Myths and Folklore

Myths

The First Fire. Before the Seven Hearths there was one fire, kept by a woman called Old Mother Ember in a hut on the Wenvorm. Seven travelers came to her door on one winter night, each bringing nothing and asking for warmth. She split her one fire seven ways and gave each a coal, and the coals became the Hearths: Home, Harvest, Forge, Road, Healing, Law, and the Quiet one, which the seventh traveler, who was Death, carried off without a word. Old Mother Ember froze by morning at an empty hearth. That is why every Aldmere house leaves a coal burning overnight: so she is never cold again.

The Bridge That Chose Its King. When the Vareth and Wessary thrones were joined in 178, the old timber bridge at Hethlend was said to groan under any pretender who crossed it and to go silent under Hethmed Tulvard. The stone bridge that replaced it in 244 is said to keep the habit. No Aldmere king is truly king until he has walked its seven arches alone at dawn and the bridge has not spoken. Every one has done it. Hethbael has not yet.

The Sleeping Reeve. A burgher-reeve of Chomtholk, so the Moot's clerks say, fell asleep during a debate in the year 352 and slept through the vote that made the Moot itself. He sleeps still, somewhere under the Moot hall, and if he ever wakes, the Moot's authority ends. Clerks knock three times on the hall floor before every sitting, "to let him sleep."

Folk tales

Wemm of the Downs and the Hundred Arrows. A Southdowns boy shot a hundred arrows at the moon to win a girl, and the hundredth stuck. On clear nights, the Downs say, you can see it. The girl married a miller.

The Miller's Wolf. A plain wolf came to a Wromthalm mill every winter for bread and was fed for twenty years, until the miller's son, home from a lord's war, shot it on the step. The mill wheel stopped that day and has not turned since, and the ruin is still shown to travelers.

The Reeve Who Counted Everything. A comic tale, told a hundred ways, about an Aldmere clerk who tried to count the stars for the tax rolls and is still counting. Any tiresome official is "counting stars."

Old wives' tales

• Never let a hearth go fully cold in winter; Old Mother Ember will come sit in it, and she brings the frost.
• A swan on the Wenvorm with its neck turned toward Hethlend means the king will hear bad news.
• Bread that rises crooked has been breathed on by a Gray Choir singer passing the window.
• Do not whistle on the bridge; the arches count the notes, and the seventh belongs to the Quiet Hearth.
• A Moot owl heard at noon means a lord will die before the harvest. A Moot owl heard at midnight is just an owl.
• Put a coin on a Hearth-keeper's doorstep after a birth, or the child will always be cold-handed.

Traditions

• Hearth-lighting. A new house is not lived in until a coal from a neighbor's hearth has been carried to it. To sell a house without one is bad luck for the seller.
• The Reeve's Loaf. On Moot day every town bakes one loaf for the hall, and the poorest man present cuts it. The king eats last.
• Bow-day. Every Southdowns boy, and in the last hundred years most girls, is given a child's bow on the first day of spring and shoots at a straw hare. If the hare is hit, the village guild's hare-tattoo comes at sixteen.
• Quiet Hearth night. On the longest night, families sit in the dark for an hour with the hearth banked and name their dead aloud. It is the one Aldmere rite the Berrode of Castavar has tried to condemn and failed.

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Myths

Kharnoth and the Wall of Men. In the Century of Fire, when every kingdom's walls fell, Tharax's walls fell too. Kharnoth, then a mortal captain, set the survivors in a line where the wall had stood, had them lock shields, and told them: "Now we are the wall." They held for nine days. On the ninth Kharnoth died on his feet and did not fall, and the line did not know he was dead until the enemy left. The Phymun hold that he still stands somewhere behind every phalanx, and that the last man in any line who does not step back is, for that moment, Kharnoth.

The Mountain That Was Given. The Bound tell it otherwise. The Karzhan Spine was a sleeping mother, and the Phymun came and told her they would guard her while she slept if she gave them her back to stand on. She agreed. They have never let her wake. This is the Furrow's first story, and to repeat it aloud is death.

The Iron Coin. A Tharaxi king of old was offered a chest of gold by a Caelvennois merchant to let a caravan through the Gap. He took one coin, melted it, and poured it into the pass road, saying gold was for the ground. The road is said to have a gold vein under it that no Phymon will dig. The saying "gold has a smell" comes from this: the king could smell the merchant coming a mile off.

