Labyrinths of Echo/Characters

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Following is a list of characters featured in the the Labyrinths of Echo and Chronicles of Echo novel series.

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Lesser Secret Investigations Force

The magical police of Echo. Tropes associated with the SI include:

• Mage Killer: This is basically what the Secret Investigations are. Since most Magisters who return to Echo from their exiles usually come for blood, the SI's deployment often entails the use of deadly force. In particular, Juffin and Shurf are renowned for their mage-slaying achievements. The team's reputation usually is enough to end with a hasty surrender most cases when deadly force is not needed. Unlike most examples, however, they use magic to combat magic--they just minimize its use.
• Non-Indicative Name: Despite the SI's full title of "Lesser Secret Investigations Force", there is no "Greater SIF"; their existence are hardly a secret to anyone (what they do frequently ends up a state secret, but they are no Secret Police); and the "Force" (the corresponding Russian term can be also translated as "Army") consists of less than ten individuals.
• Oddly Small Organization: The Secret Investigations. At the beginning of the story, it is just six people charged with enforcing the Codex within a vast city. By the end of the series, it's still nine persons strong.
• Who You Gonna Call?: The Secret Investigations. Regular police deals with regular troublemakers and untrained mages, but when something majorly supernatural happens or involvement of a strong mage is suspected, the SI is called in.

Sir Max

The protagonist of the series, currently holding the title and the gold-on-black garments of "Death in King's Service".

• Author Avatar: Sir Max is an avatar of Max Frei, who is a fake persona of Martynchik.
• Big Friendly Dog: Droopy, Max's Wasteland Shepherd. Named by Max as a tribute to a certain white dog with long ears who solves crimes. Very protective of Max and at least borderline sentient. Already the size of a St.Bernard's dog as a puppy and now grown up.
• Blessed With Suck: Max is an "Arbiter", which is incredibly rare in Echo. The last Arbiter is King Mönin, while our world has many more of them. Arbiters are BornWinners in regard to power, luck and intuition, their words actually shape reality on the Dark Side of the world. The downside is that all the wishes of an Arbiter, regardless how small, become reality - without conscious control over when, where, and under which circumstances this will happen. Death also considers Arbiters a prized morsel, and they are exempt from any and all ways to cheat., although the Keyifaya elves think otherwise.
• Brought Down to Normal: Happens to Max in Nests of the Chimerae, although an ancient wind falls in love with him, rendering Max a Weirdness Magnet. Also, subverted during his first return to our world in Volunteers of Eternity: he first thinks his life in Echo was All Just a Dream, but then decides to try out his magic powers and finds them in working order.
• But Now I Must Go: Max escapes the Quiet City, yet finds himself incapable of staying in Echo. Max's very glance is now deleting objects from reality in Echo - he tells Juffin that only by chance he found it out staring at his bedroom's roof. Later Max will confess that the whole story was a cover-up - he simply was rejected by the world.
• Cosmic Plaything: Max, oh so much.
• Cute Kitten: Max acquires two kittens who in his care grow up into magnificent "carpet tigers", Ella (female) and Armstrong (male). (Incidentally, Max named them after Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong, though there's nobody to appreciate the reference in Echo. As common cats kept on farms are mean and lean, the general public of Echo assumes Max has imported a rare breed of cats and makes a beeline for the first litter, starting a new fad.
• The Empath: While not a Healer, Max is capable of feeling and sharing the pain of others.
• I Choose to Stay: Not that much of a choice, given how much Max likes his new home from the start.
• Mind Control: Probably due to Max Arbiter status, Max's Death Orbs, otherwise a reliable One-Hit Kill spell, instead turn people into obedient slaves. There is a small chance that they will function as originally intended, however, so Max always has to make sure there isn't a part of him that wants his target dead before casting this spell. As Death Orbs manifest the Arbiter status of Max, they also affect the undead, some landscapes, some EldritchAbominations and potentially Max himself. Once again due to Arbiter status, those under Max's control can perform feats beyond their power, beyond Max's power and sometimes simply beyond limits of reality.
• New Powers As the Plot Demands: You name it, Max can do it (eventually). And then some things nobody knows how to replicate.
• Unwanted Harem: the Khenkha tribe assumed Max was their lost king and dumped three twin sisters on him.
• Wild Magic: How any magic tends to behave around Max. Juffin sometimes refers to him as "Wild Wind".

