The Tyrant Philosophers/Pretenders to the Throne Of God

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Adrian Tchaikovsky · The Tyrant Philosophers

Pretenders to the Throne Of God is the second novel in The Tyrant Philosophers. It centres on the siege of Eres Ffenegh, the City on the Back of a Crab, where a Palleseen expeditionary force has stalled for seven months against a coalition of local militias, sea-cult devotees, and the supernatural inheritance of the city's dead champion. The narrative distributes its viewpoint across a wide constellation of characters on both sides of the walls: an aging archmage and his murdered demon lover, a disgraced champion stripped of her ancestral sword, a foreign conjurer and brothel-keeper who commands a tower between worlds, a group of Palleseen Specialist officers whose very existence now marks them for purge, a necromancer who married a dead emperor to unlock a tomb, and a young man in love with a demon lost Below. The book's title refers to the competing claims upon ultimate authority-Pallesand's ideological perfection, the sea-gods' ancient pacts, the Moeribandi dead's assertion of ordered eternity, and the revolution in Hell that overthrows the Kings Below and rewrites the rules of conjuration itself.

The novel's setting is a single city under siege, compressed into a claustrophobic geography of three Ward walls, a harbour, a brothel-temple, a lighthouse, and a flying tower moored at the city's apex. Its genre is military fantasy with strong political-thriller and conjuration-horror elements, structured around a series of escalating assaults, negotiations, and betrayals that culminate in a final day of street fighting, the secession of the undead, and the opening of a permanent gate to Hell. The Palleseen empire's doctrine of Perfection-its demand to excise all imperfection, all religion, all unorthodoxy from the world-drives the central conflict, while the defenders' survival depends on precisely the "imperfect" magical traditions the empire seeks to destroy.

Plot

The Infiltration of the Varinaen (ch 1-3)

Seven months into the siege, Palleseen soldiers infiltrate the flying tower of Varinecthes and murder his demon lover Ghastron, leaving only "an absence made tangible" where the body had been before it "fell out of the world and back Below" - ch 1. Varinecthes, waking to find the tower too cold and the ward untriggered, kills most of the intruders in a grief-driven fury; the tower itself, bound to a fire-monster centuries ago, "felt the horror and despair its master's aged frame couldn't contain" - ch 1. The episode is framed as "a tactical failure but a strategic victory" for Pallesand, since Varinecthes's mere presence at Eres Ffenegh had emboldened the city to expel its Palleseen garrison and triggered the siege - ch 1.

Kiffel ea Leachan, the city's champion, is held prisoner in the ruined Customs House while a Pal specialist of "a very particular department" extracts the ghost of Conn Leachan from the inherited sword using leaden lozenges and wire, converting a thousand years of guardian spirit into "a few hundred tablethi" - ch 2. The sword's gold goes brassy; a gem-eye falls from an eel-head quillon. Kiffel crumples, weeping, as the weasel officer watches "until the tears came" - ch 2. A large Pal soldier with a gold prosthetic eye bearing "minuscule, intricate sigils" pins her during the extraction, then escorts her to the barricade, returns her Crabshell mail and ruined sword, and pleads: "If you have any sway with your people, get them to see sense over the winter. We have reinforcements on the way. We'll take the city. It's not going to be pretty if we have to do it the hard way. Please." - ch 2. Kiffel, horrified by her own ingrained Right-city politeness, thanks him and drags her sack of armour through the barricade while only twenty people watch, "but it felt like everyone in the world" - ch 2.

At Godsgift Square, intelligence agent Niev ea Galeaff supervises a pragmatic prisoner exchange-neither side can feed or execute captives through winter - ch 3. Kiffel returns broken; Niev, who watched her approach with professional distance, thinks "Can't even get herself killed properly" - ch 3. Devil Jack, the Widow Abellaime's apprentice, interrupts to collect Hamriddy oa Galeaff's overdue personal debts; his presence bends the Taela's noise into "the long undisturbed echo of a buried tomb. Of vast spaces the world could not contain. Of chasms Below, where that 'Below' was a proper noun" - ch 3. Niev tells her bodyguard Arduin: "That was the Widow's apprentice, you absolute turd. That was Devil Jack." - ch 3.

The Arrival of the Dead Companies (ch 4-6)

In the Palleseen forward camp, the Heretics-Quellery, Aspel, Istreddy, and Lovern-play cards while the post-war "scapegoat" climate of the Temporary Commission of Ends and Means presses on every Specialist. Lovern insists the siege "will be won by technique, by strategy, by us" - ch 4. Istreddy receives a divination fit mid-game and bolts toward Brandery's tent; a bugle sounds "not an alarm," then a second, "strangled" - ch 4.

Abellaime runs the Pandaemonium from a former temple to the dead crab god Ffen. When a rogue demon escapes a botched summoning, she watches from the balcony until Jack arrives; he seals its throat with a "thread of broken glass" sign and tells it: Go, now. Or I will make you. - ch 5. Abellaime notes "Fen the crab had been dead a long time, but being dead didn't rob a god of power, only the will to use it" - ch 5. She expels the Pal votary Vestry and sends Jack to escort her back to the Lighthouse.

Dantell, nicknamed "the Stoat," assesses the newly arrived necromantic force: fifteen hundred reanimated Moeribandi soldiers in ancient jade-and-gold armour, commanded by a Sage-Inquirer the troopers call the Lich Queen. She presents creased, four-year-old orders from the Successor Steppes, where the Commission sent her and never recalled her. Dantell advises Brandery: "We can use them. With considerable care, and to a point. After which point we will need to have used them up. But we can make them an asset first." - ch 6. Brandery accepts the troops; the Lich Queen replies: "They are Accessories in the service of Pallesand. Of course they'll fight, magister." - ch 6.

The Osseach Meeting at the Pandaemonium (ch 7-9)

Kiffel, hiding among the Hospitallers, petitions Abellaime to restore the empty sword. The Widow examines it with a monocle: "You can drink the honey from a comb and leave it whole, or you can just go in and rake everything out. Brutally efficient. My compliments to the Palleseen." - ch 7. The doorman Usrach, a guardian demon of the building's former temple life, recognises the Crabshell mail and demands "Command me" before granting entry - ch 7. Abellaime offers to anchor a demon in the blade, but the price is Kiffel's entire inheritance-the legend and line of Conn Leachan - ch 9. "A hero or nobody, Kiffel ea Leachan" - ch 9.

The Mouth of the Sea, a former Pal army officer now serving the Pope of Tides, ferries contraband and intelligence between the lines under her old identity, Cohort-Broker Anders. She delivers the Pope's rebuke to Jack for sheltering Vestry: "no more crumbs from the Fisher King's table find their way to your den of vice. Or the sea will have its due" - ch 8. In the Heretics' tent, she hands Aspel Lancewort Specials and hears the statlos summon her for assault instructions; the Pals are launching a winter assault - ch 8.

