History Literature / LabyrinthsOfEcho

** Arbiters in a form of BlessedWithSuck - they can not control where, when and how their wishes come true, making their entire lives a large BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor. This is because as it is put in the novels themselves, Arbiters' wishes are ''always'' fulfilled -- but in a "sooner or later, this way or that way" fashion.

** Arbiters in a form of BlessedWithSuck - they can not control where, when and how their wishes come true, making their entire lives a large BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor.

* MindScrew: Less then could be expected with all {{RealityWarper}}s running around, but still pretty prominent, especially with Max's backstory. The most coherent version of events includes multiple pasts, equally valid and real, albeit with cause-effect relationship that keeps the reader's mind from exploding. [[spoiler:The first one by "casuality" timeline is Juffin creating him to save the world; the second one is the backstory Max gives us in the first volume, in which he is from our world - apparently he was created with full set of memories which he thought true, and when the Arbiter thinks something is true so strongly, it becomes true; the third one is a supposedly fake story of Max being the lost king of the nomadic tribe - it's made up on-screen by Juffin, but this does not explain Max's mystical link to said tribe their lost king is supposed to have, although this may be a case of ClapYourHandsIfYouBelieve on the nomads' part. Hard to tell exactly, which is why this is a legitimate example of MindScrew.]] Most of the books feature at least one event that can be considered this, usually the climax.

Or maybe she published his texts, they did met some years ago after all.

* ExtranormalPrison: Kholomi, which was another Alcatraz for mages.

'''Labyrinths of Echo''' (original title: "Лабиринты Ехо"[[hottip:*:In the series, "Ехо" (pronounced "YEH-kho") is the name of a city. Although it is customarily transliterated as "Echo", the Russian word for "echo", as in the sound effect, is "эхо" (pronounced "EH-kho").]]) is a Russian UrbanFantasy-slash-MagicalLand series written between 1996 and 2003 by Svetlana Martynchik, better known by her pen name Max Frei. Extremely popular in Russia, it is in the process of being translated into English, with the first volume (''The Stranger'') published in 2009 by Overlook Press.

* HumanSacrifice: An ingeniously insane mage invented a way to consume the forgotten Lunar Bull clan's power and connection to the moon for his purposes by finding, abducting, killing and consuming Lunar Bull clan descendants, while metaphorically feeding the hearts of his victims to an incorporeal entity known as a [[AdorableAbomination Lunar Calf]][[hottip:*: the Lunar Calf is actually harmless and just lonely. Trouble starts if the Calf is kept captive and fed until it matures, becoming the clan's eponymous Lunar Bull, as this will destroy the world]].

* MysticalPlague: Anavuayna. While mages above a certain power level are immune to it alltogether, Echo is about to loose 80% of population to it in ''Return of Ugurbado''. Anavuayna slowly liquifies the affected, leaving blank skeletons in puddles of slime. There is no salvation after the heart is affected, yet the victims are fully conscious until death. Healing Anavuayna is possible with a grade 140 white magic spell.[[hottip:*: After Halla Makhun the Furry found the Heart of the World, he decided to build a city there for his dynasty. Halla challenged Anavuayna, the elven duchess of the area in a card game with the land at stake and won. Anavuayna fled the country, and suffering from BackgroundMagicField withdrawal, found out that Halla cheated. Mad, and mad with fury, she returned to spread a curse over the new city of Echo, creating the epidemy to carry her name. Halla killed her with his bare hands, stopping the plague.]]

** Alotho Allirokh of the Ironsided Hoob clan; Lord of Aliurkh and Chijkho; Sternly-Glancing Overlord of two half-hundreds Sharpteeth; mighty and loyal warrior of Tojla Liomurik Silver Cone the Conqueror of Arvarokh who rules it to the limits of the world as told in song by Harlokh Sdobnik[[hottip:*:transliterated, can not translate the name]], the greatest storyteller among the born; Waterer of the Royal Tree of Spicy Flowers; Keeper of meal-taking carpets; Bringer of the third chalice at the New Moon Feast after the spouse and the Elder Cupbearer; irreplaceable Helmsman of the Royal Boat at the Ulfati lake, who has the right to wear bone shoes on needles of Zoggi; Royal-Chambers-Locking Overlord of a half-hundred of key bundles; Chief of reprisal against Isisorinams; Speaker of the ninth and the twelfth word during the Royal Game of Launi, who kills the Kul'okh bird with two glances, one strike and one ruse; Bearer of three handfuls of coins into the crypt of Kvargi Ishmirmani; Fire-Starter under the royal cauldron for Vatla; Speaker of the Morins' tongue who consumes the Mayushi pig in two-and-a-half goes and who wrought two times twice half-tens songs of his own great heroics.