Sir Juffin Hally

The chief of SI (a.k.a. the Most Honorable Chief of the Lesser Secret Investigations Force) and Max's primary mentor.

• Big Friendly Dog: Khuf, Juffin Hally's dog. Looks like a shaggy bulldog and lacks in size what he makes up in friendliness. At least borderline sentient and capable of telepathic Calls.
• Career Killers: Juffin Hally worked as one for a time. His real motivation was elimination of powerful irresponsible mages to stave off the end of the world. Also, his two apprentices in prequels.
• Professional Gambler: Juffin's skill at card games is legendary. He used to play for living and is now forbidden from playing with money at stakes by royal decree. His fellow Kettarians who lead merchant caravans to and from Echo also earn their bonuses by playing with traders and tourists en route.
• Red Baron: "Chiffa" (after the local silver fox) when he pretended to be a gambler, then "The Kettarian Hunter" (after his hometown) when he pretended to be a hired killer.
• Shattering the Illusion with a fair helping of Epiphanic Prison: this is Juffin's preferred teaching and motivation method - he does the shattering and watches those affected struggle towards their epiphany of the day.
  • After Max returns from the Swamps of Gugland, he tells Juffin that the Swamps made him doubt the very existence of Echo. Juffin answers: "Echo is your favorite illusion!", then makes some spell with a gesture, and Max is treated to a glimpse of whatever is the next layer beyond / beneath Echo.
• Sink or Swim Mentor: Juffin, in spades.
• Sparing the Aces: The reason Juffin couldn't bring himself to kill Loyso Pondokhva, the most dangerous Grand Magister of the entire Age of the Orders, who unlike ignorant majority actively worked to achieve The End of the World As We Know It, because Loyso demonstrated a small capacity for True Magic.

Sir Melifaro

One of Juffin's two deputies in SI (the Day Face of the Most Reverent Chief; Max is the Night Face).

• Last-Name Basis: Sir Melifaro. He doesn't have a name.
• The Omniscient by being Blessed With Suck: Melifaro sometimes acts as a type 2, being able to accurately guess things from insufficient data. The suck comes from Melifaro having absolutely no control over triggering this skill.
• Youngest son of sir Manga Melifaro. Referencing Manga Melifaro's Encyclopedia of the World in 8 tomes, Max will jokingly adress his colleague as "Ninth tome".

Sir Kofa Yokh

Master Listener of SI.

• Blessed With Suck: Kofa's ability to be where he needs to be isn't consciously controlled and has no regard for the well-being of the pursued.
• Da Chief: In the Backstory.
• Disability Superpower: Kofa Yokh never sees dreams unless Max is involved and therefore has no capacity for True Magic. According to True Magic experts, this is what makes Kofa extremely competent at Plain Magic.
• Involuntary Shapeshifter and Voluntary Shapeshifting in one: Humkha Yokh, one of the seven founding masters of the Order of the Seven-Leaf, enchanted his only son Kofa to improve Kofa's character and appetite. The resulting sir Kofa Yokh in Echo is in his default appearance an elder, wise, patient and jolly gentleman of somewhat round proportions. If sir Kofa leaves the vicinity of Echo, Humkha's enchantment fades and the world is treated to the original Kofa Yokh, whom Max described as a "Lord of the British Empire ... arriving at an Arabian royal court". The aptitude at shapeshifting seems to be hereditary, as sir Kofa can change his own and others' appearances at will, although the out-of-Echo Kofa dislikes doing so.
• Merlin and Nimue: He and Lady Kekki Tuotli end up an a relationship, both professional and personal. It goes surprisingly well.
• Red Baron: The seldom used epithet "Right-Bank Dragon" (from the time when he worked as the police chief of the right bank of Khuron, the river Echo stands upon). Consider that this nickname was earned during the Epoch of the Orders.
• Retired Badass: Kofa considers his new job to be much more comfortable, as his old one contained such merry tasks as hunting Chiffa. Nonetheless it was Chiffa a.k.a. Juffin who had to evade Kofa by using True Magic.
• Scarily Competent Tracker: Sir Kofa Yokh in his position as the Master Listener, and as Echo's closest approximation to a P.I. in the prequels. His ability is literally being where his current interest works best, and that includes tracking an otherwise unknown person just by wanting to arrest them.

