Main Narrators
Raymond Diaz Ruiz, a Chicano musician from Earth with a long history of heroin-use. Believing his daughter with Alnese expatriate Leila had died on Earth, he felt he had nothing left to live for and committed suicide. Leila then decided to bring him along as she returned to Alnos to get her daughter the medical and epigenetic help she needed to survive.
Azetmir Dragon Ashewe, from O’bonne, a ‘planet of learning’ where most people dedicate themselves to scholarship and science. Working as something like a cultural anthropologist, Dragon studies Alnos’ legal system and martial orders, primarily the Order of Arthmis, the planet’s keepers of law and order. She has worked out a shadowing agreement with Eden of Pallas, Leila’s Alnese husband.
Other People We Meet
Pallas Xhania Leila, an Alnese woman who got involved with Raymond on Earth eight years before the story starts. The Alnese custom is to put the clan names first, and every Alnese has two clan names, one from each parent. The first clan name comes from the child’s ‘home clan’, or from the House where an allied couple and their children reside, and the second comes from the parent who agreed to move. Leila is the daughter of Pallas Nambo Alinor and Xhania Tsenyx Vrezh.
Thor Renan Eden, Leila’s alliance husband and the biological father of her oldest daughter, Pallas Thor Goal. He moved from the Alnese tropics to the capital and into his in-laws’ compound once he agreed to his arranged marriage of ‘alliance’ with Leila. As part of their alliance agreement, the Thor clan leased some lakeside land to Pallas and helped them develop a tropical vacation compound that came to be called Eden Hamlet. Leila has a second daughter, Socorro, with Raymond, but declares her a second alliance child, thus making Eden Socorro’s official father.
A second important family in the story is formed by Pallas Nambo Vaideh and Xhania Nandez Alexander, who have a son, Pallas Xhania Kyet. Alexander is Vrezh’s nephew, a first cousin to Leila, and the former brother of Lady Ciani. That is, Lady Ciani and he were brother and sister until she renounced all blood ties and accepted to become the planet’s leader in 1660, sixteen years before the start of the story. Alexander is Eden’s lover. His son Kyet is an Alnese musician and dancer who wooed Dragon the winter before Raymond’s arrival.
Tzalque Medece Peg is a renown physician who has looked after many members of the Pallas Clan for several generation. She helps save both Leila’s half-human daughter Socorro and her human lover Raymond.
Alnos Ciani, the former Xhania Nandez Ciani, assumed her title as Regent of Alnos in 1660, sixteen years before the start of the story.
Minguard Heytens Lauran, Pallas Eden’s First Lieutenant and an islander who gets embroiled in the looming Islander conflict with Alnos’ immigrants.
Clans We Meet
Pallas House: A large, influential clan founded by the Prophet Pallas of Yver, the woman who led the then Space Gypsies to Alnos. The clan has remained influential for the seventeen centuries of recorded Alnese history since their landing on 1 Yanir of Year 1. It is the home clan of Leila and her children.
Thor House: Created a century ago by a group of human refugees who wanted to remain together after Nambo House, a clan from the tropical lowlands, volunteered a sufficient number of people to start the new hybrid clan. Within two generations, though, the Thor clan was well-integrated into the Alnese social world through customary Alnese alliances. It is Eden’s home clan, though he moved to Pallas House when he agreed to an alliance with Leila.
Nambo House: A big landlord in the tropical Lake Region famous for its production of fruits and vegetables, Nambo House has many ties with both Pallas and Thor House. Pallas Xhania Kyet’s maternal grandmother and Pallas Xhania Leila’s maternal grandfather came from Nambo House.
Xhania House: A ‘border’ clan, from the region edging the planet’s Antarctica. Border clans have a reputation for sticking together and favoring each other in their alliances, something that is generally discouraged. Regent Alnos Ciani came from Xhania House.
Chantico House, Kuan House, Minguard House: Clans from ‘The Islands’, a relatively isolated and fiercely independent region. Islanders start the first organized action against Alnos’ immigrant newcomers, and may well have unleashed a civil war.
