Blackmane

Blackmane is an Allorwen sorcerer, scholar, and priest operating under a Palleseen-imposed identity as a pawnbroker in the Allorwen quarter of Mirror Allor, Ilmar. His true name means "Of the White Manor" in Allorwen; the Maric tongue mangles it into "Blackmane," a corruption that strips him of title while leaving the shape of his authority intact. He is "a big man in Mirror Allor," the community's fixer, creditor, and reluctant elder, whose network of wards, fences, and half-forgotten debts constitutes the infrastructure through which Allorwen refugees, contraband, and magical artefacts pass through a Palleseen occupation that criminalises every aspect of his existence. He matters to City of Last Chances as the connective tissue between its many factions: he fences for ruin-divers, holds debts on thieves, resists and collaborates with the Palleseen in equal measure, and sits at the centre of a rivalry with the Maestro Ivarn Ostravar that generates much of the novel's cascading crisis.

His arc moves from entrenched pragmatism through a rare act of costly loyalty to a final, weary refusal to flee. At the start he is a survivor who has been pardoned from the gallows four times, who lies to Inquirers, names rivals to save his own skin, and treats every relationship as a transaction. By the novel's end he has arranged the Donjon rescue alone, defied the Bitter Sisters' demands, and chosen to remain in Ilmar with the wards burnt and his kin already through the Wood - "a man acting on his first cause other than self-preservation." He ends the book still a fence, still crooked, still owing debts he cannot pay, but no longer entirely the creature of his own interest.

Character

Appearance

Blackmane is a large man whose physical presence is one of intimidation: he looms to terrify a Maric youth haggling over five pence in his shop, and in the crowd at the Donjon he is "a little mountain in the crowd's sea," clad in a fur coat and a fierce beard. His stare is described as "a particularly keen needle of a stare" when directed at a rival. Vulture thugs pass in and out of his cell, leering and spitting at him. - ch 8, ch 12, ch 26, ch 44

Personality

Blackmane is governed by a transactional, unsentimental worldview in which every alliance is a debt and every person a potential counterparty. He is cynical to the point of exhaustion about both Palleseen repression and Allorwen resistance, seeing no meaningful difference between the two when the same hands break the same windows. He holds grudges with geological patience - his rivalry with Ostravar is "of a complex and transactional nature, oft strewn with sharp stones" - yet is capable of startling self-awareness, admitting to a "moment of weakness" when his vindictiveness creates a crisis, and feeling shame at his own pettiness when an ex-priest's degraded circumstances amuse him. His community obligations bind him despite his resentment; he forbids himself from shopping his people to the Palleseen, and his final act is to stay in Ilmar for them. Langrice calls him "crooked as a corkscrew" but honest, this night only. - ch 12, ch 24, ch 36, ch 47

Beliefs & Motivations

Blackmane operates by a personal code of reciprocal obligation. He refuses to betray his Allorwen community to the Palleseen, even as he profits from their desperation. He treats his debts - the warding bundles, the magic mirror promised to the Bitter Sisters, the ritual wards his people need to cross the Wood - as binding contracts, not sentiments. He views the supernatural with wary distance; Fleance's possession by an Indweller horrifies him. His deepest motivation is survival within a system designed to erase him, but by the novel's close, survival alone has become insufficient, and he acts from loyalty and obligation even when they cost him dearly. - ch 5, ch 36, ch 47

History

City of Last Chances

The Murder of the Sage-Archivist

At the twelveday chaq Game in the Anchorage's hidden back room, Blackmane stakes an Eroic salve and coordinates with Langrice to keep the nervous Heron Fleance in play while slowly fleecing Ivarn Ostravar and Johanger Tulmueric - "they knew each other" in their shared operation of fleecing newcomers - ch 3. He examines Fleance's circle chalk and identifies its provenance: "That's from Mother Guame's," a signal that the evening's dynamics have shifted - ch 3. He then raises the ante with a Knife-Bearer tusk, narrating its bloody history: "From the last of the Knife-Bearers, the cats that thought like men. Once the property of our dear dead Duke. Previously to be found stabbed through the heart of his uncle, in circumstances mysterious." - ch 3. When Fleance, unable to match the pot, produces a perfectly crafted warding bundle of Ochelby's design, the ground shakes and an Anchorwood beast kills the Sage-Archivist outside. In the ensuing panic, the warding bundle vanishes - someone at the table grabbed it - and Blackmane shoves the wailing Fleance aside to reach the door - ch 3.

