Nedifar
| Title | Personal Guard to Elmryn |
|---|---|
| Affiliation | Sacred Guard |
| Home | Zybersia |
| Status | Deceased |
| First appearance | Sacred 2: Flames of the Awakened |
Nedifar was the Sacred Guard appointed to Elmryn and, by his own reckoning, something nearer the Sacred Ruler's friend than his servant.[1] He lived through the fire that took Zybersia with his legs paralysed under him, was dragged before Obellius Kalaar in the ruins, tortured into giving his name, and set down beside the throne Obellius had hauled out of Elmryn's collapsed grand hall.[1] Sacred 2: Flames of the Awakened opens on him and stays with him for the whole of its first chapter.[1]
Appearance
Nedifar is a grown man with bulging muscles hidden beneath his cloak's sleeves, arms strong enough to haul the rest of him across the ground.[1] By the time the novel finds him he is half charred. Smoke rolls off his blackened kneecaps, his legs are dead from the waist down, and a Nelazgian's claws open the scruff of his neck deeply enough that he feels the blood run into his cloak. Obellius melts a hole into the skin of his back with the tip of the late Ruler's staff.[1]
His cloak has a tail long enough for a Nelazgian to pin under one foot and stop him crawling.[1]
Personality
He is stubborn in small, costly ways. Asked his name by the man who had destroyed his city, he turned his head away rather than answer, and when the staff went under his chin and he gave it, the novel notes only that he could have lied but saw no use in it.[1] He would have spat on the ground under the Nelazgian's claws if he had had the strength for it.[1]
He is also honest about his own limits. He never expected the defence of the city to work, thinking afterwards that he should have known his plans were futile, and he wanted at first only to be left alone to die in peace.[1] When the burning staff went into his back he screamed and gave Obellius what he wanted. Watching from the platform, he prayed that Aezaros would come down and relieve him of his earthly suffering.[1]
His prejudices are on the page along with everything else. Seeing the Olphins herded into the square below, he scrunched his nose instinctively, remembering the day they turned on Eslura, and then noticed that the life had come back into their eyes and that they were as frightened as everyone else. He found it odd and did not ask his captors about it.[1]
Background
Nedifar was appointed Elmryn's Sacred Guard, and by his account a friendship had grown out of the posting.[1] For many moons he stood vigilant beside his Ruler's throne, at its right-hand side, in the throne hall of Elmryn's Castle.[1] Elmryn's murder took away, in his words as the novel gives them, the only friend he had.[1]
Zybersia was his home before it fell, and he had climbed the citadel steps above the city on occasion simply for the view over the city and the desert beyond.[1] When the Nelazgians came he took up arms in the city armoury with the rest of his comrades. Left without the power of the Book of Fire, the desert kingdom fell in what felt to him like seconds, and the fire that gutted the armoury killed more than half of the Guards in it and left him crippled from the waist down.[1]
Which title Elmryn held is not consistent in the books, and Nedifar's chapter carries both sides of it: the narration calls the throne the late Sacred Ruler's, and a page later Nedifar remembers standing by his Sacred Head's throne seat. The point is set out at Elmryn.[1]
Story
Sacred 2: Flames of the Awakened
Nedifar is pulling himself away from the collapsing armoury when a black, winged Nelazgian breaks through the smoke and asks him where he is going and whether he fears the coming of his new king. He turns away and keeps crawling, and the creature stamps on his cloak to stop him.[1]
Obellius Kalaar arrives behind it, out of Morgaedion and already wearing Elmryn's ceremonial robes and garnet cloak, and orders the Nelazgian, Zenarak, to let the man be. He crouches beside Nedifar and asks him what he calls himself. Nedifar refuses; Zenarak drags his head back round by the neck and is slapped away with the staff; Obellius lifts Nedifar's chin on the staff and asks again. Nedifar gives his name, and Obellius recognises it as the same Nedifar who served old Elmryn. When the answer is silence he taps the staff alight and presses it into Nedifar's back until the scream comes out as a yes, then pulls it back and calls him Elmryn's loyal Sacred Guard.[1]
A second Nelazgian, Awelk, comes to say the celebration is ready. Obellius invites Nedifar to it to represent old Elmryn, looks at his charred legs, and has his two goons carry him up what could have been thousands of steps to the citadel in the city centre, which he has taken as his base now that Elmryn's castle is destroyed.[1]
At the top Nedifar finds Elmryn's throne moved up out of the ruined grand hall, its cushions thrown away, with Obellius on it and a Nelazgian crouched under his boots as a footstool. Obellius calls for his Guard, and the two creatures lift Nedifar and drop him at the throne's right-hand side, the spot he used to take up every day. Obellius puts an arm round his shoulders and tells him he serves him now, and that he is like Elmryn, only better. Nedifar makes a silent promise to his late friend to get the usurper off the throne and out of Eslura once he has his strength back.[1]
From the platform he watches Obellius call the Olphins' leader out of the crowd, mock Alyria, drag her up the steps and burn a hole through her fin until Hali kneels and the rest of the square kneels with her.[1] Obellius then orders the city swept for anyone still hiding. Nedifar crawls to the ledge behind him and grabs his leg, with no plan beyond doing something. Obellius shakes him loose, crouches over him, says he should have known he would not last very long, and kicks him off the side of the platform.[1]
His head strikes the corner of a step on the way down. He hears the screams below and Obellius laughing, and then, in his stupor, sees Elmryn standing beside the goddess Aezaros in a sea of swirling golden light, calling him to join them. He lets himself fall into their beckoning, and neither novel returns to him.[1]
Relationships
Elmryn was the Sacred Ruler he was appointed to and the only friend he counted. The last thing Nedifar does with his own will is promise Elmryn's memory that Obellius will not keep the throne, and the last thing he sees is Elmryn waiting for him.[1]
Obellius Kalaar knew the name before Nedifar gave it, and kept him alive out of amusement rather than use: a Guard of the dead Ruler, seated in his old place beside the stolen throne as a decoration.[1]
Zenarak and Awelk are the two Nelazgians who handle him. Zenarak claws his neck and jeers at him for crying; Awelk corrects Zenarak, telling him that what is running down the man is blood rather than anything else.[1]
Behind the scenes
The pronunciation guide at the back of Sacred 2: Flames of the Awakened gives the name as Ned-ih-far. He is not in the guide at the back of Sacred: Eslura's Calling and is not mentioned anywhere in that novel or in A Sacred Tale Collection.[2]
Chapter 1 is the only chapter in the series told from his point of view, and it uses him to show the fall of Zybersia and Obellius's first hours in power from inside the city rather than from the protagonists' side of the map.[1]