Days of Shattered Faith

Adrian Tchaikovsky · The Tyrant Philosophers

Days of Shattered Faith is the second novel in Adrian Tchaikovsky's The Tyrant Philosophers cycle, a political-military fantasy set in the city-state of Alkhalend, capital of Usmai, during and immediately after a succession war among the children of a dying god-king. The book follows a sprawling ensemble cast-principally the Palleseen diplomat Gil Angilly, her aide Loret, the exiled heir Dekamran, the usurper Gorbudan, and a household of deserters hiding in the city's poor districts-as a colonial power's "perfection" machinery grinds a theocratic monarchy into submission. The narrative moves from a single illegal duel at the book's opening to a full-scale civil war, the killing of a civic deity, a Palleseen military occupation, and the collapse of every political settlement the characters had built.

The viewpoints rotate among Loret, Gil, Dekamran, Gorbudan, Kilbery, Drathel, Caecelian, Enshili, Premath, Flint Postry, Berkely, and omniscient interludes, so that no single perspective commands the story. What unites them is the question of whether a state built on the eradication of imperfection can govern a place defined by gods, ghosts, masks, and obligation without becoming the thing it claims to transcend. The book sits between the first Tyrant Philosophers volume and its successor as a bridge from diplomatic manoeuvre to open war, and from the Palleseen's arrival to their entrenchment and eventual expulsion.

Plot

The Duel with Tarcomir (ch 1-5)

Loret, a Cohort-Invigilator of Correct Appreciation, arrives by night at Alkhalend's docks and is shepherded through the Water Lanes by the enormous Cotto pirate Orhuhst, who claims her protectively - "You are my niece" - before walking her to Slate House - ch 1. There she is conscripted on the spot as a second by the Palleseen Resident, Sage-Invigilator Gil Angilly, who is about to fight an illegal duel against the Loruthi envoy Tarcomir - ch 1. The duel is set in a sand circle in the palace gardens; Tarcomir fights to salvage his reputation before recall, declaring "The war was a long sentence. This, here, is the punctuation to it," and Gil kills him with her rapier - ch 2. She is arrested by palace guards and Louse Monks, then imprisoned in Coregan's cellar by a minor official seeking to lose her in the House of Hard Angles; Loret stages a public rescue with hired Cotto thugs, and Gil learns from Loret that "a Pal woman in the prison who isn't me" is inside - ch 4. Meanwhile Dekamran, the acknowledged Second Son and heir, waits anxiously at Slate House for word of the duel, then enters the palace throne room where his blind, sick father Oparan mistakes him for his vanished wife Kaleithi, guided only by a ghost bound in a skull - ch 3. Chapter 5 widens to a mosaic of the four royal children: Gorbudan exiled at Mantekor contemplating fratricide, Enshili learning forbidden combat from a masked tutor, Premath immersed in death-cult theology under Arkanith, and Dekamran exercising governance without authority while his friendship with Gil remains politically untenable - ch 5.

The Attack on the House of Hard Angles (ch 6-8)

The next day, Gil secures a writ from Oparan for the release of Drathel, a Fellow-Archivist and Decanter imprisoned for a "particularly Pal sort of transgression" involving decanting at the Halberandi place - ch 6. The party descends into the House of Hard Angles, a six-sided prison built over a one-foot-wide abyss-slot; a dozen hooded assassins ambush them, declaring Drathel a "tomb-robber" who "has earned a death" - ch 6. Drathel's baton releases a forked web that briefly reveals hundreds of trapped ghosts in every alcove; Angilly fights with a knife after her sword is kicked into the abyss; the true Warden - a vast multi-legged segmented horror - rises from the slot and slaughters the killers - ch 6. Loret, grabbed through the bars, experiences a violent flashback to the camps and stabs her attacker repeatedly before collapsing - ch 6. Gil carries her to the Fever Lodge in the Sand Lanes, where the Reckoner knits her wounds using balancing scales and weights; Drathel confesses the attack's origin at the Halberandi tombs - ch 7. The chapter introduces the Lodge's full household: Kilbery, Tally, Happy Jack, Caecelian, Oathan, and Caecelian's unnamed fencing student, whom Gil recognises but does not name - ch 7. Chapter 8 follows Kilbery's errand-round through the palace and Sand Lanes, his delivery of medicines to the poet Dolethi, the dying monk Follo, and the armless Louse Speaker Teerasla, and his encounter at a Taumachy den with Orhuhst, who pays him for news of the stabbed Pal woman - ch 8.

The Day of Milk and Flowers (ch 9-10)

Three days after the stabbing, Gil mandates full Palleseen uniform for the festival. At the pools beside the House of Tranquillity, the court buries three skull-shaped clay jars - surrogate demon-vessels from the Moeribandi conquest - and the frog god Kakrops emerges from his cave; the Alkhand touches its hide and the festival erupts - ch 9. Gil explains to Loret that the Day of Milk and Flowers is a sanctioned suspension of sexual mores and presses a purse on her, ordering her to enjoy the city - ch 9. The Night of Milk and Flowers threads through every strand: Kilbery loses his nerve at the palace gates; Enshili receives a demon mask from Caecelian as a graduation gift; Oparan sets aside his grief for one night; Loret sits with an unnamed Usmiat woman and chooses to engage; and at the Residence, Gil and Dekamran cross a boundary seven years in the making - ch 10. Before dawn Gil sees him out the side door; she returns to find Drathel already seated at the dining table, smiling - ch 10.

The Treaty Renewal at the Tesemer Compound (ch 11-12)

The Alkhand's procession travels two days out from Alkhalend to renew the Ibaleth treaty and visit the Tesemer compound. Gil attempts to draw Loret out; Loret is guarded, terrified of the Tesemer's hooklopers, and nearly confesses a secret before swallowing it - ch 11. At the Tesemer compound, Gil reflects on the order's history: "Tamed beasts, were the Tesemer, just as much as the monsters they rode or hunted with. And they knew it and hated it, but had grown used to the kennel" - ch 11. That night Gil goes to Dekamran's cell a second time - ch 11. Crossing into Peor, they arrive at Flint Postry's camp, where he has recruited Peost locals as baton-armed Seraphi and commands a squad of approximately thirty demons in partial Palleseen uniforms, led by the Cohort-Monitor Croskin, who declares "We are contracted to Pallesand" - ch 12. Loret feels empathy for the demons' fear - "Don't send me back" - and hides it; Gil defers the problem to Palinet and forbids bringing the demons into Usmai - ch 12.

Gorbudan's Coup at the Waygrove (ch 13-16)

At the Alborandi compound near the Waygrove, Oparan presents blank masks to the monks and searches among them for Kaleithi's face; she is not there - ch 13. Dekamran meets Gorbudan and offers him a place at his right hand; Gorbudan rejects it, demanding Dekamran step down from the succession, then partially relents - "I make no promises to you, about whose throne it will be later" - ch 13. Oparan shatters Sorthist's skull, releasing his brother's ghost, and walks toward the masks - ch 14. He takes the Alborandi mask and vanishes into the Grove; Gorbudan seizes the moment, declaring "The Alkhand Oparan has retired from the world," and after a melee in which Lhisamena proclaims him "The Tiger-Crab of Mantekor! The Alkhand of Usmai!", he rides for Alkhalend - ch 15. On the road, a Tesemer Louse Monk ambushes Gil; Loret kills the monk in a berserk knife-attack, speaking words that are not Pel - ch 16. The old man at the monastery reveals the news from the Alborandi compound; Gil understands "while her back was turned, a new age of Usmiat history had begun" - ch 16.

Gorbudan on the Mirror Throne (ch 17-19)

Seven days after the coup, Kilbery shadows Happy Jack to the House of Hard Angles, where "the Alkhand was cleaning house"; the Lodge debates whether to stay or flee, and Oathan fears Caecelian "She's going to get us all fucking hung. Or shot. Or fed to the frog" - ch 17. Gorbudan governs by purge: half the court dismissed, three Emorandi clans exiled, six days of blunt petition-hearing burning through a century of business - ch 18. He visits Premath, who refuses a family meal - "Double mourning. Our poor brother" - and visits Enshili, who glares at him with open hatred - ch 18. Enshili steals paint pots from the Moerend wing, passes them through a ventilation shaft to Premath, and exits the palace; four palace staff stop her in the Constellar Gardens, and Caecelian kills all four before the two flee into the Sand Lanes - ch 19.

Dekamran's Escape to Peor (ch 20-21)

Dekamran has been imprisoned in the House of Hard Angles for seven days. Gorbudan visits, debates mutilation versus kinslaying, and asks "how much of you would I have to cut away, so that what was left could never be acclaimed Alkhand, yet would still be my brother" - ch 20. Two days later, Gil and Drathel arrive with the Under-warden; Drathel empties a sack of religious artefacts as payment, and the Warden tears open the cell bars - ch 20. At Flint's camp in Peor, Dekamran eats, inspects the troops and the demons without flinching, and asks only How do you get the Peosts to bear it? - ch 21. Alone with Gil, he mimes removing the crown he does not have, invites her to sit as an equal, and sends Loret to fetch Flint: "I have something to ask him" - ch 21.

