Karos Invictad

Karos Invictad was the Invigilator, or commander, of the Patriotists who served as the secret police of the Letherii Empire. He was considered the most powerful man in the empire, next to Rhulad Sengar, the Emperor. Tanal Yathvanar served as his personal assistant.Reaper's Gale, Dramatis Personae
Karos was described as a pudgy man with a penchant for dressing only in crimson silks and a love of finery. His short fingers were bedecked with rings set with onyx stones and the short sceptre he carried as a symbol of his office was made of black Bloodwood from the Tiste Edur homeland and silver caps studded with polished onyx stones. The sceptre's base concealed a short knife that could be quickly revealed with a twist.Reaper's Gale, Chapter 9, US HC p.241 He also considered himself to be of substantially above-average intelligence and had a fondness for puzzles.Reaper's Gale, Chapter 1, US HC p.31-34 He spoke with a high-pitched voice that grew higher when he was agitated.Reaper's Gale, Chapter 9, US HC p.239/240
Born to a family crushed by inherited debt,Reaper's Gale, Chapter 18, US HC p.533 he failed as a young scholar due to what he identified as an overabundance of emotion. He said they had made him incapable of taking a cogent position, filling him with anger at himself. It was only when he later scoured himself of emotions, that his inner vision became clear and he published his beliefs in a series of treatises. Critics argued that he merely saw himself as a victim from his school days, and now sought to even the score with his work in the Patriotists.Reaper's Gale, Chapter 5, US HC p.124-125 He found humour a worthless waste of time.Reaper's Gale, Chapter 24, US HC p.766
Karos was fascinated by difficult mechanical puzzles, collecting them from all over the empire to prove his superior intellect.Reaper's Gale, Chapter 1, US HC p.31/34
Tanal suspected the Invigilator was familiar with his assistant's corrupt misuse of the Patriotists' female prisoners for his own perversions, but believed Invictad held onto the truth like a sheathed knife to wield against him, if needed.Reaper's Gale, Chapter 1, US HC p.47
==In Reaper's Gale==
Karos turned the Patriotists into his own personal fiefdom, waging secret war against the city's elite to enrich himself and make his organisation the true rulers of the empire. He sought to become famous, beloved, and powerful--and a man to be feared. Although ostensibly working in partnership with the powerful Liberty Consign of Merchants, he was in fact using their vast wealth to secretly bankroll his organisation and line his own pockets. More funds came from the estates of those he arrested and made disappear. He believed himself to be the wealthiest man ever to have lived in Lether.Reaper's Gale, Chapter 18, US HC p.532-534Reaper's Gale, Chapter 7, US HC p.181
On his first day in office, he had outlawed the Rat Catchers' Guild and sent a hundred agents to Scale House to make scores of arrests. All turned out to be illusions.Reaper's Gale, Chapter 3, US HC p.84 He detested the Edur and hosted weekly inspections of the Patriotists' prisoners with Bruthen Trana mostly to toy with him.Reaper's Gale, Chapter 1, US HC p.32-34 As liaison to Emperor Rhulad Sengar's court, Bruthen was to report on the Patriotists' activities, but Karos bypassed the process to produce his own reports in coordination with Chancellor Triban Gnol.Reaper's Gale, Chapter 5, US HC p.133 The Chancellor and Invigilator also fomented rumours of war with Bolkando to keep the emperor focused outward.Reaper's Gale, Chapter 5, US HC p.132 
Tehol Beddict sought to deliver a "comeuppance" to Karos' depraved soul at the same time he launched another scheme to collapse the Letherii economy. He had Bugg construct a fiendishly clever puzzle box with the insect Ezgara inside and anonymously delivered it to Karos' office. The box's insides were made of sixteen rearrangeable, coloured and reflective tiles, which caused the insect to walk endlessly in circles. The challenge was to halt the creature's motion, presumably through moving the tiles in the correct sequence, before it starved to death in four months' time. Karos quickly became intrigued.Reaper's Gale, Chapter 1, US HC p.31/34/49-51 Reaper's Gale, Chapter 1, US HC p.49-51 
