Kethlun Warder
Encyclopedia
Kethlun "Keth" Warder is a co-protagonist
of the fantasy
novel
Shatterglass
, by Tamora Pierce
. He is a glass
artisan
native to Namorn, and throughout the novel becomes a student of weather
-mage
Trisana Chandler
, despite the fact that at fourteen, she is six years his junior.
and the other arts of making glass from a young age, and progressed swiftly, aided by "a spark" of magic
attuned to glass-work. He was betrothed and qualified as a journeyman
.
When walking on the shore of the Syth, Keth was caught in a thunderstorm
and struck by lightning
. The injury caused him to become paralyzed
. Through rehabilitation, he eventually regained most of his capabilities, although symptom
s like tremor
s and a permanently slurred speech.
The injury caused Keth, previously an up-and-coming glass-worker, to become a burden on his family business. When he feared that the glass-workers' guild
would take away his journeyman status, he chose instead to travel to Tharios, where his fourth cousin Antonou Tinos kept a glass workshop
. In Tharios, Keth lived in a rented room in Khapik, the city-state
's pleasure district
, where the Tharian entertainers known as yaskedasi live and work.
His stay in Khapik caused him to cross paths with the Ghost, a serial killer
who operated in Khapik, murder
ing only female yaskedasi. When the Ghost killed his neighbor, a dancer named Iralima, Keth helped care for her orphan
ed daughter, Glaki.
Though he was working at regaining his skill, Keth was unaware of one of the side-effects of the lightning strike that first debilitated him. Along with the physiological damage, the lightning turned Keth's seed of glass magic into a mixture of glass and lightning magic. The change in his abilities as a mage passed Keth by until it was discovered by a traveling mage, Trisana Chandler
, when she saw him at the center of a large, accidental magical working; Keth was attempting to create a glass vase
, when his untrained magic drew in spells from all around the neighborhood, which mixed with the glass and a seed of lightning to create a living creature, a dragon
made of glass, with lightning blood
.
Enraged and frustrated by his lack of control over his own craft, Keth attempted to destroy the dragon. Tris, who was berating him for unraveling the spells of others in his magical working, intervened on behalf of the dragon, citing the mages' ethical
code that states that a living creature, however accidentally created, should not be killed. She adopted the dragon, naming it "Chime". Once she found that Keth was a newly discovered, untrained mage, the same ethical code forced her to find him a teacher. Because of the lightning mixed into his magic, no glass-mage in Tharios was willing to teach him, and the job fell to the ranking lightning-mage, Tris herself.
The learning experience proved difficult both to Tris, a naturally temperamental person who'd never had a student before, and to Keth, who was dismayed at being taught the basics of magic by a teacher younger than himself. Through meditation
, Keth gradually gained some control of his magic, although glassblowing
proved most difficult for him to remaster. His first deliberate magical working was a globe of glass lined from within with lightning which, when it cleared, proved to contain a replica of the scene of the Ghost's latest murder.
His unintentional knowledge of the Ghost's murders caused both Keth and Tris to fall under the suspicion of the arurim, Tharios's law enforcement
. Once Tris succeeded in releasing him from their suspicions, Keth, who was emotionally invested in the case because of the death of his neighbor, began collaborating with Dema Nomasdina, the officer in charge of the investigation. He continually attempted to replicate the glass and lightning globe, hoping to find the scene of the next murder before it took place. Though he eventually managed to create another globe, it was only after the fact, and failed to prevent the murder.
Keth continued to create lightning globes containing the scenes of each of the Ghost's murders, each one closer and closer to the time of the victim's death. One of the victims was another of his neighbors, Glaki's foster-mother Yali, with whom he was romantically interested. After Yali's murders, Keth increased his efforts, while the arurim set up an undercover
guard in Khapik, hoping to catch the Ghost in the act. With their combined efforts, a murder-in-progress was finally discovered and stopped, although the Ghost escaped.
