Time and distance have been converted to familiar units.
Spelling has been made as phonetic as possible, based on common English pronunciation. G is hard; c is used only in ch, x and q not at all.
Masculine gender words begin with hard consonants (b,d,g,k,p,t), feminine with vowels or aspirates (a,e,i,o,u,y,h), and neuter with soft consonants (f,j,l,m,n,r,s,th). Abstract concepts have their own declensions and begin with v,ch,w, or z.
Dissimilar vowels are pronounced separately, as if marked with a dieresis: Eleal is pronounced El-eh-al, not Eleel. Double vowels indicate a long sound: aa as in late, ee as in feet, ii as in fight, oo as in goat, uu as in boot.
The English word candle is pronounced cand'l. Joalian contains many such unvoiced vowels, which are indicated with an apostrophe. The initial consonant in D'ward would be stressed more than in English dwarf.
THE GODS
The five great gods of the Pentatheon are—
Visek The Supreme Parent is often regarded as male, but also as a triad: Father, Mother, and First Source. Visek may be spoken of in the singular or plural, as masculine, feminine, or abstract in ways that will not readily translate into English. The Light, the All-Knowing, the Father of Gods, etc., may take on attributes of other deities, such as wisdom, creation, justice. There are hints of monotheism in Visek worship. Except in Niol, where his main temple stands, Visek seems too remote and abstract a god to be truly popular with the masses. He is associated with the sun, fire, silver, and the color white.
His many avatars include Chiol (destiny) and Wyseth (the sun).
Eltiana The Lady is goddess of love, motherhood, passion, childbirth, crops, agriculture, transition. Her clergy wear red; her symbol is Ø and her main temple is at Randor. She is the only major deity to be directly identified with one of the four moons.
Her avatars include Ois, goddess of mountain passes.
Karzon The Man is the god of creation and destruction, and thus of war, strength, courage, virility, vengeance, pestilence, nature, and animal husbandry. His clergy wear green, his symbol is a hammer. His main temple is at Tharg and he is associated with the moon Trumb.
As Zath he is god of death, and hence the most feared of the gods. Then his color is black and his symbol a skull. Other avatars include Garward (strength), Ken'th (virility), and Krak'th (earthquakes).
Astina The Maiden is goddess of purity, duty, justice, patron of warriors and athletes. Her clergy wear blue and her symbol is a five-pointed star. Her main sanctuary is at Joal. She is associated with Ysh, the blue moon.
Her avatars include Iilah (athletes), Irepit (repentance), Ysh (constancy and duty), and Ursula (justice).
Tion The Youth is god of art, beauty, science, knowledge, healing. His clergy wear yellow. His main temple is at Suss. The unpredictable yellow moon Kirb'l is identified with his avatar the god of humor.
His avatars include Ember'l (drama), Kirb'l (the Joker), Gunuu (courage), Yaela (singing), and Paa (healing).
THE TRONG TROUPE
Trong Impresario
Ambria Impresario, Trong's second wife
K'linpor Actor, Trong's son
Halma Actor, K'linpor's wife
Uthiam Piper, Ambria's daughter
Golfren Piper, Uthiam's husband
Yama Actor, Ambria's cousin
Dolm Actor, Yama's husband
Piol Poet, brother of Ambria's first husband
Gartol Costumer, Trong's cousin
Olimmiar Dancer, Halma's sister
Klip Trumpeter, Gartol's stepbrother
Eleal Singer, an orphan
OVERTURE
1
THE SUMMER OF 1914 WAS THE FINEST IN LIVING MEMORY. All over Europe the sun shone, day after day, from a sky without a cloud. Holidaymakers traveled as they wished across a continent at peace, reveling in green woods and clean, warm seas. They crossed national borders unimpeded. Almost no one noticed the storm building on the political horizon; even newspapers mostly ignored it. The war struck with the suddenness of an avalanche and carried everything away.
There was never to be another summer like it.
Toward the end of June in that year the Greek steamship Hermes, preparing to depart from Port Said and having a vacant stateroom, embarked at short notice a gentleman whose name was entered in the log as Colonel Julius Creighton. He was polite and aloof and inscrutable. During the crossing of the Mediterranean, he remained extremely reticent about both himself and his business. He was without question an English milord, but beyond that obvious deduction, neither the officers nor the other passengers were able to progress. Everyone was intrigued when he chose to disembark at Cattaro, in Montenegro, which was not on the road to anywhere. The English, they agreed, were crazy. They would all have been considerably more surprised had they been able to follow his subsequent travels.
He set foot on European soil on the twenty-eighth of June, which by coincidence was the day Archduke Francis Ferdinand's death in Sarajevo opened the first crack of the collapse that was to bring down the whole world. The Montenegro border was less than fifty miles from Sarajevo. The reader is therefore cautioned that Colonel Creighton had absolutely nothing to do with the assassination.
He progressed rapidly north and east, traveling mainly on horseback through wild country, until he reached the vicinity of Belgrade. In a wagon in a wood, he was granted audience by a gypsy voivode, whose authority transcended national borders.
Creighton continued eastward and spent a night as guest of a certain count of ancient lineage, lord of a picturesque castle in Transylvania. In Vienna he met with several people, including a woman reputed to be the most skilled courtesan in Austria, with the fairest body in Europe, but the substance of their meeting was unrelated to such matters.
By the fifteenth of July he had reached St. Petersburg. Although the Russian capital was racked by workers’ strikes, he succeeded in spending several hours talking with a monk celebrated for both his holiness and his political connections.
On the twenty-third, when Austria issued its ultimatum to Serbia, Colonel Creighton arrived in Paris, having wasted a couple of days in a cave in the Black Forest. Paris was in the throes of the Caillaux scandal, but he ignored that, conferring with two artists and a newspaper editor. He also took an overnight train south to Marseilles to visit Fort St. Jean, European Headquarters of the Foreign Legion. He spent most of his time there in the chapel, then returned to the capital.
On July 28, when Austria declared war on Serbia, he obtained a berth on the next boat train to London—a surprising feat, considering the near-panic in the Gare du Nord.
On reaching England, he completely disappeared.
2
EDWARD ARRIVED IN GREYFRIARS ON THE 4.15 FROM London. It was the Saturday of August Bank Holiday weekend, and the little station was almost deserted. Paris had been in panic. London was a riot of trippers fighting their way out of town, heading for the seaside. Greyfriars was its usual sleepy country self.