Hiero Desteen: 01 - Hiero's Journey (51 page)

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 a
l
l 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,

Kaw:
A beast of burden used south of the Inland Sea, both for agriculture and raising, as is the Korean ox of today. A large bovine, probably an almost unaltered member of some ancient stock of domestic cattle.

Killman:
A highly trained warrior of the Metz Republic, who has taken intensive training, much of it psychological, in warfare and the use of all known weapons. Killmen are officers of the Frontier Guards automatically, but also rangers of the forest and special agents of the Abbey hierarchy. Hiero is unusual, though not exceptional, in also being a priest and exorcist. This combination of talents is highly approved but rare.

Lantik Sea, the:
The Atlantic Ocean, though with a much-altered western shoreline. No records exist of any trans-Atlantic contacts for over three thousand years.

Leemute:
A word meaning an animal, or other nonhuman creature of human intelligence, which serves the Unclean. Gorm, the bear, would never be described as a Leemute, nor would the Dam People. The word is a corruption of the phrase "lethal mutation," meaning an animal which cannot survive to replicate under natural conditions, but its meaning is now altered to mean "inimical to normal humanity," and even normal life of all kinds. New varieties (such as the frog creatures Hiero found) are continually appearing as discoveries spread. Not all such new finds are Leemutes, however.

Lowan:
A species of incredibly large, flightless water birds, fish eaters and divers, which are found in remote areas of the Inland Sea. Though very shy, Lowan have few enemies, since an adult can reach eighty feet in length, with weight in proportion. They are uncommon, and thought by many to be a legend.

Lucinoge:
An Abbey drug, used to enhance the spiritual powers of its adepts and priests, especially when they are seeking mind contact. Also a relaxant and, in small amounts, sleep-inducing.

Manoon (the Dead Isle):
A rocky island in the north-central Inland Sea, the place of Hiero's captivity. One of the main headquarters of the Dark Brotherhood's Blue Circle.

Man-rats:
Giant, man-sized rodents of high intelligence, a ferocious type of Leemute, much used as warriors by the Unclean. Probably mutated
R
attus norvegicus,
which they resemble in all but brains and bulk.

Metz:
The dominant race of Kanda. A corruption of the ancient word
Metis,
a term used for a racial stock of mixed Caucasian and Amerindian strains. The Spanish word
mestizo
has the same root and means the same thing. The Metz survived The Death in an undue proportion to other races, mainly due to rural isolation and the fact that they existed in small, somewhat isolated groups, in more remote areas. Atomic and bacteriological blights thus slew relatively few. The Otwah League Metz tend to be lighter in color, due to more Caucasian genes.

Morse:
The basic riding and plow animal (though only scrub stock is used for the latter) of the Metz Republic, which first bred them, and, to a lesser degree, of the Otwah League. A very large and intelligent variety of the present-day moose, the largest member of the deer family. (Moose have been tamed For riding and carriage pulling in modern Scandinavia, though not often.)

Mu'amans:
Non-Christian, non-church-linked followers of a separate form of monotheism. Apparently confined to the kingdom of D'alwah; in the main, stockbreeders, who live on the western plains of the kingdom. (See Davids.)

Namcush:
Port on the western border of the Inland Sea. Much trade passes through it, but it is full of rogues as well, slavers and pirates seeking a place to dispose of loot. Both the Abbeys and the Unclean use it to spy on one another.

Neeyana:
The largest port in the southeastern area of the Inland Sea. Though legitimate trade passes through it, the Unclean actually rule, through a merchants' council dominated by t heir appointees. In fact, the main headquarters of the Yellow Circle of the Dark Brotherhood is buried
under
the town, No one untouched by evil lingers in Neeyana. (Possibly a corruption o
f
"Indiana.")

Otwah League:
The eastern sister state of the Metz Republic. The League, which takes its name from ancient Ottawa, is smaller than the Republic, from which it is separated by a vast expanse of wild land and Taig, through which run few roads. Hut close contact is maintained as well as possible, and the Abbeys are a unified structure in both, serving the League government in the same capacity as in the Republic,

Palood, the;
Greatest of all the northern marshes, the Palood stretches for hundreds of miles along the northern edge of the Inland Sea, It is avoided even by the Unclean, and many strange forms of life not found elsewhere exist in its trackless vastnesses. Terrible fevers often wrack those who venture in, and its boundaries are largely uncharted.

Per:
Corruption of "Father." Title of respect for a priest of the Kandan Universal Church.

Poros:
Monstrous, four-tusked herbivore of the great southern forest, perhaps twenty feet tall at the shoulder. Its ancestry is unknown.

Snakeheads:
Giant, omnivorous reptiles, found in small herds in the depths of the southern forests. Primarily eaters of soft herbage and fruit, they will also devour carrion and anything else slow enough to be caught. Something very like a bipedal dinosaur, though bred from some smaller
reptile of the pre-Death days.

Snapper:
Seemingly the living snapping turtle, grown to the size of a small car. A universal pest of any large body of water, being ferocious and almost invulnerable.

Taig, the:
The great coniferous forest of Kanda, not too unlike that of today, but containing many more deciduous trees and even a few palms. The trees run larger on the average than those of today, though nowhere near the size of those in the far South.

Unclean, the:
A general term meaning the Dark Brotherhood and all its servants and allies, as well as other life which seeks, through intelligent direction, to destroy normal humanity and to subvert natural law for evil purposes.

Were-bears:
A little-known variety of Leemute. Not truly a bear at all, but a sort of grisly, night-prowling monster, short-furred and possessed of strange mental powers by which it lures victims to their doom. The things have been glimpsed only once or twice. Though
of
the Unclean, they seem to be allies rather than servants. Their origin is unknown. Fortunately, they seem rare.

-

-

Sterling E. Lanier, was born in 1927, graduated from Harvard in 1951. When he was an editor at Chilton in the 60s he published Frank Herbert's
Dune
, which went on to become one of the great bestsellers of all time. Lanier was trained as an anthropologist-archeologist. He is also a well-known sculptor whose work is on exhibit in several museums, including the Smithsonian. He lives in Maryland.

* * * * * *

STRANGE SACRIFICE

The first thing Hiero saw was a dark-skinned, almost naked girl, tied to a stake by a twisted rawhide perhaps fifty feet long. Her body was a sweat-oiled blaze of movement as she sprang and crouched, ducked and spun, in her hopeless battle against the giant birds. Eight of those circled above, slashing with savage beaks at the leashed prisoner. A long, bloody wound on her back showed that she had not warded off all attacks.

To one side, an audience of kilted men screamed encouragement to the winged death threatening the girl. Their cries were taken up by the birds, who swooped again, drowning out the human yowling. Then suddenly, all noise ceased and the arena fell silent in shocked surprise.

With a yell, Hiero sent his great moose into full charge!

H
IERO'S

J
OURNEY

A ROMANCE OF THE FUTURE

--◊--

STERLING E. LANIER

DEL
REY

A DEL REY BOOK

BALLANTINE BOOKS – NEW YORK

A Del Rey Book

Published by Ballantine Books

Copyright 1973 by Sterling E. Lanier

All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.