Character guide

Chandler

major

Also known as IV Chandler, V Chandler, IX Chandler, XIV Chandler, XV Chandler, Gingerly Chandler, Tardily Chandler, Chandler's

A reluctant everyman whose body is borrowed like a telephone by distant possessors, he narrates a world where a thousand execs rule two billion slaves.

Rosalie Pan

major

Also known as Rosie

A vanished musical-comedy star turned gracious executive, she drives Chandler through Honolulu and gently defends the masters who own everyone's flesh.

John Hsi

major

Also known as John, Hsi

A leader among the Orphalese resistance, he reads Kahlil Gibran aloud as scripture and turns captured hunters into brothers under the rules of this chessboard.

The Girl

major

A watchful young Orphalese who binds newcomers to chairs and tests them for flame spirits, guarding the resistance with cheerful, unsparing suspicion.

Koitska

supporting

Also known as the exec Koitska

A fat, wheezing exec in a leather wheelchair, he tinkers with submillimeter microwaves and coronets while possessed bodies shuffle through his workshop.

Guy

supporting

Also known as Evidently Guy, Uncle Guy, So Guy

An Orphalese elder whose broken jaw keeps him from presiding, he remains the standard Walter hopes to match when reading the Prophet aloud.

Peggy Flershem

supporting

Also known as Margot, Meg

Peggy moves through the story under shifting names—Peggy, Margot, Meg—each tied to a different man's memory or mission. When Chandler is seized mid-assault on her in the culture room, she becomes the living proof that possession strikes without warning or reason, and she later resurfaces among the Orphalese as a chatty, watchful recruiter who explains how the hunters can tell a person has been ridden. Her casual competence and her willingness to bind a man to a chair minutes after apologizing to him make her a quietly unsettling fixture of the new world's rules.

The Judge

supporting

When Guy's jaw is broken in the scuffle, Walter takes the rostrum—steel-rimmed glasses, ornate book, a sip of wine—and presides over the strange liturgy of the Orphalese, quoting the Prophet to explain why flame spirits tear their world apart. He is less a jurist than a preacher of makeshift theology, binding captives and reading comfort into catastrophe. His authority matters because it shows how quickly the possessed world has grown its own rituals, its own scripture, and its own willingness to tie a man to a chair and call it justice.

Ellen Braisted

minor

Also known as Ellen

A named female character with a limited but notable role.

Mrs. Porter

minor

A woman who appears as a narrator or focal character briefly.

Walter

minor

A minor character with a few mentions.

Jack Souther

minor

Also known as Jack, Souther

A named character with a small role.

Meggie

minor

A minor character, possibly a variant of Peggy.

Judge Ellithorp

minor

A specific judge named in the story.

Orphalese

minor

Also known as the Orphalese, eight Orphalese, O Orphalese

A group or entity referenced in the narrative.

Andrei

minor

Also known as No Andrei

A named character, possibly a false lead.

Tripler

minor

A character mentioned by name.

Dr. Palmer

minor

A doctor appearing in the narrative.

Bert

minor

A minor character with a few mentions.

Bradley

minor

A minor character with a few mentions.

Linton

minor

A named character with limited presence.

Sergeant Grantz

minor

Also known as Grantz

A military figure in the story.

Stranger

minor

An unnamed stranger who appears briefly.

Kahlil Gibran

minor

Also known as Gibran

A historical figure referenced in the text.

Hanrahan

minor

A minor character with a single mention.