Temoc Almotil’s Story So Far
Some of this is adapted from other essays, some is brand new. Enjoy!
A fallen hero, last surviving priest, deeply flawed father, and freedom fighter-slash-terrorist, Temoc Almotil plays a complex role in the series so far. Most recently we saw him freed from prison by Dawn, and becoming one of her faithful.
As we approach the publication of Dead Hand Rule, let’s take a look at Temoc’s story so far.
Temoc before the series
Temoc is one of our few POV characters who lived through part of the God Wars. He was born in Dresediel Lex midway through the century long wars, born into a priestly caste.
One’s family origin was important in Dresediel Lex of old. The prefix to your surname told everyone which clan you came from, and there was little social mobility if any. As a son of the house of Al, Temoc was always going to be a priest. Everything about his upbringing revolved around this fact - and the fact that he was born in the middle of a global religious conflict.
At the age of nine, Temoc dedicated himself to the gods, carving their symbols into his skin. He felt it a great honour, but as an adult questions whether he every really had a choice.
“When you were his age, you knelt before the altar. When you were his age, you carved us into your skin. When you were his age, you dedicated yourself to the war that has found you now.
…
Do I presume upon Your power, when I pass my path to him? Did my father presume, when he passed his to me? When he gave me the choice, at age nine, atop the obsidian pyramid at our city’s heart? Should I not give Caleb the choice I faced?
And what choice was that? Temoc’s father had towered above him, a giant, ancient of days, slabs of muscle and a grim countenance: a lord of men, a servant of the gods. When that man asked his son if he would walk the knight’s path, how would his son reply? When every day for nine years he’d heard tales of Eagle Knights as he drifted off to sleep, and hoped one day he would be worthy to join their number? When every eldest son of his line had taken the oath, received the scars, for centuries?”
It isn’t really a choice to take the scars, and not really a choice to fight. He fought alongside the other Eagle Knights, brothers and masters and teachers. He later reflects that they were trained as holy champions, now facing killing machines, and he was shocked at how similar the two were.
Temoc, age 17, was present at the Liberation of Dresediel Lex. The potential peace that day represented failed, and the remaining Quechal gods and priests were killed in the ensuing battle. Temoc should have died himself - and would have, if not for Elayne Kevarian. Although raised to be enemies on opposite sides of an existential war, Elayne saw Temoc pierced by a thorn of ice and chose to save his life. She healed him, in secret. She thinks in Last First Snow “she wasn’t sure even the King in Red knew that.” He in turn chose not to try to kill her afterward.
Two teenagers, battle hardened and bloodied, making a choice to go against everything they had learned. This decision, seemingly small in the context of the entire God Wars, shaped the future of Dresediel Lex (and the Craft Sequence).
We don’t know what happened immediately afterwards. Temoc must have kept a low profile, if not have left the city straight away; can you imagine the King in Red in the moment of his victory, allowing the last priest of the Quechal religion to survive? Perhaps Elayne convinced him to allow this lone teenage priest of dead gods to leave the city - what was he going to do without the gods that gave him power?
Whatever the precise sequence of events, we know that Temoc ended up wandering the wilderness for many years. He features briefly in The City’s Thirst game, working with a small group of protesters to protect their land from a dam project.
He met his soon-to-be wife Mina out in the desert. She was an anthropologist conducting field research with migratory desert cultures (focusing on mythography and foundational theology), and Temoc was doing his wandering priest thing. They visited the same tribe at the same time.
“We did not have much in common.”
“I thought he was a self-righteous prig. But adversity makes the heart grow fonder.”
“We stopped a renegade Scorpionkind clutch from infesting the desert with unbound demons.”
“That was the start, anyway.”
I like to imagine their early courtship as Evelyn-and-Rick-O’Connell-from-The-Mummy-(1999)-esque. Initial dislike and snark, bonding over adventure and respect for each other’s skills, madcap adventures in the desert. They likely travelled together for some time, as Mina says she spends a lot of time out in the desert for her research.
At some point they returned to Dresediel Lex. Mina’s job is associated with a university based in the city, and Temoc started a small church with a new bloodless liturgy. The King in Red must have known he was there, but let him be. He would have had spies on the Almotil family, I’m sure, but otherwise Temoc was allowed to live in peace in the the Red King’s city.
