Chief Scrutator Ghorr

Chief Scrutator Ghorr is a secondary character in Ian Irvine's "The Well of Echoes" quartet. He is the Chief Scrutator of the Council of Scrutators and a powerful mancer.

Physical and emotional characteristics

Ghorr is a big, solid man with a mane of dark hair and a full beard. He has sharp, prominent teeth that give him the look of a hyena. He is broad shouldered and handsome. Ghorr has used his Art to extend his life and is well over 100 years old. Ghorr uses the Secret Art to create illusions of being the well built, handsome man described. Under his robes Ghorr wears two tightly bound corsets as he is in fact rather flabby and sunken chested. In reality only a few stringy strands of hair above his ears remain. His teeth are also deceptions and are in fact yellow and corroded.

Ghorr is motivated purely by power. Whenever someone appears who can challenge him, he seeks to control them and learn to counter or destroy them. When Irisis Stirm kills a mancer in a way no one understands, he interrogates her then tries to have her executed. When Ullii uses her talents to help Irisis escape, he sets out to control her too.

Ghorr is corrupt to the core and in reality has no intention of winning the war against the lyrinx, as that is what keeps himelf and the Council itself in power.

Origins of his Chief Scrutatorship

Ghorr began his scrutatorship as a just and fair man but, he was corrupted by power and when the time came to step down as Chief Scrutator, he altered the rules to allow him to stay on indefinitely and used his Art to prolong his life. He soon further changed the rules making the position of Chief Scrutator a position held for life. Ghorr then gave himself the power to make decisions without consulting the Council, though he had to justify his actions afterwards.

Other scrutators soon followed in his footsteps and the Council itself became a hollow, corrupted and treacherous thing.

Ghorr's role

Tetrarch

Ghorr first appears when Xervish Flydd, Ullii and Irisis arrive in the Council's dread bastion of Nennifer. The Chief Scrutator is outraged that Flydd would show his face again. Ghorr demands Flydd explain himself and interrogates him and his companions. The Chief and his Council probe each with their strange form of the Secret Art, Scrutator Magic.

Ghorr returns Flydd to his position of Scrutator after it is revealed his version of the story is truth, but does not reinstate him to the Council. Ghorr orders Flydd to go to Snizort and destroy the node-drainer in place there. Ghorr does not believe that such a thing is possible and hopes he is sending Flydd to his death, as they have forever been enemies.

The Chief Scrutator orders Irisis and Ullii stay behind while Flydd goes to Snizort. Ghorr wishes to discover the secret of how Irisis was able to kill a mancer in a way never before conceived of. Ullii overhears Ghorr's plans to execute Irisis after learning her secret and decides to free her friend, from the cell she has been placed in.

Ghorr has Irisis tortured, but does not learn her secret. Ullii uses her talent as a Seeker to free Irisis in an inconceivable fashion and then transports the air-floater Flydd is about to depart on to their position, an even more unheard of feat. Ghorr is thunderous.

crutator

After learning that the node at Snizort was destroyed when Flydd attempted to destroy the node-drainer, the Council including Ghorr, travel to Snizort and fight off several lyrinx with a new weapon, attached to their air-floaters. The entire Council is fuming at Flydd's failure, as they fear the wrath of their shadowy master, The Numinator. The Council votes to strip Flydd of his position of Scrutator and sentence him to slavery and hauling clankers away from the battlefield.

When Flydd and Cryl-Nish Hlar escape from the slaves camp along with Ullii, Ghorr, his deputy Fusshte and Scrutator T'lisp set off looking to re-capture them.

The Scrutators used Ullii's brother Myllii (who they already had captured), to use his Seeker talent to track Flydd and his companions. When Ullii discover Myllii, Nish believes it is someone attacking her and accidentally kills him. Ullii flees in grief and returns later to bury her brother. Ullii places a braclet worn by her brother on her wrist. Little did she know that this bracelet was used to control her brother by the Scrutators. Ghorr instructs T'Lisp to use her talents to rid Ullii of her pregnancy, after she unwittingly reveals it to him.

Ghorr takes Ulli with him to search for Flydd, in a fleet of air-dreadnoughts, headed for Meldorin. Ullii eventually discovers Flydd, Irisis and Fyn-Mah's (along with 3 other mancers she doesn't know, who are even more powerful than Ghorr) whereabouts;Fiz Gorgo. Ghorr then orchestrates an attack on Fiz Gorgo, intent on capturing and executing his enemies.

Chimaera

Ghorr plans an execution in the foyer of Fiz Gorgo with a host of important people there to record the power and majesty of the Chief Scrutator. He succeeds on capturing mancers as powerful and as subtle as Yggur and Malien. However he fails on noticing the absence of Cryl-Nish Hlar. After all, he was not in the same league as the great mancers Yggur, Malien and Gilhaelith.

Ullii is bent on destroying Nish, but he is able to persuade her to forgive him. Together they foil the initial execution and free the prisoners. Malien and Tiaan however were not to be executed for several reasons and were already secured on the air-dreadnoughts along with the thapter.

The free companions storm the air-dreadnought of the Chief Scrutator and Malien is freed. Together with Nish she is able to secure the thapter. However she is too saped of her strength to best the Chief Scrutator, as is the exhausted Yggur who is failing quickly against his enemy. Yggur createsa sheer white plane where he does battle with Ghorr, but because of his exhaustion cannot best him.

Ullii uses her lattice, in away similar to when she freed Irisis and breaks Ghorr of much of his mancers power. Though most of his Art is forever gone, Ghorr has a multiple crossbow at hand and attempts to use it to kill the fifth of his enemies that were at hand. Ghorr did not notice Ullii, as usual, and did not realise that there was in fact six people. She takes him by surprise and knocks the crossbow from his hands, sending four bolts harmlessly astray, though the fifth hit her square in the chest. Ullii dies a hero, moments later in Nish's arms.

Ghorr attempts to flee his air-floater but falls into the air bag. It seemed he would hold his breath, rip a hole in the material and be on his way, but the highly flammable, floater-gas explodes blasting the Chief Scrutator right out of his skin. An appropriate death, after all the people he ordered flayed.