Glowing Eyes
also known as Glowing Eyes, the Cinder King
A tall, unwrinkled man in a black coat who leads the hovercity that takes Nomad in, his eyes simmering a deep red as though lit from within and the edges of his coat glowing in a matching red-orange. The crowd parts and lowers eyes when he arrives. He bares one ungloved hand to seize Nomad's face — apparently expecting something to happen — and is visibly surprised when nothing does. When the crowd repeats the title given to Nomad he roars at them to stop, then kicks Nomad down for sport. STD:TSM:Ch 2
Known facts
- touch-on-nomad-failedBared one hand and seized Nomad by the face expecting something to happen; nothing did, to his visible surprise. He shifted his grip, tried again, then gave up and wiped his hand on his coat before regloving it.STD:TSM:Ch 2
- drains-life-from-captivesKills captives by seizing them by the throat; their skin goes ashen and they slump dead in his grip, and the ember in his own chest brightens as the life leaves them.STD:TSM:Ch 4
- obsessed-with-the-doorHas spent years searching for and trying to open the buried metal door the recovered disc is keyed to. He can find the door but, lacking the right key, has never been able to pass inside; it is the cornerstone of his pet project, known to only a few of his people.STD:TSM:Ch 11
- controls-equator-via-unionRules from Union, at the equatorial corridor with the most resources, and has incorporated every city of significance into it. In smaller towns he installs a handful of officials and a few of the Charred to enforce his rule.STD:TSM:Ch 12
- recent-rhetoric-of-unificationHas recently sharpened his rhetoric — claiming a destiny to unify all people into one city under his rule. The shift is what drove Beacon to break away into the dark in the first place.STD:TSM:Ch 12
- obtained-the-key-from-a-corpseCame into possession of the disc when one of his outriders recovered it from a stranger who had died in a mudslide. The find sharpened his existing obsession with the buried door.STD:TSM:Ch 12
- lottery-of-peopleLevies a once-a-rotation 'lottery' of people from his subject towns. The lottery is not a euphemism: the chosen are left for the sun, and their condensed souls become sunhearts — the power sources every city on this world runs on.STD:TSM:Ch 12
- drains-by-touch-at-scaleHas weaponised the Threnodite touch — he can pull heat out of a human deliberately and fast enough to leave them a dead husk. By Rebeke's account, he has fed on thousands of people; Aux warns Nomad that anyone that heavily Invested is to be watched.STD:TSM:Ch 13
- philosophy-of-controlStates outright that he understands true power not as the ability to kill but as the ability to command the killers — a creed he formed while he was the man who marched prisoners to their fate, before he rose to his present office.STD:TSM:Ch 16
- self-styled-unifierBelieves himself destined to weld every group on Canticle into a single people — a vocation he claims to have read out of the offworlder's guidebook, not invented for himself.STD:TSM:Ch 16
- killed-the-first-offworlderKilled the first offworlder to reach his planet — a Thaylen visitor who tried to talk his way free through a translation device — on the suspicion that the man was something unnatural. Kept the dead man's books and device and rendered the body into a sunheart so small it barely glows.STD:TSM:Ch 16
- ramming-and-boardingWages aerial war in the manner of pre-firearm naval combat — no cannons, no mounted guns, just ramming, bracketing and boarding. The pattern fits his needs: it captures hulls intact and turns prisoners into sunhearts, and his Charred fight best at close quarters with batons.STD:TSM:Ch 18
- batons-over-bladesEquips his Charred with batons rather than swords; he wants prisoners alive to burn into sunhearts.STD:TSM:Ch 18
- buys-loyalty-and-hates-payingPrefers, when he cannot intimidate someone into his service, to buy them — and reportedly hates having to pay. Confidence assumes he tried this on Nomad and credits Nomad aloud for refusing him.STD:TSM:Ch 23
- carries-a-cinderheart-in-his-chestCarries a cinderheart in his own chest — the source of his ability to feed on thousands of souls — and uses lesser cinderhearts jammed deep into others' chests to forge his Charred. His own glows more brightly than those of his servants, and Aux notices the Charred cinderhearts respond to his unspoken commands at a distance.STD:TSM:Ch 24
- channels-not-creates-violenceProbably does not order the Charred to attack on every individual contact — they are already, by their cinderheart-driven nature, frenzied and eager to fight. Nomad reasons after watching the post-cure Elegy that the Cinder King mostly just points them in chosen directions and channels their violence to his ends.STD:TSM:Ch 25
- personally-guards-his-harvests-nowKnowing he cannot be sure the offworld wild card actually died in the ascent, the Cinder King now attends his own sunheart collections in person — out from under cover, watching the sky, escorted by Charred — to make sure no one steals what is his. His own workers note privately how unusual and unnerving the king's personal attention is.STD:TSM:Ch 35
