I should never have let the sadistic bastard out of his cage.
Quirrin has been in twelve of my novels so far- all ten of the Rowansglory series, the fifth novel, Cerulean, of my series the Blue Quintet , and the stand-alone novel Kismet. Every single time, he takes over the story. And it's not just because he's land Elwen. He is a sadistic bastard, as well as one of the most fascinating characters I've ever created. Fascinating to me, at least.
Quirrin, at most of the time I've been writing about him, is 3000 to 4000 years old, late youth for a land Elwen. He stands a trim and lean 6'2", with red-brown hair that turns redder when the sunlight catches it, pale skin, and silver eyes.
He is a psychic assaulter, trained to attack others' minds and control them, or destroy them. This is especially useful in battle; psychic assaulters can make enemies turn on their own comrades or commit suicide, fill their minds with the feeling of being raped, or take control of the mind of an unborn child and make it dig its way out of its mother. Needless to say, no one much wants to face them. The training involves taking a child who has the necessary gifts and nearly destroying his or her mind again and again with torture and rape both physical and psychic, until obedience and the training one wishes have been implanted. Quirrin is not only a psychic assaulter himself, but responsible for the training of other psychic assaulters. It is part of his duty as master torturer, and more, as part of the ruling triumvirate of Rowan.
Of course, this is not all Quirrin does.
He also trains young torturers, hears the reports of Rowan's spies and secret police, sends out the spies and secret police, has foreigners followed when they come to the city to insure that they aren't spies in return, sends out assassins against Rowan's enemies, hears the reports of patrol leaders, supervises trials where the chance of a death sentence falling is likely, keeps files on foreign criminals who might decide to come to Rowan someday, enacts various intrigues against the Council and the Captain of the Guards, and sometimes torturers a criminal himself. Torture in Rowan is used to extract confessions from those who are known to be guilty, but have also refused a trial and refused to confess their crimes. No one is so skilled as Quirrin at extracting those confessions.
The reason for all this?
He loves his city.
I know that may sound strange, but think about it for a moment. The young man or woman (though traditionally, because women have proven not to have the stomach for it or to botch the job beyond all belief, the position of master torturer is male) chosen to follow the master torturer need not be a psychic assaulter, or good at politics, or even a good torturer. Quirrin is exceptional in being all of those at once. There have been many in the past who did not have even one of the gifts that he does. Only one thing is required of them:
Absolute loyalty to Rowan.
The master torturer has to be the strongest of the triumvirate- stronger than the Captain of the Guards who might need to turn her Guards loose on her own people, stronger than the Councilmaster who must perform executions with his or her own hands. He must be able to do the most horrible things in the name of protecting his people. He must be able to walk down the street in the midst of insults and thrown stones, knowing all the while that the people hurling these things at him are the people who live in peace in large part because of his efforts. He must be able to watch a child die with a calm face if necessary, because he takes the long view while others take the short. He must be able to do something that is absolutely not Elwen and sacrifice the good of the few for the good of the many. He may hate his job, but he does it.
Everything that Quirrin has done in my books- lives destroyed, candidates found for and forced into positions they did not want, minds raped, torturers trained, assassination attempts survived- has been done for the sake of Rowan, and not for himself. He's probably the least selfish character I've ever created, while at the same time the most deplorable in his actions.
I think that's why he fascinates me.
