City of Saints and Madmen

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NADAL, THOMAS. He who died in infamy, his fate too sad to relate here. Let him rest in peace as he could not in life. Faithful to his lover and faithful to his city. A curse on all of those who would defame him for his sole moment of weakness. See also: Jones, Stretcher.

NEW ART, THE. An oxymoron. See also: Burning Leaves; Gallery of Hidden Fascinations; Mandible, Richard; Shadow Art Movement, The; Sporlender, Nicholas; Verden, Louis.

NIMBLYTOD TRIBES. This tree-dwelling people, wiry but strong, has inhabited the southern rainforests for centuries, weaving their bird-like huts in the crooks of sturdy branches. Oblivious to the efforts of Truffidian missionaries to convert them, the Nimblytod still worship the sacred moonrat and the plumed thrush hen. Members of the tribe can make flute-like sounds without instruments and the concerts that often break the silence of the tree cover can seem “like the songs of beautiful angels,” as one shaken missionary put it. The Nimblytod confirm their independence by blowdarting anyone who enters their territory. (Most casualties in recent years, however, have been Manziists.) The poison used in their blowdarts results in a prolonged period of fever, followed by malaise and then a sudden and intense passion for whatever object the sufferer happens to gaze upon at that moment. Eventually, dementia and death follow, like sullen cousins. See also: Manziists; Moonrat.

NUNK, AUTARCH OF. Although a real historical figure, the Autarch is more commonly known to children and adults as the happy fool of Voss Bender’s Nunk poems, which contain such rhymes as “The Autarch of Nunk/ Was a collector of junk/Which he kept in a trunk/Beside his pet skunk” and “The Autarch of Nunk/Loved to get drunk/And, in the grip of a sudden funk,/Pass out fitfully on his bunk.” Several critics have complained that a less famous personage would not have been able to get such doggerel published, but the illustrations by Kinsky in the omnibus version amply make up for the simplistic verse. Recently, amongst the few possessions left by Michael Abrasis to the Manzikert Memorial Library, archivists discovered a second set of Nunk poems, decidedly more adult, as this excerpt demonstrates: “The Autarch of Nunk/Liked women with spunk/To wiggle and tickle/His enormous pink pickle.” (Although some historians believe this is a gardening reference.) See also: Abrasis, Michael; Bender, Voss.

NYSIMIA. A western city known for death, dust, beer, and, more recently, for ridiculous theories involving pony-riding invaders, old dead men, and the gray caps. See also: Hyggboutten.

NYSMAN, MICHAEL. A native of Nicea, Nysman was a high-ranking Truffi dian priest. Although ostensibly sent to Ambergris to assuage the suffering of those who had survived The Silence, documents unearthed since his death clearly indicate that the Truffidian Church had sent him to Ambergris for other reasons entirely. Nysman’s mission was two-fold: to research The Silence to determine its cause and also to develop a psychological profile of people in extreme distress and deliver a written report to the Antechamber of Nicea on ways to exploit this distress for converts. Nysman’s report on psychological distress is less interesting than his report on the cause of The Silence, which includes the following sentences: “With all due respect, I do not know what good it will do us to find out the cause of this affl iction. Surely the truth will be too horrible for any of us to hold within ourselves, and yet we could not loose such knowledge upon the world. The only words I can use to describe the utter despair that settles over me in this city are ‘without God.’ I feel entirely without God in this city.” Later in the report, Nysman writes that around the time of The Silence several sheep herders saw strange lights during the night, emanating from Alfar. Nysman finds this fact to be of supreme importance, but instead of visiting Alfar, he abruptly changed his itinerary to visit Zamilon, for reasons that are lost to us. See also: Alfar; Zamilon.

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OCCUPATION, THE. The term given to the 100 days during which the Kalif’s troops occupied Ambergris. With the exception of The Silence, The Occupation was the bleakest period of Ambergrisian history. If not for the ingenuity and pluck of ordinary citizens, The Occupation would have lasted much longer. As this letter from David Ampers, the owner of a local tavern, The Ruby-Throated Cafe, to his cousin in Morrow (the infamous “fighting philosopher” Richard Peterson) demonstrates, the Kalif’s troops did not have an easy time of it:

Why, I had just said to my old friend Steen Potter (you remember Steen from your last visit — the watch salesman?) as we sat drinking at the Cafe and sharpening our knives to an unparalleled sharpness — I had just said that the city, our beloved Ambergris, had been stuck in a sort of malaise, a doldrums, the whole summer, when what should I and every other citizen of the city find nailed to our doors but a barbaric sheet of paper from the Empire of the Kalif that read thusly:

“Noblest of the Gods, King and Master of the whole World, Son of the previous Kalif, the new Kalif, to Ambergris, his vile and insensate slave: Refusing to submit to our rule, you call yourselves lord and sovereign. You seize and distribute our treasure, you deceive our servants.

You never cease to annoy us with your bands of brigands. Have I not destroyed you? I suppose I must destroy you more utterly than you have ever been destroyed before. Beware Ambergris!

Beware!”

Oh, I thought to myself, now this was promising. An ultimatum! This promised to shake us out of our rut — a real threat! And backed up too! So of course Ambergris spread her arms to the aggressor, the better to love him to death. The messenger prior to invasion was a broadsheet boy who ran past screaming, “Armies of the Kalif cross the river, crush the free armies of the Cappan!” In a stroke, Ambergris had fallen, after five years of snapping at our flanks by the Kalif — such a tease. All right, we could live with that, but did the boy have to scream it out to the world? There is such a thing as pride, my cousin, and although perhaps Steen over-reacted a little, no one complained when he took aim, let fly, and dropped the lad with a stone thrown to the head. Pride is very important to us here, although you may not understand that, not having been born in the city…

So the Kalif’s troops invaded and we all came out to lineAlbumuth Boulevard for the obligatory Parade of Conquerors. It was a bright, breezy day and the swallows flew through the sky like knives. The Kalif’s men formed a supposedly impenetrable wall on either side of the street, armed with spears, swords, and small cannons. It appeared they thought the local population might cause some sort of problem. Steen and I exchanged a meaningful glance. All we wanted to do was welcome the invading army to our city.

The Kalif’s general, the Great One as he was called, made for an impressive sight, with his emerald turban, white ostrich plumes, silver spurs, and the eight gray oliphaunts that lurched along behind him. At least, he was impressive until someone in the crowd sent a blade flying through his throat. My, what a lot of blood he had in him — and it certainly seemed as red as anyone else’s would have been in a similar situation. Alas, the assassin slipped away in the resulting turmoil.

When order had been restored, we crowded up the palace steps and watched as the mayor, the defeated Cappan at his side in chains, relinquished, in a formal ceremony, the keys to the city, and gave the sacramental sword to the new Great One (hastily recruited from among five resplendent if fiercely sweating officers). The Cappan performed these duties with a slight smirk and a conspiratorial wink to the crowd. The Cappan’s personal bodyguards, too, were in a particularly mirthful mood, considering the circumstances. Indeed, one would at times during the ceremony have had difficulty determining who was slave and who was victor… The Great One, as he looked out on the crowd, seemed discomfited by the applause, the ready smiles, as we showed our teeth. A flicker of fear flashed across the Great One’s face before tranquility once again overtook those fine, western features.

It didn’t last long, of course, although I shall, in the interests of saving my hands from gripping this pen for hours and you of reading into boredom, summarize the events of the next 100 days.

Inevitably, the second Great One was poisoned and the third found garroted in his palace, so the Kalif had no choice but to order the mayor of our fair metropolis hanged by the neck until dead.

I’m sure he did not expect what happened at the hanging: We all cheered as our mayor went to