- first-offworlder-was-found-dyingConcedes to Nomad in the dark outside the vault that the first offworlder was found sick rather than slain — he did not earn that kill in a duel. His claim to being the stronger one rests, in his own framing, only on the bare fact that he is still breathing while the visitor is now a sunheart on his trophy shelf.STD:TSM:Ch 36
- insecure-tyrant-exploitable-fearZellion reads the Cinder King as deep-down insecure — a man frightened that the throne, the power and the secrets he hoards are about to be taken from him. The reading is correct: presented with a credible feint at the Refuge, the tyrant breaks formation in person to defend the true site, leading Beacon's ships straight to it.STD:TSM:Ch 41
- supplier-of-sunhearts-to-the-refuge-source-of-charred-techThe TimeTellers reveal that they already have a sunheart supplier — the Cinder King — who delivers them what they need in exchange for tidbits of offworld technology and knowledge. Zellion realises with a jolt that the tyrant had not been trying to reach the Refuge to escape into it; he reached it years ago and has been using it as the secret source of his power. The Charred manufacture, the controlling bracers — these are what the Scadrian technology let him build.STD:TSM:Ch 44
- declares-himself-the-coming-unifierLooking down at the survivors of Beacon from the rim of Union, the Cinder King states his motive aloud: he intends to be the man who finally unifies this world. Beacon's death is to be the demonstration that breaks the will of every remaining corridor city — once they hear what the price of rebellion was, no one else will defy him.STD:TSM:Ch 46
- invokes-prearranged-old-plan-for-zellionWhen Elegy's sabotage at the gun spoils his attempt to shoot Zellion out of the sky, the Cinder King tells his officials calmly to *go back to the old plan for dealing with him* — implying a prearranged ambush already laid out for the eventuality that Zellion would reach Union alive. He orders the city into lockdown so no ship can leave with Zellion aboard, and walks a captive Rebeke toward the central buildings.STD:TSM:Ch 48
- heals-surface-wounds-instantlyThe single solid hit Zellion manages in their duel — a punch that splits the Cinder King's lip — closes back over at speed in front of him. He concludes that the Cinder King is Invested enough on his own to regenerate surface damage as fast as it can be inflicted, which is what makes bare-knuckle fighting safe for him in the first place.STD:TSM:Ch 49
- openly-names-the-timetellers-as-his-suppliersStanding over Zellion in the duel, the Cinder King names his arms supplier in passing: the gravity bracer on Zellion's ankle, he says, is *a gift from our friends in the hidden ship*. Confirms in his own voice the alignment Zellion had already inferred — the Cinder King is the TimeTellers' field client on Canticle and is equipped accordingly.STD:TSM:Ch 49
- killed-by-the-dawnCornered with Union flown away, the Cinder King tries one more time to take Zellion's heat and is instead drained dry of it himself. The light goes out of his eyes, his cinderheart dims to a normal gemstone, and the dawn that should have washed him clean burns him to ash. Killed in single combat by the offworlder he had named the Sunlit Man, by his own preferred mechanism turned back on him.STD:TSM:Ch 52
- sunheart-will-be-the-last-one-ever-madeRebeke tells the Greater Good she intends to recover the Cinder King's sunheart from the pit where he fell, use it to power Union for a while, and never let another sunheart be made. He will be the final lottery victim of his own system, in that sense — the source of the last sunheart Canticle ever needs.STD:TSM:Epilogue
Events
- STD:TSM:Ch 2 Parts the crowd at the hovercity edge, has Nomad's manacles removed, bares one hand to seize Nomad's face, then sneers "Kor Sess Nassith Tor" and kicks him down.
- STD:TSM:Ch 3 Watches the arena from a tiered balcony at the head of the ring, then ends the contest by triggering the freeze bracers and knocking Nomad cold.
- STD:TSM:Ch 4 Addresses the arena crowd from a podium-ship, drains three captives by touch, drives an ember spear into a woman to make her into one of his warriors, and is approaching Nomad with a second spear when the attack begins.
- STD:TSM:Ch 5 Drops onto the field on his podium ship with a rifle in hand, vaporises the male rescuer's head with one shot, pins the woman rescuer behind her hovercycle, and watches from a distance as his ember warriors take up the chase of Nomad's fleeing cycle.
- STD:TSM:Ch 16 Hosts Nomad alone aboard his flagship — coat with softly glowing ribbons, gloves, a cabinet of trophies — and offers him employment as the price of the lessons read out of the Silverlight guidebook. Demonstrates his philosophy of control by strangling one of his own Charred until the man drops gasping at his feet. Has Rebeke dragged in gagged, draws his pistol on her, and fires.
- STD:TSM:Ch 17 Stalks out of the cabin firing wildly, then a rifle; finds Nomad's swap of his key with the fake and slams both pistol and fake to the deck before retreating.
