List of characters in the Old Kingdom Trilogy

This is a list of characters from "The Old Kingdom Trilogy", a set of novels by Australian author Garth Nix. The series comprises three novels: "Sabriel" (1995), "Lirael" (2001) and "Abhorsen" (2003). In 2006, "" was released, which contained the novella "The Creature in the Case", which was set after "Abhorsen".

Chlorr of the Mask

She was once a powerful necromancer and Free Magic sorcerer. However, after being bound into Death by the Abhorsen Sabriel, she became one of the Greater Dead. At the beginning of " Lirael", she approaches Hedge at the Red Lake, with the aim to command Hedge, as well as the power under the hill (Orannis). However, when she communes with Orannis, It binds Chlorr to Its will instead. For the rest of the series, she is a servant of Hedge. She wears a bronze mask over her face, giving her the name.

Towards the end of "Abhorsen", Mogget speaks to Lirael about Chlorr saying "...even when she was an A--Alive." forshadowing a deeper past. Mogget's unfinished word is presumably "Abhorsen", as Garth Nix later reveals more of Chlorr's mysterious past. Mogget also calls Chlorr "Chlorr No-Face", which may have significant meaning.

Chlorr was once named Clariel, and was once destined to be an Abhorsen. Her story will be further developed in "Clariel: The Lost Abhorsen". [ [http://www.amazon.com/gp/blog/post/PLNKNKY3YXHEOS9W Garth Nix's Blog] Retrieved April 18, 2008]

The Disreputable Dog

The Disreputable Dog (or the Disreputable Bitch as she once refers to herself as) was the Third Bright Shiner Kibeth. For reasons unknown, she was physcially existing in the form of a soapstone carving of a dog when discovered by Lirael. In "Lirael" and "Abhorsen" the Disreputable Dog denies that she is a Bright Shiner, replying that she is "the Disreputable Dog". Lirael perceives her a previously unheard of free combination of Charter Magic and Free Magic.

The Disreputable Dog has the ability to change her form, but she doesn't seem able to become anything other than a dog. She can, however, change size and relative shape. In " Lirael" and "Abhorsen" the Dog changes size depending on need in several instances; such as in "Lirael" when she becomes longer, shorter, and thinner to fit through a small tunnel in the rock of the Clayr's Glacier.

Since the Disreputable Dog is Kibeth, she has the ability to cast Charter and Free Magic spells by barking. In "Lirael", she demonstrates her abilities as Kibeth by barking to force an assassin to walk to his death in the River Ratterlin. During the second binding of Orannis, the Disreputable Dog stands as Kibeth and helps Lirael, Sabriel, Touchstone, Sameth, Ellimere, Sanar and Ryelle complete the seven because the twins, Sanar and Ryelle, can only wield one bell between them. The Dog saves Lirael's life by biting her hand off, and fighting off Orannis, the effort of which ages the Dog, and the Dog enters Death for a final rest. "Abhorsen" ends with her sending the recently-dead Nicholas back to Life, while the dog trots along the border of Life and Death

Hedge

Hedge is a necromancer who is in service of Orannis. He believes that if he frees Orannis, he will be able to live as his Vizier over the Dead. He often wears a suit of armour of red plates, and is bald. It is he who places a sliver of the sphere that contained Orannis into Nicholas; he attacked a bus containing Sameth and his schoolmates in order to plant the sliver in Sameth. However, his plan went awry and he placed the sliver in Nicholas before he realized that he was not Sameth.

At the end of "Abhorsen", he fights Lirael before the Ninth Gate. He is very afraid of Death; he fights with his head down so that he does not inadvertently look up and see the stars, therefore passing irreparably past the Ninth Gate. However, he trips over the Dog, looks up, and goes beyond the Ninth Gate forever.

Kerrigor

In Life named Rogir or Rogirek, the son of the previous Queen of the Old Kingdom, half-brother of Touchstone/Torrigan. During his youth, he tried to make use of Free Magic, but was consumed by it and turned into the Greater Dead Kerrigor; a nickname Touchstone gave to him in his youth. He returned to Life, and in order to remain there, he needed to destroy the Great Stones, which were one of the Five Great Charters. He needed either Royal, Clayr or Abhorsen Blood to do this; he broke two of the six Stones with his two sisters' blood and was unable to break a third with his mother's blood as the then-Abhorsen intervened and banished Kerrigor deep into death.

