City of Saints and Madmen

— A —

AANDALAY, ISLE OF. The mythic homeland of the piratical Aan Tribes. According to the tales of the Aan, the Southern Hemisphere once consisted of a single landmass, the Isle of Aandalay, populated solely by the happy, peaceful Children of Aan. Only after a great cataclysm — the nature of which varies more from tale to tale than the weather in that part of the world — shattered the Isle into a thousand pieces did the Aan become warlike, each faction certain they possessed the mandate for restoration of a united Isle of Aandalay. Thus did piracy become rationalized as a quest for a homeland. Some Aan even attacked the mainland, claiming it was merely a huge splinter exiled from their beloved Isle. See also: Calabrian Calendar.

ABRASIS, MICHAEL. The first head librarian of the Manzikert Memorial Library. Abrasis is best known for his collection of erotic literature and lithographs. When he died, in his sleep, his body could not at first be removed from his apartment because the piles of pornography had blocked the only route from bed to door. Oddly enough, by the time Abrasis’ relatives came to collect his things, the apartment had been picked clean. Abrasis bred prize-winning cababari in his spare time. See also: Cababari; Manzikert Memorial Library.

ALBUMUTH BOULEVARD. A rather famous thoroughfare cutting through the heart of Ambergris.

The site of both the Borges Bookstore and the headquarters of Hoegbotton & Sons,Albumuth Boulevard has long been privy to the inner workings of the Festival of the Freshwater Squid. During the civil disturbances of the Reds and the Greens,Albumuth Boulevard served as the main battlefield. Certainly the recent armed struggle between Hoegbotton’s publishing arm and the inscrutable Frankwrithe & Lewden could not have occurred without the events that first unfolded on the boulevard. No one can agree on the origin of the name “Albumuth,” or on the limits of the boulevard. As Sirin once said, “Like the Moth,Albumuth Boulevard has a thousand tributaries and streams, so that, ultimately, who can determine its boundaries or the limits of its influence?” See also: Borges Bookstore; Cappers; Frankwrithe& Lewden; Greens; Reds; Sirin.

ALFAR. The ruins of Alfar form, with Zamilon, the only recorded instances of a particular architectural style reminiscent of gray cap buildings. Most structures at both Alfar and Zamilon have been constructed as circles within circles. Alfar, like Zamilon, is of unknown origin, but an additional peculiar tale is told by shepherds in both places: that, on certain nights, Alfar and Zamilon glow iridescent green and red, a sheen that spreads and intensifies so slowly that observers cannot at first recognize the change, but finally cannot doubt the evidence of their eyes. No one has as yet confirmed this claim independently, nor has anyone thought to time these “eruptions” of color, one to the other. What would it mean if Alfar and Zamilon became luminous on the same nights? See also: Busker, Alan; Nysman, Michael; Zamilon.

AMBERGRIS. In folklore, a marbled substance often found on the seashore and thought to be a “sea mushroom.” Actually produced in the intestine of whales, ambergris can only be created when partially-digested squid beaks are present in the whale’s system. Whalers long sought ambergris for use as an aphrodisiac, in perfumes, and as a folk medicine. Since the founding of the city ofAmbergris, however, the popularity of the substance has decreased dramatically. The Truffidian Antechambers discontinued the habit of anointing their ears, eyebrows, and armpits with a tincture of ambergris before holiday sermons. The Kalif no longer eats raw ambergris to stimulate virility, substituting live snails. Male rats, however, still enter a sexual frenzy when they smell ambergris. See also: Kalif, The; Moonrat; Rats.

AMBERGRISIAN GASTRONOMIC ASSOCIATION. Founded during the days of Trillian the Great Banker, the AGA has published a number of books, including One Thousand Squid Recipes and Experiments with Different Types of Grease. The association achieved a degree of notoriety by uncovering the lost ingredients for Oliphaunt’s Delight: 1 pound of cherries, 17 pounds of freshwater squid, 20 gallons of goat’s milk, 5 pounds of fish paste (preferably flounder) and 1 ounce of asparagus. See also: Oliphaunt, The.

AMBERGRISIAN HISTORICAL SOCIETY. Completely unlike the Ambergrisians for the Original Inhabitants Society. The most adventure this group has seen is undercooked flounder at the annual Ambergrisian Historical Society Ball and the occasional paper cut (sweet red relief from boredom!) opening mail sent by similar dullards located in Morrow andStockton. See also: Ambergrisians for the Original Inhabitants Society.

AMBERGRISIANS FOR THE ORIGINAL INHABITANTS SOCIETY. Completely unlike the Ambergrisian Historical Society. Never has membership in a historical society been so fraught with peril. Every two or three years, another few members succumb to the temptation to pry open a manhole cover and go spelunking amongst the sewer drains. Inevitably, someone gets stuck in a culvert and the others go for help, or the gray caps, presumably, catch them and they disappear forever. One imagines the hapless AFTOIS members waving their official membership cards at the approaching, unimpressed gray caps. When not conspiring to commit assisted suicide, the AFTOIS publishes The Real History Newsletter. See also: Cappers; Martigan, Red; Real History Newsletter, The.

— B —

BANFOURS, ARCH DUKE OF. Best known for being the first to bombard Ambergris with cannon fire. He ruled Ambergris for exactly 21 days. While sitting at a sidewalk cafe, surrounded by his bodyguards, a waiter casually walked up behind him and slit his throat. There appears to have been no particular motivation for the assassination except for the usual engrained Ambergrisian dislike of foreigner interlopers. See also: Occupation, The.

BANKER WARRIORS. This sect, comprising the most feared of Trillian’s followers, grew out of the predations of highway robbery. Due to the rise of the merchant classes, large quantities of money had to be physically moved from one city to another. Generally, a banker’s representative accompanied this transfer. Early transfers met with disaster. After years of robberies and payoffs to avoid robberies, the position of banker’s representative evolved from paper-pusher to hardened veteran of weapons’ training. By the time Trillian rose to power through the Ambergrisian banking system, the banker representatives had become a powerful, feared security force. Trillian himself named them the Banker Warriors and used them to consolidate his hold over Ambergris. Also influential in repelling attacks by the Kalif. Eventually assimilated into the Ambergris Defense Force, at which time women were excluded from participation. Several of these women (including the noted strategist Rebecca Gort, munitions expert Kathleen Lynch, and fencing master Susan Dickerson) founded their own chain of banks, bought several other businesses, and moved to Morrow, where they became the core of the most feared security force on the continent. The Ambergris Defense Force, on the other hand, perished to the last man during the Kalif’s invasion. See also: Frankwrithe & Lewden; Gort, Marmey; Kalif, The; Occupation, The; Trillian, The Great Banker.

BEDLAM ROVERS. A southern ethnic group, known for living on house boats and incorporated at an early date into the Saphant Empire. These mystics thrived after the collapse of the empire, adopting their nomadic aquatic life to the River Moth and turning their seasonal perambulations into a lucrative business.

Cloaking their mysterious religious tendencies in a veneer of the rational and scientific, the Rovers have developed a reputation as experts on madness and cast themselves in the role of “psychiatrists,” much to the dismay of the mental health establishment in Ambergris. The Rovers’ riverboats, topped with a multitude of light blue flags and crowded with mentally unstable customers, usually arrive in Ambergris for a fresh batch of patients the week after the Festival of the Freshwater Squid. See also: Festival of the Freshwater Squid, The; Saphant Empire, The.

BENDER, VOSS. A composer of operas, requiems, and minor rhymes, who, for a period of time, transcended his status as a cultural icon to become a politician and the unoffi cial ruler of Ambergris. His suspicious death spawned a civil war between the Greens, his most fanatical followers, and the Reds, his most fervent enemies. Famous for his defiant speech to the merchant barons during which he exclaimed, “Art always transforms money!” His many operas include The Tragedy of John & Sophia, The King Under ground,Hymns for the Dead, Wilted As the Flower Lay, and his masterpiece, Trillian. Bender wrote an autobiography, Memoirs of a Composer, which contains more information on his early life. See also: Greens; Midnight for Munfroe; Nunk, Autarch of; Reds.

BIBBLE, MAXWELL. The owner of a restaurant supply business who changed careers at age 35 to become an art critic. Bibble’s specialty was deep psychological profiles of artists based solely on their artwork. Best known for his misguided and fatuous attempts to identifyMartinLake as a member of a squid cult. For a time, Bibble was one of the most influential of the critics associated with the New Art movement, although he was unpopular with most New Artists. However, he died in poverty, using copies of his reviews to feed a fire during one of Ambergris’ freak cold spells. The sculptor William Blaze took a plaster cast of Bibble’s body, pasted his reviews on the outside of the cast, and exhibited the piece as “The Exhaustion of Criticism”—thereby reviving interest in Bibble’s writings. See also: New Art, The.

