean for warfare, they managed to escape their masters and establish themselves in a far country. Proud and volatile, they are in no sense Leemutes.

Circles:Administrative areas, named by color, of the Unclean and its Masters of the Dark Brotherhood. Hiero passed through three, the Red, Blue, and Yellow, as he went south and east. Until his journey, their existence was unknown.

D’alwah:Largest and most developed of the east coast states on the Lantik Sea. A kingdom, organized as a benevolent despotism, but where commoners have few rights. A debased branch of the Universal Church exists.

Dam People:Aquatic rodents of human intelligence and more than human bulk, who live on artificial lakes in the Metz Republic, under terms of mutual toleration; probably mutated beaver.

Dark Brotherhood:Their own name for the Masters of the Unclean. The fact that they use the word “dark” indicates that they sought universal conquest and, more important, gloried in it and realized that they were, in fact, basically evil. Modern Satanism, in its real sense, is a parallel. (See Circles; Unclean.)

Davids:Similar to the Mu’amans in that they follow a quite different monotheism from that taught by the church and one which they claim to be far older. Found in D’alwah, Chespek, and perhaps elsewhere, they occupy positions in all levels of society. (See Mu’amans.)

Death, The:The atomic and biologic blight which destroyed the major population centers and most of humanity some thousand years in the past. Still a name of dread and ultimate menace in Hiero’s day. “All evil came with The Death” is a proverb.

Deserts of The Death:Patches of ancient atomic blight where there is little or no water and scant or no vegetation. Yet life exists in these horrible places, though most of it is inimical and strange, bred from hard radiation and a ferocious struggle to survive. Some of the Deserts are hundreds of square miles in size and, in Hiero’s day, are avoided like The Death itself. They are rare in Kanda, but many exist in the South. Blue, radioactive glows mark the worst of them at night.

Eleveners:The Brotherhood of the Eleventh Commandment. (“Thou shalt not destroy the Earth nor the life thereon.”) A group of social scientists who banded together after The Death to preserve human culture, love for all life, and knowledge thereof. This group permeates all human societal life and, though opposing violence, battles the Unclean, often in hidden ways.

Forty Symbols:The tiny wooden signs that a trained priest-exorcist carries on his person. By putting himself (or herself; there are priestesses of great power) in a trance state, the priest can forelock, or to some extent see the future, using the symbols.

Frontier Guards:The army or embodied forces of the Metz Republic. The Otwah League has a similar group. There are sixteen legions, self-contained units, in the Metz Republic. They are under, not the Republic’s orders, but those of the Abbey Council, which, in turn, reports to the Lower House (Assembly) on its decisions, which are always approved. Priests usually lead and direct the Frontier Guards.

Glith:A recent form of Leemute, possibly bred from a reptile by the Unclean. A humanoid, scaled and very strong physically, utterly the slave of the Dark Masters.

Grokon:Giant descendants of our present-day hogs, which roam the northern forests. They are much-sought-for as meat but are very dangerous to hunt, being clever and the size of extant oxen when adult.

Hairy Howlers:One of the commonest and most dangerous varieties of Leemute. They are great, fur-covered, tailless primates, highly intelligent and used as soldiery by the Unclean. They hate ail humans, save their Dark Masters. They resemble huge, upright baboons as much as anything.

Death Hart:A monster found, though rarely, in the southern Deserts of the Death. The ancestry of this foul mutation is unknown, but it is carnivorous and bears both claws and horns.

Hoppers:Giant marsupials, closely resembling the kangaroo of the present, save for greater size. They were no doubt bred from mutated survivors of The Death. They are the riding animals of D’alwah and adjacent areas.

Inland Sea, the:The great freshwater sea formed by the ancient merger of the Great Lakes and covering roughly an area of all their present outermost boundaries. Many islands exist, and much of the Inland Sea is uncharted. Ruins of ancient cities dot the shores, and much commerce, interrupted by piracy, moves on the waters.

Kanda:The area of the ancient Dominion of Canada has kept its old name, almost unchanged, though much of it is unknown in Hiero’s day, save for the central parts of the Metz Republic and the Otwah League, in west and east, respectively.

Kandan Universal Church:The state religion of the Metz Republic and the Otwah League. An amalgam of most current Christian beliefs, with a strong core of traditional Roman Catholicism, though there has been no contact with Rome for millennia. Celibacy is long gone, as are many other beliefs and attitudes held by the ancient churches. A related sect, though much corrupted and debased, is the state religion of the east coast kingdoms and states, such as D’alwah.