Who's who: Abelard, Raz and Shale
With the Craft Wars series well underway, and characters we haven’t seen in years going on adventures together (Caleb and Abelard is a friendship I never knew I needed), it’s time to go back to basics and get to know the who’s who of the Domain!
As Three Parts Dead will be most people’s introduction to the series, we’re starting in Alt Coulumb with Abelard, Raz and Shale. (Cat’s coming in the next article, don’t worry). This article also gets a dotted line to the Tara Abernathy Deep Dive as these three are part of her gang.
“Please, tell everyone in Alt Coulumb that I miss them. That I can’t wait to come home.
A pause, in which she reflected on deities’ general tendency towards literal-mindedness, and this specific goddess’s tendency towards sarcasm.
Not everyone in Alt Coulumb, I mean. Just the usuals. Abelard and Cat and Shale and—you know. My friends.”
Poor Raz didn’t get a mention there, so let’s have another quote from later in the book:
“She remembered Alt Coulumb shining, and Shale and Abelard and Cat and Raz, remembered gods she had saved and known and loved.”
There are some minor spoilers here because there’s not really any other way to talk about characters, but I’ve kept them as minimal as possible.
Who are Abelard, Raz and Shale?
Abelard (no surname), Shale (lots of honorifics but no surname), and Captain Rasophilius Pelham (enough name for all three, really) are key players in Three Parts Dead and Four Roads Cross - the Alt Coulumb duology, as I personally view these books. We see Abelard and Shale briefly in Dead Country and in significant roles in Wicked Problems, but as yet have not seen Raz in three books / approximately six years. I’m pretty confident he’ll show up in Craft Wars #3 but nothing is confirmed.
These three would likely never have crossed paths, let alone become part of the same friend group, if it wasn’t for the death of Kos, Denovo’s scheming, and Tara’s intervention in the resurrections of Kos and Seril. Abelard was a dedicated novice in the Church of Kos; Shale was an exiled gargoyle who hadn’t stepped foot in AC for nigh on sixty years; and Raz was a pirate who had visited the city once, forty years ago, and never since. Yet, following Three Parts Dead and Four Roads Cross, they are seemingly all inhabitants of that great city, and actively working together.
Abelard and Shale have some similarities in their devotion to their respective god and goddess, but their personalities are hardly alike. Raz had no such connection to the Lord and Lady of Alt Coulumb until his unfortunate deal at the end of Four Roads Cross and subsequent granting of asylum. But now they are connected by city, adventure, and, notably, Tara Abernathy.
They’re also self-sacrificing IDIOTS, but that’s true of 90% of Craft Sequence characters.
Now, let’s look at the three men individually.
Who is Abelard?
“You said you were a novice Technician. Which means you, what, clean the steam pipes?”
His barking laugh echoed through the stairwell. “We have cleaners for that. Repairment and machinists. A Technician oversees the Divine Throne, the heart of the city. We design, improve, optimise the devices that keep this place running. Not me, yet, though. I was only promoted to Technician a few months back.”
“You’re low on the totem pole?”
“As low as a Technician gets. The king of the backed-up burners, that’s me, archdeacon of scut work. I’m learning, though.”
Priest. Technician. Saint. Abelard of no surname is, when we first meet him, a novice in the Church of Kos; specifically a Novice Technician, as Kos’ clergy are largely a holy corps of engineers. He is at times described as a monk, and at times a priest.
It seems he joined the Church around the age of 11, and grew up locally. The process of receiving a calling and joining the Church is similarly unclear; did he live at home and go to school, then spend his spare hours at the Sanctum of Kos rather than extracurriculars, or did he move in like it was a boarding school? I have so many questions.
We don’t hear much about his family other than the fact that they exist, and that he visits them in Four Roads Cross. He grew up close friends with Cat Elle, drifted apart from her in early adulthood, then reconnected in Three Parts Dead. He is present when Kos ‘dies’, unknowingly becomes a vessel for the remaining fragment of his god, is killed and resurrected to sainthood. More details on that here.
Initially uncomfortable with his sainthood, over the course of Four Roads Cross and, presumably, the time between that book and his next appearance in Wicked Problems, he comes to terms with his role. Nervy and unsure in his first introduction, Abelard grows into a quietly self-assured man by Wicked Problems - though, one who still fumbles and stammers and feels awkward around new people.
