(Pronunciation: Hard Ch, as in the Scottish "loch," and long American-English A in the first, stressed syllable; thus, roughly, "CARE-icks.")
Charracks was born to a wealthy merchant family in the town of Techlin on the Fire Coast, and found little in town to interest him as he grew into his teens. He pressed weights and trained under a local pugilist just to keep his mind off his boredom, but it always returned soon after each workout, when his muscles were finished working. He often wandered the streets out of sheer ennui, watching the people go by and wishing something sudden and violent would happen to make them interesting to him. Often, he fantasized about thieves approaching to steal from him, only to be broken under his sheer physical power as he attacked, but nothing of the kind ever happened.
One evening, lurking about the edges of town, Charracks spotted someone in a shadowy alley: An attractive young woman, several years his elder, daringly dressed, all in leather, rope, and chains. He followed her, and to his deep pleasure, found that she had led him to a place worthy not only of interest at last, but of awe and amazement: A forbidden temple, buried beneath the earth, arranged for the worship of a terrible diety whose power and deadly beauty were manifest to Charracks from the moment he entered as Vammakhel's presence seemed to descend upon him. He rejoiced in silence, and the woman who had led him there saw him, and took him aside with her to "punish" him.
She underestimated Charracks. Unlike the others of the town who worshiped at that temple, he had no desire to be bound and struck by a beautiful priestess or powerful priest. He fought the woman who led him there in spite of the wounds he inflicted in freeing himself, welcoming the pain that meant he was free. When he wrenched the whip from the hand of the priestess, he cast it aside in fury, and battered her with his fists alone, in fury that she should set herself above him and take for herself the right of punishment. When the high priest of the temple finally separated them, the priestess was barely alive. Broken and whimpering, no longer beautiful, she had to be carried away for slow, painful healing, and the blood that covered Charracks's fists was as much hers as his own. In another place, he might not have lived through the experience, but the high priest saw in Charracks the spirit of Vammakhel, and rewarded him with indoctrination into the priesthood. Charracks would not be asked to bind and strike willing supplicants however; he believed, and the high priest agreed, that was beneath him. Charracks was made the temple's enforcer, the looming threat meant to keep priests and parishioners alike in line, the man whose cold and deadly malice could cow even the lovers of pain who came to worship at that temple. Not long after his ritual indoctrination into the priesthood, the threat of Charracks's vengeance had risen to the top of the long list of reasons that those who knew of the temple's existence dared never betray its secrets.
Charracks's hands were never idle in the temple; a part of his time was spent in simple worship and his part in the rituals of the place, and a large part in simply being seen, grim and menacing, but there were sometimes also occasions to practice his torture techniques. He learned to use whips and scourges of all kinds, and eventually even some of the intricate pieces of cold equipment that filled the deepest dungeon rooms of the temple, but he also stayed in practice with his fists. There were always others better versed in the application of specialized devices, or the best ways to achieve the maximum possible level of pain without allowing the victim to lose consciousness, but Charracks was the most feared of all the priests, for to him, the purpose of the torture was secondary. Whether punishment was intended or an experience of Vammakhel's power, or even if information was to be gained, Charracks was ruthless, and interested only in inflicting pain. The high priest knew that to turn someone over to Charracks was to risk permanently disfigurment or disability for the victim, or driving the victim to madness with agony. He knew that the chance of a victim's death was greater under Charracks's hand than under any other priest's. He knew it, and still used Charracks, for the glory of Vammakhel, and for the sensation and the panic and terror that Charracks's use would bring.
No one ever found out if a parishioner broke faith after all or if the wrong person got careless and was seen by the authorities, but the town militia finally found out about the temple, and their raid emptied it completely. The fortunate managed to escape and flee, a few died fighting, and most of the parishioners were forced to leave the community. The priests, resisting arrest to inflict as much pain as they could, were mostly hanged. Charracks himself would have been among these if not for a stroke of good fortune. On the fateful night, he was sitting by his ailing mother's bed, brooding over the unworthiness of family obligations that prevented him from attending the forbidden temple to pain. Various confessors fingered him, but he had not been caught in the temple, and had no opportunity to resist arrest in its defense. When the town took custody of Charracks, he accepted it because the temple had already been taken and he knew he could not win, and his sentence was not death but exile in spite of his reputed deeds. His parents wept to learn where he had spent his time away from them, and grimly, imagining that the temple could have been safely defended if only he had been present to lead its priests and parishioners in the defense, Charracks blamed his parents for all that had gone wrong. Since the time he was taken into custody, he has never spoken to them.