At the beginning of "Sabriel", Kerrigor has imprisoned Sabriel's father within the Fifth Gate after luring him to the Great Stones, hoping to use his blood to break one of the Stones; Terciel protected himself, so Kerrigor imprisoned him. After Sabriel finds his body in the reservoir housing the Stones and returns him to life, he uses Astarael to send himself, Kerrigor and his Dead servants into Death. Kerrigor escapes, but Terciel does not.

Sabriel and Touchstone seek to destroy Kerrigor's body in Ancelstierre, so that he may finally be destroyed. However, when Sabriel and Touchstone are attempting to destroy his body with the help of the young Charter Mages of Sabriel's old school, Kerrigor invades Ancelsteirre and rampages towards the school. Sabriel is not able to destroy the body before Kerrigor arrives and inhabits it. At the same time, Mogget arrives in his unbound form and fights with Kerrigor over who will be able to kill Sabriel. Kerrigor consumes Mogget, but Sabriel, using the ring that can bind Mogget if his collar is removed, binds Kerrigor, and Kerrigor and Mogget are separated into a black cat and a white cat. Kerrigor remained deep within the Abhorsen's House, sleeping, as of the end of "Abhorsen".

Lirael

Lirael is a Daughter of the Clayr. She, alone in the entire history of the Clayr, has not received the Sight. At fourteen, she is several years older than most of those who are without the Sight. This makes her extremely sad, even leading to her attempting suicide. When she is on the cliff she was about to throw herself off, she is found by many high-ranking Clayr. In order to assuage this sorrow, she is given a job as an Assistant Librarian in the Great Library of the Clayr. While exploring in the Library, she discovers a soapstone carving of a dog. She tries to make a sending using it as the inspiration, but the stone is consumed in the making, and a real dog, the Disreputable Dog, is created in place of a sending. She refers to the Dog as her best friend and greatest companion.

Several years later, Lirael goes exploring and discovers a cave that Clayr of long-past created for her. Within the chamber, she discovered the "Book of Remembrance and Forgetting", which is similar to the "Book of the Dead" for Necromancers and Abhorsens, as well as the accompanying Dark Mirror and pipes. She is again found by many important Clayr, who have finally been able to See a specific area of the Old Kingdom they have been trying to See for years. In addition, this is the first time Lirael has ever been Seen. They Saw Lirael on a boat on the Red Lake in midsummer with a boy, (Nicholas Sayre). She goes south, so that she may get to the Red Lake and make this prophecy true. The Dog joins her.

After meeting Sameth and Mogget on the way, the four arrive at the House of the Abhorsen on the river Ratterlin. She there discovers, when the Sendings of the House giver her a surcoat emblazoned with the Star of the Clayr and the key of the Abhorsen, that "she" and not Sameth, is the Abhorsen-in-Waiting.

When the four of them finally reach the Lightning Farm and the bound Orannis in "Abhorsen", she travels to the Ninth Precinct of Death in order to use the Dark Mirror to see back to the Beginning to discover how Orannis was bound. While here, she battled Hedge who is defeated and passes the Ninth Gate. When the new Seven, with the help of Yrael, bind Orannis again, she wields Astarael. Part of the Binding is that whomever splits the hemisphere binding Orannis must be sacrificed; however, the Dog bites her hand off when she uses Nehima (her special sword) on the sphere. Sameth later crafts Lirael a new, golden hand.

Mogget

Mogget, truly named Yrael, was the Eighth Bright Shiner. When Orannis was originally bound and the Charter created, Mogget sided with neither the Seven or the Destroyer. In response to this, the Seven bound him in service to the Abhorsens forever. He is deeply resentful of this, and whenever his collar comes off (the physical bond) he attempts to kill the Abhorsen. After he stands against Orannis at the end of "Abhorsen", he is rebound with the Wallmaker's Relic, but instead of Saraneth or Ranna, Sabriel rings Belgaer, to give him freedom of choice.

He takes the form of a white cat throughout most of the three novels he appears in. He is often cynical and bitter when speaking with others. Because he was re-bound with Ranna at the end of "Sabriel", he sleeps most of the time, or at least pretends to.

When it is apparent that the new Seven will not be strong enough to bind Orannis, Sameth removes Mogget's collar and tells him to "choose well!" He too stands against Orannis, for the first time naming himself as Yrael, because he enjoys life too much and cannot stand to see it destroyed. With his power, the Eight are able to bind Orannis once again.

