A
- Abyssal
- The Deep Dwellers: the people of the Floor, at the feet of the ranges, 35 to 40 km up. More
- Aerie
- The Aerie Militarum, the Cliff-Hangers: the people of the storm belt, in fortresses cut into the cliffs. More
B
- Bladder-craft
- The Abyssal's way up: lifting bags of cured bladder, rising in stages over days. More
- Bloomery iron
- Soft, slag-laced iron anyone with wood can smelt. It pits in a season. More
C
- Cable
- The Crown's lines of whale-sinew and bone-fibre rope strung from peak to peak, with silk cars. More
- Calf
- A newborn whale, about 500 m long and already floating. Calves ride lowest in the herd. More
- Chorus
- The Flotilla's ruling council of senior navigators and Resonators. Slow to decide, then obeyed absolutely. More
- Count
- Eight dimmings: a full life. The Eighth Dimming is the last of the present Count. More
- Courier bird
- A small fast Flotilla bird with one rider, for messages sent ahead of the herd. More
- Crossing
- Where two roads meet. Flotilla cities no range owns, where the market is and the Chorus sits. More
- Crown
- The summits nearest the centre, directly under the Hole, 62 to 68 km up. Home of the Zenith. More
D
- Dark Lands
- Everything beyond the last lit line. Whales do not go there. More
- Dimming
- The two or three dim years in each ten-year breath of the sky. Lives are counted in them. More
- Drift
- The middle sky, 50 to 62 km up, where the herd hangs and the Flotilla live. More
E
- Elder
- The one who keeps the Telling and presides when children take the horn. More
F
- Fall, the
- The coming of the fleet, 150 dimmings ago. The Flotilla date everything from it. More
- Fallers
- Ships that still come through the door, about one a generation. The only news from outside. More
- Fire-law
- The Flotilla's oldest law, in five parts, about flame on the back of a hydrogen animal. More
- Flanks
- The storm belt, 40 to 50 km up: the only weather in the world, and the Aerie's home. More
- Floor
- Everything under the cloud. The Abyssal live on its upper rung, at ten atmospheres. More
- Floor-dream
- The mild, permanent narcosis of breathing at ten atmospheres. The Abyssal do not know they are in it. More
- Flotilla
- The Nomads: a million people living on the backs of the herd. More
- Founders' steel
- The fleet's own metal, the finest that ever existed in the world. Heirlooms in the deepest vaults. More
G
- Gas-craft
- A Flotilla balloon of cured bladder with two small sails and a drogue. A balloon, never a boat. More
- Gods
- What the Flotilla call the whales. More
- Grave-mooring
- Where the Abyssal moor a caught god to the foot of a range and take it apart. More
- Great Houses
- The Zenith families who own the forges, the vaults and the ports on their mountains. More
H
- Hole, the
- The ring of fire 4,000 km up, 350 km across, fixed above the centre of the world. More
- Horn-Temple
- The temple at the top of a Chorus quarter, with a colossal horn at its threshold and the Mural on its wall. More
L
- Lamplighter
- The head of an Abyssal Syndicate, who controls its oil and so its light. More
- Lens-law
- Zenith politics: who forges first at noon, who inherits an array. More
- Line-wind
- The steady breeze along a road, a few metres a second. More
- Living oil
- Oil tapped from a living whale, a little at a time. Only the Flotilla can do it. More
M
- Measurers
- The Crown's order of scholars, keepers of the forging tables, the lens geometries and the calendar. More
- Mural
- Sixty metres of inked history on a Horn-Temple wall: the world's own account of itself. More
O
- Oathmaster
- The Aerie's ruler, who sells contracts and draws the red line. More
- Ossuary
- The largest of the Abyssal Syndicates. More
Q
- Quiet Shelf
- Where the Measurers keep their findings: books never banned, merely never copied. More
R
- Range
- One of a dozen great mountains rising 65 to 70 km out of the deep air. More
- Red line
- One thin red line across an Aerie rider's eyes: under contract. A wiped line is desertion. More
- Resonator
- A Flotilla horn-player who guides the whales with notes they hear through their bones. More
- Roads
- The ley lines: rivers of current in the glowing ceiling that the whales follow. More
S
- Sky's Hold
- The lit world's name for the field that pours from the Hole and makes the roads. More
- Sleepless
- What the Zenith call themselves: they sleep the long dim and work the bright. More
- Sound, the
- The Abyssal word for the ringing of the ground when a skeleton reaches the deep. More
- Storm-wood
- The only timber in the world, grown on the cliffs inside the storm. More
- Sun-Regent
- The ruler of the Zenith, chosen from the Great Houses by the size of their lens arrays. More
- Sun-Shard
- Crown steel, melted at noon in the gathered light of the thread. The only steel, and money. More
T
- Telling, the
- The reading of the Mural aloud, once a dimming. More
- Thread, the
- The hair-fine white fire at the lip of the Hole, the only fire hot enough to melt steel. More
- Three sleeps
- A Flotilla day: nobody stays awake for 64 hours, so a day holds three sleeps. More
W
- War-bird
- The Aerie's armoured mount. The only cavalry, and the only armed thing that crosses the storm belt. More
- Whale-iron
- Bone the whales grow with iron. It cannot rust, and the Abyssal carve it into blades. More
Z
- Zenith
- The Zenith Ascendancy, the Sun-Forgers: the people of the Crown. More
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