Icarium

'Icarium, the Jhag by that name. The maker of machines, the chaser of time -'...'Aye, lord of the sand grains...'(DG, UK MMPB, p.342)

'A Jaghut-blood wanderer around whom swirled, like the blackest wake, rumours of devastation, appalling murders, genocide...The Icarium he (Fiddler) was coing to know made those rumours seem ludicrous. The Jhag was generous, compassionate...This Icarium was too wise, too scarred, to tumble into power's river of blood.'(DG, UK MMPB, p.456)

Fiddler's POV: 'Hide-bound legs...an extraordinarily tall man, lean, wearing a faded Tano telaba. His skin was somewhere between grey and green, and he held in his long-fingered hands a recurved bow and a rune-wrapped arrow nocked and ready. His long, grey hair showed remnants of black dye, making his mane appear spotted ... ragged tips of tusks bulging the line of his thin lower lip. A Jhag. Didn't know they travelled this far east.'(DG, UK MMPB, p.301-2)

'His slitted grey eyes...'(DG, UK MMPB, p.347)

Mappo suggests that Icarium is approx. 7 feet tall (DG, UK MMPB, p.42)

'For all his years, Icarium has never mastered the social grace necessary to put others at ease.'(DG, UK MMPB, p.342)

Icarium seems to have a kind of darkvision, neither he or Mappo having 'much need for artificial light, the darkness...offering no obstacle.' (DG, UK MMPB, p.172) Whether or not this is a racial trait is a separate question, though it seems likely.

Icarium's Earlier History

Mael's thoughts:   Do you now feel as if you have come home, Icarium?  I remember you, striding from the sea, a refugee from a realm you had laid to waste.  Yet your father did not await you -- he had gone, he had walked down the throat of an Azath.  Icarium, he was Jaghut, and among the Jaghut, no father reaches across to take his child’s hand.

The legends claim that Icarium emergedfrom this place, strode out from Raraku. A warren torn to pieces –

Raraku changes all who stride its broken soil – gods, have we indeed come to the place where Icarium’s living nightmare was born? (DG)

Icariums Obsession with Time

Icarium's Rage

Mappo on Icarium's rage: 'Yours is a blind rage . . . a rage unequalled. It burns fierce, so fierce all your memory of what you do is obliterated. I watch you – I have watched you stirring those cold ashes, ever seeking to discover who you are, yet there I stand, at your side, bound by a vow to prevent you ever committing such an act again. You have destroyed cities, entire peoples. Once you begin killing, you cannot stop, until all before you is . . . lifeless.’ (DG, UK Trade, p.494)

Phyrlis : ‘The foundations survive, of course. The House’s walls. The anchorstone in the yard’s corners – all beneath my cloak of soil.’

‘Foolish, unmindful T’lan Imass, to drive a spear into the grounds of an Azath House.’

‘What did they know of houses, Cynnigig? Creatures of caves and hide tents. Besides, it was already dying and had been for years. Fatally wounded. Oh, Icarium was on his knees by the time he finally delivered

the mortal blow, raving with madness. And had not his Toblakai companion taken that opportunity to strike him unconscious . . .’

‘He would have freed his father.’ Cynnigig nodded around a mouthful of meat.

Icarium’s father had no desire to be saved. And so the House died, weakening the fabric . . .’

‘Sufficiently for the warren to be torn apart. ..’ (HoC)

Taralack Veed"..You were driven by the need to free your father who had been taken by a House of the Azath.  Faced with terrible failure, a deeper, deadlier force was born - your rage.  You shattered a wounded warren, and you destroyed an Azath." (BH)

Icarium and the K'Chain

'Kalse Uprooted, Destriant.  But there is no Matron within it.  The one who commands (Icarium) … it has been a long time since he last walked among the K'Chain Che'Malle and Nah'ruk.'

Icarium and the Eres

In a half-crouch, moving lithe, sinuous, filled with trepidation, approaching Icarium from behind, as the Jhag began walking towards the lone Tiste Edur.

Then, a swift dart forward -- Icarium heard and began his spin round -- but she had reached out, a long-fingered hand -- no weapon, reaching out, and Varat Taun saw the fingertips brush Icarium, just above the Jhag’s right hip -- the slightest of touches --

And the Slayer crumpled to the ground.

Behind Varat, a wordless cry, and the Letherii flinched as someone scrambled past him -- Taralack Veed --

The unhuman female had crouched beside the fallen form of Icarium.  Softly stroking the slayer’s forehead, as the amber glow began to fade, and with that fading, the female herself grew indistinct, then dissolved into gold light, that flickered, then vanished. (BH)

Icarium's Dream

'It began as all such dreams begin. I am stumbling. In pain. Yet I bear no wounds, and my weapons are clean. No, the pain is within me, as of a knowledge once gained, then lost yet again...I arrive...at the outskirts of a town. A Trellish town on the plain. It has been destroyed. Scars of sorcery stain the ground . . . the air. Bodies rot in the streets, and Great Ravens have come to feed – their laughter is the voice of the stench...And then a woman appears, dressed as are these here before us. A priestess. She holds a staff, from which fell power still bleeds.

‘“What have you done?” I ask her.

‘ “Only what is necessary,” is her soft reply. I see in her face a great fear as she looks upon me, and I am saddened by it. “Jhag, you must not wander alone.”

‘Her words seem to call up terrible memories. And images, faces – companions, countless in number. As if I have rarely been alone. Men and women have walked at my side, sometimes singly, sometimes in legion. These memories fill me with grief, as if in some way I have betrayed every one of those companions...ndeed, I understand this now. They were all guardians, like you, Mappo.  And they all failed.  Were, perhaps, killed by my own hand...The priestess sees what lies writ upon my face, for hers becomes its mirror.  Then she nods. Her staff blossoms with sorcery . . . and I wander a lifeless plain, alone. The pain is gone – where it had lodged within me, there is now nothing.  And, as I feel my memories drift apart . . . away . . . I sense I have but dreamed. And so awaken.'(DG, UK Trade, p.530-1)

Icarium and the Nameless Ones

Mappo talking with Ardata : “Wait -- you said something -- the Nameless Ones, that they made Icarium.  I thought --”

 “Forged by their own hands, and then, through the succession of guardians like you, Mappo, honed again and yet again.  Was he as deadly when he first crawled from the wreckage they’d made of his young life?  As deadly as he is now?  I would imagine not.”  

The Errant : Abyss take me, all that waits within him.  The foment none other here can see, could even guess at.  Dear son of Gothos and that Barghast witch, the stain of Azath blood is about you like a cloud.  This was more than a curse -- all that afflicted this fell warrior.  Deliberate skeins were woven about him, the threads of some elaborate, ancient, and deadly ritual.  And he knew their flavour.  The Nameless Ones. (RG)

Icarium and the Forkrul Assail

He had sought a way out.  He had flung himself from the conflagration.  But even the power of the Azath could not breach Akhrast Korvalain, and so he had been cast down, his mind shattered, the fragments drowning in a sea of alien blood.