A Crown of Swords (The Wheel of Time 7)

Questioners, the:

An order within the Children of the Light. Avowed purposes are to discover the truth in disputations and uncover Darkfriends. In the search for truth and the Light, their normal metho

d of inquiry is torture; their normal manner that they know the truth already and must only make their victim confess to it. They refer to themselves as the Hand of the Light, the Hand that digs out truth, and at times act as if they were entirely separate from the Children and the Council of the Anointed, which commands the Children. The head of the Questioners is the High Inquisitor, who sits on the Council of the Anointed. Their sign is a blood-red shepherd's crook. See also Children of the Light.

Rhuidean (RHUY-dee-ahn):

A great city, the only one in the Aiel Waste and totally unknown to the outside world. Abandoned for nearly three thousand years. Once men among the Aiel were allowed to enter Rhuidean only once, in order to be tested inside a great ter'angreal for fitness to become clan chief (only one in three survived), and women only twice, for testing to become Wise Ones, the second time in the same ter'angreal, though with a considerably higher survival rate than the men. Now the city is inhabited again, by Aiel, and a great lake occupies one end of the valley of Rhuidean, fed by an underground ocean of fresh water and in turn feeding the only river in the Waste.

sa'angreal (SAH-ahn-GREE-ahl):

Remnants of the Age of Legends that allow channeling much more of the One Power than is otherwise possible or safe. A sa'angreal is similar to, but more powerful than, an angreal. The amount of the Power that can be wielded with a sa'angreal compares to the amount that can be handled with an angreal as the Power wielded with the aid of an angreal does to the amount that can be handled unaided. The making of them is no longer known. As with angreal, there are male and female sa'angreal. Only a handful remain, far fewer even than angreal.

Sea Folk, the:

More properly, the Atha'an Miere (AH-thah-AHN MEE-air), the People of the Sea. They live most of their lives on their ships and strongly dislike going any distance from the ocean. Relatively little is known of their customs, giving rise to an air of exotic mystery and often to fanciful tales. Most seaborne trade is carried by Sea Folk ships, which include the fastest by far and most of the largest, and they are considered by the inhabitants of port cities to be bargainers who outstrip the more widely known Domani. As survival at sea often depends on instant obedience, it should be no surprise that the Atha'an Miere stick strictly to their hierarchy, though there are surprising fluidities at some points. The Atha'an Miere are divided into numerous clans, both large and small, each headed by a Wavemistress. Below her are the Sailmistresses, the ships' captains of the clan. A Wavemistress has vast authority, yet she is elected to that position by the twelve senior clan Sailmistresses, who are referred to as the First Twelve of that clan, and she can be removed by the order of the Mistress of the Ships to the Atha'an Miere. The Mistress of the Ships has a level of authority any shorebound king or queen would envy, yet she also is elected, for life, by unanimous vote of the twelve senior Wavemistresses, who are called the First Twelve of the Atha'an Miere. (The term "the First Twelve" is also used for the twelve senior Wavemistresses or Sailmistresses present in any gathering.) The position of Master of the Blades is held by a man who may or may not be the husband of the Mistress of the Ships. His responsibilities are the defense and the trade of the Sea Folk, and below him are the Swordmasters of Wavemistresses and the Cargomasters of Sailmistresses, who hold like positions and duties; for each of them, any authority outside these areas is held only as delegated by the woman he serves. Where any vessel sails and when is always up to the Sailmistress, but since trade and finances are totally in the hands of the Cargomaster (or, at higher levels, of the Swordmaster or the Master of the Blades), a close degree of cooperation is required. Every Sea Folk vessel, however small, and also every Wavemistress, has a Windfinder, a woman who is almost always able to channel and skilled in Weaving the Winds, as the Atha'an Miere call the manipulation of weather. The Windfinder to the Mistress of the Ships has authority over the Windfinders to the Wavemistresses, who in turn have authority over Windfinders to the Sailmistresses of their clans. One peculiarity of the Sea Folk is that all must begin at the very lowest rank and work their way up, and that anyone other than the Mistress of the Ships can be demoted by those above, even to the very bottom again in extreme instances.

