Fires of Aggar (56 page)

Llinolae turned in astonishment to the two grinning sandwolves. In unison, their chins bobbed in sneeze-like nods, and then they were trotting off as well. Nia followed on without urging.

For a full moment, the Dracoon simply sat there. Then a shout of gleeful laughter rang through the forests, and she sent Calypso on to catch up with her new family.

When I was diagnosed with terminal cancer at age thirty, my crusading in community psychology was forced to the wayside. But not so, my writing. Never my writing. I can’t imagine not writing. I write simply because I breathe. In weaving words… of passion and justice, of love and hope… I try to remind us all of the beauty we can claim.

So — when the days are gloomy, I listen to Jennifer say, “Snap out of it. Stay out of it!” and pick up my pen to court our mistress, Muse. She lends me peace, and in an odd way I discover more freedom than I’ve ever known. Because I’m dying, I’m free to put my loved ones and my writing first. I am free to make each day a wonder to treasure. Life is incredibly good. It’s never been better.

• amarin: the essence of life; the empathic imprint of animate existence; aura; cumulative pattern of feelings, thoughts and reflexes
  
• basker jackal: a sleek, scavenger canine, native to the Ramains’ plains and renowned for its blood lust; semi-domesticated by militia for chase and guard chores
  
• black glass: a ceramic-glass compound of especially durable strength that hones to a sharp edge; commonly used in making knife blades
  
• blackpine: a valuable hardwood conifer with a black, barkless trunk and green-black needles; common to Maltar’s lands
  
• bondmate: any eitteh, human, or sandwolf who has been empathically bonded into a sandwolf’s familial unit (see pack bond; sandwolf)
  
• Blue Sight: the Sight or Blue Gift, a sixth sense genetically linked to blue eyes; an awareness of and ability to manipulate life auras and amarin; a person possessing the Blue Sight
  
• boko: a food native to the Ramains, a vegetable-meat paste wrapped in boiled leaves
  
• braygoat: a short-horned goat native to Ramains’ southern districts
  
• brushberry: an evergreen bush with a sweet-tart berry; a Ramains wine
  
• bunt: a tall stemmed grain yielding red-brown seedlings; husks often used for animal fodder; a greyish flour produced from the seedlings
  
• buntsow: a carnivorous, hooved mammal; a scavenger native to the northern forests; a non-venomous cousin of schefea
  
• “by the Mother’s Hand”: ‘done with the Goddess’ blessings’ (an idiom)
  
• Changlings: sentient half-human, half-feline beasts native to the Northern Continent; a race of people known for their amoral selling and reselling of information; miners of lifestones
  
• Clan, the: people of the Clan’s Plateau; descendents of off-worlders who were stranded on Aggar at the fall of the Galactic Terran Empire; renowned for their weapons technology and raiding activities
  
• Clan Lead: legislative representatives chosen by and from among the Clan folk; (plural) a governing assembly; civil servant
  
• Clantown: the governing settlement and militia corp of the Clan’s Plateau; a village in the ancient Terran Quadrant, located at the edge of the eastern plateau adjacent to the Ramains’ Great Forests
  
• commons: a Ramains’ term for the tavern housed by an inn
  
• Council of Ten: a collection of ten Masters and Mistresses educated in the history and humanity of Aggar; guardians of planet integrity
  
• Crowned Rule: the designated heir of the Ramains’ Royal Family; usually chosen for skills of statescraft rather than warfare
  
• cucarii: (singular: cucarae) small, poisonous crustaceans found in the wastelands, usually nested in large groups; scavengers
  
• Desert Peoples: (the Southerners) loosely organized nomadic tribes, native to the Southern Continent; renowned for their distilled liquors and merchant ventures
  
• Diblum: a small Ramains’ village southeast of Khirla
  
• dracoon: a governing marshal appointed by the Ramains’ King early moon: the first of the Twin Moons to rise on any given evening
  
• eitteh: sentient feline, native to the Northern Continent (see winged-cats; men-cats)
  
• Eldest Prepared: best of the shadow trainees at the Council’s Keep; preferred choice for next assignment and lifebonding; instructor of younger recruits
  
• Fates, the: the male deities of evil mischief; mythical rulers of the dark underworld; primary figures refer to Malice and Ambition with numerous secondary figures such as War, Ire, Greed, and others
  
• Fates’ Cellar: home of the Fates; the mythical world of a punishing afterlife; place of evil souls; hell
  
• “Fates’ Jest”: a malicious turn of events attributed to deities, the Fates (an idiom)
  
• Firecaps: intersecting mountain ranges that comprise the northeastern third of the Northern Continent; volcanic and uninhabited; Seer controlled to stabilize continental land masses
  
