[←62]
Those who used a hallucinogenic fragrance called bixan to guide them to unseen places. It was rumored that only bixan could offer a genuine out-of-body experience by poisoning the Tarmon islets, the ganglions that controlled awareness and corporeality.
[←63]
The ancients counted in base twenty.
[←64]
A heavy chain hammer used to slam the heads of the enemies in a powerful overhead arc—often referred to as the “bone cracker.”
[←65]
The ultimate aphrodisiac of the Rigulians, synchronization was an empathetic connection to the thoughts of the hibernating partner with the help of the Corbelian sphere. Their race, renowned for their protocols and rigidity, used the occasion to forget for the moment all the inhibition barriers cultivated for millennia. The ritual allowed the awake Rigulian to dip into the oceans of the most foolish thoughts, the most intimate details shared by the freed mind of its sleeping pair. The creativity nodes buzzed during hibernation, inducing an avalanche of hormones in the awake partner, excesses that endured long after disconnection.
[←66]
The year when Rigulians defeated aging. Of course, the first effect was uncontrollable growth because they didn’t expire anymore. As such, the oldest Rigulians—Omal 13 included—displayed wild variations in body size… until they found a way to stop growing, too.
[←67]
The rest of the time, however, they didn’t sleep at all, not even during the night—which on Rigulia was around half a year because the planet barely rotated around its axis. More precisely, it took around twenty standard years to make one full rotation.
[←68]
Mythical creatures resembling winged moulans.
[←69]
The description of how the firewall was created, recited by the prophet from the “Arghail’s Exodus” narrative, contradicted the “Sacrifice of Beramis” litany. Yet because both of them were part of the Book of Creation Inrumiral, they were considered equally valid. The temples never tried to reconcile them, and anyone trying to discuss which one was true risked getting a less-than-warm appraisal for their curiosity.
[←70]
The licants felt a foolish pleasure in pecking the skin and moisture of the Antyran beings with their chitinous mandibles, in search of small nutritious fragments. They were particularly attracted by their spikes and gills, but the sticky way they stuck on skin and the lack of manners during lunch forced the ancient Antyrans to avoid sleeping outside, even during the hot summer nights. Of course, the problem was lately solved by the tarjis, who exterminated the licants in the wild on the grounds that they became corrupted after flying over “Arghail’s cities,” the ancient towns incinerated by Zhan.
[←71]
True, the archivists found countless proofs that the trees were no mere fabulations. They even found some seeds preserved in ice and had recently managed to revive them in the labs. The species had become extinct after Zhan’s coming with the sudden warming of the planet under the firewall and the draining of the marshes by a growing, hungry population.
[←72]
The zabulans, Colhan’s eternal fire-keepers, were bound by the chastity pledge. In order to help them avoid temptations, they were taken early by the ancient temples—three months after choosing a male sex—and mutilated. They had their tails and head spikes cut off, making them repulsive to any Antyran female.
[←73]
The Antyrans never wore foot protection, not even when they walked on ice, but they used to put gloves on their children’s feet to prevent them from scratching their chins with the three long claws of the foot when sleeping coiled in their nests.
[←74]
The projectile launcher of the chameleons was a cylindrical tube carved from the hardest vein of a tekal heart, sliced lengthwise and reinforced by an elastic band near the pointed end. At the other end, it had a handle on each half of the cleft and a metal cup to hold the projectile—usually a stone or a spiked metal ball dipped in a warhok’s poison. Before use, the dwarves held the tarcanes in bags made from the same invisible fabric as their clothes. They could pull them out quickly and stick the pointy end in the earth. Before their enemies had a chance to figure out what was happening, the chameleons launched a lethal rain over their heads. Legend has it that the deafening clatter of their tarcanes could freeze in terror even the bravest soldiers.
[←75]
The throwing axes of the grahs.
[←76]
Resistant netting filled with boulders, used to bombard enemies from the skies.
[←77]
One of the tasks of the orzac females, aside from taking care of the male’s armor and weapons, was the cosmetics of the moulan’s tail spikes. They were growing all the time and had to be regularly groomed; otherwise, the orzacs could have the nasty surprise of not being able to screw the sheaths on before battle. When that happened, the taunts and insults of their comrades were regarded as even worse than not being able to use the tail spikes during the fight.
[←78]
A type of thorny spear.
[←79]
Huge axes with long handles.
[←80]
The rikanes were loaded in giant catapults, each manned by about twenty soldiers. One catapult could launch up to ten rikanes at once.
[←81]
Chitinous creatures the size of an adult Antyran, loosely resembling the underground baskis. The kerats were also mythical creatures that only existed in legends.
[←82]
Llandro were mythical snakelike monsters of the old legends. They could walk rather quickly on the tens of tiny feet growing on their lower bodies. Their trunks consisted of chitin rings fused on their chests in a V shape—a kind of natural armor of considerable thickness. On their necks, they had a mane of detachable poisonous spikes they could launch at their enemies. To complete the already-deadly arsenal they bore into battle, their four long fangs could spit a poison more potent than the strongest acid.
[←83]
The ancient armies used to fight on three wings—the baitar in the center, the allies on the left wing, and his first ratrap on the right.
[←84]
The commander of a large unit of orzacs.
[←85]
The legends said that the poison was extracted from a sea-worm living in the abyssal depths of the planetary ocean. The arcanians could only get it from the wonkcs, mythological aquatic reptiles who asked for the platinum weight of the worms in exchange.
[←86]
The father-mother of Colhan, buried for eternity in an ice tomb.
[←87]
Arghail 12:1: “The birth of the primordial evil. A step through the doorway.”
[←88]
The text refers to the water of the dead.
[←89]
“Alfonsito! What’s this thing? I’m scared!”
[←90]
Feathers were unknown in the Antyran biota.
[←91]
The first contact of the Sigians with Terra took place 1,400 years before on the Chilean coast. They found a group of Indians called Mapuche.
Mapu
means “earth” in the Mapudungun language; therefore, they used the same word for the planet. The Grammians knew it as Terra—this being the name used by the whole Federation.