BLGKKYDKS, HECKIRA. A Haragck military officer today best known for his oil paintings of remote landscapes. He often painted during campaigns and thus the paintings also have historical significance. The night before the Haragck amphibious assault on Ambergris, he completed preliminary sketches for a piece he intended to call “The Sack of Ambergris.” During the ensuing rout, these sketches came into the possession of the Ambergris navy. For 20 years they were displayed at theMorhaimMuseum, but the trader Michael Hoegbotton found them so compelling that, after the Haragck had largely faded as a political/cultural force, he paid Blgkkydks to live in Ambergris for a year to complete the actual painting. Poverty-stricken, the old general reluctantly agreed, but fell so in love with Ambergris that he lived out his remaining years there. He eventually became a fixture ofAlbumuth Boulevard, his craggy visage and rickety easel noted on tourist maps of the period. See also: Grnnck, Haragck Khan;MorhaimMuseum.

BORGES BOOKSTORE. The oldest purveyor of printed words in Ambergris, thrice during its long history burned to the ground. Founded by and named after the Nicean brothers Bormund and Gestrand Kubtek, the Borges Bookstore has served many political and social functions over the years. During the conflict between the Reds and the Greens, Bender sympathizers hid in its basement. Before Festivals, patrons can book “reading slots” along its shelves, for it is well known that the gray caps will not pass the threshold. The westerner Kamal Bakar witnessed the third fire, set by looters during the 300th Festival of the Freshwater Squid, one of the worst in memory: “The sky was darkened by the smoke from the books; burned pages floated up into the air and fluttered back down again like a black snowfall all over the city. Those who caught a sheet could feel the heat and fleetingly read what had the strange appearance of a black-and-white dagguereotype. Once the heat had dissipated, the pages crumbled away between our fingers.” See also: Albumuth Boulevard; Bender, Voss; Burning Leaves; Festival of the Freshwater Squid; Greens; Reds.

BRUEGHEL, MICHAEL. John Manzikert’s nemesis eventually united the islands of the Aan despite several times coming close to total defeat. During his 50 years of rule, Brueghel not only annihilated the Kalif’s troops in three historic naval battles, forever relegating the Kalif’s ambitions to the continent, but also established an oligarchic form of government that served the Aan well for the next three generations. Perhaps his greatest achievement was to collect the remnants of the Saphant Empire under his aegis, preserving scientific and cultural advances that would otherwise have been lost. In later years, descendents of Brueghel, calling themselves Brueghelites, would seize large portions of the River Moth to the south of Ambergris and threaten Ambergrisian autonomy. See also: Calabrian Calendar; Kalif, The; Saltwater Buzzard; Saphant Empire, The.

BUBBABAUNCE, BARON. The real name of the circus performer “Bauble.” See also: Hellatose & Bauble; Kodfan, M.; Madnok, Frederick.

BURNING LEAVES. A controversial arts journal, known for publishing macabre, disturbing fictions and illustrations. Published by the Borges Bookstore until the editors printed their infamous Black Tract, which included a perverse “map” of Voss Bender’s naked body, diagramming the various worth of different parts and with short-short stories written about each part (most infamous: Sporlender’s “Tree with Nuts”). Since then, the journal has been funded entirely by advertising and newsstand sales. Burning Leaves published the first works by such future luminaries as Louis Verden, Nicholas Sporlender,MartinLake, and Janice Shriek, as well as the obscene mechanical diagrams of the eccentric inventor known simply as Porfal. The premiere issue featured Corvid Quork’s short story “The Madness of Bird Masks.” See also: Bender, Voss; Borges Bookstore; Sporlender, Nicholas.

BUSKER, ALAN. Busker, long known as a fanatical (and often quite critical) traveler in both the north and south, may also have been a spy for theKingdomofMorrow. Certainly, there was a time when Busker’s travels among the northern cities resulted in disaster — Stockton, Belezar, Dovetown, and Tratnor all fell to Morrow shortly after Busker’s visits to them. Most famous for attempting to enter the Kalif’sHolyCity by impersonating the Kalif himself. Some historians believe Busker spent a number of months in Alfar and Zamilon, his other journeys undertaken to provide cover for his true activities — research into the link between the gray caps and the monks of Zamilon. See also: Alfar; Kalif, The; Stockton; Zamilon.

— C —

CABABARI. Long-snouted, foul-smelling, fungus-eating, dirt-seeking pigs instrumental in the ouster of Trillian the Great Banker as ruler of Ambergris. See also: Fungus; Trillian the Great Banker.

CALABRIAN CALENDAR. A wonder of inefficiency that used an estimated count of the various islands the Isle of Aandalay had fragmented into as the number of days in its year. Months were named after the nearly unpronounceable monikers of old Aan leaders, but the names of months changed as new leaders rose and fell, with the result that many Aan towns employed month-tellers whose sole function was to untangle the knots of names. Making the situation more confusing, each group of Aan on each island began to name their months differently. The charts created by the month-finders began to dwarf those used by mathematicians and mapmakers. Several wars were fought over the allocation of days and months, including the famous War of the Three-Day Weekend, which left over 10,000 people forever unable to enjoy even a one-day weekend. Eventually, under the rule of Michael Brueghel, a reunited Aan people scrapped the Calabrian Calendar altogether in favor of the Kalif’s calendar, itself based on the old Saphant Empire’s calendar. Thousands of month-finders had to seek out other careers. Their color-coded charts still reside in many wealthy art collectors’ mansions, although the largest collection can be found in theMorhaimMuseum. See also: Aandalay, Isle of; Brueghel, Michael; Morhaim Museum.

CAPPERS. Individuals hired to clean the sewers. The profession requires nerve and cunning, due to the likelihood of encountering gray caps. The most dangerous duty involves rolling a huge metal-and-wood ball down the main stretch of Ambergris sewer, which runs roughly the length ofAlbumuth Boulevard. The purpose of rolling the ball (nicknamed “The Monster”) — an invention of Porfal’s — is to remove all impediments from the sewer. Sometimes, those rolling the ball will be surprised by a semi-crushed but still deadly piece of fungus or gray cap. The leaders of capper teams are called “martigans.” See also: Albumuth Boulevard; Martigan, Red; Monster, The; Porfal.

CAROLINE OF THE CHURCH OF THE SEVEN-POINTED STAR. A heretic from Nicea who left the Cult of the Seven-Edged Star to found her own religion. Unlike the Cult of the Seven-Edged Star, the Church of the Seven-Pointed Star believed that God had seven points rather than seven edges.

Therefore, rather than worshipping the journey toward self-realization symbolized by the edges, they worshipped the goals of self-realization as symbolized by the points. The specific points Caroline adhered to were: celibacy (during certain times of the year, if absolutely necessary), truth, beauty, self-realization, self-worth, love of others, and good hygiene (in some translations from the sacred text, literally, “negation of body odor through soapy immersions”). Adherents to the Church of the Seven-Pointed Star used swords with sharp points but no edge, while the Cult of the Seven-Edged Star used swords with sharp edges but no point. Alas, edges proved superior to points in most battles fought in the streets of Nicea.

Caroline’s followers were forced to either commit sacrilege and switch to edges, or become meals for the ever-present saltwater buzzard. Proving, one could say, the point of the edges. See also: Mikal, Dray; Saltwater Buzzard.

CHURCH OF THE FISHERMAN. Fish worshippers who abstain from eating “our watery brethren”

but attain religious ecstasy by catching them and setting them free. Although the Odecca Bichoral White Whale is a mammal not a fish, the biology-challenged adherents of this religion have made it the centerpiece of their spiritual life. The high priest, or Fish Head, delivers his sermons from a lopsided marble altar chiseled to resemble the whale’s head. Of late, Church of the Fisherman worshippers have been implicated in a series of crimes, from stealing dead fish on display at the markets and releasing them back into the River Moth, to freeing Odecca whales from the Daffed Zoo. See also: Citizen Fish Campaign; Daffed Zoo; Odecca Bichoral White Whale.

CITIZEN FISH CAMPAIGN. A practical joke, staged by the writer Sirin, seeking to replace the current Truffidian Antechamber with a stinking, five-day-old freshwater bass during the Holy Elections (held every decade). Sirin and his New Art friends created campaign posters featuring the dead bass, delivered stirring speeches in its name, and paraded the candidate around Ambergris on a cart. When the dead fish placed second as a write-in candidate in a field of eight, Sirin and his cohorts had to flee the city for a short period due to threats of physical violence. Groups offended included the Truffidian priesthood and the Church of the Fisherman (which felt Sirin’s real aim was to ridicule the fish they held sacred). See also: Church of the Fisherman; New Art, The; Sirin.

COOKS OF KALAY. A clan of professional cooks who lived in the far western reaches of the Kalif’s Empire, near the mountain fortress of Kalay. During frequent famines, these cooks learned to prepare meals from such unlikely items of sustenance as shoe leather, belts, grass, flowers, shirts, dirt, earthworms, and insects. Such was their prowess, according to legend, that when the famines passed, people still came to Kalay just to eat dirt. They became so famous that the Kalif forcibly transplanted the entire family to his palace at Vonaril, where they still languish, forced for generation after generation to cater to the Kalif’s every craving for a midnight dinner or afternoon snack. See also: Kalif, The.