The Proclamation of the Wood

The following morning, Blackmane is led to the Donjon execution yard for what would be his fifth hanging. The hangman Hoyst measures him, offers a shave and a silk noose as upsells, and remarks "One day he'll tire of you" in reference to the patron who has pardoned him four times before - ch 5. Blackmane's true name means "Of the White Manor" in Allorwen, mangled to "Blackmane" in Maric; he was a sorcerer, scholar, and priest, and the Palleseen hate unlicensed magic and faith alike - ch 5. He had been arrested crossing into Mirror Allor and charged with the standard litany of Allorwen crimes. On the scaffold, he delivers a curse threatening to decant his spirit into a blade: "There are those in my quarter who shall find my body and lift my spirit from it. They shall decant it into a blade and whisper the names of all my enemies to its freshly honed edge. And within the year, its steel shall have found every one of their hearts." - ch 5. A clerk arrives with a fifth pardon; the crowd is disappointed.

As he walks away, Hegelsy of the School of Correct Speech stops him and demands information about the stolen "protection" and Ochelby's murder, addressing him as "Probationary Citizen" with deliberate relish - ch 5. Blackmane lies that he did not know the people he was with. He then walks through the Hammer Districts and back to Mirror Allor, where his shop has been ransacked by Palleseen soldiers at Ostravar's instigation; a note lists three items taken "for study" at the Gownhall - ch 5. His real loss is the enchanted mirror he had promised the Bitter Sisters - They won't even take my money from my hands. I have to send my staff to market, or else pay some middleman. So why, exactly, would I not work with you Palleseen? - ch 5. His errand-boy reports that the Pals are searching for Fleance and that Mother Guame's circle house was raided. Blackmane sends money to Guame in jail, a note to Mother Isildor urging the community to brace for further incursions, and orders the boy to find Fleance before the Pals do. Then, hating himself, he dictates a message to Hegelsy naming Ostravar and Statlos Shrievsby, setting wheels in motion he cannot control - ch 5.

In the Donjon cells, Ostravar dictates a written message and instructs two students to take it to Blackmane, who must find and move a Pal woman out of the Reproach; he provides damaging information about Blackmane as the hook - ch 8. Blackmane is described as "a big man in Mirror Allor" - ch 8.

The Assembly of the Reproach Expedition

Mother Guame walks from the Donjon toward Mirror Allor and Blackmane's shop - ch 10. The next morning, Blackmane is in his pawnshop examining a broken wooden cat statue and haggling a Maric youth from thirteen pence down to five, terrifying him with a sudden looming posture - ch 12. He greets Guame with the old Allorwen sorcerer's palm-touch, now degraded to a community acknowledgment; they note their mutual lack of trust, both too close to outsiders and distrusted by fellow Allorwen - ch 12. Two students arrive bearing Ostravar's crumpled letter, signed "I." Blackmane goes still; his calm is the kind "that came before knives" - ch 12. The letter pleads for help: Ostravar is in "durance vile and under personal threat" and asks Blackmane to recover a survivor of the late Sage-Archivist's battalion, possibly "adrift within the Reproach," offering to cede his title in "the thing we both witnessed and coveted" - ch 12. Guame demands what Blackmane has done; he admits "I had a moment of weakness and indulged my vindictive nature. Which has indirectly led to this." - ch 12. When pressed on whether Ostravar knows Blackmane is behind it, he replies: "Or he has nowhere else to turn." - ch 12. He pours a blood-red spirit into four cups, binding Guame into a covenant of silence: "To the ongoing health of my good friend Ivarn Ostravar" - ch 12. He dismisses the students, declaring he will act in three nights at the Anchorage, and predicts the people Ostravar needs are already dead: "Some skinny thief and a Palleseen clerk? They will be wearing the phantom velvet already, and three days will mean nothing." - ch 12.

Narration confirms that Hegelsy routed Blackmane's complaints to ensnare Ostravar and Shrievsby, his method being to find fractures and apply pressure - ch 13. Blackmane arrives at the Anchorage to confront Ruslav - "You're in prison." / "Am I indeed? I got better." - ch 15. He tells the ruin-divers Grymme, Meraqui, and Dostritsyn "You know what you need to do," washes his hands of the students, and leaves to talk to Langrice - ch 15. He fences their Reproach goods through Mirror Allor and operates as a "confederate of old" to Langrice - ch 15.