The First Engagement of the Brothers' War (ch 22-23)

The allied column crosses into Usmai. A single Pal volley breaks a peasant levy; Gorbudan's cavalry executes a feigned flight that shatters the Pal right flank, and he destroys a Palleseen Hand with his lance - ch 22. Lhisamena, hidden in the trees, unleashes the Tesemer; a monk boards Dekamran's ogrodon howdah, and Gil fights him at close quarters while Loret, thrown to the ground, unleashes a storm-tempest that frightens the monk into retreat - ch 22. Flint releases Croskin's demon regiment against Hakoran's held Emorandi flank; the battle reaches a grinding stalemate and Gorbudan retreats to Alkhalend - ch 22. At the allied camp, the Ibaleth defect en masse: Great Mother Kass leads several hundred scaled warriors crawling before Dekamran to transfer allegiance - ch 23. Flint and Dekamran lock in a night assault through the Sand Gate; Gil objects and feels shut out. Flint says: As to the gates, I've got just the thing - ch 23.

The Killing of Kakrops (ch 24-26)

Caecelian and Enshili encounter Croskin and other demons at the Sand Gate; Enshili has demanded transformation into a demon so she can "laugh in his face, show him my fangs" when her brother comes to claim her - ch 24. Premath is found dead in his bed, having starved himself and ingested toxic sacramental face-paint; Gorbudan accuses Arkanith of filling his head with a "necrotic creed" and confines him under guard - ch 25. Gorbudan rides to turn the frontal assault, then sees a second column emerging from the Sand Lanes - he has been outmanoeuvred - ch 25. The night column fights through the Sand Lanes and up the clifftop; Lhisamena charges Dekamran with her falx and is shot dead mid-leap - ch 26. Gorbudan goads Kakrops into battle; the frog god erupts from its cave and rampages against the Palleseen lines. Flint orders fire; "The Pals speak and speak their death word, slot new tablethi, talk the god to death with their sentences" - ch 26. Gorbudan rallies a last stand at the palace doors and is killed by an anonymous shot: "No histories will record whose shot it is that finds him" - ch 26.

City in Mourning (ch 27-28)

The docks are draped in yellow-and-black mourning flags; scholars Annet and Dalry arrive unlisted on the Naturae, and Dalry extracts from a local woman the information that "around twenty days ago, we killed god" - ch 27. They decide to visit Angilly for answers - ch 27. Gil writes her constrained dispatch to Flockersly, framing the deicide as a restoration of order; she receives Dalry and Annet, who beg help to flee the Sway after the Commission's crackdown on the Fisher King cult and the expansion of the Quarantine camps - ch 28. In the throne room, Dekamran wears mourning colours three weeks into his reign; the Artist petitioner receives only "I'll look into it" - ch 28. Alone in his shrine, Gil confesses: "I didn't do this for Pallesand. I did this for you." He looks at her with "that damnable weak smile" and she wants to scream - ch 28.

Drathel's Operations in Alkhalend (ch 29-31)

Drathel inspects a monastery's cellar of stored prayer-jars under the Alkhand's writ, meets a coerced informant who reveals Angilly helped two fugitive scholars escape through the Waygrove, and infiltrates the House of Hard Angles to bargain with the Under-warden for access to the crypt, where she observes Arkanith's necromantic working over a thousand trapped ghosts - ch 29. At a taverna celebrating the sack of Mantekor, Flint presses hus on Gil; she returns to the Residence to find Loret drunk and confronting her - "You killed his god and you made him beholden to it" - before revealing she is not Loret: "They. Killed. Everybody." She flees - ch 30. A month after his coronation, Dekamran cannot get the Tesemer to bend the knee; Follo, ruined in body, tells him what Drathel will demand, and Dekamran swears "Under no circumstances" - ch 31. He dreams of Gorbudan's dead face saying "I told you," acknowledges "He needed the Pals. He wanted Gil," and sends the servants away, understanding he has made his choice - ch 31.

The Fever Lodge Takes In Loret (ch 32-34)

Tally opens the door to a filthy, mud-caked Loret who has run from the Residence; Oathan objects, Caecelian votes "I like her," and the Reckoner overrides: "Keep her... Just for a few days. It won't be for long" - ch 32. Loret chooses the name "Loret" for herself - ch 32. Flint destroys the Tesemera compound; the Louse Speaker kills the translator and two soldiers before Flint empties his tableth into his chest; Flint finds a living segmented creature inside the dead monk's mouth and orders the assault; twelve prisoners are taken from three hundred, of whom eight are very young recruits - ch 33. At Slate House, Gil hosts a dinner, refuses Drathel's demand for the Usrani "treasure," clears the room, receives an anonymous note to send her servants away, and admits Dekamran through the old side door - ch 34.

The Arrival of the Salient (ch 35-37)

The Palleseen ship Salient enters Alkhalend's harbour with four hundred troops under Sage-Broker Berkely of Valuations; Orhuhst watches, reads the tightening noose, and plots to take Loret from the Fever Lodge - ch 35. At the Fever Lodge, Tally fears "more boots on the streets" and sends word for Jack to assess readiness - ch 35. Gil wakes with Dekamran in her bed, is summoned to the Salient's wardroom, and learns the Usmai operation has passed from Outreach and Ventures into Valuations; she and Flint are reassigned - ch 35. Loret confesses her history to Enshili on the Lodge roof: the Palleseen healing cult, the Quarantine camps, the killing of those who fought back, and her forced conversion to the Fisher King's cult at a cliff-edge induction - ch 36. Caecelian leads Loret and Enshili through the Sand Lanes to Orhuhst, who recognises Loret as "seachild," holy to the Cotto shark god - ch 36. Berkely interviews Drathel, who pitches harvesting godflesh from the Kakrops Jars at "over a hundred thousand tab, all in," and presents a dossier of Angilly's alleged misconduct; Berkely rules the Seraphi must be dispersed as Accessories and turns to Postry: "Fellow-Monitor, why don't you tell me about these demons?" - ch 37.

Wattery's Contracts and the Occupation of the Palace (ch 38-40)

Wattery arrives to re-bind Croskin's demon squad with short individual contracts, condemns Galversty's original agreement as structurally unsound, and forces Croskin to say "Master" under the contract's compulsion - ch 38. At the palace, Berkely demands the Kakrops Jars; Dekamran refuses - "It is not something for your soldiers to seize. I forbid this" - and is placed under "protective custody"; Angilly is publicly overruled and ordered back to Slate House - ch 39. Loret undergoes the Cotto shark rite in a flooded ship's hold: Orhuhst cuts her abdomen open, removes the hidden "symbolic faith of a slaughtered congregation," and feeds it to a shark; Tally stitches her in seawater; Orhuhst declares "the wedding is made" between the Fisher King and the Shark Queen - ch 40. News arrives: the battery ship Mordant is anchored in the harbour, Palleseen soldiers occupy the Usrani monastery and the palace, and Dekamran is reachable only through Palleseen petition - ch 40.

Gil's Arrest and the Destruction of the House of Hard Angles (ch 41-45)

Berkely confronts Gil in the palace, mocks her relationship with Dekamran, and orders her imprisoned in the House of Hard Angles; Flint takes her sword and she is seized - ch 41. Caecelian seizes Wattery's throat, forces the transfer of the demon contracts to herself via a hand-written document, and speaks "Gak": Wattery's head and one arm fall from her body - ch 42. Dekamran is rescued from the House of Tranquillity by Enshili, Caecelian, and Loret; at a backroom tavern, Follo publicly rejects his leadership: "you have eaten away at your name, one decision at a time, and now it will not bear you" - ch 43. Drathel kills Arkanith and his monks in the crypt, preparing to harvest the accumulated power from Premath's corpse - ch 44. The Under-warden's machine activates: the Reckoner strips the Pal soldiers' wards, the centipede creature kills them all, the House's ghost-trap cracks, and the stored necromantic power cascades through every occult channel - ch 45. Drathel's tablethi overcharge; Premath sits up and crushes her throat. Gil is freed by Loret, who cuts the cell bars with her pearl-bladed knife. The House's wards go out "like candles in a storm"; Caecelian whispers "He's done it." Premath steps out of the shell of the House and walks north toward "the cold necropolis of his new kin" - ch 45.

