Tim

Tim is the son of the governor of Sınır Sapı in the campaign Zincirsiz ("Unchained"), a young man of about seventeen or eighteen who came to the inn with guards to meet the mage Jonathan River and his companion Olaf, and who later set out south with them.¹²

Family and interests

Tim said that his family was not of formal nobility but had raised bureaucrats in White City for generations, and that his father's office was not a hereditary title. On another evening he told it differently: the family had been well liked in the region for its trade, and when the town grew along its roads and needed an administrator, the family from a nearby city was appointed with the assent of the local nobles. Both accounts stand as he gave them. He has an elder sister and other siblings.¹³

He spoke of his reading and of his attempts to write stories and history, and complained of the profession and the marriage expected of him. By his own account, he once went among villagers to understand their life without saying who he was, and was beaten. He had travelled to Akşelale and bought books there. The town's hard times troubled him, and he tried to pass his resources on to its people.⁴⁵⁶

Patron of the orphans

Tim is said to have founded, and still supports, the town's orphanage, an old barn where the wounded veteran Don works and some forty or fifty children live. He introduced Don as a local veteran without family who gets on well with children. At the dinner to which he had invited Jonathan and Olaf, held in the governor's castle with no other guests, he gave Jonathan leave to test the children for a gift for magic, and thought it better done before the witch hunters came. He also told of the harsh orphanage he had seen in White City while there with his father for a meeting.⁷⁸⁹¹⁰

On the high terrace of the castle, Jonathan told him that the nine-year-old orphan Mark had shown a true but small gift, and that his claim of dangerous magic in another child had been a deliberate lie. Tim agreed to sponsor Mark, whom Jonathan wished to send to the Archon once the quarantine ended and to have taught to read and write in the meantime. He described the other child as one of a mischievous band of seven or eight, trusted Jonathan's wish to keep him confined for his own safety, and agreed to speak with him. Leave to open the town's records of names and homes, he said, would depend on his father.^11121314

Later, in his study with its few books, he received Jonathan's request for a private talk with the governor and carried his drawing to his father; to his own surprise, he brought back word that the governor would see Jonathan.¹⁵¹⁶¹⁷

The forest spirit Aqua later told Jonathan of a former visitor who could turn his face into other people's and wished to leave because of his family and duties; when Jonathan guessed Olaf, she named Tim instead. Jonathan promised to help him leave, if Tim wished it.¹⁸¹⁹

Spoiler: A private talkRevealSpoils: Zincirsiz #14; Zincirsiz #18; Zincirsiz #19 · Say what you have read

At the leaders' dinner where the governor's departure was announced, Tim spoke as if weighing whether to take his father's seat. When the other guests had gone, he took on the governor's face before Jonathan, answered the question whether the two were one person by telling his past, and apologised for having hidden it. It was Tim, too, who had come to the inn and sealed Jonathan's document as consultant mage to the governor's house.²⁰²¹²²

By his account, his true father died the day after the night he spent with Tim's mother, who then imitated the father's appearance by magic and left once Tim reached a certain age. He describes her as born in these lands, an old and ugly witch, and told Jonathan that he did not mean merely a woman who works magic. How his father died, and what his mother truly is, he did not say.²³

It was later made plain that the veiled man who had met Jonathan under the sign of V was also Tim; see Veiled man of the V invitation.²⁴

Changing shape

Tim says that the young face usually seen is his own, and that he can take on another person's body and voice, as he showed by becoming Jonathan. Asked whether he could become a goblin or someone of another size or people, he said he had never thought about it. He later told the mercenary Max that the gift is inborn, not the work of a spell or ritual; when he takes another's form his clothes stay his own. As Max knew, such changes are rarer than the shifting of the northern wolf tradition, and are heard of in the tales of bards and chain wardens.^25262728

The road south

Tim said he had stayed in Sınır Sapı because he loved the forest, but now wanted to go out into the world. He asked whether Jonathan's promise to the fey meant he would be taken away by force, then joined the dangerous journey south of his own will, showing a hidden knife and hinting at other skills. He trusts that the care of the orphans, which he has made a custom of the town, will go on without him, and laughed off a joke about eating children.²⁹³⁰³¹

He agreed to a two-horse cart and a spare mount in place of pack horses. At dawn he arrived on his own horse with the cart and food ready; the townsfolk saw them off with food and drink, Olaf drove, and Jonathan and Blink rode in the back.³²²

On the road he helped them earn money by making Jonathan's services known, and from time to time played jokes by wearing Olaf's or Jonathan's likeness; Olaf did not like him to stay long in a familiar face. Tim said that in Sınır Sapı he could never be himself at ease, and that using his power outside it was a relief.³³³⁴³⁵

In a burned settlement he found a badly wounded man and tried to give him water; when shouting drew near he armed himself and hid in a burned house, lying under his dark cloak like a heap of embers. To enter the devils' camp he took the face of a man of Sınır Sapı no one would know, and at Jonathan's wish approached the captives in a frightening human-sized shape with horns, sharp teeth and strange eyes.^36373839

One of the wounded captives, named Marvin, praised Lukas, the priest of a neighbouring village, as a helpful man who healed and worked small miracles among the villages, and said the priest's family had come to the area later. Tim studied his face to imitate it. The captives were let out of their cage and told to flee west. Later, at Jonathan's sign, Tim showed Marvin's face to the priest, who said he might know the name and the face, and that night he hid with the priest and witnessed the devil who came.^40414243

Elm

In the village of Elm Tim stayed with the party and joined the search for a missing girl. Asked by Max about his part in the wild, he said he could defend himself, but that his true skill lay with cities and people. He suggested finding out whether anything lived in the lake, slept through the dawn when it vanished, pointed out that the apples on the tree had not changed, and proposed going back to the village to warn the family and guard the cart.^44454647

When Max grew uneasy about him, Tim took on Max's body and voice, then returned to his own form at Max's request without offence. Jonathan vouched for him as one who is not human but has a good heart, and Tim went with Olaf to wait by the lake. Answering Jonathan's Sending, he said that they were grilling meat and would afterwards hide and not interfere; later he came out of hiding at the call.^48495051

He agreed to stay beside the sleeping girl as a check on the stranger Zar, but when Jonathan decided to go down, the girl was left with Zar and Tim was said to go down into the water as well. Afterwards, however, he was said to have stayed outside as a lookout above.^52535455

When the others came out, no one was left by the lake, and a carving reading "Elm" and "T" on a tree was taken to be his. Answering Jonathan's Sending, Tim told him that three months had passed, that he had thought them dead, that he was at nearby Turunç Kale, and that Elm was in a bad state. The party supposed that he still had their horses and cart, and chose to look at Elm before going to him.⁵⁶⁵⁷⁵⁸