Heboric Light Touch

Heboric Light Touch
Fan Art by Yapattack
Biographical information
Pseudonyms	Heboric Ghost Hands Ghost Hands
Race	Human
Gender	Male
Appearance	toad-like and covered in a full-body tattoo of Fener
Social information
Affiliation	Malazan Empire Army of the Whirlwind
Occupation(s)	High Priest of Fener Historian
Title(s)	Destriant of Treach Shield Anvil

Heboric Light Touch was an exiled historian and ex-High Priest of Fener.

He was described as resembling "a sunken-eyed toad". He was bald, his face webbed in tattooing, minute, black, square-etched symbols hidden within an overall pattern covering skin like a wrinkled scroll", and he had no hands. Of his tattoos, it was said that "the boar's face [overlay] his own, the intricate maze of script-threaded, curled fur [wound] down his arms, covering his exposed thighs and shins, and […] detailed hooves [were] etched into the skin of his feet."

His tattoos were magical in nature, quickly healing his wounds. When active, they became thicker, blacker, and more detailed, depicting each of the boar's hairs. Over his heart he bore the sacred mark of Fener, and his missing right hand had once been tattooed with a key.

Works

• Among the Consigned
• Conspiracies in the Imperium
• T'matha's Children

In Deadhouse Gates

Heboric's writings made him a victim of The Cull in Unta when they challenged the competency of Empress Laseen. Imperial Historian Duiker had defended him at trial to no avail and the ex-priest was placed on a slave ship bound for the Otataral mines in Seven Cities. Along the way, he fell in with fellow prisoners, Felisin Paran and Baudin.

Jade hand by Corporal Nobbs

The historian and his companions escaped the Skullcup camp when the native guards revolted as part of the Whirlwind uprising. Knowing Duiker had arranged transport, they traveled into the Otataral Desert in an effort to reach the coast. Along their journey, he came in contact with a "jade giant", one of many statues buried in the sands long ago. When he touched it, it burned the stump of his right wrist, which became saturated with the otataral-tinged other-worldly power of the jade.

Heboric, Kulp and Felisin by Marc Simonetti (Official image)

Dying of hunger and thirst in the desert and desperate for aid, Baudin pushed the stump of the unconscious Heboric's hand against the seal tattoo on his chest. The "touch" of the poisoned hand opened the god's Warren and pushed Fener unwillingly into the mortal realm. Afterwards, Heboric possessed two ghostly hands, invisible to normal sight but capable of interacting with the world with great strength. To those with the sensitivity to see them, the left was outlined by the tattoos of Fener while the right was shot through with veins of red otataral and jade.

The trio were rescued from the coast by Kulp, Gesler, Stormy, and Truth. But their ship fell through the Warrens, and Heboric, Felisin, Baudin, and Kulp were dropped in the Holy Desert of Raraku. There, Heboric was blinded by a sandstorm, but gained a supernatural vision that gave him extraordinary knowledge and insight.

After the deaths of Baudin and Kulp at the hands of Gryllen, Heboric and Felisin stumbled upon the corpse of Sha'ik and her bodyguards, Leoman and Toblakai. Leoman brought them to the Whirlwind camp at the Raraku oasis where Felisin opened the Book of Dryjhna and took up the mantle of Sha'ik Reborn.

In Memories of Ice

While standing amidst the destruction of Capustan, Ganoes Paran had a vision of a green stone monolith towering above the desert sand. Without realizing it, he observed his sister Felisin, Baudin, and Heboric at the moment the historian touched the jade statue in Seven Cities. The result was a tear in the sky as Fener was dragged unwillingly into the mortal realm. Paran feared the god was as good as dead now that he was vulnerable to the same dangers as other mortals.

Anomander Rake claimed the object Heboric touched brought him into contact with the Warren of Chaos, and had possibly been forged there. Heboric's contact with the stump of his hand had sent an uncontrolled surge of power to where the hands were safely sealed away in Fener's realm. The hands had then pushed Fener out of his realm to his inevitable doom.

Further, Rake revealed that Heboric's punishment had been politically motivated and not an act of purest judgement as required by Fener's Reve. If not for the god's fall, Heboric would have retrieved his hands in death and then become a weapon of Fener's vengeance against those who had wronged him. The Son of Darkness warned that the Empress, the Claw, and the Malazan Empire would then have faced a dark storm.

In House of Chains

Living in the armed camp that was the Raraku Oasis, Heboric's sleep was unsettled by relentless dreams of a massive and alien face of jade. He came to the understanding that his hands had not been claimed by Fener, but by the giant buried in the desert. Heboric suspected the jade giant had come from another realm for a hidden purpose, and the historian drank Hen'bara tea given him by Sha'ik every night in an attempt to achieve oblivion.

The historian, now known as Heboric Ghost Hands or Ghost Hands, kept many secrets from Sha'ik Reborn in order to spare her grief. He was aware of the true identity of the newly revealed Master of the Deck, but chose to keep this knowledge from Felisin. Made aware of Bidithal's perverse designs on Felisin Younger, he kept the knowledge to himself as Sha'ik needed the High Mage as a check against the others who conspired against her. Instead, Heboric confronted Bidithal and warned him of the consequences of acting against's Sha'ik's adopted daughter. Heboric also shared secrets with L'oric regarding the jade giants and L'oric's true nature.