Into the Reproach

During the expedition into the Reproach, the Varatsin Duke appears as an elegant Armiger figure wearing a diadem identified from Blackmane's record books as a lost treasure - ch 18. The Reproach treasures looted by the divers are sold to Blackmane; Dostritsyn states "Blackmane's a businessman first and foremost" and will "toast the lost" with him - ch 17.

The Healing of Ruslav

Fleance, hiding at the Anchorwood's border after the death of Companion-Archivist Nasely, fears Blackmane among the many creditors and factions hunting him; Blackmane is listed as a creditor he owes money to - ch 20. In Correct Speech's cells, Ivarn Ostravar notes that Dorae's antiques shop is "indistinguishable from Blackmane's pawnbrokerage," placing the two in the same trade - ch 21.

The Hanging at the Donjon

Late afternoon at the Anchorage, Blackmane haggles with two Heron rivermen over sealed deliveries, contraband, black-market tablethi, and crates of swords; he complains that the Palleseen crackdown in Mirror Allor turned his stock over three times in three days and items walked out of his shop for free - ch 24. He is cynical about resistance: "These students and idealists and bird-wearers you get in here, everything's it for them. It's always the uprising tomorrow. Only when tomorrow becomes today, the uprising stays tomorrow." - ch 24. He sees no difference between resistance and Palleseen repression: "It's so strange, the way that when the Pals are on the advance, then there are people breaking windows and bones in the streets of Mirror Allor, and when the Pals get pushed back, the exact same. It's just what clothes the people wear is different." - ch 24. After learning the condemned include Ostravar, Blackmane abruptly stands and declares: "A night to be spent in unsavoury negotiations. Because tomorrow, they hang my long-time acquaintance Ivarn, to whom I owe so much, and I wish to be there to see that they do it properly." - ch 24. This is described as a man acting on his first cause other than self-preservation - ch 24.

At the scaffold the next morning, Blackmane stands in the crowd, "a little mountain in the crowd's sea" in a fur coat and fierce beard; he nods to Dorae and Tobriant but fixes Ostravar with "a particularly keen needle of a stare" - ch 26.

The Rescue from the Donjon

Blackmane arranged the rescue by bribing Hoyst with the cursed rope of the Old Duke, modifying the execution so the condemned appeared dead but survived; the Palleseen furnaces then incinerated the apparently-dead bodies as routine - ch 29. The rescue was not the work of any resistance faction; Blackmane acted alone as a pawnbroker settling a debt - ch 29. Lemya wakes in a cellar of corpses and, led up by Langrice, finds Blackmane waiting in the taproom. He speaks Allorwen to Dorae and Tobriant: they are legally dead, their families are coming with money, and he provides them with ritual wards to cross the Wood - ch 29. He then confronts Ostravar, demanding the Pal artifact promised as payment for the rescue, and hurls him through a tabletop. Ostravar admits he never had it; he sent Lemya to Blackmane in desperation, "half expected you to laugh in her face." Blackmane realizes the artifact is unaccounted for - "Something you could buy half the Gutter Districts for, and nobody's talking." - ch 29. He tells them all they are dead to the city: "You're all dead. The moment the Pals understand that isn't true they'll not rest. You know how they are with unfinished paperwork." - ch 29. He leaves.

In the second cellar, Ostravar broods and claims the Game was a trick to deceive Blackmane; he insists repeatedly he does not have his treasure - ch 31.

The Last Calm Night

Ruslav is assigned by the Bitter Sisters to pursue Blackmane, though he feels the order is meaningless; Blackmane had saved Ruslav from the noose only incidentally, through his dealings with Ostravar, and Ruslav owes him nothing sentimentally - ch 34.

