Volak'lihkxar

Body

What he keeps under the gold is shown one limb at a time, to one guest at a time, and the choice of which limb is a judgement about the guest. Three hundred limbs is three hundred eatings. He can tell a visitor what each one used to be, and does, when he wants a particular effect.

The form of a great Remoulded is a record of what it has consumed, since the larger draws the smaller against itself until the two materials stop having an edge, and everything the eaten fragment ever accumulated comes back over the following weeks, out of order and in pieces. Three hundred limbs is therefore also three hundred lives of provenance, which is the only sense this class has.

Society

He does the Coven's asking when asking must be unpleasant. The court honours contracts, observes ritual, keeps a formal admittance rite and charges for entry, and it constructs every agreement so that keeping it is worse for the other party than breaking it would have been. Volak'lihkxar is the part of that arrangement that is not written down.

His rank is held in the ordinary way, by mass and by office at once. What is unusual is that his office cannot be set aside for the length of a conversation, which is why the Queen keeps him at a distance she can measure.

Regard

Among the hundred dens he is the name that stops a discussion. Among the Keepers he is a problem that has not yet needed solving, and the Queen has never been observed to leave him alone with a guest she intended to keep.