High Couch of Silistra (30 page)

Centaus:
The planet Centaus is an airless sphere composed almost exclusively of heavy metals; the single satellite of the yellow dwarf Artersh.

chald:
(Stothric: spirit-bond.) A belt of chains commonly soldered around the waist.

chalded:
Possessed of or wearing a chald.

chaldless:
Possessing no chald; one who has been either unwilling or unable to acquire chaldra; an outlaw; one who has been stripped of his chald for iniquitous behavior, and so disbarred from Silistran society.

chaldra:
Numerous volumes exist upon the subject of chaldra, first and foremost Ors Chaldra (the dharen Khys, hide-year sixty-three); Khys’ postulates of self-rule; the goal-seeking morality of Silistra in general, including both high-chaldra (tasks and responsibilities undertaken to strengthen the spirit form and increase survival potential of the eternal particle, the individual consciousness, or the flesh race as a whole) and low-chaldra (pertaining to the survival and betterment of the mundane individual, the acquiring of life skills of material import only); a trade or craft chain.

chaldric:
Demanded by chaldra; the “chaldric strands” that make up a chald; duties or labors determined by the Laws of Chaldra.

chan-tera:
(chan: will of; tera: life.) Avowed life dedication; that toward which the life labors, any ongoing struggle to perfect.

chit-guard:
Caretakers and handlers of golachits, most ok ten an apprentice position.

coin girl: A girl who couches for pay outside the Well system. Most often such girls sell themselves into, long-term servitude contracts as a last resort when the alternatives to such work are meager. Coin girls are sometimes purchased as children from chaldless, and in this fashion a comely chaldless girl may better her estate. Coin girls, though generally chaldless, are not considered outlaw, nor are they disbarred from acquiring chaldra, should they choose to labor toward that end.

couch: (n.) A sleeping platform, any surface used for coupling.

couch: (v.t.) To copulate.

couchbond: A companionship agreement between two consenting adults. (Low-chaldra.) The titrium couch-bond strand is issued to the male at puberty after potency has been determined. No Day-Keeper need officiate at such an enchalding, nor is a chalder demanded by custom. The titrium chain may be inwoven or removed from a chald at the discretion of the two parties involved. There is no minimum or maximum time of couchbond.

couch-gift: The tokens exchanged upon the assumption of couchbond, forever after the property of the individual in receipt. Also, any gift of sentiment.

couching: (n.) Any single coupling; a style, as “an Astrian couching.”

couch-mate: Persons bound together by love and/or issue; in usage, those in extended couchbond, those who consider their relationship more binding than simple couchbond. Couch-mate denotes responsibility of a high moral order between two people. Gifting between couch-mates is traditionally regulated; one gives either the gift of life (progeny, animal or human) or the gift of death (knife or sword).

couch-met: Met while performing well work; couching partners who have no previous acquaintance.

couch-price: The fee a woman demands for her sexual services. Fees may range from as low as a titrium half-well for a coin girl to as high as fifty gold dip-pars for a high-couch girl.

couch-sisters: Well women; those of the same Well.

crill:
The hide crill, under the city Nin Sihaen across the Karir-Thoss River, is the most westerly of all Silistran hides; the hide-name crill, as: Sereth crill Tyris.

crux:
One of the major Weathers of Life; time within which only that preordained may be done. Time so obscured that no foreknowledge may be gathered of what will occur therein. Colloquially, the abyss. Any time that spawns far-reaching changes whose effects and purposes are supernal in nature. Events that precipitate numinosity or nympholeptic response in the superconscious.

danne:
Psychotropic yellow herb that grows best at high altitudes in stony soil. The strength and efficacy of danne vary greatly from area to area. The best danne grows high in the Sabembe range. Danne lowers both blood pressure and brain-wave frequency and is mildly hallucinogenic. It is removed from the human system neither by the kidneys nor liver, but goes directly to the brain and seems to be absorbed by the hypothalamus. It was once thought to be a “brain food” and sympathetic nervous-system revivifier with cumulative effects, but no empirical experiments have proved this out, Danne neither prolongs life nor increases intelligence; it simply alters consciousness with no long-term effects whatsoever.