Throughout all of this, he grows alongside Tara Abernathy, his first Craft friend. Forced to work together in Three Parts Dead, by the end of the book they are at the beginnings of a tentative friendship. The short story, Man in the Middle, shows more of their friendship’s gradual development, and by Four Roads Cross they are clearly close. In Wicked Problems he runs after her when she tries to do the whole saving-the-world-through-self-sacrifice thing alone.
By the time we see him in Wicked Problems, he is far from the jumpy, sunken-eyed monk we meet in Three Parts Dead. His confidence shines through when he and Caleb are trapped in a Craft prison cell, and he has a way out.
“Why are you smiling?”
“Give me a moment. I hardly ever get to do this part, and I want to enjoy it.”
“What part?”
“The I-know-somethng-you-don’t-know part. Usually Tara’s job.”
“Take your time.” He crossed his arms. “It’s not as if it’s the end of the world.”
Abelard raised his cigarette. The ember reflected in his eyes. “Let us pray.”
There’s something about Abelard going from an uncertain junior priest scared of Tara and her Crafty ways to (relatively) self-assured priest who has worked so closely with Tara for so long that he’s excited to get to do one of the cool badass things that usually Tara gets to do.
He’s not a totally different character, of course. That wouldn’t be so satisfying. Abelard remains an earnest young priest, who is either unable or unwilling to bluff in his game of cards with Caleb. When Kai meets him early in Wicked Problems, she describes him as nervous and gangly, and is easily able to trick her way past him - despite his years working with Craftsfolk, he instinctively expects the same honesty from others that he offers them.
And despite his confidence with his sainthood, the fire power it grants him, and his direct line to Kos Everburning, he has a long way to go in his character journey. His trust in his God can lead to a difficulty reckoning with different powers, as seen in his confrontation with wildfires in Dresediel Lex. He comes to realise through this adventure that he has only ever seen a peacetime face of his Lord, but fire has destructive powers beyond his ken.
With the skazzerai coming, and Dawn doing gods-know-what in the Badlands, will Kos ride to war? Will peaceful, honest, nervous Saint Abelard ride to war with him? He is willing to sacrifice himself, as we’ve seen more than once, but will he sacrifice others?
He’s one of the few main characters we have who has yet to be on the frontlines of battle. I think that as the Craft Wars quartet progresses, we’ll see what Abelard is made of - and so will he.
Other characters associated with Abelard: Kos Everburning; Catherine Elle; Tara Abernathy; Cardinal Gustave; Cardinal Evangelist Bede; Sister Miriel; Elayne Kevarian; Shale; Caleb Altemoc; Mina Altemoc; Kopil; Seril Undying; Kai Pohala
Places associated with Abelard: Alt Coulumb
Organisations associated with Abelard: Church of Kos Everburning
Who is Raz Pelham?
“What’s your name, sailor?”
“Raz,” the shadow called down. “Raz Pelham, of the Kell’s Bounty, bound from Iskar to Alt Coulumb by way of Ashmere. What’s yours, beauty?”
“Tara Abernathy, of nowhere in particular. Do you know your ship is falling apart?”
“We’re keenly aware,” he replied. “A few days ago we ran into a spot of trouble in Kraben’s Pillars west of Iskar, but we had little time for repairs before a client hired us for a speedy passenger run to Alt Coulumb. We’ll dry-dock here, with luck.”
“I should have thought a swift ship like this could outrun any trouble.”
“Ah, that’s your error. You assume we were running from the trouble, not toward it.”
Raz reached down to take her outstretched hand. Her eyes adjusted. His skin was brown as old, worked mahogany, and he gripped her forearm with fingers just as smooth. He pulled her up one-handed with no more trouble than he might have taken to raise a bottle of beer. When he set her down on the gently pitching deck, she saw his body. Muscular, yes, but too thin to hold such preternatural strength.
He smiled, and she saw the tips of fangs beneath his upper lip. His eyes were the colour of a dried scab, and deep as an ocean trench.”
Vampire. Pirate. Scoundrel with a heart of gold. Captain Rasophilius Pelham - and what a name that is - shows up early in Three Parts Dead in what could have been a brief cameo to build out the Craft world in the first book. However, in that deftly plotted novel, he returns to the page as a key, albeit unwitting, part of Alexander Denovo’s plot to take down Kos and take over His godly remains.
