Tales of the Dying Earth (118 page)
Read Tales of the Dying Earth Online
Authors: Jack Vance
Tags: #General, #Fiction, #Fantasy, #Science Fiction, #Fantasy Fiction, #End of the world, #Fantasy fiction; American, #Masterwork
[1]
time-light: an untranslatable and even incomprehensible concept. In this context, the term implies a track across the chronic continuum, perceptible to an appropriate sensory apparatus.
[2]
Eshmiel's more thoughtful associates often speculated that Eshmiel used this means to symbolize the Grand Polarities permeating the universe, while at the same time asserting the infinite variety to be derived from the apparent simplicity. These persons considered Eshmiel's message profound but optimistic, though Eshmiel himself refused to issue an analysis.
[3]
The Monstrament, placed in a crypt at Fader's Waft, drew its coercive force from the 'Adjudicator,' ensconced in his 'Blue Egg': a shell opaque to distracting influences. The Adjudicator was Sarsem, a sandestin trained in the interpretation of the Monstrament. Sarsem's judgments were swift and stern, and enforced by the Wiih, a mindless creature from the ninth dimension. When applying to the Adjudicator for justice, the plaintiff was well advised to come with a clear conscience. Sarsem felt an almost human impatience with his cramped seclusion inside the egg; at times he refused to limit his verdict to the issue at hand, and examined the conduct both of plaintiff and defendant for offenses against the Monstrament, and distributed his penalties with even-handed liberality.
[4]
hiatus: The Spell of Temporal Stasis, affecting all save he who works the spell. All others are frozen into immotility. Magicians bitterly resent being placed in hiatus by other magicians; too many untoward events take place under these conditions and many carry monitors to warn when a hiatus has occurred.
[5]
chug: a semi-intelligent sub-type of sandestin, which by a system too intricate to be presently detailed, works to control the sandestins. Even use of the word 'chug' is repellent to the sandestin.
[6]
flantic: winged creature with grotesque man-like head; precursor of the pelgrane.
[7]
The spell of Forlorn Encystment operates to bury that luckless individual subject to the spell in a capsule forty-five miles below the surface of the earth.