— D —

DAFFED, XAVER. An excellent observer of animal behavior whose reputation in recent years has been sullied by accusations he became too intimately involved with his subject matter. Daffed published numerous books on animals of the southern climes, including Diaryof an Aardvark, My Life Among the Sand Turtles of the Moth River Delta, A History of Animals, Vols. I–X, and The Hoegbotton Guide to Small, Indigenous Mammals. He was found dead, of an apparent heart attack, in the tropical mountains near Nicea, wearing only a wooly monkey suit, several perplexed wooly monkeys watching from the nearby bushes. See also: Cababari; Daffed Zoo; Hoegbotton Guide to Small, Indigenous Mammals, The.

DAFFED ZOO. Founded by Xaver Daffed shortly before his death, his work completed by daughter Sarah Daffed, the Daffed Zoo has, over the years, hosted a wide assortment of the strangest animals ever seen, including the common banded snakblooter, the pigmy sanfangle, the red-and-white slout, and the metigulamated ratpig. Specializing in exotics, the zoo has at times fallen into disrepair and been closed for the public’s safety. The zoo has also suffered from such outlandish claims as those promulgated by Xaver’s great-grandson, Thomas Daffed, who, shortly before his death, hosted a rather redundant fungi exhibit that was to include a “fungal creature” he claimed to have caught near the ruined monastery-fortress of Zamilon, but which never made an appearance. More recently, the zoo’s Odecca Bichoral White Whale exhibit was ruined when, in a daring raid, members of the Church of the Fisherman stole the centerpiece of the exhibit: the world’s only captive Odecca Bichoral White Whale. See also: Church of the Fisherman; Daffed, Xaver; Odecca Bichoral White Whale; Zamilon.

DEFECATION, ORDER OF. The most reviled of the orders, although perhaps not the most disgusting. See also: Living Saints.

DISPOSSESSED. Some of the Ambergrisians “dispossessed” of their families because of The Silence became strange and fey to their friends. They would dig up animal bones, eat strange fungus, and visit graveyards, claiming to hear their brothers, sisters, sons, daughters, fathers, mothers, calling to them from the ground. In later years, these individuals became the official Dispossessed, wandering from place to place and burying the bones of their dead in the walls of buildings that others had boarded up after The Silence. For more than 70 years, these urban nomads roamed like lost souls, living by ever more desperate means, their numbers dwindling until they finally disappeared from the city. See also: Fungus.

DREADFUL TALES. A magazine of horror adventure tales published and edited by exploiter extraordinaire Mathew Palwine. Palwine’s stable of authors included such hacks as Rachel Thorland, Gerrold Picklin, and Saltzbert Flounder. Dreadful Tales became popular chiefly due to the proliferation of typographical errors among its pages, which made it the darling of the “found object” adherents of the New Art movement. Nicholas Sporlender, among others, found cruel sport in writing letters to the editor on such subjects as “Why the Untoward Removal (Twice!) of a Very Important Vowel From the Word ‘Countless’ in Saltzbert Flounder’s Story ‘Tortured Love in the Middle Distance’ Renders the Author’s Vision Bleak Rather than Maudlin.” See also: Midnight for Munfroe; New Art, The; Sporlender, Nicholas.

— E —

EJACULATIONS, ORDER OF. The most pleasurable yet socially-unacceptable of the Orders. See also: Living Saints.

— F —

FESTIVAL OF THE FRESHWATER SQUID, THE. A celebration specific to Ambergris that has, on occasion, led to untoward incidents.

FIGHTING PHILOSOPHER, THE. See: Peterson, Richard.

FISH HEAD. Holy. Or rotting. Incidental to the Citizen Fish campaign. See also: Church of the Fisherman.

FLATULENCE, ORDER OF. The most deadly of the Orders. See also: Living Saints.

FRANKWRITHE & LEWDEN. A devious and conniving publishing company run by L. Gaudy and his family. Known for their insidious marketing strategies and accused by some of collaborating with the gray caps. Frankwrithe & Lewden was founded during the waning days of the Saphant Empire and claims to be the oldest publisher still extant on the Southern Continent. Books published by F&L have been banned by the Truffidian Antechamber of Ambergris 43 times. Most recently, as F&L has expanded into areas other than bookselling, it has been engaged in what amounts to a war with H&S over ownership ofSophiaIsland. See also: Albumuth Boulevard; Banker Warriors;Manzikert Memorial Library; Midnight for Munfroe; Saphant Empire, The;SophiaIsland.

FUNGUS. A type of spore-reproducing “plant” that is usually quite harmless. One of Samuel Tonsure’s favorite words — the most frequently-appearing word in his journal after the words “the,” “a,” “and,” “that,” “blood,” and “fear.” James Lacond, backed by evidence discovered in Marmey Gort’s copious notes, has postulated that the gray caps have grown a giant fungus below the southern half of Ambergris. According to Lacond, this fungus started as a single spore but, using black shoestring filaments to expand, now covers 2,000 acres and has a width of three feet. By mapping fungal concentrations of the golden mushrooms that pop up after rainfall — the physical manifestation of the “Monster” as Lacond calls it — he drew a controversial outline of its expanse that is strikingly similar to a mushroom in shape (now on display at the Morhaim Museum). Many trees in the city may actually be hollow husks, according to Lacond, their insides infiltrated by fungal spies. Lacond has not offered any theories as to the purpose behind this huge fungus, whether evil or benign. See also: Cababari; Dispossessed, The; Gort, Marmey; Lacond, James; Monster, The;MorhaimMuseum.

FUNGUS SHIP, THE. See: Thrush, The.

— G —

GALLERY OF HIDDEN FASCINATIONS. A gallery often considered the flagship of the ideals of the New Art, founded by Janice Shriek. When it closed, the New Art movement lost its momentum and eventually fragmented into a number of splinter groups, including the Found Art movement, the Body Art movement (enthusiastically endorsed by the Living Saints), and the controversial Shadow Art movement.

See also: Living Saints; New Art, The; Shadow Art Movement, The.

GLARING, MAXWELL. The author of Midnight for Munfroe, The Problem With Krotch, Munfroe’s Return, Krotch Strikes Back, Munfroe Reborn, Krotch Reborn, Krotch’s Triumph,Munfroe’s Legacy, Krotch’s World, Son of Munfroe, Krotch’s Last Stand, A Krotchless World, Krotch’s Legacy, Son of Munfroe II, Krotch and Munfroe: The Lost Memoirs, and, posthumously, The End of the Legacy of Krotch and Munfroe. See also : Bender, Voss; Krotch; Munfroe; Midnight for Munfroe.

GORT, MARMEY. Marmey Gort kept minutely detailed records of city inhabitants’ sanitary habits, including their storage of refuse. A typical entry reads: “Subject Z — outhouse use increase: av. 7x/day (5 min. av. ea.); note: garbage output up 3x for week: connex?” Gort even managed to track gray cap garbage pickup habits and concluded that if the gray caps were using the vast amounts of garbage as food or as mulch to grow food, the gray cap population under the city could exceed 300,000. No one listened to him. No one likes bad news. But Gort didn’t care that no one listened to him — he went right on with his research, leaving behind 6,000 pages of observations when he died at the age of 70. Later, the Kalif would use the journals to successfully invade the city. See also: Banker Warriors; Fungus; Occupation, The.

GRAY TRIBES. Successors to the Aan in theSouthern Islands. Implacable, cultured and barbaric at the same time. Thrilled to the opening of a book as much as to the opening of an enemy’s throat. Denied a foothold on the continent by the Arch Duke of Malid, who thrilled only to the opening of throats and therefore put more enthusiasm into the endeavor. See also: Aandalay, Isle of; Malid, Arch Duke of; Saltwater Buzzard.

GREENS. A political movement and amateur military force intended to defend the interests and person of the composer nee politician Voss Bender. The remnants of the Greens ended their days as part of a music guild that provided piano lessons to youngsters. See also: Bender, Voss; Borges Bookstore; Manzikert Memorial Library; Reds.

GRNNCK, HARAGCK KHAN. Responsible for the failed amphibious attack on Ambergris during The Silence. Grnnck had complicated tastes. Utterly ruthless and without peer in the arts of deception, he was also enamored of frogs and all things connected to frogs. He may have possessed the largest collection of frog art in the world, from paintings to sculptures and wood carvings. Torn from his youth in the Southern swamps to join the Haragck who invaded his remote homeland, Grnnck quickly rose through the ranks until, by a stroke of luck, he managed to best the old Khan in single combat and replace him. No doubt love of frogs, a vestige of his youth he did not wish to relinquish, proved his downfall. Who can doubt this love made the idea of an amphibious invasion of Ambergris so attractive? See also: Blgkkydks, Heckira.