Once Tehol's economic scheme began to take effect, Rautos Hivanar, Master of the Liberty Consign, appeared before Karos requesting the Patriotists' aid in secretly identifying a thief hoarding great quantities of Letherii coin. The shortage was starting to put a strain on the empire's financial structure. Hivanar also pressured Karos to be more careful in the Patriotists' campaign against academics and scholars from the city's influential families. One such scholar was Janath Anar, who unwillingly inhabited Tanal's bed. Despite his aide's protests, he ordered the woman cleaned up and released. Tanal quietly promised himself that he would not be the only one to pay if judgement fell upon him for the crime.Reaper's Gale, Chapter 1, US HC p.47-48 When Tanal proved tardy in releasing Janath, Karos deemed it more expedient to make her disappear.Reaper's Gale, Chapter 7, US HC p.180
Karos conspired with the Chancellor to isolate Rhulad from his fellow Edur and slowly take back control of the throne. To eliminate First Concubine Nisall, he ordered Tanal to compile a dossier of fabricated crimes.Reaper's Gale, Chapter 7, US HC p.180 Then he sent Sirryn Kanar and a team of thugs to break down the doors to her rooms, killing her Edur bodyguard and two handmaidens, before dragging Nisall and her senior handmaiden off to the Patriotists' headquarters. Tissin was forced to "confess", then executed. Karos oversaw Nisall's own interrogation, promising to make her death quick. Nisall stalled for time by announcing she was pregnant with Rhulad's child. But when Bruthen Trana arrived at the Patriotists' door with sixteen warriors and the Edur warlock, K'ar Penath, to demand her release, Karos killed her by stabbing her three times in the chest. Bruthen ordered his warriors to take Nisall and her handmaiden's bodies before beating an astonished Karos into a quivering mess of blood and urine. Afterwards, as Tanal tended to him, Karos declared that the Patriotists were now at war with the Edur.Reaper's Gale, Chapter 9, UK BCA edition p.248/251-254
Karos obsessed over Tehol's puzzle. Unable to admit defeat, he spent day and night working on it to the point where he did little else.Reaper's Gale, Chapter 20, US HC p.618 Rumours said it haunted him so much, he cried out in his sleep.Reaper's Gale, Chapter 18, US HC p.534-535 His relationship with both the Chancellor and his assistant soured. Bruthen disappeared and the chancellor would not allow him to take vengeance on K'ar Penath. When the Chancellor summoned him to answer Hivanar's report that Karos was corrupt, the Invigilator contemptuously admitted it was true and he had undertaken his own plan to bring down the wealthy merchants. The other unknown conspirator's work had simply enhanced his own scheme.Reaper's Gale, Chapter 18, US HC p.532-535 Suspecting Tanal of spying for the Chancellor, he beat his assistant bloody with his sceptre.Reaper's Gale, Chapter 18, US HC p.538
The city descended into riots and anarchy as the economy came to a standstill and Adjunct Tavore Paran's Bonehunters approached the city. Tehol's guilt was uncovered and he was arrested and tortured, receiving Karos' personal attention as an angry mob besieged the Patriotists' headquarters. Karos attempted to appease the mob by tossing them the contents of his private stash of wealth from the walls to no avail. Although battered, Tehol mocked the Invigilator's intelligence. Spying the puzzle box on Karos' desk, he offered to solve it in return for his freedom. Karos scoffed at Tehol's obvious inferior intellect, but agreed to the deal. Tehol stopped the insect's circling by breathing into the box to fog and obscure the tiles with his breath so it could no longer see its reflection. Karos erupted in a rage and destroyed the box with his sceptre before once again assaulting his prisoner.Reaper's Gale, Chapter 24, US HC p.765-769
Ormly brought the reborn Brys Beddict to the Patriotists' headquarters to save Tehol. Their entrance into the compound was preceded by a flood of rats. When Brys found Karos standing over his battered brother, he disemboweled the Invigilator and cut off the hand holding his bloodied sceptre. Thinking Tehol dead, Karos died believing himself a true servant of the empire, imagining the statues that would be built of him as the hero who destroyed the rebellion.Reaper's Gale, Chapter 24, US HC p.783-784/802-803
==Quotes==
==Notes and references==
de:Karos Invictad
Category:Males
Category:Letherii