Sir Shurf Lonli-Lokli

Master Interrupter of Unnecessary Lives, currently holding the title and the white garments of "Truth in King's Service".

• Badass Bookworm: Collecting the knowledge in general and hunting for lost lore through the books in particular is his Call.
• Big Friendly Dog: Drimarondo, the only part of the eponymous bequest Shurf Lonli-Lokli took to Echo from the Khotta county. When standing on hind legs, the size of Melamori. Fully sentient and capable of speech after imbibing some experimental potions.
• Eyes Do Not Belong There: After Time Skip, sir Shurf gets one embedded into his glove. The way he managed to do it remains obscured.
• Hand Blast: Gloves of Death. The properly made left projects an almost unstoppable instant incinerating "snowball" of white fire. The right glove was made "merely" of a wizard's hand bitten off mid-spellcasting and paralyzes the victim instead.
  • Phlebotinum Handling Equipment: Sir Shurf's protection gloves, designed to handle everything else while wearing two pieces of weapons-grade Applied Phlebotinum on his hands. Also, his fingernails are covered in the same protective runes as on the protective gloves (inked with an indelible ink) and another one he had to write on his palate with enough of poisonous ink to forever change his blood, but not kill him - so that the inside of his killer gloves doesn't kill him, too.
• Implacable Man: Very, very few have ever escaped Shurf when he was going for the kill.
• Join or Die: How Juffin secured Shurf's cooperation. It was a Fate Worse Than Death he threatened him with, namely, leaving Shurf at the mercy of two undead Magisters whom Shurf doomed to a Fate Worse Than Death himself.
• No Such Thing As Bad Publicity: In Universe: Shurf was never expelled from the Order of the Holey Chalice, owing to the fact that his antics greatly improved the Order's standing even if he no longer answered to them.
• Photographic Memory: Juffin offhandedly mentions that Shurf is able to recall, word by word, any conversation he has been privy to.
• The Stoic: Shurf Lonli-Lokli's ability to keep a cool head is legendary. Max later learns that both the current Shurf and the Mad Fishmonger are mask-like aspects, and the true Shurf, as possibly seen on the Dark Side, is above that sliding scale.
• That Man Is Dead: Deliberately self-induced, to prevent the ghosts of those murdered by his wilder, younger self from catching up with him.
• With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: Shurf took the Fishmonger (keeper of holey fish bassins) job of the Holey Chalice Order and drank all the water in the bassins, taking up the power supposed to be ditributed to about 600 fellow order members. The things he pulled off earned him the "Mad Fishmonger" monicker, and that was during the Order wars. He pulled the That Man Is Dead listed above to survive some consequences and returned to his original name, Shurf Lonli-Lokli.

Lady Melamori Blimm

Master of Tracking the Hiding and the Fleeing Ones.

• Armor-Piercing Slap: to Max after his Arbiter powers caused Melamori a nasty Bedmate Reveal.
• Can't Catch Up: It is eventually revealed that Juffin, Shurf, and even Max have the same Tracking ability as herself, which leads to a massive inferiority complex for Melamori and eventually, a self-imposed exile to Arvarokh (from where she returns wielding powers that nobody can even begin to replicate).
• Clap Your Hands If You Believe / All Just a Dream: Being the love interest of a True Magic user and a True Magic user herself, Melamori more than once finds herself waking up where she dreamt, not where she actually slept.
• Flight: Melamori was admitted into the burivukh society at Arvarokh and gained the power to turn into a burivukh herself.
• Put On a Bus: Her stay on Arvarokh between Simple Magical Items and Swamps of Gugland.
• Scarily Competent Tracker: by having the Tracking gift.
• Star-Crossed Lovers: Max and Melamori. Max claims a mutual That Man Is Dead after Melamori returns from Arvarokh, saying that where two lonely kids were, now reside a wise burivukh lady and an Arbiter gone utterly crazy.

