The Mask of Neferu is a sentient artifact that Khalim has carried for a thousand years, the remnant of his dead companion Neferu; it brings him back from death. “I am what remains of Neferu. I choose Jalim.”
| Type | Artifact (with its own ego) |
| Bearer | Khalim |
| Spanish entry | La máscara de Neferu |
Description
It is seen sometimes as a black-cloaked bird with a black pearl and self-luminous eyes, sometimes as an executioner’s mask hanging from a tree while Khalim prays. In both forms it says: “I am what remains of Neferu.”
Powers
When the group falls — a killing cloud, an implosion by Sara, the swarm of drow that impaled Khalim “like a colander” — it wakes, opens wings named after Nephthys and breathes resurrection, or pronounces its choice (“I choose Jalim”) and rebuilds his whole body. It does not always succeed: under Sara’s wrath in Zaira, its Breath of Life failed.
Open questions
- Its exact nature is uncertain: sometimes treated as a familiar, sometimes as “Jalim’s son”, sometimes as the mere shadow of a wife — a woman who was a warrior by the Nile. In another layer of her story, Neferu’s husband is Marcos the Mage.