Folk tales

The Boy Who Would Not Cry. Every Anvil boy hears it his first night: a boy of seven, sent to the Anvil, was told he could go home if he cried once. He did not cry for eleven years, became a Skekir, and at sixty, at his mother's grave, cried for the first time. The Anvil says: "He earned it."

Gonam's Fox. A fox stole a whole company's rations in the night, and the company hunted it for a year and never caught it. It is told to teach patience, and it is also told, quietly, among the Bound, as a tale about the Tyrthas.

The Skekir's Wife. Told by the women of the Phymun: a Skekir tried to give his wife orders in her own house, and here are the six ways she made him sorry. The men laugh at this one carefully.

Old wives' tales

• A spear that falls with its point toward the Gap means Castavar is coming. A spear that falls toward the Lowfields means something worse.
• Never count the men in a phalanx; the count will be wrong by one, and Kharnoth does not like being counted.
• Bound women say: a furrow cut crooked in the morning is a Tyrthas man lying in the next field.
• If an eagle circles Tharxa three times, a king will die; twice, a king will lie.
• A child who laughs before the age of one will not survive the Anvil. Phymun mothers pinch their infants when they smile.

Traditions

• The Brand. Every Phymon is branded with the spear-point on the shoulder at seven, and makes no sound. A sound means another year before he may try again.
• The Bear. Two young Phymun, on foot, with spears. One bear. The one who strikes the killing blow gives the pelt to the other.
• The Empty Chair. At every Phymon feast one chair is left empty for Kharnoth, with a full plate before it. The Bound clear the plate. The Bound have their own name for the empty chair, and it is not Kharnoth's.
• Iron for the dead. A Phymon is buried with an iron bar in his hand, so he will have money in the next world, and it will be worthless there too.

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Myths

The Sun's Debt. The Radiant Iévaine, in the first days, borrowed gold from the earth to make the dawn, and has been paying it back every morning since by pouring light onto Lake Surmave. Solvaine's cathedral faces east so the debt can be witnessed. The Ledger faithful say the myth proves the Sun is a debtor like everyone else.

The Nine Sisters. The Peace of the Nine in 294 was, as the common people tell it, made by nine sisters whose fathers had fought the Marrowmere Wars. They met on the island in the lake, swore on a mirror, and each married one of their brothers' enemies. The Nine Houses are said to descend from them. Every house claims the eldest sister.

The Drowned City. The Builders of the Age of Ruins built a city so beautiful that the lake rose to keep it. On calm nights, the very old say, you can see the roofs. The Drowned Court says the Builders are asleep in it and dreaming Solvaine; if they wake, Solvaine ends.

Folk tales

The Glassblower's Daughter. A glassblower's daughter made a mirror so true that whoever looked into it saw what they owed. The prince of the day bought it and had it broken. The pieces became the first mirror towers, and that is why a heliograph never lies.

Farisel's Kettle. Vailine Farisel, founder of the House, is said to have made her first loan from a kettle of coins her husband left her, at one coin in ten, and to have counted the kettle every night until she died. The bankers' toast in Solvaine is "to the kettle."

The Lily That Would Not Wilt. A knight of the Lilies loved a Drowned Court fisher-girl and gave her a lily from his crest. She threw it in the lake, and it floated back every dawn for a year. How the tale ends depends on which house is telling it.

Old wives' tales

• Never lend on a day the cathedral dome is in cloud; the Sun is not watching the contract.
• A mirror tower flashing at night with no message means the Quiet Office has lost a man.
• If you find a leusore face-up in a canal, spend it before dusk or it spends you.
• Tie a knotted cord to the bow of any boat, or the Drowned will count you as one of theirs.
• A child born during the dawn liturgy will be rich and unhappy. A child born during the Bells will be poor and never alone.
• Do not hum the Aijal bell-tower song near an Aijal.

Traditions

• First Light. In every Caelvennois household the eldest opens the eastern shutter at dawn and says, "The debt is paid." Then coffee, which comes from Zarvand at ruinous cost.
• The Mirror Vow. Marriages in Solvaine are sworn facing a mirror, not each other, so each sees what they are promising.
• Kettle Night. On the day Vailine Farisel died, the Nine Houses count their books by candlelight, in silence, and the youngest clerk reads the total aloud.
• Floating the Lily. Girls of the houses float a lily on the lake at sixteen. If it comes back, they will marry within the year. Half the houses keep a servant with a boat and a hook.

