John Wright - The Phoenix Exultant

Base neuroform:

PHAETHON PRIME of RHADAMANTH, Silver-Grey Manorial school.

HELION RELIC of RHADAMANTH, Phaethon's sire, founder of the Silver-Grey Manorial school, and a Peer.

DAPHNE TERCIUS SEMI-RHADAMANTH, Phaethon's wife.

TEMER SIXTH LACEDAIMON, Dark Grey Manorial school, an Advocate.

GANNIS HUNDRED-MIND GANNIS, Synergistic-Synnoint school, a Peer.

ATKINS VINGT-ET-UN GENERAL-ISSUE, a soldier.

UNGANNIS, daughter of GANNIS, also called UNMOIQHOTEP QUATRO NEOMORPH of the Cthonnic school, of the Nevernext movement, whom Helion calls the "Cacophiles."

Alternate Organization neuroform, commonly called Warlocks:

AO AOEN, the Master-Dreamer, a Peer.

AO VARMATYR, one of the Lords-Paramount of the Silence, commonly called Swans.

NEO-ORPHEUS the Apostate, protonothary and chair of the COLLEGE of HORTATORS.

ORPHEUS MYRIAD AVERNUS, founder of the Second Immortality, a Peer.

Cortial-Thalamically Integrated neuroform, commonly called:

Invariants:

KES SENNEC the Logician, a Peer.

Cerebelline neuroform:

WHEEL-OF-LIFE, an Ecological Mathematician, a Peer.

GREEN-MOTHER, the artiste who organizes the ecological performance at Destiny Lake.

OLD-WOMAN-OF-THE-SEA, of the Oceanic Environmental Protectorate.

DAUGHTER-OF-THE-SEA, a terraformer of Early Venus.

Mass-Mind Compositions:

The ELEEMOSYNARY COMPOSITION, a Peer.

The HARMONIOUS COMPOSITION, of the College of Hortators.

The BELLIPOTENT COMPOSITION (disbanded).

VAFNIR of MERCURY EQUILATERAL STATION, a Peer.

XENOPHON of FARAWAY, Tritonic Neuroform Composure School, called the Neptunians.

XINGIS of NEREID, also called DIOMEDES, Silver-Grey School.

NEOPTOLEMUS, a combination of Diomedes and Xenophon.

VULPINE FIRST IRONJOY HULLSMITH, an Afloat.

OSHENKYO, an Afloat.

LESTER NOUGHT HAAKEN, an Afloat.

DRUSILLET ZERO SELF-SOUL, an Afloat.

SEMRIS of IO, an Ashore.

ANTISEMRIS, an Ashore.

NOTOR-KOTOK UNIQUE AMALGAMATED, an Ashore.

An OLD MAN, gardener of a grove of Saturn trees, who claims to be of the Antiamaranthine Purist school, not otherwise identified.

RHADAMANTHUS, a manor-house of the SILVER-GREY school, million-cycle capacity.

EVENINGSTAR, a manor-house of the RED school, million-cycle capacity.

NEBUCHADNEZZAR, advisor to the College of Hortators, ten-million-cycle capacity.

HARRIER, consulting detective, one-hundred-thousand-cycle capacity.

MONOMARCHOS, a barrister, one-hundred-thousand-cycle capacity.

AURELIAN, host of the Celebration, fifty-thousand-million-cycle capacity.

The ENNEAD consists of nine Sophotech groups, each of over a billion-cycle capacity, including WARMIND, WESTMIND, ORIENT, AUSTRAL, BOREAL, NORTHWEST, SOUTHEAST, and others.

EARTHMIND, the unified consciousness in which all terrestrial machines, and machines in Near-Earth-Orbit, from time to time participate: trillion-cycle capacity.

COMUS, an avatar of AURELIAN.

SOCRATES and EMPHYRIO, constructs of NEBUCHADNEZZAR.

The Justices of the CURIA.

SCARAMOUCHE, an extract of Xenophon the Neptunian.

The Envoy of DIOMEDES of NEREID.

MINOR CHARACTERS, INCLUDING HISTORICAL OR FICTIONAL PERSONS MENTIONED IN THE TALE:

AO ANDAPHANTIE, Daphne's name when she was a warlockess.

AYESHA, a cottage-mind used by Daphne, ten-thousand-cycle capacity.

CURTIS MAESTRICT, the Parliamentary Protonothary, and a friend and client of Daphne's.