* TheArchmage: Various Grand Magisters of the ancient Orders were usually their respective most powerful members. Loyso Pondokhva was probably ''the'' grandmaster of conventional Plain Magic, but many other historical mages could have challenged him by less conventional means, such as True Magic (Juffin), Arbiter abilities (Mönin), etc.. Ironically, the Order of the Seven-Leaf was never the most powerful tradition magically and Grand Magister Nuflin couldn't hold a candle to most of his competitors, yet they won the War of the Codex through strategy and politics, leaving him the sole Archmage of Echo.

* ForScience with BewareTheSuperman: Loyso Pondokhva was ''the'' greatest Plain Magic talent among the generation of Kholomi High Royal School absolvents intended to destroy the ancient Orders to strengthen the King's position. Loyso and his comrades disposed of the ancient Orders and then [[HoistByHisOwnPetard went on to found their own Orders]] or to take existing ones over. Loyso (and his Water Crow Order) acknowledged the threat of TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt, yet actively worked to this end, as he wanted to try grabbing the world's power, which is theoretically possibly for those witnessing the destruction. Loyso is later shown to explain his motivations to Juffin as coming to the conclusion that history is a meaningless repetition, the World's Heart inevitably drives the best and brightest insane (he ''did'' include himself), while those who aren't any good at magic are [[SmugSuper sad fools beneath his notice]].

* SealedEvilInACan: Loyso Pondokhva.

* TailorMadePrison: Juffin spared Loyso Pondokhva by putting him into "a moribund crone's dream" and sealing the entrance to Khumgat. Loyso survives by funneling his power into prolonging the woman's life.

** First part of The Quiet City is a time skip with short description of past cases.

After the final volume, the ''Labyrinths'' were continued by a SequelSeries, the ''Chronicles of Echo''. It consists of prequels narrated by other characters after ''The Quiet City'', but describing events at various times spanning from before the War of the Codex to after ''The Quiet City''. This series is still ongoing and currently contains 7 volumes, with the most recent one published in 2011.

''Literature/LabyrinthsOfEcho'' (original title: "Лабиринты Ехо"[[hottip:*:In the series, "Ехо" (pronounced "YEH-kho") is the name of a city. Although it is customarily transliterated as "Echo", the Russian word for "echo", as in the sound effect, is "эхо" (pronounced "EH-kho").]]) is a Russian UrbanFantasy-slash-MagicalLand series written between 1996 and 2003 by Svetlana Martynchik, better known by her pen name Max Frei. Extremely popular in Russia, it is in the process of being translated into English, with the first volume (''The Stranger'') published in 2009 by Overlook Press.

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* BoldExplorer: Sir Manga Melifaro has not only traveled every continent of the known world, but also wrote a GreatBigBookOfEverything afterwards (in eight volumes).

* KingOfTheHomeless

Despite the dark premise, the series is quite humorous and lighthearted most of the time, resulting in severe {{Mood Whiplash}}es whenever the [[ItGotWorse shit actually goes south]].

** OurDwarvesAreAllTheSame: Averted. Kröggels are nowhere near Tolkien or contemporary Russian fantasy dwarves and come in two varieties:
*** Flatland kröggels are caustic, cantankerous, quarrelsome gnomes. Masters of disguise and stealth, related to the krays.
*** Mountain kröggels of the Kebla princedom are a social and amicable people. Kebla is unique in housing small kröggels and giant ekhls in the same cities. Cities of Kebla are among the most wondrous sights in the world of Echo.
** OurElvesAreBetter: Not better, but very different from fantasy standards. In ''A Bequest for Lonli-Lokli'', Shurf takes the time needed to drive from Echo to the backwater place where his inheritance awaits to drop an InfoDump regarding various sentient species on Max. Said dump also contains a multiple level StealthPun nicely dispersed inside, building upon established elven vulnerability to alcohol. The overall species name is keyifayi ("кейифайи"). [[spoiler:Closest Russian word is "кайф", meaning "flush" or "high".]] The foremost difference between elves, humans and krays is the formers' absence of binary logic. They do not clearly grasp concepts like good vs. evil, black vs. white or for that matter male vs. female. The last heavily influences their and their descendants' love lives to the dismay of non-elven populations. [[spoiler:Max is shocked to learn that King Gurig, being of elven descent, has a male and a female "favorite liaison".]]\\
The subspecies are:
*** Upiates ("Упиаты"), the peaceful elves. They never left their homelands on the Uandook continent. Generally very passive, but nigh-omnipotent if sufficiently disturbed to take action. The population of the Kuman Khalifate is almost entirely composed of their descendants from short-lived marriages with humans. [[spoiler:Relaxation and being at peace are main effects of opiate derived drugs.]]
*** Amfitamayas ("Амфитамайи"), the excited elves. Amfitamayas are inventors, travelers and conquerors. All elves on the Khonkhona continent who came with the conqueror Ulviar the Faceless and all elves on the Cherukhta continent are amfitamayas. [[spoiler:Excitement and strong drive to action are main effects of amphetamines derived drugs.]]
*** Elcidiayas ("Элсидиайи"), the invisible elves. They are absolutely immaterial and inhabit material items. Their proximity fills sentients with existential childlike happiness. After prolonged co-habitation elcidiayas may share their knowledge with other sentients, and True Magic users vastly benefit from it. Antiques' merchants mainly profit from searching for and selling of items inhabited by elcidiayas. [[spoiler:Hallucinations and expanded consciousness are main effects of hallucinogenic drugs, and the probably best known hallucinogenic is LSD, transliterated to "ЛСД" in Russian.]]

