The Price

The ‘price of magic’ is a phrase and idea that shows up with some regularity in fantasy literature. Its exact meaning varies considerably. In my main fantasy sequence, the stories that make up the Annals of Izan, there are two primary ‘prices.’

First, magic is hard work. It wearies the practitioner to control the forces involved. Enough so to be hazardous to one health. Magicians sometimes push too hard and very much pay that price. On the other hand, the judicious use of the art is not a drain and the only price is the need for a little extra rest.

The second, and more dangerous, price is involved with the very process of magic. That is, connecting to other worlds — the infinite worlds of existence. For the untrained, it is all too easy to become ‘lost’ in those worlds, to go mad, hearing voices and seeing things one does not understand. The trained practitioner learns ways of dealing with other worlds ever impinging on their consciousness yet they, too, can and all too often are, driven mad. Lord Radal, the antagonist of my Donzalo’s Destiny novels, was the original example of this.

That, essentially, is it. A fairly straightforward explanation of the dangers and price of magic. It has worked fine for me in a number of novels and I take care to stick to its rules.

Coyotes

Coyotes have been mentioned in at least a couple of my novels. They are not coyotes as we know them in North America; there is no way that species could have found its way to Exura. But they are similar, being essentially small wolves.

These are a different species from the jackals I have also mentioned. That is one reason I used the coyote name, to emphasize their basic difference. The two species live on different continents and their ranges do not overlap. The jackals of Exura are related to those of our world and it is likely their ancestors passed through the Ural Gate.

What I have named coyotes, however, would be descended from larger wolves that, most likely, came through the same gate. Some of these would have passed eastward into Muradon and evolved further there. Or they could, admittedly, have come to Exura from some other world than ours. As the coyotes of our world, they are adaptable and survive in lands where the larger wolves have been eradicated or become scarce. They are found across the continent of Muradon, from Sharsh in the west to the realm of the Ani but have never spread into Neradon beyond.

Though only jackals lived in their region, the Tesrans of the time of the Wizardry novels knew of coyotes because the skins sometimes came to them as trade goods. They would have had somewhat thicker hair than a jackal, making them more desirable as a fur. I have also mentioned coyote hides being worn in the Donzalo’s Destiny novels.

Snow-Ogres

Though I did not use the name in the novel in which they appeared (Valley of Visions), the large ape-like creatures the Taona Marareta (Michael Malvern) and his party encounter in the high mountains between Hurasu’s valley of the Tez and the Mora homeland were snow-ogres. Yes, they are somewhat yeti-like, taller than men and covered with shaggy white fur. They are advanced enough to carry weapons, even if only clubs and stone blades, and are able to converse with one another (whether an outsider would ever get the chance to communicate is a whole other question).

They are indeed a variety of ogre, meaning they are of faerie and not closely related to mortal men. They could be a people who have fallen back into a primitive lifestyle, adapting culturally and physically to the harsh conditions of the high mountains, or they could be an offshoot of the early lineage of the fay. I’m inclined to the first of these choices but it need not be decided one way or the other. Being of the fay, they would have some capabilities for magic. None are at all likely to be powerful sorcerers. They should be able to ‘speak from afar’ to their fellows, and others with magical talent.

Those snow-ogres who trailed and threatened Malvern never had the opportunity to attack, turning tail when a dragon showed up. What might they have had in mind? Maybe they only wished to drive strangers from their territory. More likely, they would have eaten those strangers, given the opportunity. Perhaps, should we encounter the creatures again, we’ll learn something of their dietary habits.

Will we encounter them in some future story? There are other high mountains and, it is to be assumed, more tribes of snow-ogres. It is also likely that their numbers are few, at least in Exura. In other worlds? Who can say? They might well serve some god or another elsewhere. They are certainly waiting in the wings should I wish to use them again.

Conlangs

Tolkien invented an invented language for his stories, the ‘Black Speech’ that Sauron created for his followers in Mordor. That’s the language in which the inscription on the One Ring is written. So Sauron essentially invented a conlang (a ‘constructed language’), just as Tolkien himself did for his elves.

I did something similar for the sorcerer Hurasu, who created a language for those he ruled in the valley of the Tez, aka the Valley of Visions. Hurasu is, to be sure, a much more benevolent fellow than Sauron and primarily wanted a logical language with no historical baggage. Or he may just have been bored and was filling his time with one more project. The language he created, Zikem, has its own unique structure and grammar but most of the words are borrowed from Etruscan, which Hurasu had learned when he spent a couple centuries in our world. He preferred not to use the language of his home world, Atlantis, as he felt that might attract undesirable attention.

The people over whom he ruled were, for the most part, of Austronesian ancestry and had their own dialects coming from Melanesian and Australian roots. Some of the words from their older languages did survive and pop up here and there in my narratives.

 

The Manticore

A preliminary note: the name manticore comes from a Roman transcription mistake of the Greek martichora. which in turn comes from the Persian, with the meaning ‘man eater.’ Hurasu and his people in the Valley of Visions use the martichora name, which has become mardagoru among the Mora.

The manticore is a large flightless avian  dinosaur that haunts the high mountains. We have encountered it only in ‘Valley of Visions,’ where a party of Mora is attacked while crossing from the Gurang valley to that of the Tez. They do recognize it avian nature. It is likely to be found elsewhere in Exura but would not be common.

