Xervish Flydd: The scrutator (spymaster and master inquisitor) for Einunar. He was commander-in-chief of all the scrutators’ forces at Snizort, charged with defeating the lyrinx army there. Secretly, he was also required to sneak into Snizort and destroy the lyrinx’s node-drainer. He, Irisis and Ullii succeeded but the device he’d been given was faulty, destroying both node-drainer and node in a catastrophic explosion. The field vanished, of course, rendering both the army’s clankers and the Aachim’s constructs useless, and the soldiers defenceless against the attacking lyrinx. Flydd was blamed for the subsequent defeat, stripped of his position and condemned to die as a slave hauling constructs out of the mire. He escaped with Nish and after many adventures eventually ended up at Fiz Gorgo. He is determined to overthrow the corrupt scrutators, knowing that they can never win the war.

Yara: A brilliant advocate, wife to Troist.

Yggur: A great long-lived mancer of ancient times, subsequently found to be still living at Fiz Gorgo. After Flydd’s company seeks refuge there, he comes to aid them in their quest to overthrow the scrutators, though he and Flydd will ever be rivals.

MAJOR ARTEFACTS , FORCES AND POWERFUL NATURAL PLACES

Alcifer: The long-abandoned city of Rulke the Charon, in Meldorin. The entire city was believed to have been a magical construct and it still has an aura of barely leashed power.

Amplimet: A rare hedron which, even in its natural state, can draw power from the force (the field) surrounding and permeating a node. Occasionally can be very powerful. Inexplicably, Tiaan’s amplimet shows signs of a crystal instinct or purpose, for in Tirthrax it communicated with the node and woke the trapped Well of Echoes. It also communicated with nodes elsewhere, denied Tiaan control when she wanted to take the thapter to places it did not want to go, and drew threads of force throughout Snizort, including to the node and to Gilhaelith.

Anthracism: Human internal combustion due to a mancer or an artisan drawing more power than the body can handle. Invariably fatal (gruesomely).

Booreah Ngurle (the Burning Mountain): A large, double-cratered volcano in northern Worm Wood with a blue crater lake. It has a strange and powerful double node. Gilhaelith’s home, Nyriandiol, is built on the inner rim of the crater.

Clanker: An armoured mechanical war cart with six, eight, ten or (rarely) twelve legs and an articulated body, driven by the Secret Art via a controller mechanism which is used by a trained operator. Armed with a rock-throwing catapult and a javelard (heavy spear-thrower) which are fired by a shooter riding on top. Clankers are made under supervision of a mechanician, artisan and weapons artificer. Emergency power is stored in a pair of heavy spinning flywheels, in case the field is interrupted.

Construct: A vehicle powered by the Secret Art, based on some of the secrets of Rulke’s legendary vehicle. Unlike Rulke’s, those made by the Aachim cannot fly, but only hover, and therefore cannot cross obstacles like deep, wide ditches, cliffs, very steep slopes or rugged terrain (but see Thapter).

Controller: A mind-linked mechanical system of many flexible arms which draws power through a hedron and feeds it to the drive mechanisms of a clanker. A controller is attuned to a particular hedron, and the operator must be trained to use each controller, which takes time. Operators suffer withdrawal if removed from their machines for long periods, and inconsolable grief if their machines are destroyed, although this may be alleviated if the controller survives and can be installed in another clanker.

Crystal fever: An hallucinatory madness suffered by artisans and clanker operators, brought on by overuse of a hedron. Few recover from it. Mancers can suffer from related ailments.

Field: The diffuse (or weak) force surrounding and permeating (and presumably generated by) a node. It is the source of a mancer’s power. Various strong forces are also known to exist, though no one knows how to tap them safely (see Power). Non-nodal stress-fields also exist, though on Santhenar these are weak and little used.

Flesh-forming: A branch of the Secret Art that only lyrinx can use. Developed to adapt themselves to the ever-mutable void where they came from, it now involves the slow transformation of a living creature, tailoring it to suit some particular purpose. It is painful for both creature and lyrinx, and can only be employed on small creatures, though the lyrinx seek to change that.

Gate: A portal between one place (or one world) and another, connected by a trans-dimensional ‘wormhole’.

Geomancy: The most difficult and powerful of all the Secret Arts. An adept is able to draw upon the forces that move and shape the world. A most dangerous Art for the user.

Hedron: A natural or shaped crystal, formed deep in the earth from fluids circulating through a natural node. Trained artisans can tune a hedron to draw power from the field surrounding a node, via the ethyr. Rutilated quartz, that is, quartz crystal containing dark needles of rutile, is commonly used. The artisan must first ‘wake’ the crystal using his or her pliance. Too far from a node, a hedron is unable to draw power and becomes useless. If a hedron is not used for long periods it may have to be rewoken by an artisan, though this can be hazardous.

Mathemancy: An Art developed by Gilhaelith, though since that time it has been discovered independently by other mancers, notably Bilfis.

Nennifer: The great bastion of the Council of Scrutators, on the escarpment over Kalithras, the Desolation Sink. Nennifer is home to countless mancers, artisans and artificers, all furiously working to design new kinds of Art-powered devices to aid the war against the lyrinx.

Nodes: Rare places in the world where the Secret Art works better. Once identified, a hedron (or a mancer) can sometimes draw power from the node’s field through the ethyr, though the amount diminishes with distance, not always regularly. A clanker operator must be alert for the loss and ready to draw on another node, if available. The field can be drained, in which case the node may not be usable for years, or even for centuries. Mancers have long sought the secret of drawing on the far greater power of a node itself (see Power, Nunar’s General Theory of Power) but so far it has eluded them (or maybe those that succeeded did not live to tell about it).

There are also anti-nodes where the Art does not work at all, or is dangerously disrupted. Nodes and anti-nodes are frequently (though not always) associated with natural features or forces such as mountains, faults and hot spots.

Nyriandiol: Gilhaelith’s home, fortress and laboratory on top of Booreah Ngurle; the entire building is a geomantic artefact designed to protect him, ensure his control and enhance his work.

Oellyll: A lyrinx city in Meldorin.

Patterner: A semi-organic device developed by the lyrinx to pattern torgnadrs and other artefacts used with their Art. The patterner essentially copies a particular human’s talent into the growing torgnadr, greatly enhancing the talent and allowing it to be controlled by a lyrinx skilled in the Art.

Pliance: Device that enables an artisan to see the field and tune a controller to it.

Port-all: Tiaan’s name for the device she makes in Tirthrax to open the gate.

Power: A mancer, Nunar, codified the laws of mancing, noting how limited it was, mainly because of lack of power. She recognised that mancing was held back because power came from diffuse and poorly understood sources. It all went through the mancer first, causing aftersickness that grew greater the more powerful it was. Eventually power, or aftersickness, would kill the mancer using it.