Burkhan
| Title | Head of the Damaziko |
|---|---|
| Affiliation | Damaziko |
| Home | Varaar |
| Status | Deceased |
| First appearance | A Sacred Tale Collection |
Burkhan ran the Damaziko, one of the five gangs that govern Varaar, and owned the Hollowed Shadow, the underground club beneath the city where the gang kept its dancers.[1] He is the only one of the five gang heads the books name.[2] He stole Fawn from her family as a child and held her at the Shadow for years, and when he announced he would marry her, Tabitha Glowdish came to the club to kill him and burned it down around them both.[1][3]
Appearance
Burkhan was a giant black-haired man, "built like a human tree" and easily three heads taller than the bear who kept the club's courtyard door; that bear already stood over three heads taller than Tab.[1] His teeth were gold, and he showed them by baring rather than smiling. His hair was greasy, and his weight was heavy enough that when he fell on Tab she thought her ribs would snap.[1]
The story calls him a man and does not say which of Varaar's peoples he belonged to.[1]
Personality
Tab had never met him before the night she killed him, but she had heard rumours of his "unpredictable and eruptive nature", and found them accurate.[1] He cleared the Hollowed Shadow of its patrons whenever he wanted to drink alone, which was often enough that regulars recognised the habit.[1]
His temper ran to mutilation. Told that Fawn had gone missing and been found again, he took one of his own doorman's eyes for the lapse, carried the eyeball into the courtyard in his hand, dropped it and crushed it under his boot, and warned the bear he would take the other one if she ran off again. He ordered a troll to clean up the mess.[1]
He talked to Fawn only to insult her, and what he was to the rest of Varaar was a payer of prices. When a pair of scavengers caught Fawn loose in the street, the reason they gave each other for carrying her back to him was that she was worth more kaps than they could count.[1]
The Damaziko
The Damaziko sigil is a snake with swords for fangs, cut into the brick above the Hollowed Shadow's door and worn as a tattoo whose position on the body marks rank. Razaryn, an orange lizard who drank at the club and beat Fawn in front of Tab, carried it on his tongue and stood in the gang's high ranks.[1] The Damaziko shared business dealings with the Khaylant, who ran the protection at the Shadow and posted a bear on the outer door and a fox on the inner.[1]
Burkhan knew Tab by reputation before he knew her face, and named her as the one who had killed Razaryn.[1]
Fawn
Burkhan took Fawn from her home when she was a child, killed her family, and kept her at the Shadow to dance for the highest-ranking gang members in the city.[1] Tab, Fawn's partner at the time, called him Fawn's owner, and said the name tasted like poison. The bruises Fawn carried were his.[1]
He then decided to wed her and "strengthen his bloodline", and told her so shortly before she passed the news to Tab on a crumpled napkin.[1] On the night the club burned he had her taken to the dancers' quarters, ordered Ayala to clean her up and have her waiting in his suite, and said he meant to consummate the marriage that night.[1]
Death
Tab found him alone at the bar of his own emptied club, drinking green liquid out of a bottle, and put a dagger under his chin from behind. She wanted him to own up to what he had done to Fawn before she used it, and he gave her no time to decide. He punched her to the floor, took a gash to the knee, fell on top of her and got both hands around her throat.[1]
Reaching for anything at all, Tab dragged a table over. It caught on the rug and went down, and its oil lamp set the purple carpet alight. Flame bit his leg, she kicked him off, and a burst of fire caught in his hair. He came back through the wall of flames with half his face charred, his lips burnt away and his gold teeth grinning, seized her from behind and squeezed until something popped. She twisted out of his arms and pushed him into the fire, then set her boot on his neck and held him down until he stopped moving, her own arm burning as she did it. A ceiling beam came down across the bar and sealed him under it.[1]
Damaziko thugs were in the courtyard looking for Tab before the fire was out, brought there by the troll.[1] The gang never took the place back. Years later Tab came down the same spiral stairs and found the burnt-out basement lived in by the women Burkhan had held there, faded gang sigils still showing on the plush walls under the maps and portraits hung over them.[3]
Behind the scenes
The cast list at the front of A Sacred Tale Collection and the pronunciation guide at the back of Sacred 2: Flames of the Awakened both give the name as Burr-con.[1][4] Burkhan appears only in The Way Shadows Live. Book 2's story mentions him once, in a single sentence naming him as the owner Tab defeated before she burned the Shadow.[3]