The Surgery and the Duel in the Constellar Gardens (ch 46-47)

Tally operates through the night on the Under-warden, extracting bone fragments while his many-legged wife watches from the ceiling; Oathan keeps him conscious through deliberate infliction of pain. At dawn Tally declares him saved. Caecelian announces she is going to fight in the streets: "Drawing a blade against all chains. Down with the Palleseen Sway" - ch 46. Loret leads a freed Gil through the city to the Constellar Gardens, where Follo, Cotto pirates, a one-armed Tesemer, armed Emorandi, and Dekamran await. Dekamran challenges her: "Fight me." They face each other at five paces with tableth rods; Angilly swallows the killing word. Dekamran speaks his. "The flash seared her eyes in the same instant that his shot struck her and the world was lost to cleansing fire" - ch 47.

The Battle for Alkhalend (ch 48-49)

Flint leads the Kakrops Jars transport toward the Mordant at the sea wall; Dekamran's ogrodon charges Flint's column in the mill district, Teerasla leads the first-rank assault, and Kilbery fights from rooftops with a stolen baton - ch 48. Croskin's demons form a firing line blocking the ogrodon; the Mordant is overrun by Cotto and renamed the Jagged Hand That Feeds. Croskin seizes Flint, carries him up a wall, and sets him free: "Go. Flee. Live. For old time's sake, Flint. For what we had" - ch 48. Caecelian walks across the killing gap, holds Flint and Steggers motionless, speaks "Misery and wickedness," and runs Flint through the throat; she is shot twice, pulled from the fray by Oathan, kisses Enshili, slashes her cheek, smears blood on a paper contract, and dies: Yours now. Go to Jack. Tell him - ch 48. Kilbery refuses to leave: "It's my home" - ch 48. The surviving Fever Lodge members travel by wagon to the Alborandi compound at the Waygrove; Oathan stays because Kilbery is in Alkhalend; Jack refuses to cross because his demon wife is Below, "Where the Kings rule" - ch 49. Tally, the Reckoner, the Under-warden, and the Warden step through the portal - ch 49.

Render Unto the Sea (ch 50)

Samellers's report to Outreach describes the Palleseen garrison's collapse: Berkely murdered with a Palleseen duelling sword left in his body, the Mordant lost, the Salient set ablaze, the Alkhand offering safe withdrawal to Peor - ch 50. On the deck of the Jagged Hand That Feeds at twilight, Orhuhst presides over a ceremony feeding the remaining Kakrops godflesh to the ocean; Loret consecrates the first jar, tipping it over the rail into water thrashing with sharks - ch 50. Much later, months later, Premath sits at the sealed gates of the Necropolis in the Successor Steppes, reading warding glyphs, "eternal, undecaying," waiting. A company in charcoal-grey uniforms marches toward him across the steppes - ch 50.

Themes & Motifs

The novel returns obsessively to the question of what a civilisation that has killed its own god demands of other peoples' gods. The Palleseen origin myth - "They killed their god. This was the Palleseen victory" - establishes that perfection is built on an act of patricide against the divine, and every subsequent encounter with Kakrops, the Alborandi masks, the Tesemer's True Speech, or the Moerend death cult is shadowed by that founding violence - ch 26. Gil's career embodies the contradiction: she loves a man who is simultaneously her diplomatic instrument and her genuine friend, and the book shows that the Palleseen apparatus cannot sustain that doubleness - ch 28, ch 39, ch 47. The Commission's language of "liberation" ("The Palleseen Sway does not conquer or pillage or invade. It always liberates") functions throughout as a euphemism that erodes as the narrative proceeds, until the word covers nothing but occupation - ch 23, ch 41.

Kinslaying and the prohibition against it structure the royal succession: Gorbudan debates mutilation versus murder, Premath engineers his own death to remove the choice from his brother, and Dekamran fires on Gil in a ritual that is both fratricidal substitution and political theatre - ch 20, ch 25, ch 47. The Alborandi mask provides the counter-image: total erasure of identity, "Where does the knot go, when the string is pulled loose? Where the song, when the singer falls silent? Not even the ghost of it remains" - ch 15. Kaleithi's departure and Oparan's inability to find her behind any mask haunts every chapter that touches the Grove.

Loret's arc traces the Palleseen's own internal violence: the healing cult crushed because "God doesn't have a rank badge and doesn't fit in the chain of command," the Quarantine camps, the killing of those who fought back, and the forced conversion to the Fisher King's cult - ch 36. Her storm-power, which even the Tesemer recognise as "a thing beyond all the mysteries of the Louse Monks," marks her as something the Palleseen taxonomy cannot process - ch 22. The demon squad under Croskin mirrors this: entities granted uniform and rank, then re-contracted and dismissed, finally liberated by Caecelian's Do what you will, shall be the whole of your law - ch 12, ch 38, ch 48.

The House of Hard Angles functions as the novel's central architectural metaphor: a prison for ghosts that is also a power-harvesting engine, a place where the Moeribandi Empire's death-cult infrastructure persists beneath every subsequent regime, and where the Palleseen, the Moerends, the Under-warden, and Drathel all attempt to extract value from accumulated suffering - ch 6, ch 29, ch 44, ch 45. Its destruction is the book's hinge: the wards fail, the ghosts are released, Premath rises, and every political settlement built atop the accumulated dead becomes unstable.

Timeline

The Duel with Tarcomir

• ch 1 - Liberation of Jarokir - a famous event depicted in a picture on the wall of Slate House

The Attack on the House of Hard Angles

• ch 6 - the killing of the Loruthi emissary - the previous night's duel; the Alkhand formally rules it "a thing belonging to your war, and not a thing belonging to my nation, or within my jurisdiction"

The Day of Milk and Flowers

• ch 9-31 - The Day of Milk and Flowers - annual festival in Usmai involving the burial of surrogate demon-jars, the frog Kakrops emerging from his cave, public dancing, garlands, and a suspension of normal sexual mores for one day and night
• ch 10 - The Night of Milk and Flowers - the night of the Day of Milk and Flowers, when Kakrops grants permission to transgress social and marital boundaries; music, tokens, acrobats, and the exchange of favours across all districts of Alkhalend

The Treaty Renewal at the Tesemer Compound

• ch 11 - Festival of Milk and Flowers - a Usmai festival after which the Alkhand renews treaties with the nation's strange allies; includes a "frog god's writ" granting a night of licence; Gil slept with Dekamran during it

Gorbudan on the Mirror Throne

• ch 17 - the coronation at the pools - Gorbudan's declaration as Alkhand seven days ago; held at the pools halfway up the waterfall cliffs, visible from most of Alkhalend; the Usrani coaxed Kakrops from the cave; the Grand Moerend Arkanith rushed through the formalities; "Nobody had really got into the festive spirit"

Dekamran's Escape to Peor

• ch 21 - Pal-Loruthi War - a past war in which Flint led a company of marines in the naval element; Pals won "against great odds"
• ch 21 - Third Goupa Uprising - "brutal fighting" in which Flint served, referenced in his background

The First Engagement of the Brothers' War

• ch 22 - Loret's storm - an unnamed power in Loret; described as "the thunder," "the lash of the storm that's in her"; a Louse Monk recognizes it as "a thing beyond all the mysteries of the Louse Monks"; she cannot afterward explain what she did
• ch 22 - the Brothers' War - named at the first engagement: "That is the first engagement of the Brothers' War"; Gorbudan vs. Dekamran for the throne of Usmai
• ch 23 - The Cotto harbour disaster - referenced: in the Alkhand's youth the Cotto attacked Alkhalend by sea and were destroyed; wreckage took a month to clear from the harbour mouth

The Killing of Kakrops

• ch 26 - the death of Kakrops - the frog god of Alkhalend goaded into battle by Gorbudan and killed by massed Palleseen fire

City in Mourning

• ch 28 - the deicide - the killing of Kakrops during the night of the 18th; the divine corpse and its blood stained the coronation pools; the entire city and the Usrani are in mourning

The Fever Lodge Takes In Loret

• ch 34 - the Night - the night of Kakrops's death, referred to obliquely ("after what happened on the... the Night"); it drove a wedge between the throne and the Palleseen while binding them irrevocably together

Wattery's Contracts and the Occupation of the Palace

• ch 40 - the shark rite - a Cotto sea-rite in which a hidden object (symbolic faith) is surgically removed from a person and fed to a shark; Loret undergoes it in a flooded hold
• ch 40 - the wedding - Orhuhst's declaration that the Fisher King and the Shark Queen are one; "the oldest of old ways and the newest of new. Experimental theology." Proclaimed after the shark consumes the faith

Gil's Arrest and the Destruction of the House of Hard Angles

• ch 45 - the Housebreaking - the Under-warden's ritual, completed by the Reckoner, which overloads the House of Hard Angles' ghost-trap, frees the centipede creature, consumes and releases all the ghosts, recharges the tablethi, kills Drathel, and resurrects Premath. "He's done it," Caecelian whispers.