At the Osseach session in the Pandaemonium, the Fisher King appears in the Lighthouse and strikes Vestry dead with a phantom harpoon for misremembering his title - ch 9. Mellister slams the table on the truce question: "He is faithless, without honour or truth. Reach out to shake his hand, he'll cut your fingers off one by one" - ch 9. A sea-cult messenger interrupts with the news: the Pals are "tooling up for an assault. Two days, most likely" - ch 9.

The Day of the Three Walls (ch 10-12)

The Palleseen launch a single-day assault through three Ward walls. The Dead Companies scale the first wall "like spiders"; the Angler's Eye fires from the Lighthouse, a psychic wave that flattens hope and love across the lit strip - ch 12. Istreddy transforms into a lupine beast under stress; Aspel throws herself on his body and calls his name until he shrinks back - ch 12. The Dead Companies reach the third wall; Guillen oa Pedrig strides to the barricade and recites an old banned sea-song. The dead stop. After his final verse-"Speaks to me not of the sea / But of home"-a shot kills him, and the dead remain motionless, "something merciless and purposeful" leaving them - ch 12.

Erd Mannet's interior view reveals the Dead Companies as sealed Moeribandi imperial guards, called after ten centuries by the Dead Emperor's promise, their names merged and lost; Guillen's poem shattered their compulsion by revealing they had no home to return to - ch 12. Niev, with no time to seek Hamriddy's permission, authorises Aeriff to activate the last Gaeledh from the Taela's foundations; the stones animate into a writhing mass that smashes the Palleseen barricade. The Pals do not attack again that day - ch 12. Kiffel, drained of fighting will, hauls stretchers with Usrach - ch 12.

The Palleseen Ultimatum (ch 13-16)

The Palleseen nail a five-day surrender demand to the gates. Kiffel wakes in the Pandaemonium with no memory of the night; Usrach carried her in after she collapsed under the Crabshell during the last stretcher run - ch 13. Jack reveals he was formerly a Hospitaller and that his dead lover Caeleen is in Hell: "I'm going to bring her back. I'm going to free her. Save her." - ch 13. Abellaime demands the Leachan name as the price for the Crabshell demon's continued service; Kiffel agrees: "We do. Take it." She walks out "uncertain whether she had just completed her family's ruin or severed the last of her chains" - ch 13.

In a cellar near the Lighthouse, Jack attempts to conjure Caeleen; two Galeaff clan men stab him twice through the heart. At the moment of the stab, Caeleen manifests in the circle and kills both attackers before vanishing. Jack cries out "agony and joy" because she was there, just for a moment - ch 15. "Love made me wicked" - ch 15.

Anders, embedded in the Heretics' tent, declines the Pandaemonium invitation to protect her cover: Have fun. Fuck a demon for me. - ch 16. Quellery announces Brandery will meet the Carcer grandees at the Pandaemonium, "All signed and sealed and backed by the Kings Below. Demonic diplomacy, whatever next, eh?" - ch 16.

The Peace Talks at the Pandaemonium (ch 17-21)

Abellaime rules her "fiefdom of whores and fiends" by fear, reflecting that "Nobody ever considered that 'Rule By Fear' had been what she'd been fleeing, when she came to the city" - ch 17. The Palleseen arrive for negotiations; Brandery discovers Palleseen traitors at the table-Mellister and the Pope of Tides. He declares: "Under no circumstances... Pallesand will negotiate surrender terms in good faith with the interim Carcer administration, but under no circumstances will we sit down with traitors." - ch 18. Mellister draws a knife; the demon's knot freezes every blade; Brandery releases her from the knot: "Stab me, you addled witch, or shut your traitor's mouth." She weeps, drops the knife unsullied, and flees - ch 18.

The Lich Queen reveals to the Pope of Tides that she ritually married the Dead Emperor to access the necropolis; the Pope cackles: "Wait, does this mean you're the Empress of the Moeribandi?" - ch 20. He admits the Fisher King cult's rituals are entirely his invention: "I made this up, obviously" - ch 20.

At the Pandaemonium, Aspel gets a demon to teach her parabolic lensing maths, unwittingly spilling military secrets; Valkazar, her tutor, is secretly pleased: "I taught Targallen" - ch 21. At the negotiation table, Brandery bludgeons the Osseach with demands for reparations and removal of the Gaeledh. The Pope of Tides enters, smiling, and announces a Fisher King fleet has appeared off the coast, its rail-side engines already shelling the Palleseen camp: "Now, what was someone saying about surrender?" - ch 21.

The Assault on the Lighthouse (ch 22-27)

The Wave Knife's flotilla breaks the blockade with siege materiel; Niev watches the pirate captain unload and internally questions the whole resistance: "We should have surrendered" - ch 22. Aspel, following Valkazar's forbidden calculations, fires every artillery piece simultaneously; the shot refracts through the dead crab's lensing and punches a twenty-foot breach through a solid wall into unsuspecting lower-city Wards. Dantell resolves that Aspel "will all have to go on the pyre" after the battle - ch 25.

Kiffel dons the Crabshell and draws the demon-sword; the spirit wearing Conn Leachan's face takes full control of her body. The demon challenges the dead to a champion's duel in multiple languages; a ghost stretched across fifteen cadavers steps forward. The demon destroys the champion body by body. "Was this not what you wanted from me? Have I not wrought well?" - ch 26. Devil Jack hauls Kiffel from the firing line; the demon swings the sword at him, and the blade cuts into Jack under the ribs - ch 26.

At the Lighthouse, a Palleseen artillery strike shatters the Angler's Eye and cuts Hamriddy oa Galeaff nearly in two. Three commandos emerge from a summoned supernatural forest directly at the top of the tower. The Fisher King manifests and harpoons one soldier into the sea. Lovern fires a charged rod that kills the Pope of Tides between the eyes. The Mouth of the Sea recognises Lovern - ch 27.

The Culling Lists (ch 28-33)

Professor-Inquirer Fowlett arrives as Inquisitor General with fresh troops and a siege train, replacing Brandery. She demands the city taken in ten days, "After which, the corpses of the entire Osseach displayed in some appropriately humbling way should remind them to keep the windows closed this time" - ch 31. Dantell, summoned by Fowlett, presents a calculated plan to neutralise the "fifth column" of cultist sympathisers and recruits Quellery for a night sigil-plotting operation, warning: "there's unlikely to be any neutral ground" - ch 31.