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Myths

Fojo and the Silent Voice. Fojo of the Llovo, a goatherd, climbed the cliff at Grarañe in a storm to save a kid, and heard in the thunder a voice that said nothing at all, and understood it. He came down knowing there was one God, that He was alone and did not speak, and that the silence was the message. Erbavo Fojo's cliff is the cathedral's footing. The Berrode calls this the First Hearing. The Grove says Fojo was struck by lightning and the goat came down alone.

The Bull of Lasdara. The Grove's oldest story: the land itself was a bull the first people rode, and when they tamed it, the bull agreed to feed them if they would let it run wild one day a year. The bull-runs on the saints' days are, under the paint, that promise being kept. The Berrode has spent eight centuries not understanding what it is blessing.

The Silver That Fell. The silver of Puesdro is said to be the tears of the angels who wept when the Solitary God made the world alone. Miners say the veins run toward Grarañe because the angels were looking at the cliff. Zarvani scholars say silver runs where the rock cooled. Both may be true.

Folk tales

Llelilo's Last Drink. King Llelilo the Pious, dying of thirst in the First Crusade, was offered water by a Zarvani boy and refused it as the gift of an idolater. The Berrode tells it as a tale of faith. The taverns of Tandosa tell it as a tale about a fool, and about the boy who drank the water and lived.

The Knight and the Thorn. A knight of the White Thorn fell in love with a Grove Masker's daughter and wore a hawthorn from her father's tree in his helm for thirty years without knowing what it was. The Order says the story is false. Every squire knows it.

Two-Fathom's Foot. A Tandosa tale, told with relish, of how a Salt Brotherhood quartermaster lost his foot to a Castavari bolt-thrower and had a wooden one made from the bolt. The Brotherhood tells the same story, and it ends the same way. It is the one joke both coasts share.

Old wives' tales

• A stork that leaves a church tower before spring means the bishop has sinned.
• Never say a heretic's name after dark; the Office of Truth hears through the walls, and so does the heretic.
• Olive oil that goes cloudy in the jar means someone in the house has lied to a priest.
• A destrier that will not cross the Llovo is carrying a rider who will die in the Sunmaw.
• A child born with a mark shaped like a thorn will join the Order or burn; the midwives decide which by whether they tell the priest.
• Grove wives say: do not pour wine on the ground on the saints' days unless you mean it for the bull.

Traditions

• The Glove. Every Castavari who has been burned in war wears a glove over the scar and takes it off to pray. The king's is the best known but not the first.
• The Bull-Run. A black bull is loosed through the streets on the saint's day, and young men run before it. The church calls it a penance. It is older than the church.
• Salt Swearing. Every sailor of Tandosa swears his first oath on a cup of seawater, and the priest present looks the other way.
• Thorn Vigil. A knight of the White Thorn spends the night before his first battle kneeling in a hawthorn grove with a branch across his knees. If it flowers by dawn, he will live. In spring they usually do.

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Myths

The First Flame. In the beginning there was only Shadow, and it was not evil, only alone. A single spark, whose name is Truth, was struck from nothing, and the Shadow, seeing itself for the first time, was afraid, and has fought the light ever since out of fear, not malice. The Eternal Flame at Mazbaaran is said to be that spark, carried from the mountains by Salestaad the Builder, who never let it go out in forty days of walking. The Shadowed say the myth proves Shadow is not the enemy but the frightened elder.

The River's Bargain. The Talodin was a serpent that lived in the Spine and would not come down. The first Zarvani, dying of thirst, sent a girl to ask it. The serpent said it would come down and lie across the desert if it was never dammed and never cursed, and if a girl walked its length every year to greet it. The Jaarzebeem still send a girl. Tharax, holding the headwaters, holds the serpent's head by the myth's reckoning, and every Zarvani knows it.

The Seven Princes of Kasaadeer. Not a myth, but treated as one: the poisoning of Khaasar Kasaadeer III in 398, and the sons who died with him, is told as a warning tale of seven princes, each with a flaw, each dying by it. There are seven princes again. Every Zarvani mother has noticed.

