"The Cycle
Phoenix sinks into decay
Haughty dragon yearns to slay.
Lyorn growls and lowers horn
Tiassa dreams and plots are born.
Hawk looks down from lofty flight
Dzur stalks and blends with night.
Issola strikes from courtly bow
Tsalmoth maintains though none knows
how.
Vallista rends and then rebuilds
Jhereg feeds on others' kills.
Quiet iorich won't forget
Sly chreotha weaves his net.
Yendi coils and strikes unseen
Orca circles, hard and lean.
Frightened teckla hides in grass
Jhegaala shifts as moments pass
Athyra rules minds' interplay
Phoenix rise from ashes, gray."
Yendi
phoenix
"Phoenix sinks into decay"
dragon
"Haughty dragon yearns to slay."
"had a sudden, clear vision of a monstrous head--narrow, triangular,
and reptilian. He had never seen it before, but his stay in Faerie
had taught him to recognize it. Three small tentacles, which Miklos
knew to be sense organs, descended from its chin, there would be
larger ones around its neck, Miklos didn't remain to see them."
Brokedown Palace, Chapter 3, page 44
"The dragon stopped suddenly, and the Prince could see its neck
tentacles becoming hard and rigid. He chuckled to himself at the
vaguely sexual impression it gave. Then he realized that the
dragon was standing in almost the same place he had vacated a
few minutes before, and he was very pleased he had moved. But what
had it found? The athyra.
Brokedown Palace, Chapter 3, page 45
"It is one thing to know that a dragon's head is taller than you
are, another to see one close up. The dragon wasn't looking at
him but at the dzur; and all of its tentacles were fully erect.
This time Miklos found nothing amusing about it. He stared
mesmerized, until he heard a louder snarl than he'd hear yet, and
a thin black streak launched itself across his line of sight and
into the dragon's face."
Brokedown Palace, Chapter 3, page 46
"He was fifty feet away when Vilmos leapt onto the dragon's
back, crying, 'I said I'd strange you, and by the Demon Goddess
I will!'"
"Even his massive hands couldn't come close to actually
fitting around the dragon's throat, but he took one of its
great tentacles and twisted and pulled it."
...
"Teeth, however, are not the dragon's only weapon. A claw that
was as big as Vilmos himself swung out too quickly to be seen,"
...
"Miklos saw the dragon's tail whipping around."
Brokedown Palace, Chapter 3, page 49
"The dragon...turned toward us, then, its mouth open, showing teeth
the size of Blackwand, and began to move in our direction."
Issola, Chapter 15, paperback, page 235
The size of Blackwand: "It was small for a longsword"
The Book of Taltos, Taltos, Chapter 6, page 60
"It is really hard to conceive of just how big a dragon is, I can
tell you that that it could eat me, perhaps without the need for a
second bite. I can mention that it has tentaclelike things all
around its head, each of which is longer than I am tall and as big
around as my thigh. I could let you know that, at the shoulders, it
was eighteen feet high and much, much longer than that. But, until
you've seen one up close, you just can't really image it."
The Book of Taltos, Taltos, Chapter 12, page 126
lyorn
"Lyorn growls and lowers horn"
"Her hair was golden--and if I'd meant 'blond' I would have said
'blond.' Her eyes were the same color, rather like a lyorn's,
and deeply set."
The Book of Jhereg, Yendi, 1st page of Chapter 6
words used in describing a dog
"the sleek build of a lyorn"
The Book of Athyra, Orca, Chapter 2, page 228
tiassa
"Tiassa dreams and plots are born."
"They passed more statuary. When they reached the tiassa, which was
poised upon its hind legs, wings outspread,"
The Paths of the Dead, Chapter the Twenty-Ninth, paperback, page 318
hawk
"Hawk looks down from lofty flight"
dzur
"Dzur stalks and blends with night."
"He heard a snarl off to his left and stepped back, alert. He
found himself staring into the yellow eyes of a dzur, about thirty
feet away from him. Five hundred pounds of black death."
Brokedown Palace, Chapter 3, page 46
issola
"Issola strikes from courtly bow"
"The issola is a beautiful white bird. I'd seen several during my
recent travels. One usually saw them standing, graceful and lovely
in the early morning or late evening, in swamps or the shallow
banks of rivers. They stand as if their only reason for being
were to look lovely and graceful. And, then the issola would be
holding a fish in its beak, and you'd never see it strike. And
then the fish would be gone in a single swallow, and the issola
would be standing on one leg, looking lovely and graceful."
Issola, Chapter 1, paperback, page 14
Tsalmoth
"Tsalmoth maintains though none knows how".
"Loiosh woke up with a start, looked around, and jumped down from my
shoulder. He began working on the remains of my tsalmoth ribs"
The Book of Jhereg, Jhereg, Chapter 6, page 50
"I recommend the tsalmoth in garlic butter."
The Book of Jhereg, Jhereg, Chapter 8, page 70
Internet mentions turtles having ribs, snail shells having ribs
and oysters having ribs.
vallista
"Vallista rends and then rebuilds"
jhereg
"Jhereg feeds on others' kills."
