Secret Art: The use of magical or sorcerous powers (mancing). Snizort: A place in Taltid with a potent and concentrated node, near the famous tar pits and seeps. The lyrinx took Gilhaelith there to help them find the remains of a village lost in the Great Seep thousands of years ago. When he did so, they excavated a tunnel into the seep by freezing the tar, and took out a number of crystals, other artefacts and long-dead human bodies. After the node exploded, the tar caught fire and Snizort had to be abandoned.

Strong Forces: Forces which are speculated to exist, though no mancer studying them has yet survived to prove their existence.

Thapter: Tiaan's name for the flying construct she and Malien created in Tirthrax.

Torgnadr: A device patterned by the lyrinx to drain a field dry, or to channel power from the field for their own purposes. Torgnadrs are extremely difficult to pattern and most attempts fail, though some result in weak devices such, as phynadrs which can draw small amounts of power for a particular purpose. Tiaan was used, with her amplimet, to pattern particularly strong torgnadrs, though the patterning was not entirely successful.

Well of Echoes, the: An Aachim concept to do with the reverberation of time, memory and the Histories. Sometimes a place of death and rebirth (to the same cycling fate). Also a sense of being trapped in history, of being helpless to change collective fate (of a family, clan or species). Its origin is sometimes thought to be a sacred well on Aachan, sometimes on Santhenar. The term has become part of Aachim folklore. 'I have looked in the Well of Echoes.' 'I heard it at the Well: 'I will go to the Well.' Possibly also a source; a great node.

The Well is represented by the three-dimensional symbol of infinity, the universe and nothingness. A Well of Echoes, trapped in Tirthrax, is held there only by the most powerful magic.

end.