JASON SVENTEN SHOPWORTHY, whose odd behavior has piqued the curiosity of the Sophotechs.

KSAHTRIMANYU HAN, the First Speaker of the Parliament.

UTE NONE STARK, Daphne's mother.

YEWEN NONE STARK, Daphne's father.

Ao Enwir the Delusionist, famous for his treatise, "On the Sovereignty of Machines."

Ao Ormgorgon Darkwormhole Noreturn of the Black Swan Coven, captain-monarch of the multigeneration starship Naglfar, and culture hero who founded the Silent Oecumene at Cygnus X-l.

Ao Solomon Oversoul, marshal of the jihad in service to the Witch-King of Corea, credited with orchestrating the defeat of the Bellipotent Composition during the Era of the Fifth Mental Structure.

Buckland-Boyd Cyrano-D'Atano, the first man to survive a Mars landing.

Chan Noonyan Sfih of Io, explorer who accidentally set fire to Pluto.

Demontdelune, an unfortunate who came to grief on the dark side of the moon.

Enghathrathrion, a celebrated poet of the late-period Fourth Mental Structure.

Hamlet, a character from a linear-experience simulacrum, William Shakespeare, Era of the Second Mental Structure.

Hanno, of Carthage, sailed down the coast of Africa. The first explorer whose name is recorded by history.

Harlequin, a clown from the Italian Commedia del'Arte Era of the Second Mental Structure.

Jason, master of the Argo, who sailed to Golden Cheronese and returned with the Fleece.

Mancuriosco the Neuropathist.

Mother-of-Numbers, a Cerebelline mathematician, whose disquisition on Noetic Mathematics formed a foundation for Noumenal technology.

Neil Armstrong, first man to set foot on Luna.

Oe Sephr al-Midr the Descender-into-Clouds, early Jupiter explorer.

Scaramouche, a clown from the Italian Commedia del'Arte Era of the Second Mental Structure.

Sir Francis Drake, Master of the Golden Hind, discovered the Northwest Passage.

Sloppy Rufus, the first dog to survive a Mars landing (Bucky-Boy Cyrano's dog).

The Porphyrogen Composition, a noted sect of astronomers.

Ulysses, King of Ithaca, who sailed far to know the minds of men and their ways, returning from the underworld.

Vandonnar, according to pre-Ignition Jovian poetry, a cloud-diver so entirely lost in the storms surrounding the Great Red Spot, that even death found him unable to locate the course to the afterlife, and therefore Vandonnar circles eternally in the storm, forever seeking, forever lost.

Vanguard Single Exharmony, survived the first manned mission into the Solar Photosphere.

He opened the door onto a crowded boulevard of matter-shops, drama-spaces, reliquaries, shared-form communion theaters, colloquy-salons, and flower parks. An elaborate hydrosculpture of falls and aerial brooks spread from a central fountain works throughout the area, with running water held aloft by subatomic reorientations of its surface tension, so that arches and bows of shining transparency rose or fell, splashed or surged with careless indifference to the reality of gravity. Light, scattered from tall windows lining the concourse or from banners of advertisements or from high panels opening up into the regional mentality, was caught and made into rainbows by the high-flowing waters. Petals from floating water lilies drifted down across the scene.

Beneath all this beauty was a crass ugliness. More than three-quarters of the people were present as mannequins. This was evidently a place meant for manorials, cryptics, or other schools that relied heavily on telepresentation. Since Phaethon no longer had access to any kind of sense-filter, all these folk, no matter how splendid of dress or elegant of comportment they might have appeared to an observer in the Surface Dreaming, looked to him like so many ranks and ranks of gray, dull, and faceless mannequins.

There may have been beautiful music sweeping the area; excluded from the mentality, Phaethon was deaf to it. Here and there were hospice boxes or staging pools, ready to send out dreams or partials, calls, messages, or any form of tele-presentation. All channels were closed to Phaethon, and he was mute. There were dragon-signs burning like fire in the air, displaying messages of unknown import. Phaethon could not read the subtext or hypertext; Phaethon was illiterate. There may have been thought-guides in the Middle Dreaming to allow him to remember, as if he had always known, where to find the public transport he sought. Mnemonic assistance gone; Phaethon was an amnesiac. There may have been ornament and pageantry in the dream-stages gathered in the air around him, lovely beyond description, or signs and maps to show Phaethon where, in this wide concourse, might be the way or the road he sought. But Phaethon was blind.