Quellery creeps through unlit streets placing ward-sigils on copper plaques; without his corrective glasses, his demon-eyes see the fear and misery of the street's inhabitants smeared on the walls like excrement - ch 33. Lovern pulls him from a mob of looters and hides him where Anders is wounded. Quellery warns them both not to return to camp: "Don't go back to camp, Lovey... The truth. Because lies are what protects us from knowing how shit the world is" - ch 33. He embraces Lovern, feeling "the dagger of I won't see you again, surely. Or if I do it'll be worse" - ch 33.

Aspel utters her first moral refusal: "No, it's not right. No, I don't want that to happen" - ch 35. Istreddy has been redeployed as a Lycanthropist for the living advance; "They made me a special," he says tonelessly - ch 35. The Heretics' name, once a joke, names exactly what the Commission punishes - ch 35.

The Challenge to the Lich Queen (ch 34-38)

Hamriddy oa Galeaff's body is wired, weighted, and consigned to the sea. Varinecthes attends the funeral, places a hand on Niev's shoulder, and lends her perceived stature - ch 34. Kiffel demands Abellaime take the sword back; the Widow refuses: "You have exactly what you always had, child, save in one thing. You have in that blade a thing of the precise same shape and power as before the Pals emptied it, save only that it will not lie to you about what a hero's work is. It's all blood and butchery and taking joy from the horror of it." - ch 34.

A four-armed demon assassin, sent by the Kings Below to kill Jack, defects mid-strike: "I reject the rule of kings. Down with the Scotolaries of Hell. Misery and Wickedness!" - ch 34. A King Below appears at Abellaime's balcony offering restoration of her family's Hell-treasuries in exchange for Jack's death. She refuses: "You are no King here. You are a petitioner. And this audience is over." - ch 34.

Kiffel walks unarmed to the Dead Companies in sacred temple mail to warn them of the planned exorcism. Usrach reveals the armour was never Conn Leachan's but consecrated to Ffen: "It is sacred mail from the temple. It was consecrated to Ffen, even though Ffen was dead. I remember. It was never worn by this kin of yours." He dresses her with reverence: "To Ffen. To the Temple. And you do not disgrace us." - ch 36. Erd Mannet's POV reveals the Dead Companies as a thousand-year sentry; the woman's demon squire challenges the Lich Queen to "a duel of words" - ch 37. Kiffel tells the Lich Queen of her planned elimination; the Lich Queen rejects the implied invitation to defect: "I am a Sage-Inquirer. Of Correct Speech." - ch 38.

The Final Assault at the Gaelensreach (ch 39-42)

Jack stands on the Pandaemonium's balcony overlooking Hell. He has realised the Naming Bond extends both ways: a demon can know a conjurer through their true name. He speaks his birth name to Caeleen in his thoughts-"I'm not Jack. That was never me... When I was born they called me Yasnic. That's who I am. Know me. Find me. I'm Yasnic and I love you." He falls forward, and she catches him - ch 39.

Prassel storms the command tent and denounces the Commission: "I never wanted to be a necromancer! But I became what the Commission required of me... I won the fucking war, as much as anyone, and this is where it gets me?" She reveals the camp exterminations-the Commission used the Dead Companies to massacre Palleseen cult prisoners after the war - ch 40. She announces the Dead Company will march away, "found our own nation and pursue our own perfection" - ch 40.

The Palleseen storm the Gaelensreach. Dantell and Tlemitch counter-curse the wall's magical workings, locking the Gaeledh blocks in place. Istreddy transforms into a wolf and is shot dead by his own countrymen. Anders accepts the Fisher King's offer of championhood. Lovern vanishes mid-battle into the Wood and returns only as a torso, head, and one arm; a goggle-eyed monster follows the remains, devouring charging Pals - ch 41. Brandery enters a cellar to execute Mellister; she shoots herself to open the wound he gave her, then shoots him dead. Both die with mirror-image wounds - ch 41. Valkazar, freed when Aspel unknowingly directs artillery to destroy his seven binding stones, storms Abellaime's room for revenge. Devil Jack steps down from the balcony, half in Hell, half Above: "I've done something." "No," Jack says. "Misery and wickedness." The gates of the Gaelensreach are thrown open. The legion of Hell marches into Godsgift Square. The Pals fall back through the city - ch 41.

In the aftermath, the Lich Queen spares Kiffel: "They are not my people any more." She marches her army away with the Dead Emperor's palanquin - ch 42. Tlemitch reports to Fowlett: "The thrones are empty and the pens are thrown open. The Kings Below are gone" - ch 42. Caeleen addresses the Osseach: "No kings, no masters. That is our law. That is what we have brought to Hell." She proposes Abellaime as Hell's first ambassador. The old gate "leads only to Hell" - ch 42. Varinecthes opens the door of the Varinaen to Ghastron, who has come from Hell. "For now at least, all is well" - ch 42.

Themes & Motifs

The novel's governing metaphor is decanting-the extraction of stored power from an object, leaving it hollow. The Palleseen doctrine of Perfection is itself a kind of decanting: an ideology that "erases imperfection from the world" as a matter of doctrine, converting living traditions into inert tablethi - ch 2. The Pals "didn't do religion. The other thing about the Pals was that they were ruthless in exporting their not doing religion... to the rest of the world" - ch 7. Yet the novel repeatedly shows that what is "decanted" does not simply vanish; it persists as resentment, as grief, as the gap where a demon fell out of the world. Conn Leachan's ghost becomes tablethi, but the sword still hungers; the Gaeledh is spent, but the stones remember; the Lich Queen's dead are purged of grief, but Guillen's poem restores it in a single voice.

Naming and contract structure the novel's magic and its politics. Conjuration is defined through the contract as a container-"the wine is the demon, the contract is the glass"-and Abellaime's pedagogy insists that what you see is "a construct of the container you had made" - ch 10. Varinecthes's explanation of why he cannot recover Ghastron-that "the act of conjuration is a setting of terms. It's a redefinition"-establishes the tragedy of all attempts to retrieve the lost - ch 24. Jack's final act is not conjuration but naming: the revelation of his true name, Yasnic, which Caeleen could never find because he never gave it - ch 39. The Naming Bond, "the absolute and indivisible link between the label and the thing it described," extends both ways, and the revolution in Hell is itself a refusal of imposed names and hierarchies - ch 39, ch 42.

The book is persistently about who gets to write history and who is written out of it. The epigraph to the final negotiation chapter observes that "History... has a preference for those individuals permitted to carry the burden of events," reducing the rest to "theatrical props attending a soliloquy" - ch 36. Kiffel and Niev share "a brief, wordless recognition of their uncredited contributions" at the post-siege Osseach meeting, while Kaethlien ea Galeaff receives public credit nobody witnessed her earning - ch 42. Prassel's secession is explicitly framed as the Commission's attempt to "excise from history-the deed and those who did it" the camp exterminations - ch 40. The Culling Lists operate on the same logic: not erasure of the dangerous, but erasure of the embarrassing.

