Denth
also known as VaraTreledees
Vasher's former friend and one of the Five Scholars, a Returned swordsman of unmatched skill turned mercenary in the centuries since the Manywar. Killed by Vasher in the palace hallways after refusing the offer to have the darkness of his memories taken from him — undone by the same Breath-bestowal trap that killed his friend Arsteel long ago. STD:WB:Ch 57
A long-faced mercenary who attached himself to Vivenna in a T'Telir restaurant under the cover of having been hired to kill her. The cover was a lie: he and his crew are the kidnappers, paid to keep her captive in T'Telir without ever letting her realise she was held. He murdered Lemex himself, has killed every recovery agent her father sent south, and tortured Parlin to death when Vivenna slipped his net. STD:WB:Ch 35 superseded at STD:WB:Ch 57
A mercenary in his mid-thirties, long-faced and styled, less colourfully dressed than most Hallandren — brown leather under a token red vest — who sits down uninvited at Vivenna's table in a T'Telir restaurant and announces, after a wry monologue about the prejudice mercenaries endure, that he and his partner Tonk Fah have been hired to kill her. STD:WB:Ch 9 superseded at STD:WB:Ch 35
Known facts
- three-member-bandHeads a three-person mercenary band — himself, Tonk Fah, and Jewels, who handles their contracts — that does bodyguarding and quiet errands, and whose contract with Lemex he offers to Vivenna on the spot when the spy dies.STD:WB:Ch 13
- superhumanly-fastKills two of Grable's bodyguards before Vivenna can even see the dueling blade leave its sheath — both throats opened in a single fluid motion. He is, by Grable's telling, said to have appeared in T'Telir a decade or so back and to be inhumanly fast with a blade.STD:WB:Ch 22
- family-deadHis family is long dead and held faiths that almost no one now remembers; he never shared them. He claims to believe in nothing, serves no kingdom, and turns evasive whenever Vivenna asks who he used to be.STD:WB:Ch 25
- not-after-moneyLemex's ledgers do not show him being paid the kind of money a swordsman of his calibre would command, and he passes up easy gold on raids — he is plainly not doing this work for the coin. The only thing Vivenna has seen move him is the name Vasher.STD:WB:Ch 25
- killed-lemexDenth killed Lemex himself rather than let Vivenna keep an independent contact with her own Breath and her own information; the official story of a quick poisoning was his cover. A man holding that much Breath, Denth tells her later, does not die quickly of sickness.STD:WB:Ch 35
- killed-idrian-recovery-agentsDenth has been intercepting and killing the agents Dedelin sent south to recover Vivenna. Two of their bodies, in the boots of the Idrian army, are stuffed into sacks under the stairs of the safehouse cellar awaiting disposal.STD:WB:Ch 35
- hired-by-hallandren-faction-to-start-warVasher tells Vivenna that Denth was hired by an unknown party inside Hallandren — *one of the gods, perhaps a cabal, or a clique of priests* — to start a war between Hallandren and Idris. The supply raids, the Vahr-flavoured agitation of the slums, the parading of an Idrian princess in front of T'Telir's thug-lords were all stages of that contract. Vivenna was hired onto her own kidnapping as the figurehead, never the employer.STD:WB:Ch 43
- corrupted-idrian-ambassador-lemexVasher places Denth's corruption of the Idrian ambassador Lemex at the start of his war contract: Lemex was turned long before Vivenna arrived in T'Telir, and his death — and the pre-arranged friendship with Vivenna's new "mercenary" — was the contract's entry door into the Idrian royal household.STD:WB:Ch 43
- ambushed-vasher-in-god-kings-palaceDenth reveals he and a hired company of mercenaries have been waiting inside the God King's palace for two weeks, knowing that Princess Vivenna would eventually send Vasher to rescue her sister. Vasher was always the payment he intended to collect for Shashara — and now collects.STD:WB:Ch 50
- dies-by-breath-trapKilled by Vasher in the duel he insisted on having. With his boot on Vasher's pinned hand and his blade raised, he refused his offer to take away his memories — *I don't deserve that, neither of us do* — and was undone the next second when Vasher touched his leg and forced fifty Breaths into him, dropping him to his knees in the convulsion long enough for Vasher to slash his throat. His hair ran black, blond, red, then settled white.STD:WB:Ch 57
Events
- STD:WB:Ch 9 Slides uninvited into the seat across from Vivenna at her T'Telir restaurant table, delivers a wry monologue on the prejudices mercenaries endure, shakes her hand, and tells her he and Tonk Fah have been hired to kill her.
- STD:WB:Ch 10 Sits down opposite Vivenna at the fish restaurant, delivers the mercenary kill-joke, then reveals he and his partner work for Lemex and presents her with the spy's authenticated summons.
- STD:WB:Ch 10 Leans in the sickroom doorway, names the pulses of colour coming off the dying Lemex as BioChromatic Breath, and quietly steers Vivenna toward keeping the hoard for her mission.
- STD:WB:Ch 13 Leans against the wall, then the chair, then the banister, walking Vivenna through her options for the Breaths, offering the mercenary contract's transfer, breaking the news of Lemex's embezzling, and finally telling her to get moving if she wants to see her sister presented.