— H —

HELLATOSE & BAUBLE. Although real enough, this squid-and-man circus act reached its zenith of popularity as a cartoon strip inked and written by the reclusive M. Kodfan. See also: Kodfan, M.; Madnok, Frederick.

HOEGBOTTON, HENRY. A good friend and accomplice.

HOEGBOTTON, RICHARD. After several false starts, the Hoegbottons finally established a foothold in Ambergris due to this member of the clan. Over a period of 20 years, Richard Hoegbotton crushed Slattery and Ungdom, his main competitors, and established the beginnings of a mercantile network that today spans from the Southern Isles to the lands of the Skamoo. See also: Hyggboutten.

HOEGBOTTON GUIDE TO SMALL, INDIGENOUS MAMMALS, THE. The definitive guide to the fascinating variety of small, indigenous mammals found in the southern climes, including the tarsier, the wrinkled-lip bat, and the moonrat. The lengthy and rather dramatic chapter on the mating dance of the wooly monkey has long been considered an eccentric classic. See also: Borges Bookstore, The; Cababari; Daffed, Xaver; Moonrat; Trillian the Great Banker.

HOLY LITTLE RED FLOWER, THE. One of two central ideas behind the unnamed faith created by the fighting philosopher Richard Peterson, the other being the destruction of the “Strattonist bicameral brain followers.” Peterson told the story of “The Holy Little Red Flower that Grows by the Side of the Road” at most of his gatherings, formal and informal. Taken from the third volume of his Dodecahedron (Book of Petals, Chapters 3–411, inclusive), published privately by the Holy Brotherhood of the Red Stamen, the tale is generally incomprehensible without the proper religious training. See also: Peterson, Richard; Strattonism.

HYGGBOUTTEN. A clan of nomadic horsemen originating in the far west, near Nysimia. A ruthless people driven east by the even more ferocious Haragck. The Hyggboutten forced the peaceful Yakuda peoples out of their valley and assimilated such Yakuda skills as weaving into their own culture. After driving the Haragck out of the Kalif’s empire, the Kalif’s armies turned their attentions to Yakuda, destroying the Hyggboutten and their bondsmen as a political and cultural force. The remnants of the Hyggboutten fled to the frozen north and eventually became assimilated into eastern cultures in such places as Urlskinder, Morrow, and Nicea. Some clan members changed their name to the more eastern-sounding “Hoegbotton” and, over time, descendents such as Richard Hoegbotton founded the Hoegbotton & Sons trading empire. The Hyggboutten were renowned for their skills with horses and their elaborate burial rites. After death, Hyggboutten leaders were flayed from head to foot, their organs scooped out and mummified. Priests purified the remaining skeleton and flesh by laying it out on a litter to dry. The priests also treated the skin with a preservative and a clan artist tattooed it with scenes from the leader’s exploits while alive. The mummified organs were then placed back within the dried skeleton and the skin stretched over the bones and grinning skull. The next phase of burial included the ritualistic slaughter of the leader’s horses, his servants, and his wife. The horses were transformed into spirit beasts by attaching antlers to their heads and scrawling sacred symbols across their skin. The Hyggboutten then dug a huge pit, built a small house in the pit, planted shrubs and trees around the house, and placed the leader, horses, servants, and wife inside the various rooms of the house. A period of ten days of mourning followed, after which the pit was filled in, burying the house and the dead alike. The Hyggboutten would wait for two weeks before building an identical house above ground on the same location as the buried house. This house would be filled with small pebbles carried by fast riders from any nearby sea or river and delicately placed within the house by virgins no older than 18. Once the house had been filled with pebbles, a Hyggboutten priest consecrated the ground and a tent stitched together by a dozen Hyggboutten women was placed over the house. The leader’s eldest son or daughter would then set fire to the tent cloth, the flames also devouring the wooden beams of the house and leaving a pile of scorched pebbles. Each member of the clan would then take a pebble, while still hot — to remind them of the pain of their loss — to keep with them for the next six weeks, after which they would be required to bury the pebble wherever they had camped for the night. Then each member of the clan would carve a stick with the likeness of the fallen leader’s “animal of power” and drive it into the ground to mark the location of the pebble. If the clan returned to that site in a year’s time and all the pebbles were found, the leader’s soul had passed on to the after-world successfully. However, if even one pebble could not be found, the Hyggboutten were duty-bound to return to the place of burial and build another house full of pebbles atop the site, stitch together another tent, and repeat the entire process. Over time, and as they were dispersed by the Kalif, the Hyggboutten abandoned this ritual simply because they did not have time to observe it. See also: Hoegbotton, Richard.

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IBONOF, IBONOF. A heretic once named simply Ibonof. A former member of the Truffidian Church. Excommunicated after having a vision in which he appeared to himself and proclaimed himself “divine.” Spent the rest of his life talking to himself and seeing double.

INSTITUTEOFRELIGIOUSITY. See: Morrow ReligiousInstitute.

— J —

JERSAK, SIMON. An unusually socially-mobile individual who eventually became known for his funny and insightful pamphlets about tax collecting and tax collectors. Although usually attributed to Sirin, the quote “those days when taxation has become a thing of beauty” was first written by Jersak. His advice to ordinary citizens is studded with laconic satire: “When a traveler came to some narrow defile, he would be startled by the sudden appearance of a tax-gatherer, sitting aloft like a thing uncanny.” See also: Sirin.

JONES, STRETCHER. A poet and blacksmith born in Thajad, a southern province of the Kalif’s Empire, who rose to become a leader of men. Driven to fight by the predations of Truffidian priests and the Kalif’s troops upon the poor, Jones raised an army of his impoverished peers and, for a time, captured the southern expanse of the Kalif’s Empire. A brilliant tactician and yet a gentle soul, his is a tragic story, too long to summarize here. If Stretcher Jones had been victorious, he would have led us all to a better place. There are still those in this world who hold fast to his ideals. His most famous speech was his shortest, to the satrap of Thajad demanding justice:

See also: Masouf; Nadal, Thomas; Oliphaunt; Saltwater Buz zard.

— K —

KALIF, THE. Any one of 80 anonymous, sequential rulers of the great western empire. Known for taking great risks incognito. Often killed in freak accidents of a macabre but humorous nature. One of the more absurd theories put forth is that Samuel Tonsure was an incognito Kalif. Over time, the Kalif’s scientists have invented such modern conveniences as the microscope, the gun, the telephone, and the cheese grater. See also: Ambergris; Banker Warriors; Brueghel, Michael; Busker, Alan; Cooks of Kalay; Royal Genealogist;Saltwater Buzzard.

KODFAN, M. The creator of the popular Hellatose & Bauble cartoon strip. Kodfan was never seen by the editors of the broadsheets in which his inked antics were eagerly consumed by children and adults alike. As one editor remembers, “Every third day of the week, a messenger would arrive at my office, usually on a unicycle for some reason. It was always a different messenger, perhaps because the unicycle is hard to master. I never saw Kodfan. One time I asked the messenger what he looked like. He told me Kodfan looked ‘hooded.’ I asked what on earth that meant. The lad said ‘Kodfan had a hood on.’ I never found out anything about him except that he was fond of squid. Then, one day, the messenger stopped coming. I never heard from Kodfan again. We had to hire that Verden character to ink the strip.

It was never the same — Verden wanted Hellatose to pontificate about Strattonism. Eventually, I had to put a stop to it and we discontinued the cartoon altogether. That was when I began to have the fuzzy ribbon dreams, but that is an unrelated issue.” See also: Hellatose & Bauble; Frederick Madnok; Strattonism; Verden, Louis.

KRETCHEN, THE GRAY CAP HUNTER. Around the time of The Silence, rumors began to spread of a man, cloaked in shadow, mystery, and something fashionably black with a silver lining, who went underground to kill gray caps. Some said he was the cousin of Red Martigan, seeking revenge. Others, that he was half gray cap himself and sought only to find his mother. Regardless, Kretchen never bothered to leave the shadows long enough to take a bow and so historians have placed him in that purgatory known as “possible but not probable.” The cappers, on the other hand, have adopted him as their patron saint, putting out “scarecaps” dressed in long black cloaks. See also: Cap pers; Martigan, Red; Disappeared, The.

KRISTINA OF MALFOUR, LEPRESS SAINT. With each little bit of her that fell off, she came a little bit closer to Sainthood. Other than her ability to shed body parts with apparent nonchalance, no historian has ever found any reason why she should have been sainted by the Truffidians. She appears to have sat around a lot and eaten hundreds of servings of rice pudding while watching her family work in the fields of the communal farm outside Ambergris. See also: Living Saints.

