Kettle

An undead child whose body held the seed of an Azath House.

Physical Description

Just beyond, at the base of a twisted tree, sat the child Kettle. Nine or ten years old . . . for ever. Naked, her pale skin smeared, her long hair clotted with coagulating blood. The corpse before her was already half under the earth, being dragged down into the darkness. To feed the Azath? Or some ravenous denizen? Shurq had no idea. Nor did she care. The grounds swallowed bodies, and that was useful.

Kettle looked up, black eyes dully reflecting starlight. There were moulds that, if left unattended, could blind, and the film was thick over the girl’s dead eyes. (MT)

‘There are places, lass, where Forkrul Assail remain. Imprisoned for the most part, but ever restless. Even more disturbing, in many of those places they are worshipped by misguided mortals.’ He hesitated, then

said, ‘You have no idea, Kettle, of the extremity the Azath tower found itself in. To have chosen a soul such as yours . . . it was like reaching into the heart of the enemy camp. I wonder if, in its last moments, it

knew regret. Misgivings. Mother knows, I do.’

‘What is this soul you are talking about?’

‘Perhaps it sought to use the soul’s power without fully awakening it. We will never know. But you are loose upon the world now. Shaped to fight as a soldier in the war against chaos. Can that fundamental

conflict within you be reconciled? Your soul, lass? It is Forkrul Assail.’

‘So you have brought me home?’

His hand betrayed his sudden flinch. ‘You were also a mortal human child, once. And there is a mystery in that. Who birthed you? Who took away your life, and why? Was all this in preparation for your corpse to house the Assail soul? If that is the case, then the Azath tower was either deceived by someone capable of communicating with it, or it had in truth nothing at all to do with the creation of you as you now are. But that makes no sense.  Why would the Azath lie to me?” - (Silchas Ruin to kettle, MT, UK HB, pg 395)

Kettle's history

‘It never spoke with words. It just showed me things. My body, all wrapped up. People were crying. But I could see through the gauze. I’d woken up. I was seeing everything with two sets of eyes. It was very 

strange. One set behind the wrappings, the other standing nearby.’

‘What else did the Azath show you?’

‘Those eyes from the outside. There were five others. We were juststanding in the street, watching the family carrying the body. My body. Six of us. We’d walked a long way, because of the dreams. We’d been 

in the city for weeks, waiting for the Azath to choose someone. But I wasn’t the same as the five others, though we were here for the same reason, and we’d travelled together. They were Nerek witches, and they’d prepared me. The me on the outside, not the me all wrapped up.’

‘The you on the outside, Kettle, were you a child?’

‘Oh no. I was tall. Not as tall as you. And I had to wear my hood up, so no-one could see how different I was. I’d come from very far away. I’d walked, when I was young, hot sands – the sands that covered the 

First Empire. Whatever that is.’

‘What did the Nerek witches call you? Had you a name?’

‘No.’

‘A title?’

She shrugged. ‘I’d forgotten all this. They called me the Nameless 

One. Is this important?’

‘I think it is, Kettle. Although I am not sure in what way. Much of this realm remains unknown to me. It was very young when I was imprisoned. You are certain this “Nameless One” was an actual title? Not just something the Nerek used because they didn’t know your true name?’

‘It was a title. They said I’d been prepared from birth. That I was a true child of Eres. And that I was the answer to the Seventh Closure, because I had the blood of kin. “The blood of kin.” What did they mean by that?’

‘When I am finally free,’ he said in a voice revealing strain, ‘I will be able to physically touch you, Kettle. My fingers upon your brow. And then I will have your answer.’

‘I guess this Eres was my real mother.’

‘Yes.’

‘And soon you will know who my father is.’

‘I will know his blood, yes. At the very least.’

‘I wonder if he’s still alive.’

‘Knowing how Eres plays the game, lass, he might not even be your father yet. She wanders time, Kettle, in a manner no-one else can even understand, much less emulate. And this is very much her world. She is 

the fire that never dies.’ He paused, then said, ‘She will choose – or has chosen – with great deliberation. Your father was, is, or will be someone of great importance.’

‘So how many souls are in me?’

‘Two, sharing the flesh and bone of a child corpse. Lass, we shall have to find a way to get you out of that body, eventually.’

‘Why?’

‘Because you deserve something better.’-  (Kettle and Silchas Ruin, MT, UK HB, pg 397)

"The cold made the air brutal, blinding him, shocking his lungs. Through freezing tears he saw, amidst a faint blue glow, a tall figure. Skin like bleached vellum, limbs too long and angular with too many joints. Black, frosted eyes, an expression of faint surprise on its narrow, arched features. The clothes it wore consisted of a harness of leather straps and nothing more. It was unarmed. A man, but anything but a man.

And then Udinaas saw, scattered on the floor around the figure, corpses twisted in death. Dark, greenish skin, tusked. A man, a woman, two children. Their bodies had been broken, the ends of shattered bone jutting out from flesh. The way they lay suggested the white-skinned man had been their killer.

And only then noticed the footprints impressed upon the frost-laden flagstones. Leading out. Bared feet, human, a child's.

There was no ice visible beyond the portal. Naught but opaque silver, as if a curtain had fallen across the entrance.

Feeling ebbing from his limbs, Udinaas backtracked the footprints. To behind the standing figure. Where he saw, after a numbed moment, that the back of the man's head had been stove in. Hair and skin still attached to the shattered plates of the skull that hung down on the neck. Something like a fist had reached into the figure's head, tearing through the grey flesh of the brain.

The break looked unaccountably recent.

Tiny tracks indicated that the child had stood behind the figure - no, had appeared behind it, for there were no others to be found. Had appeared...to do what? Reach into a dead man's skull? Yet the figure was as tall as an Edur. The child would have had to climb." (MT, UK mmpb, pg 206)

The Azath in the Refugium

Silchas Ruin stabbed Kettle in the heart at the gateway to the Refugium and Starvald Demelain.  He used the Finnest knife which Gothos made to hold Scabandari's soul.

I do not think Kettle’s mortal wounding came from the other side of Starvald Demelain.  The Azath was young, yes, but strong.  And with the Finnest of Scabandari, well – do you remember our confidence?  But then, suddenly, something changed…” - Udinaas to Ryadd - (TCG)