Folk tales

The Camel Who Knew the Way. A caravan was lost in the Sunmaw and its master died, and the lead camel walked three hundred miles to Mazbaaran alone with the water on its back. Every caravan-master owns a descendant of that camel. Mozaaft owns two.

Tartal's Abacus. A folk tale already in her own lifetime: the merchant's daughter who beat the House of Learning's examination by reckoning faster than the examiners could read the question. Told to girls in Kebidaan, with more added every year.

The Rahaash and the Liar. A liar went to the fire-temple to be cleansed, and the Rahaash asked him one question. A joke with a hundred versions; the question is always different and the liar always leaves worse off. Rahaash Kelongaad has been the Rahaash in it for thirty years.

Old wives' tales

• Never speak a lie within sight of a fire-temple's dome; the Flame hears, and the truth burns its way out of you as fever.
• A hoopoe on the garden wall means a letter is coming. A hoopoe in the house means the letter is bad.
• Pomegranate seeds counted before eating are years of life; do not count past forty, or the Shadow takes the rest.
• A sandstorm on a wedding day is the Shadow's jealousy; a sandstorm at a funeral is the Shadow's grief. It is always the Shadow's something.
• The Shadowed say: never blow out a candle; pinch it, so the flame goes into your hand and not into the dark.
• A prince who counts his brothers has one fewer by morning.

Traditions

• The Walking of the Talodin. Every spring a girl chosen by lot walks from Faashab-Talodin to Lake Shorooq greeting the river, and no one may harm her, not even in war. The Third Crusade honored this. Castavar was surprised to learn it had.
• The Fire Marriage. Couples wed by circling a fire seven times, and the Rahaash asks each, before the flame, whether they have ever lied to the other. It is the only time a Zarvani is expected to answer "yes."
• Truth-day. One day a year the Khaasar sits in the fire-hall, and any subject may tell him one true thing without punishment. Avisteer III has held it every year and once wept. Faasheer has said he will end it.
• The Salt Gift. A caravan arriving at any city gives the gate-keeper a handful of salt. Caravans that skip it are, as everyone knows, carrying something they should not.

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Myths

The Measure. By the Doctrine, Kaishon has no myths. Its own founding story is one all the same: the first Emperor, Dezau Kokdau, was a farmer's son who measured his father's field with a rope and found the landlord had cheated him by one pace. He walked to the old king's court to say so, was laughed at, and came back with an army. The Doctrine calls the rope the First Measure and keeps a rope in the archive-city that no one may see.

The Wall That Walks. The Long Rampart, the conscripts say, was not built but grew: the first stones were laid, and each night the wall walked a little farther north by itself, because it feared the steppe and wanted to reach the sea. Emperor Tokrai Tegoi walked its length to prove it was finished and died six days later, and the conscripts say the wall killed him for calling it done.

The Unseen Kin's Bargain. The countryside's telling of the Reasoned Purge: the household gods, told by the Emperor that they did not exist, agreed to stop existing on condition that they be fed anyway. They have kept the bargain. So has every kitchen in Kaishon.

Folk tales

Tsehei Yotoke's Head. The rebel of 1019, whose head was set up in Kokrin for a year and, the peasants say, kept talking: it gave the weather, named cheating magistrates, and on the last day told the crowd to go home and feed their Kin. Every roadside shrine in the Reach has a small clay head in it.

The Examiner's Cricket. A scholar sat the examinations twelve times and failed twelve times, and the cricket he kept for luck sat the thirteenth for him, in his sleeve, and passed. Told to explain any official who is stupider than his rank.

The Crane Bride. A jade crane became a woman to marry a fisherman, and left when he looked at her too long. Every pair of mandarin ducks on Lake Tsenkin is said to be a couple who did not look.

Old wives' tales

• Never step on the threshold of a house; the Door-Kin sits there, and you will have bad luck until you apologize to a door.
• A cricket that stops singing at noon means a magistrate is lying in the next town.
• Rice that boils over is the Stove-Kin complaining; add a pinch and say nothing.
• If a signal kite falls near your house, someone in it will fail an examination.
• A magpie on the left is luck; on the right is a tax collector.
• Old Tsau says: the Doctrine is right that there are no gods, and you should feed them anyway, because they are hungry.

