Hounds

The ‘hounds of Asak’ were originally bred at the temple of Dekata in Lorj. Descendants of those white dogs spread into other areas, many perhaps deriving from the pair taken back to Lanlax in ‘The Jewels of the Elements.’ The puppy presented at Ros’s naming ceremony may well have carried that heritage.

However, some were carried to the realm of Asak himself and bred into something more monstrous: the ‘wart dogs’ encountered in ‘The Song of the Sword.’ Possibly they were mixed with something more demonic than an ordinary canine. Some of these certainly were also to be found at Asa-Zad before the cult of Asak was overthrown on Lorj.

Despair

Asak, to whom I may have sometimes referred as the god of evil, is, more properly, the god of despair. Despair is the greatest of evils. Perhaps the only true evil, with all other deriving from it. It is a conviction of the meaninglessness of existence and a hatred for all that is. Asak seeks total obliteration of all being, even while knowing it is impossible. To make matters worse, gods can’t commit suicide, what with being immortal — he is doomed to ever exist, with no escape.

All his pantheon (and there infinite others in infinite existence) is quite symbolic in this fashion. Asak is as completely ‘evil’ as is possible, just as his opposite number — his twin brother Kamat — is totally good. Almost; nothing can be absolute. Of course, he has complete faith that existence has meaning. That, ultimately, is what true faith is, when one strips away various dogmas and ideologies.

Both Kamat and Asak are Ildin deities. The Ildin, as a people, have been in and out of the Izan tales, sometimes playing a role, sometimes mentioned mostly in passing. But their religious beliefs, and their gods, have had their impact. 

Zombies

In ‘Stones in the Sea,’ I gave some details on the fact that a powerful sorcerer could enter and control the minds of some lower animals — essentially those without much (or no) sense of self. The goddess Kesarra demonstrates this ability with sea snakes, spiders, and such. Although she can touch sometimes their thoughts, she is incapable of controlling more advanced creatures; whales, for example. Certainly not humans!

I had hinted at this idea in much earlier books. Notably, another goddess, Mawa, used spiders to ‘see’ what was going on elsewhere in ‘The Crocodile’s Son.’

Now another mind that lacks consciousness would be that of a newly deceased person. A sorcerer with the ability can control that mind and its body. This is, in essence, a zombie, as defined in my Izan fantasy stories. I first introduced the concept in the novel ‘Valley of Visions,’ where the warlord Ko is resurrected to harangue his troops into action, with the mad wizard Teshum pulling his strings.

Pretty much everyone, including gods and other sorcerers, strongly condemn such abuse of wizardly powers, as well as recognizing its dangers. It is possible for the wizard controlling a body to become trapped there (at least temporarily) as it deteriorates. Yet some will use such ‘magic’ anyway. It reappears in ‘The Plain of Silver,’ when a zombie assassin is sent to attack a princess of Sharsh (essentially to stir up war).

This is a theme best used infrequently. By positing the need for extraordinary sorcerous power, I can and do limit it. I also limit its effectiveness, to make it less attractive an option for wizards. There is a relatively narrow window of opportunity for seizing control of a dead man’s brain. The body itself will deteriorate and become less useful and harder to control.

On whole, one is better off sticking to spiders.

Shape-Shifters

Shape-shifting, as normally explained, seems implausible to me — not at all in accord with my world-building and magic system. Therefor, I created a variant that would make sense.

This goes back to when I first introduced the god Xido, who has shown up in several of the Izan novels. Xido and the fellow gods of his pantheon have dual natures which they have learned to divide. Prior to doing so, the were monsters more than they were gods, akin to the demons — the mafadwi — of their world. But having learned, they lock their bestial manifestations away in another world, to be called upon only in the greatest of need. At least in theory.

Both forms, god and beast, are completely material. I allow no ‘spirits’ in my worlds. This is not unlike the way the wizards send a material part of themselves into other worlds, except they can’t leave theme there forever!

When Xido becomes the Crocodile, he essentially trades places with that form. To be sure, the two versions of the god are always connected and, in a sense, interact. He is a bit more strict than some of his relatives about maintaining a separation, perhaps due to spending more time among mortals.

There are variations on this among gods of other pantheons; we needn’t get into those. But this same concept can be applied to werewolves and other shape-changers. The man does not so much become the wolf as trade places with it. I’ve done this with the dragons in my Greenmeadows stories (which are not strictly part of the Izan mythos) when they assume human form.

So far, I’ve introduced no werewolves, at least in the traditional sense. The borugi of ‘The Sword and the City’ are wolf-like but do not change form. It’s nice to know, however, I have a ready-made explanation if I ever do.

The Mur

At the time Dick Brown arrived in Exura (‘Stones in the Sea’), proto-Ildin and proto-Muram populations dwelt in fairly close proximity in the mountainous areas of the mainland north of the Isle of Nagi. Before the two populations split and migrated their separate ways, there was a certain amount of cultural and genetic exchange between them. Indeed, some numbers of Ildin (then known as Heldu) traveled north with the Mur and became incorporated into their population.

