The Heart Fountain

Balshown (bahl-shown):
The oldest and most powerful of the living Energy Weaving masters. (excluding old ones and other hidden masters)

Berek (beh-rick):
Aspiring artist. Great natural talent at flow. Son of Yagrin’s dead brother, Bisal. Friend of Tzina, Yagrin’s daughter. 10 years old, when the story begins.

Bintar (bin-tar):
Berek’s adopted father. A flow master.

Bisal (bee-sahl):
Yagrin’s dead brother, killed by a Krale attack. Berek’s father.

Bizra (biz-rah):
The race of non-humanoid, intelligent creatures that are native to the world. They communicate through images. They are shape shifters, and can manipulate the energy web that underlies all physical reality with their thoughts alone.

Bizra eyes:
A rare genetic trait, where the person is born with eyes that look similar to the Bizra, green with gold specks.
Most go mad and die before 5 years old.
The survivors are often infertile. It is common for those with Bizra eyes to give birth to children with the trait, if they reproduce.
Both Shazira (Yagrin’s wife), and Tzina (his daughter) have this trait.

 
 
Chiwan (tchi-wahn):
A great healing master.

 
 
Dance of Hands:
Movements of hands over the body, which balance energy, and stimulate healing.

DreamSchool:
A virtual school that a person can enter while sleeping.
One night of sleep time corresponds to a full year in the school. Each day in the school is completely utilized. There is no need for rest or sleep.
The dreamschools are simulations, managed by an artificial intelligence within in the closed city.
The dreamschools are used for rapid learning of guild skills.
One enters the dreamschool of one’s choice by utilizing a device called the dreamnet.

Driga (dree-gah):
Long knives from Jaina’s forest world.

Drilik (drill-ick):
A ceremony on Yagrin’s world, where a person declares a specific type of familial relationship with another (father, uncle, etc.).
This bond cannot be broken, and is treated in law the same as the corresponding blood relationship.

 
 
Egg:
The rooms of the Watchtower are shaped like and sometimes referred to as eggs.

Energy Web:
In this world, all of physical existence rests upon an organized matrix of energy, called the Energy Web.
In addition, inanimate physical objects have distinct energy patterns which give them their physical properties.

Living things have an energy body instead of an energy pattern.
It is infinitely more complex than a simple pattern.

Energy Weaving:
The art of manipulating the world through the energy web, energy patterns, and energy bodies that the physical world rests upon.

 
 
Far mind:
When Yagrin joins minds with others, some memories and feelings are shared.
When a large set of memories and feelings are shared, the new memories/feelings are stored in a part of the mind called far mind.
To make use of specific memories or skills, Yagrin must transfer the memories from the far mind to the regular mind, called near mind

Feldin (fell-din):
A marine animal that looks something like seals.
But they’re ten inches long, with an expressive face that glows.
Their image is seen in the murals on the walls of the closed city.

Felerin( fell-eh-rin): Energy weavers

Flow: Shape shifting

 
 
Gen (jen): Short for gensai fong (hands of light).
A race of energy beings that Yagrin learns about in his travels as an old one.

 
 
Heart Fountain:
The Heart Fountain is said to be a fountain of energy that permanently changes anyone who bathes in it.
It enlarges the pathways within us that carry energy, and thereby enlarges the strength of our emotions.
The books say “Only two friends TOGETHER can enter and leave its presence in peace.”

 
 
Ina (ee-nah): daddy

Inta (in-tah): uncle

 
 
Jaina (jay-nah): Chief in the forest world that Yagrin travels to from the vats

Jiku (gee-koo): name for the humanoid race that settled Yagrin’s world

 
 
Kalmil (kahl-mill):
Intelligent, shape shifters who live in Jaina’s forest world. They usually take the form of great cats.

Keela (kee-lah):
Princess of Tshuan

Kishla (kee-shlah):
Enormous, colorful birds who are curious and intelligent. They communicate with each other through complex songs.

Krale :
Monstrous creatures of black stone who attack the inhabited cities of the world at night. They have destroyed all of the cities, but one that is now protected by the Watchtower. The Krale live in the same land as the Bizra.

 
 
Nival (nee - vahl):
An energy being. First meets the writer on Earth. Then assists Yagrin in his travels to the Bizra.

