- "Power is a consequence, a happenstance enforced by laws that were artificially set in place. Knowledge is the heart of this. And should a man know as much as a God…Would there even be a difference?"
- ―Masego[1]
Masego is a close friend of Catherine Foundling, and followed the Fifteenth Legion through many of their battles. He is a member of the Woe.
Background[]
Masego was adopted and raised by Wekesa and Tikoloshe. Until the age of nine he was kept in a demi-plane between Creation and Arcadia, at which point Wekesa decided he was old enough to return to Ater and allowed the construct to collapse. Watching his world crumble before his eyes impressed upon Masego the artificiality of Creation and left him with a desire to go beyond it. He became the Apprentice and came into his first Aspect complaining about another mage's work, which likely drove his major flaw of insistently correcting people.
While he does seem to enjoy interacting with his friends, he has shown absolutely no interest in romance or sex. In an effort to bring him over to her side, Akua had agents attempt to seduce him in extremely blatant fashion, without him even appearing to notice.
Callowan Civil War and First Liesse (Book 2)[]
His first meeting with Catherine was when she came to visit Wekesa to ask why he had not been active in ridding Summerholm of the heroes under William. A flying, winged pig escaped from their laboratory and attacked Catherine and Hakram before being subdued and returned to its cage by Masego.[2]
Joining Catherine and Hakram they go up against William's Band of Five, where Masego proves a highly competent mage, before his father ends the bettle by taking out William with a chariot and killing the Bumbling Conjurer. After this, Masego joins the Fifteenth as they go into the Civil War, slowly building up a report with Cat and her inner circle.
During the battle of Marchford, Masego is crucial in making wards within the city to guide the attacking forces. While battling the demon, he gets a drop of demon blood on his wrist, causing Catherine to be so concerned about Masego becoming corrupted, she gives him a bomb-rigged trinket for his hair. Masego immediately recognizes it for what it is, but thinks it's perfectly normal for villains in a band to have checks on one-another - crowing up a child of the Calamities - and as such just sees it as an actual gift from Catherine while she is deeply concerned about tricking her friend.
During First Liesse, Masego raises Catherine as an undead after her third fight against William, and helps her reach the pocket dimension where Catherine's rivals and the body of the dead angel is. After Cat's resurrection, Masego begs for Akua's minion Fadila Mbafeno to be spared, as she's one of the most promising mages of her generation. The Sahelian mfuasa was given the choice to die or serve as Masego's assistant, and chose the latter.
As a reward for his services during the civil war, Dread Empress Malicia gives him the right to raise his own magic tower. Which he builds in Catherine's new demesne Marchford.
The Fae Incursions and Second Liesse (Book 3)[]
He ceased to be Apprentice and gained the name Hierophant during the Battle of Four Armies and One when he tried to restrain the Princess of High Noon. While witnessing her calling down the Arcadian sun Masego's eyes turned blind witnessing the miracle. Making him dig out his own eyes and forming the shards from his spectacles into a pair of new eyes, burning with the summer sun, as his first act as the Hierophant.[3]
Appearance[]
Masego is tall, even for a Soninke, with a scholar's build. He starts out overweight, and is described as chubby even after he should have lost weight following Cat around, suggesting it's part of his Name self-image. He has dark skin, dark brown eyes hidden behind spectacles and thick eyebrows.
Masego looks fairly plain, with fleshy lips that give the appearance of being chewed and a considerable paunch. He wears his hair long and split in a dozen braids, with a variety of trinkets including ones that reflect the light in "unnatural ways". As Apprentice, he wears long robes that mostly seem to be grey, but they have also been described as colourful by Cat, looking back at his old look, after he made a wardrobe upgrade.
Following his transition to the Name of Hierophant and subsequently having his eyes burned out by the Summer Sun, he took to wearing black robes and a black blindfold. He also replaced the many trinkets in his long braided hair with dull bars of iron carved with runes. He formed his shattered glasses into spherical glass eyes still imbued with the same enchantments to allow him to see, and as a consequence he has the somewhat off-putting habit of not always turning to look at people, as he can see through the back of his own head.
Between Book 3 and Book 4, Masego lost a lot of weight after withdrawing into his studies and forgetting to eat. He regained enough weight for his frame to look full again, after being pulled away from the observatory. Cat also notes he no longer seemed boyish, and now instead "looked like the kind of sorcerer you didn’t walk away from fighting."
After the battle in Thalassina, Masego becomes sickly thin while influenced by The Dead King. This has changed by the time Cat visits Masego in the Arsenal, where he looks healthy and no longer thin. Here he has also updated his wardrobe into ornate grey robes with tiles of pale green and paler gold and an eyecloth that matched the grey robes. His hair by then are still braids, but with a ring at the end of each that are either gold, silver or bronze.[4]
By the time of the Praesi campaign, Masego has again updated his look. Reverting back to black robes that have a subtle gold filigree. This also comes with a matching eyecloth. And a beginning beard that by this time still is just "a glorified stubble".[5]
Relationships[]
Masego is good friends with Catherine. He seems to enjoy traveling with her and explaining magical principles, however little she understands of them. He also enjoys the opportunities working with her creates to study magical phenomena and make practical use of his magical talents.