Sha'ik later admitted that the hen'bara tea she gave Heboric to quiet his dreams actually had the opposite effect. The giant of jade had the power to overcome and destroy otataral. As Sha'ik's Malazan enemies approached Raraku bearing an otataral sword that would neutralize the magic of her High Mages, Sha'ik desperately needed a counter. She entreated Heboric to use the tea to discover the answer.

Heboric begrudgingly complied, ingesting a high dose of the drug. The historian soon found himself amidst a sea of stars in The Abyss observing scores of the giants tumbling towards an enormous wound in space. He discovered that the giants were related to the fall of the Crippled God and had fallen through the wound in his wake.

When Heboric awoke, he discovered the otataral veins in his hands were gone, no longer obscuring that the new god of war, Treach, had claimed him as his Destriant. Heboric underwent a physical transformation at the revelation. No longer blind, his eyes became those of a cat. His tattoos became the barbs of a tiger. He found his hearing greatly increased and his nose able to follow scent trails. His aches and pains were replaced by a new physicality of feline grace and strength. His ghost hands grew talons.

The new Destriant soon discovered Bidithal's desecration of Felising Younger, but withheld his vengeance. He could not risk drawing the young god, Treach, into conflict with whatever power Bidithal served. Heboric chose to bide his time and remain a silent hunter.

When Korbolo Dom finally turned on Sha'ik, he sent his assassins to slay his rivals. Heboric rescued Scillara from two guards before nearly falling to Dom's killers himself. He was rescued by a trio of Bridgeburner ghosts. L'oric convinced Heboric to take Felisin Younger to safety, along with Scillara and L'oric's familiar, Greyfrog. They escaped the Raraku oasis just before Karsa came looking for vengeance against the hated historian and before Sha'ik Reborn's death. They soon found their way to Tesem and the company of Iskaral Pust and Cutter.

In The Bonehunters

Heboric was driven mad by the presence of the Otataral in his body as well as the alien presence left by the jade giant. He was killed by the unbound T'lan Imass who kidnapped Felisin Younger. His body was taken to Otataral Island by Cutter, Scillara, Barathol Mekhar, and Chaur. During the jade meteor shower, he took the role as Shield Anvil and accepted the pain of those imprisoned by the jade statues.

In Toll the Hounds

(Information needed)

In Dust of Dreams

(Information needed)

In The Crippled God

Heboric Light Touch by Shadaan

Heboric's soul was rejected by Hood. He was shown to be still traumatized by the events that occurred in Deadhouse Gates, though he was consoled by K'rul and Mael.

In the finale, he chained Korabas to save her from T'iam, with the aid of the Crippled God.

In Kellanved's Reach

Heboric, in the early days of the formation of the Malazan Empire, was a committed priest of Fener. Heboric had been endowed by Fener with a tattoo of a "rampaging boar" - which covered the priest's entire body. Perhaps to better display the entirety of this tattoo, Heboric wore only a simple loincloth. Heboric was, at this time, squat but powerfully built. He was described as having heavy lips with which he would give good-tempered "frog-like lopsided" grins. Heboric had been a member of a temple devoted to Fener - whose priests, priestesses, and other faithful he had considered to be his adopted family.

However, Heboric began to notice disturbances among the Warrens. Strange manifestations were occurring due, apparently, to power from unknown sources. Because of this "peculiar restiveness among the pantheon" of the gods, Heboric left his home temple and began to travel widely to visit other cults looking for answers. For example, Heboric had not only met with devotees of such cults as the ones of the Queen of Dreams/Enchantress, of K'rul, and of Poliel; but also met with hermits and ascetics who spoke for various "eldritch powers".

Heboric was in the process of travelling between a temple devoted to Poliel in Horan — eastward along the southern shore of Quon Tali — to the "Isle of the Cursed", aka "Poliel's Isle of the Blessed", when he was intercepted by a group of two priests and two priestesses of Fener from his home temple. The speakers for the group - mainly the eldest, Brother Eliac - who addressed him as "Heboric of Carasin" - and the youngest, a Napan priestess of Fener, told Heboric that they had been sent to urge him to return with them. Heboric refused, having his own agenda to which he felt "called". The four reluctantly accepted Heboric's decision and left Heboric with the words, "May the Great Boar watch over you".

History

Heboric had once been a cut-purse from the Mouse Quarter of Malaz City before becoming a priest and historian. His skill at his former profession had earned him the nickname Light Touch. In his scholarly writings he had criticized the works of Duiker as deliberate lies.

At one point he seemed destined to take on the title of Fener's Destriant, but Heboric's name was stricken from the temple records, and his hands had been ritually severed as part of his excommunication. This meant that the tattoos he sported on his hand and chest as part of his priesthood could no longer be activated to open a Warren. The ritual should have been the expression of purest justice, but in this case, it was not. His hands had been sent to Fener's hooves to await his death and his elevation to a position of Fener's wrath. Because the ritual was flawed, however, his hands were as poison to the god and were sealed until his spirit could come and collect them.

Likely, the reason for the ritual punishment of Fener's Reve was to reduce the the influence of Fener within the Empire as well as punish Heboric's particular avenue of historical analysis. His investigation had concluded that Laseen had failed in her attempt to assassinate Kellanved and Dancer and that they had instead ascended. This was knowledge that was dangerous for the Empress and so she called for the ritual and had him sent to the Otataral mines.

Poetry

"Past Quon hegemonies never held;
occupations cannot quell unrest,
indeed, even benign ones foster it.
Must this lesson be learned every generation?
Sadly, some things never change."

―Historian Heboric

Notes and references

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