Character guide

Mr. Thomas Shap

major

Also known as Mr. Shap, Shap, the spiritual Shap, the real Shap, other Shap, Dirty Chu-bu, Chu-bu

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

supporting

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

major

Also known as Pombo the Idolater

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

major

Also known as 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

major

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

major

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.

Captain Shard

supporting

Also known as Shard

Shard commands the surviving crew of the Desperate Lark, who escaped the gallows by settling a movable island between Plymouth and the Horn and plundering passing ships by night. He lavishes the Queen of the South with looted jewels and Provençal wine, but she remains morose, still mourning Bombasharna, and he mutters that he wishes he knew more about the ways of Queens. His cunning seamanship keeps the crew alive; his uncomprehending devotion keeps the tale's strange domestic ache alive.

Miss Cubbidge

major

Miss Cubbidge lives at Number 12A, daughter of a newly elected MP, speaking in an affected voice and dismissing the world with a drawled 'Go to!' On the eve of her eighteenth birthday she vanishes from the respectable oblong of her square, and the tale of her encounter with the dragon is sung in the balconies of Belgrave Square and the towers of Pont Street. Her disappearance tests whether a life of drawing-room propriety can survive contact with genuine wonder.

Sheemish

supporting

Also known as the hated Sheemish, Dirty Sheemish

Sheemish is the newer god in the temple, mocked as 'Dirty Sheemish' by Chu-bu's partisans even as his own worship grows, and he burns to assert himself over his rival by performing a miracle. Choosing a small earthquake as the easiest feat, he wills it at the same moment Chu-bu does, and the doubled command topples the colonnade onto them both. His rivalry with Chu-bu splits the city into schism, and the fallen gods become relics whose story the narrator keeps on a mantelpiece.

Ackronnion

supporting

Ackronnion belongs to the wandering company of Dunsany's edge-of-the-world tales, where mortals set out on errands whose true stakes they only half understand. His part in the quest for the queen's tears places him among those who must weigh desire against the cost of attaining it, in a landscape where beauty and peril are rarely separable. He matters because his journey embodies the book's recurring question: what is a seeker willing to pay for the thing he seeks?

Sylvia

major

Sylvia is caught in a house at the forest's edge, where a deed has been done and the arch-inquisitor of the forest is expected to answer it. She and her companions fuss uselessly at a rotting door while the Sphinx sits calm, having already seen her doom, and the narrator oils the lock to win their confidence. Her fate turns on whether the thing laughing in the dark can be kept out, and her stillness under prophecy gives the tale its chill.

the Gibbelins

supporting

Also known as Gibbelins

The Gibbelins keep their treasure in a tower reached by a high-built bridge, and centuries of well-advised knights have gone by boat to the door and ended on their table. Men hate them but covet their hoard, hoping a successful thief will shatter the bridge and send the Gibbelins drifting back to the moon. When Alderic arrives with a pickaxe and a plan to swim the river and tunnel through stone, their long, complacent larder is finally threatened.

Tonker

supporting

Also known as young Tonker, Tommy, Tommy Tonker

Tonker is a country woman's ambitious son, taken on by the notorious Nuth after a jeweller's reference and trained in the quiet crafts of other people's houses. His pride in the Lord Castlenorman affair and his reverence for Nuth's genius leave him unable to refuse the old man's next proposal, though he argues and expostulates and would rather not go. His apprenticeship is the hinge on which the tale's descent toward the dreadful wood turns.

the Gladsome Beast

supporting

Also known as The Gladsome Beast, the Beast, The Beast

The Gladsome Beast sits at the top of broad smooth steps, its continuous chuckles a terror to anyone who must climb toward it. Ackronnion comes armed with an agate bowl and the chaunt called Dolorous, and the beast's mirth gives way first to unhappiness, then to tears that splash big into the bowl. Its grief is the story's strange currency — a monster undone not by a spear but by sorrow, and by the singer's desperate need to fill a vessel before the weeping stops.

Shepperalk

minor

A character who appears in the city of Never.

Slith

minor

A character who appears in the story of the three literary men.

the Desperate Lark

minor

A character from a story within the book.

Maharrion

minor

A character appearing in the quest for the queen's tears.

the Old Man Who Looks After Fairyland

minor

A guardian figure who reacts to deeds in the book.

Mergin

minor

Also known as Messrs. Mergin

A character mentioned in the book.

Chater

minor

A character appearing in the book.

the Thuls

minor

A group of beings mentioned in the book.

Sombelenë

minor

Also known as lovely Sombelenë

A lovely figure from the bride of the man-horse story.

the Sphinx

minor

Also known as The Sphinx, Sphinx

A mythical creature appearing in the house of the sphinx.

Hlo-hlo

minor

A character mentioned in the book of wonder.

Sippy

minor

A minor character in the book.

Slorg

minor

A minor character in the book.

Ammuz

minor

A minor character in the book.

Lord Castlenorman

minor

A nobleman appearing in the book.