The Battle for Alkhalend

• ch 48 - the Loruthi wars - a past conflict; veterans of it are among the Pal defenders who hold their squares

Cast

• Alkhand · ch 1-50 - described by Berkely as "the only living child of the old one, the blind one"; Gil's former lover and patient
• Dekamran · ch 3-48 - the heir and now nominal Alkhand, held as a puppet by the Palleseen in the House of Tranquillity; reflects on the chain of decisions that led to his captivity; is rescued by Enshili and the Viper; is publicly rejected by Follo before the anti-Palleseen conspirators
• Gil Angilly · ch 1-48 - Sage-Invigilator, Resident in Usmai (technically), now operating in Peor; hosts the dinner, manages the demon-reveal, struggles with romantic feelings for Dekamran, ultimately cannot bring herself to say "no"
• Loret · ch 1-50 - Cohort-Invigilator, aide to Gil; freezes in terror during the howdah fight; is kicked over the rail by the Tesemer assassin; on the ground reveals a storm/tempest power ("the thunder," "the lash of the storm") that frightens a Louse Monk into retreat; afterward cannot explain what possessed her
• Gorbudan · ch 3-47 - First Son, the usurper holding Alkhalend and the House of Tranquillity; his forces are encamped in a connected line of camps using the Emorandi estates as fortifications, with siege engines on mansion roofs and in the cliff forts
• Drathel · ch 6-48 - Palleseen Decanter, rank Fellow-Archivist. Works in the crypt, strings of tablethi around a coffin, preparing to render a body "no more than a corpse." Her wards and the soldiers' protections are of her making. Her ritual is catastrophically disrupted when the House's ghost-trap is broken; the tablethi overcharge, gold runs into the necromantic inscriptions, and her wards burn out. Killed by Premath
• Flint Postry · ch 12-48 - Fellow-Monitor, heads the Ventures department; runs the camp; tells war stories; shows Dekamran the military and the demons; his real grin emerges only with Gil
• Tesemer · ch 3-36 - insects at the lamps are half-jokingly imagined as having been "sent by the Tesemer to complain to the Resident of their demise"; Drathel refers to them as "those bug-mouth gals"
• Caecelian · ch 7-48 - "the Viper," of the Fever Lodge; was the "vehicle for the sea-gods' will" and the one who sold Loret to the pirates; appears at the Lodge at the end; confirms she has business at the palace "tomorrow night"
• Yasnic · ch 7-49 - Maric member of the Fever Lodge crew; the chapter opens with an omniscient sketch of his character ("He wasn't always happy, Jack"). Arrives unarmed to help the Under-warden, twists wires into his work, calls the wounded man by name, and refuses to leave him. The lover of Caecelian
• Enshili · ch 5-48 - the Alkhand's daughter ("Caecelian's girl"); Loret's rooftop companion; reveals her father and brothers knew what she was, and that she helped her youngest brother die; her mentor is Caecelian; chooses to stay with Loret at the Cotto cellar rather than flee
• Oathan · ch 8-49 - Palleseen alchemist at the Fever Lodge. Arrives with Jack and the Reckoner; scowls at the soldiers, is pinned at baton-point. Forces potions and black salts down the Under-warden's throat, then wants nothing more to do with the work
• Tally · ch 7-49 - Jarokiri Surgeon at the Fever Lodge; an Accessory and former priestess, de facto matriarch of the group. Hears of the Salient first, worries it means "more boots on the streets," tells the Reckoner to get Jack to check readiness
• The Reckoner · ch 7-49 - Miracle Worker; sleeps through the journey, wakes to learn Kilbery stayed behind, steps through the portal with "weirdly optimistic" hope of cheating a debt owed to the world
• Croskin · ch 12-48 - a demon forced into the form and uniform of a Palleseen soldier; claims rank of Cohort-Monitor, Ventures Department of the army of Pallesand; stranded after his summoner died; meets Caecelian and Enshili at the Sand Gate
• Premath · ch 5-50 - the Third Son of the Alkhand, now the Immortal Dead Emperor. Wakes in the crypt as the House's necromantic charge is disrupted. Milk-coloured eyes, greyish skin. Kills Drathel with a stone-clawed grip. Emerges from the House and wanders north toward "the cold necropolis of his new kin."
• Berkely · ch 35-50 - Sage-Broker, Valuations; has relocated Palleseen administration into the palace; confronts Gil about her operation, reveals knowledge of her relationship with Dekamran, insults her personally, and orders her imprisoned
• Tarcomir · ch 2-47 - Bashonin, Emissary of the Loruthi Palatine Council in Alkhalend; challenges Gil to an illegal duel to the death to salvage his reputation before being recalled; killed by Gil's rapier
• Arkanith · ch 5-44 - the Grand Moerend, highest official of the state death cult; summoned before Gorbudan and the corpse, defends Premath's suicide as proper religious practice, is confined under guard by Gorbudan's order
• the Under-warden of the House of Hard Angles · ch 7-49 - non-human creature from another world, husband of the centipede monster. Self-taught, building a device from his home world in the House's bowels. Fought the Pal soldiers with a silver sword, was shot three times, and ultimately completes his ritual only because the Reckoner finishes it for him. Dying; insists his wife be freed and that he be carried out
• The Warden of the House of Hard Angles · ch 4-49 - possibly present as "the current master of the prison, who was simultaneously its highest-profile prisoner"; something stirs in the dark of the House's interior, causing Coregan to back down
• Orhuhst · ch 1-50 - Hullseer of the Cotto pirates; stands on the deck of the Jagged Hand That Feeds at twilight and presides over a sea-ceremony feeding Kakrops's flesh to the ocean; calls Loret "girl" with "almost paternal" approval
• Kilbery · ch 7-49 - fifteen-year-old courier and errand-runner for Oathan at the Fever Lodge; shadows Caecelian 'the Viper' and the fighting girl through the city, delivers philtres and unguents around the palace, runs errands to Teerasla and others, then loiters at a Taumachy den where Hullseer Orhuhst pays him for news
• Alborandi · ch 5-49 - mask-wearing monks tending the Waygrove; receive the Alkhand's offerings and continue their work with apparent indifference to the Tesemer display
• Follo · ch 8-47 - the jolly Usrani monk who plays metal-tube bells, laughs loudly, drinks Ramaht, tells bawdy stories, and is dying of something Oathan's medicine only dulls; gives Kilbery a coin
• Sorthist · ch 5-48 - the Serpent's Fang, Oparan's dead brother, bound as a ghost inside his own skull by a Moerend ritual; over decades of confinement comes to love Oparan; counsels him against foolishness; is finally released when Oparan shatters the skull
• Lhisamena · ch 3-26 - Preceptor of the Tesemer; speaks in the True Speech; after a moment of apparent resistance, rides out on her hookloper and proclaims Gorbudan Alkhand; fights in the melee atop her mount, killing the Ibaleth mahout
• Samellers · ch 35-50 - Cohort-Invigilator, Gil's newly assigned aide; fresh from the Archipelago, gleaming and overly courteous; Gil suspects he is Berkely's creature and refuses his company to the interview
• Annet · ch 27-41 - Fellow-Archivist; arrives unlisted on the Naturae, tries to question locals about the mourning flags, is glowered at and ignored, helps plan their next moves
• Dalry · ch 27-41 - Sage-Inquirer; very tall, very old, exquisitely educated, has an ancestor on the original Commission; extracts information from locals with quiet courtesy, identifies the toad religion, decides they must visit Angilly
• His Tranquillity Oparan · ch 18-47 - the Alkhand; referenced as Dekamran's father, "in my father's day, when his reign was young"
• Hullseer Orhuhst · ch 8-45 - enormous tattooed Cotto man, called "the king of the smugglers and pirates"; appears at the Taumachy den, asks about the stabbed Pal woman (his "niece-cousin"), pays Kilbery three coins and a scrimshawed shark ring
• Wattery · ch 37-48 - Fellow-Invigilator demonist; arrives to re-contract the squad with short individual contracts before sending them Below; is killed by Caecelian 'the Viper' invoking a contractual word
• Coregan · ch 4-19 - Custodian, Keeper of the Fifth Key, a minor palace official who holds Gil in his cellar; owes his position to patrons who backed Gorbudan; attempts to lose Gil in the House of Hard Angles
• Louse Speaker · ch 8-33 - sent by the Tesemer to negotiate; kills the translator, is killed by Flint's gunfire; has a living segmented creature in his mouth
• Steggers · ch 26-48 - Companion-Monitor; arrives with a column of reinforcements, defers to Flint's command
• the boy · ch 26-36 - young servant at the Fever Lodge; ferries dishes, fetches a chair, is "thick as thieves" with Oathan
• the Resident · ch 8-32 - Palleseen authority in Alkhalend; described by Oathan as a dangerous woman; does formal swordplay that sometimes turns lethal; visited the Lodge more than once
• Dolethi · ch 8-10 - poet; recites ambiguous verses to the Alkhand; offers herself as his token while preserving her position as favourite
• Shark Queen · ch 40-50
• Teerasla · ch 8-48 - a Tesemer Louse Speaker who keeps the mews at the palace; one arm gone at the shoulder, feels phantom pain in it; has a segmented tongue-thing; keeps Windsaws; startles when Kilbery moves suddenly
• the Ibaleth mahout · ch 11-15 - an unnamed female Ibaleth, four feet nose to haunches with a six-foot tail, painted in red and bronze designs; handles the ogrodon, holds a goad and an ornate Usmiat baton
• the old Alkhand · ch 17-41 - blind man in rich clothes; gone, unaccounted for; dozens of competing stories about his fate; "the old Alkhand and his brother had thrown down"
• the Under-warden's wife · ch 45-46 - centipede monstrosity with fang-tipped reaching hands, segmented coils, and antennae; the Under-warden calls her "his monster, his wife." Imprisoned in the House's wards. Kills the Pal soldiers once their protections are stripped. Carries the Under-warden out on her coils. Told to go toward the Waygrove to find home
• the Usmiat girl · ch 32-42 - Usmiat human girl with a sword; stands behind Wattery, attacks her, delivers a gouge across her shoulders during the struggle
• A skittering chitinous thing with six limbs · ch 24 - wears two sets of uniform breeches, a baton sloped across its armoured back; arrives at Croskin's heels
• A winged demon with a hide of bristling quills · ch 24 - wears a Pal jacket tied about its neck; lands near Croskin
• An unnamed old bald man · ch 9 - dressed like a prison monk, painted to look like a corpse; brings forward the skull-shaped clay jars and speaks the rite in a non-Usmiri tongue
• An unnamed young woman · ch 9 - drapes a garland over Loret's neck and looks at her suggestively
• Caecelian's girl · ch 40 - Caecelian's apprentice/pupil; watches the rite without intervening; later announces she must go to the palace, apologises to Loret, and agrees to Loret's company the next night
• Coregan's servants · ch 4 - armed with bludgeons, knives, and one skia; hesitate at the prison doors
• Cotto thugs · ch 4 - two unnamed Cotto hired by Loret with money from the Residence's emergency fund; they know Gil from the docks
• Doctor Grau · ch 17 - Allorwen spice trader who fled when the Palleseen added Allor to the Sway; now arrested
