The ten years passed pleasurably enough, she, enjoyed her schooling after she’d got used to the constraints on her and she’d proved an excellent student, beyond even Settsimaksimin’s expectations (he kept an eye on her from Jal Virri, sent his eidolon to talk to her every few months), but as the time for her passing-out ordeal approached she was getting more and more anxious about her brother, more and more eager to go release him from his enchanted sleep.

5. Trago Piyolss, affinity: Harra’s Eye

Called Tre by friends and family.

A six-year-old boy used as a pawn, by the Chained God first to bring Brann into play against Settsimaksimin, then by Settsimaksimin to keep his hold on Kori Piyolss, he slept under enchantment in the Altar Cave of the Chained God.

6. Danny Blue, affinity: Klukesharna

Danny Blue was one man, two men, three men. One man, because he had a single body. Two men because he was made from two men and their memories and personalities lingered within him. Three men, because Danny Blue had developed a life of his own, a personality that was both more and less than a blend of his two half-sires with memories that belonged to him alone.

He was born in the body of the Chained God (an ancient starship) where the flesh of his two sires was merged into one man by the power of the God, where Brann Drinker of Souls was midwife to the birth of his personhood as well as his fleshbody.

AHZURDAN was once a student/apprentice of Settsimaksimin’s. When he met Brann and was drawn into the Chained God’s scheme, he was a second rank sorceror of considerable ability but regrettable habits, being addicted to dreamdust and in flight from reality. He was born into a Phrasi merchant family of considerable wealth and social ambition; his mother belonged to the minor nobility and impressed into her son all her attitudes toward lesser beings. He was a momma’s boy and didn’t get on with his older half-siblings at all well, though that was not entirely his fault, they were an intolerant lot.