• grubber: a generic term for ground rodents in the Northern Continent; smallish, nasty tempered mammals
  
• harmon: a soul-spirit; self-image projected by a Blue Sight to another
  
• honeywood: a deciduous hardwood with rough, red bark; yields a golden grain of decorative value; common to the southern Ramains
  
• Jezebet: title given usually to a woman; resident of the Council’s Keep; person trained in the arts of lifebonding shadowmates
  
• jumier: a fowl native to the Ramains’ northern districts
  
• Khirla: Dracoon’s capital in the Ramains’ southeasterly district Khirlan
  
• lexion: a domesticated fowl raised for its meat; common to farms of the Northern Continent
  
• lifestone: an opal-like energy stone often found amidst limestone deposits in the Northern Continent; used by the Council in lifebonding shadowmates
  
• mala´: a female slave or bond-servant of the Ramains whose duties are reserved for the household and bedroom
  
• Maltar: the ruling family of the northern half of the Northern Continent; term may refer to both ruler and country of rule
  
• men-cats: male eitteh; cat-like savages of impaired intelligence; isolated inhabitants of mountain ranges on the Northern Continent
  
• mesta: an amber, thick skinned fruit with a tart, meaty pulp; a fruit pod cultivated by farmers in the Northern Continent
  
• midnight moon: the second of the Twin Moons to rise on any given night
  
• Min: a generic title for women in the Ramains; conceptually similar to “ma’am”
  
• milkdeer: middle-sized, long necked mammal native to the Ramains; frequently domesticated for its milk
  
• monarc: a standard division of four ten-days; conceptually equivalent to ‘a month’
  
• mumut: a spice leaf grown chiefly in the lower districts of the Ramains
  
• Mother, the: Goddess; omnipotent, nurturing Female Deity; Birthmother of the Universe
  
• pack bond: empathic understanding of personal commitments; empathic bond of sandwolves used to define familial units (see sandwolf)
  
• pripper: a small, tree-dwelling feline; known for its comical antics and bushy coat; frequently found domesticated in Ramains’ cities
  
• Royal Marshall: special emissaries of the Ramains’ Royal Family; originally banded to protect travelers; duties expanded to provide districts with legal and military resolutions, to supply the Royal Court with information from outlying districts
  
• sandwolf: sentient canine, originally native to the Southern Continent, which instinctively imprints at birth to one or more sentient others to provide an emotional, empathic bond in developing protective behaviors and communication skills (see pack bond)
  
• schefea: a middle-sized, hooved mammal native to the northern mountains; a scavenger with protruding tusks and venomous saliva glands
  
• Seers: those gifted with the Blue Sight who are bound to Aggar’s lifecycles and no longer capable of individual thoughts or actions; directed by the Council of Ten, crafters of Aggar’s landscapes; mystics
  
• silverwood: (silverpine) a hardwood conifer with smooth, silver-green bark and grey-green needles; common to the Ramains foothills and mountain regions
  
• single moon: synonymous with monarc; the close of each monarc is marked by a night in which only one of the Twin Moons is visible — this night is referred to as “the single moon”
  
• Ramains: a liberal monarchy uniting most of the Northern Continent; borders the Council’s lands and the Clan’s territory
  
• Tad: generic title for men in the Ramains; conceptually similar to “sir”
  
• tinker-trade: a traveling merchant member of the Traders’ Guild
  
• ten-day: standard division of days; conceptually equivalent to “a week”
  
• tenmoon season: (a season or a tenmoon) a standard division of monarcs; roughly equivalent to two Terran years; name arises from the ten single-moon nights experienced within the planet’s completion of one orbit around its sun
  
• torin: a broad leafed fern; an edible plant commonly found in the wooded ranges of the Northern Continent
  
• Traders’ Guild, the: a merchant union supported by membership dues that promotes the fair exchange of market goods; endorsed by the Desert Peoples, Ramains, Council and Valley Bay the union may provide arbitrators, bonded transport agents, and travel lodging to supplement regional resources
  
• Twin Moons: the two planetoids orbiting Aggar’s globe; associated with the Mother’s watchful care
  
• Unseen Wall: an unidentified energy field controlled by the Seers; the border of the Terran Base Quadrant, ordered by the Council of Ten
  
• Valley Bay: the settlement of the Sisterhood; located near the White Isles, isolated from the Northern Continent by the Firecaps; governed by the Ring of Valley Bay and bound to the home world through the Blue Sighted gifts of the Ring’s Binder.
  
