Farian
Who he is
A pump hand on a Deep crew, and the only one of them born on Rethis. He has worked with the same crew for thirty-one years and has passed inspection at Korvan Gate four hundred and six times without incident. On every posting he carries and loads the charges that clear the intakes.
Appearance
Lean and weathered, with dark hair grown past his collar and going gray, never quite combed, and a short graying beard. His eyes are steady and tired. He wears olive coveralls worn soft at every seam, patched at the elbow, with the sleeves rolled to the forearm, and carries a canvas bag with Hobb’s tin of fish in it.
Personality
- Steady and easy to overlook. He is usually the last through the clearance window, and he has never carried anything through the Gate that he would have minded an inspector finding.
- Patient with the crew’s oldest joke, that a man from Rethis ought to know the weather.
People in his life
- Tamsin: his chief, who counts him through the Gate and up the ramp at the start of every posting.
- Hobb: Farian brings him a tin of dried fish every posting and has never once been paid for it.
- Pell: sits across from him on the run inward and asks him what his people say about the bands.
- Ressa: plays tiles with him on the run inward and beats him three games out of five.
- His sister: lives on Rethis and writes to him about home.
As the story unfolds
These details come from the story itself. Choose the last chapter you’ve read, and only what has been revealed up to that point will appear.
The word
At Oranth’s Cup a message from his sister carries two lines: the trouble with his cousin on Tiravel has been seen to, and the weather should hold for him this time. He has no cousin on Tiravel. Eight months earlier the Observer said the work was waiting on someone on Tiravel who might see it coming, and Farian never asked who.
Station Seven
He loads the four charges with the vents shut, leaves the firing lines unshielded, and locks the storage room doors from behind a panel. When the surge comes and he could still stop it, he doesn’t. For thirty-one years he believed he had carried the knife that cut the Sky Father, and this was how the debt was paid. He dies with his crew. His last thought is of Hobb’s tin, still in his bag: “He had told Hobb after.”