* CareerKillers: Misa Luddis, aka "the Noseless Misa" -- an old lady who used to kill ''[[BadassNormal not]]'' by spells, but "did wonders with cold steel".

* TimeTravel / LivingRelic: The Order of the Long Way's members left the world for several millenia and traversed the Paths of the Dead. They find some of the changes amazing, e.g. the ability to tell lies, because in their time attempting a lie had 2 possible outcomes: either the person had enough power to make it happen by saying it, which was a wonder, or the person simply died from the effort. They also consider using the lives of people in your power as bargaining chips (for acquired immortality) acceptable, while Max believes that any ImmortalitySeeker should only gamble his or her own life.
%% this is neither CultureClash nor BlueAndOrangeMorality, and not really an in-universe SocietyMarchesOn.
%% feels like a temporal ValuesDissonance in-universe,
%% but FishOutOfTemporalWater doesn't have a meta-trope for changes in morality.
%% feel free to change or improve this entry - jlt314.

** combined with BodySnatcher: A fätan is a demonic spirit summoned across the worlds and taught to perform some tasks by the summoner. Old fätans grow more skilled and also more dangerous. They will attempt to [[YourSoulIsMine consume the summoner's soul]] and [[LivingBodysuit take over the body]] to continue dwelling in the world and to consume further souls.

** Type I: Elsidiayas, the intangible elves. Possibly the nameless entity at the point opposite to Heart of the World.
** Type II: The sentient stones of Holomi (no information on killing any Khrebels is given); The mice-kings of Uanduk and the elves of Shimuräd forest, both vulnerable to certain artifacts.
** Type III: sufficiently powerful mages, especially True Magic users, effectively stop aging and are notoriously hard to kill.
** Type V: Strong-willed people are well-known for coming back as ghosts, although there are some methods to deal with them. The whole process is sufficiently well understood to be commercialized, too. The ancient members of the Order of the Long Way collectively passed "the Paths of the Dead" to achieve a state of corporeal immmortality, being somewhere between this and type III, although the ritual was imperfect.
** Type IX: there are spells geared towards GrandTheftMe for this purpose.
** Type X: The mirror dweller from ''The Debut in Echo''. The Green Waters' dweller. Fätans. [[spoiler: The members of the Order of the Long Way now need blood to continue their existence]], causing Max some amusement as he deports them to our world as "real vampires".

* AlternateSelf: The Murakoks have several of them living in different worlds.

* BeethovenWasAnAlienSpy: Max knows [[JosefStalin whose]] pseudonim was "Koba" in our world, and thus what [[BlackComedy weird jokes]] about SecretPolice [[FlashSideways Murakok]] and the Beggars' Foreman occasionally dropped really mean -- which naturally made him both wary and curious about the man.

** The Dark Side tend to smoothly disable assumed faces, bringing one's true self to surface -- e.g. Shurf may temporarily get rid of his LawfulStupid personality without falling back to ChaoticStupid one, which always is a great relief for him.

** Numminorikh Kuta learned and used spells taught by his mother, a Master Opener of Doors, at a toddler's age. According to the Book of Burning Pages, he is also capable of instantly using the Dark Way.

* IKnowYourTrueName: A nomad tribe shaman gives Max his True Name, which replaces the lines in his left palm. Juffin considers the True Name, grafted upon flesh in the forgotten LanguageOfMagic a powerful defensive amulet, and tells Max that in earlier times the ProperlyParanoid reaction would be to kill the shaman, thus making the True Name a secret.

** Type V: Strong-willed people are well-known for coming back as ghosts, although there are some methods to deal with them. The ancient members of the Order of the Long Way collectively passed "the Paths of the Dead" to achieve a state of corporeal immmortality, being somewhere between this and type III, although the ritual was imperfect.