All these peoples were already mixed, first when they arrived on Nagi and then later as they encountered other populations. I have given the Ildin something of an Indo-Iranian heritage, but combined with earlier Proto-Indo-European peoples and even back to the Mal'ta-Buret culture. There would certainly have been more influences as other populations dribbled into Exura from our world, most commonly only a few — or one — at a time.

The Mur have a somewhat similar past but a larger percentage of more modern additions to their heritage, including Hunnic peoples. I have attempted to reflect these differences in their respective cultures and languages.

The name Mur simply means ‘man’ but takes on the connotation of warrior or noble, in time. This is obviously derived from Indo-European examples. They themselves had a more ‘Asian’ appearance than their neighbors, reflecting Hunnic, Turkic, and other Central Asian and Siberian ancestors. At the time they lived in proximity to the Heldu, they did not yet have the horse but did raise cattle and traveled in ox-drawn carts. Their migrations took them north toward the Great Rift and then eastward through the cold steppes north of the Tesran Unum. Eventually they turned south along the coasts of the Great Sea to displace the Tesran power.

Then some took to the sea, carving out an empire across the ocean. In doing so, the Mur of that eastern-based empire became increasingly sundered from those of the ‘Old Kingdoms,’ mixing with (and conquering) Sharshites and others. That’s a topic for another time and essay.

I do not use any specific culture to model them (nor the Ildin), but simply borrow some ideas from our past. One given when it comes to the inhabitants of Exura is that they are not in any sense of ‘pure’ stock. Not that we are either, of course! I create new customs and ways, as needed, attempting to remain true to my conception of who they are.

 

Souls

One of the most basic tenets of my Izan world-building is that souls do not exist. By soul or spirit I mean the generally accepted definition, essentially any sort of incorporeal entity. This includes ones that might be attached in some way to our material existence — and possibly survive it.

Perhaps I shouldn’t say they don’t exist; more accurately, there is no evidence whatsoever of them. In infinite existence, in infinite worlds, who can say? In that infinity we not only could but must exist again. Infinitely, perhaps! But that is not a soul, nor spirit nor ghost. It is solid material being.

As is everything else. Wizards do not send their spirits to other worlds. They send part of their physical self. The gods are material creatures. Even the little elementals that float among the worlds have a physical form though they are not quite ‘there’ when they come into Exura or another world and interact with its inhabitants.

We could use the old sci-fi cliché of them being ‘out of phase.’ It’s as good — and essentially as meaningless — an explanation as any.

All this does not prevent humans (and other mortals) from believing in the concept of an afterlife. But in many worlds they are knowledgeable enough of the gods and of the infinite worlds to recognize that no one knows what might await. Thus we have the Kamatian funeral rite I created for the third book of Donzalo’s Destiny, The Sign of the Arrow:

As an arrow flies my soul,
into darkness, into night;
none whom I have left behind
sees the ending of its flight.

We can, of course, use the term soul in a more general way, as when we refer to a person as a soul. It is what makes us who we are, our consciousness perhaps, that which continues however much our bodies may change. It is an abstraction, not a ‘real’ thing. Each of us is a human Ship of Theseus, every cell in our body being constantly replaced, yet this idea of us persists.

Until we go. The same with our ‘spirit,’ our spark of life if you will. They do not survive us, at least in the Izan mythos. As to our own reality, I’ll admit I cannot see the ending of my flight.

Exura

Exura (pronounced ay-ZHU-rah) means ‘new world’ in the language used on Nagi when the wizard Hurasu first arrived there, via the Ural Gate. As several other words I coined for the people of Nagi (including the name Nagi itself), I adapted usages from Basque. But in the case of Exura, I also used an element from another ancient (and extinct) non-Indo-European tongue, Hattic.

Of course, no one speaking modern Basque was likely to have ever passed through the portal in the Ural Mountains. I am working on the premise (or conceit) that Basque is a remnant of a more widespread group of languages once spoken across Europe. Hattic (or, more accurately, related tongues) and various languages of the Caucasus might well have been spoken in the Urals region before Indo-European expansion. Or speakers could have traveled into the area from the south, for trade, for hunting, even for war.

The language of Nagi is an ever-changing pidgin as new groups and individuals arrive from our world — never many at a time — and add their own usages. There might well be Neanderthal (or Denisovan) dialects if one went far enough back. Then various modern humans would have crossed over, adding their own flavor to the linguistic soup, right down to Russians before the gate was finally blocked by Hurasu.

An online search will find other meanings for ‘exura.’ I knew nothing of those when I invented my own usage, nor do I particularly care about them. In my Gods and Wizards mythos, the name was adopted by Hurasu to refer to his new home, as distinguished from all the other worlds of infinite existence, Izan, and came to be used primarily by him and other wizards.

Most people, not unexpectedly, simply referred to their world by some word meaning ‘earth’ in their own languages. In Zikem, Hurasu’s invented language which drew much of its vocabulary from Etruscan, that was Ker.