City of Saints and Madmen

a better (or at least cleaner!) place. We’d never much liked him anyway, and would probably have done the deed ourselves in a few more months. But then, following the execution, we rioted and killed many of the Kalif’s soldiers because, after all, he was one of us, even if he had been an incompetent, embezzling bastard.

From then on, it was just a matter of time. Each dawn saw another set of foreigners’ heads on spikes down by various city fountains. Each sunset was occasion for mingled screams and pleas for mercy. Everywhere they turned: the confluence of fate and malice in the ancient stone face of the city. When they came to my establishment, why, I treated them like kings, using a slow-acting poison to kill several of them over a period of days. Some trickster they trusted told them that the red flags strewn across the city were flags of defiance, so the Kalif’s men tore them up, angering the gray caps, who stirred and clicked amongst themselves before “disappearing” the Kalif’s men in droves. The zoo keeper let the big cats free right into the barracks of the Great One’s personal guard. Store owners crept up to the Kalif’s cannon after dark and poured sand and glue in the muzzles. Priests in the Religious Quarter stoned patrols to death for violating obscure, out-of-date rules and then pleaded exemption from punishment on grounds of conflicting faiths.

Finally, one day, they simply left, cousin, and never returned. We boxed the bones they had left behind into the walls of abandoned buildings. We burned their carts. We appropriated their horses. We scrubbed the palace clean. We re-instated the Cappan. And, once again, we cheerfully settled down to govern ourselves, ever so refreshed by this little interlude, this experiment in occupation by a foreign empire… So you should come visit again soon, cousin. The cafe is doing well and we would be glad to have you. The city is beautiful this time of year.

Fondly,

David Ampers

See also: Banfour, Archduke of; Kalif, The; Oliphaunt; Peter son, Richard.

ODECCA BICHORAL WHITE WHALE. The most intelligent of sea-going mammals, venerated by the Church of the Fisherman, prized by zoologists, and possessed of a brain so large that its skull is lopsided. Odecca Whales must always swim at a diagonal, their heads preferably resting on the surface while their massive stern fins churn relentlessly. If they stop swimming for even a minute, the massive head will cause them to sink to the bottom and drown. By necessity, the whale is a surface feeder. See also: Church of the Fisherman; Daffed Zoo.

OLIPHAUNT. One of Tonsure’s favorite mammals, these great gray creatures almost ended Stretcher Jones’ rebellion at the outset. Their sudden introduction into battle, brought from the jungle plains of the far southwest, caused such panic at the Battle of Richter that Jones was lucky to escape with his life. Xaver Daffed found this usually gentle mammal so compelling that he devoted two volumes of his A History of Animals to it. Manzikert III found oliphaunts so succulent that toward the end of his reign he ate their flesh to the exclusion of all else. The Kalif, upon his temporary subjugation of Ambergris, planned to build a palace that would have represented the apogee of the oliphaunt motif in architecture: a vast structure in the shape of an oliphaunt. The plans included hindquarters fashioned to resemble a glen with its own running brook and a theater in the front. See also: Ambergris Gastronomic Association; Daffed, Xaver; Jones, Stretcher; Occupation, The.

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PEJORA, MIDAN. The most famous architect in Ambergris’ history. He holds primary responsibility for the grandest buildings in the city, including the Cappan’s Palace. Pejora could best be classified as an “idiot genius.” From an early age, he erected incredible models of buildings out of wood, sand, and rock, but he could not even graduate from grade school. His parents eventually taught him as best they could at home, and many were the times neighbors would complain because Pejora had erected some new architectural monstro-city in the family’s front yard.

PETERSON, RICHARD. Founder of an unnamed faith that preaches the story of the little red flower that grows by the side of the road. The faith uses a calendar of 12 months comprising 30 days each. Each year ends with the five-day Festival of the Holy Little Red Flower, which includes the Day of Seed, the Day of Root, the Day of Stem, the Day of Leaf, and the Day of Bloom. (A splinter faction called the “Scientific Reformists” inserts the Day of Budding before the Day of Bloom every fourth year, rather than the universally symmetrical five-year cycle recognized by the true followers of the faith. Violent confrontations have been known to occur during this false celebration of the Day of Budding.) The Five Volumes of the Dodecahedron represent the only true written teachings of the Faith. Each volume is divided into twelve books (Petal, Sepal, Stigma, Style, Ovary, Pistil, Stamen, Pollen, Anther, Filament, Nectar, and Calyx). Each book is divided into 240 chapters with 30 verses each. Adherents are generally recognizable by their trademark red sashes and precise pentagonal tonsures. The Brotherhood of the Red Stamen, an order of the Faith, is famous for its scholarship and teaching. Specializing primarily in geometry and horticulture, the gardens which surround each of the five monasteries of the order are justly renowned and lead many thousands each year to join the faith. An unfinished cathedral devoted to expressing the Dodecahedron in physical form may one day supplant the gardens as a mechanism of mass conversions. See also: Holy Little Red Flower, The; Strattonism; Verden, Louis.

PORFAL. An inventor best known for his Porfal Memory Capsule, a festival necessity. Porfal also developed a coin shaped like a knife, issued by Hoegbotton & Sons as a commemorative item and hastily discontinued after numerous stabbings occurred at the subsequent Festival. His most controversial inventions were erotic in nature, including the honey-powered Orgasm Machine, the Mechanical Toe-Sucker, and the infamous Inverted Maiden, into which hapless men in search of ecstasy descended only to find the demands of pleasure too great for their hearts to withstand. See also: Burning Leaves; Cappers; Monster, The; Spacklenest, Edgar.

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RATS. In sewers. In religions. In words like pirate, desperate, and narrative. Rats infest this glossary as surely as words and mushrooms. See also: Ambergris; Lacond, James; Manziism; Moonrat.

REAL HISTORY NEWSLETTER, THE. A fringe publication that has allowed many historians in exile to have their say under the safety of pseudonyms. See also: Ambergrisians for the Real Inhabitants Society; Lacond, James.

REDS. Originally founded to oppose the interests of the composer nee politician Voss Bender, the remnants of the Reds ended their days running a small tavern on the southern edge of Ambergris and hosting dart competitions. See also: Bender, Voss; Borges Bookstore; Greens; Manzikert Memorial Library.

ROGERS, VIVIAN PRICE. Brought up on a farm as the only girl in a family that included eight brothers,Rogers revenged herself on her unruly, brawling brethren by re-imagining them as the Torture Squid. For many years the Torture Squid books outsold even the works of Henry Flack in Ambergris’ many bookstalls. In later years,Rogers accepted an honorary position at the Borges Bookstore while her brothers continued their lives of dawn-till-dusk drudgery back on the farm. See also: Borges Bookstore; Morhaim Museum.

ROYAL GENEALOGIST. A position in the Kalif’s Empire much shrouded in secrecy. Only the Royal Genealogist knows the true identity of the Kalif, but can publish only the vaguest facts about the royal personage. Although the theory cannot be proven, many historians, this one excluded, believe that on more than one occasion the Royal Genealogist has actually been the Kalif. See also: Kalif, The.

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