Ganath was a Jaghut sorceress. She was tall and gaunt with greyish-green skin and long black hair worn in a single braid that came down to her waist. Her tusks were described as sheathed with well-tarnished silver (which made them appear black) and her eyes as being amber in colour with vertical pupils beneath a heavy brow.[1]
She wore a silver-clasped harness and an iron mail baldric from which hung knives in copper scabbards.[2]
History[]
Long ago Ganath invoked Omtose Phellack, the Jaghut Warren of Ice, in a ritual to seal a K'Chain Nah'ruk Skykeep on the continent that would come to be known as Seven Cities.[3][4] Icarium described the ritual as an act of carelessness because Ganath had been distraught. Being angry and weary of the paths that the K'Chain Che'Malle employed to invade and establish colonies on every continent, she unleashed the ritual on the K'Chain Nah'ruk with no concern that the Short-Tails had been fleeing the civil war with their Long-Tail kin and seeking refuge.[5]
According to a stela fragment found in Yath Alban, Ganath had once visited the site of a recent battle with fellow Jaghut, Ivindonos and Sarkanos. Looking upon the heaped bodies, Ganath commented on the futility of the battle where there had been no survivors to proclaim justice triumphant. Ivindonos stated he was mindful of such sorrows left untold and unwitnessed. Sarkanos claimed Ivindonos was was not mindful enough, saying greater sorrows and darker plains still lay beyond.[6]
At a time when Raraku had still been an inland sea, she had been captured and imprisoned within a barrow near its northern shore by the T'lan Imass. One T'lan Imass guardian was left behind to watch over her for eternity.[7]
In The Bonehunters[]
Ganath's ritual was eventually shattered because of Otataral and the blood of the slain dragon, Sorrit.[8][9][10][11] Awakened by this, she broke out of the barrow in which she had been imprisoned, destroying the T'lan Imass standing guard. At the barrow entrance, she encountered Ganoes Paran, whom she decided to accompany as he was headed to the nearby Raraku Sea and she was in need of a bath.[12]
Ganath thought Paran a strange creature. Seemingly unfamiliar with humans, she thought he resembled a pitiful, malnourished Imass. His talk of mastery over the Deck of Dragons was unfamiliar to her as her time had involved the Errant as Master of the Holds.[13] She stood by warily as Paran summoned the ghosts of the dead Bridgeburners from the waters of the sea. Paran sought their help in enlisting the Deragoth to kill the T'rolbarahl, Dejim Nebrahl.[14]
Ganath followed Ganoes Paran and the spirit of the dead Hedge to Verdith'anath, the primordial Jaghut underworld also known as the "Bridge of Death". They were soon joined by Karpolan Demesand and the Trygalle Trade Guild, who Paran had hired to accompany them. Ganath rode inside the carriage with Karpolan as Paran and the Guild shareholders cut their way through the hordes of beast-men blocking their way to the gate at the end of the bridge. Along the way they discovered a battered and overturned Guild carriage belonging to Darpareth Vayd, who had been missing for two years.[15]
Crossing through the gate, they reached the Nascent and found five statues imprisoning the last of the Deragoth. At one statue's base was a driftwood shrine. Ganath and Paran investigated, finding what both suspected—the ritually sacrificed bodies of Darpareth Vayd and her client, Sedara Orr. Hedge freed the Deragoth by destroying the statues with munitions and Karpolan hastily opened a path through the Warrens to escape the deadly Hounds of Darkness.[16] The Guild High Mage brought them to a world swarming with undead. Before the carriage could be overwhelmed by attackers, Ganath pulled them all into Omtose Phellack where the carriage crashed and rolled down an icy slope.[17]
She survived this journey and parted ways with Paran once the Guild carriage returned them to Seven Cities. Contradicting her previous seeming unfamiliarity with humanity, she correctly identified nearby G'danisban and said it had been a long time since she was that close to the cities of Paran's kind. Paran promised a future favour in return for her assistance. Then Ganath headed west to the site of her broken ritual.[18]
Without even entering the skykeep, Ganath determined that her sorcerous weaving had been shattered by the spilling of draconean blood and the unleashing of Chaos magic. She was also confused by the sense that time itself had been twisted within the fortress and wished for the presence of her former companions, Cynnigig and Phyrlis, because she felt strangely vulnerable. But before she could repair the damage, she was ambushed and slain by K'Chain Nah'ruk.[19]
Notes and references[]
- ↑ The Bonehunters, Chapter 8, US HC p.305
- ↑ The Bonehunters, Chapter 8, US SFBC p.377
- ↑ The Bonehunters, Chapter 4, US HC p.127
- ↑ The Bonehunters, Chapter 13, US HC p.413-414
- ↑ The Bonehunters, Chapter 6, US HC p.191
- ↑ The Bonehunters, Chapter 8, Epigraph
- ↑ The Bonehunters, Chapter 8, US SFBC p.376-378/392
- ↑ The Bonehunters, Chapter 4, US HC p.138
- ↑ The Bonehunters, Chapter 6, US HC p.190-191
- ↑ The Bonehunters, Chapter 16, US HC p.521
- ↑ Dust of Dreams, Prologue, US HC p.33
- ↑ The Bonehunters, Chapter 8, US HC p.305-306
- ↑ The Bonehunters, Chapter 8, US SFBC p.377-378/392-393
- ↑ The Bonehunters, Chapter 8, US SFBC p.392-397
- ↑ The Bonehunters, Chapter 10, US SFBC p.434-449
- ↑ The Bonehunters, Chapter 11, US HC p.371-381
- ↑ The Bonehunters, Chapter 11, US SFBC p.470-472
- ↑ The Bonehunters, Chapter 13, US SFBC p.512-523
- ↑ The Bonehunters, Chapter 16, US HC p.521-522