Minaya Fariña is a planetar, a green-skinned, bald angel and celestial general of the broad school of the Celestial Mountains, in the Zaira arc of Invisible Cities. He is the illegitimate son of Coyote and Queen Sara of Zaira, and the “hanged usurper” of the text that governs the city.
| Type | Character (planetar) |
| Parents | Coyote and Queen Sara of Zaira |
| Appears in | Invisible Cities, season 1 (Zaira arc) |
| Houses of the Cycle | ⟳ House of the Rotating Office · ⛓ House of the Band |
| Spanish entry | Minaya Fariña |
Background
His name echoes, in another life, that of the Cid’s companion Minaya Álvar Fáñez. He was abandoned as a newborn on the quay of the underground city. Before his hanging he carries the clue to the six-fingered-claw hired killers who ambushed him in Sigil; they spared him at the last moment when their client stopped wanting him dead.
Hanging in Zaira
His condemnation is written in advance: Zaira follows the Calvino text line by line. In the final assault Queen Sara points, and the golden thread (wax and silkworm silk, the hardest biotic substance in nature) pulls him out of the fight, becomes a gallows and hoists him against a railing, his feet dangling. His body stays hanging in Zaira. His spark is captured in the empty lantern of the three old soul-collectors of the quay.
He is not of the company, and the resurrection that saves the others does not reach him. His soul is not lost: he is reborn as the baby that Soliman rescues floating on the same quay just before the cannonade, sweet and almost haloed. It is the same soul at two points of the cycle, waiting for them to “change the circle”.
Mount Analogue
In the landing at Mount Analogue he holds the coast beside Auro, keeps and protects the prisoners on the beach, and tries to save the population from the massacre. He carries the guilt of it afterward.