Marks, an old name for the fifteen divisions of Dalemark that later became the earldoms.
Mark Wood, a large forest at the northern edge of the third and highest Upland in the earldom of the South Dales, part of the lordship of Mark. It was full of clearings stockaded against possible invasion by the North, where wood was cut and charcoal was made. The inhabitants hated the North heartily and put up the stoutest resistance met by the army of Amil the Great at the start of the Great Uprising.
Marriage by proxy, a custom among earls of holding a wedding without the bride’s being present. Her place would be taken by a woman who was married already. The practice probably originated to save the nobly born bride the trouble and expense of a journey, but it was widely used if the bride was unwilling, or a child, or both.
Marshes, a huge area of volcanic swamp to the east of Dalemark. Throughout historical times the Marshes were considered worthless, remarkable only for curious plants and birds, and they became King’s Lands because nobody else wanted them. When, in recent times, oil was discovered there, they remained the property of the crown but added considerably to the wealth of the country.
Mattrick, chief among the freedom fighters in Neathdale in South Dalemark.
Mayelbridwen, a form of the name Manaliabrid from Fenmark; Maewen Singer’s full name.
“May the clay purge from you…,” the start of the ritual spoken when the image of the One was put into its yearly fire. The speakers of this invocation had, for generations, no idea that what they were uttering was a spell for the unbinding of the One.
Medmere, the valley where Clennen the Singer was murdered. The round lake in the middle is the center of an old volcano.
Middle vokes, Lawschool slang for the second stage of the training course.
Midsummer flags, traditional bright banners flown at Midsummer Fairs all over Dalemark. The devices on them—the Eye, the Sheaf, the River, et cetera—are versions of the Old Writing. The flags are thought to be the debased remnants of flags once carried in religious ceremonies.
Milda, the mother of Mitt and afterward the wife of Hobin the gunsmith, who was the father of her two daughters. Sadly, neither Milda nor her daughters survived the Great Uprising. Though there are several highly colored stories about their deaths, the most likely theory is that they perished in the terrible violence and confusion after the mob stormed the Earl’s palace in Holand, when the earls of Dermath and Waywold sacked the city in reprisal.
Mitt, short for Alhammitt. Mitt was born at Dike End in the earldom of Holand in South Dalemark, on the day of the Sea Festival. He moved to the city of Holand as a child, where he became a freedom fighter and was forced to escape to the North to avoid arrest. After just under a year in Aberath, in training as a hearthman, he left to follow Noreth of Kredindale in her bid for the crown.
Modes, Lawschool slang for a progress report on the term’s work.
Moril, younger son of Clennen the Singer. Clennen bequeathed to Moril a cwidder said to have belonged to the minstrel Osfameron. After the death of his father, Moril went to Hannart in North Dalemark, where he briefly joined Hestefan the Singer before leaving to take part in the Great Uprising. He played a considerable part in the Uprising and afterward became court musician and chief architect of the Royal Dalemark Academy of Music, collecting traveling Singers from all over Dalemark and gathering them together in Kernsburgh. This caused such changes and improvements in the making of music that by the end of Amil the Great’s reign the old traveling Singers had ceased to exist.
Mount Tanil, a very tall volcano on the edge of the Marshes southeast of Gardale, thought by unlearned people to be the home of the One.
Mucks, Lawschool slang for gloved hands, the gloves often weighted by being stuffed with metal or stones.
Natives, the term given by the Heathen invaders to the prehistoric inhabitants of Dalemark, who were mostly dark and squarely built. After the invasion many of these people went South, where they intermarried with the settlers there to give rise to the average Southerner, pale-skinned and brown-haired. Those who stayed in the North interbred with the invaders to produce the brown-skinned, light-haired Northerner.
Navis Haddsson, third son of the Earl of Holand, a brilliant and efficient soldier and a ruthless politician, who was forced to escape North from the palace plots in Holand (he was disliked by both the old Earl and the new for having shown too much sympathy for the plight of the common people of Holand). He spent nearly a year as a hearthman in Adenmouth before leaving to follow Noreth of Kredindale and to take part in the Great Uprising. It was probably thanks to Navis that the bloodshed was not greater. Early in the reign of Amil the Great, Navis was made Duke of Kernsburgh, partly in reward for his services and partly because he then outranked the earls it was now his job to control. A year later he married Eltruda, widow of Lord Stair of Adenmouth.