• Emorandi riders · ch 22 - swift, taloned Usmiat horses descended from a dead horse god; execute feigned flight then wheel to attack
• Enshili's youngest brother · ch 36 - the only sibling who cared for Enshili; "made himself dead" with her help
• Fellow-Monitor 'Flint' Postry · ch 31 - Palleseen Monitor; leading a troop contingent to Tesemera to demand Tesemer obeisance
• Flockersly · ch 28 - rank: Professor-Invigilator; runs Outreach; recipient of Gil's dispatch
• Gil's previous aide · ch 2 - invalided out; "could find the Residence without getting knocked on the head and thrown in the harbour" was his only recommendation
• God · ch 36
• God the grudging healer · ch 40 - the God Loret formerly followed; his followers "did not even defend themselves" against the Dead Companies; Loret "displeased God" and fled
• Gorbudan's retainers · ch 15 - a small armed guard Gorbudan brought; seize Dekamran; fight and die in the melee
• Great Mother Kass · ch 23 - Ibaleth queen; leads a veritable tide of several hundred Ibaleth to Flint's camp at dusk, crawling on their bellies before Dekamran to transfer allegiance en masse
• Hakoran · ch 22 - Emorandi officer commanding Gorbudan's right flank; holds his position with cousins and peasants; encounters Croskin's demon regiment wearing Pal uniforms; fires his baton at the first demon, hits it, but the host overwhelms his line
• Heir · ch 18
• His Quietude the Grand Moerend · ch 18
• ideologue, maritime investor, a man with a nephew - minor petitioners at the dinner · ch 34 - unnamed cloth merchant, ship's master, mill-owner/ideologue, maritime investor, a man with a nephew - minor petitioners at the dinner
• Immortal Dead Emperor · ch 45
• Jarokiri · ch 7
• Kass · ch 23 - Ibaleth Great Mother; may have sent the Ibaleth war-party to Dekamran to hedge her bets, or they may be renegades; the chapter notes both possibilities
• Kilbery's son · ch 7 - the big man's delinquent teenage son; called a "waste of space," later shambles in with a bulging satchel on deliveries, shoves past Gil
• know Gil · ch 4
• Magister Fallery · ch 17 - Palleseen who held an import-export warehouse beyond the Water Lanes; fled down the Peor road
• Ogrodons · ch 15 - (as group) - agitated by the noise; charge and trample; one is taken down by Tesemer falxes
• Oloumann · ch 35 - a far-northern port; the dockwoman suspects the Accessories on the Salient are from there.
• Pal merchants · ch 23 - flee Alkhalend with their goods, seeking sanctuary in the allied camp
• Pal soldiers at the door · ch 39 - arrive to escort (imprison) Dekamran after the meeting
• Palace servants with spades · ch 9 - fill in the child-sized grave
• Sage-Broker Berkely · ch 35 - Correct Exchange, Valuations department; arrives on the Salient (ship) with 400 troops (250 regulars, 150 Accessories) and Companion-Invigilator Samellers. Informally fires Gil and Flint from operational command of Usmai
• Sier Lioban · ch 17 - patriarch of a big Emorandi clan; exiled
• Sorthist, the 'Serpent's Fang' · ch 31 - Oparan's brother, deceased; Tesemer initially declared for him
• Sssssy · ch 30 - Cohort-Monitor, an Ibaleth in Flint's command staff; a lizard drinking from a bowl, referred to as "sons of bitches" by Flint and corrected to "lasses" by Gil
• Tarcomir's two seconds · ch 2 - unnamed Loruthi embassy staff who witness the duel and retrieve their employer's body
• the Accessory · ch 33 - a Peost soldier who steps between the falx and Flint; killed
• the armed palace guards · ch 2 - half-dozen palace staff with batons who arrest Gil
• the Artist · ch 28 - a wooden-animal maker from the Sand Lanes; petitions Dekamran about Pal soldiers looting his workshop beyond what the Alkhand's writ authorized
• The border guards · ch 22 - twenty part-timers near retirement who calculate rice taxes; unanimously declare Dekamran the rightful Alkhand; march behind the royal ogrodon
• The Divinati healer · ch 24 - unnamed figure Caecelian resolves to destroy alongside the old woman and Oathan
• The dozen assassins · ch 6 - hooded, masked, knifed; wait in the prison for Drathel to be freed; the "chief assassin" calls her a "tomb-robber"
• the Dusarch of Lucibi · ch 20 - historical counter-example of a ruler cursed and partially devoured yet still governing
• the Eunuch of Goshumai · ch 20 - historical counter-example of a mutilated ruler
• the Faraslandi sea cult priestess · ch 17 - "that woman who did the magic fish thing"; arrested
• the fighting girl · ch 8 - unnamed girl who lives at the House of Tranquillity and sneaks out through a shuttered window to learn killing with a blade in the Sand Lanes; Kilbery watches her, wants to impress her, sees her as a kindred spirit
• The ghost advisor · ch 3 - a decades-dead spirit bound to a skull set with inscribed greenstone plates; whispers "poisonous truths" to the Alkhand; not named in this chapter
• The girl with red demon eyes and the quick sword · ch 50 - unnamed friend of Loret; her retinue crouches on the deck; demon eyes see "things the way they really were"; Orhuhst would welcome demon marines she might bring
• the guard with the broken leg · ch 8 - a female palace guard who showed Kilbery a knife-disarming twist and told him about fighting a Tesemer
• the Ibaleth gunners · ch 33 - lizard crew members who load and aim the Palleseen Hand artillery
• The informant · ch 29 - an unnamed woman marked by Drathel after arriving in Alkhalend carrying something unnatural; serves as Angilly's aide but now feeds Drathel intelligence about a Correct Speech visit and the Waygrove escapees
• The Knife Witch of Jarokir · ch 8 - Kilbery's invented nickname for Tally, the surgeon who runs the Fever Lodge; he fabricates a backstory of a king, a queen, and a slit throat
• The lead monk · ch 29 - the broad-waisted head of the monastic order whose cellar Drathel has inspected; can only tell her to leave, lacking the authority to stop her under the new Alkhand's writ
• the Loruthi ambassador · ch 6
• the mahout · ch 33 - Ibaleth woman who drives Flint's ogrodon with a goad
• the Maric bodyguard · ch 17 - the Maric bodyguard - role: present - the pimp's punchy Maric sellsword; scalp cut; stitched up; "someone anticipating repeat business"
• the masked fencing tutor · ch 5 - unnamed foreign woman who teaches Enshili pragmatic, rule-breaking combat; wears a bone mask carved as a demonic visage; finds Enshili's desire for a matching mask delightful
• The masked figure · ch 6 - a tall, broad-shouldered, non-Pal, non-Usmiat figure wearing a glass-eyed mask with a coil of hose where nose and mouth should be; Drathel calls it "the Warden" but Angilly denies this; it carries a sword that "shone in the dark with its own light, conjured from air"
• The Moerend monk who opens the door · ch 6 - middle-aged, bald, face painted with lead and antimony; examines the writ and admits Angilly and Loret; vanishes into the darkness during the attack
• The moustachioed bravo · ch 36 - speaks in low tones of who is fleeing the Lanes
• The odd little Maric · ch 19 - Caecelian's housemate in the Sand Lanes
• the old Alkhand's brother · ch 17
• The old bald woman from the previous night · ch 6 - the one who answered Loret's door the night before; now understood to be a Moerend monk, not a guard
• the old man at the monastery · ch 16 - un-named local leader of the village; questioned at sword-point, reveals the news from the Alborandi compound
• The old woman · ch 24 - unnamed figure Caecelian resolves to destroy
• The other pirates aboard the ship · ch 1 - "about a dozen men and women" who laugh at Loret; unnamed
• the Pal girl · ch 42 - human girl of Palleseen descent, "hard to look at. Like the sun on water"; carries the contract scrap Caecelian wrote; holds a pearl-bladed knife
• the Pal pimp · ch 17 - the Pal pimp - role: present - a local Sand Lanes businessman; beaten up by a husband; brought to the Lodge for treatment
• the Pal woman · ch 17 - the Pal woman - role: present - appears at the Lodge door with her shawl up; begs help; the group's united front is "not wanting anything to do with any of it"
• the palace functionary · ch 2 - unnamed non-combatant palace staff who orders the armed guards to take Gil
• The palace servants escort · ch 6 - a dozen servants with cleavers and rapiers in bright clothing; serve as protection via the Alkhand's writ; will not pass the gates of the House
• the pompous functionary · ch 8 - a palace man who directs cleaning staff, prays to Kakrops for his piles, buys Oathan's unguent in private; never says thank you
• The smuggler · ch 36 - a big Palleseen man who hands Caecelian herbs and tablethi cheaply
• The snooty woman and three servants · ch 19 - palace staff sent to retrieve Enshili; all four are killed by Caecelian
• the stabbed Pal woman · ch 8 - Hullseer Orhuhst's "niece-cousin"; was stabbed; Kilbery was part of the party that brought her (or someone cut up) to the Lodge
• the three Louse Monks · ch 2 - unnamed Louse Monks (Tesemer) who arrive after the duel; one contemplates killing Gil on the spot before being overruled by a functionary
• the translator · ch 33 - Peost linguist serving Flint; translates between Usmiri, Peost, and Pel; killed by the Louse Speaker's falx
• The two Palleseen women · ch 3 - one a flustered newcomer "surely wasn't quite twenty years old," the other Gil's friend; they left Slate House for the duel
• The Usmiat levy · ch 22 - peasant archers and spearmen; rout in the first engagement against Pal fire; later hold in prepared positions against the Pal left flank
• The Usmiat nobles · ch 22 - families with estates near the route; swore oaths to Dekamran on Gil's invitation; a "headache for Flint"
• The woman with filed teeth · ch 1 - pirate aboard the ship; unnamed
• the woman with the filed teeth · ch 40 - a Cotto champion, "beloved of the sea"; places a permanent ink-mark on Loret's shoulder; flicks hus into Loret's eyes
• The woman with the Palleseen coat and piscine tattoos · ch 1 - pirate aboard the ship; pours the drink; unnamed
• the younger Moerend · ch 39 - translates Arkanith's speech into Pel
• Three unnamed old monks · ch 44 - the last of Arkanith's chanting order; they rush Drathel and are killed by her tablethi-powered rods
• Three unnamed troopers · ch 41 - Valuations soldiers who accompany Flint; level batons at Gil
• Unhappy Jack · ch 49 - the stage of grief Jack passed through after losing his wife, between "Happy Jack" and his current hollow grimness; characterised by weeping, red eyes, demands made of an absent God
• unnamed cloth merchant, ship's master, mill-owner · ch 34 - unnamed cloth merchant, ship's master, mill-owner/ideologue, maritime investor, a man with a nephew - minor petitioners at the dinner
• Unnamed court doyenne in an ogrodon howdah · ch 15 - brandishes a sword, shouts for Dekamran and the rule of law
• Unnamed courtier · ch 15 - grabbed by Gorbudan; stammers "The mask... He took the mask"
• Unnamed Usrani monks · ch 9 - jolly, bare-chested, playing trumpets and gongs, dancing, passing a gourd of liquor; one grabs and spins Loret, kisses her palm
• Unnamed woman drawing a skia · ch 15 - beheaded by a Tesemer falx early in the melee
• Usmiat merchants · ch 23 - bring wagons of supplies to Flint's camp
• Various dock workers, porters, a Palleseen merchant, a diminutive local woman, the tavernkeeper · ch 27 - locals and expatriates from whom information is extracted