Day-Keepers: The guardians of Silistran history, past, present, and future, The Day-Keeper hierarchy as a whole is referred to as the Dharendiil, a High Day-Keeper as dharener. Over these presides the dharen, the spiritual guide of Silistra. It is said that when Khys conceived the Dharendiil, he directed that Day-Keeper always be capitalized as a reminder to those who bear the title of the humbleness of their function. The forereaders, however, were given no such injunction, and maintain the lower-case honors.

Day-Keepers’ Clock: A mythical gnomon upon whose face all that ever was, is, and will be is enscribed. Usually an oath, as “By the Day-Keepers’ Clock.”

Day-Keepers’ Roll: The records of the dead, the archives into which name and history are entered upon an individual’s death.

deep-reader: One whose skills allow access to the deeper conscious of another, exempting thoughts framed for communication. The value of deep-reading is considered by many to be greater than that of surface reading, for thoughts upon the surface, like the tip of an iceberg, give little and often faulty enlightenment as to what lurks beneath.

denter:
A large-humped, nub-horned animal, passive and tractable, raised for meat and dairy, and often used as a draft beast. This single-hoofed animal ranges from ten to fourteen hands and may reach a weight of thirteen hundred B.S. pounds.

Detarsa:
Fifth pass of the Silistran calendar.

dhara-san:
(Stothric: homage to the day.) A system of mental and physical discipline said to align the sevenfold spirit with the human form. The physical and mental exercises are divided into eleven degrees, each of which has subdivisions, or embrasures, of sufficient diversity to allow the student to tailor his routine to his specific goals.

diet: The hide diet, which extends under Well Astria, has her entrance on the Hanks of the Litess River, within the walls of the Day-Keepers’ School; the hide name diet.

dippar:
Silistran coinage. One gold dippar is equaled by fifty copper dippars. Dippars are minted only in independent cities, as opposed to titrium and gold half-wells and wells, minted by the Well system. They are round with octagonal holes punched in mid-disk, and are intaglioed with a representation of the city in which they were struck.

distrit:
A bar-pressed, resinous stimulant rendered from danne and the gum of the fulchra tree, in itself a stimulant. The gum and danne powder are boiled until a thick yellow infusion the consistency of honey is produced. This is poured into oblong molds to set and cure. Although danne by itself may have soporific effects, when ingested in distrit form, its effects are nearly opposite—a raising of blood pressure with contraction of blood vessels and capillaries. Classified as a revivifier, distrit in excessive amounts may cause insomnia.

dorkat:
Wingless cousin of the hulion, the dorkat has the same wedge-shaped head and pointed ears. The hind musculature tends to be lighter, but the fore-quarters are as heavily developed. Although the cranial capacity is identical with the hulion’s, dorkats do not demonstrate more than half the intelligence of their winged brethren. The nocturnal dorkat is prevalent in all the wilderness areas of Silistra, and its prey is thusly varied, dependent upon what the area will provide. They are exclusively carnivores, with protruding incisors. Dorkats, unlike hulions, have been known to turn man-eater, and are often troublesome raiders to herders of domesticated beasts.

draw:
Draw time, one of the Weathers of Life, recognizable by the acceleration of the procession of events, and to the individual by an increased sensitivity and awareness of proximity to crux. Draw time, when properly exploited, is said to be the most fruitful of all the Weathers.

Dritira:
Fifth-largest Silistran city, largest southern port. Dritira receives goods overland from Stra and Galesh, and ships from every city with merchant fleets. The Embrodming Inlet, which she shares with the city of the written word, Yardum-Or, is the most trafficked harbor upon Silistra. Dritira, as Yardum-Or, is a dependent city to Well Oppiri, third most prestigious of the Silistran Wells.

ebvrasea:
The largest of Silistra’s omnivorous birds. Ebvraseas have been known to achieve a wingspread of sixteen feet or more. They are night hunters and seldom venture out of their craggy realms. Ebvraseas mate for life. They live isolated by the pair, and even mates do not hunt together. The average clutch of eggs is three, with seldom more than one reaching maturity. An adult ebvrasea will eat egg or young of another, even sometimes devouring their own offspring. Ebvraseas are most often black, brown, or white. The average lifespan of the mountain ebvrasea is forty Silistran years.

ervih:
One twenty-eighth of the Silistran day; each enth contains seventy-five iths.

