The Errant

The Errant
The Errant by DeathriS
Biographical information
Pseudonyms	Errastas The Great Deceiver The Walker Among the Holds
Race	Elder God
Gender	Male
Social information
Title(s)	Master of the Holds Master of the Tiles

"I am the Errant. By my hand, every fate is turned. All that seems random is by my design. This is an immutable truth. It has ever been. It shall ever be."

―The Errant

Errastas [err-RAST-us] was worshipped as an Elder God and known as the Errant by enclaves of the Imass, Barghast, and Trell, as well as the Letherii. The Letherii regarded him as an "eternally mysterious purveyor of chance, fateful circumstance and ill-chosen impulses" and held a yearly festival in his honour.

He was the Master of the Holds (or Master of the Tiles), an older title equivalent to the Master of the Deck for the Deck of Dragons. The Cedance was the foundation of his realm. Patterns were his personal obsession and he considered his mastery over them beyond challenge.

The people of Korel knew him as the Great Deceiver.

In Midnight Tides

Spoiler warning: The following section contains significant plot details about Errant.

Bugg described the Forkrul Assail to Shurq Elalle as "collectively personified in our Fulcra by the personage we call the Errant."

Under the pseudonym Turudal Brizad, Errastas lived in the city of Letheras as First Consort to Janall Diskanar, the Letherii queen. In his guise as First Consort, he had soft, almost feminine features and usually affected a studied indifference.

King's Champion Brys Beddict found him strangely disturbing. The First Consort was a regular silent presence at even the most sensitive meetings of state. It was well known about the Old Palace that he shared his bed with other lovers besides the Queen and it was rumoured his conquests included Chancellor Triban Gnol.

The Errant's time in Letheras had actually spanned several generations, and he appeared in a number of historical tapestries and paintings. By fading into the background, Turudal Brizad often eavesdropped on discussions of sensitive issues. He was very attractive to both sexes and often accommodated his admirers.

Not wishing to see a return of the Great Slaughter of the T'lan Imass, the Errant intervened in The Pack's attempts to reach ascendancy. He attempted to recruit Moroch Nevath as his champion to slay the aforementioned D'ivers god of the Jheck. When Moroch failed to accept the challenge, the Errant approached Bugg. He denied the manservant's claims that his influence had been at the heart of the Kingdom of Lether's problems, and refused to take responsibility for "human nature". He was unable to take direct action as his aspect enforced certain prohibitions — he could only influence others with a nudge of the push or the pull.

The Pack was ultimately slain by Bugg's champions, Iron Bars and his Crimson Guardsmen. The Errant used his nudges to obscure the fight from the hordes of onrushing Jheck until it was too late. But as Iron Bars left the Pack's temple, a particularly large wolf appeared and lunged towards the Errant. Iron Bars grabbed it in midair and crushed its skull into the street. The astonished Errant identified the wolf as B'nagga, the Jheck's leader. He offered the Guard a clear path through the city to their ship.

The Errant later appeared in the throne room of the Eternal Domicile to witness the Seventh Closure and the confrontation between King Ezgara Diskanar and the invading Emperor Rhulad Sengar. When Brys Beddict appeared to have successfully defeated the immortal Rhulad by incapacitating and not killing him, the Errant nudged the King's Champion into fatally drinking a poisoned glass of wine. Then he nudged the Guardian of the Names to take Brys' body to Mael.

Significant plot details end here.

In The Bonehunters

The ancient Jaghut, Ganath, met Ganoes Paran shortly after she escaped her barrow prison of millennia near Raraku. When Paran introduced himself as the Master of the Deck, she theorised the position was something like the Errant's role as Master of the Holds in her time. She named the Errant an Ascendant who was worshipped as a God and whose worshippers kept his mouth so filled with blood that he never knew thirst — or peace. His followers used the sacrificed blood of the innocent to beseech his intercession on their behalf. In her words, the Errant had thought to defeat their efforts by becoming the god of change and had "walked the path of neutrality, yet flavoured it with a pleasure taken in impermanence." His enemy was ennui and stagnation, which led the Forkrul Assail to seek the annihilation of him and his mortal followers. With Paran's revelation that the Deck of Dragons had replaced the Tiles of the Holds, Ganath wondered how the god had fallen since her time. Perhaps the Forkrul Assail had succeeded.