Lovern's private vision of perfection-"home, Anders, a child on his shoulders, a glass eye replacing the gold one"-is contrasted with the Lich Queen's horrified realisation that the Dead Emperor's philosophy ("so long as people live correctly it does not matter if they do so for a god or not") is indistinguishable from the Commission's: "The perfection that their ancient Empire had striven for, an ordered life only as a prelude to an ordered death that went on forever" - ch 25. The novel refuses to let any single ideology claim the word "perfection"; the only freedom shown is the refusal of imposed order, whether by the Kings Below, the Commission, or the crab god's own dead silence.

Timeline

The Infiltration of the Varinaen

  • ch 1 - the siege of Eres Ffenegh - the seven-month siege by the Palleseen, triggered by Varinecthes's arrival and the city's expulsion of the Palleseen garrison; described as involving ruined districts, artillery, deaths by magic and weapon, cold, and sickness
  • ch 1 - the war against the Loruthi - the earlier conflict between the Palleseen and the Loruthi in which Varinecthes was "employed on the other side"
  • ch 3 - prisoner exchange - the Pals released a handful of prisoners they could not afford to keep (winter, no tablethi for execution); the Osseach returned injured Pals; ad hoc, no formal welcome
  • ch 3 - the Palleseen siege of Eres Ffenegh - an ongoing siege causing winter deprivation, food and tablethi shortages, destruction of landmarks, displaced persons

The Arrival of the Dead Companies

  • ch 5 - Abellaime's entry into the sealed temple - backstory; she broke a four-hundred-year ward and took the temple after the last priest of Ffen bound it with spite
  • ch 5 - Vestry's botched summoning - the rogue demon incident at the Pandaemonium; a four-handed, goat-headed, scorpion-tailed demon conjured against the Lighthouse but turned on its caller

The Osseach Meeting at the Pandaemonium

The Day of the Three Walls

  • ch 11 - the purge - the silent internal war of "purge and counter-purge" on the Archipelago, involving Culling Lists, interrogations, and quota-filling; Dantell knows "if they didn't make quota then they got to round off the numbers in person"
  • ch 12 - the Day of the Three Walls - the single-day Palleseen assault that takes the first two walls, is stalled at the third, and costs Guillen oa Pedrig his life.
  • ch 12 - the Poem That Stopped the Dead - Guillen oa Pedrig's final sea-song, an old banned boat-song, halts the Dead Companies' charge and shatters their compulsion.

The Palleseen Ultimatum

  • ch 13 - The Leachan Name Contract - Abellaime's price for the Crabshell demon's service: Kiffel ea Leachan surrenders her family name and lineage, with the implication that descendants of her line will be "touched by Hell"
  • ch 14 - Brandery's ultimatum - the demand that prompted the current ceasefire and the locals' decision to seek "proper talks"

The Peace Talks at the Pandaemonium

  • ch 17 - the Pal invasion of Allor - the Palleseen conquest that forced Abellaime's family to flee, collapsing her inherited vendetta into irrelevance
  • ch 18 - the surrender negotiations of Eres Ffenegh - the top-level talks held in the Pandaemonium between Resolute Battalion and the interim Carcer administration, from which three "bogeymen" are excluded before the real negotiation begins
  • ch 19 - The Loruthi war - a prior war in which Quellery failed to avoid a combat posting, resulting in his damaged hand and eyes
  • ch 19 - the Loruthi wars

The Assault on the Lighthouse

The Culling Lists

  • ch 28 - the venture towards the Lighthouse - the recent Palleseen assault that gained Wards and a wedge between upper and lower city but did not reach the Lighthouse itself; Lovern's mission severed the city's link to the sea cults during this action
  • ch 29 - Mellister's shooting - Brandery shot Mellister when she confronted him about skimming resources; she had the God-contract paper and was healed
  • ch 30 - The Hospitallers breaking ranks - the Hospitallers "broke ranks and joined with the Os-Fferegh to throw the army out"; this happened before the current siege fighting

The Challenge to the Lich Queen

  • ch 34 - the Pals' assault at Eres Ffenegh - the chapter's final line: "that's when the Pals come in"; the siege breaks into direct action
  • ch 37 - The Fall of the Moeribandi Empire - the Empire fell "not from division or invasion, but from a steady retreat into its own tomb, the doors pulled closed from within"
  • ch 38 - the battle at the Lighthouse - Kiffel ea Leachan held up the Dead Company's advance against the Lighthouse before the current siege; referenced by the Lich Queen as the reason Kiffel is the "champion"

The Final Assault at the Gaelensreach

  • ch 40 - The Camp Exterminations - the Commission's post-war genocide of Palleseen cult prisoners; regulars balked, Unnaturals proved conflicted, so the Commission sent Prassel and her dead to finish the job

