Udinaas

Udinaas
Udinaas by Corporal Nobbs
Biographical information
Race	Human (Letherii)
Gender	Male
Family	Rud Elalle (son)
Social information
Affiliation	House Sengar Kingdom of Lether
Occupation(s)	Slave

Udinaas [OO-din-us] was a Letherii slave serving the Sengar household of the Hiroth tribe of the Tiste Edur. Compared to his former life as a Letherii Indebted, he did not find life as a slave particularly harsh.

He was described as having regular, unimpressive features and a lean, tanned body. Kettle described his face as that of a kind person. Over his coarse woolen trousers or loincloth, he wore a tunic tightened by a rope belt. On his feet he wore moccasins.

History

Udinaas had been a young sailor in the third year of his family's multi-generational indenture to the merchant, Intaros of Trate, when he was aboard the whaler Brunt on an illicit return run from Beneda waters. The crew were tugging the carcasses of three sows back to the neutral waters west of Calach Bay when they were spotted by five K'orthan ships of the Hiroth tribe of the Tiste Edur. Due to his greed, the captain refused to dump his prize and escape. After being captured, the captain and officers were tied to one of the sow corpses to be eaten by sharks whilst Udinaas and the rest of the crew were taken as slaves. Thus, Udinaas became part of the Sengar household and developed his hatred of the sea.

In Midnight Tides

Udinaas and the Wyval by Shadaan

Udinaas had romantic inclinations towards a fellow slave, Feather Witch, who was a caster of the tiles. But Feather Witch's superior place within the Sengar household made his interest futile. On the same night that Warlock King Hannan Mosag gathered his warriors to discuss a Letherii incursion, Udinaas spotted a white crow. Recognising it as a dire omen, he arrived too late to stop Feather Witch's latest casting. She came under attack from a Wyval and he rushed to her rescue. While wrestling with the Wyval, Udinaas became infected with its blood.

Shortly after, Udinaas had a dream in which he found himself on a plain of ash below a sky of fire. Dead warriors converged on him and one grabbed him by the leg and dragged him off. Suddenly, Menandore, the feared goddess of dawn, appeared atop a huge skeletal horse bound by fire. She struck the warriors down with her sword and axe and crushed Udinaas with her boot sensing the Wyval within him. The goddess demanded Udinaas decide whether he would ride his Wyval blood or his slave body. In the face of her taunts, he chose Wyval and she raped him. Feather Witch also appeared in the dream to tell him the vision was a result of the Wyval blood poisoning his brain.

Menandore and Udinaas by PLUGO

The Shadow wraith, Wither, approached Udinaas, offering to hide in his shadow and to serve as "your eyes behind you, whom no-one else can see or hear". Together they would seek retribution against the Edur. To seal the bargain, Udinaas collected an ancient arrowhead from the sand of the bay that had once belonged to the wraith. Later, Udinaas realised that the wraith hid within the blood of the Wyval and the Wyval hid in the shadow of the wraith, effectively negating his Edur masters from detecting either. This likely spared Udinaas from execution.

The Edur Warlock King, Hannan Mosag, sent the Sengar brothers into the ice fields to retrieve a gift shown to him in a dream. The expedition returned with a sword and the body of Rhulad Sengar. Udinaas was tasked with the ritual dressing of the corpse with heated coins and witnessed as the coin-covered Rhulad came back to life, a consequence of the cursed sword the young Sengar clutched in his hands. Udinaas comforted Rhulad upon the resurrection and removed the coins from the man's eyelids. Rhulad quickly grew to depend on Udinaas and demanded that he should become his personal slave.

Udinaas by Dejan Delic

Udinaas continued seeing visions of the past, such as Scabandari's betrayal of Silchas Ruin and the capture of Sheltatha Lore by Menandore and Sukul Ankhadu, and Wither shared knowledge that few other mortals possessed. He had a falling out with Feather Witch, who revealed that she had purposefully summoned the Wyval hoping to be the one infected. She forced Udinaas to take her into one of his dreams where they found themselves among the Imass of the Refugium. There Udinaas discovered he had a son, Rud Elalle, beget from the seed stolen by Menandore. The slave left the boy without revealing their relation.

Udinaas accompanied Rhulad during the conquest of the Kingdom of Lether and he was always by the emperor's side to ease the madness and suffering of his repeated deaths resurrections. Trull Sengar saw the slave as his brother's de facto adviser and caretaker and was comforted by his presence. Theradas Buhn and others in Rhulad's entourage hated the foreign slave for the emperor's reliance on him. When the Letherii traitor, Hull Beddict, discovered that Udinaas' family debt amounted to 722 docks and was owed to one of Tehol Beddict's lenders, he wiped the debt clear in his brother's name.