"It was of average size, if female, a bit large, if male. If my
spell had worked, it would be female. Its wing span was about the
distance from my shoulder to my wrist, and it was a bit less than
that from its snakelike head to the tip of its tail. The forked
tongue flicked out"
The Book of Jhereg, Prologue, page 6
"The jhereg walked up to me. Its claws were long and sharp, but
more useful for running then for fighting. After a full meal, a
jhereg will often find that it weighs too much to become airborne
and so must run to escape its enemies."
...
"It was odd to see intelligence in small, beady snake eyes, and to
have nearly human-level communication with an animal whose brain
was no larger than the first joint of my finger."
...
"And she turned and spread her batlike wings. She had to run a step
two before taking off."
The Book of Jhereg, Prologue, page 7
"this ugly little reptile was lying amid broken shell fragments. Its
wings were tightly drawn up against it, and its eyes were closed. The
wings were no larger than my thumb."
...
"The bite was too small, and the poison still too weak for it to affect
me, but he was certainly in possession of his fangs."
The Book of Jhereg, Prologue, page 11
"allowed me to scratch its snakelike chin."
The Book of Athyra, Orca, Chapter 1, page 217
Colors of the jhereg and also a guess of color change in spring.
"The female was larger and becoming dark brown as summer gave way
to autumn; the male was smaller and lighter in color. Savn
guessed that in the spring the male would be green or grey,
while the female would simply turn a lighter brown."
The Book of Athyra, Athyra, Chapter 1, page 9
"each wing when folded forms a perfect triangle"
...
"Yet seen from the front, it looked like there was a snake's head
bobbing up and down between the walls of two houses that had been
built too close together."
The Book of Athyra, Athyra, Chapter 9, page 104
"He flew over to her and wrapped his talons around her wrist. She
scratched under his chin, going with the scales."
The Book of Taltos, Yendi, Chapter 7, page 233
>From a painting
"the dzur had scored a long scratch in the jhereg's wing. The jhereg's
jaws were going for the dzur's neck, but the dzur nearly had its mouth
around the long, snakelike neck of the jhereg. The jhereg was of
the normal breed, not one of the nonpoisonous giant ones that dwelt
above Deathsgate Falls, yet it was one of the largest I had ever seen,
and should be able to give a good fight to...I blinked. The scene
hadn't changed. The orange-red sky was right, but I realized that
I was inside, on a bed, in fact. I was looking at a painting that
filled the ceiling above me. Someone's idea of a joke, no doubt,
to have me wake up to that sight. Could I view the painting so
that it appeared the jhereg was winning? I could and did. It was
a nice painting. I took a deep breath and--I was alive!"
Yendi, Chapter 7, Ace paperback, page 79
"She held out her arm, and Loiosh flew to her, allowed his chin to
be scratched, and then, just to show his high regard for her, he bent
his head to allow her to scratch the scales that concealed his ears:
a special mark of honor, because jhereg are very protective of their
ears. I don't know if Sethra appreciated the honor."
Issola, Chapter 2, paperback, page 31
jhereg have only two legs. You will not find this
in the text, but Steven Brust wrote on Wed, 29 Jan 2003 17:48:14 -0800
>Oh, and the other thing is that the jhereg does not have four legs. That's
>the cover artist's rendition. I think it's a great cover, but that doesn't
>mean it's accurate. :-)
iorich
"Quiet iorich won't forget"
"Her eyes were as soft as an iorich's wing,"
The Book of Jhereg, Jhereg, Chapter 7, page 58
chreotha
"Sly chreotha weaves his net."
"and a thin layer of chreotha fur between me and the sky."
Issola, Chapter 1, paperback, page 12
yendi
"Yendi coils and strikes unseen"
orca
"Orca circles, hard and lean."
"Off to the left, the side I was on, a pair of orca surfaced for
a moment, then dived. I kept watching, and it happened again,
somewhat closer, then yet a third time. They were sleek and
graceful; proud. They were very beautiful."
...
"Yinta said, 'Those were shorttails. Did you notice the white
splotches on their backs? When they're young they tend to travel
in pairs. Later they'll gather into larger groups.'
'Their tails didn't seem especially short,' I remarked.
'They weren't. They were both females; the males have shorter
tails."
The Book of Taltos, Phoenix, Lesson 2, page 193
dream of an orca with the face of a dragon???
"I woke up in the middle of the night with the half memory of a
dream in which I was flying over the ocean, into a nasty wind, and
my wings were very tired. I kept wanting to rest, and every time I
did an orca with the face of a dragon would rise out of water and
snap at me."
The Book of Taltos, Phoenix, Lesson 4, page 227
teckla
"Frightened teckla hides in grass"
"A little way off, a teckla sat up on its back legs, motionless
except for a quick, furtive movements of its gray, whiskered head."
Brokedown Palace, Chapter 3, page 44
jhegaala
"Jhegaala shifts as moments pass"
"I thought for a minute. Jhegaala eggs? No, she'd made that yesterday."
The Book of Jhereg, Jhereg, Chapter 10, page 87
athyra
"Athyra rules minds' interplay"
"On a branch of the oak nearest him sat an athyra with its thick
brown plumage and hooked beak.
Brokedown Palace, Chapter 3, page 44
"A large brown bird that I recognized as an athyra studied us with
one eye."
The Book of Taltos, Taltos, Chapter 11, page 113