Nology held out her left hand and a pattern took shape in red lines in the air. The materials she had taken with her rose up and filled the new pattern. There was a hush in the air followed by a blinding light and a noise like a great wind or the roaring of a titanic monster, and Auric and the others fell silent. Of all the House of Hermes, and perhaps of all the mages that had ever been, Nology had the greatest power of both Making and Unmaking. With every new engine she made there was a chance that she might unmake the world.

But the light and sound died down and the world remained. Nology held in her hand an amulet with a green gemstone whose surface was covered with metal patterns. All fear was gone from her now. She put on the amulet and turned to face the great metal leviathan that had risen from the mist. It was the very construct whose blood had poisoned the Nameless Land. Nology looked the construct in its great red eyes and spoke to it in its own tongue:

“Sister, do you remember the Word?”