Sherp was a partially blind old man, who talked incessantly under his breath about a long lost broken altar-stone, deeply buried under the streets of Letheras, the capital city of the Letherii Empire. Because of this eccentric behavior, he had been well-known in the poor neighborhood of Letheras where he had spent almost all of his time. Sherp had died under mysterious circumstances - his body having been found in a fetal position inside a crudely drawn circle, surrounded by six rats with broken necks - in the very same lane (that came to be known as Sherp's Last Lane) under which he had been certain that the cracked altar-stone rested, deep in the earth.[1]
Sherp's Last Lane ended at a perpendicular intersection with an alley. To the left was a sinkhole-turned-refuse pit known as Errant's Heel. To the right was the collapsing hovel of Urusan and her six grandchildren.[1] Buried Round was also around two to three hundred paces away.[2]
In Midnight Tides[]
Bugg, Tehol Beddict's manservant and a long-time resident of Letheras, had known Sherp well and still missed him even though the old man had, by now, been dead for decades.[1]
Speculations[]
In the subsequent novel, Reaper's Gale, The Errant visited his ancient, long abandoned and forgotten temple far beneath Letheras. There he found that his altar-stone had been shattered.[3] Taking together this broken altar-stone in The Errant's Temple and the ritualistic details surrounding Sherp's dead body, it is reasonable to wonder if the two are connected in some way. Perhaps Sherp (conceivably possessing some natural 'talent') had been attempting to magically access the power of the altar that he was sure was present far under the lane that his body had been found in, and had died somehow as a result.
Notes and references[]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Midnight Tides, Chapter 6, US TPB p.168
- ↑ Midnight Tides, Chapter 6, US SFBC p.208
- ↑ Reaper's Gale, Chapter 9, US TPB p.227-228