Caurib

Caurib
Culture	Northmen
Book(s)	The Blade Itself Before They Are Hanged (mentioned) Last Argument of Kings Sharp Ends (mentioned) The Trouble With Peace The Fool Jobs

“	Tell me, does one have to study, to become a sorceress? Or is it simply a question of jewellery, and a deal of paint about the face?	”
	— Bayaz to Caurib

Caurib is a sorceress from the utmost North, in the service of Bethod, King of the Northmen. She is one of the only true practitioners of the Art who doesn't seem to have any affiliation to the Order of the Magi.

Appearance

Caurib is a very tall, slender woman with pale white skin, almost ill-looking. She has long black hair, and cold, narrow, slanted blue eyes, highlighted by dark makeup. She adorns herself with golden rings, necklaces and bracelets.

Magic

Caurib has a range of magical powers. The Golden Voice allows her to seduce anyone, and control them competely with words, to the point that they would kill their closest friend. She has the Long Eye, and can track anyone's movements. She can create mist at will, which Bethod uses in his battles against The Union. She has the power to control the Shanka and Fenris the Feared. And she can fill the Feared with strength, reminiscent of the Art that Bayaz uses to help Jezal dan Luthar win The Contest. How she gained her magic is an unanswered question.

History

The Blade Itself

At some point in the past, Caurib entered the service of Bethod, as he rose to become the self-proclaimed King of the Northmen. She accompanied Bethod and his son Scale on his visit to Bayaz in the Great Northern Library, to demands to know where Bayaz stands in his planned war with The Union. Bayaz mocks her power, and when she tries to use the golden voice on Logen Ninefingers, he nips it in the bud. After some verbal foreplay, Bayaz rejects Bethod’s overtures of friendship. Scale and Caurib get angry but Bayaz silences them with a word. The trio leave, but not before making threats. Bayaz has made an enemy this day.

When Fenris the Feared becomes Bethod's new champion, rumours abound that it was Caurib who dug the Feared from under a hill.

Before They Are Hanged

During the First Northern War in Angland, Caurib creates her mist over battlefields in Black Wells, north of the Cumnur and near Dunbrec.This impedes the enemy's communications and strategy, giving the advantage to Bethod during battles.

Last Argument of Kings

Eventually, Bethod is defeated in the High Places, and takes refuge in Carleon. When he agrees to a duel between Fenris the Feared and Logen Ninefingers, Caurib uses her powers to fill the Feared with strength. However, Dogman, Black Dow, and Harding Grim infiltrate the city to kill Caurib. Dogman and Grim enter Caurib’s lair, while Dow sneaks around the back. As they approach her, she stops them with a word. Totally in her control, she orders Dogman to stab Grim, who bares his chest to receive the blow. Suddenly, Black Dow saves the day, leaping from the shadows and splitting Caurib’s head with his axe.

The Trouble With Peace

In the time since she was murdered by the Black Dow, Caurib has been sent back from the "land of the dead", or so it is said. The Shanka understand the meeting between flesh and metal, having learned that much from the Master Maker. They stitched her head together with golden wire. Caurib now lives as a hermit witch in a forbidden cave, beside a forbidden lake, in the High Places. The entrance is protected by two ancient standing stones carved with symbols, rather like the stones beyond the Great Northern Library which were carved by Juvens. The Shanka still serve Caurib, guarding her, and even fishing and cooking for her.

The Dogman's daughter, Rikke, is blessed, or perhaps cursed, with the Long Eye, and has visions of an old woman with her face stitched together with golden wire. Rikke's condition gets worse after forcing open the Long Eye open during the duel between Leo dan Brock and Stour Nightfall. Isern-i-Phail, who knows of the witch, leads Rikke and Caul Shivers into the High Places to the hillmen village of Slorfa, where Isern's brother Scenn can lead them the rest of the way. Heading on, Rikke becomes so weak that Shivers has to carry her. Scenn is so frightened on the witch that he refuses to go beyond the standing stones.

At the forbidden lake, Cuarib agrees to help, explaining that Rikke's two eyes are fighting one another. To reclaim control over the maddening magic of the Long Eye, she will have to sacrifice an eye. This involves tattooing one eye with a cobweb of fine black lines and letters, circles and symbols; eleven wards and eleven wards reversed, and eleven times eleven. Meanwhile, the other eye has to be blinded. It is a long and agonizing process, and Isern and Shivers struggle to hold Rikke still, as she writhes in pain. When it is done, Rikke's new appearance causes folk to stare in shock and fear; no one could look more like a witch. But Caurib has cured both her twitchiness and paralyzing fits.