It was Tris who eventually caught him, and when Keth followed her, the Ghost was trapped to his thighs in the earth, and Tris was debating whether or not to kill him. Against Tris's former teacher, Niklaren Goldeye
, Keth argued for Tris to kill the Ghost, on grounds that he was a murderer and deserved to die. Tris, however, decided against it.
When Tris, Niko and Glaki left Tharios to travel north to Emelan
, Keth remained in Tharios, expressing an interest in using his magic for forensics
, despite his earlier statement that he'd become a glass-maker in order to create pretty things, not ugly ones.
Protagonist
A protagonist is the main character of a literary, theatrical, cinematic, or musical narrative, around whom the events of the narrative's plot revolve and with whom the audience is intended to most identify...
of the fantasy
Fantasy
Fantasy is a genre of fiction that commonly uses magic and other supernatural phenomena as a primary element of plot, theme, or setting. Many works within the genre take place in imaginary worlds where magic is common...
novel
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
Shatterglass
Shatterglass
Shatterglass, a novel by Tamora Pierce, is the fourth book in the The Circle Opens series. It takes place four years after the Circle of Magic series.- Setting :...
, by Tamora Pierce
Tamora Pierce
Tamora Pierce is an author of fantasy literature for young adults. She is an alumna of the University of Pennsylvania. Best known for writing stories involving young heroines, she made a name for herself with her first quartet The Song of the Lioness, which followed the main character Alanna...
. He is a glass
Glass
Glass is an amorphous solid material. Glasses are typically brittle and optically transparent.The most familiar type of glass, used for centuries in windows and drinking vessels, is soda-lime glass, composed of about 75% silica plus Na2O, CaO, and several minor additives...
artisan
Artisan
An artisan is a skilled manual worker who makes items that may be functional or strictly decorative, including furniture, clothing, jewellery, household items, and tools...
native to Namorn, and throughout the novel becomes a student of weather
Weather
Weather is the state of the atmosphere, to the degree that it is hot or cold, wet or dry, calm or stormy, clear or cloudy. Most weather phenomena occur in the troposphere, just below the stratosphere. Weather refers, generally, to day-to-day temperature and precipitation activity, whereas climate...
-mage
Magician (fantasy)
A magician, mage, sorcerer, sorceress, wizard, enchanter, enchantress, thaumaturge or a person known under one of many other possible terms is someone who uses or practices magic that derives from supernatural or occult sources...
Trisana Chandler
Trisana Chandler
Trisana Chandler, Tris for short, is a character in Tamora Pierce's Circle of Magic and Circle Opens quartets and the book The Will of the Empress. She has curly red hair , gray eyes, and wears spectacles. She believes herself to be fat and is called "Fatty" a few times by some of the series'...
, despite the fact that at fourteen, she is six years his junior.
Fictional character biography
Born to a Namornese family in the glass-crafting business, Keth was trained in glassblowingGlassblowing
Glassblowing is a glassforming technique that involves inflating molten glass into a bubble, or parison, with the aid of a blowpipe, or blow tube...
and the other arts of making glass from a young age, and progressed swiftly, aided by "a spark" of magic
Magic (paranormal)
Magic is the claimed art of manipulating aspects of reality either by supernatural means or through knowledge of occult laws unknown to science. It is in contrast to science, in that science does not accept anything not subject to either direct or indirect observation, and subject to logical...
attuned to glass-work. He was betrothed and qualified as a journeyman
Journeyman
A journeyman is someone who completed an apprenticeship and was fully educated in a trade or craft, but not yet a master. To become a master, a journeyman had to submit a master work piece to a guild for evaluation and be admitted to the guild as a master....
.
When walking on the shore of the Syth, Keth was caught in a thunderstorm
Thunderstorm
A thunderstorm, also known as an electrical storm, a lightning storm, thundershower or simply a storm is a form of weather characterized by the presence of lightning and its acoustic effect on the Earth's atmosphere known as thunder. The meteorologically assigned cloud type associated with the...
and struck by lightning
Lightning
Lightning is an atmospheric electrostatic discharge accompanied by thunder, which typically occurs during thunderstorms, and sometimes during volcanic eruptions or dust storms...