KROTCH. The villain of Maxwell Glaring’s Krotch and Munfroe action/detective series. Krotch is described in the first book, Midnight for Munfroe, as “a tall man, so slender that sideways he might melt into the shadows that had already taken his soul. His gaze, when he brought it to bear upon a man, would show that man the dissolution of his own morals, so dead were they and carious. His mane of black hair cowled him in his evil.” Yet by Krotch’s Last Stand, Krotch is described variously as “stout,” “portly,” “emaciated,” both a “black, scuttling beetle, low to the ground ” and a “wisp torn from the wind in his ethereal height,” with “dirty blonde hair” and later “reddish-tinged locks that hung like snakes to his waist.” Perhaps signaling that Glaring had grown tired of the series. See also: Glaring, Maxwell; Krotch; Midnight for Munfroe; Munfroe.

KUBIN, ALFRED. A psychologist who specialized in the study of the underlying causes of squidanthropy. Over time, he came to comprehend these causes all too well, becoming a frequent patron of the most nefarious squid clubs. When a Truffi dian priest refused to marry him to a female squid he met in a club’s wading pond, Kubin became violent and set fires all across the city during one delirious night of arson. Several historic institutions, including the oldest of the Hoegbotton safehouses, sustained severe fire damage. When finally captured, Kubin was incarcerated in the Voss Bender Memorial Mental Institute alongside his former patients, many of whom reportedly laughed uproariously before administering a severe beating. See also: Madnok, Frederick.

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LACOND, JAMES. An eccentric historian whose theories of the gray caps have largely been dismissed (unfairly) by the reading public, other historians, and even by the unemployed carpenter who for years haunted the sidewalk outside Lacond’s apartment overlooking Voss Bender Memorial Square. His pamphlets have been exclusively distributed by the Ambergrisians for the Original Inhabitants Society. Among his writings is the essay “An Argument for the Gray Caps and Against the Evidence of Tonsure’s Eyes. ” Known for his frequent visits to Zamilon. See also: Ambergrisians for the Original Inhabitants Society; Rats; Zamilon.

LEOPRAN, GEORGE. A Scathadian writer and diplomat best known for his seven-page account of his journey to and from Ambergris. Also the author of the 3,000-page novel A Sliver of Time, which covers one day in the life of a lonely goat herder. In minute detail. The novel includes a 200-page diatribe castigating Manzikert III as an example of the abuse of power. See also: Scatha.

LIVING SAINTS. The long history of the Living Saints predates the Truffidian religion, which embraced the saints for their own purposes. Based on the premise that bodily functions are the most sacred signs of God in human beings, Living Saints endure solitary lives of poverty. There are four orders: the Order of Flatulence, the Order of Ejaculations, the Order of Defecations, and the Order of Urination. The saints spend years perfecting their particular specialty and thus honoring “the God that made us mortal” as the scriptures read. Many other religions hire these saints as guards because they are so disgusting they scare away criminals. Manzikert III was once mistaken for a Living Saint in the Order of Flatulence. See also: Kristina of Malfour.

— M —

MADNOK, FREDERICK. A flamboyant amateur squidologist of some renown who belonged to the sporn-spurn religion. (The numbers of this particular cult dwindled significantly upon the formal declaration of their views, due to a number of unexplained disappearances.) Suffered a nervous breakdown when, due to a printer’s error, octopi images were placed in one of his squid monographs. See also: Hellatose & Bauble; Kodfan, M.

MALID, ARCH DUKE OF. Once upon a time, the Arch Duke of Malid was a little boy who tortured insects and small animals. He kept journals of these activities that have survived down to the present day (and which are of great interest to insect collectors and taxidermists for the intense detail of their descriptions). At first, the Duke’s father applauded the Duke’s industriousness in keeping a journal. No doubt he felt differently when he discovered himself, a little too late, on: “Note to self: Above a battlement, on a wall, on a spike, the bloody head of my father.” See also: Gray Tribes, The; Saltwater Buzzard.

MANDIBLE, RICHARD. One of Ambergris’ foremost early economists and social scientists. Unfortunately, Richard’s respectable reputation has been eclipsed by his brother Roger’s artwork, which was at the center of the New Art’s Great Earwax Scandal, as some wags have called it. Roger, it turned out, procured earwax from the lithesome ears of his sleeping lovers and mixed it into his paint; thus the marvelous amber tint to the sunsets on display at the Gallery of Hidden Fascinations. When the source of the amber tint was discovered, Roger suffered little career damage, but staid Richard, scandalized, never fully recovered from the incident. See also: Gallery of Hid den Fascinations; New Art, The.

MANZIISM. The rat-worshipping heretic religion inadvertently founded by Manzikert I near the end of his life. This cult has had little or no influence on history while inexplicably continuing to thrive, at least in Ambergris. Nothing sticks in the throats of Truffidian priests in the Religious Quarter more than the sight of rat bishops, rat clerics, and just plain old rat-bastards paraded down the street during the Festival of the Freshwater Squid, a-glitter in their specially-made robes and silver crowns. See also: Manzikert VI; Manzikert VII; Manzikert VIII; Moonrat; Rats.

MANZIKERT VI. Death by bliss. In all fairness to the sixth Manzikert’s moral fiber, he never really wanted to be Cappan of Ambergris. He was only too happy to retire to a monastery, especially a Manziist monastery. In those days, the only difference between a Manziist monastery and a brothel was that the latter attracted more priests. See also: Manziism; Manzikert VII; Manzikert VIII.

MANZIKERT VII. Death by an extreme miscalculation while flossing. Of his actual reign, the less said the better. See also: Manziism; Manzikert VI; Manzikert VIII.

MANZIKERT VIII. Death by tire tread. An expert at staging extravaganzas, Manzikert VIII had no notable political or military victories during his reign. He has the dubious distinction of being the first historical personage to be killed by a very early form of steam-powered motored vehicle (during the Festival). An entire line of motored vehicles was later named The Manzikert. See also: Manziism; Manzikert VI; Manzikert VII.

MANZIKERT MEMORIAL LIBRARY. Oddly enough, the ineffectual Manzikert III established the Manzikert Memorial Library. He established the library to house his ever-expanding collection of recipes and cookbooks. Since that time, the library has grown to include a healthy selection of fiction, secret documents, and erotica. The position of chief librarian has often been a political as well as administrative position, as when, during the conflict of the Reds and the Greens, the library became a repository for Voss Bender sheet music. Built in the same location as the gray caps’ original “library,” the Manzikert Memorial Library has experienced some of the strangest fungal outbreaks in Ambergris’ history. See also: Abrasis, Michael; Frankwrithe & Lewden; Fungus; Greens; Reds.

MAP, BRANDON. An unfortunate splotch.

MARTIGAN, RED. Leader of a doomed underground expedition against the gray caps. This victim of his own curiosity would otherwise have passed out of history altogether. Instead, due to his overwhelming stupidity, Ambergris remembers him as being somehow larger-than-life. He is frequently an inhabitant of horror and ghost stories — in a sense, more substantial in memory than in the flesh. See also: Ambergrisians for the Original Inhabitants Society; Cappers; Kretchen.

MASOUF. The general who finally defeated Stretcher Jones and personally slew the great rebel leader.

He is said to have wept over the body of his adversary. After so many years of battling Stretcher Jones, Masouf was distraught to have finally destroyed the only man who had been his equal in military skill and tactics. In his journal entry that fateful day, Masouf wrote, “As I stared into that pale, bloodied face, as I cupped his head with my hands as he breathed his last, I felt as if I were staring into my own face, into an ill-fated reflection, and as the life flickered out of his eyes, so too the life briefly seemed to have left me as well.” Masouf relieved himself of his own command three days later, and after an unsuccessful suicide attempt left his wife and children and spent the next 20 years as a recluse in the self-imposed solitude of Zamilon. He would eventually take up Stretcher Jones’ struggle and for a brief time liberated the Kalif’s western-most vassals from servitude, before being defeated by a general more brilliant than even he.

Masouf died when his horse, spooked by a rabbit, threw him as he fled the battlefield. See also: Jones, Stretcher; Zamilon.

MIDNIGHT FOR MUNFROE. The first volume in Maxwell Glaring’s series of novels detailing the adversarial relationship between the anti-hero Munfroe and the criminally-insane Krotch. Voss Bender once considered writing an opera based on this book, but abandoned the idea after reading the complete series. Bender’s purported reason? “There is too much Krotch in the world already.” The book first appeared as a serial in Dreadful Tales, which may explain the staccato “voice” of the book — its high number of cliff hangers and near-escapes. Glaring found the story’s success inexplicable and, vowing never again to write a Munfroe-Krotch story, proceeded to churn out a large number of them. See also: Bender, Voss; Dreadful Tales; Glaring, Maxwell; Krotch; Munfroe.