Caleb has a non-traditional name. He says in Two Serpents Rise that Temoc and Mina chose his name as a sign of peace, moving past the old ways. A new name for a new age.
The little family lived in a small house with a beautiful verdant courtyard, an oasis of calm in the chaotic city. At first, Temoc kept an altar in the second bedroom while baby Caleb slept in a glorified cupboard. As Caleb aged, he got the room and the gods got the cupboard.
This might have gone on indefinitely, had it not been for the Skittersill Rising.
The King in Red, slumlord Tan Batac, and a coalition of investors were looking to gentrify the Skittersill, a working class part of town. Temoc’s congregation brought him the news, wanting him to join them in opposition against the King in Red. At first he refused, telling them to follow their hearts. And then he went to Chakal Square to serve his people - and there his congregation grew.
The protest was mostly peaceful, and Temoc’s presence kept that peace. Agitators like the Major were kept on a leash because the people followed Temoc, and Temoc preached anti-violence.
And then violence found him, in Last First Snow.
Last First Snow
We first see Temoc leading a sermon in Chakal Square. He is in the midst of performing a mock sacrifice in his new bloodless rites, when abruptly his body freezes, wrapped in vines of Craft. He looks up and sees his old saviour, Elayne Kevarian.
He is able to convince Elayne that he is not actually sacrificing someone, and she walks the camp with him. She had been working with the King in Red on the Skittersill deal, and he had left out the very pertinent information of the protests and Temoc’s involvement. She sees how he is loved and respected by the people in the Square, how he uses the little power left to him to heal people and help them. She agrees to meet his family, and is taken aback by the domesticity of his situation.
Elayne convinces both Kopil and Temoc to come to the negotiating table. Temoc uses his influences to pull together a negotiating committee, but won’t join it himself. Somehow, slowly, they reach consensus. Temoc is overjoyed - real peace, proof that there is a way to compromise with and work alongside the old enemies.
Naturally, it all goes wrong. At the treaty signing, somebody tries to kill Tan Batac; Wardens fire on the crowd, killing a child. The King in Red refuses to hand over the perpetrator. Temoc desperately tries to hold the peace, but the Major causes enough chaos to make that impossible (and the King in Red is very happy to meet violence with violence).
He won’t stay, though. He escapes with Mina and Caleb, who he mistakenly brought to the signing. They live in a sort of limbo for a few days, Temoc torn between his desires to stay with his family and return to the Square.
“Go to the King in Red, Temoc. Stop this.”
“I am not sure,” he said, “that we are talking about the same King in Red. The…man…I saw yesterday did not want to stop the fighting.”
“He’ll listen if you sue for peace.”
“Beg, you mean. And if I succeed, what then? Return to Chakal Square to announced that though I abandoned them, I have dealt on their behalf?”
“The King in Red wants to win. Give him a personal victory over you, and you might be surprised how much he’ll surrender in return.”
“I will not show him that force will make me bend. I will not show my people that we should stand up for ourselves only until a sword is drawn.”
But the people want him. They need him. Several protesters, including Temoc’s friend Chel, leave the Square to try and convince him to return, and are set upon by unnatural beasts of Craft. Temoc heals Chel using the weakened power of the gods he still has access to, and sends her on her way.
That night, his young son speaks to him, saying that he and his Mom will be strong and Temoc should go with his friends. Temoc sees this as a sign from the gods, and decides he will indeed leave - but first, he will offer Caleb what protection he can, by giving him the Eagle Knight scars Temoc himself bears. He drugs Caleb at dinner, and carves the scars into his skin.
Mina finds him standing over their son with a knife, Caleb unconscious and bleeding out. She screams at him, tells him to leave.
He does. He returns to the Square and finds the Major mortally wounded. He asks Temoc to sacrifice him to the gods, feed them and get more power back. Temoc does so, breaking the last possibility of peace - the King in Red will destroy the Square and the Skittersill Uprising the next day using God Wars weapons.
