Tirior: A manipulative Aachim clan leader.
Troist: An ambitious junior officer in the army destroyed by the lyrinx at Nilkerrand. He formed a smaller army out of the survivors. Troist became a general much loved by his troops. Nish rescued his daughters Liliwen and Meriwen from ruffians, and again when they were lost in an underground labyrinth.
Ullii: A hypersensitive seeker, used by Scrutator Flydd to track Tiaan and the amplimet. She accompanied Nish to Tirthrax in the balloon and found Tiaan, but Malien intervened. Her talent failed her for a while, but subsequently she was used by Jal-Nish at the manufactory, before being rescued by Flydd and taken to Nennifer, then west to help in the war at Snizort. She escaped from Snizort with Flydd and Nish, where they discovered that she had become pregnant to Nish in the balloon. Ullii had just found her long-lost brother, Myllii, whom the scrutators had used to find her, when he was accidentally killed by Nish. Ullii lost her baby and, consumed by a lust for revenge on Nish, was captured by Ghorr and used to hunt down Flydd and his allies, which she eventually did.
Vithis: Minis’s foster-father; an Aachim from Aachan and the head of Inthis First Clan, who led the Aachim to Santhenar. When all First Clan (except Minis) were lost in the gate, he became angry and bitter. He forced Minis to repudiate Tiaan. He subsequently led the Aachim across Santhenar but did not hold to his original purpose, to seize land, instead pursuing Tiaan and her thapter across the continent of Lauralin. After Minis was maimed, Vithis retreated to the Foshorn, seized land there and closed the borders.
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.