In Reaper's Gale

First Consort Turudal Brizad had vanished shortly after Rhulad Sengar claimed the throne of Lether. It was correctly rumoured among the court servants that he haunted the subterranean corridors of the Old Palace. The Errant visited the Cedance where he sensed that a pattern was closing around him and was disturbed that he did not understand it. The Tiles revealed nothing to him and he feared King's Sorcerer Kuru Qan might have cursed him. The Crippled God was causing disturbances in the pantheon and the Errant considered consulting with Mael.

He haunted the city, unable to return to Janall because of her new allegiance to the Crippled God, observing the schemes of its power players. He followed Hannan Mosag to the site of the Azath Tower to learn that the former Warlock King meant to conspire with Sukul Ankhadu and Sheltatha Lore. He travelled to the Refugium to warn Menandore her fellow Soletaken conspired against her, but was shaken by her insinuation that other immortal powers unknown to him were at work in the city. He witnessed the return of the Third Edur Imperial Fleet to Letheras where even his diminished percipience sensed something fated about Yan Tovis. But he was shocked to recognise Icarium, wrapped in the invisible threads of the Nameless Ones, among the champions the fleet brought to face Emperor Rhulad. He often stood invisible in Emperor Rhulad's throne room observing the affairs of state, almost moved by pity to act on Rhulad's behalf.

At his abandoned temple in the Old Palace he discovered the fallen war god Fener taking refuge. With sympathy, the Errant revealed that the Forkrul Assail's pogroms against his own worshippers had terribly wounded his own power. Then over four hundred years ago, the god decided that the thought of another such failure was too much, and he willingly relinquished much of his power. He thought to walk among his followers to offer them his wisdom, but they were enraged by his words of mercy, preferring to shed blood in his name. His priests and priestesses named him a betrayer, shattering his altars and closing his temples. What little power he still possessed was restricted to the city and a stretch of the Lether River. He was the last thread linking back to the fading Holds. Fener asked for sanctuary in his temple, offering a gift in return. The gift was the knowledge that it was possible for the Holds to awaken and regain power just as the Beast Hold had done. The Errant happily promised to veil Fener's presence in the city and agreed to block the calls of the god's former worshippers that tormented him.

The Errant visited Settle Lake where Mael had helped imprison the demon spirit-god and was concerned by the Elder God's decision to once again take interest in the world. But he lingered too long near the beast's loosening bonds. Temporarily infected by its helpless rage and ambition, he became determined to reclaim his old power by initiating a war between the Holds and the Warrens using Feather Witch's blood as sacrifice. He refused to listen to the ghost of Kuru Qan, who warned that the Warrens had their own protector, the Master of the Deck, and to declare war on them was to declare war on their creator, K'rul. Further, the Errant's actions would shatter alliances and play into the hand of the Crippled God.

Feather Witch and the Errant by Dejan Delic

As the Errant cornered and stabbed Feather Witch to pour her blood on the Cedance, she gouged out his left eye using Brys Beddict's severed finger. When she swallowed the eye, she stole some of his power and gained power over him as his High Priestess. She urged the Errant to claim the Empty Throne with herself as Destriant, Brys Beddict as Mortal Sword, and Udinaas as Shield Anvil. Afterwards, god and priestess shared a fraught relationship, with Feather Witch attempting to manipulate him for her own advantage. She named herself the Errant's Destriant and created a temple devoted to him in the flooded tunnels beneath the Eternal Domicile. She spread cult of the Errant among the Letherii slaves and Indebted, promising the disaffected of the empire a return to the golden age of the past when the Errant stood ascendant and was worshipped by all Letherii. The Errant scoffed at the idea that such a time ever existed, but his High Priestess insisted the truth did not matter when teaching the ignorant. The god found his power constrained to what Feather Witch would allow him.

Udinaas dreamed of a blood drenched Errant standing in the doorway of a temple surrounded by the bodies of Forkrul Assail. The god demanded Udinaas serve as his T'orrud Segul, but Menandore appeared in her dragon form to claim the former slave was already her own. She said a T'orrud Segul could not save the Assail who had already died at the errant's own hand. But in return for the Errant's promise to remove her sisters from her path with a "nudge", she gave Udinaas over to him. Udinaas interrupted their negotiation to defy them both and banish them from his dream.

The Elder God felt a growing panic as he sensed a Convergence drawing close on Letheras and promising a dread clash of powers. He also found with his weakened power he could not fathom the secrets of either Hannan Mosag or Chancellor Triban Gnol. Feather Witch demanded he stop Mael's interference so the Errant performed a ritual to trap Mael within one of his abandoned temples. The High Priestess continued to hold power over the Errant until he drowned her in the waters of his temple. While holding her under the water he claimed that sometimes a nudge was not enough.

