Band-Imas

Band-Imas is the Arch-Rike of Kenatos, a ruler who understands the city’s founding mission as a mandate to preserve knowledge against the Plague. When Paedrin is held in a cell, Band-Imas explains that mission as a defense of civilization, but his proposed defense requires the deaths and subordination of others. His account makes him more than a custodian of Kenatos: he is an authority prepared to turn preservation into coercion.

Identity and Political Authority

Band-Imas identifies himself to Paedrin as the Arch-Rike of Kenatos. The title places him at the head of the city’s political order, whose laws, as the archivist Possidius Adeodat describes them, are binding within Kenatos and enforced by the Bhikhu on behalf of the Arch-Rike. Band-Imas’s authority is therefore linked both to civic law and to the Bhikhu, the order to which Paedrin belongs.

His first exchange with Paedrin establishes a ruler accustomed to command, but one who speaks in the language of explanation as well as power. He tells Paedrin that Tyrus Paracelsus has ensnared him in a treasonous plot and that a trial will follow, with Paedrin’s life likely to be forfeit. Band-Imas presents this judgment as an assessment of the young Bhikhu’s situation; what follows reveals that he has already decided to make Paedrin serve his own purposes.

Kenatos and the Preservation of Knowledge

Band-Imas’s political argument rests on a real institutional ideal: Kenatos was founded to preserve knowledge and to embody cooperation among kingdoms and peoples. He says that the Plague grows more severe with each recurrence and that its losses threaten the Cruithne in Alkire, the Preachán in Havenrook, the Vaettir, and the people of Boeotia. In his forecast, civilization beyond Kenatos will collapse, leaving the city as the surviving center of order.

From this prediction, Band-Imas draws a severe conclusion. Before the catastrophe, he says, Kenatos must gather the wisest people from every culture and preserve what they know. He would order Paedrin killed for his knowledge if he were the last Bhikhu. The logic is not merely that learning should survive its holder: Band-Imas is willing to treat a person’s life as expendable whenever he judges the knowledge within it valuable to the city’s future.

Iddawc is central to this plan. Band-Imas describes the blade as unique and powered by a spirit with power over death. According to his explanation, it preserves the memories and experiences of anyone it kills, trapping them in its hilt for the bearer to use. He argues that the weapon could preserve the wisdom of people afflicted by the Plague, including the Arch-Rike himself, for successors to inherit. The promise of continuity thus depends on a means that converts death into a repository of knowledge and makes the dead available to the living.

Conflict with Tyrus Paracelsus

Band-Imas casts Tyrus Paracelsus as a traitor who seeks to overthrow the religion of Seithrall, conspires with the city’s enemies, and undermines Kenatos’s capacity to survive. He claims Tyrus sent Paedrin to recover Iddawc after arranging its theft, and tells Paedrin that Tyrus seeks to free the serving spirits. Band-Imas rejects the description of those spirits as slaves, asserting instead that they serve Kenatos and will be freed when their commitments are fulfilled.

This account is presented alongside Band-Imas’s own assertion that he cannot lie while wearing a particular ring. He removes the large garnet ring, whose stone is ink black, and gives it to Paedrin. The ring, he explains, prevents its wearer from speaking falsely and prevents falsehood from being spoken in the wearer’s presence. Paedrin accepts it and tests Band-Imas’s accusations by asking about Iddawc. Although the ring establishes truthfulness as the standard of their exchange, it does not settle the moral dispute: Paedrin can believe Band-Imas speaks honestly while still rejecting his right to decide who may be killed or whose memories may be claimed.

Paedrin’s Forced Service

Band-Imas does not intend to leave Paedrin to face a trial. He tells him that he will serve Kenatos best as a Kishion: someone dead to ordinary worldly attachments, without marriage, children, past, or future. Paedrin is to accept blame for Iddawc’s theft and be hanged for it. Band-Imas expects him to survive the hanging because he is Vaettir, then be reborn into the role the Arch-Rike has chosen for him. Paedrin refuses, saying he would rather die by hanging than accept.

Band-Imas’s control is backed by a black stone and necklace. He orders Paedrin to give him the stone; Paedrin’s arms move against his will, and Band-Imas attaches it to a jeweled necklace bearing matching ink-black stones. He then tells Paedrin that the necklace gives him control over all of them, and that its bearers will forget their names, remember being born in darkness, speak as he wishes, and obey his commands. Paedrin answers, “Yes, my lord,” as the stone’s removal from the ring leaves him feeling that part of himself has been taken away. The encounter ends not in agreement, but in compelled submission.

Character and Narrative Significance

Band-Imas’s account makes his central contradiction visible. He speaks of collective survival, cooperation, and the preservation of learning, yet his methods concentrate the power to decide whose lives matter and what those lives will become. His belief that catastrophe is inevitable turns knowledge into a justification for harvesting memory, while his claim that spirits are serving rather than enslaved exposes how sharply his vocabulary diverges from the freedom Tyrus seeks for them.

The contrast with Kenatos’s founding ideal is especially pointed. The city is described as a monument to kingdoms working together for civilization’s good, and its law is distinguished from sovereignty understood as organized robbery. Band-Imas invokes that civic purpose but extends it into a personal claim over Paedrin’s body, identity, and future. He is thus presented not simply as an opponent of Tyrus, but as a ruler whose sincere confidence in preservation cannot be separated from the coercive power he exercises in its name.