. The injury caused him to become paralyzed
Paralysis
Paralysis is loss of muscle function for one or more muscles. Paralysis can be accompanied by a loss of feeling in the affected area if there is sensory damage as well as motor. A study conducted by the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation, suggests that about 1 in 50 people have been diagnosed...
. Through rehabilitation, he eventually regained most of his capabilities, although symptom
Symptom
A symptom is a departure from normal function or feeling which is noticed by a patient, indicating the presence of disease or abnormality...
s like tremor
Tremor
A tremor is an involuntary, somewhat rhythmic, muscle contraction and relaxation involving to-and-fro movements of one or more body parts. It is the most common of all involuntary movements and can affect the hands, arms, eyes, face, head, vocal folds, trunk, and legs. Most tremors occur in the...
s and a permanently slurred speech.
The injury caused Keth, previously an up-and-coming glass-worker, to become a burden on his family business. When he feared that the glass-workers' guild
Guild
A guild is an association of craftsmen in a particular trade. The earliest types of guild were formed as confraternities of workers. They were organized in a manner something between a trade union, a cartel, and a secret society...
would take away his journeyman status, he chose instead to travel to Tharios, where his fourth cousin Antonou Tinos kept a glass workshop
Workshop
A workshop is a room or building which provides both the area and tools that may be required for the manufacture or repair of manufactured goods...
. In Tharios, Keth lived in a rented room in Khapik, the city-state
City-state
A city-state is an independent or autonomous entity whose territory consists of a city which is not administered as a part of another local government.-Historical city-states:...
's pleasure district
District
Districts are a type of administrative division, in some countries managed by a local government. They vary greatly in size, spanning entire regions or counties, several municipalities, or subdivisions of municipalities.-Austria:...
, where the Tharian entertainers known as yaskedasi live and work.
His stay in Khapik caused him to cross paths with the Ghost, a serial killer
Serial killer
A serial killer, as typically defined, is an individual who has murdered three or more people over a period of more than a month, with down time between the murders, and whose motivation for killing is usually based on psychological gratification...
who operated in Khapik, murder
Murder
Murder is the unlawful killing, with malice aforethought, of another human being, and generally this state of mind distinguishes murder from other forms of unlawful homicide...
ing only female yaskedasi. When the Ghost killed his neighbor, a dancer named Iralima, Keth helped care for her orphan
Orphan
An orphan is a child permanently bereaved of or abandoned by his or her parents. In common usage, only a child who has lost both parents is called an orphan...
ed daughter, Glaki.
Though he was working at regaining his skill, Keth was unaware of one of the side-effects of the lightning strike that first debilitated him. Along with the physiological damage, the lightning turned Keth's seed of glass magic into a mixture of glass and lightning magic. The change in his abilities as a mage passed Keth by until it was discovered by a traveling mage, Trisana Chandler
Trisana Chandler
Trisana Chandler, Tris for short, is a character in Tamora Pierce's Circle of Magic and Circle Opens quartets and the book The Will of the Empress. She has curly red hair , gray eyes, and wears spectacles. She believes herself to be fat and is called "Fatty" a few times by some of the series'...
, when she saw him at the center of a large, accidental magical working; Keth was attempting to create a glass vase
Vase
The vase is an open container, often used to hold cut flowers. It can be made from a number of materials including ceramics and glass. The vase is often decorated and thus used to extend the beauty of its contents....
, when his untrained magic drew in spells from all around the neighborhood, which mixed with the glass and a seed of lightning to create a living creature, a dragon
Dragon
A dragon is a legendary creature, typically with serpentine or reptilian traits, that feature in the myths of many cultures. There are two distinct cultural traditions of dragons: the European dragon, derived from European folk traditions and ultimately related to Greek and Middle Eastern...
made of glass, with lightning blood
Blood
Blood is a specialized bodily fluid in animals that delivers necessary substances such as nutrients and oxygen to the cells and transports metabolic waste products away from those same cells....