Gripfire falls from the sky. The King in Red rides the corpse of a dragon into battle. The few remaining gods rise up and make some of the dead, including Chel, into weapons, to Temoc’s horror. Yet, even as angels, they can’t fight against the might of the King in Red. Temoc fights him one-on-one, the last Eagle Knight of the Quechal gods versus the man who killed them.
Temoc is about to die, when Elayne (unbeknownst to him) prays. Something answers, and Temoc is saved. But the Skittersill Rising is brutally quashed.
Last First Snow ends with Temoc a fugitive. Elayne finds him in an alley, like when they were seventeen, and tries to convince him to change course. He says he can’t. He’s set on making the King in Red pay, and trying to make a world less broken for his son. He tries to visit Caleb and Mina in hospital, but she sends him away.
Finally, Temoc confronts his former colleague Alaxic, who he learned sent the demons after his wife and son to force him back to battle. He threatens Alaxic, but says he has need of him - for now.
Over the next seventeen or so years, Temoc remains a fugitive. He’s the King in Red’s most wanted, working with cells of revolutionaries to try to break the city and take down the power structures. He doesn’t succeed. And Caleb? Well, Temoc’s son only goes and joins the King in Red’s company. What a slap in the face.
Two Serpents Rise
Someone is poisoning the water of Dresediel Lex with tzimet, demon-like creatures, and Caleb is called by nightmare to solve the problem. Temoc visits him in secret, claiming not to know about the attack until Caleb mentions it, but frankly it is coincidental timing for Temoc to show up.
“You shouldn’t work so late.”
“Yeah,” Caleb said. “I shouldn’t. I wouldn’t have to, either, if you’d stop trying to kill people.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
…
“Do you think I would do that? Consort with demons, endanger the city?”
“Maybe not. But your people might.”
“We stand up for our religious rights. We resist oppression. We do not murder innocents.”
“Bullshit.”
Temoc lowered his head. “I do not like your tone.”
“What about when you ambushed the King in Red five months back?”
“If I do not avenge, who will?”
“You attacked him in broad daylight, with thunder and shadow and incendiary grenades. People died. He survived. You knew he would. All you did was hurt the innocent.”
“No one who works for Red King Consolidated is wholly innocent.”
“I work for RKC, Dad.”
Temoc pops in and out of the narrative, visiting Caleb at relevant moments. Caleb is tired of his shit, but it turns out he genuinely is not involved in the Big Plan that involves Mal Kekapania and Temoc’s old friend Alaxic. In fact, when Temoc and Alaxic meet midway through the book, Alaxic tries to kill Temoc to prevent him from ruining the plan.
Temoc survives the attempt. He’s a strong guy.
He runs to Caleb asking for help. It turns out they both know that a group of fanatics plan to use the Twin Serpents as a weapon - and Temoc may be willing to do a hell of a lot of things, but not that.
Temoc says they need a sacrifice at the top of the most sacred pyramid (now the King in Red’s headquarters). Caleb refuses the sacrifice, but has another plan that also involves going to RKC - they need to tear up the contract that ties the King in Red to the Serpents. Temoc pretends to go along with Caleb’s plan, while intending to sacrifice Caleb’s best friend Teo the whole time. He knocks Caleb out, and goes about his sacrifice plans.
Luckily for Teo, Quechal rites take a long time and lots of prayers. There’s enough time for Caleb to wake up and fight Temoc just long enough for Teo to work herself free and tear up the contract. Kopil wakes and is delighted to have the excuse to fight Temoc once more.
They fight. They banter. It’s like old times. Kopil imprisons Temoc while Caleb saves the day, and Temoc (naturally) escapes.
And then he…disappears. For years. Caleb (and Mina) begin to think he must have died.
But really, he ended up trapped in a mountain prison in the Shining Empire. We’re not (yet) sure exactly how, but he stayed there for fifteen long years, until…
Wicked Problems
Temoc has been imprisoned in living rock for a long, long time. He’s lost track of it. It could have been months, years, decades.
And then, one day, things changed. He hears singing. And he feels the god-mountain in which he is held captive begin to go to sleep. Temoc could die in the rock, suddenly unable to gasp a breath, but he falls out of the stone instead. He doesn’t know what’s happening, who’s around him, what they’re saying, until suddenly he hears a voice speak High Quechal, the language of priests and gods, with precision and grace.
