Monagan
| Species | Olphin |
|---|---|
| Affiliation | The Olphin Survivors |
| Home | A camp inside the walls of Morgaedion |
| Family | His wife, who is heavily pregnant |
| Status | Alive |
| First appearance | Sacred 2: Flames of the Awakened |
Monagan is the only one of the Olphins hidden inside the walls of Morgaedion who goes out into the prison, and the reason the rest of them eat.[1] Relagatra took him on one of those runs and hung him in her web with the rest of her hoard, and Barnaby Britto cut him down.[2] He repaid it by leading the party to the hole in the ground block that Lumikki Otsby had been pushed down.[3]
Appearance
Monagan is a grown Olphin man with webbed hands.[2][3] The novel gives no more than that. Every one of the survivors in the camp is missing some variation of limbs or fins, but nothing records what Monagan lost.[1]
Personality
He is the one who will go out and the last to think well of himself for it. Found cocooned near the ceiling and told he was being rescued, his first response was to repeat the word no and beg Barnaby to leave: the spider would be back any second, they would all be chow, and he could not leave this earth knowing others got taken down trying to save him. He finished the plea by blaming himself for being caught at all.[2]
Back in the camp he sobbed into his wife's arms longer and harder than Barnaby had ever seen anyone cry, saying "I'm a big wimp" and that the spider should have just eaten him.[3] His wife pushed his face off her chest, wiped it, and told him to pull himself together and go show these folks that hole. He did.[3]
He is careful rather than brave. Having seen a Nelazgian force Lumikki down a hole in the floor, he judged that he could not take it on himself and watched from a distance instead, and he warned the party about what they would find on the ground block before he took them there.[3]
Background
Monagan was among the Olphins held at Morgaedion, and he hid inside the walls with the rest of the survivors when the Nelazgians raided the island and forced the other prisoners into their army.[1] He is married. His wife is heavily pregnant, far enough along that Barnaby thought he saw the baby kick, and she stays behind in the camp on the child's account when she would rather go looking for him herself.[1]
When the camp settled its rules it decided to send out only one of its number for resources, on the reasoning that they could not risk heading out in droves while the Nelazgians were camped above them. Monagan is that one, and a night's sleep is normally the longest he is gone.[1] He and Mavis had both been telling the camp for moons that the Nelazgians had left the island, and neither had been believed.[1]
Nothing else about him is recorded: not where he lived before the prison, not how long he has been foraging, and not what he was to the Olphins before the sentence.
Story
Sacred 2: Flames of the Awakened
Monagan is missing when Barnaby's party reaches the camp, two sleeps overdue where one is the norm. Ofie will not send anyone after him, and Alpin Loomin suggests he has simply walked out and is halfway back to Treenode. Mavis answers that Monagan would not leave them, and his wife stands up out of the crowd and names what has happened: Relagatra is starving, the Sacred Guard whose duty it was to appease her are all gone, and she can hear the spider crawling the corridors at night while she waits up for him.[1]
Barnaby went after him with the dragon Egras and a spear from Ofie. He found the web slung across the ceiling of the last room on the block, holding golden chalices, shoes, bread loaves, shovels and books, and among them a body he almost missed, head limp on its chest. He thought Monagan was dead until he heard a low moan and the question "What are you doing here?"[2]
The rescue went wrong immediately. Relagatra appeared in the doorway, knocked out the torch and the dragon in one sweep, and silenced Monagan mid-sentence. Barnaby fought her blind, put the spear through her head, freed Egras from the webbing, flew up to the ceiling and sawed through the cords until Monagan slumped forward into him. He hauled him onto the dragon's back and flew out.[2]
At the camp Monagan fell into his wife's arms and cried, and Ofie called one spear a fair trade for his safe return.[3] Sent to make good on it, he told Alpin what he had seen: Lumikki Otsby, and a thing following her that he was sure had been a Nelazgian, which pushed her down a hole and went in after her on a ladder that he thought was still there.[3]
He led Barnaby, Alpin, Piercio, Mauz and Egras through the maze of the prison, up several flights and down three times as many, to the ground floor, warning them first that what went on down there during the invasion was not pretty. Corpses line the walkway, and at the end of it is the hole with the tip of a wooden ladder poking out.[3]
A gully reached Barnaby on the same walkway with a letter from Pemadee saying that Ovallia had been invaded, and when Barnaby's legs went from under him it was Monagan who caught him.[3] That is his last action in the novel. The Olphins of the camp went down the ladder behind Barnaby, and whether Monagan or his wife went with them is not recorded.[3]
Relationships
His wife is unnamed and heavily pregnant. She is the only person in the camp who insists Monagan is still alive and still in the prison, she is the first to say Relagatra has him, and she would have gone out after him herself if she were not carrying a child. She is also the one who gets him back on his feet afterwards.[1][3]
Barnaby Britto went out for him alone, refused company, and cut him out of the web. The Olphins name Barnaby their leader shortly afterwards, and Monagan's rescue is the thing they name him for.[2][3]
Ofie is dismissive of his judgement, saying he could not tell a toad from a frog, and calls him dear to the camp in the same breath as refusing to risk anyone going after him.[1][3]
Mavis shares his read on the prison and his frustration at not being believed, and she is the one who defends him when Alpin suggests he abandoned the camp.[1]
Behind the scenes
The pronunciation guide at the back of Sacred 2: Flames of the Awakened gives the name as Mon-uh-gun. He is not in the guide at the back of Sacred: Eslura's Calling and does not appear in that novel.[4]
Piercio calls him Mr. Monagan, which is the only honorific anyone attaches to him.[1]