Traditions

• First Rice. The first bowl of every meal is set by the stove for the Kin and eaten afterward by the youngest child, "so it is not wasted." Every magistrate's household does this, and every magistrate does not see it.
• The Brush and the Bowl. A boy sitting his first examination is given a brush by his father and a bowl of rice by his mother. He takes the brush and leaves the bowl, which his mother sets by the stove until he returns.
• Kite Day. On the first windy day of spring, every village flies a kite from its highest roof, by law to honor the Rampart's signal corps. In truth the kites carry paper wishes to the sky, which the Doctrine has never quite managed to ban.
• Tsenkin Copying. Since the earthquake of 890, every scholar who visits the archive-city copies one page of something by hand before leaving. Makok has copied four thousand pages. Seitotai copied the succession law, twice.

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Myths

Selthar's Anvil. The first storm was Selthar the sky-father forging the world on an anvil of ice. Every thunderclap is his hammer, every lightning bolt a spark, and the Frostmarch is what fell off the anvil while he worked: the scraps, the hardest parts, the ones that would not bend. The Hrodvald are the people made from scraps, and proud of it.

The Ice Mother's Count. At the end of every winter the Ice Mother walks the Frostmarch and counts who is left. Those she counts, she lets live until next winter. Those she misses die in spring for no reason. The Deep Cold go out on the ice naked at midwinter so she will count them first. Everyone else stays indoors and hopes.

The First Longship. A stelest's daughter who could not bear to watch her father's men drown in coracles carved a whale out of a taiga pine and told it to swim, and it did, and that was the first longship. Every prow is carved as a beast so it remembers it was alive.

Folk tales

Fevar Red-Axe and the Bread. The Hearthking who raided to Chomtholk in 283 and, so the tale goes, came home with nothing but bread, because his men had eaten the gold. Told to laugh at raiders who forget why they raid. Selra's grandmother told it to her.

Anoga Wolf-Mother. The first woman Hearthking, who led the clans south in 432 to buy grain instead of raiding, and is said to have walked into Hethlend with a wolf on a rope and left with a hundred wagons. Selra's supporters call her "Anoga's daughter." Kruman calls her "Anoga's shadow."

The Hrind Who Sang Backward. A hrind who lied in a saga was cursed to sing every saga backward for the rest of his life, so that every hero died first and every battle ended before it began. Sauld Half-Sung is reminded of this one a great deal.

Old wives' tales

• Never build a fire with birch alone; the Ice Mother sees through the smoke.
• A raven on the roof-tree is Selthar listening; say nothing you would not say to him.
• A child born in a Wolf Winter will never be warm and never be afraid.
• If the salmon come late, a stelest has lied at the Reldith.
• Sun-Turner wives say: if the lamp goes out, someone at sea is dead. Old Ones' wives say: if the lamp goes out, good.
• Never count longships leaving. Count them coming back.

Traditions

• The Voyage Bands. A blue band is tattooed on the arm for every longship voyage beyond the ice. Three is rare. Selra has three. Kruman, who does not sail, has none, and it is the one thing he does not mention.
• Drolak. Since the Concord of 877, a killing is paid for in silver before the Reldith, not in blood at night. Half the north honors it, half remembers how, and everyone knows which half they are in.
• The Hearth-Stone. Every longhouse has a stone from the clan's first longhouse set into its hearth. When a clan splits, the stone is broken, and the halves are enemies until they are set back together.
• Midwinter Silence. On the longest night no Hrodvald speaks from sundown to sunup, so the Ice Mother cannot hear them and count them early. The hrinduk find it the hardest night of the year.

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The Qaflan

Myth: The Road's Bargain. The Road was once a river that dried up and, having nowhere to go, agreed to carry people instead of water if they would never make it choose a bank. The Neutrality Oath is the Road's price. Folk tale: The Captain Who Chose. A caravan captain carried a king's army in his wagons for gold, and found the next morning that every road he took led back to the same ford. He is still there, they say, at a crossroads in the Sunmaw, and Qaflan children are told to look for him. Old wives' tales: Never eat at a crossroads without leaving a crumb. A wheel that squeaks on the left is a lie in the cargo. A stranger who refuses hospitality is the Road testing you. Tradition: The Coin at the Crossroads. Every caravan leaves a coin at every crossroads shrine. The coins are never taken, not by anyone, in any realm. It is the strangest thing on Aethorra, and nobody speaks of it.

