The Book of Wonder

Mr. Thomas Shap

Mr. Thomas Shap moves through the ordinary world of ledgers and routine, yet something in him answers to a stranger, more ceremonial calling. The tension lies between the respectable man his colleagues know and the 'real Shap' who worships at an altar no one else can see. His doubling matters because the early arc turns on whether a man can be crowned in secret without losing the life he already has.

Mr. Sladden

Mr. Sladden works his neat frock-coat among the counters of a London emporium, but each dawn he gazes through a window that opens onto an inaccessible city of archers and gilded balconies. He loves its little golden dragons on a white field with the ache of an exile, and his secret ambition is to fight for them. His longing drives the story's quiet question: what is a man worth when his true allegiance lies in a world no one else can see.

Pombo

Pombo is a self-styled idolater whose etiquette has offended every proper deity, so an arch-idolater sends him past Lonely House and Maharrion to a small, scandalous god who grants what no respectable heaven would. Fearful of the dark yet buoyed by the thought that he 'has the gods,' he takes the long, not entirely honest road to World's End. His journey sets the tale's comic and eerie stakes: how far will a man go when only the disreputable will listen?

Mr. Nuth

Mr. Nuth runs a quiet, prosperous trade in theft, sending glowing reports of Tommy Tonker's progress to the boy's mother in the country. He despises forgery, keeps his name out of rumour, and lets success only sharpen his ambition. His fatal reach toward the gnoles' house turns a story of apprenticeship into a study of pride, since the man who teaches silence and stealth cannot hear the warning in the wind.

Thangobrind

Thangobrind is a venturous jeweller who has taken the diamond whose price is the Merchant Prince's daughter's soul, and he walks the narrow way past the grim woman whose house is Night. He is brave, but the spider-idol's horrible laughter tests a nerve that courage alone cannot steady. His fight matters because it measures the cost of the bargain he struck, and because the doom he feared waits at the end of the road.

Alderic

Alderic is the careful man his country trusts to rob the Gibbelins of their hoard, and he scatters gold as he rides away because he will not need it if he succeeds. His plan is subtler than any before: swim the ancient river, breach the tower's stone, and let the sea flood the cellars while he dives for emeralds. His originality is the story's engine, since the Gibbelins expect the cleverest way and he means to give them something else.