Nicholas Sayre

Nicholas is the nephew of the Chief Minister of Ancelstierre. Several months after being unknowingly invaded by a sliver of Orannis, Nicholas goes to visit Sameth in the Old Kingdom. He hires Hedge, believing him to be an innocent Old Kingdom expatriate, to guide him. But Hedge diverts Nicholas from visiting Sameth to looking at a phenomenon near the Red Lake: a hill that is struck by lightning rather often. In truth, this is the hill under which the hemispheres of Orannis have been buried. Hedge convinces Nicholas to help him dig the hemispheres up, and transport it back to Ancelstierre, so that the lightning may be harnessed for power.

Nicholas is a unwitting participant in the scheme to release Orannis, having been possessed by Orannis himself. When Lirael and the Dog attempt to rescue him from Hedge, and he and Lirael end up on a boat in the middle of the Red Lake (thus fulfilling the Clayr's prophecy), his mind is cleared by Lirael's magic, and he promises to try to fight the Destroyer.

He dies toward the end of "Abhorsen" after he is rescued by Mogget while the hemispheres were being joined. He is, however, restored to Life by the Disreputable Dog in the epilogue.

In the later sequel, Across the Wall, he has aquired an appreciation for Old Kingdom magic, and battles Section 13 in their efforts to resurrect an ancient and vicious Free Magic creature from the Old Kingdom, and ultimately makes the decision to remain there with Lirael.

Orannis

Orannis was the Ninth Bright Shiner, and the most powerful. Its nature is to destroy, hence the name Destroyer. When It was going to destroy yet another world in the Beginning, the Seven finally banded together against It, and bound It. It was the strongest of the Nine, and only barely defeated by the Seven. It was cast into two hemispheres, buried under a hill within seven wards of various materials; silver, gold, and lead; rowan, ash and oak; and the seventh ward of bone.

Sabriel

Sabriel is the protagonist of the first novel. She died shortly after birth, but her father, the Abhorsen Terciel, retrieved her from the hands of the Greater Dead Kerrigor in Death. Per her father's wishes, she grew up in Ancelstierre after living a few years in the Old Kingdom with her father. Shortly before Sabriel was to graduate from her school Wyverley College in Ancelstierre, a Dead servant of her father's give her Terciel's bells and his sword. She interprets this to mean that her father is trapped deeply in Death. She sets out to enter the Old Kingdom, and save her father.

Nineteen years after rescuing her father in the events of "Sabriel", she has married Touchstone, and after he was restored as the King of the Old Kingdom, she became his Queen of the Old Kingdom. During "Lirael", she is rarely in the palace or with her children Ellimere and Sameth; her duties as an Abhorsen correcting the two hundred years of the interregnum keep her busy. She is very rarely seen during most of "Lirael" and "Abhorsen".

At the end of "Abhorsen", she is one of the Seven who bind Orannis; she wields the bell Saraneth the Binder (the preferred bell of Abhorsens).

Sameth

Sameth is the younger son of Sabriel and Touchstone. It is believed in the Kingdom that since Ellimere will become Queen, he must fulfill the other Bloodline and become the Abhorsen. However, after he encountered Hedge in Death, he is extremely afraid of becoming the Abhorsen. When they find out that Lirael is to be the Abhorsen, he is greatly relieved.

Sameth had always enjoyed making things; it was the one thing he truly enjoyed. When Lirael finds out that she is the Abhorsen, Sameth, in the same way, is informed that he is the heir of the Wallmakers. Therefore, he is able to craft the sword needed to split the sphere in the binding of Orannis out of the pipes, Nehima, and the blood of the new Seven. In the binding, he wielded Belgaer.

Touchstone

Touchstone is the illegitimate son of the previous Queen of the Old Kingdom and an unnamed nobleman. He served as a member of the Royal Guard when Kerrigor betrayed the family and murdered them. After the betrayal, Touchstone entered a state of beserker-like rage and the then-Abhorsen bound Touchstone in a figurehead of a ship in Holehallow, the Royal Tombs. When Sabriel entered the tomb, she released him from this bond. He claimed amnesia of the past, because he felt guilty about not protecting the Queen and princesses. While on the Sea, however, he tells Sabriel what happened when the Royal Family was murdered. He does not give his real name; instead he goes by Touchstone.

During the years between "Sabriel" and "Lirael", he restored many of the Charter Stones that had been broken, including the Great Stones. He too is mostly absent from "Lirael" and "Abhorsen". When he participates in the Binding at the end of "Abhorsen", he revealed that his true name was Torrigan; he wielded Ranna.

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