Niyta (nee - tah):
Leader of the old ones. A great healer

 
 
Old One(s):
Ancient masters of Energy weaving and flow. They were transformed 1000 years ago into a childlike form. They live in a hidden place in the hills of Tshuan. Outside of their cave, their eyes have tremendous destructive power.

 
 
Seven Towers:
A world mentioned in legend, where many energy masters went after the last war.
Some legends say that great help will come from that world, and other legends say that great evil will come from there.
Neebol and Vala (of the Gen) have gone to this world, but their fate there is unknown.

Seven Wells:
There are seven energy wells in the energy bodies of many beings. These wells have many uses, and can be used to move between worlds.

Shazira (sha-zee-rah):
My bondmate (wife) in this world.
A talented master of flow (shape shifting), and one of the two guardians of the Watchtower.

Siksa (sick-sah):
Lightning. The name for Yagrin’s world.

Sindar (sin-dahr):
Path builder. The name of a legendary character in stories, and the name of an energy pattern.
The word and the pattern are visible on the wall of the ancient city.

 
 
tchisang (chi - sahng): derogatory word for a traveler

three bodies and flow:
The first body is a “hard” physical body.
The second is the pattern body, an energy body that has a shape somewhat like the hard one, and feeds it.
The third body is the fire body. It is formless, but often takes the shape of an egg.

In flow, we transform the hard body into another shape.
This is done through the pattern body.

The most common way is to put an energy mask over the pattern body.
The hard body changes shape, according to the mask.

The energy body can be altered directly into a form that truly matches the new hard body.
Even masters rarely do this.

Too long with a foreign energy body, and the master forgets who and what she is, and stays in that form forever.

Some masters can hold a foreign energy form, and remember themselves for a couple of days.
Others can hold it only a few hours without danger.

Some pattern bodies make it hard to move energy.
Transform into one of these, and you can’t change back.
The Kishla is a relatively safe shape.

The Bizra have great power to manipulate energy.
Their fire bodies are different than ours.

There is a unique relationship between their fire and pattern bodies.
Transform your pattern body into Bizra, and your fire body is affected.
It’s easy after that to transform your pattern body into almost any form.

But you cannot return to a person’s shape.
Once a Bizra, never a man again.

traveler :
An intelligent being whose mind travels to another universe/reality and enters the body of someone in that world.

Some entities take on forms drastically different than their native bodies.
Others take on similar forms.
Still others take on the form of their twins in this reality.

1) Some travelers are only observers, and are not even noticed by their hosts.
The old ones travel as hidden observers, using vats which support their bodies while they are gone.

2) Most travelers take over the body of someone in another world.
Their original bodies are asleep, unconscious, or in some altered state of awareness while they travel.
The original host memories are partially merged with their own.
The original host personality is erased.

2a) Some travelers choose to abandon their native reality.
If their original bodies die while they are traveling, their awareness remains in their new body.

2b) Other travelers eventually return to their original bodies.
The original host personality does not usually return.

3) Those who take over the bodies of their twins in another reality, live in multiple worlds at the same time.
It is as though there is a single soul which connects their multiple lives.
These travels result in the joining together of the multiple lives and universes.

The writer is this type of traveler who takes over the body of his twin from another reality.
Some of the original Yagrin’s memories and talents are absorbed.
The rest of Yagrin is erased.

Tshuan (chew - on): Hill people with unusual ways, believed to be descended from ancient wizards

Tzina (tzee - nah):
Yagrin’s daughter. A talented artist and musician, and an apprentice in the Flow Guild. She’s 11 years old at the beginning of the story.

 
 
Watchtower:
An energy lighthouse, built with the aid of the Bizra, it is used to protect the last inhabited city in the world from the nightly attacks of the Krale.
(Diagram of the Watchtower)

 
 
Yagrin (yah - grin):
A master of Energy Weaving and one of the two guardians of the Watchtower. He is the writer’s physical and spiritual twin in this reality. The writer’s awareness takes over Yagrin’s body when the writer first travels to this world. Some of Yagrin’s memories are absorbed by the traveler, but Yagrin’s original awareness is erased.

See traveler. The writer is the third type of traveler, the one who lives in and joins multiple universes.
 

 
 
Zias (zee - oz):
Berek’s adopted mother. An energy weaving master.