Page 86 of The Neverfear

Harpy

The harpy has the face and shoulders of a woman and the lower body of a bird. It is said to have evolved from storm-spirits; it flies at the speed of the fastest wind. Tenacious, fearsomely intelligent and vengeful, harpies make powerful allies and terrible enemies. They’re often asked to act as guards for that which requires their particularly ferocious protection: spies, the state secrets of islands, and libraries.

Hercinia

A radiant silver bird, the hercinia glows so vividly that it has been known to guide travellers when they lose their way in the dark. Its wafer-thin eggs are pure silver, and the chick is born featherless, with silver skin and an immense appetite. Hercinia droppings, which are liquid silver, are highly prized and make unusual jewellery for those who like that sort of thing.

Hippocamp

Hippocamps are the true sea horses of the oceans. They live in herds of ten to twenty; the male is larger than the female, but the female is swifter. They range in colour from emerald green to grey to, in the north-west, the shining pink of coral. Some are tamed and ridden by nereids. All boats in the Archipelago must, by law, run on wind or sun, so that the water will remain unpolluted, and the young hippo-camps (known as ‘hippolines’) can grow into their full lustrous beauty.

Jorogumo

Joro spiders, as they are known, are endemic to the Glimouria Archipelago. Joros cast silver-green light in the dark. They can grow to be as large as a rhinoceros and have been known to hunt humans, horses and even rocs; the small spiders, however, are entirely harmless, as long as you don’t deliberately touch them. If you do, whatever happens afterwards is very much your responsibility.

Kanko

A foxlike creature the size of a mouse, the kanko has a tail that is split in two, allowing it to perform extraordinary feats of balance. Their saliva has luminescent properties and has often been used in paintings, particularly in Japan, where they originate: for this reason, they’re also known as ‘lightfoxes’. They have a rich, attentive intelligence despite their size, and are known to bring luck. The nest of a kanko, there fore, mustn’t be disturbed; they have been known to nest in inconvenient places – in shoes, hats, pockets and, once, in the beard of a gentle man on the day of his wedding.

Kappa

The kappa is a green water-dwelling creature, with long fingers and toes and a pointed mouth. It treats all intruders in its territory in the same way, by trying to drown them. The top of its head is indented, and in this head-saucer it carries water; if the water runs out, the kappa loses its strength, and so one method of defeating an angry kappa is to persuade it to bow, nod or perform modern dance. Once it has you in its hands, however, it is too late, and the tenacious grip of its fingers can be broken only by salt.

Karkadann

Karkadanns resemble unicorns, if unicorns had vicious souls and canine teeth. One of the few creatures in the Archipelago who kill for sport as well as food, they eat meat, prefer ring human flesh, and grass, for digestion. The hide of the karkadann ranges from pure black to purple, and the skin sags from their bones. The horn is black, and the tip carries a poison which can cause agonising gangrene, paralysis and death. They can be kept at bay with the horn of a unicorn, but, as you are extremely unlikely to have a unicorn to hand, that is frankly of limited help.

Kludde

A dog the size of a bear, the kludde is black except where, in place of ears, it has a pair of flames. It uses the lights of its ears to attract its prey – largely deer, wild cattle and al-mirajes – and then devours it. It can be identified from a distance by its breath, which resembles the shriek of metal on metal. The only way to kill a kludde is to extinguish its flames with wet earth or sand. Kluddes live primarily on islands uninhabited by humans; very few Archipelagians will see one in their life times. Those who see them do not forget. [Addendum by Frank Aureate: unless they have been eaten, in which case they presumably do.]

Kraken

The oldest of the sea creatures, krakens have been traced back as far as the Cretaceous period, co-existing with the Tyrannosaurus rex. Their tentacles range in number from eight to forty-six, depending on the subspecies. They are terrifying in their moments of hunger: there have been accounts of krakens consuming as many as four hundred sailors in a single day, and the whirl pool created by their tentacles can pull ships of enormoussize to the seafloor. Krakens do not in general migrate, and remain in the body of water they were born in, so sailors in possession of good maps can usually evade them; but those who sail without maps take their lives in their hands.

Lavellan

The lavellan looks like a small water shrew. It features in the satirical song: ‘Let him not go away from the houses, to moss or wood, lest the Lavellan come and smite him.’ This is not a good song, but it is a good warning. The lavellan can poison a water source by swimming in it, and can, despite its small size, kill an adult human with its teeth. The lavellan has no interest in harming humans unless provoked, but its definition of ‘provoked’ is a broad one and can include sniffing, laughing and all forms of interpretive dance.

Leshoki

Nobody knows what the leshoki looks like in its native state, because it is a shape-shifter: a creature that can take on the form of any living thing. It cannot speak, but only laughs. It is a mischief-maker and delights in pandemonium. Some say that in its true form it looks like a satyr, others like a strange spotted bird, but it is unlikely that anyone except the leshoki themselves will ever know.

Longma

A winged, scaled horse of breath-taking speed and strength. Some longmas go their entire lives without touching the ground. Sky-ready like no other creature, they wash by seeking out rain clouds and flying slowly through them. The longma is the only creature that gives birth in the air: the mother flies as high as she can into the sky, so that when the foal falls from her womb, it has as long as possible to unfold its wings before it hits the ground. Longmas should be treated with caution: only a very small number develop bonds with humans. Even then, those humans occasionally wake to find them selves being eaten in small ways, which are nonetheless inconvenient – a finger, for instance, or half an ear – because there is no such thing as a truly tame longma.

Lotan serpent

The Lotan serpent is the deadly red-and-black snake that guards the orchard of the Hesperides. The Lotan is always famished; it never ceases to hunger. It craves the apples which it guards, but is forbidden to pluck them. It eats instead rats, lizards, birds, which it strikes from the sky, human flesh and ratatoskas.

Manticore

The manticore has the tail of a scorpion, the face of a human, the teeth and body of a lion, and the personality of a self-righteous politician. Some subspecies are winged, with a ball of porcupine quills at the tip of the tail. Manticores, like karkadanns, are one of the very few creatures who will attack humans on sight, even when not in need of food. They lie and kill for the pleasure of it. They smell of decay. [Addendum: The horned subspecies is more violent and more terrible than the common variety, and delights in death.]

Mermaid

(cf. also merman, merfolk; a newborn merchild is a merbaern)