Cast

  • Widow · ch 3-42 - the Widow; runs the Pandaemonium by fear; reflects on her family's abuse in Allor, the Pal invasion that collapsed her vengeance, and her forced marriage to a grand demon; inspects the Upper Parlour, then greets arriving Os-Fferegh patrons
  • The Mouth of the Sea · ch 5-42 - former Palleseen army support, now the Pope's herald; plays butler, rallies the cult's armed members, tends a dying man, survives the Pal commando raid; real name Anders, used only in rare private moments
  • Yasnic · ch 3-42 - Jack's birth name, never told to Caeleen; he reveals it to her in his thoughts as he falls.
  • Companion-Invigilator Quellery · ch 4-42 - senior Pal officer and demonist among the defectors; explains the Culling Lists, the post-war crackdown, and the plan to exorcise all undead via pre-drawn wards
  • Aspel · ch 4-42 - Cohort-Monitor artillerist commanding crews scattered across the occupied city; channels Valkazar's calculations to fire a precise artillery pattern that punches a twenty-foot breach through a solid wall into unsuspecting lower-city Wards; privately terrified she has become an apostate by following numbers over the Commission's doctrine
  • Brandery · ch 4-41 - rank: Sage-Monitor - Commanding officer of Resolute Battalion; interrogated by Fowlett over the loss of Eres Ffenegh, the cult defections, and the use of Dead Companies; delivers the plan via Dantell; ordered to take the city in ten days
  • Dantell · ch 6-42 - Fellow-Archivist, the Stoat; commands Aspel as her magister; watches the breach succeed and internally resolves that Aspel "will all have to go on the pyre"; recalls fleeing the Archipelago because her own clevernesses didn't fit the Commission's view; dispatches Lovern into the Wood
  • Kiffel ea Leachan · ch 2-42 - champion of Eres Ffenegh; recognises the former The Mouth of the Sea, observes the defectors, feels the sword's empathy for the dead, resolves to walk to the Dead Companies to warn them, learns the armour's true origin, is dressed in it by Usrach and walks out toward the enemy lines
  • Lovern · ch 4-42 - Cohort-Monitor, Left-Eye Brigade breacher; leads his surviving half-dozen into the Wood on Dantell's calculated heading; loses one man to a fish-lizard beast; holds to a simple vision of home and Anders as his private perfection
  • Istreddy · ch 4-42 - Cohort-Broker, Diviner and former Lycanthropist; brings in a new uniform stitched with special seams for the Lycanthropists' transformation; has been redeployed to the front as a monster for the living advance; reveals fragments of his Archipelago past
  • Niev ea Galeaff · ch 3-42 - niece of Hamriddy; acts as de facto commander at the Gaelensreach despite holding no formal authority; channels her uncle's rhetoric; gives the order to bring the wall down; joins the final stand at the gate
  • Prassel · ch 6-42 - rank: Sage-Inquirer - formerly called "the Lich Queen" by the army; rides in a palanquin with The Dead Emperor; argues necromancy is secular and within Perfection; used by Fowlett during the war and on the Archipelago; dismissed without clear verdict
  • Valkazar · ch 5-42 - demon majordomo of the Pandaemonium; appeared to Aspel in a dream, guided her hands, provided the calculations for the artillery pattern; their relationship is contractual and teacher-student, though Aspel experiences it with an intimacy she has felt with no human
  • God · ch 10-42 - the Maric healing deity, now wearing a Palleseen regular's uniform and operating through the Hospitallers; appears to Jack in the tent, argues with him, and gives grudging blessing to his quest
  • Hamriddy oa Galeaff · ch 7-42 - grandee of the Osseach of Defiance; visits the Lighthouse to negotiate for relics to be "desecrated" on behalf of Abellaime; killed by a glass shard from the Pal strike that breaches the Eye's chamber
  • Varinecthes · ch 1-42 - the "great sorcerer"; the oldest (or near-oldest) man alive; wakes in his tower to find his demon lover murdered by infiltrating Palleseen soldiers, and kills most of them in a grief-driven fury
  • Allorwen · ch 5-35
  • Mellister · ch 7-42 - rank: Fellow-Inquirer - former Correct Speech inquisitor, now leads the Hospitallers; confronts the Pal vanguard as an Inquirer, is beaten; prays God not to heal her; shoots herself to open her old wound, then shoots Brandery dead
  • Caeleen · ch 13-42 - appears to Jack during the blindfolded vision in Hell; tells him she is at war with the Kings Below, needs "the hammer Above to break the chains Below," and cannot reach him because he has "ruined" his Above-self through his conjuring wickedness; says "Who is it that's done these things, Jack?"
  • Fessel · ch 6-40 - Fellow-Monitor; ghost officer in the Lich Queen's second-in-command, housed in a copper vessel wearing a dead Carcer's body over another dead man's flesh; working with the Lich Queen to purge the dead
  • The Dead Emperor · ch 12-42 - Lich Queen's spiritual consort, borne in a palanquin by four armoured figures; views the world from "the far side of mortality"; articulates a philosophy in which the second Empire needs no god, only correct living; the Lich Queen finds his clarity horrifying
  • Usrach · ch 5-42 - demon doorman and old temple guardian of the Pandaemonium; dressed in the Crabshell armour with reverence, reveals it was never Conn Leachan's but sacred temple mail consecrated to Ffen, walks out with Kiff
  • Aeriff · ch 9-42 - senior conjurer of the Helaseach; advises "Legs, joints, just stop them moving" at the third wall; leads the ritual to animate the Gaeledh from the Taela's foundations
  • Kaele · ch 5-42 - one of the Pandaemonium's working girls; owns the nightgown Kiffel ea Leachan wore; a Left-city girl who also practises conjuration; relays the Palleseen ultimatum to the table
  • Reddaen · ch 7-27 - chief enforcer of the Pope of Tides; brings news of Devil Jack's arrival, resents the Mouth of the Sea's authority, departs when ordered
  • Arduin oa Galeaff · ch 3-34 - nephew of Hamriddy; humiliated by Devil Jack in the Taela; conspires with Reddaen in the Upper Parlour
  • Erd Mannet · ch 12-37 - a dead sentry of the Moeribandi Empire, part of the Dead Companies; serves a thousand years of sentry duty in a necropolis, now a "parched cadaver" holding the barricades for the Lich Queen; feels envy toward the living and welcomes demons as "old friends"; marches the woman to the Lich Queen
  • Ghastron · ch 1-42 - Varinecthes's demon lover, formerly his conjured servant; a "grandee of the infernal" from Hell; killed off-page by the soldiers before the chapter proper begins; his death leaves no body, only a "gap"
  • Vestry · ch 5-39 - "the Pal woman, one of the defectors"; sits with Valkazar, listening "more intently than Jack thought he'd ever seen anyone attend to anything."
  • Flob · ch 12-33 - imp killed by the looters; re-summoned as a replacement at the chapter's end
  • Guillen oa Pedrig · ch 12-25 - the poet whose words about "home and hearth" made the narrator's Dead Company remember what it was to grieve, forcing her and Fessel to "methodically rid them of all those finer feelings"
  • Ettek Scerlen · ch 12-37 - long-dead hero whose ghost has now vanished entirely, every vessel destroyed by the demon champion; the Dead Companies' only casualty
  • Hospitaller · ch 3-13
  • Ib · ch 12-33 - imp who survived the looter chase and sat on Quellery's shoulder
  • Otal Kimbree · ch 12-25 - dead Moeribandi guard; one of the few distinct names among the merged Dead Companies
  • Perfector of Eres Ffenegh · ch 6-9
  • Pib · ch 12-33 - imp killed by the looters; re-summoned as a replacement at the chapter's end
  • Pob · ch 12-33 - imp who warns Quellery he is being watched ("Watched, watched")
  • Tlemitch · ch 41-42 - rank: Fellow-Archivist - counter-cursing specialist on Fowlett's staff; a half-Maric in charcoal-greys with a white streak in her hair; hard-faced and equally solitary
  • Abellaime's late husband · ch 5 - unnamed; his exact robe is worn by Valkazar as a small cruelty
  • Aunt Llamienn · ch 17 - Abellaime's aunt who tried to mould her into a doppelganger and caned her
  • Caeleen's master · ch 15 - the unnamed conjurer who made Caeleen; Jack engineered his ruin
  • Cohort-Broker Istreddy · ch 36 - scarred Pal officer; says "The camps," stands silent through the apology, identified as someone who will be killed "because of what he is"
  • Cohort-Monitor Aspel · ch 36 - Pal siege engineer and chief artillerist; defecting because she wants to understand "the whole world in numbers," converses with Valkazar on mathematics
  • Cohort-Monitor Lovern · ch 36 - big gold-eyed Pal breacher who killed the The Pope of Tides; holds the Mouth's arm, recognises Kiff, apologises to the whole table for the Palleseen occupation, calls the exorcism "dishonourable"