It stands higher than a man, when rearing upright, but is lightly built, with hollow bones. It appears to have a short, manlike face with forward-facing eyes, but in fact has a heavy, jagged beak or snout that might be mistaken for a nose. Around the bare head is a thick ruff, dark in color, that gives the appearance of a lion’s mane. (The griffin has a similar ruff but the two are probably not closely related.) The ruff is of feathers, as is the downy, tawny ‘fur’ that covers its body.

There is a long, club-like tail, with a knob of fused feathers that can be used a weapon, delivering the killing blow to whatever prey the manticore has grasped. Hook-like claws (somewhat similar in appearance to those of a mantis) are suited both to hunting and climbing in steep, rocky environments. Rows of short, stiff, and sharp feathers run along the forelegs and the tail.

The manticore is an ambush hunter of the mountains, its typical prey being goats, marmots, and other small mammals.

Calendars

A week of seven days is natural if one divides a lunar month of twenty-eight days into quarters. That is almost certainly the reason we use seven. The weeks can start on recognizable phases of the moon, new, quarter, full. Of course, a twenty-eight day month does not mesh that well with a twelve month, 365 day year, so most calendars end up being something of a mess of compromises and contradictions.

Twelve months, to be sure, are a tidy way of dividing the year. If each were equal, mostly likely at thirty days, there are only five days left over. Those can be addressed in various ways, as outside the normal sequence of days and weeks. A thirteen month year has its own advantages and disadvantages; it does not line up with the solstices and equinoxes in the same manner as twelve months.

That may or may not be bothersome to a society. If we do use a thirty day month, the weeks needn’t be of seven days. Ten or five might do as well, or six, for that matter. Or, as long as we are not tying the months to the moon, they might be of some other length altogether. Forty-five, for example—half of a season. That could be divided neatly into weeks of five or nine days.

All these are things to be considered in world-building. They do assume a world with the same length of year and phases of the moon as our own; both fantasy and science fiction may have to deal with worlds with completely different rules. The Exura where most of my fantasy fiction is set does not present this difficulty, but I do keep in mind that other worlds are not necessarily the same.

I have given my Mura the thirteen month calendar. Yes, with seven day weeks. They do not line up at all with the seasons, though the solstices and equinoxes do always end up on the same date. Only one day is not named as a normal day, belonging to neither a week nor a month, and that is the New Year Day, celebrated at the spring equinox. On leap years, an extra day is inserted just before it. These are the names of the months, as use in the Muram Empire:

the Month of the Ram — March 21 to April 17
the Month of the Fox — April 18 to May 15
the Month of the Bull — May 16 to June 12
the Month of the Rooster — June 13 to July 10
the Month of the Grasshopper — July 11 to August 7
the Month of the Lion — August 8 to September 4
the Month of the Fish — September 5 to October 2
the Month of the Hawk — October 3 to October 30
the Month of the Horse — October 31 to November 27
the Month of the Wolf — Novemeber 28 to December 25
the Month of the Crow — December 26 to January 22
the Month of the Rabbit — January 23 to February 19
the Month of the Frog — February 20 to March 19

New Year Day — March 20

Most of the old Muram kingdoms across the Greater Sea from the Empire utilize some variant of this calendar, although the names of the months may differ. It was never adopted, however, by the Sharshites or other nationalities ruled by the Mura at some point. We can take a look at some of their calendars another time.

Dark

Very few people of African heritage ever traveled through either gate from Earth to Exura. This is not to say none did; we have mentioned Henry Wise, an African-American sailor who arrived with the crew of The Double-Lucky. It is possible others passed through the gate in the South Pacific as he did. The Ural Gate seems less likely but a soldier or traveler (or even slave) of African origin could have found their way there.

This is not to say people of dark skin did not reach Exura. Indeed, quite a few found their ways through both gates, though the two groups were not at all closely related to each other. Ice-age ‘moderns’ did make their way to the Urals and hence to the isle of Nagi in Exura, becoming an important component of the early population there and spreading throughout the world. These would have been folk dark of skin, though not ‘black,’ and frequently light of eye.

The Pacific Gate is quite another matter. Papuans, indigenous Australians, and related populations were almost certainly the first humans to venture out far enough into the ocean to be drawn through the gate. Chances are most of those early travelers were lost individuals who wandered unintentionally into the area. They were followed by Melanesians, who were excellent sailors and folk who voyaged far and confidently. There are definitely lots of Melanesian genes floating about Exura.

It may also be noted that there is an obvious element of indigenous Australian heritage and genetics in Hurasu’s valley, though mixed with that of other ethnic groups. The Baxac folk have more of a Melanesian background, and some elements of Papuan culture. That is certainly noticeable in their gods.

Yet the blond hair that pops up in the Melanesian population of our world is uncommon among the Baxac people. Not so in Hurasu’s valley of the Tez. None of this is, perhaps, unexpected when we recognize that these were very small groups that passed through the Pacific Gate—relatively sparse gene pools that gave rise to isolated populations in Exura, as they scattered across the seas of a new world.

It is just possible a few members of the proto-Australoid population did wander as far north as the Urals as they migrated eastward through the Middle East and India. If so, their heritage was absorbed into that of other arrivals in Nagi.

We speak of Lady Fachalana (of the ‘Destiny’ novels) being dark—for a Sharshite—and of the Lorjam origin of her grandfather. This would be essentially a Baxac heritage, Austronesian, not African.