Quetzal ("Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary"), from the Nahuatl root = "stand up" used to refer to an upstanding plume of feathers. The word entered English through Spanish. The word "quetzal" was originally used for just the resplendent quetzal, the long-tailed quetzal of Guatemala, (more specifically a town called Petén) which is the national bird and the name of the currency of Guatemala. It still often refers to that bird specifically but now also names all the species of the genera "Pharomachrus" and "Euptilotis". "Pharomachrus" is from Ancient Greek , "mantle", and , "long", referring to the wing and tail coverts of the
Dark Quetzal half-human beings with knowledge of the Songs, which include merlee (fish people), naga (water snake people), quetzal (bird people) and centaurs (horse people). During the novel Song Quest, set thirty one years before Dark Quetzal, the Singers encountered a powerful enemy in Khizpriest Frazhin, who harnessed the powers of a strange black crystal called the khiz to manipulate people's thoughts and memories. He attempted to destroy the Echorium by kidnapping a novice, Rialle, and was only stopped by the efforts of another novice, Kherron, who had originally been taken in by Frazhin. Although thought dead for many years, he returned