Falls of Santha: The great cascades at the source of the Litess River, high on the Plateau of Santha in the Sabembe range.

fax:
An orangy elastic material common to M’ksakkans and other B.F. races. Fax does not burn; neither can it be torn or denuded of its message by any means known upon Silistra.

Feast of Conception: The oldest performed ceremony upon Silistra, dating back into prehistory. Before Haroun-Vhass, the Fall of Man, Silistrans observed Feast of Conception.

forereaders: Those females who have received training in the sorting of probability. Forereaders are the most powerful and prestigious women on Silistra, those whom the Day-Keepers have chosen to share then-work, those whose innate foreseeing ability is .88999 or better.

forereading: Stochastic processing, the sorting of probability.

gaesh:
The hide gaesh, beneath the jungle city of Galesh on the Karir-Thoss River. The hide name gaesh.

Galesh:
The city that feeds Silistra, Galesh lies in the most fertile Karir-Thoss Valley. The Galeshir swamps yield a number of medicinal herbs that cannot be found elsewhere, as well as the swamp kepher from whose scent glands come the base fixatives for the much-sought Galeshir perfumes. In this tropical climate the Silistran silkworm thrives; Galeshir carpets are second only to Parset rugs in their beauty and durability.

gol:
The excrescence of the golachit of Silistra. Gol comes naturally in five colors: blue, amber, white, silver, and red. Black or other adulterated colors are produced by feeding the golachit the proper melanis (harmless chemically treated fungi). Gol is considered superior as a building material because of its permanence; gol might last a man a lifetime, while iron, brick, and wood seem to wear away visibly under the Silistran eye. Gol hardens upon exposure to air, the mean time being one-quarter ith. Gol may be seen in Silistran buildings as sheet gol, gol-blocks, or gol-forms, the natural mode of golachit building, and also in smaller molded shapes such as tables, pedestals, or even the serrated blade of the gol-knife.

golachit:
The great builder beetle of Silistra thrives both in a wild state in the gollands at the feet of the Sabembes, and in a mutually beneficial symbiosis with man. As with web-weaver and webber, so do golachit and golmaster blend minds and create together such beauty as would have remained unrealizable dream for either alone. The golachit is a scavenger by nature and finds both food and · stimulation in this community with man. Golachits are fascinated by human children, and wild ones have often come into the human-golachit fraternity by following some hill-roaming child. Once in converse with a human mind, the golachit becomes fiercely protective of its humans and patrols the borders of their joint estate ceaselessly, marking off its territory with periodic excrescences. The golachit often travels in bands of up to a score, and many has been the man who has befriended one golachit and found, next morning, his good luck much multiplied. Golachits have been known to live a thousand years.

golmaster:
One who enters into community of minds with a golachit; a golarchitect.

grinta:
The most common flatfish on Silistra, recognized by its rusty brown dorsal scales and pale white ventral.

gristasha:
The dark-skinned primitives who formed one-half of the hide aniet, precursors to the Parsets, who still tattoo themselves as did their fierce progenitors. The Parset culture, in language and custom, bears heavily this gristasha influence.

gul:
The ovoid, juicy fruit from which kifra is obtained; any of the three varieties of gul, the yellow, the orange, the purple-blue.

half-dippar:
Silistran coinage; half-dippars, whether gold or copper, have no holes.

half-well:
(titrium.) Silistran coinage, Well-minted, of the pink metal titrium. Two titrium half-wells equal one gold half-well. The titrium half-well still bears the profile of M’glarren, first Liaison to Silistra and couch-mate of the Foundress Astria, the only Well coin of any denomination ever to be struck with a male image. All other well coins bear the countenances of distinguished Well-Keepresses.

harih:
(n.) A common and tasty bird whose feathers are black and iridescent. The harth thrives in city and town, as well as plain and forest. He is a migrating bird, preferring warm weather. In the northern regions at harvest past, the sky is indeed “harth-black” with their numbers, screeching their distinctive “Hareee, haree” cry.

harih:
(adj.) Anything black and shining, especially black with blue or purple overtones.