  • Cousin Gascoln · ch 17 - Abellaime's favourite cousin who proved a contemptuous brute
  • Fellow-Archivist Dantell, 'the Stoat' · ch 34 - The Pals assemble their multi-purpose assault under his guidance
  • Ib, Pib, and Pob · ch 12
  • Izzy · ch 35 - familiar nickname for Istreddy used within the Heretics
  • Jack's dead beloved · ch 10 - unnamed woman whose face the demon wears; "down Below" after being killed; Jack insists "she's herself" and sends a message to her
  • Kaethlien ea Galeaff · ch 42 - "Aunt Kaet"; receives public credit for continuing the war effort after Hamriddy's death; Niev notes nobody saw her near fighting
  • Kebler · ch 16 - administrative clerk who owes Quellery a favour
  • Lougann oa Haelish · ch 42 - of the Shipwrights; commended for the defence of Pencewort Ward
  • Os · ch 26
  • People at the barricade · ch 2 - roughly twenty onlookers on the free-city side who watch Kiffel return; "Witnesses only"
  • The big Pal soldier · ch 2 - broad-shouldered, fair-haired, good-looking, with a gold prosthetic left eye bearing "minuscule, intricate sigils" and neat surgical scarring; pins Kiffel during the extraction, then helps her up, escorts her through the Pal camp, returns her Crabshell mail and the ruined sword, apologises, and urges her to persuade her people to surrender before winter
  • the cat · ch 17 - Abellaime's childhood pet, killed by her family
  • the demon assassin · ch 34 - A four-armed bug-demon with stolen human eyes, sent by the Kings Below to kill Jack; defects mid-strike, shouting Caeleen's revolutionary creed
  • The demon champion · ch 37 - the entity that fought and destroyed all of Ettek Scerlen's many bodies; called "the ancient foe of the Empire"
  • The demon in the woman's form · ch 10 - conjured by Jack; wears the face of his dead beloved; pretends yearning to lure him into a fatal touch; ultimately bound by his contract to search for the woman Below
  • The demon squire · ch 37 - the ancient demon at the woman's side, consecrated to a false faith; speaks in the proper imperial tongue; its "stony steel voice" echoes in Erd Mannet's skull; delivers the challenge
  • The demon sword · ch 37 - a sentient blade in the woman's scabbard, "mutinous," "eager to taste the air, and battle," "lusted for battle so fiercely"; promises Erd Mannet silently, "I would fight you"
  • the doorman of the Pandaemonium · ch 7 - a guardian demon of the building's former life as a temple; recognises the Crabshell mail, demands Kiff say "Command me" before granting entry to the Upper Parlour
  • The drunk tenant · ch 26 - shouts at the artillery engines from the boarding house
  • The duty Cohort-Monitor · ch 11 - spoke briefly with Dantell about leaving a gap front-and-centre for the new Unnaturals
  • the falling priest · ch 34 - the demon assassin's epithet for Jack, referencing his former priesthood and current strait
  • the figure in the palanquin · ch 6 - co-commander of the force, reclining in a dust-and-cobweb-draped palanquin; "deadest of all"; not named in this chapter
  • the fire monster · ch 1 - an elemental creature of fire that Varinecthes captured and bound into the tower's foundations centuries ago to provide heat; it breaks free when his grief and rage wake the tower's power
  • The Fisher King · ch 26 - manifests as a thin figure in a sea-coat wielding a harpoon; stabs one soldier and drives him from the Lighthouse; after the Pope's death searches for a new champion
  • the Fisher's Guild contact · ch 3 - unnamed lanky man with a fish-hook scar and a badly maimed left hand; Niev's smuggler contact for bringing goods past the Palleseen blockade; waits at a nearby table, interrupted by Kiff and Devil Jack
  • the Galeaff chief · ch 15 - well-dressed member of the Galeaff clan bearing clan colours; leads the attack on Jack; a former client of the Pandaemonium
  • the Galeaff cultist · ch 15 - junior Galeaff clan member wearing a cast-off Palleseen jacket stitched with maritime icons; devotee of the sea gods who wants to reclaim the Lighthouse and make himself Pope
  • the glittering youth at the bar · ch 7 - a demon with butterfly-shimmer skin who pours drinks in the Upper Parlour
  • the grand demon · ch 17 - unnamed grand demon to whom Abellaime was ritually married for family status; the reason she is called the Widow
  • The Guilds · ch 17 - local power groups in Eres Ffenegh with the same resentful relationship to Abellaime
  • The last priest of Ffen · ch 5 - performed the binding that sealed the temple and animated the stone guardians
  • The Lich Queen's field officer · ch 11 - un-named; "the woman with the barbaric cloak over her threadbare uniform" is the Lich Queen herself; this officer carries "a copper cannister filling most of his chest"
  • The living allies · ch 37 - shout demands from behind the barricades at the woman; their conduct "would not uphold the Emperor's honour"
  • the looters · ch 33 - unnamed Carcer civilians, "without a complete uniform between them," who chase Quellery; two of his imps die in the pursuit
  • the messenger · ch 28 - a young soldier, "far too neat and pressed to be any of theirs," delivering the dispatch from Correct Speech
  • The Old Man in the Motley Dressing Gown · ch 13 - an older patron at the Pandaemonium breakfast table; advocates surrender to the Palleseen over civic pride
  • the old man with the moustache · ch 18 - leads the Carcer/Osseach delegation at the table; tries to defend his allies, is cut off by Brandery
  • the old woman · ch 17 - Abellaime's teacher who taught her only half what she needed
  • the Os-Fferegh patrons · ch 17 - unnamed local dignitaries who arrive at the chapter's close, "done up like they were attending some grandee's funeral"
  • the pale youth with heavy-lidded eyes · ch 20 - a server who brings drinks at the table
  • the Pals who decanted the sword · ch 7 - unnamed Palleseen operatives who performed the decanting; Kiff recalls a "weaselly Pal" officiating
  • The poet · ch 37 - "that poet" whose prating of living things first made Erd Mannet think of sun, sky, and a living heart
  • the quartermaster's clerk · ch 4 - Quellery had "set his eye on" him; runs past announcing reinforcements
  • the Senior Strategic Secretary · ch 6 - the crooked official from whom Dantell acquired her attachment orders at ruinous cost
  • the sentries at the old wall · ch 4 - greet Lovern cheerily; stamp by a tablethi-charged heater; Lovern knows their names
  • the thing in the palanquin · ch 14 - "the equally-horrible-but-ideologically-worse thing" behind the Lich Queen; speaks in a language Dantell does not know; the Lich Queen receives its instruction as "unwelcome but expected news"
  • the unnamed Sage-Inquirer · ch 20 - a necromancer in Pallesand's service; former schoolmate and wartime comrade of the Pope; was sent on a research expedition to the Moeribandi necropolis; ritually married The Dead Emperor to unlock the necropolis's power; commands a Dead Company currently crippled by grief; loyal to the Commission and Pallesand despite the Pope's arguments
  • the watcher · ch 33 - a single unseen individual Pob spotted tracking Quellery
  • The weasel · ch 2 - a Pal woman from "a very particular department" in the ruins of the Customs House; extracts the ghost's power from the sword using leaden lozenges and wire, converting it into charged tablethi; described as having a sly, weasel-like face and a crooked, too-jointed body; leaves without watching Kiffel's full breakdown
  • The woman · ch 37 - walks from the enemy lines bearing antique mail that "smelled of some young cult still wet from the sea," a mutinous demon-sword she keeps sheathed, and an ancient demon consecrated to "some false faith"; challenges the Lich Queen to "a duel of words"; "become like a priest," refusing blood and strength
  • the young soldier · ch 29 - an ex-soldier of the Hospitallers who missed a briefing on Loruthi minefields; wakes Mellister from a brief doze to report that someone in the tent has woken
  • the young woman · ch 18 - possibly the old man's daughter; whispers urgently into his ear when Mellister erupts
  • The Youth with Beautiful Eyes · ch 13 - sits beside Kaele at breakfast; reports the Dead Companies' position outside the square
  • Two unnamed Guild representatives · ch 36 - arrive late, probably stranded since the attack on the Lighthouse
  • Two unnamed militia officers · ch 36 - present at the council; one suggests shooting the defectors as saboteurs, the other calls the Pals "fuckers" to the Mouth's face
  • Two unnamed Palleseen commandos · ch 27 - one is found dead (carved open from behind), one is stabbed by a manifestation of the Fisher King and falls from the window
  • Uncle Ottovar · ch 17 - Abellaime's uncle who controlled family assets and the Sable Lodge privileges
  • Unnamed clan representative · ch 36 - arrives late, one step off the Osseach