Here's the first in a series on the early lives of some of the major characters in Black Steel.
(Pronunciation: Broxte: All consonants fully pronounced, o as in rock, e silent. Quazar: Roughly, KWAY-zahr. Solo: Like the English word meaning alone.)
Broxte was born in the town of Heldred on the Fire Coast (northwest of Eastport, far northwest of the Broken Sea) to a fisherman and his wife who were too busy with their work and younger children to deal with him beyond the age of six or seven, and so left him to more or less work out his upbringing for himself. It didn't go so well. He eventually fell in with a rowdy, amorphous gang of sailors' and fishermen's children in situations more or less like his own, first sticking around the edges and watching their doings with pleasure and awe, but getting increasingly involved as he grew, cheerfully going about the business of raising havoc. By his mid-teens, he and his best friend, Quazar, the son of a lady-about-the-docks by one of countless sailors, felt they were outgrowing the loose-knit gang, and like many before them, started occasionally forging off to cause havoc on their own in the little time that remained to them before they had to start fending for themselves and become sailors or fishermen like their fathers; already, they were spending many of their days helping Broxte's father with his boat and his catch, reluctantly learning the winds and the sea and his trade.
Solo dropped into their world like a comet from the sky. They never learned -- indeed, even now, no one but he knows -- his real name. He came in with a merchant ship and its noble passengers, and made an immediate impression, taking risks that none of the locals dared, showing off his swordsmanship, and insisting on carrying out most of his schemes in accordance with his nickname, Solo. He was young and independent, with time on his hands that he spent in the street, at an older age than anyone else Broxte or Quazar knew, and his swagger impressed them immensely. They didn't know to which family of merchants or noblemen he belonged, and he liked it that way, but they didn't mind; he was living the life they wished they could live, and he was better at it than they'd ever hoped to be. More nearly his peers than anyone else in town who wasn't already working, they got his attention too; he liked the way they had started to shun the rest of their childhood gang, and he liked their attention and the awe in which they held him. Increasingly, as time went on, he spent his time with the two of them, telling them stories of his easy ways with women, teaching and demonstrating the use of a blade, and getting into good-natured fights at all hours and for any reason. They eagerly listened and learned, worked on stories and tricks of their own, and sought fights they knew they could win in their own ways, all of which pleased Solo as well. His nickname became less apt as time went on and he became more and more the nucleus of a band of three.
They were down by the docks one evening, looking frankly for trouble and amusement when Quazar took offense to an ugly name and started a fight with a knot of sailors in from the north. The whole knot came pounding down on the three, and a few locals came to support them, and the fight quickly got out of hand. When the authorities finally closed in and brought the fight to an end, one of the foreign sailors was dead, by Solo's hand. Had he been killed by the foreigner, the killer would likely have been hanged, but the dead man had no friends in Heldred except his fellow sailors passing through, and Solo's family was of enough importance that he could not be executed without complexities. The story was muddled as well by Quazar and Broxte, who each claimed a role, not without justice, in the death of the sailor, all in support of their friend; in the end, all three were sent to the capital, there to be exiled to Lost Souls' Island, never to see the mainland again. Broxte's father mourned and gnashed his teeth; his mother wailed. Quazar's mother felt what she felt, but said nothing in the hearing of the authorities. What Solo's parents had to say, or who they were, or if they were present in town at the time, none but they and Solo himself have ever learned.
Bane: Bane allows the caster to invent and speak a simple, single-sentence prophecy directly pertaining to the victim of this spell; if the victim fails to resist, then to the extent it lies within the power of this spell to arrange it, the prophecy will come true. The prophecy must be of intrinsic and obvious harm to the victim, and may be made continuous or conditional (e.g. "You will stink of death forever," or "If ever you look upon the House of Renin in Calasta, your hair and nails will all fall out, never to regrow!" or "Whenever you do battle with a Knight of Illenia, your right arm will weaken and fail you!") as the caster wishes.
Curtain of Flame: This is the spell that Nimlo eventually used to ensure that the "Holy Grat'han Bandits" remained trapped in their cave, raising a thin sheet of completely opaque, blazing fire that holds back creatures and flying projectiles alike with its thermal currents and constant waves of searing heat, needing no fuel of its own except for the caster's attention as he continually weaves it into being, but setting anything that comes too close aflame.
Displaced Perception: One of the options Theril considered for surveillance of Thaqz's team, this spell allows the caster to see, hear, smell, and (to a limited extent) even touch and taste objects within a few dozen meters as if standing right on top of them without actually coming near.
