Siyah

Siyah ("Black") is the old, black-robed wizard who heads the Archon embassy in White City in the campaign Raphael Efsanesi ("The Legend of Raphael"). He told Raphael that he was the only one living in the building.^{1 2}

A target of the test

When Derek Sunshield set Raphael three thefts to prove himself, one of them was to take something from the Archon's head envoy that could be shown to be his: a robe, a note or a pen would do, and there was no need to try for his spellbook.^{3 4}

Raphael came to the embassy with a silent blade, Gece, to have it approved. Siyah found in it the trace of a school of magic viewed with suspicion, a school that was his own field, judged it lawful to possess and gave Raphael a sealed approval, advising him not to carry the blade outside White City. He questioned Raphael for wandering the building unasked, and saw that the visitor had not come only for the blade: a man with Raphael's skills, he reasoned, would simply use such a weapon rather than register it.^{5 6 7}

Siyah called the test a poor one and said that, whatever Derek believed, there was no one else to do the work but Raphael. He gave Raphael a small ring of his own with a red stone and asked him to say it had been stolen without his knowledge.^{8 9}

When Raphael later tried the ring on, it hurt him with a deathly harm and he had to force it off; its red stone turned black, then red again. Derek accepted the ring as one of the three stolen items and ordered them returned to their owners.^{10 11}

Equipping the chain mission

Derek told Raphael that, at the Archon, only Siyah knew of the secret task he had in mind, and that Raphael should go to him for whatever equipment he needed.¹²

Siyah spoke to Raphael through the green fire of the embassy's hearth. For a quick escape he gave him a pair of stones, one blue and one red: one was to be left in an open, safe place, and when Raphael let go of the one he carried, he would find himself beside the other. Distance did not matter, he said, but the stone should not be left inside the city; a small mercenary band and a cart had been arranged, and the stone could be left with them.^{13 14 15}

He also placed a mark on Raphael. If Raphael died, he explained, it would bring his body back safely, since even the dead can be made to speak; if he lived, the mark would fade after a week. When Raphael described a hooded man he had seen carrying a purple orb, Siyah's face changed colour, and he urged Raphael to trust the proper authorities of the Archon and of the knights rather than that man.^{16 17}

After the task Raphael returned to the embassy, still itching from the moat, but the attendant told him Siyah was not available and only wished him good day.^{18 19}

Spoiler: Where the stone ledGösterAçık ettiği: Raphael Efsanesi #8 · Ne okuduğunuzu söyleyin

When Raphael let go of his stone at the end of his task, he came out not at the mercenaries' camp but in a closed storeroom of the Archon in an earlier time. There a young man named Edward, in a white robe with a green flower brooch of his own making, said he had made the stone when he first came to the school nine years before; it had been judged dangerous, and no more were made. An older wizard there read Siyah's mark as a means of finding its bearer and, under a certain condition, of turning him into a corpse to be carried off.^{20 21 22}

After the emperor's murder, a decree read in the new emperor's name condemned to death the Archon masters called White, Green, Purple and Blue, and declared that a ruling council led by Siyah would take their place.²³