Raz is is a vampirate - that is, a vampire pirate, I AM going to make this word happen - connected to Alt Coulumb whether he likes it or not. A sailor who worked with Elayne in the Seril case forty odd years ago, something happened that meant he either accepted the vampire infection or died. He chose vampire.
We know little of Raz’s life in the forty years between the Seril case and the events of Three Parts Dead (or, as it happens, before the Seril case either). There may or may not have been a retcon as to his racial or national origins; in Three Parts Dead he’s described as Iskari, but has a Camlaander name. Both of those are pretty connected with whiteness in the Domain. Yet, we hear of him being dark skinned and he mentions ‘back home in Dhisthra’, i.e. Craft-India, in Four Roads Cross. I would LOVE to learn more about his pre-series life. If i recall correctly, there was an AMA in which Gladstone mentioned originally planning future books going to Dhisthra but that idea was discarded; I wonder if we would have seen more of Raz’s background in that storyline.
In the current story, he doesn’t appear to have returned to Alt Coulumb until contracted by Elayne, and is having the time of his un-life as a pirate, judging by the glee with which he recounts some tales. He seems to have an unusually strong will and ability not to give into vampirism. He has carefully worked on his tolerance to sunlight and shares soul with his ship, drinking blood only through consensual relationships.
He appears glad to leave Alt Coulumb at the end of his Three Parts Dead adventure - which included him nearly having his soul ripped away from him, Cat taking advantage of him and thus him nearly giving into vampirism while unconscious, having his neck snapped, recovering from that, fighting in the Court of Justice, and being set on fire in the span of around three days - but is back there in Four Roads Cross. His presence doesn’t appear to be a new thing, either. He’s working with Cat and the Blacksuits on a smuggling sting. It’s not clear how long that’s been going on, or who pitched the idea to whom, but he’s in Alt Coulumb and there is a LOT of unresolved sexual tension between him and Cat.
“Tomorrow I’ll do something dumb for my goddess, and I might die. Tomorrow you’ll do something just as dumb for me, and you might die. Tonight we deserve each other’s honesty. This isn’t my habit talking. I want to be with you now. Do you want to be with me?”
He said the word she was afraid to hear.
He could move faster than the human eye could follow. Now, though, he moved slow as a statue would be if it decided to walk. He joined her on the couch. His fingers were cool against her cheek, and she let out a breath as they traced the line of her jaw to her neck, and the line of her neck to her shirt.
She ripped his getting it off him, and tangled his pants in his boots; they had to stop and tug, laughing, together. The couch velvet was hot and soft against her skin, and he poised above her, one hand firm against her side.
Mechanically, it wasn’t altogether different from her other trysts. There were mouths and two tense bodies. He was strong, and so was she, which he knew when they were dressed but it took him a few minutes to understand it was still true when they were naked. She wouldn’t break. Neither would he. There were teeth, too, and there was some blood, which the sheet caught, and there was sweat and meat and bones and spit and slickness.
Just us, she thought, and laughed.
It was enough.
Well. Once wasn’t. So after a rest they tried again.”
That unresolved tension is well and truly resolved when the two of them bang it out. Good on them. He then promptyl attempts to sacrifice himself for the greater good (my god, these characters are all suicidal) and is saved by Seril’s intercession.
We haven’t seen him since, but presumably he has remained in Alt Coulumb under Seril’s protection because if he left then he’s at the mercy of the vampires under the sea. He is referenced in Dead Country and Wicked Problems but we don’t see him.
Judging by the vampires of it all, I’d bet good money that we’ll see him in Craft Wars #3. If you don’t knwo what I’m talking about you clearly haven’t read Wicked Problems, so go do that now, ta.
Raz starts of as very much the dashing pirate archetype; you could see him as a vampire Han Solo. As much as I like him in Three Parts Dead, he’s a far less filled out character than some of the others we meet, to the point that I wonder whether Gladstone intended on having him come back in future books at all. In Four Roads Cross, I very much get the feeling that a lot of the scoundrel-with-a-heart-of-gold shtick is performance, the superficial armour protecting Raz’s thoughtful, serious, and philosophical heart. Cat, in all her spiky-ness, appears to tear through that upper level and connect with Raz’s softer side.