Places

• Usmai · ch 1-50 - the nation; its absolute monarchy, its duelling culture (the "foreign honour" of the duel), its ghost-keeping, its succession of royal children
• Kakrops · ch 8-50 - the frog god; coaxed from the cave at the pools, painted with warlike stick-man scenes; "eyes, big as a torso each, had goggled at everything with the same vacancy as Happy Jack"
• Slate House · ch 1-47 - the Palleseen consulate in Alkhalend, named for its Palleseen-made slate roof; sits in a street of foreign merchants and emissaries, coiling down toward the Sand Lanes
• Usrani · ch 8-48 - monastic order; their monastery holds a "treasure of singular value" Drathel wants
• Peor · ch 2-50 - nation where "the Sway had a proper foothold" and where Pal funding was directed instead of to Gil's Resident post
• Fever Lodge · ch 7-46 - the household itself as a chosen family: "Basically perfect company, if you had horrors in your past you didn't want people judging you for." Members take aliases; "Nobody who lives under our roof goes by their real name."
• House of Hard Angles · ch 3-46 - prison mentioned by Dekamran as a fate he should fear; "dwell amongst the ghosts and never see daylight again"
• Sand Lanes · ch 3-48 - the poor districts below the foreign merchants' street; the foreigners' hospital sits at the dead end of the coiling street
• Mantekor · ch 3-50
• Waygrove · ch 7-49 - two fugitives (described as "two academics on the lam") helped by Angilly to reach the Alborandi and pass through the Waygrove with fetishes for safe passage; Correct Speech has come to investigate
• Palinet · ch 7-50 - Palleseen Resident in Peor; visited Flint's camp with two hundred Pal regulars after hearing the Alkhand-presumptive was a guest; left her troops on loan; returned to her Residence
• Kaleithi · ch 3-49 - Oparan's wife, who left for the Waygrove and the mask decades ago and never returned; Oparan believes he sees her among the masks, but Sorthist assures him she cannot be seen behind any of them
• phalanstery · ch 1-47 - the Palleseen drill square, invoked by the merchant's "suddenly back in his youth and on the drill square of the phal, playing soldier"
• House of Tranquillity · ch 1-23 - the Alkhand's palace; contains the throne room with its Mirror Throne, still pool, mother-of-pearl walls, and vaulted ceiling
• Moeribandi · ch 5-46 - grey, sombre decorative tradition of the old Empire; tapestries of the dead judged by death-gods, paintings of skull-faced Almuers, actual collected bones
• the Salient · ch 35-50 - mentioned as the sister ship of the Mordant
• the Worlds Below · ch 12-49 - the realm "Where the Kings rule," to which the dead go; the destination of Jack's demon wife; Jack intends to conjure a way to retrieve her
• Water Lanes · ch 1-40 - the dockside district; a "shifting maze of jetties and rafts and boats" between ship and shore
• Farasland · ch 16-39 - a nation recently accepted into the Sway; mentioned via the Emir-Jarl of Farasland's assassination
• Galversty · ch 12-42 - Companion-Invigilator, deceased; previously held the squad's bindings, left them "flapping about on the end of the line for far too long"
• Garmoers · ch 16-50 - geographical boundary referenced; the steppes lie "far north" of them
• Allor · ch 17-24 - a state added to the Palleseen Sway; origin of Doctor Grau and the spice trade
• Jagged Hand That Feeds · ch 48-50 - Cotto pirate vessel on open ocean; site of the godflesh ceremony
• Jarokir · ch 1-7 - referenced via a picture of its "Liberation" on the wall of Slate House
• Necropolis · ch 44-50 - sealed tomb-gates far north of the Garmoers in the Successor Steppes; the old immortal necromancers of the Moeribandi Empire retreated here and "closed it from the inside"; warded by "a thousand warding glyphs" and vast necromantic power
• Osio · ch 16-18 - the border or waterway between Usmai and Peor; Gorbudan plans to march across it
• Sand Gate · ch 23-24 - the newer, less ornate fortified gate on the far side of the bay, with gun emplacements facing both inwards and outwards; Flint proposes attacking through it at night
• Successor Coast · ch 8-46
• Windsaw · ch 8-11 - a Tesemer fighting beast kept by Teerasla in the palace mews; launched from her wrist "fast as baton-shot," kills birds by impaling them with its killing arms