MIKAL, DRAY. Randomly chosen to be the Petularch by a ceremonial bull, as is still the custom. Let loose by the Priests of the Seven-Edged Star, the ceremonial bull was allowed to roam free until it had chosen a Petularch. The selection process consisted of any “sign” from the bull deemed suffi ciently conclusive by the priests. Although the “sign” from the bull in this case has been lost in the garbage heap of unimportant facts, it is known that Mikal was a fruit-on-a-stick vendor before his Ascension. He had immigrated to Ambergris from a small city north of Morrow called Skaal. Luckily, the position of Petularch has been largely irrelevant ever since the overthrow of the Church of the Seven-Edged Star several centuries ago. See also: Caroline of the Church of the Seven Pointed Star.

MONSTER, THE. Depending on the context, either a huge sewer ball or a huge ball of fungus. See also: Cappers; Fungus.

MOONRAT. A pure white rat, about the size of a terrier, that gathers at midnight to drink from tributaries of the River Moth. It feeds on honeysuckle nectar and fungi (to which latter food is attributed the fact that some moonrats glow an intense green in the dead of night). Sacred to the Nimblytod Tribes, the moonrat is also of some significance to Manziists, who every year make the dangerous pilgrimage to the southern rainforests to observe the moonrat in its natural habitat. The moonrat’s mating call is sonorous and deep, akin to the sound that emanates from the long horns used by the monks of Zamilon. The symphony created by the moonrat in concert with the Nimblytod’s mouth-music is said to rival even Voss Bender for its odd mixture of vulnerability and strength. See also: Bender, Voss; Manziists; Nimblytod Tribes, The; Zamilon.

MORHAIMMUSEUM. A repository over the years of many strange and eccentric treasures, from first editions of Vivian Price Rogers’ Torture Squid books to gray cap knives. Thomas Daffed’s priceless five-thousand specimen collection may be theMorhaimMuseum ’s crowning glory. The Morhaim family has remained sharply a-political throughout the years and thereby gained the confidence of many influential figures in Ambergris. See also: Daffed Zoo; Fungus; Rogers, Vivian Price; Spacklenest, Edgar.

MORROW RELIGIOUS INSTITUTE. Although Ambergris is the city of religions, Morrow is the city of religious studies. As Morrow is in all ways removed from the lustful thrust of real life, so too is it removed from its spiritual heart to the extent that it holds its faith at arm’s length, the better to examine faith’s anatomy. The Morrow Religious Institute is the most famously able at this dissection process. However, despite producing some famous religious figures and teachers, a disturbing number of its graduates, once exposed to religion-in-the-raw, have either “gone native” or succumbed to the pleasures of this too mortal flesh. Formerly theInstituteofReligiousity. See also: Menites; Signal, Cadimon.

MUNFROE. The ever-weary anti-hero of Maxwell Glaring’s Krotch and Munfroe series, Munfroe is a protean sort whose past changes from book to book. First the son of humble farmers who travels to the city to become an accountant, Munfroe later becomes the son of accountants who travels to the country to become a humble farmer. Other incarnations include parents who serve stints in the circus, the army, as doctors, and as carpenters, variously. Only one thing is for sure: Munfroe had parents. See also: Glaring, Maxwell; Krotch.

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NADAL, THOMAS. He who died in infamy, his fate too sad to relate here. Let him rest in peace as he could not in life. Faithful to his lover and faithful to his city. A curse on all of those who would defame him for his sole moment of weakness. See also: Jones, Stretcher.

NEW ART, THE. An oxymoron. See also: Burning Leaves; Gallery of Hidden Fascinations; Mandible, Richard; Shadow Art Movement, The; Sporlender, Nicholas; Verden, Louis.

NIMBLYTOD TRIBES. This tree-dwelling people, wiry but strong, has inhabited the southern rainforests for centuries, weaving their bird-like huts in the crooks of sturdy branches. Oblivious to the efforts of Truffidian missionaries to convert them, the Nimblytod still worship the sacred moonrat and the plumed thrush hen. Members of the tribe can make flute-like sounds without instruments and the concerts that often break the silence of the tree cover can seem “like the songs of beautiful angels,” as one shaken missionary put it. The Nimblytod confirm their independence by blowdarting anyone who enters their territory. (Most casualties in recent years, however, have been Manziists.) The poison used in their blowdarts results in a prolonged period of fever, followed by malaise and then a sudden and intense passion for whatever object the sufferer happens to gaze upon at that moment. Eventually, dementia and death follow, like sullen cousins. See also: Manziists; Moonrat.

NUNK, AUTARCH OF. Although a real historical figure, the Autarch is more commonly known to children and adults as the happy fool of Voss Bender’s Nunk poems, which contain such rhymes as “The Autarch of Nunk/ Was a collector of junk/Which he kept in a trunk/Beside his pet skunk” and “The Autarch of Nunk/Loved to get drunk/And, in the grip of a sudden funk,/Pass out fitfully on his bunk.” Several critics have complained that a less famous personage would not have been able to get such doggerel published, but the illustrations by Kinsky in the omnibus version amply make up for the simplistic verse. Recently, amongst the few possessions left by Michael Abrasis to the Manzikert Memorial Library, archivists discovered a second set of Nunk poems, decidedly more adult, as this excerpt demonstrates: “The Autarch of Nunk/Liked women with spunk/To wiggle and tickle/His enormous pink pickle.” (Although some historians believe this is a gardening reference.) See also: Abrasis, Michael; Bender, Voss.

NYSIMIA. A western city known for death, dust, beer, and, more recently, for ridiculous theories involving pony-riding invaders, old dead men, and the gray caps. See also: Hyggboutten.

NYSMAN, MICHAEL. A native of Nicea, Nysman was a high-ranking Truffi dian priest. Although ostensibly sent to Ambergris to assuage the suffering of those who had survived The Silence, documents unearthed since his death clearly indicate that the Truffidian Church had sent him to Ambergris for other reasons entirely. Nysman’s mission was two-fold: to research The Silence to determine its cause and also to develop a psychological profile of people in extreme distress and deliver a written report to the Antechamber of Nicea on ways to exploit this distress for converts. Nysman’s report on psychological distress is less interesting than his report on the cause of The Silence, which includes the following sentences: “With all due respect, I do not know what good it will do us to find out the cause of this affl iction. Surely the truth will be too horrible for any of us to hold within ourselves, and yet we could not loose such knowledge upon the world. The only words I can use to describe the utter despair that settles over me in this city are ‘without God.’ I feel entirely without God in this city.” Later in the report, Nysman writes that around the time of The Silence several sheep herders saw strange lights during the night, emanating from Alfar. Nysman finds this fact to be of supreme importance, but instead of visiting Alfar, he abruptly changed his itinerary to visit Zamilon, for reasons that are lost to us. See also: Alfar; Zamilon.

— O —

OCCUPATION, THE. The term given to the 100 days during which the Kalif’s troops occupied Ambergris. With the exception of The Silence, The Occupation was the bleakest period of Ambergrisian history. If not for the ingenuity and pluck of ordinary citizens, The Occupation would have lasted much longer. As this letter from David Ampers, the owner of a local tavern, The Ruby-Throated Cafe, to his cousin in Morrow (the infamous “fighting philosopher” Richard Peterson) demonstrates, the Kalif’s troops did not have an easy time of it:

See also: Banfour, Archduke of; Kalif, The; Oliphaunt; Peter son, Richard.

ODECCA BICHORAL WHITE WHALE. The most intelligent of sea-going mammals, venerated by the Church of the Fisherman, prized by zoologists, and possessed of a brain so large that its skull is lopsided. Odecca Whales must always swim at a diagonal, their heads preferably resting on the surface while their massive stern fins churn relentlessly. If they stop swimming for even a minute, the massive head will cause them to sink to the bottom and drown. By necessity, the whale is a surface feeder. See also: Church of the Fisherman; Daffed Zoo.

OLIPHAUNT. One of Tonsure’s favorite mammals, these great gray creatures almost ended Stretcher Jones’ rebellion at the outset. Their sudden introduction into battle, brought from the jungle plains of the far southwest, caused such panic at the Battle of Richter that Jones was lucky to escape with his life. Xaver Daffed found this usually gentle mammal so compelling that he devoted two volumes of his A History of Animals to it. Manzikert III found oliphaunts so succulent that toward the end of his reign he ate their flesh to the exclusion of all else. The Kalif, upon his temporary subjugation of Ambergris, planned to build a palace that would have represented the apogee of the oliphaunt motif in architecture: a vast structure in the shape of an oliphaunt. The plans included hindquarters fashioned to resemble a glen with its own running brook and a theater in the front. See also: Ambergris Gastronomic Association; Daffed, Xaver; Jones, Stretcher; Occupation, The.

— P —

PEJORA, MIDAN. The most famous architect in Ambergris’ history. He holds primary responsibility for the grandest buildings in the city, including the Cappan’s Palace. Pejora could best be classified as an “idiot genius.” From an early age, he erected incredible models of buildings out of wood, sand, and rock, but he could not even graduate from grade school. His parents eventually taught him as best they could at home, and many were the times neighbors would complain because Pejora had erected some new architectural monstro-city in the family’s front yard.

