Dringrys

Dringrys is a serum extracted from fish guts and fed to gullys before flight. The diet of the bird-cats consists heavily of the foul-tasting stuff, and they rely on it for overnight flights because it makes them lighter.^[1]

Effect on other stomachs

"Any other stomach would reject it immediately", which is what makes dringrys useful to anyone who needs a stomach emptied in a hurry.^[1]

Lumikki was given a vial of it in Ovallia after she went lightheaded in her bath, lost her words and toppled out of the tub onto the floor. Her Guard, Harp, fetched the vial and held its lip to hers, and she swallowed the warm liquid without knowing what it was. She felt nothing at first, then her stomach convulsed and she was sick until her throat burned. Trelluby, who had suggested it, told her afterwards that it was the only way.^[1]

Harp then handed her the empty jar he had picked up off the floor, and Trelluby named what they believed had been in it: poison. Harp judged it likely, since he had drunk from the same sink himself and the water was pure. Lumikki almost vomited a second time on being told what she had been dosed with.^[1]

Behind the scenes

Dringrys is listed under Other in the pronunciation guides at the back of both novels, as Drin-gris.^[2] The serum appears by name only once in the novels, in the scene that establishes both what gullys live on and that Lumikki has been poisoned.