When the Edur army entered Letheras, Udinaas was left with the other slaves, but his body was hijacked by the Wyval within him. He swelled into a massive, gnarled form with talons and raced for the grounds of the Azath Tower where the Wyval's master, Silchas Ruin, was imprisoned. Along the way, he killed more than thirty Soletaken Jheck and six Edur with his bare hands. Thus Udinaas was not there to comfort Rhulad as he came back to life again after being slain in a duel with Finadd Moroch Nevath, something that was viewed as a betrayal by the Sengars. Uruth Sengar was filled with hate and an angry Trull sent Theradas and his warriors to hunt the slave down.

At the Azath House, the Wyval tore free from its host body, leaving Udinaas badly torn and broken from the ordeal. Wither prompted Kettle to save Udinaas' life by dripping a little of her blood on to his dying body. After Ruin's release, Wither dragged Udinaas' unconscious form to the home of Seren Pedac. The Acquitor agreed to guide the group of Ruin, Kettle, Wither, the Wyval, and Fear Sengar out of the captured city.

In The Bonehunters

A company of Arapay warriors led by Ahlrada Ahn was sent in search of Udinaas, Fear, and the others, but returned empty handed. When no sign of the betrayers was found, Emperor Rhulad's rage nearly led to the mass executions of Ahn and his company. Only the words of Hannan Mosag prevented bloodshed.

In Reaper's Gale

The Travellers by Autumn Tavern

After escaping Letheras, Udinaas travelled eastward with Silchas Ruin, Seren Pedac, Fear Sengar, Kettle, and Wither for months with Edur and Letherii hunters in pursuit, although Fear kept their ultimate destination to himself. During their travels, the Wyval abandoned them. Fear, meanwhile, fostered a murderous hatred for Udinaas, who he believed betrayed his brother, Rhulad. Seren suspected the Edur's hatred was a manifestation of his own guilt over Rhulad's fate. Udinaas and Kettle were briefly captured by Hiroth and Letherii slave-trackers near the Bluerose Mountains when trying to steal food from a farm. His Edur captors planned to bring the escaped slave back to Letheras to face The Drownings before Silchas Ruin violently intervened. While the Tiste Andii dispatched most of their captors, Udinaas used his chains to strangle a Letherii guard who had raped Kettle during their captivity.

His group were welcomed by the Tiste Andii of Bluerose when they met Clip, who had been sent by the Onyx Order, specifically Ordant Brid, and the group traveled by Kurald Galain to Andara.

He continued his travels with Fear Sengar, Seren Pedac, Kettle, Wither, and Silchas Ruin, ostensibly in search of the soul of Scabandari Bloodeye, but it became clear that different members sought different goals.

During his travels the Errant, Feather Witch, and Menandore all sought to use him, but he refused all of them.

The Travellers by HiHaFiZi

When they arrived at the Refugium, Wither attempted to strangle Udinaas, but he was saved by Seren who used Mockra to dispel Wither.

In Dust of Dreams

Udinaas agreed that Silchas Ruin should take on the training of Rud Elalle.

In The Crippled God

Udinaas took to talking to himself. Kilava asked him to lead her people out of the Refugium to a place of safety.

Author comments

• Steven Erikson says, "I loved writing Udinaas...I saw him as a character with nothing to lose. You know, he was sort of already put in a position where the whims of others could take his life at any time and he's already been...invaded internally, and then the dreams, and...[Menandore] has already got to him. So he really has nothing to lose, and yet there's some element of him that's still capable of caring, of extending empathy to another character, to another person. And that's the thing that keeps dragging him sort of back into the decisions he keeps making. That he then immediately regrets."
• Erikson also says Udinaas is "doing meta-commentary all the way through [the series], and exploring the idea of what it is to do the heroic act, and how much of that is manufactured, and how much of that is genuine. I mean, that's what Udinaas is all about."

Quotes

Kettle: "Why don't any of you like each other? I like all of you. Even Wither."

Udinaas: "It's all right. We're all just tortured by who we are, Kettle."

―When Kettle was distressed because the grown-ups were so mean to each other

Fan art gallery

Udinaas by AJK

Udinaas and the Wyval by Shadaan

Notes and references

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