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Khiz or Khiz-crystal is a fictitious mineral featured in the trilogy The Echorium Sequence by Katherine Roberts.

Khiz can primarily be mined in the Sunless Valley to the South of Rivermeet in the Purple Plains. The Sunless Valley has dangerous entrances; The Pass of Silence can prove fatal if a sound is emitted along the pass, if this were to happen boulders and rocks would fall and kill whoever was in the pass at the time.

Khiz-crystal is a black crystal with similar properties to bluestone (stone with magical properties, used by the singers of The Echorium to amplify the Songs and to send their voices across great distances, e.g. to send messages). If specially modified the khiz-crystal can be used to control or steal people's memories and masks made of khiz-crystals can transfer thoughts from one to another.

Contents 1 Usage in The Echorium Sequence 2 Crystal Mask 3 Dark Quetzal 4 See also 5 External links

Aunt Yashra and Frazhin use the khiz-crystals to communicate with each other when Yashra journeys away from their hidout in the Sunless Valley this is because Frazhin is fatally injured and cannot travel with Yashra so the masks help greatly for them to always be together.

Aunt Yashra also uses the khiz crystals to wipe Shaiala's mind at the start of the book. It proved almost 100% effective but Shaiala gathered her memories back when she was shown khiz-crystals; she started to remember snippets from the past.

Frazhin uses khiz-crystals to brainwash many half-creatures species to join his cause to destroy The Echorium, including merlee, quetzals and nagas. The half-creature species are completely unaware of how this brainwashing process works and have no idea where members of their species are disappearing to.

Night Plume, a quetzal is brocken of these brainwash effects by a captured Singer Rialle and agrees to help vanquish Frazhin and his plans.

• Yashra
• Crystal Mask
• Katherine Roberts

• Katherine Roberts homepage
• Review of Crystal Mask