*** Faffs, the "invisible humans". Fully human when visible and can effortlessly merge into the background. Maintaining visibility actually requires conscious efforts for them. The founder of Echo, Khalla Makhun the Furry, always wore a fur coat just to be seen without maintaining visibility. Faff-human or faff-elven descendants no longer possess this trait and have to learn magic for any disguises.

** During their trip to Kettari, Shurf makes the mistake to wake a rather annoyed Max up. Without actually waking up, Max unleashes a stream of profanities. Shurf, being an avid linguist, writes the whole thing down and later prompts Max to explain all those words.

* ScarilyCompetentTracker: While "Master of Tracking" is a job title, it is actually an innate gift required to get the job. Masters of Tracking can "step upon a trace / footprint". A Master of Tracking might have to walk across a room several times until the effect kicks in. Literal footprints are not required, but people carried or floating don't leave a trace, although merely sitting in an amobiler or any other vehicle does not break the trace - apparently just having your feet upon a surface is enough. Finding a trace causes the Master of Tracking to know what the person did and inflicts an intense desire to follow the footprints while repeating the victim's actions. Masters of Tracking distinguish between footprints of different people (with more experience, they can get a power reading and some info on them) and form a bond to their victims, allowing them to interact with the pursued in real time. The actual amount of damage and the control of damage inflicted vary from mild discomfort (Melamori's predecessor at LSIF, with intent to find) to mild depression (Melamori, with little intent to harm the pursued) to paralysis and pain (Melamori's predecessor at LSIF, with intent to disable) to death ([[spoiler: Max, with intent to harm]]). Masters of Tracking can not track the dead, which makes using disposable henchmen the ProperlyParanoid way to deal with stolen artifacts. [[spoiler: Max breaks the rules - he can track both dead and undead (not that he likes it, as the link with the pursued causes death emanations for feedback), and manages to follow a Dark Way teleport without actually mastering this skill himself first]]. Melamori's Tracking causes mild euphoria in [[spoiler: Max, likely due to his origins and Arbiter status]].

** Alotho Allirokh of the Ironsided Hoob clan; Lord of Aliurkh and Chijkho; Sternly-Glancing Overlord of two half-hundreds Sharpteeth; mighty and loyal warrior of Tojla Liomurik Silver Cone the Conqueror of Arvarokh who rules it to the limits of the world as told in song by Harlokh Sdobnik[[hottip:*:transliterated, can not translate the name]], the greatest storyteller among the born; Waterer of the Royal Tree of Spicy Flowers; Keeper of meal-taking carpets; Bringer of the third chalice at the New Moon Feast after the spouse and the Elder Cupbearer; irreplaceable Helmsman of the Royal Boat at the Ulfati lake, who has the right to wear bone shoes on needles of Zoggi; Royal Chambers-Locking Overlord of half-hundred of key bundles; Chief of reprisal against Isisorinams; Speaker of the ninth and the twelfth word during the Royal Game of Launi, who kills the Kul'okh bird with two glances, one strike and one ruse; Bearer of three handfuls of coins into the crypt of Kvargi Ishmirmani; Fire-Starter under the royal cauldron for Vatla; Speaker of the Morins' tongue who consumes the Mayushi pig in two-and-a-half goes and who wrought two times twice half-tens songs of his own great heroics.

* MysticalPlague: Anavuayna. While mages above a certain power level are immune to it alltogether, Echo is about to loose 80% of population to it in ''Return of Ugurbado''. Anavuayna slowly liquifies the affected, leaving blank skeletons in puddles of slime. [[HighOctaneNightmareFuel There is no salvation after the heart is affected, yet the victims are fully conscious until death.]] Healing Anavuayna is possible with a grade 140 white magic spell.[[hottip:*: After Halla Makhun the Furry found the Heart of the World, he decided to build a city there for his dynasty. Halla challenged Anavuayna, the elven duchess of the area in a card game with the land at stake and won. Anavuayna fled the country, and suffering from BackgroundMagicField withdrawal, found out that Halla cheated. Mad, and mad with fury, she returned to spread a curse over the new city of Echo, creating the epidemy to carry her name. Halla killed her with his bare hands, stopping the plague.]]

* BeneathTheMask:

* ValuesDissonance: The Order of the Long Way's members left the world for several millenia. They find some of the changes amazing, e.g. the ability to tell lies, because in their time attempting a lie had 2 possible outcomes: either the person had enough power to make it happen by saying it, which was a wonder, or the person simply died from the effort. They also consider using the lives of people in your power as bargaining chips for aquired immortality acceptable, while Max believes that any ImmortalitySeeker should only gamble his or her own life.