Groups & Factions

• Pal · ch 1-50 - adjectival shorthand used throughout for Pallesand and its people ("Pal society," "Pal duelling," "Pal doctrine," "Pal women")
• Commission · ch 2-43 - the Palleseen governing body whose word the Naturae formerly carried; Dalry has an ancestor on the original Commission
• Cotto · ch 1-50 - the coastal piratical people operating on Alkhalend's docks; identified by the reference as the pirates described in the chapter
• Lor · ch 1-45 - the people and diplomatic service of Lor; Tarcomir's homeland; their global reach has been broken by the war with Pallesand
• the Rain Life · ch 2-50 - the Palleseen department whose function is to "compromise with the imperfect until matters had been manoeuvred into a position where another department could move in"
• Moerends · ch 6-46 - priests of the old Imperial death cult who performed the binding ritual on Sorthist and speak of death, reward, and return
• Emorandi · ch 1-37 - the Usmiat noble class surrounding the Alkhand; Drathel's jab at "gatekeepers" uses the Usmiri word for them
• Moeribandi Empire · ch 1-50 - the "dead empire" that once controlled the region; Loret cannot recall its name from her studies
• Louse Monks · ch 2-27 - a militant monk order with alien features, tonsure, and a preference for killing as problem-solving; they patrol the palace gardens; their swords are "the length of a spear, half of it the forwards-curving blade" that "could cut a horse in half"
• Turncoats · ch 12-37 - local conscripts in Palleseen uniforms serving outside their own homeland; the chapter establishes that "you never let Accessories serve in their own homeland's army"
• Peosts · ch 5-23 - the people of Peor; oppressed by their own rulers and neighbours, recruited en masse by Flint
• Seraphi · ch 12-37 - foreign troops sworn into the service of a crown; not mercenaries nor true locals; includes the Ibaleth, the Tesemer, and "a handful of special cases"; also applied to Flint's Peosts and to Flint himself depending on perspective
• the Dead Companies · ch 28-44 - a military formation that "finally broke the Loruthi"; now suspect on the Archipelago as seeming "imperfect"
• the Palleseen · ch 10-40 - state-servicing order; Gil's organization; hierarchy of Sage/Fellow/Companion/Cohort; functional branches include Invigilator; "Resident" is the posted head of a foreign mission
• Ventures · ch 12-37 - a new Palleseen department outside the regular chain of command, headed by Flint Postry; Gil is unsure whether it sits under Outreach or stands independently
• Correct Appreciation · ch 1-27 - a branch/department of the Palleseen to which Loret belongs
• Correct Erudition · ch 27-29 - the Palleseen department that studies the innovations of the imperfect world and decides how to "scrub off" superstition; Annet is technically part of it
• Successor States · ch 1-9 - the fragmented polities of the former Moeribandi Empire
• the Difficult Wives Club · ch 32-49 - humorous self-designation for Happy Jack (lover of Caecelian, "the Viper") and the Under-warden (husband of the centipede monster): "Jack the Viper's beloved and the Under-warden. The founder members of the Difficult Wives Club."
• the Kings Below · ch 24-48 - the demon-rulers to whom demons were formerly enslaved; Caecelian was once their slave
• Correct Exchange · ch 27-35 - the branch of Palleseen perfection that tracks weights, measures, coin, and commerce across the Sway; Berkely's parent department.
• skia · ch 4-7

Objects & Technology

• tableth · ch 3-47 - a power source slotted into a baton; cut in two by Loret alongside the baton
• tablethi · ch 3-50 - "The little magic repositories, size of your thumb's end joint, that powered the modern world and the Palleseen Sway. Weapons, lamps, tools, engines. The infinitely interchangeable currency of the magical world."
• Mirror Throne · ch 3-31 - the scallop-backed throne of Usmai; "a dreadful, hungry weight that drew all the world to it"; surrounded by a still pool crossed only by the Alkhand and his guards
• Mordant · ch 40-50 - the Pal ship anchored at the sea wall, sent to receive the jars; overrun by Cotto
• Hus · ch 1-45 - the strong Cotto liquor the pirates drink; tastes of fish; not named in the chapter text but identified by the reference
• Kakrops Jars · ch 39-41 - containers holding the body of the god Kakrops, kept in a monastery at the foot of the falls, protected by the Usrani monks; Berkely demands their seizure
• ogrodon · ch 11-33 - enormous scale-hided, shield-headed beasts with ramming horns, used by the Ibaleth to carry howdahs and as the armoured fist of Usmai's military; the Usmiat call them by this name
• Palleseen Hands · ch 21-26 - heavy artillery pieces, "the pair of Palleseen Hands they're dragging along"; fire strings of tablethi in rapid sequence
• the Hand · ch 22-33 - a Palleseen artillery engine that converts tablethi fire into hermetic force to throw stone and lead; mounted on a customised howdah atop an ogrodon's head; half a dozen in Flint's battery
• Tiger-Crab · ch 5-15 - Gorbudan's epithet, named after Usmai's most feared predator; his throne at Mantekor is flanked by the open claws of one he killed

Events

• The Day of Milk and Flowers · ch 9-31 - annual festival in Usmai involving the burial of surrogate demon-jars, the frog Kakrops emerging from his cave, public dancing, garlands, and a suspension of normal sexual mores for one day and night

Systems

• Beast Artist · ch 8-36 - a practitioner who fashions the animated wooden animals used in Taumachy fighting games; invoked as a metaphor for a soulless replica
• Decanting · ch 6-41 - a Palleseen transgression (Drathel's function as Decanter/Archivist); involves necromancy or the improper handling of death; the "particularly Pal sort of transgression" for which Drathel is imprisoned; the assassins call Drathel a "tomb-robber" because of it
• Valuations · ch 37-41 - the Palleseen department that "administers," coming behind the "knowers" and ahead of the "doers" to "tot up all the accounts to determine just what was known and what must be done"; it runs the Sway
• Quarantine camps · ch 28-30 - Palleseen detention facilities where found-out cultists are held; the impostor was kept there and the real Loret was killed there
• the House of Hard Angles' true purpose · ch 44-45 - the building is not merely a prison but a ghost-collecting, power-harvesting system built by the Moeribandi Empire; its architecture funnels ghosts in and drains ambient magical energy to the crypt
• Unnaturals · ch 26-28

Culture

• Taumachy · ch 8-48 - mentioned in the final battle: "Taumachists" fight alongside the defenders; animated wooden animals (a crab the size of a mule, toy tigers, a jointed serpent) are used as weapons
• Fisher King cult · ch 28-35
• Moru · ch 18-25 - a religious tradition or sect within the Moerend death cult; acolytes wear loose robes, its texts are "dusty" and "vast," and its practices include sacred self-starvation and skull-face paint
• The Fisher King's cult · ch 36-40 - a resurgent sea-cult devoted to "the old lord of the isles," the Fisher King; induction involves a cliff-edge fall, blood-mixing, and tasting of blood and rain; the Palleseen suppressed it before this book's period; its god is "the old lord of the isles" and its followers revere "blood and fear and death"