- STD:TSM:Ch 18 Off-page as the architect of the ambush — his ships ram and bracket Beacon's vessels, his boarders fight with batons, and his pressure forces the city south out of its corridor.
- STD:TSM:Ch 41 Commands the enemy fleet from his own ship; flies off in person with his elite squadron when Zellion's feint convinces him the Refuge has been found.
- STD:TSM:Ch 43 His landed forces ring the buried disc; he is dispersed by the gunship rake and pulled back by the deterrent blast from below.
- STD:TSM:Ch 46 Stands at the rim of Union watching Beacon's survivors die below — performs the implanting rite on Elegy in front of everyone, hears out Rebeke's gambit, refuses on the grounds that giving in would cede her power over him, and condemns her to be made into one of his Charred after watching her people burn.
- STD:TSM:Ch 48 Climbs up beside the captured Beaconite gun on Union's rim, fires once into the dome over Beacon to prove it works, then swings it at Zellion's inbound ship and misses because of Elegy's sabotage. Recaptures Rebeke, drains some of her heat by bare hand to bait Elegy, orders the city into lockdown, and walks his retinue off toward the Hall of Burning.
- STD:TSM:Ch 48 Stands waiting in the open square between the Reliquary and the Hall of Burning when Zellion and Elegy arrive — hands on hips, well clear of cover, beckoning Zellion forward into whatever the *old plan* is.
- STD:TSM:Ch 49 Stages a televised duel against Zellion in Union's central square — first lets his snipers and officials weaken Zellion with pellets and a freeze bracer, then locks a gravity bracer onto his ankle, then theatrically removes the freeze bracer in front of the cameras as if granting fairness. Strips his gloves, drives Zellion back across the square hit by hit, regenerates the lip Zellion splits, and works the broadcast.
- STD:TSM:Ch 51 Punches Zellion off Union into the mud below, frustrated at the lack of a good show, and is left dumbfounded as the city he tyrannised lifts off the ground and abandons him there in the path of the dawn.
- STD:TSM:Ch 52 Killed in single combat on the surface of Canticle — his hoarded Investiture drained out of him by Zellion's reversed prayer and the husk left for the rising sun to burn.
Backreferences
- factSess Nassith Tor
- factfreeze bracers
- factember people
- factember spear
- factthe rebel attackers
- factthe woman rescuer
- factember warship
- factember power cell
- factfreeze bracers
- factthe rebel attackers
- factRebeke Salvage
- factZeal
- factBeacon
- factBeacon
- factConfidence
- factthe access disc
- factHaridan
- factthe access disc
- factUnion
- factprospector ship
- factthe deadband
- factthe southern range
- factthe scout
- factthis world
- factthe iron fields
- factthe Cinder King's flagship
- factthis world
- factthe Silverlight guidebook
- factSilverlight
- factthe translation device
- factthe first offworlder
- factCanticle
- factContemplation
- factSigzil
- factConfidence
- factGlowing Eyes
- factElegy
- factCinderheart
- factGlowing Eyes
- factElegy
- factBeacon
- factElegy
- factthe Dawnchaser
- factthe Refuge
- factSigzil
- summarySTD:TSM:Ch 32
- factsunheart
- summarySTD:TSM:Ch 34
- summarySTD:TSM:Ch 35
- factAuxiliary
- factGlowing Eyes
- summarySTD:TSM:Ch 36
- factthe first offworlder
- factSigzil
- summarySTD:TSM:Ch 37
- factember people
- factember people
- factthe Chasm Kata
- summarySTD:TSM:Ch 38
- factElegy
- summarySTD:TSM:Ch 40
- summarySTD:TSM:Ch 41
- factGlowing Eyes
- factBeacon
- summarySTD:TSM:Ch 42
- factthe Refuge
- factcinderheart bomb
- summarySTD:TSM:Ch 43
- factSigzil
- summarySTD:TSM:Ch 44
- factGlowing Eyes
- factTimeTellers
- summarySTD:TSM:Ch 46
- factGlowing Eyes
- factRebeke Salvage
- factElegy
- factCinderheart
- summarySTD:TSM:Ch 47
- factsunheart recharge
- summarySTD:TSM:Ch 48
- factGlowing Eyes
- factElegy
- factElegy
- factthe Hall of Burning
- summarySTD:TSM:Ch 49
- factGlowing Eyes
- factGlowing Eyes
- factSunlit Man
- factScadrian gravity bracer
- summarySTD:TSM:Ch 50
- factRebeke Salvage
- factCinderheart
- summarySTD:TSM:Ch 51
- factRebeke Salvage
- factUnion
- summarySTD:TSM:Ch 52
- factAuxiliary
- factGlowing Eyes
- factSigzil
- summarySTD:TSM:Epilogue
- factGlowing Eyes