The Drift

Myth: The First Barge. The river gave a drowning man a plank and told him he could live on it if he never touched the bank again. The Drift are his children and, by their own reckoning, are never on land. Folk tale: Helm Rindlith's Eel. Told in Rindlith's own lifetime: how she wrestled an eel the size of a barge-pole and lost, and has been trying to catch it since. The eel is the river's own and will not be caught. Old wives' tales: A fish tattoo that fades means the river has forgotten you. Never sleep with your feet toward the current; the river takes them first. A barge that turns upstream by itself is telling you to go home. Tradition: The Water Name. A Drift child is named twice, once by its parents and once by the river, which the Helm reads from the first ripple the child makes. Pell does not tell her river name.

The Waheli

Myth: The Green Sleep. The Greenwarden's oldest trees are the Builders of the Age of Ruins, who chose to become trees rather than leave when their age ended. The Waheli guard them not as trees but as sleeping ancestors. To cut one is not to fell timber; it is to murder the very old. Folk tale: The Shields on the Trees. The Venei's Throat massacre of 734 is told to Waheli children as a tale of two hundred men who came to take the sleepers and were invited to stay. The shields mark their places. Old wives' tales: Never speak your name aloud under a redwood; the tree keeps it. A green jay that stops calling means someone has lied in the forest. If the fairy-ring mushrooms grow in a line instead of a circle, the Circle of Roots will split. Tradition: The Naming Bark. At birth a Waheli child's name is carved on a strip of bark and buried at a redwood's root. When the child dies, the strip is dug up and burned. Maesra's lies under the tree at the eastern edge, where she has let two people live.

The Cherüsh Horde

Myth: The Wide Blue's Horse. The sky is a horse the color of the sky, and the wind is its running; the stars are sparks from its hooves. A rider who dies well is caught up on its back. Sarsak Tolmar's library-tent is, to Bagoq, a saddle the sky will never wear. Folk tale: Shaghis's Wall. The founder of Tontanor built a wall on the steppe and was found dead against it, sitting, facing out, his tribes gone. Told as a warning about walls. Sarsak has begun laying stones where Shaghis sat. Old wives' tales: A horse that will not eat means its rider dies within the year. Cut the last joint of the little finger in mourning, or the dead will come back for the whole hand. A tulip that blooms red-black is an olriq's blood in the ground. Tradition: The Eagle Burial. An olriq is buried with his hunting eagle, hooded, alive. The Cherüsh say the eagle carries him. Kaishoni scholars say it is why olriqtun do not live long.

The Dunmorrow

Myth: The Anvil Under the Spine. The mountain is a forge and the Dunmorrow are its smiths; the Underkings were the ones who could hear the anvil ring. Grurn says he hears it when drunk. Tesk says she hears it always. Folk tale: The Last Underking's Hammer. Grarg the Proud's hammer was thrown into the deepest shaft when the kingdom fell, and it is still falling. When it lands, the kingdom returns. Tesk has been down the shaft. Old wives' tales: Never whistle in a shaft; the mountain answers. Steel quenched at noon is honest; at midnight, cursed. A marmot's whistle at the mine mouth means a gallery will fall. Tradition: The Iron Ring. Every Dunmorrow adds a ring to the beard for each masterwork. Grurn has nine. Tesk has fourteen and no beard, so hers hang from her belt.

The Tzalan

Myth: The First Sun's Children. The pyramids were built by the First Sun's own children, the Tzalan's ancestors, and the Sun withdrew into the sky when the serpent drove them into the jungle. Ixatl preaches that the Sun will return when the pyramids are wholly retaken. The glyphs, a Celestial Table scholar might say, tell another story. Folk tale: The Jaguar's Face. Why the jaguar has spots: the first Sun-Speaker's nails scarred it, and every Sun-Speaker since rakes his own face to match. Old wives' tales: Never sleep facing a pyramid; the First Sun's dreams leak. A dart-frog seen in the morning is a death in the family; in the evening, a birth. A howler that roars at midday is calling a name, and it is yours. Tradition: The Sun-Quetzal Feather. One feather, given at the naming, kept for life, and burned at death so the Sun knows who is coming. Kaltzi's is in Ixatl's keeping.