- STD:WB:Ch 17 Has, with Tonk Fah, ransacked Lemex's house down to the chair legs in search of hidden caches — and waves Vivenna through the kicked-in front door without ceremony. Later, downstairs, takes her decision to continue Lemex's sabotage work as a contract.
- STD:WB:Ch 19 Lays out the next round of plans for Vivenna in the new sitting room — contacting Vahr's old supporters, raiding the Lifeless storage warehouse, hitting merchant caravans — and, when news of Vasher arrives, belts on a dueling blade with curse and intent.
- STD:WB:Ch 22 Pitches Fob on burning his harvest if war comes and cues Vivenna to flash the Royal Locks under her shawl as the closer.
- STD:WB:Ch 22 Opens both Grable's bodyguards in a single movement that Vivenna cannot follow, sheathes the dueling blade bloody, and walks her out unharmed.
- STD:WB:Ch 22 Runs the interrogation of Thame in the back room, then settles in to wait out Grable's possible reprisal — and talks Vivenna out of bolting back to Idris.
- STD:WB:Ch 25 Runs the spice-merchant raid from cover while Vivenna plays the visible decoy; returns at dusk to brief her on the balcony.
- STD:WB:Ch 25 Reveals the point of the salt raid, then refuses to say who he used to be when Vivenna presses him on Vasher.
- STD:WB:Ch 28 Takes Thame's seat after he leaves and tells Vivenna she is starting to fit in T'Telir — and gently suggests trousers.
- STD:WB:Ch 28 Plays manservant beside Vivenna's blanket while she negotiates with the forgers, then teases her when her hair turns red over Parlin talking to Jewels.
- STD:WB:Ch 29 Brings Vivenna to see the four dead thieves before the city guard moves them, names the killer as Vasher, and argues with Jewels over whether Vasher could really have beaten Arsteel in a fair duel.
- STD:WB:Ch 29 Passes through the street below the rooftop with his team, unaware that Vasher is watching from openly overhead and naming him by his old name.
- STD:WB:Ch 31 Walks Vivenna in, tells her the slum's gangs and prostitutes are her own people, stands behind her chair at the slumlords' pavilion, then engages the city-watch Lifeless as the raid begins.
- STD:WB:Ch 33 Sits beside Vivenna on the floor, tells her that even brave men run their first time, and — when she asks — agrees to teach her Awakening.
- STD:WB:Ch 35 Drops the friendly mercenary act, explains to Vivenna that they were always her kidnappers, admits killing Lemex, and grabs her arm to take her Breath before she uses Clod's security phrase against him.
- STD:WB:Ch 50 Springs the trap he has been holding inside the palace for two weeks, drops Vasher with Awakened ropes and a press of hired men, takes the sword off Tonk Fah for safe disposal, and orders Vasher stripped of every Awakened thread and hung up for a long talk about his sister.
- STD:WB:Ch 51 Overheard, but not seen, in the lit chamber down the main shaft, telling one of the conspirators that he has Vasher strung up above and is going off to torture him; refuses an interrogation job they want done, on the grounds that they didn't hire him for it.
- STD:WB:Ch 52 Standing with a lantern in the corner of the cell, cataloguing grievances — Arsteel's death, Shashara's death, what Vasher made him become. Backhands the bound man across the face, refuses to hand him off to Tonk Fah, and picks up the knife himself.
- STD:WB:Ch 53 Back to the hanging man, bloodied knives on the floor around him, refusing the offered truce that torturing Vasher cannot bring his sister back — and picking up another knife anyway.
- STD:WB:Ch 56 Holding the bloody knife when Vivenna comes through the window; drives his dueling blade through her shoulder, then fights Vasher until both are knocked together by an Awakened cloak and Vasher is shoved out the window.
- STD:WB:Ch 56 Arrives in the destroyed room where Vasher has just thrown the sword aside, drops a dueling blade onto the tile in front of him, and tells him they are going to finish what they started.
- STD:WB:Ch 57 Tries one last time to make Vasher admit he never beat Arsteel in a duel, then attacks and drives his blade through Vasher's left shoulder — his favourite first strike.
- STD:WB:Ch 57 Refuses Vasher's offer to have his memories taken from him, raises his blade for the killing stroke, and is dropped to his knees by an unwanted fifty-Breath bestowal and killed.
Backreferences
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 9
- factTonk Fah
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 10
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 13
- factLemex
- factJewels
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 17
- factVivenna
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 19
- factVasher
- factVivenna
- factArsteel
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 22
- factReturned
- factVivenna
- factGrable
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 25
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 28
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 29
- factVasher
- factNightblood
- factNightblood
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 31
- factThe Highlands
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 33
- factAwakening
- factVivenna
- factVivenna
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 35
- factParlin
- factDenth
- factDenth
- factTonk Fah
- factJewels
- factClod
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 37
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 39
- factDrab
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 41
- factVasher
- factNightblood
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 43
- factDenth
- factDenth
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 45
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 48
- factBioChromatic Breath
- factNanrovah
- factMisel
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 49
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 50
- factDenth
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 51
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 52
- factTonk Fah
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 53
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 56
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 57
- factVasher
- factDenth
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 58