It’s been several books and many years since we saw Raz. He’s presumably been land-locked all that time, so who knows what he’s been up to. Is he with Cat? We hear Tara helped her with a mortgage; are the two of them settling down with the proverbial picket fence and a dog? Will he come back to the fight with glee, or reluctance.
Whichever it is, he’s coming back from sure. And before the end of things, I think we’ll get some vampire-on-vampire battle scenes even before the skazzerai rock up.
Other characters associated with Raz: Catherine Elle; Elayne Kevarian; Tara Abernathy; Aev and the gargoyles; Abelard
Places associated with Raz: Alt Coulumb; Iskar; Dhisthra; Kel’s Bounty (ship)
Organisations associated with Raz: Church of Seril Undying; Church of Kos; the vampires under the sea that probably aren’t an organisation but I want them to count
Who is Shale?
“Shale recovered his senses soon after sunrise and discovered to his dismay that he was fleeing down a back alley, covered in blood.”
Gargoyle. Poet. Spy. We meet Shale early in Three Parts Dead as he flees from the scene of Judge Cabot’s murder as the prime suspect. Apparently unusual in his ability to transform between gargoyle and human shapes, Shale is the youngest of Seril’s children, and his unique abilities make him an excellent spy - and, in this case, unwitting murder suspect.
He quickly becomes entangled with Tara, who promptly steals his face. As one does. He spends most of the book as a face trapped inside a book, before Tara’s plotting requires him to have full use of his body. It takes quite some time for Shale to forgive Tara for stealing his face, but by the end of Four Roads Cross they are fast friends and trusted allies.
To examine Shale’s character and background, we need a bit of a God Wars history lesson.
The great city of Alt Coulumb, on the eastern coast of Northern Kath, was beholden to two gods: a lady of the moon, Seril, and lord of fire, Kos. Seril and Kos ruled together for centuries, but when the God Wars came Seril chose to join the fight against the Craftsfolk while Kos stayed neutral. Seril was killed by the King in Red, and her corpse revived by Denovo and Elayne into Justice, a blinded semi-goddess to replace Seril’s old city guard: the gargoyles.
Before the God Wars, gargoyles were a common sight in Alt Coulumb. They made the streets into poetry, their liturgy and worship of their Lady. Seril carved generations of gargoyles, many of whom left with her to fight the Wars. When she was killed, those left in the city went mad and turned to destruction. The citizens of the city and Kos’ clergy fought back with hammers and chisel, and the city holds dark memories of the gargoyles and their terror.
Unbeknownst to those left behind, Seril survived - in some form. She fled into the hearts of those gargoyles who went to war with her, but when they returned to their Lady’s city they were unable to enter.
Shale was one of those gargoyles. He has spent the decades since with his Flight sheltering Seril in exile. In Three Parts Dead, they have the chance to return but must do so in secret. Seril’s return becomes public knowledge in Four Roads Cross, and by the time we reach the Craft Wars we know she has regained a decent amount of her power - though likely not all of it.
Shale has become a close friend and confidant of Tara, comforting her when she loses her father, and keeping track of her when she tries to escape the city at the start of Wicked Problems. It’s in Wicked Problems that we get to see his undercover spy side - a side we’ve previously heard about, but not seen on page.
“He did not have the basic manners to seem out of breath. In evening dress, in patent-leather shoes, he seemed kitted out not for catacomb exploration but for a high-born lady’s drawing room.
“We are not without resources,” her rescuer said. “But any operation takes time, foreknowledge, and prophecy. It would have been better for all of us if Tara had not done…This.”
“We’re getting her back.”
“My orders are clear. Any action we take to free Tara will involve a level of force projection. We can’t have a civilian in the mix.”
“I am not a civilian.”
“I did not mean it as an insult. We are all civilians in one field or another.”
“And your field is?”
“Intelligence.”
Yes, Shale is a goddess-powered James Bond, rescuing Kai from squids and Tara from vampires, and using his prayer like to Seril to transport the two of them to safety via the literal moon.
We don’t get much of his POV across the series, and none in spy-mode, but I would love to see some of the next two books from his perspective. After all, this is a semi-immortal being who has fought on the front lines of the God Wars. As a warrior, a spy, and a friend of Tara’s, Shale will undoubtedly play a major role in the wars to come.