• White Isles of Fire, the: the archipelagos; a group of volcanic islands extending off the eastern Firecaps of the Northern Continent; origin of the Council and Seers
  
• Wine of Decisions: a spiced wine containing a natural drug known to prompt the visions of the Blue Sight
  
• winged-cats: female eitteh; highly intelligent, cat-like flyers; advocates of Ramains’ rule, the Council, and Valley Bay cultures
  

• Amazon: a Sister choosing to work/settle outside of the Sisterhood’s jurisdiction
  
• ann: Take note!; to emphasis thoughts or ideas; a verbal exclamation point
  
• be: far, distant
  
• beasties: a large, wooly mammal with horns, usually copper-orange in color, descended from stock brought to Aggar for Valley Bay’s original settlement
  
• bin: between, to (from)
  
• Cee: customs, the ways of a people
  
• cheroan: to make safe, to protect
  
• coraen: to treasure, to find precious
  
• Coramee: daughter
  
• crone: a wise elder among healers n’Shea
  
• dey: article or pronoun inferring respect; “we,” “our” or “the”
  
• duen: to do kindly; to act with concern
  
• Dumauz: (plural: — en) a kind-hearted individual; a concerned friend
  
• Feast of Helen: the anniversary celebration of the Sisterhood’s first born child; celebration of unity and independence
  
• felan: using, doing, creating (with)
  
• Founding, the: the original planetary colonization of dey Sorormin under the Galactic Terran Empire; settlement of the home world
  
• Helen: red star of dey Sorormin’s home solar system; firstborn of the Founding on the home world, leader of n’Sappho during early negotiations to retain independence (see Founding, the)
  
• Houses of dey Sorormin: surnames of Sisters, designating family and/or skills; six of Seven Houses recall ancient goddesses of Terran lore (n’Athena: guardians (Greek), n’Awehai: crafters (Iroquois), n’Hina: agricultural providers (Polynesian), n’Huitaca: artists (Chibcha), n’Minona: historians/teachers (Dahomey), n’Shea: healers (Irish); First House of dey Sorormin (n’Sappho: legislative leaders) recalls a Terran stateswoman of Greece)
  
• Kahmee: little daughter; a very young girl
  
• Kahn: dawn, sunrise
  
• kamak: is made, is finished, brought to completion
  
• Kau: you (singular)
  
• ki: yours (possessive)
  
• kumin: to join together
  
• m’ : as, of, springing from
  
• m’Sormee: birth mother; (literally) from the woman’s life
  
• mae: dear, precious
  
• Maez: dear one, precious loved one
  
• “mae n’Pour”: ‘give me strength’ (an idiom); used in angry cursing or frustrated prayer to the Holy Goddess
  
• Mau: (plural: — en) heart
  
• Mee: life
  
• Minmee: birth; carries a sacred connotation of creating or lifegiving
  
• n’ : of (possessive)
  
• n’Sormee: parenting mother or guardian; (literally) of the woman’s life
  
• Niachero: Daughter of the Stars; descriptive of Sisters who genetically resemble those n’Athena who negotiated the settlement of Valley Bay; Amazons who led the space protectors to save Aggar during the fall of the Galactic Terran Empire
  
• nehna: so-then; then-it-happened-that; a prompt for more information
  
• nor: past; did happen
  
• Pour: strength, stability; virtuous
  
• Quinn: peace, tranquility; absence of violence
  
• quitan: to nurture; to tend with compassion
  
• ret: cruelty, cruelness; harm
  
• sae: please; request
  
• Sak: intelligence; cleverness
  
• shea: a healer of the House n’Shea; a witch, frequently one closely bound to Nature; a mistress of love potions; possessor of the evil eye;
  
• Sheaz: earth, world; components of a nurturing Earthmother Creator
  
• Shekhina: the moon of Helen’s second planet; a hi-tech moonbase which once hosted the diplomatic contacts between dey Sorormin and the now dissolved Galactic Empire; recalls a Terran goddess of ancient Judaic lore, a divine image of woman
  
• Sor: woman
  
• Soroe: friend, dear companion
  
• Soroi: loved one; lover; beloved
  
• Sororian: native tongue of dey Sorormin
  
• Sorormin, dey: proper name of The Sisterhood; colonizers of Aggar’s Valley Bay; an off-worlder culture of women (see Helen)
  
• suehn: to lose; to misplace
  
• Tau: me
  
• ti: my (possessive)
  
• tizmar: to remain, to settle; to unite or join together
  
• vara: adamant denial, no; refusal; expression of protest
  
• vu: very little, few; a small number
  
• z’ : for; with
  
• “Z’ ki Sak, Diana!”: ‘by your wits, goddess!’ (an idiom); expression of regret or disbelief