Heboric
Name: Heboric
Pseudonyms: Heboric Light Touch, Ghost Hands
Race: human,
Warren: none
Further Info: A former priest of Fener.
A Once-Priest of Fener, had his hands cut off in an excommunication ritual (DG, UK MMPB, p.288)
Heboric Light Touch, exiled historian and ex-priest of
Fener - (
DG, Dramatis Personae)
Appearance
'He looked more of a sunken-eyed toad than a man. He was bald, his face webbed in tattooing, minute, black, square-etched symbols hidden within an overall pattern covering skin like a wrinkled scroll...The tattooed pattern covered the man - the boar's face overlying his own, the intricate maze of script-threaded, curled fur winding down his arms, covering his exposed thighs and shins, and the detailed hooves etched into the skin of his feet.' - (DG, UK MMPB, p.25)
'Squat, hunched, he was like an ogre shambling out from a children's bedtime story. Blunt knobs where his hands should be...' - (DG, UK MMPB, p.271)
History
"Thief once, then priest, now historian."
‘You wrote that revised history,’ Felisin said. ‘Committed treason—’
Heboric’s wiry brows rose in mock alarm. ‘Gods forbid! A philosophic divergence of opinions, nothing more! Duiker’s own words at the trial – in my defence, Fener bless him.’
‘But the Empress wasn’t listening,’ Baudin said, grinning. ‘After all, you called her a murderer, and then had the gall to say she bungled the job!’
‘Found an illicit copy, did you?’ - (DG, UK mmpb, p.30)
"Heboric kept finding the need to spit, something he hadn't done since his cut-purse days in the Mouse Quarter of
Malaz City." - (
DG, UK mmpb, p.33)
Tattoos and Fener
'
Fener's tracks heal me well...' - (
DG, UK MMPB, p.124)
'a strange blue penumbra rising from Heboric's tattoos illuminated the scene. He was unbitten.
Fener's blessing too fierce a touch.' - (
DG, UK MMPB, p.223)
She watched him peel Heboric’s rotting clothing away, revealing the astonishing weave of tattooing beneath. Baudin then moved to keep his own shadow behind him before bending close to study the dark patterning on the ex-priest’s chest. He was looking for something.
‘A raised nape,’ she said dully, ‘the ends pulled down and almost touching, almost a circle. It surrounds a pair of tusks.’
He stared, eyes narrowing.
‘Fener’s own mark, the one that’s sacred,’ she said. ‘It’s what you’re looking for, isn’t it? He’s excommunicated, yet Fener remains within him. That much is obvious by those living tattoos.’
‘And the mark?’ he asked coolly. ‘How did you come to know such things?’
‘A lie I spun for Beneth,’ she explained as the man resumed his examination of the ex-priest’s crowded flesh. ‘I needed Heboric to support it. I needed details of the cult. He told me. You mean to call on the god.’ - (DG, UK MMPB, p.288)
‘How do you think he lost his hands?’ Felisin asked innocently.
‘He was a thief, once.’
‘He was. But it was the excommunication that took them. There was a key, you see. The High Priest’s warren to his god. Tattooed on the palm of his right hand. Held to the sacred mark – hand to chest, basically – as simple as a salute'.......... ‘You can never go back,’ she said. ‘The priesthood made sure of that. He isn’t what he was, and that’s that. - (DG, UK MMPB, p.288)
After The Jade Statue
‘Leave it be,’ Heboric said, moving to sling the straps through his arms. In the gloom Felisin saw the stump that had touched the jade finger for the first time. It was swollen and red, the puckered skin stretched. Tattoos crowded the end of the wrist, turning it nearly solid dark. She realized then that the etchings had deepened everywhere on him, grown riotous like vines.
‘What’s happened to you?’
He glanced over. ‘I wish I knew.’
‘You burned your wrist on that statue.’
‘Not burned,’ the old man said. ‘Hurts like Hood’s own kiss, though. Can magic thrive buried in Otataral sand? Can Otataral give birth to magic? I’ve no answers, lass, for any of this. -(DG, UK MMPB, p.280)
The Fall of Fener
He raised Heboric’s right forearm, studied the glistening, flushed stump in the growing light.
‘You can never go back,’ she said. ‘The priesthood made sure of that. He isn’t what he was, and that’s that.’
With a silent snarl Baudin pulled the forearm around to push the stump against the sacred mark. - (DG, UK MMPB, p.288)
Heboric after the Fall of Fener
'The ex-priest's tattoos swarmed with a life of their own: flickering waves of power raced across his body and spun a handlike projection beyond the stump of his left wrist. That ghost-hand reached into a warren, was clenched as if gripping a tether. A wholly different power pulsed around his right stump, shot through with veins of green and
Otataral red, as if two snakes writhed in mortal combat. The blunting effect arose exclusively from the green bands, radiating outward with what felt like a conscious will. That it was strong enough to push back the effects of the
Otataral was astonishing...
A battle of warrens - Fener's own, linked by one ghostly hand, the other ensnared by Otataral, yet waxing nonetheless - a warren I can't recognize, a force alien to every sense I possess,'
- Kulp - (DG, UK MMPB, p.317)
'You are shorn from your god, though he continues to make use of you.'
- Hentos Ilm - (DG, UK MMPB, p.378)
" Your hands. You were never forsaken, Heboric, no matter what the priests may have believed when they did what they did. You were simply being "prepared". - Felisin - (DG UK mmpb. p,,,)
The Collected Works of
Conspiracies in the Imperium
It is said that on the night of
Kellanved and
Dancer's
Return, Malaz City was a maelstrom of sorcery
and dire visitations. It is not a far reach to find
one sustained in the belief that the assassinations
were a messy, confused affair, and that success
and failure are judgements dependent on one's
perspective...
Conspiracies in the Imperium
Heboric
DG, UK Trade, p.211
T'matha's Children
It is said that the matron’s
blood like ice brought forth into this
world a birthing of dragons
and this flowing river of fate
brought light into dark and dark into light,
unveiling at last in cold, cold eyes
the children of chaos . . .
T’matha’s Children
Heboric
GotM, UK Trade, p.420
Quotes
'Show me a mortal who is not pursued, and I'll show you a corpse. Every hunter is hunted, every mind that knows itself has stalkers. We drive and are driven. The unknown pursues the ignorant, the truth assails every scholar wise enough to know his own ignorance, for that is the meaning of unknowable truths.'
DG, UK MMPB, p.579
Return to The Collected Works of
Return to Dramatis Personae
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