Suvir Kesi is one of the two wizards in The Voyage of the Minotaur.  I don’t remember where I found the name Suvir, but I liked how it was similar to “severe.”  While not really part of the main plotline, the Suvir Kesi story is important to the characters involved.  Looking back at him, he probably owes a lot to classic comic book villains.  You can see this a bit in his reveal with Terrence.

Terrence let go of him and reached forward to find a door and a doorknob.  He could hear the boy starting to sob as he ran away.  The door was locked.  He took two steps back and kicked, intending to bust open the door, but he had stepped back so far that, though his booted foot hit the door, the force wasn’t enough to open it.  Growling in anger he rushed forward bashing his shoulder against the door.

The door did not splinter, as he had expected it to.  The force of his body broke open the latch.  But as Terrence went sprawling across the floor inside, the door swung on its hinges until it reached the wall behind it, then bounded back, slamming shut again.  The wind was knocked out of Terrence’s lungs, and he heard the gun skittering across the floor.

“Captain Dechantagne?” said Kesi’s accented voice.  “I didn’t hear you knock.”

“You son of a bitch!” shouted Terrence from the floor.  “You poisoned me.”

“Oh, yes.  That.  I had forgotten all about that.”  Kesi chuckled.  “That was funny.”

“I’m going to kill you, you bastard.”

“No.  I’m going to kill you.  But you’ll have to wait a moment.  You caught me right in the middle of something.”

“Mmph.”  The sound was a voice, a woman’s voice, strangely muffled.

“Quiet now,” said Kesi.  “I’m talking with the Captain.”

“Who is that?” demanded Terrence, getting to his feet.

“You know, this is perfect in a number of ways.  It’s almost poetic.  You see, if it hadn’t been for you, I would never have been able to continue this little hobby of mine.  You were so useful, pinning the blame on Maalik Murty.  I was going to frame your brother, but you were right.  Murty was a much more believable killer.”

“You?  You killed those women?”

“Far more than you know.  Uuthanum.”

Terrence’s body was lifted up and tossed across the room like a rag doll.  He hit the wall and then crashed down onto a chair, right onto the spot where Pantagria, or the thing that had been Pantagria, had kicked him again and again.

“Mmph mmph.”  The woman tried to speak again.  She must have been gagged.

“You killed all those women?  The ones in Brech?”

“Yes, I’ve been killing pretty young women as long as I can remember.  It’s just good clean fun.  It’s also been a sort of preparation, though I never realized it until now.”

“Preparation for what?”

“I can’t tell you that.”

“Why did you poison me?”

“I can’t tell you that either.”  Kesi chuckled again.  “Mostly, because I can’t remember.  Uuthanum.”

Terrence felt himself fly up so hard that he hit the ceiling.  This time, when he hit the floor, his crotch landed right on something hard and pointed.  He doubled up into a fetal position.  Both hands went to cradle his testicles, but instead found the object that had injured them—his own pistol.  He grabbed hold of the grip, but couldn’t force his body to unbend.

“Now, listen to this,” said Kesi.  There was a ripping sound.

“Didn’t catch it?  Listen again.”  Terrence heard the ripping sound again.  The woman’s muffled voice screamed.  It sounded somehow very far away.

“What are you doing?”

“This is the really poetic part of it all.  I’m killing the only woman who ever loved you.”