.
Enraged and frustrated by his lack of control over his own craft, Keth attempted to destroy the dragon. Tris, who was berating him for unraveling the spells of others in his magical working, intervened on behalf of the dragon, citing the mages' ethical
Ethics
Ethics, also known as moral philosophy, is a branch of philosophy that addresses questions about morality—that is, concepts such as good and evil, right and wrong, virtue and vice, justice and crime, etc.Major branches of ethics include:...
code that states that a living creature, however accidentally created, should not be killed. She adopted the dragon, naming it "Chime". Once she found that Keth was a newly discovered, untrained mage, the same ethical code forced her to find him a teacher. Because of the lightning mixed into his magic, no glass-mage in Tharios was willing to teach him, and the job fell to the ranking lightning-mage, Tris herself.
The learning experience proved difficult both to Tris, a naturally temperamental person who'd never had a student before, and to Keth, who was dismayed at being taught the basics of magic by a teacher younger than himself. Through meditation
Meditation
Meditation is any form of a family of practices in which practitioners train their minds or self-induce a mode of consciousness to realize some benefit....
, Keth gradually gained some control of his magic, although glassblowing
Glassblowing
Glassblowing is a glassforming technique that involves inflating molten glass into a bubble, or parison, with the aid of a blowpipe, or blow tube...
proved most difficult for him to remaster. His first deliberate magical working was a globe of glass lined from within with lightning which, when it cleared, proved to contain a replica of the scene of the Ghost's latest murder.
His unintentional knowledge of the Ghost's murders caused both Keth and Tris to fall under the suspicion of the arurim, Tharios's law enforcement
Police
The police is a personification of the state designated to put in practice the enforced law, protect property and reduce civil disorder in civilian matters. Their powers include the legitimized use of force...
. Once Tris succeeded in releasing him from their suspicions, Keth, who was emotionally invested in the case because of the death of his neighbor, began collaborating with Dema Nomasdina, the officer in charge of the investigation. He continually attempted to replicate the glass and lightning globe, hoping to find the scene of the next murder before it took place. Though he eventually managed to create another globe, it was only after the fact, and failed to prevent the murder.
Keth continued to create lightning globes containing the scenes of each of the Ghost's murders, each one closer and closer to the time of the victim's death. One of the victims was another of his neighbors, Glaki's foster-mother Yali, with whom he was romantically interested. After Yali's murders, Keth increased his efforts, while the arurim set up an undercover
Undercover
Being undercover is disguising one's own identity or using an assumed identity for the purposes of gaining the trust of an individual or organization to learn secret information or to gain the trust of targeted individuals in order to gain information or evidence...
guard in Khapik, hoping to catch the Ghost in the act. With their combined efforts, a murder-in-progress was finally discovered and stopped, although the Ghost escaped.
It was Tris who eventually caught him, and when Keth followed her, the Ghost was trapped to his thighs in the earth, and Tris was debating whether or not to kill him. Against Tris's former teacher, Niklaren Goldeye
Niklaren Goldeye
Niklaren "Niko" Goldeye is a character of Tamora Pierce's creation, who appears in The Circle of Magic quartet and in Shatterglass of the The Circle Opens quartet, although he is mentioned in all four books of both quartets....
, Keth argued for Tris to kill the Ghost, on grounds that he was a murderer and deserved to die. Tris, however, decided against it.
When Tris, Niko and Glaki left Tharios to travel north to Emelan
Emelan
Emelan is a fictional realm that provides the main setting of the Circle of Magic quartet by Tamora Pierce, primarily in the capital city of Summersea and the nearby temple of Winding Circle...
, Keth remained in Tharios, expressing an interest in using his magic for forensics
Forensics
Forensic science is the application of a broad spectrum of sciences to answer questions of interest to a legal system. This may be in relation to a crime or a civil action...
, despite his earlier statement that he'd become a glass-maker in order to create pretty things, not ugly ones.