Dragon's Roar: Apparently as a curiosity, Dargon and Quix's draconic tutor taught them a spell that allows them to briefly duplicate the full effect of a dragon's roar, a sound audible for miles around that can shatter glass and ceramics close by, and deafen, flatten, or even kill living creatures who stand too close.
Driving Hail: Somewhat more subtle than the likes of Firecast and Thunderbolt, Driving Hail fills a ground-level area of limited size but any simple shape the caster desires, forcing anyone and everything within away with gusts of icy wind and driving hailstones. It can be released in such a way that it lasts for two hours, doing slow but steady damage throughout that period to everything that tries to pass, or concentrated into a shorter time, dealing much less potential total damage to someone or something that fights its way in and insists on remaining inside, but dealing damage far more quickly to anything trying to enter or pass through the area.
Emancipate: Emancipate can free its subject from virtually any single magical or pseudomagical influence or compulsion, from a simple Bewitch spell to the lure of a siren's song, from the effects of a backfiring attempt at Mind Reading to a Bane spell. If it worked in Tolkien's world, it could even have freed Boromir (at least for a while) from the lure of the One Ring.
Fertile Ground: First developed by the elves of the Grat'han jungles, this is the spell by which (with many castings over the course of several days) Theril was able to transform a handful of thornbush seeds into the vast Hedge that protects Alluarten. Only Theril has mastered all of the uses of this one, but Nimlo, Dargon, and Quix have all learned to use it in its simplest form.
Greater Bewitchment: This is a general-purpose form of the highly specialized Bewitch spell, capable of affecting almost any sentient creature, or several non-sentient creatures at once.
Hallucination: The subject of this spell is wrapped in a powerful multisensory illusion of which no one else is aware. In addition to possibly causing the victim to appear completely insane, this illusion is convincing enough to potentially kill, blind, or otherwise cripple the victim by convincing him completely of the truth of a horrible vision. Beneficial effects are also possible, but the mind is always doing nearly all it can to help itself and the body, and so the margin of possible benefit from convincing the mind of something is much smaller than the margin of possible destruction, so it is used far more often against an enemy than to give aid to a friend. This is the spell that Theril originally learned from Karloc Denobson of the Seven, in exchange for teaching him Theril's Assurance.
Mirage: This powerful variation on Visual Illusions generates large, long-lasting illusions that remain stationary relative to either the center of the spell's effect or the willing creatures they conceal. Though the illusions can not move themselves (within their frames of reference) they can conceal moving objects, like flowing water or moving animals. The spell is broken however when touched by a sentient being.
Permafrost: The spellweave Theril developed to keep the Solo's restaurant icehouse cold has a number of other uses, though they haven't been put into use. The basic effect is to generate a volume of extremely dense, solid ice, in a shape of the caster's design, that powerfully resists melting and breaking of all kinds.
Preemptive Strike: Developed by Pasha Zavalier (who claims it's almost as valuable in the court of Shalasia as in the Grat'han jungles), this spellweave lies dormant for more than a day, or until triggered by an attack on the caster, at which point it reacts with a bright flash of light and repulsive power to knock the attack aside and knock down the would-be attacker. Unlike Force Block, it works only once, but is pretty much foolproof and infallible. Among Black Steel Wizards, only Theril has mastered this one.
Space Jump: One-way, short-range teleportation that can cause its subject to disappear and reappear, even in mid-motion, with extreme precision and without a sound. Its name derives from the fact that its subject appears to jump instantaneously from one point in space to another.
Theril's Assurance: The spellweave Theril developed to keep Black Steel's command network functioning across the breadth of the world sees more use than any other in the Black Steel repertoire. Nimlo, Dargon, and Quix all use this one to keep in touch with one another, Theril, and their far-flung friends ... and Theril still uses it to coordinate and direct all the forces of Black Steel.
Transfiguration: When wizards threaten to turn their misbehaving apprentices into toads, this is the spell they're implying they would use. This is also the spell that Theril used to create Grynne's "costume" for the celebration of last year's "Night of the Veil" ("between living and dead"). Theril, Nimlo, Dargon, and Quix have all also used a less-lasting variant of this spell to transform themselves when they found it convenient.
Zone of Fury: Another variation on bewitchment magic (like Spellbind), this one fills an area with roiling emotion, so that anyone in the area who fails to resist becomes unaccountably incensed with everything he sees, sometimes furiously attacking friends and foes alike, sometimes standing motionless and quivering with helpless rage.