Places

  • Eres Ffenegh · ch 1-41 - "the City on the Back of a Crab"; formerly occupied by the Palleseen, now under a seven-month siege by them
  • Lighthouse · ch 3-41 - the ward atop the crab face, reached by hoist; where the Pope tells Niev to bring Hamriddy
  • Fisher King · ch 7-42 - the sea god appears (visible only to Pope and Vestry) and strikes Vestry down; owes the Pope a sacrifice
  • Pandaemonium · ch 3-41 - the specific room where Kiffel ea Leachan woke; no windows, no balcony; Allorwen-exported gilded reliefs on the ceiling; contains an unlit fireplace with a fire iron "formed by Allorwen craft into a demon's reaching claw"
  • Conn Leachan · ch 2-42 - the thousand-year-old ghost inhabiting the sword; the founder of Eres Ffenegh, slayer of giants, greatest warrior of his age; his spirit is forcibly extracted and converted into tablethi by a Pal specialist, and Kiffel watches this happen without being able to see or feel the ghost directly
  • Gaelensreach · ch 2-41
  • The King Below · ch 1-42 - the revolution in Hell that emptied the thrones and opened the pens; the gate in the Gaelensreach now leads to Hell rather than the upper city
  • Sable Manor · ch 9-42 - the Widow's hereditary estate, existing "somewhere between the world and Hell," in the manner of Allorwen conjurer dynasties; the Pandaemonium operates within it
  • Godsgift Square · ch 3-41 - the plaza before the Gaelensreach; site of the hospital, soup kitchen, displaced-persons camps, and the prisoner exchange
  • Left-city · ch 2-41 - the lower Wards of Eres Ffenegh; associated with roughness, fish-hook discipline, and swearing like "the feck"
  • Fowlett · ch 28-42 - Professor-Inquirer, Inquisitor General; inspects the Dead Company, reviews the siege plan, dismisses the Lich Queen's suggestion to force the gates; shares a past guilt with the Lich Queen
  • Hamriddy · ch 3-41 - grandee of the Osseach of Defiance, spokesman for the city; presents absolute demands, is reduced to silence by Brandery's bludgeoning, and stands at the point of either capitulating or refusing
  • phalanstery · ch 6-40 - an educational institution in Palleseen society, paid for by Dantell's parents; a site of "superior" ideological formation
  • Taela · ch 2-15 - a tea house in Eres Ffenegh where Kiffel imagines she and the big Pal might have shared honeycakes and married, had his people not besieged her city
  • Helaseach · ch 9-41
  • Right-city · ch 3-30 - the upper Wards; home of the big houses and old families like the Leachans
  • Ilmar · ch 15-39
  • The Varinaen · ch 1-41 - Varinecthes's flying tower, "his infamous flying tower," moored at Eres Ffenegh; a large stone structure with multiple floors, wards, and a bound elemental fire-monster in its foundations
  • Upper Parlour · ch 7-36 - the high-class patron area of the Pandaemonium, with secluded booths for consultation
  • Above · ch 33-41
  • Successor Steppes · ch 6-40
  • the Wood · ch 25-42 - an ever-present parallel realm of endless trees alongside the material world; accessible through the gold eye; navigable to anywhere if you know where to enter and exit; inhabited by masked people and hunting beasts; no visible horizon or end
  • Alkhalend · ch 30-32 - a city where Jack and Caeleen shared a bed; mentioned only in flashback
  • Middle Parlour · ch 7-17 - a lower tier of the Pandaemonium, contrasted with the Upper Parlour in Abellaime's management of the staff
  • the Stoat · ch 4-35 - Battalion's second-in-command, inserted herself below Brandery; fixated on those with Specialities; Lovern insists she is "just a Decanter from Correct Erudition" who intimidates for jollies; nicknamed "the Stoat" for her ferreting