At Mother Guame's brothel, Blackmane counts seventeen Allorwen refugees needing passage through the Anchorwood and declares seventeen ill-omened, demanding one family stay behind - ch 36. Mother Guame presses a warding bundle into his hands without naming a price; Blackmane is shaken by the gift - ch 36. He briefly talks with Yasnic, feeling both mean-spirited pleasure and shame at the ex-priest's presence in a brothel - ch 36. He leads the refugees toward the Anchorage past Palleseen troops mustering at the Anchorwood's edge, bribing two sentries with pennies to look the other way - ch 36. Inside, Langrice confirms the Wood will open tonight; Hellgram escorts the refugees to a hidden cellar - ch 36. Fleance bursts in, possessed by the ghost of an Indweller he killed, wearing their flayed skin, and rages that he searched the Loruthi, a Vulture, an Armiger, and a Gownhall maestro for "the thing" and now demands it from Blackmane - ch 36. Fleance attacks, slashing Hellgram's palm and trying to stab Blackmane; Langrice jams the Indweller mask onto Fleance's face and the body collapses - ch 36. Evene arrives with Benno, Shevorn, and a dozen Vulture thugs, demanding the magic mirror and ward Blackmane owes the Bitter Sisters; Benno brings up all four warding bundles from the cellar - ch 36. Langrice negotiates, invoking the Anchorage's neutral role as third-party go-between; Evene accepts the premise but refuses to leave: "We'll take you, too." - ch 36. Evene escorts Blackmane and Langrice out under the dawn sky toward the Fort - ch 36.

Hellgram's War

The Allorwen are anxious without Blackmane and their ritual wards; Jem notes there is "no Blackmane and no ritual wards" - ch 42. Blackmane and Langrice are held prisoner by the Vultures, wrists leashed together by rope through a high ring; Vulture thugs pass in and out, leering and spitting at Blackmane - ch 44. In broken moments between guard changes, Blackmane asks whether Langrice told anyone he had the mirror; she hasn't, but didn't deny it either. He laments his rivalry with Ostravar: "You and him, over and over. You should just marry him and be done with it." - ch 44. He reflects: "I don't understand why I didn't. Kill him, not marry him. He's earned it. With his arrangements with the Pals every time he wanted something from my shop. I had his throat under my fingers, Langrice. Why not just squeeze?" - ch 44. The Bitter Sisters interrogate him about the mirror; he denies having it. They have robbed his shop's front window and display the trinkets and the conjuring-circle desk mockingly - ch 44. Langrice improvises a story about a hidden compartment under his desk to buy time; Blackmane plays along, over-insisting "it's not there" - ch 44. When Hellgram detonates the wards binding the centipede creature and it tears Evene apart, Carelia threatens to burn Blackmane's wards with her rod; Blackmane begs Hellgram to hold, and Hellgram replies: "She is my wife. My soulmate. Who am I to deny her anything?" - ch 44. The creature kills Carelia. In the aftermath, Langrice touches Blackmane's arm and says "Let's go home." He agrees acidly - ch 44.

The Reproach Breaks Free

Blackmane stands beside Langrice watching the Reproach host held before the Wood, calmly reporting the dead and conscripted among the dancers - ch 47. Inside the Anchorage, his nineteen fugitives shelter in the cellars. He confronts Ostravar over his presence and reveals the wards to the Wood are burnt, destroyed by the Bitter Sisters - ch 47. He threatens to expose Langrice's hiding-place of the Palleseen warding bundle; she refuses to give it to him personally but agrees to let everyone in the taproom use it for passage - ch 47. When Langrice hammers the bar and announces "The Wood's open," Blackmane objects to Ostravar's presence; Ostravar shuts him down: "You and I are not such men as should speak of deserving. Ask what wrong I ever did to you that you'd not have visited on me had you the chance." - ch 47. Blackmane decides to stay in Ilmar rather than pass through the Wood - ch 47. His kin have gone into the Wood and do not welcome him back warmly; Langrice regards him as "crooked as a corkscrew" but "honest, this night only" - ch 47.

In the aftermath, Blackmane finishes selling an Ilmari artefact to two Armigers' retainers; Langrice nods his deal through, and they will play a game that night and later sort looted valuables. His second eyebrow signals the possibility of him staying until dawn - ch 49. Langrice and Blackmane remain business partners separating looted valuables and occasional bedfellows; she doesn't like him but uses him - ch 49. As Yasnic speaks of the forgotten gods returning, Langrice feels their potential return as a change in weather and, unsettled, decides she needs "new insurance" against Blackmane and his Allorwen clientele - ch 49.