Neathdale, a large market town in the South Dales, the seat of Earl Tholian. Because it was the last major town before the North, Neathdale flourished both on legal trade and by smuggling goods and people in and out of North Dalemark. The earls’ spies and security forces were particularly active there, which led to the Siege of Neathdale during the Great Uprising.
Nepstan, a country in the far South.
Nets, a potent item of magecraft, akin to weaving. The netmaker, working with power, could design his net to perform various tasks. Kankredin’s soulnet, besides trapping departing souls, was intended to draw Gull’s soul to him and to bind the One. Tanamil’s nets likewise had several purposes: concealing the army, blocking the mages, and forcing them to assume their true shapes.
New Flate, the drained flatlands some miles west of Holand in South Dalemark, where Halain, grandfather of Earl Hadd, was supposed to have had dikes dug and drained the sea marsh. In fact, the New Flate was probably older than that. It was very fertile farmland but was denied prosperity until the reign of Amil the Great by the ridiculously high taxes imposed by the earls of Holand.
Noreth, known as Onesdaughter, of whom it was said that the One spoke to her all her life, telling her she was to take the crown when she reached the age of eighteen. She was born in Kredindale to the Lord’s unmarried daughter, Eleth, who died soon after Noreth’s birth, declaring that the child’s father was the One himself. If this was true, it gave Noreth the strongest possible claim to be Queen. She was educated first in Adenmouth, where she was left in the care of her aunt Eltruda, and then at the Gardale Lawschool, from which she graduated early, then spent the next two years at Dropwater as junior law-woman to her cousin Luthan. The Midsummer after her eighteenth birthday Noreth returned to Adenmouth, where she formally declared her intention of riding the royal road to claim the crown.
North, the seven earldoms of Hannart, Gardale, Aberath, Loviath, Dropwater, Kannarth, and the North Dales, all these being north of a line drawn east and west from the Point of Hark. This was the earliest part of the kingdom of Dalemark and also the most mountainous, where the people, though generally poor, had a long tradition of independence and freethinking. The earls of the North quickly learned that injustice was not to be tolerated (quite a few earls lost either their lives or most of their subjects to the mountains while this lesson was being learned), and the laws of the North were therefore fair and lenient, applying to earl and commoner alike. From well before the reign of the Adon, the North was known as the place of freedom. It was also, perhaps because it was the oldest-settled part of Dalemark, renowned for strange old beliefs and even stranger happenings.
North Dales, the earldom immediately to the north of South Dalemark. Though it was cut off from the South by a range of high mountains, the people there were used to dealing with the South (often as smugglers) and were in some ways more akin to the South than to the North.
Northern Cross, the most noticeable constellation in the night sky at all seasons, invaluable to sailors because it revolved around the true north. Other well-known constellations are Enblith’s Hair, the Flatiron, the Big Cat, the Kitten, Hern’s Crown, and the River. Astronomy was not much studied in Dalemark until the reign of Amil the Great, so that although it was known that the world was round and circled the sun, little account was taken of the planets. Sailors called them the Unreliable Stars, for always moving about, or the Unchancy Ones.
Old Flate, the flatlands toward Waywold in South Dalemark, part of the earldom of Holand which had once been drained and farmed but allowed to return to marsh in the course of the two centuries before the Great Uprising because of the ruinous taxes imposed by the earls of Holand. The Old Flate became the haunt of snakes, criminals, and disease.
Old Man, the highest mountain in Hannart, at the south end of the dale, thought to be named for the One.
Old Man of the Sea, a seeming priest who appeared to certain people in the Holy Islands, an aspect of the One.
Old Mill, across the River from Shelling in prehistoric Dalemark, where the first spellcoat was completed and the second begun. It had become a forbidden place for the villagers after the marriage of Closti and Anoreth. Some said it was haunted by the ghost of a woman, others that it was the abode of bad spirits, and still others that the