He also plays shatranj with Hakram and discusses magic with Kilian, though he does not apparently socialize much with anyone else except his family, the Calamities, and the Woe.
Masego loves his family and the Calamities, referring to the Calamities as his Uncles and Aunts. He has complete trust in them, believing that any discussion or problem that might arise within the group would eventually be solved by themselves coming to some agreement. He seems to be distant with the Empress Malicia, and he had made plans and preparations to fight her (and possibly kill her) when he realized Cat's interests were against Malicia, though he didn't seem surprised or bothered about it, sarcastically pointing out that betrayal between Villains wasn't surprising at all.
He refers to the Black Knight as "uncle Amadeus", and respects him a lot, but Masego also expresses the same mild irritation as many other people who know him well at how dramatic and mysterious he tries to act.
Indrani makes a sport out of teasing and annoying Masego, spending a lot of time around him. She is also described as probably being the only person in the Fifteenth with enough understanding of magical theory to hold a conversation on his level, despite not being a mage. She has admitted having feelings for him as she says he is "genuine" about how he is; Masego seems to reciprocate these feelings on some level, as Catherine noticed he covered an sleeping Indrani with a care she had only seen him use when touching books, and in how Indrani's image within Masego's inner world was in high detail, beautiful, and "magnificent" to the point of impressing Catherine.
Powers[]
Masego is generally an extremely skilled mage. He has been shown to use a variety of powerful spells such as gigantic freezing blasts and a column of fire likely hot enough to kill a demon if it could have been held in place long enough, and has been able to easily identify and usually counter or explain the weaknesses of magic used by other practitioners.
In book 4, Empress Malicia's analysis of Masego is that he has enormous destructive potential, yet has much less adaptability then his father. This does seem to be supported by the idea that the Warlock's wards do tend to be weak, yet flexible and capable of doing nearly anything. This could be due to her underestimating Masego, however.
Masego's aspects as Apprentice revolved around augmenting his magical abilities contrary to most names he considered these benefits a weakness. He believed that relying on aspects hindered him from developing casting abilities. His two Aspects as Apprentice were Glimpse, which allowed him to analyze magic in great depth even from a great distance, and Deconstruct, which allowed him to break down and restructure magic used against him.
In his new Name of Hierophant, he has developed abilities that allow him to analyze and copy Miracles and similar powers normally unavailable to mages; this allows him to grow in power every time he faces foes capable of using Miracles and potentially other powers of a similar level. The Queen of Summer claimed that while if he had lived long enough and witnessed enough Miracles he would have proven at least something of a match for her, though when they met he had only come into his Name recently and had yet to see anything besides Princess Sulia and the Summer Sun.
Aspects[]
Heirophant's current aspects are Witness, Ruin and Wrest.
Witness: Allows him to view or experience past events in these visions he is unable to add(cause events or change) but only able to subtract(gather information such as languages). Manipulating events can lead to a backlash causing him to suffer headaches for months.
Ruin: Allows him to destroy a target, or even a large area - he first uses it to demolish the Skein's cavern. Described as "to destroy and devastate it irreparably"[6] and later "To ruin something, for Masego, was to pare it down it until it’d reached the very edge of breaking. Until, in a sense, it was no longer a threat."[7]
Wrest: Allows Masego to steal power from another source and use it himself. This aspect lets him work as a mage even after losing his powers, as long as another source of magic is present. He can use this aspect on both people and artifacts.[8] [9] It is more effective when he has to overcome the target's resistance to take it, even if it's only a token resistance.[10] Wrest can only be used on a single target at a time.[8]
Gallery[]
References[]
- ↑ Book 2 Chapter 37: Apprentice
- ↑ Book 2 - Chapter 5: Recognition
- ↑ Book 3 - Chapter 32: Close
- ↑ Book 6 - Chapter 13: Ingress
- ↑ Book 7 - Chapter 2: Perplex
- ↑ Book 4 - Chapter 43: Masego's Plan
- ↑ Book 5 - Chapter 44: Small Slights
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 Book 7 - Chapter 44: Antecedents If they got caught and swarmed by a dozen sigil-holders, they were good as dead: Zeze could only Wrest the power one person at a time.
- ↑ Book 6 - Interlude: Terms“Wrest,” the Hierophant coldly said, raising a hand. The Light ripped out of the device, uncontested for the lack of will behind it, and it formed into a ball
- ↑ Book 6 - Chapter 23: Repercussions The Hierophant used his will to Wrest the Night away from me, as he had earlier when we’d trapped the Intercessor, and I gave token resistance before letting him win. We’d found out if worked better if he got control by winning a conflict, even the resistance was largely ceremonial.