Relationships

- Langrice - "Confederate of old," business partners, and occasional bedfellows. They co-operate in the Game's fleecing operation, coordinate the Anchorage's neutral logistics, and run the refugee-smuggling and loot-separation business together. The bond is one of mutual distrust and mutual need: "He'd sell her... She'd sell him." She does not like him; she uses him. At the Fort, chained together, she improvises a story to save his life, and afterward says simply, Let's go home. - ch 3, ch 15, ch 24, ch 36, ch 44, ch 47, ch 49 - Ivarn Ostravar - A rivalry of mutual predation and accumulated debt. They were gaming companions; Ostravar has orchestrated Palleseen raids on Blackmane's shop to acquire his stock and remove him as a rival buyer. Blackmane retaliates by naming Ostravar to Correct Speech, then rescues him from the gallows as a debt-keeping transaction. Ostravar's repeated use of the Palleseen against Blackmane's interests accumulates a resentment Blackmane wrestles with in captivity: I had his throat under my fingers, Langrice. Why not just squeeze? - ch 3, ch 5, ch 12, ch 24, ch 26, ch 29, ch 44, ch 47 - Mother Guame - Fellow Allorwen elder. They greet with the old sorcerer's palm-touch, degraded to a community acknowledgment; neither is fully trusted by their own people because both are "too much in the company of outsiders." Blackmane pays for her jail upkeep; she gives him a warding bundle freely, trusting his hands despite their unsafety. Long-standing mutual obligation without affection. - ch 5, ch 12, ch 36 - Fleance - A creditor-debtor relationship that shifts into something closer to reluctant guardianship. Blackmane shoves him aside at the Game, then orders his errand-boy to find Fleance before the Palleseen do. Fleance, hiding and hunted, fears Blackmane among his creditors. In the novel's final act, Fleance, possessed by an Indweller, attacks Blackmane demanding "the thing." - ch 3, ch 5, ch 20, ch 36 - Hoyst - The hangman and his repeated "customer." Five encounters, four pardons. Hoyst addresses him familiarly and accepts the cursed rope of the Old Duke as payment for the Donjon rescue. Blackmane calls him "My old friend Hoyst." - ch 5, ch 29 - Hegelsy - A School of Correct Speech Inquirer who investigates Blackmane, addresses him as "Probationary Citizen" with deliberate relish, and routes his complaints to ensnare Ostravar and Shrievsby. - ch 5, ch 13 - the Bitter Sisters - Creditors holding the debt of a magic mirror and a ward Blackmane owes them; the mirror is lost to Ostravar's raid. They take him hostage, interrogate him, and rob his shop's display mockingly. Their leadership is destroyed by Hellgram's centipede creature. - ch 5, ch 36, ch 44 - Dorae and Tobriant - Fellow Allorwen in the same trade. Blackmane speaks to them in Allorwen as a community elder, providing ritual wards and instructions to leave the city after the Donjon rescue. - ch 21, ch 26, ch 29 - Ruslav - Ruslav was saved from the noose only incidentally through Blackmane's dealings with Ostravar; he owes Blackmane nothing sentimentally and accepts the Bitter Sisters' order to pursue him. - ch 34 - Evene - A Vulture leader who comes to collect the mirror and ward Blackmane owes the Bitter Sisters, takes him hostage to the Fort, and is killed by Hellgram's creature. - ch 36, ch 44 - Yasnic - Blackmane feels "both mean-spirited pleasure and shame" at the ex-priest's presence in Mother Guame's brothel. - ch 36

Notable Quotes

"From the last of the Knife-Bearers, the cats that thought like men. Once the property of our dear dead Duke. Previously to be found stabbed through the heart of his uncle, in circumstances mysterious." - Blackmane, City of Last Chances, ch 3

"There are those in my quarter who shall find my body and lift my spirit from it. They shall decant it into a blade and whisper the names of all my enemies to its freshly honed edge. And within the year, its steel shall have found every one of their hearts." - Blackmane, City of Last Chances, ch 5

"These students and idealists and bird-wearers you get in here, everything's it for them. It's always the uprising tomorrow. Only when tomorrow becomes today, the uprising stays tomorrow." - Blackmane, City of Last Chances, ch 24

"A night to be spent in unsavoury negotiations. Because tomorrow, they hang my long-time acquaintance Ivarn, to whom I owe so much, and I wish to be there to see that they do it properly." - Blackmane, City of Last Chances, ch 24

"You're all dead. The moment the Pals understand that isn't true they'll not rest. You know how they are with unfinished paperwork." - Blackmane, City of Last Chances, ch 29

"I don't understand why I didn't. Kill him, not marry him. He's earned it. With his arrangements with the Pals every time he wanted something from my shop. I had his throat under my fingers, Langrice. Why not just squeeze?" - Blackmane, City of Last Chances, ch 44

Tags

1. pawnbroker · #allorwen · #sorcerer · #antiques-dealer