PETERSON, RICHARD. Founder of an unnamed faith that preaches the story of the little red flower that grows by the side of the road. The faith uses a calendar of 12 months comprising 30 days each. Each year ends with the five-day Festival of the Holy Little Red Flower, which includes the Day of Seed, the Day of Root, the Day of Stem, the Day of Leaf, and the Day of Bloom. (A splinter faction called the “Scientific Reformists” inserts the Day of Budding before the Day of Bloom every fourth year, rather than the universally symmetrical five-year cycle recognized by the true followers of the faith. Violent confrontations have been known to occur during this false celebration of the Day of Budding.) The Five Volumes of the Dodecahedron represent the only true written teachings of the Faith. Each volume is divided into twelve books (Petal, Sepal, Stigma, Style, Ovary, Pistil, Stamen, Pollen, Anther, Filament, Nectar, and Calyx). Each book is divided into 240 chapters with 30 verses each. Adherents are generally recognizable by their trademark red sashes and precise pentagonal tonsures. The Brotherhood of the Red Stamen, an order of the Faith, is famous for its scholarship and teaching. Specializing primarily in geometry and horticulture, the gardens which surround each of the five monasteries of the order are justly renowned and lead many thousands each year to join the faith. An unfinished cathedral devoted to expressing the Dodecahedron in physical form may one day supplant the gardens as a mechanism of mass conversions. See also: Holy Little Red Flower, The; Strattonism; Verden, Louis.

PORFAL. An inventor best known for his Porfal Memory Capsule, a festival necessity. Porfal also developed a coin shaped like a knife, issued by Hoegbotton & Sons as a commemorative item and hastily discontinued after numerous stabbings occurred at the subsequent Festival. His most controversial inventions were erotic in nature, including the honey-powered Orgasm Machine, the Mechanical Toe-Sucker, and the infamous Inverted Maiden, into which hapless men in search of ecstasy descended only to find the demands of pleasure too great for their hearts to withstand. See also: Burning Leaves; Cappers; Monster, The; Spacklenest, Edgar.

— R —

RATS. In sewers. In religions. In words like pirate, desperate, and narrative. Rats infest this glossary as surely as words and mushrooms. See also: Ambergris; Lacond, James; Manziism; Moonrat.

REAL HISTORY NEWSLETTER, THE. A fringe publication that has allowed many historians in exile to have their say under the safety of pseudonyms. See also: Ambergrisians for the Real Inhabitants Society; Lacond, James.

REDS. Originally founded to oppose the interests of the composer nee politician Voss Bender, the remnants of the Reds ended their days running a small tavern on the southern edge of Ambergris and hosting dart competitions. See also: Bender, Voss; Borges Bookstore; Greens; Manzikert Memorial Library.

ROGERS, VIVIAN PRICE. Brought up on a farm as the only girl in a family that included eight brothers,Rogers revenged herself on her unruly, brawling brethren by re-imagining them as the Torture Squid. For many years the Torture Squid books outsold even the works of Henry Flack in Ambergris’ many bookstalls. In later years,Rogers accepted an honorary position at the Borges Bookstore while her brothers continued their lives of dawn-till-dusk drudgery back on the farm. See also: Borges Bookstore; Morhaim Museum.

ROYAL GENEALOGIST. A position in the Kalif’s Empire much shrouded in secrecy. Only the Royal Genealogist knows the true identity of the Kalif, but can publish only the vaguest facts about the royal personage. Although the theory cannot be proven, many historians, this one excluded, believe that on more than one occasion the Royal Genealogist has actually been the Kalif. See also: Kalif, The.

— S —

SABON, MARY. An aggressive and sometimes brilliant historian who built her reputation on the bones of older, love-struck historians. Five-ten. One-fifteen. Red hair. Green, green eyes. An elegant dresser.

Smile like fire. Foe of James Lacond. In conversation can cut with a single word. Author of several books. See also: Lacond, James.

SAFE HOUSE. A place, usually controlled by Hoegbotton & Sons, where travelers could seek shelter during the Festival of the Freshwater Squid. Most safe houses provided little packets of useless products and information to assuage the fears of its temporary tenants. This packet usually included some insipid festival “story.” See: Verden, Louis.

SAINT PHILIP THE PHILANDERER. A Living Saint who was kicked out of the Order of Ejaculation because he bathed too regularly. See: Living Saints.

SALTWATER BUZZARD. The main beneficiaries of battles between Stretcher Jones and the Kalif, the Kalif and Michael Brueghel, Michael Brueghel and Manzikert I, Manzikert I and the gray caps, the Brueghelites and the Gray Tribes, the Gray Tribes and the Arch Duke of Malid, the Arch Duke of Malid and the Kalif, the Kalif and Ambergris, Ambergris and the Haragck, the Haragck and Morrow. Scavengers, saltwater buzzards mate for life, have an average wing span of 10 feet, an average life span of 20 years, and are distinguished from other buzzards by the flashes of red and green on the tips of their otherwise black wings. See also: Brueghel, Michael; Gray Tribes, The; Jones, Stretcher; Kalif, The; Malid, Arch Duke of.

SAPHANT EMPIRE, THE. As empires go, this one made the Kalif’s holdings look pathetic. The Saphant Empire lasted for 1,500 years and encompassed most of two continents at its zenith. Its rulers, elected by an oligarchy, demonstrated an uncanny ability to mix negotiation and ruthless military force to consolidate their successes. Under the centralized stability of Empire, an unprecedented wealth of advances in technology and the arts threatened to make the Empire a permanent institution. However, a series of inbred, weak rulers coupled with crippling attacks on shipping by Aan pirates eventually broke the Empire into five pieces. The last Emperor’s chief advisor, Samuel Lewden, did his best to hold the central government together, but the five pieces became 30 autonomous regions and then splintered into even smaller kingdoms. Until finally only ghost-like cultural echoes remained of the once-great empire. For more information, read Mary Sabon’s one excellent book, The Saphant Legacy. See also: Bedlam Rovers; Frankwrithe & Lewden; Sabon, Mary.

SHADOW ART MOVEMENT, THE. Movement was actually anathema to the Shadow Artists, who, with their bodies and the late afternoon sun, created works of great beauty and grandeur inTrillian Square, shaming the Living Saints who also gathered there. See also: Gallery of Hidden Fascinations; Living Saints; New Art, The.

SHAPISM. A deviant branch of mushroom science that uses the shape of mushrooms to determine toxicity. Not very popular. See also: Fungus.

SHARP, MAXIMILLIAN. Possibly the most talented and yet most obnoxious writer ever produced by the South. Of all the infamous tales told about him by publishers and editors, the only one backed up by actual documentation concerns his association with Frankwrithe & Lewden. Sharp published his work regularly in F&L periodicals and as stand-alone books and pamphlets. On one occasion, he apparently did not appreciate Andrew Lewden (his editor) characterizing him at a dinner party as “somewhat arrogant” and sent Lewden the following missive (Lewden, by all accounts, read it once, smiled, threw it away, and promptly remaindered all of Sharp’s books):

See also: Frankwrithe & Lewden.

SHRIEK,DUNCAN. An old historian, born inStockton, who in his youth published several famous history books, since remaindered and savaged by critics who should have known better. His father, also an historian, died of joy; or, rather, from a heart-attack brought on by finding out he had won a major honor from the Court of the Kalif.Duncan was 10 at the time. Since then,Duncan has never died from his honors, but was once banned by the Truffidian Antechamber. Also a renowned expert on the gray caps, although most reasonable citizens ignore even his least outlandish theories. Once lucky enough to meet the love of his life, but not lucky enough to keep her, or to keep her from pillaging his ideas and discrediting him. Still, he loves her, separated from her by the insurmountable gulf of empires, buzzards, bad science, and an arrogant writer. See also: Rats.

SIGNAL, CADIMON. A most curious man of religion who combined elements of common crime with the utmost respect for the spiritual life. He taught the most successful missionaries ever to graduate from the Morrow Religious Institute and spent 10 years studying with the monks of Zamilon. Famous for his fervent lectures on Living Saints and martyrs. See also: Morrow Religious Institute and Zamilon.

SIMPKIN, WILLIAM. The head of Ambergris’ labyrinthine centralized mental health facilities and the chief psychiatric interrogator for incoming cases. Simpkin wrote fiction on the side, publishing several volumes about an evil imaginary kingdom ruled by a mouse. At base, a heartless bastard. See also: Bedlam Rovers.

SIRIN. A writer and editor originally born near far-fabled Zamilon. He is primarily known for his series of fictions supposedly describing various aspects of Ambergris history. Infamously involved in the Citizen Fish Campaign. See also: Citizen Fish Campaign; Fungus; Shriek,Duncan; Zamilon.

SKAMOO. A proud, aloof people well-adapted to the snow of the frozen northern regions. Some historians have tried to link the Skamoo to Zamilon, claiming that the forebearers of the Skamoo built the fortress-monastery. See also: Zamilon.