We haven’t seen battle-Shale thus far, but we know he and the other gargoyles managed to survive the battle that killed their goddess. He has even faced down Her killer, restraining himself from returning the favour only because Tara needed him to step down. This next quote is a bit long and combines two sections of the chapter, but I couldn’t resists including the whole thing.
“Whatever happens, do not try to kill the King in Red.”
“Okay.” Shale sounded unconvinced.
“This is important.”
“He’s a monster.”
Tara shook her head. “He’s a respectable citizen. This city wouldn’t exist without him.”
“A man can be both citizen and monster. Especially here.”
“In which case he’s a monster and a respectable citizen, whom we’re about to ask for a big favor. Besides, if you try to kill him, you’ll probably just piss him off.”
“We almost broke him in the Wars.”
“Almost only counts with horseshoes and elder gods. He’s grown since you fought. And, honestly, I know you’ve had a rough few decades, but I wish things like don’t attack the immensely powerful necromancer we’ve come to ask for help could go unsaid.”
…
“I told Elayne I’d see you, and I have. You can go now.”
“I want to present my argument.”
“It’s good to want things. I want to hear from an old friend once in a while for some reason other than business. You want me to hand you a fortune for no reason. Your stone companion wants to murder me, though he’s displaying admirable self-control.”
“Would you like me to stop?” Shale asked. Jewel facets glinted beneath his imitation human eyes.
“Try me.” The skeleton sounded bored. “Get this over with. I’ve killed so many of you before, in very many ways.” His voice went singsong for that last bit, then lost all humor. “I tore your goddess open and ripped her heart and lungs from the ruin of her chest. Break yourself on me, if you like. You’re not the hundredth or even the thousandth to try. And when I’m done with you, I’ll go back to my drink.”
He took another sip. Translucent giraffes danced with sun.
“Shale!”
There was no Craft in Tara’s cry, but Shale stopped anyway, halfway to the King in Red. He’d begun to change. His skin was veined with gray and hatched with gleaming gaps, his back a wreckage of wings. The human seeming reasserted itself; the jaw cracked to fit shrinking teeth together. He knelt, gasping, on the sand. His shirt hung tattered from his shoulders. Scars crossed his back where the wounds had been.
The King in Red sat up and turned to face them both, elbows on knee bones, ridged spine rising between his shoulder blades. “Interesting. It listens to you.”
“He,” Tara said, “is an envoy of my client, Seril Undying of Alt Coulumb. Who is still alive.”
“Why did you listen to her?” he asked Shale. The gargoyle had recovered, mostly. Sweat slipped down curves of muscle. “Here I am. You’ve hated me for decades. I killed your lady, or close to it, and I liked it. I’ll even give you first crack. No shields, or wards, or tricks.”
Shale stood. Tara prepared to bind him, in case her voice would not suffice this time. Given how hurt he’d seemed in that momentary shift, her restraint might break him. He wasn’t in shape for a fight.
He might still try.
“Tara asked me not to fight you.”
“And you listened,” the skeleton said.
“Yes.”
Crimson sparks turned on her. “You’ve inspired a divine monster’s loyalty. Nice trick. It earns you my time.”
Shale enraged is a very different being than Shale as a spy, but one thing remains consistent: he’s a good solider or agent, listening to the orders he’s given. Whether those orders are from Seril Herself, or Seril’s representative, he can demonstrate incredible control over his emotions and his power when given an order by a superior who he respects.
What, exactly, will Shale’s role be in the forthcoming war? He will definitely be on the front lines, but will it be as soldier or spy? We’ve seen his willingness to sacrifice himself for his goddess, and for the greater good (see him replacing Caleb in Firekeeper’s mountain in Four Roads Cross). Will he survive the skazzerai, and the series? Will he be willing to fight alongside the King in Red, or will his resolve break at the last moment?
Other characters associated with Shale: Tara Abernathy; Aev and the other gargoyles; Seril Undying; Abelard; Ellen, Claire and Hannah Rafferty; Gabby Jones; Catherine Elle; Elayne Kevarian; Firekeeper; Kai Pohala; the King in Red
Places associated with Shale: Alt Coulumb
Organisations associated with Shale: Church of Seril Undying; Church of Kos Everburning
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