Groups & Factions

  • Pal · ch 1-41 - the chapter's term for the Palleseen occupiers
  • Carcer · ch 2-41 - an old religion whose sacristy was beneath the Pandaemonium; "now thoroughly defiled and disempowered"; the chapter treats it as the indigenous faith of the location
  • Commission · ch 4-40 - post-bellum Palleseen body that recognised the problem of disaffected Specialists and responded with purges and Culling Lists
  • Resolute Battalion · ch 4-41
  • Fisher King cult · ch 4-41 - informal name for Quellery's coterie of Specialists; they had a tent where junior officers gathered; Dantell and Correct Speech regard them with suspicion
  • Lor · ch 1-41
  • Osseach · ch 3-42 - the council governing Eres Ffenegh; Niev's work is "for the Osseach"; Hamriddy serves on it
  • Hospitallers · ch 3-42 - a healer group (Pals) running the hospital and soup kitchen in the Left-city; some still wear the charcoal-grey jacket
  • the Kings Below · ch 10-42 - rulers of Hell whose exploitation of conjurers opens the chapter's reflection
  • Higher Orders · ch 4-40 - the Palleseen exorcism rite described by Companion-Invigilator Quellery: wards drawn across a district of Eres Ffenegh, primed with tablethi and words, activated the moment the wall falls to "turn every walking corpse out there into the ordinary kind, evict every ghost"
  • the Fifteen-Minute Men · ch 8-35
  • Families · ch 5-17 - the term used for members of a clan in Eres Ffenegh; the two attackers are called "the Families man" and "the junior Families man"
  • Specialist · ch 16-40
  • The Palleseen Sway · ch 2-28
  • Correct Conduct · ch 4-16 - the School of Correct Thought that claims Lovern; "the application of force on a personal and global level"; "the backbone of the army"
  • Correct Erudition · ch 4-21 - the branch of Palleseen doctrine to which Dantell's rank and trade belong; one of the The Schools of Correct Thought
  • Correct Exchange · ch 8-35 - one of the Schools of Correct Thought; the branch where a gifted arithmetician "should probably have been sent to count beans"
  • Moeribandi Empire · ch 20-37
  • Turncoats · ch 6-25 - term for foreign troops placed under the service of Pallesand; the necromantic force wears a pale sash as a fig-leaf compromise rather than proper Pallesand uniform
  • Fisher's Guild · ch 3-22 - a guild in the Left-city with members who can bring goods past the Palleseen blockade and Os-Fferegh authorities
  • Islermen · ch 9-22 - the pre-Palleseen ancestors who worshipped the Fisher King before the Palleseen arose and exterminated the cult
  • the Dead Companies · ch 38-40
  • the Fisher King cult · ch 12-41
  • The Wave Knife · ch 22-42 - the pirate vessel itself, a hundred and thirty feet, three masts; arrives in the harbour and later tacks out past the horizon
  • Unnaturals · ch 11-40

Objects & Technology

  • tablethi · ch 2-41 - the units into which a ghost's supernatural power is extracted and stored; marked with a word in Pel that unleashes the stored power; here, Conn Leachan's ghost is transmuted into "a few hundred tablethi"
  • Crabshell · ch 2-36 - the Leachan ancestral armour and sword; polished and reassembled by Usrach; adorned with a mannikin bearing a "hideous gurning face"; contains a demon that requires the heir's name to function as a battle-guide
  • Angler's Eye · ch 8-27 - referenced in the Boat Songs alongside "the face of the crab god"; a beacon beaming out through the fog (likely the Lighthouse, though the chapter does not equate them)
  • Culling List · ch 11-40

Systems

Culture

  • the School of Correct Speech · ch 6-41 - the branch of Palleseen doctrine that ordered the camp exterminations and circulates the Culling List
  • The Old Knife · ch 2-34 - the fierce winter wind off the sea at Eres Ffenegh, named by poets; arrives as the siege stalls; "As much a part of the city as her sainted ancestor, and not banished so easily"

Terms

  • Hell · ch 1-42 - used throughout the chapter interchangeably with The Realms Below; the interstitial demonic realm whose geography is shaped by the observer's mind
  • Decanters · ch 6-38 - a professional background the Pope formerly belonged to; "nobody really liked the Decanters much"
  • Pel · ch 2-37 - the single-word command trigger for a Palleseen charged rod; "the first word of the language so many foreigners learned"
  • Perfector · ch 7-40
  • Accessory · ch 14-23 - the formal Palleseen military designation for the Dead Companies' status as adjuncts to the army; used as a rank prefix ("Accessory Erd Mannet")
  • Faraslandi · ch 6-22 - a people whose proverbs Dantell cites ("if your nets were full of poison devil fish, invite your enemies to a feast"; "Holding the lantern was the best way to stop it shining in your own face")
  • Magister · ch 23-29 - a rank badge held by the Lich Queen; the form of address Dantell uses for her, and the address Aspel uses for Dantell
  • palanquin · ch 6-31 - the conveyance in which Prassel rides, shared with The Dead Emperor
  • Perfection · ch 7-31 - the Palleseen ideological dogma that forbids having dealings with gods; the source of the Temporary Commission's purges and the Hospitallers' pacifism

Chapter Epigraphs

Chapter 14

"Dantell's Inventory: what the Palleseen advance now holds:"
  • internal note by Dantell, listing the three territorial gains of the Palleseen advance

Chapter 26

"The great hero of Eres Ffenegh. Remember when he ate the whole feast himself when his enemies called him as guest, and then broke every one of their knives and turned them out of their own doors? Remember when he sailed into the harbour at Eres Nairn with a single boat and sailed out with all their fleet, tied one to the next like a string of mules? His laugh caused the snows to come off the mountains, his noble tears are why the ocean tastes of salt. None like him in the grand battle or the single duel of champions. On one day at the battle of Cevaern Straits he took a hundred heads, each one of them captain of a ship or champion of a clan, and there was so much blood in the sea that the sun borrowed red from the waves rather than the other way round."

Chapter 31

"The Palleseen Schools of Correct Thought, and their spheres of influence:
- The Archivists of Correct Erudition - magic, education, scholarship, decanting, various Specialities.
- The Invigilators of Correct Appreciation - art, permitted entertainment, law, diplomacy, external espionage, conjuration.
- The Brokers of Correct Exchange - supply, economics, fiscal policy, weights, measures, taxes, divinatory techniques.
- The Monitors of Correct Conduct - the mailed fist. The armies expanding the Sway and the civic order within.
- The Inquirers of Correct Speech - originally dedicated to rooting out cults and religion, thereafter internal security, compliance, orthodoxy. Weighing the Brokers, policing the Monitors, sitting in judgment over the Invigilators and editing the Archivists. Liked by none, feared by all."

Chapter 32

"They are different to us. You cannot draw a line that connects them to us. Those things that are abstracts to us, like goodness or wickedness, are real to them. Their realm is simultaneously one of fire and darkness. They hate us. Their only purpose is to torment us. Humans and demons, and what one thinks of the other."
  • unattributed (no source given)

Chapter 36

"History - the historian at least - has a preference for those individuals permitted to carry the burden of events. Generals, kings, high priests, magnates of the Temporary Commission of Ends and Means. Those of status and title, at whose word the lesser sort scurry to obey, reduced to little more than theatrical props attending a soliloquy."
  • narrator (no in-universe attribution given)
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