avern

I saw the flash of the poisoned blade, then felt the fiery pain of its thrust through my wife's poor, raddled body into my own, where it reopened the wound that Agilus's avern leaf had made so many years before.

The Urth of the New Sun

I saw Agia with her poisoned sword, and Agilus too, swinging a crimsoned avern like a mace, and Baldanders, unarmed until he seized a sailor and smashed another to the floor with her.

The Urth of the New Sun

I looked around stupidly for my own avern, and found it at last only because it lay near the feet of Dorcas, who was struggling with Agia.

The Shadow of the Torturer

I touched the stem of my avern, and for an instant felt I had grasped the tail of some cold-blooded but living animal.

The Shadow of the Torturer

Agia and Dorcas were coming down, Agia carrying the avern, which seemed to me to have grown larger in the failing light.

The Shadow of the Torturer

The Septentrion stood beyond them, still holding his avern.

The Shadow of the Torturer

Whether the avern is deadly to the life of its own world I have no way of knowing.

The Shadow of the Torturer

Dorcas did not answer, and a moment later I myself forgot for the time being that I had asked the question - some distance away among the crowd, I had seen an avern.

The Shadow of the Torturer

I thought he was going to kill you at once, but the ephor protected you, saying he had to allow you to get your avern.

The Shadow of the Torturer

The avern I selected would be my weapon in the contest to come - yet because I knew nothing as yet of the way it would be fought, I had no means of judging which plant might be best adapted to it.

The Shadow of the Torturer