The Child Adopted by Valanthru is an unnamed orphan of Caldero, one of four children rescued by La Jabalina (the Javelin) from the Bazaar of Life and then adopted by Lord Valanthru. In 1824 AE he is confined in the Obsidian Tower.
| Type | Character |
| Era | 1824 AE (present cycle) |
| Place | Obsidian Tower, second floor |
| Adoptive father | Lord Valanthru |
| Spanish entry | El niño que Valanthru adoptó |
Name
His name is not preserved. Mascor Blancarba calls him “the rescued child”, “the adopted orphan” and “one of the four little ones”. The Decadian archive of Caldero does not record him: Valanthru handled the adoption with enough discretion that the provincial church did not note the name.
History
- He came from the Lantern Street Orphanage, cared for by Gretchyn Tashykk and Rulfo.
- He was captured by the network of Keygan Ghelve and Kazmojen to be sold at the bazaar.
- La Jabalina rescued him at dawn during its first mission, in the same operation that returned Jaromir and the other two children to the orphanage.
- Soon after, Lord Valanthru exercised the noble right of charitable adoption, a legal instrument recognized by the provincial Decadian church, and took him to the Obsidian Tower.
The ritual hypothesis
La Jabalina suspects the child is one of those chosen for the ritual of the zodiacal marks of the Cageewrights, and cannot yet prove Valanthru’s intentions are sinister. If so, the adoption keeps the ritual candidate under control until the ritual, and the rescue was partly reversed: the child passed lawfully to an equally dangerous noble and cannot be rescued by force. He is physically safer than at the bazaar, with no risk of sale, but more compromised, prepared slowly for the ritual. House Frame Rhivadi and Tittiframe are named as a parallel apparatus of the negative pole, and the ritual would sustain the industrial-magical manifestation of the Borg Popes.
Confinement
He lives in the second-floor chamber of the Obsidian Tower, next to the lord’s office, and no outside visits are allowed. The few times he has been seen from the square, leaning out of the second-floor balcony for a few seconds, he did not call out, wave or protest.
Open questions
- Whether his silence is imposed discipline, assent, stupor or ritual preparation is unresolved.
- His fate is expected to be settled in the next cycle. Possible outcomes, not mutually exclusive: rescue by La Jabalina in a raid on the Tower; the ritual carried out with him as a specific zodiacal mark; his conversion into Valanthru’s ally; or his emergence as an autonomous cosmological figure beyond both Valanthru and La Jabalina.