Pérsico is one of the blue emissaries of the Great Khan who travel the Invisible Cities, an animist cleric of Zoroaster whose arc turns from piety toward the shadow.
| Type | Character |
| Spanish entry | Pérsico |
Description
A blue-skinned aasimar with Persian features, goatee and whitish beard, northern cap and yellow cloak; his tunic looks “made of chains”. He rose to fame purifying food in times of plague, when his chapel spread through the villages. He speaks the celestial tongue, is always as if in ecstasy and maps planes, believing a spirit lies behind the evident. He wields a bastard sword like a katana and has dominion over fire and daylight. The Khan chose him as emissary by the astrological tables.
Piety
His mark is piety. His rare gift is to prevent death at the last breath, spent again and again on enemies and strangers. He stabilizes Pizarro, left clinically dead with an open artery in the arena of Isidora, and keeps alive the madam shot at the door of the tea house. His prayer to Zoroaster returns breath when no one expects it.
Turn toward the dark
In the Pleroma, where the canon says all the marked choose darkness to go toward light, he takes the opposite road, from light to darkness, and becomes a “living dead being”. Queen Sara of Zaira lifts him on a thread of burning silk to a stalactite and reproaches his company: “your destiny could have been the prophet of Zarathustra; your companions are ruinous.”
Appearances
- Invisible Cities, T1: emissary of the Khan from Diomirra; the arena of Isidora, where he fights the Gallo’s company; the final arc of Zaira and the Pleroma.
- Invisible Cities, T2 (Italian arc): associated with “Pépsico”, vampire lord of Imola and husband of Caterina Sforza; the identification is not entirely firm.