SOPHIAISLAND. An island named after Manzikert I’s wife, located in the River Moth, to the north of Ambergris. Long ago ceded to Hoegbotton & Sons by Ambergris’ last Cappan, John Golinard, in exchange for much-needed monies,SophiaIsland served for many years as a base for Hoegbotton mercantile operations. However, some 50 years ago, H&S leased the eastern half of the island to Frankwrithe & Lewden, in exchange for trading rights to Morrow markets. In recent years, the island has become a battleground between H&S and F&L forces, slowing traffic north and south as both sides exact ever-more ridiculous tariffs on boats wishing to pass through. See also: Frankwrithe& Lewden.

SPACKLENEST, EDGAR. Author of the cult novel Lord Hood & the Unseen Squid. Spacklenest came from “old money” and lived in a mansion in the marshes to the west of Ambergris with his mother, grandmother, and sister. From his third-story room overlooking the Moth, he would write for hours in a black notebook, every few months sending another tale to Dreadful Tales, which rejected his work because the editors did not understand it, or Burning Leaves, which rejected it because it was too traditional. Eventually, a friend of the family convinced the Ambergris Department of Broadsheet Licensing Publications to print Spacklenest’s first collection of stories, entitled Scars & Other Weapons. Published in hardcover, the collection sold only 25 copies and the Ambergris Department of Broadsheet Licensing Publications dropped Spacklenest from their stable of safety pamphlet authors. For several years, Spacklenest did not attempt publication again, instead pouring himself into writing the classic stories that would eventually be issued in the posthumous Frankwrithe & Lewden collections Nights Beyond Night and Dark Sings The Lark Beyond the Veil. F&L would also publish his Lord Hood novel posthumously, a work which sold well and has led to Spacklenest’s current cult status. After writing Lord Hood, a dejected Spacklenest abandoned both fiction and his ancestral home, relocating to a small apartment off ofAlbumuth Boulevard and accepting an archival position at theMorhaimMuseum. In later years, under the pseudonym “Anne Sneller,” Spacklenest published a number of nonfiction books, including A Historyof Traveling Medicine Shows & Nefarious Circi. Lord Hood and his short stories were discovered among his personal effects when he died of stab wounds inflicted by a Porfal coin knife during a particularly violent Festival. See also: Burning Leaves; Dreadful Tales; Frankwrithe & Lewden;MorhaimMuseum; Porfal.

SPORE OF THE GRAY CAP, THE. The tavern in which much of Duncan Shriek’s Early History was written. A marvelous hide-away more fully described in The Hoegbotton Guide to Bars, Pubs, Taverns, Inns, Restaurants, Brothels, and Safe Houses.

SPORLENDER, NICHOLAS. The author of over 100 books and instructional religious pamphlets, including Sarah and the Land of Sighs, Truffidian Votives for the Layperson, and A List of Daily Sacrifices for Members of the Church of the Seven-Edged Star. Many of Sporlender’s books incorporate the ideas of the “fighting philosopher” Richard Peterson. Sporlender frequently collaborated with the artist Louis Verden before a violent disagreement ended the relationship. In his memoirs, he wrote of the break up: “It’s not like we didn’t know when it started. It was Verden’s obstinence that started it. And his insipid obsession with Strattonism. He simply could not let it be. It was always Stratton this, Stratton that. I’d ask him, ‘Please — lay off the Strattonism. I’m trying to write.’ Eventually, I took up Peterson’s teachings just to block out the Strattonism. But he wouldn’t stop.” A five-time recipient of the Southern Cities’ most prestigious literary award, The Trillian, Sporlender moved to Morrow in later years with his wife and three dogs. See also: Burning Leaves; Caroline of the Church of the Seven-Pointed Star; Dreadful Tales; New Art, The; Peterson, Richard; Stratton ism;Verden, Louis.

SPORN. The term commonly used throughout the Kalif’s Empire to refer to the gray caps. The Kalif’s people refer to the gray caps’ sacred symbol as the “zetbrand” and their underground land as the “zetland.” See: Fungus; Kalif, The.

STOCKTON. Even more boring than Morrow. Might as well be populated with monkeys or Oliphaunts than with people. Not even a religious institute to save it from boredom. Incidentally, the city ofDuncan Shriek ’s birth. See also: Busker, Alan.

STRATTONISM. Believers in the mythos of the bicameral brain, Strattonists have always been in conflict with the followers of Richard Peterson, primarily because neither religion can understand its own teachings, let alone those of its opponent. A typical entry from the guiding text of Strattonism, The Consciousness of the Origin of the Bicameral Breakdown, reads “The compresence and prehension of a monism in keeping with the gravitational relinquiships and syntaptic revolutions of the mind cannot be undersuaged in any discussion of concantimated narratizations or even when considering slorbenkian bilateral mandates.” One diagram in the book depicts a brain with arrows pointing to “The Bandaic Hallucinatory Pit,” “The Bilateral Convulsive Impulse,” and “The Origin of the RP Heresy.” The belief that the brain can talk to itself has led to some confusing conversations at Strattonist meetings. See also: Peterson, Richard.

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TARBUT, ARCH OF. Richard Tarbut was a wealthy man who liked to have things named after him.

The Arch of Tarbut is one of those things. The Tarbuts moved to Ambergris from Morrow, where they sold, among other items, stoves and canaries. Tarbut named only one condition for giving money to construct the arch: that, by means of a ladder, he and his family be allowed to hold a party atop the arch upon its completion. This, indeed, he did, but, bothered by a mud wasp, lost his balance, and fell to his death, attaining a condition very close to that of Brandon Map. See also: Map,Brandon.

THRUSH, THE. A doomed ship in the Ambergrisian navy, commissioned during the reign of Trillian the Great Banker. At that time, even oak-built ships succumbed to rotted timbers because the alternate wetting and drying of wood created favorable conditions for the growth of fungi. Reports from the naval command to Trillian stated that “In building and repairing ships with green timber, planks, and trennels, it is apparent by demonstration to the ship’s danger and by heat of the hull meeting with the greenness and sap thereof immediately putrefies the same and draws that ship to the dock again to repair within six years what should last 20 years.” Directly prior to The Thrush leaving port, an even harsher report stated “The planks were in many places perished to powder and the ship’s sides more disguised by patching than usually is seen upon the coming of a fleet after a battle. Their holds not cleared nor aired but (for wont of gratings and opening their hatches and scuttles) suffered to heat and molder until I have with my own hands gathered toadstools growing in the most considerable of them, as big as my fists.” Despite this, The Thrush was sent down the River Moth toward Nicea. Within five days, the crew complained of a general itchiness. Within ten days, the ship was so encrusted with fungi that the crewmembers were trapped inside. Forced to eat the fungi for sustenance, they began to mold and the ship collapsed and sank far from shore on the twentieth day. No one survived. See also: Fungus.

TRILLIAN THE GREAT BANKER. One of the greatest rulers Ambergris has ever known. Under Trillian, Ambergris became a miniature empire, but more importantly, a center for business and finance. Ambergrisian banks spread across the continent and at one point accounted for 75 percent of all financial transactions in the South. Trillian, more than any ruler before him, was able to snuff out the power of the Brueghelites through a methodical process of depriving them of capital and resources. Strangely enough, his downfall came at the hands of cababari pigs. A slave in love to his mistress, he bristled over a perceived insult handed to her by a cababari breeder and signed an order that cababari would no longer be considered fit for eating and would be banned from the city. Just six months later, a group of Cappan Restorationists funded by a powerful pig cartel ousted Trillian. See also: Cababari.

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URINATION, ORDER OF. The most annoying of the Orders. See also: Living Saints.

— V —

VERDEN, LOUIS. This talented artist first established his reputation with gargoyle-inspired jewelry (the highlight of many a Festival parade). From jewelry, Verden progressed to book illustration, illuminating such popular texts as The Physiology and Psychology of the Giant Squid. He served for many years as the contributing art director for Burning Leaves. A fervent acolyte of Strattonism and a prize-winning hedgehog breeder, Verden has for many years headed up the Ambergris chapter of the Free Thinkers Guild. His most famous quote might be “I’m working on your damn illustrations!” directed at his long-time collaborator Nicholas Sporlender and published in the “Heard in the Mews” section of Burning Leaves. Laypersons will be most familiar with his work for the festival booklet, The Exchange. See also: Burning Leaves; New Art, The; Safe House; Sporlender, Nicholas.

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ZAMILON. A ruined monastery-fortress still inhabited by monks. This vast complex of buildings and defensive fortifications is ancient beyond memory. No one knows who built the original structures. The monks who live there possess a page from Samuel Tonsure’s Journal and believe that, if the words on that page are read in a particular sequence, the page can serve as a door to another place. See also: Busker, Alan; Daffed Zoo; Lacond, James; Masouf; Skamoo.