INTERNATIONAL FANTASY GAMING SOCIETY: The governing body supervising the world of Adventure Gaming.

KOGUKHPUK: The Burrowing Mammoth.

LEVIATHAN IV: Mining rig proposed for use in terra-forming Mars.

MARK CARD: A widely accepted inter-Union credit card.

OFFICIAL IFGS KAMA SUTRA: A myth, a mere rumor. It doesn’t exist. Forget it. Trust us.

PAIJA: Giant female demon.

PEWITU: Taboos.

PHANTOM FEAST: A Dream Park diet restaurant.

RAVEN: Progenerative force in Inuit mythology.

SEDNA: Goddess of the sea and of the sea’s life.

SEELUMKADCHLUK: Where the sky meets the sea; the barrier between reality and the Inuit spiritual world.

TERICHIK: A gigantic caterpillar-like monster; the spirit form of Ahk-lut.

TIN-MI-UK-PUKS, or THUNDERBIRDS: Fabulous Roc-like creatures.

TORNGARSOAK: Sedna’s lover, Lord of the Hunt.

TORNRAIT: Ghost who serves an angakok, usually as a source of information.

UNITED MOSLEM ACTIVIST FRONT or UMAF: A radical mideastem terrorist organization.

USIK: A weapon crafted from the pubic bone of a walrus.

WINIGO: Inuit Yeti.

WOLFALCONS: Hybrid creatures, half wolf, half giant bird of prey.

PROLOGUE

Like a raging mountain, the Terichik rose screaming from a frozen, nightdark sea. Its many-sectioned, grotesquely wormlike body reared up; tons of water and ice thundered into the ocean with a howl like the death of worlds. The black night swirled wind-whipped snow through mist that tasted of salt. The Terichik’s mouth gaped cavernously. Endless rows of serrated teeth gleamed as it shrieked its mindless wrath. Its breath was a cold and fetid wind.

The humans beneath it were warrior and wizard, princess and commoner. They were frail meat in the Terichik’s path, brittle fleshly twigs tumbled in an angry storm. They scrambled for safety, ran back onto land, away from the sea. They fled past the wreckage of the shattered Inuit village: rows of crushed houses, a great stone lodge with its roof stove in, boat hulls splintered and scattered like insect husks.