It’s a voice he recognises. Mal Kekapania, the woman who tried to use the Serpents against Dresediel Lex. He attacks her, plans to kill her even if she did rescue him, when she speaks again.
“Son of the house of Alh. The stars are wrong. The land needs her Knights.”
For the first time in a long while, he felt cold.
There were orders of duty, as there were orders of being. And thsoe words, that quest-call settling upon his shoulders as mantle and chain—there was no call higher ever heard by mortal man.”
He lets her go, and together he, Mal, and the assorted mercenaries that rescued him try to escape. It’s not particularly successful, but there’s some great snark and banter. All appears lost, when long-dead god Ixzayotl appears from nowhere to save them - led by a young girl, Dawn. He can’t understand what he’s seeing, but he knows it’s real. The god whose death he wept for is there in front of him, raised by Dawn. Together, they are about to fly to safety when the clouds part, and the moon emerges, bringing Seril’s wrath upon Dawn. Temoc prays and saves her just in time.
They need to get her more power. He knows a facility further north, a place where people have been held in a not-quite-dead state for decades to extract soulstuff from them. Dawn can take power from them.
On the way, Temoc and Mal catch up in their inimitable way, and he reveals that technically Mal is married to Caleb. He enjoys calling her daughter-in-law. It’s pretty great.
And then the levity ends as we reach the facility. It appears to have been forgotten by those who set it up, with the people inside being tortured for ever more for no reason whatsoever. Dawn offers the victims mercy, ending their lives and taking thirty thousand souls to bring herself back from the brink. Yet they need more to fight against the shard of iron in Dawn’s palm.
Where to get more power than the Serpents? Shockingly this is Temoc’s idea, and Mal is the one arguing against it. They don’t need to approach Aquel and Achal themselves, however. Blood from the Serpents is stored in a research facility called Tlaloc Observatory. Temoc has a way in - his not-quite-ex-wife Mina has worked there for decades. The gang sneak onto a container ship heading to Dresediel Lex, and find shelter with some of Temoc’s contacts. He also goes to surprise Mina, dressed as a pizza delivery guy (need a picture of that, please). She gives him the guard schedules.
They get into Tlaloc. Temoc needs around 30 minutes to sing some prayers, at which point Dawn will enter the dream of gods, face foes there and defeat them. They are not planning on a fight.
As anyone with a basic grasp of literary convention will know, this statement will come back to bite them. Of course there will be a fight.
Various religio-magic things happen to get them in to where the Serpents’ blood is held, and it all goes fine at first. Dawn is about to enter the dream of gods when a they are attacked. She seizes the power of the blood to fight, and sets the Observatory on fire. Back at the safehouse, many of the Arsenals are badly injured. Dawn is connected to them as a proto-Goddess, giving them strength and taking it in return. She channels power through Temoc to heal them, and passes out. When she awakes, she says she must wake the actual Serpents and not just take some of their blood. They need to go to Heartstone - the place where Mal used to work, set up by Temoc’s frenemy Alaxic.
Temoc and Mal pray at the Serpents’ cavern, and Dawn is able to enter the Serpents’ dreams and speak with them. The King in Red arrives and shit starts to go down. Temoc, yet again, goes one-on-one against Kopil, and Kopil reveals he knew the stars were wrong and the skazzerai were coming. Mal, powered up by the Serpents, joins the fight. A bunch of skazzerai metal guys suddenly leap on the Serpents; Caleb rocks up, using the power of Kos to fly with fiery wings. Temoc is thrilled to see his son take on the mantle of a god, despite it being a strange foreign deity. They have a bonding moment, despite the whole fiery battle and potential world ending calamity.
Take it as read that everyone is fighting, getting injured, bantering, doing cool Craft things. If I summarised each one this would be as long as the actual book.
Dawn gets her power up and flies off with her gang, including Temoc (but not Mal).
They fly to the Badlands, where Dawn kneels by the Crack in the World and raises the War-scarred landscape as her own.
And that is Temoc’s story so far.
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