The system of communication of the demons in Cross. Material for scenes of conjuration, formal pact, exorcism, heretical invocation in tales. The detail is intentionally partial — the iceberg is preserved. Full knowledge kills the reader.
"Whoever writes the sigil, the sigil writes. Whoever speaks the tongue, the tongue speaks." — Inquisitorial Manual, Tractatus de Linguis Inferis, 1841.
I. The Three Demonic Tongues
Hor'kava — the Tongue of the High Fallen
The tongue spoken by the greater demons (Princes, high Infernal Kings). Documented in summary in Languages, dialects and cant.
Characteristics in depth
- Phonetics: guttural with multiple simultaneous harmonics. The vowels vibrate at three frequencies at once. The human voice cannot reproduce it naturally — it demands years of pactuary training.
- Syntax: an inverse declarative structure. The sentence begins with the predicate-cause and ends with the subject-condition.
- Vocabulary: ~3,000 canonical words recognised by the Inquisition. Each word has ritual weight — uttered in the right context, it modifies local reality on a small scale.
Categories of canonical words
- Fact-words: a neutral description. Harmless if pronounced in isolation.
- Act-words: a command. Pronounced in a ritual, they execute an action (opening a small portal, drawing a lesser creature, inducing sleep).
- Mortal-words: the true name of a greater demon. To pronounce a mortal-word correctly calls the demon directly. Extreme risk.
- Seal-words: anchor-words that bind a demon in a sigil. The Inquisition uses them to contain pactuary men under interrogation.
Canonical examples (safe fragments)
- "Hor'kar-ash" — an informal pactuary greeting ("I see you fall").
- "Marakh-ven" — a declaration of a pact accepted ("I have heard and accepted").
- "Vat'kurmash" — the invocation of a lesser demon by gesture. Permitted in specific rites.
Detecting Hor'kava by the human ear
- An untrained person cannot reproduce the phonetics. They can memorise short words, but the pronunciation will be wrong (without the multiple harmonics). The wrong pronunciation of an act-word = ritual failure (frequent) or the wrong summoning (rare but catastrophic).
- A trained inquisitor recognises a pactuary accent in any language. A pactuary man lets slip a Hor'kava pronunciation accidentally in small vocal pauses.
Sin'Marka — the Tongue of the Four Mothers
A variant of Hor'kava proper to the Four Mothers. Older. Lilith claims it to be the first tongue (prior to Ecclesial Latin).
The rest of this entry is Plus
About 1,811 words remain. The almanac stays free and complete. The long text — contradictions, icebergs and everything the Curia would rather not explain — opens with a subscription.
The long-form wealth lives in the encyclopaedia. This is where you come to check a fact.
Go to the almanac →