The Hizkari

Myth: The Mother of Fire. The Cinder Teeth are the teeth of a great fire-mother who bit the desert and broke them; the naphtha is her blood, and the eruptions her rage at the loss. The Iron Matron's title is hers by right of being the one the mountain has not killed. Folk tale: The Beetle That Walked Through. The fire-beetle walked through the eruption of 622 and came out the other side carrying an ember on its back to relight the clans' fires. Every Hizkari hearth is said to be lit from that ember. Old wives' tales: Never sell fire without salt in the bargain; the mountain counts it stolen. A seep that bubbles blue is the Mother waking. If the swifts leave the cliffs, leave the cliffs. Tradition: The Burn. A Hizkari come of age lays a hand on a lava-warm stone for as long as they can bear. The scar is the clan's mark. The Iron Matron's whole left arm is a story about how long.

The Salt Brotherhood

Myth: The Sea That Does Not Care. The sea is the only god that never asked for anything and never lied. The Salt-Sworn honor it by expecting nothing. Vexara, the drowned kingdom, was the sea's one warning that it was not to be owned. Folk tale: The Captain-King's Last Sail. The last Captain-King took his ship into the storm of 1004 to bring the fleet home, and has been seen, they say, on the water in every storm since, still signaling the way in. Vex claims his blood. Chobecho says everyone does. Old wives' tales: Never bring a Castavari saint's medal aboard; the sea has no saints and takes offense. A shark that follows without striking is the Brotherhood's dead. If the reef sings, the sea has a name to collect. Tradition: The Vote on the Tide. The Captain-King or Queen is chosen at the ebb and sworn at the flood, so that whatever was promised, the sea has heard both halves.

The Uusung

Myth: The Walking Dead of the Lights. The Northern Lights are the dead walking home along the sky, and the Uusung are the people who stayed behind to keep the door open. The door lies north of the ice. Lilvuq has seen it. Jaamang has not, yet. Folk tale: The Bear Who Was a Man. A frost bear was once an Uusung hunter who stayed too long on the ice and forgot. He is kind to hunters and does not remember why. Every Uusung is told which bear, and no one hunts him. Old wives' tales: Never point at the Lights; the dead will point back. Snow that falls upward is a soul leaving. A seal that looks at you twice is a relative. Tradition: The Long Dark Vigil. On the first night the sun fails to rise, the eldest of each camp goes out and speaks the names of that year's dead to the Lights, so they can find the door. Lilvuq has spoken them for forty years. Jaamang is learning the list.

The Ember Pilgrims

Myth: The One Fire. All fires were lit from one, the Pilgrims say, and every temple is a hearth that has forgotten the house it stood in. Brother Ash says there was no first fire; there is only fire, and it is all the same. The Flame's Rahaasheem call this heresy; Rahaash Kelongaad, asked, said it was "very nearly true," which is why the Pilgrims are still alive in Zarvand. Folk tale: The Pilgrim and the Seven Doors. A Pilgrim knocked on seven temple doors in seven realms and was turned away from all, and on the seventh night he lit a fire at a crossroads and was joined by seven priests who had followed him to see where he would go. Told in every market square where Ash preaches. He did not make it up, and says so. Old wives' tales: A Pilgrim's shadow points toward the nearest hearth. Feed one and your fire will not go out that winter. Refuse one and it will. Tradition: The Empty Hands. A Pilgrim owns nothing and shows both hands open at every door. The Office of Truth brands the forehead for exactly that reason, so the hands can stay empty.

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Some tales have no home. Every people tells them, and every people is sure they are its own.

• The Comet's Child. A child born under the comet who will end the world or save it. Every realm had one in 960. Every realm will have several the next time it comes.
• The Builders' Door. Somewhere there is a door of the Age of Ruins, and whoever opens it gets whatever the Builders left. The Drowned Court, the Dunmorrow, the Tzalan and the Uusung each know where it is. They are all right.
• The Wolf Who Was Fed. A wolf comes to a door every winter and is fed, until the year it is not. Aldmere's miller, Hrodvald's Wolf Winter, the Uusung's bear, the Waheli's marten: the same story in four coats.
• The Girl Who Walked. A girl walks the length of something, a river, a wall, a road, a saga, and is not harmed, and by walking makes a promise that holds. The Zarvani send one every spring. The Cherüsh say Juryan will be one. Jaamang is one already and does not know it.
• The Empty Chair. A place set at every feast for someone who is not there. Kharnoth, Old Mother Ember, the Captain-King, the last Underking, the dead in the Lights. Every people leaves one chair empty, and every people is waiting for a different guest.