Sir Luukfi Pentz

Master Keeper of Knowledge.

• Absent-Minded Professor: he knows how many feathers each burivukh in his care has, but never notices such mundane things as a cup of kamra falling down because he swept it from the table with his clothes.
• Berserk Button: Do not offend the burivukhs where sir Luukfi can hear them.
• True Sight: Luukfi's gift is to see things as they are. He can tell individual burivukhs apart and simply doesn't notice an elaborate magical disguise worn by Max. This is not a spell, but an incredibly rare innate ability, as Max is told that there is only one more person in the Kingdom of Echo possessing it.

Sir Skalduar van Dufunbukh

Master Escorter of the Dead (mortician of the LSIF). Technically member of the LSIF, he appears very rarely and never participates in any field work. A connoisseur of poetry.

• The Coroner
• Creepy Mortician: Completely averted.

Sir Numminorikh Kuta

Master Scenter, who joins SI in Green Waters of Ishma.

• The Nose Knows: Scenters are rare individuals with this power. Calling upon a Scenter is a viable alternative to calling upon a Master of Tracking, as Masters of Tracking have different limits and are vulnerable to several effects and countermeasures.
• Scarily Competent Tracker: Numminorikh's family was strongly tied with the Order of the Clock of Backwarding Time. His mother held the position of Master Opener of Doors. Numminorikh learned from her, and with his ability to open and pass any door, including doors on the Dark Way and doors between worlds, exceeds at tracking beyond the capabilities of a Master of Tracking.

City Police of Echo

The ordinary, non-magical police force of Echo. Tropes common to them include:

• Badass Normal
• Brats With Slingshots combined with Bayonet Ya: The Baboom slingshots are standard issue sidearms for police and non-magical criminals alike. Max finds them quite funny... until he sees them used in combat (explosive pellet hits tend to be messy). And when out of ammo, the slingshots are used as melee weapons - all 3 ends of the slingshot are sharpened to this end.

General Bubuta Bokh

The thoroughly incompetent police chief of Echo. Promoted to his current position due to the previous Chief's promotion to LSIF and as recognition for his commendable services during the War of Codex.

• Cigar Chomper: General Bubuta Bokh, after Max gives him a box of cigars he accidentally acquired for a present.
• Da Chief
• Hollywood Tourettes: Played for laughs with general Bubuta.

Kekki Tuotli

One of police lieutenants who first appears in A Ship from Arvarokh and Other Bad News. She is secretly in love with Kofa Yokh and eventually works her way up to the SI to become his assistant as the second Master Listener.

Order of the Seven-Leaf

Grand Magister Nuflin Moni-Mach

Successor to the Order's original Seven founders who has steered it through the War of the Codex and until present day. Nuflin is often described as greedy and paranoid. His telepathic Calls are barely noticeable - Max describes the feeling as having an extra thought, and only later noticing it wasn't his own. He abdicates in favor of Max or whoever Max chooses as a successor in White Stones of Kharumba.

Lady Sotofa Hanemer

The "chief witch" of the Order of the Seven-Leaf, though she rarely engages in politics like Nuflin. This is common for all Orders.

• Cool Old Lady: she rivals Nuflin and Juffin in terms of power and effectively the Seven-Leaf's decision-maker in all things outside of politics.
• Voluntary Shapeshifting: Lady Sotofa's default appearance is a nice and friendly white-haired lady looking like everyone's favorite grandmother. With a simple gesture, Lady Sotofa can shift to her juvenile appearance. Max describes the young Sotofa as utterly stunning.
• Involuntary Shapeshifter: on the Dark Side, lady Sotofa automatically regains the stunning young look.
• Really Seven Hundred Years Old: Lady Sotofa is about as old as Juffin, they grew up together in Kettari.

Melifaro family

Sir Filo Melifaro.

Elder Magister in the Order of Hidden Grass. Left Echo to search for his order's voluntarily exiled Grand Magister. Father of Manga Melifaro, paternal grandfather to Melifaro and his brothers. Filo built parts of the house at the family's homestead, creating at least one bedroom with restorative and protective spells woven in the building.