He followed Trull Sengar from the home of Seren Pedac to the Eternal Domicile where he caused Trull's death by prodding Sirryn Kanar.

Watching from an unseen place, the Errant stepped back, pulled away as if he would hurl himself from a cliff.
He was what he was.
A tipper of balances.
And now, this day – may the Abyss devour him whole – a maker of widows.

When Mael finally escaped his prison, he vowed vengeance on the Errant, eventually tracking him down for a "discussion". From this Mael learned of Seren Pedac, who he tried to bring some level of comfort.

It was revealed the Chancellor Gnol was the Errant's son, as well as his former lover. Turudal Brizad had dallied with the Chancellor's married mother and the Chancellor attributed his elegant hands to his birth father.

In Dust of Dreams

Upon learning of Fiddler's reading of the Deck of Dragons for Tavore in Letheras, he enlisted Banaschar and chose to intervene. Through Brys and Fiddler's threatening bluffs, he was managed to be dispelled.

He would later attempt to murder Brys in person, though his actions were foiled once more, this time by the presence of Ublala Pung. The Errant was able to slip away from Sinter and the other Malazans, who had shown up to the scene due to Sinter sensing Brys in danger.

In The Crippled God

After finally managing to free Korabas with the help of Sechul Lath and Kilmandaros, the Errant fled into the far reaches of the Warrens to escape Draconus' wrath. Draconus sought to punish the Elder Gods for unleashing the Otataral Dragon. While the Errant escaped, it was implied that Draconus still hunted him.

In Forge of Darkness

Errastas was revealed to be one of the sons of Grizzin Farl and an unnamed Azathanai. Kilmandaros was his step-mother. He was one of two Azathanai to murder the wife of Hood, the other being his step brother, Sechul Lath. He used her blood to make the Terondai, which opened the gate to Darkness for Draconus. Errastas resented K'rul's decision to give power away by creating the Warrens. He hoped to empower Mother Dark as a way to distract K'rul while he and his step-brother acted against him.

In Dancer's Lament

In the time before the Malazan Empire, the Azathanai Sister Night made camp near the city of Li Heng, which was besieged by the army of King Chulalorn the Third of Itko Kan. The Errant appeared unwelcome in the night with his habitual sneer, seated as a ghostly figure at her campfire. He prodded Sister Night for information regarding the game he sensed playing amongst their "cousins". He sensed an opening gambit setting the "enormous dusty wheels of fate ... grinding into motion once again." He was worried that "they" had withdrawn and he no longer knew what "they" intended, and he chastised Sister Night for not concerning herself with the bigger picture.

When Sister Night shrugged off his concerns and insulted his intelligence, the Errant threatened that she was vulnerable and "a nudge here or there and you could find yourself dead." While only a ghost here, he claimed to possess greater influence "elsewhere". The Errant was startled into flight by the unexpected appearance of K'rul at his back. Sister Night told K'rul she feared the Errant would try to interfere in events. K'rul mused that those least fit to hold or wield power lusted after it the most, but "another [was] in place to keep an eye on the Errant."

Expressions

See also: Exclamations referring to the Errant

The Letherii frequently referred to the Errant in their profanity and expressions.
Examples:

• "By the Errant"
• "Errant save us"
• "Errant take me"
• "For Errant's sake"

Author comments

When asked whether Errastas deserved the hatred towards him expressed by many readers, Steven Erikson replied, "I don't know. Yes and no?" The author says the Errant "embodies random chance and...all of us who live in our world, we rail against...random chance all the time. Various events happen in our lives that are inexplicable. They have no sort of recognisable cause, but we experience the effect. And that can be something that, yeah, one naturally rails against. But it was interesting writing Errastas...Having the character recognise...almost the helplessness of his function and his purpose. And trying to reconcile himself with that notion, that inasmuch as he's wanting to be in control of his life, the aspect of his powers are actually rejecting that at every turn. And so he's a very conflicted character and that kind of made sense to me for a character who's bound to random chance...It's the kind of question I like to have the reader or the audience ask, but I don't have any answers for it. It's simply one of those things to ponder...I wouldn't advise anyone to obsess over it, it's just a role he plays."

Quotes

"I never knew that killing could be so much fun."

―Errastas

Notes and references

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