Seanchan (SHAWN-CHAN):

(1) Descendants of the armies Artur Hawkwing sent across the Aryth Ocean, who conquered the lands there. They believe that any woman who can channel must be controlled for the safety of everyone else, and any man who can channel must be killed for the same reason.

(2) The land from which the Seanchan come.

Shayol Ghul (SHAY-ol GHOOL):

A mountain in the Blasted Lands, beyond the Great Blight. Site of the Dark One's prison.

sister-wife:

Aiel kinship term. Aiel women who are near-sisters or first-sisters, and who discover they love the same man or simply do not want a man to come between them, will both marry him, thus becoming sister-wives. Women who love the same man will sometimes try to find out whether they can become near-sisters and adopted first-sisters, a first step to becoming sister-wives. An Aielman faced with this situation has the choice of marrying both women or neither; if he has a wife who decides to take a sister-wife, he finds himself with a second wife.

siswai'aman:

In the Old Tongue: "spears of the dragon," with a strong implication of ownership. The name taken by a good many men among the Aiel, but no women. These men do not actually acknowledge the name — nor do any others, in fact — but they wear a strip of red cloth wound around the forehead with a disc, half black and half white, above the brows. Although gai'shain normally are prohibited from wearing anything that would be worn by an algai'd'siswai, a large number of gai'shain have taken to wearing the headband. See also gai'shain.

Sorilea (soh-rih-LEE-ah):

The Wise One of Shende Hold, a Jarra Chareen. Barely able to channel, she is also the oldest living Wise One, though not by as much as many think.

Spine of the World:

A towering mountain range, with few passes, which separates the Aiel Waste from the lands to the west. Also called the Dragonwall.

stilling:

The removal of a woman's ability to channel. A woman who has been stilled can sense but not touch the True Source. Officially, stilling is the result of trial and sentence for a crime, and was last carried out in 859 NE. Novices have always been required to learn the name and crimes of all women who have suffered judicial stilling. When the ability to channel is lost accidentally, it is called being burned out, though "stilling" is often used for that also. Women who are stilled, however it occurs, seldom survive long; they seem to simply give up and die unless they find something to replace the emptiness left by the One Power. While it has always been believed that stilling was permanent, lately a method of Healing it has been discovered, though there appear to be limits to this which are yet to be explored.

Stone of Tear:

A great fortress in the city of Tear, said to have been made with the One Power soon after the Breaking of the World. Attacked and besieged unsuccessfully countless times, it fell in a single night to the Dragon Reborn and a few hundred Aiel, thus fulfilling two parts of the Prophecies of the Dragon.

Talents:

Abilities in the use of the One Power in specific areas. Aptitude in various Talents varies widely from individual to individual and is seldom related to the strength of the individual's ability to channel. There are major Talents, the best-known and most widespread of which is Healing. Other examples are Cloud Dancing, the control of weather, and Earth Singing, which involves controlling movements of the earth, for example preventing, or causing, earthquakes or avalanches. There are also minor Talents, seldom given a name, such as the ability to see ta'veren or to duplicate the chance-twisting effect of ta'veren, though in a very small and localized area rarely covering more than a few square feet. Many Talents are now known only by their names and sometimes vague descriptions. Some, such as Traveling (the ability to shift from one place to another without crossing the intervening space) are only now being rediscovered. Others, such as Foretelling (the ability to foretell future events, but in a general way), and Delving (the location of ores and possibly their removal from the ground, although the term is now also used for the variant of Healing which is used to examine someone's health and physical condition) are found rarely. Another Talent long thought lost is Dreaming, interpreting the Dreamer's dreams to foretell future events in more specific fashion than Foretelling. Some Dreamers had the ability to enter Tel'aran'rhiod, the World of Dreams, and (it is said) even other people's dreams. The last acknowledged Dreamer previously was Corianin Nedeal (coh-ree-AHN-ihn neh-dee-AHL), who died in 526 NE, but there is now another.

Tallanvor, Martyn (TAL-lahn-vohr, mahr-TEEN):

Former Guardsman-Lieutenant of the Queen's Guards, who loves Morgase more than life or honor. See also Mor-gase.