(urth) vanished people = Hieros

[Andrew Mason]

Nick Lee wrote: >
>
> Considering what the other hieros look like, he [Inire} would at least need a mask.

And in the scenes where we most definitely see him he wears one, or a
hood. By the other hieros I take it you mean B and F (who are indeed
hinted to be of the same species)? It seems likely that this species
cannot shapeshift, since they are regularly masked.

The Cumaean, by contrast, presumably belongs to another species, since
she does shapeshift. (I think it's actually pointed out somewhere that
'hierodule' denotes a function rather than a race.)