Terms

• Peost · ch 12-48 - a name used for the Palleseen state and its advisors; "Those men and women clustering about the Peost throne with their hand about that nation's throat, they were advisors"
• Perfector · ch 1-42 - a governance role through which the Palleseen impose control on incorporated territories, replacing local traditions with "efficient perfection"
• Kepishi · ch 4-40 - Usmiat slang for foreigners from overseas; used here by Usmiat peasants toward the Pal/Peost soldiers; "You hear all sorts of stories about that big war they had with those other foreigners"
• the Decanters · ch 7-44 - the role within Correct Erudition that acquires local magical objects and "renders" them down into crates of tablethi for the Palleseen Sway; the engine of the Archivists' political capital
• Pel · ch 1-47 - the utilitarian language of Pallesand, constructed to be easy to learn; used as a trade tongue across many nations
• Cohort-Invigilator · ch 1-43 - a Palleseen rank; Loret's title
• Ibaleth · ch 11-37 - ogrodons serve as mounts for the Alkhand's convoy; their mahouts are observed with "ornamented orbs"
• Magister · ch 2-38 - form of address for a superior rank among the Palleseen; "earned, rather than just coming with the superior rank" (which Gil notes is "literally untrue")
• the School of Correct Speech · ch 17-29 - the School concerned with suppression of religion and rooting out imperfection; described as "the notional one that grasps the throat of the imperfect, not the artillery piece, though the results are often the same"
• Usmiri · ch 1-34 - the language of Usmai; shares some vocabulary with Pel
• Accessory · ch 33-48 - a support/administrative role within the Palleseen ("Put on an Accessory's uniform and help with the admin")
• Fisher King · ch 36-50
• Premaran · ch 5-25 - the religious name Premath took "in his idiot devotions"; the chapter presents it as his chosen spiritual identity
• Almuer · ch 18-20 - a sage or wise man; literally "one whose ghost is worthy of preserving"
• Basilisk wasps · ch 5-20 - wasps whose stings turn flesh to grey stone; their nests are clay that bakes hard as rock; Oparan was blinded by them thirty years ago and the residual stone dust now poisons his blood and lungs
• baton · ch 2-22 - a weapon; Croskin is shown holding one levelled in threat; a chitinous demon carries one "sloped across its armoured back"
• Dusarch · ch 20-31 - title of the ruler of Lucibi, who died without heir, prompting the throne's auction
• falx · ch 3-16 - the long-bladed, long-hafted two-handed weapon carried by Lhisamena and the Tesemer; "a brutal hacking thing, save they danced with it"
• Grand Moerend · ch 5-18
• hookloper · ch 11-13 - a Tesemer mount, horse-sized, six-legged, flat-sided, carapaced, with mantis-like hooked forelimbs; "land-shrimps" with great speed and stable gait
• Islermen · ch 26-35 - an old maritime people whose behaviour in port is invoked for contrast.
• Misery and wickedness · ch 36-42 - a demonic saying ("as the words run"); invoked by the narrator to state the conventional view that demons are "wicked things, fit only for vile service"
• seachild · ch 36-40 - the Cotto epithet for Loret, marking her as holy through the Fisher King's consecration; "sacred to them" because "all the blood shed for either cult ran into" the same ocean
• Serpent's Fang · ch 5-14
• statloi · ch 12-33 - a class of Palleseen military subordinate mentioned alongside officers in the firing line
• the fencing student · ch 7-17 - "the girl, the sullen one"; Caecelian's favourite student; not seen near the Lodge since Gorbudan entered the city; Kilbery chews his knuckles over her absence

Chapter Epigraphs

Chapter 15

"Enough has been said about the dynamism and the destiny, as though in the hour of Usmai's need, prophecy had ordained a hero of myth be reborn to save the nation. Strip it all away and what is Gorbudan? A sincere man. A clear-eyed man. A man who believes. And there are demons and necromancers and monsters from beyond the Grove in the world, but none of them more dangerous than a man who believes."

• no attribution given; narrator's voice

Chapter 18

"A man who hears the whisper of sand."

• no attribution given; the chapter's opening line

Chapter 26

"Once, there was a people called the Islermen, who lived by fishing and by trading, but most notoriously by raiding. A fierce, unsociable people with a fierce, unsociable sea god, who demanded a great deal of sacrifice and deprivation, making scarcity into sanctity. The Islermen were more a plague on others than a success in themselves, and eventually they saw this, as their god roared for more blood and treasure every high tide. The blood of those who would otherwise work for the Islermen, as well as the blood of the Islermen themselves. The gold that they ripped from the throats and vaults of those coastal settlements they descended on. All the things that the Islermen would rather have kept. And so a new philosophical concept arose that said, 'Why do we keep you around, exactly?' to their god. And, with the benefit of a great many books and, indeed, the writers of those books, who had been brought by force to the Archipelago, the Islermen reinvented themselves. It wasn't easy. The first battles the new culture won were against their own recalcitrant kin. But they brought a new way of life to their islands, based on exacting definitions of what was correct, that had no room for gods in them anywhere, and they set a temporary commission in place, to oversee the expansion of this perfection to the rest of the world, who would, of course, be grateful. This was how the Palleseen came about. And their god? The howling, hungry fish-and-blood god? Lost to history along with everything else of the Islermen. Explicitly eradicated, and the penalty for even admitting that god ever existed was death. Vanished into history's depths, along with their original language and all the other imperfect things they'd been. They killed their god. This was the Palleseen victory."

• unattributed; functions as a creation myth for the Palleseen

Chapter 28

"Following the events of the night of the 18th, order was subsequently restored in the city, initially utilising elements provided by Ventures under Fellow-Monitor Postry, subsequently with troops from the Peor garrison on loan from Sage-Invigilator Palinet. I will work with the new Alkhand on the topic of elements who supported the usurper Gorbudan to ensure that those who would be most obstructive to our continuing mission here are placed where they have no power to impede us. The Throne of Usmai has offered the usual concessions in return for assistance rendered and anticipated, as the new Alkhand's reign settles.

> "Overall the mood in the city continues troubled but, barring further incident, I anticipate that it will calm over the next months. The Alkhalendi populace have reacted with predictable grief over their loss but a continuing atmosphere of public order and peace will allow them to see the benefit of the new regime. I am well-placed at the elbow of the Alkhand and can advise him of how to manage his new role to make the best use of his allies, and to steer him so that we, his allies, may be best requited..."

• "Excerpt from the dispatch of Sage-Invigilator Angilly to Professor-Invigilator Flockersly, following the installing of Alkhand Dekamran in Usmai."

Chapter 33

"The long road from Pallesand to perfection was paved with broken stones."

• An unnamed writer's "complacent little bon mot" for the regimental dinner table; the chapter explains its original meaning: the broken stones were palaces, temples, monasteries, and halls of learning - "the thousand wrong ways that ignorant foreigners could order and envisage the world"

Chapter 34

"The role of the Resident, as pre-eminent representative of the Palleseen state within a nation under diplomatic relations and yet to be brought into the Sway, is (1) to act as the chief point of contact, representative, advocate and guardian of those legitimate citizens of Pallesand within the territory (2) to act as gatherer, focal point and reporter of intelligence generated within or arriving at the territory (3) and of overriding import, to guide and influence the local society and political structure to better favour, reward and comply with the ordinances of Pallesand, and thereby move all such Residented territories the closer towards perfection..."

• from the Outreach Appointments Manual, short form, as approved by the Temporary Commission of Ends and Means

Chapter 40

"Small wonder an island people see god in the sea and sky. Small wonder the sea and sky look back. Hard gods, bountiful gods, capricious gods, and their people shaped likewise. Until, in one case, those people were hard enough that they cast even their gods from them, and embraced a perfection that didn't leave them at the whim of tide or weather. Or in others, they sought greater communion with the depths, wrecks and bones and drowned hopes, and become something like the Cotto, or a hundred other cults and sects and mysteries. All the myriad currents of the sea."

• no attribution given

Chapter 43

"... Once a nation has been either induced or pacified sufficiently to be inducted into the Sway then a formal administrative staff shall be assigned, overseen by a provincial governor taking the title of Perfector, and being of at a minimum Sage rank. In those territories inducted into the Sway through force the Commission's recommendation is that all non-collaborating remnants of the existing administration be removed, and accommodations to be reached with secular collaborators only, and then only if such accommodations strongly favour the furtherance of perfection. In territories inducted without recourse to force of arms then, while further leeway may be granted for the incorporation of existing secular civil structures into the new administration, at the Perfector's election, over-reliance on such measures is discouraged. In any event, any individuals remaining who might in future raise a legitimate (under prior legislature) claim to control or authority over the territory should be removed as soon as this may be conveniently achieved..."

• Preamble to On The Practice of Provincial Assimilation as approved by the Temporary Commission of Ends and Means

Chapter 44

"Like sea-gods to islanders and people of the coast, so death-gods to everyone, for obvious reasons. Sometimes one and the same, to those who truly understand the bottomless hunger of the waves and the depths. Not tax-gods. By the time taxation becomes relevant, the window for devising new gods tends to have closed. But death, most certainly. Because ghosts are real, and usually malign or miserable, so natural to seek out some psychopomp that can explain what terrors lie on the far side, that these lost spirits would rather cling on than be subject to. Or what chance occurrence holds them back from their reward. Necromantic gods, whose priests traffic in corpses and spirits; anti-necromantic gods, determined that the dead not be disturbed. But always death, that great fascinator worn in the hair of religion."

• unattributed

Chapter 50

"Sage-Broker Berkely, discovered in his chambers this morning. The assassin had left the weapon in his body, doubtless to cause additional consternation to the staff. For the record, the item was a plain duelling sword of Palleseen manufacture, the significance of which I need not comment on."

• Report to Outreach from Samellers, Acting Resident in Usmai