Sir Manga Melifaro.

Former member of the Order of Hidden Grass. Left Echo for several expeditions and wrote the Encyclopedia of the World in 8 tomes from data obtained on his travels. Echo's foremost and sometimes only expert on various subjects. Sir Manga is bound by numerous oaths of silence - the information withheld from the encyclopedia would easily double its volume. During an especially dire situation somewhere on Arvarokh on his last expedition, sir Manga swore an oath "to the sky above" to never leave the Uguland province of Echo again if he was to survive, thus ending his career.

Babkha Melifaro.

Firstborn son of Manga. Gentle Giant of the family, possibly due to ekhl blood.

Anchifa Melifaro,

Second son. Anchifa accompanied his father on the expedition to Ukkumbi, and there became involved with the rites of the Naval Hunt. The shamans of Ukkumbi "turned the wheel of his destiny" - Anchifa became something unheard of in Echo, a pirate.

• Don't Fear the Reaper: After Anchifa started his career as a pirate and amassed a fairly large bodycount, Death herself (at least Anchifa claims the avatar to be female) made a deal with him, saying that it is not his destiny to serve her. Now Anchifa can suppress the fight instincts of his victims with a mere glance, thus avoiding unnecessary bloodshed, and in exchange Death sometimes looks at the world through his eyes and walks within him.

Melifaro.

See his entry at LSIF.

Other residents of Echo

His Majesty Gurig VIII

The incumbent King of the United Kingdom, son of Gurig VII who won the War of the Codex. Described as pretty and fairly young, friendly and easy-going to a fault. Bisexual, as often seen with elves and elven descendants.

• Weather Control Machine: The kings of Echo perform a weather control, fertility and prosperity ritual with a comb.

Lady Tehhi Shekk

Proprietor of an inn named Armstrong and Ella (after Max's cats) and Max's girlfriend between A Ship from Arvarokh and Other Bad News and The Return of Ugurbado. Also, the only daughter of Loyso Pondokhva.

• Artificial Human: Doubly so! First, she's a magical construct 'child' of a certain Magister, second, she's a personification of Max's wish for perfect girlfriend.

Sir Rogro Zhiil'

Owner of Echo's newspapers.

• Blood Knight: during the War of Codex, sir Rogro Zhiil' fought on the side of King Gurig VII and the Order of the Seven-Leaf. According to fellow combatants' testimonies, he was there not out of loyalty, but just for the thrill. Served several decades in Holomi for using Forbidden Magic in a street brawl just a few days into the Epoch of the Codex, invented the daily newspaper out of boredom while doing time.
• Da Editor: subverted. Rogro Zhiil' is the editor and owner of Echo's respectable newspaper, "King's Voice", and unknown to the general population, also the editor and the owner of Echo's somewhat tabloid "Fuss of Echo". Yet he is a refined gentleman, a skilled astrologist and among the favorite lovers of His Majesty Gurig VIII, much to Max's surprise.
• Propaganda Machine: What his media empire basically is. Most blatant use of it takes place in A Talkative Dead Man.

Sir Andä Pu.

Journalist for the "King's Voice" and poet. Grandson of ukkumbian pirate Zokhma Pu. Zokhma settled down in Echo as the chief cook for the Order of Green Moons, as the Grand Master of the order was very fond of ukkumbian food. Andä befriended Max and Max's cats as he barged into Max's home in a desperate attempt to get an article / interview after a foolish boast to pull said interview off. Emigrated to Tasher and started his own newspaper in comic format. Max later finds one of those newspapers on board of a Tasherian commercial ship.

His Majesty Mönin

An ancient King of Echo from the Age of the Orders.

• Barrier Maiden: Actually, a Barrier Guy: King Mönin, the only known Arbiter in the history of Echo, was asked by the ancient time-traveling Magisters to exile himself to the inescapable Quiet City. The reasoning was that a prisoner's desire to get home is the strongest wish there is, and when coming from an Arbiter, it will ensure the continued existence of the world for him to return to, thus preventing the apocalypse. Max was brought to Echo with explicit purpose to relieve Mönin, but Juffin didn't expect the latter to escape just seven years after Max's arrival.