Drekk

• Build & height: 1.63 m, small, wiry and hard as a knotted rope (ch. 2: "wiry and sharp-eyed"), bow-legged from thirty years of decks. Next to a troll he comes up to the knee (ch. 134). Big hands for his size (ch. 155, 195): a helmsman's hands, scarred across the palms from rope.
• Face: weather-beaten, grumpy, a nose broken twice (ch. 63); "weathered, deep-lined… small sharp eyes that have looked at a lot of horizons" (ch. 198). At rest: a scowl at the weather. When he laughs, which is rare and always a page-turn, the whole face cracks open.
• Hair & beard: grey, thinning, cropped under a battered hat (ch. 12). The beard is the timeline: trimmed and fuller on the Kettle (ch. 204 flashback) · grown long and grey down to his chest in the four months he waited at Stilla's rim (ch. 178–179) · from ch. 198, trimmed square by feel with a razor and no glass, still long. In Saga V it whips in the wind at the wheel (ch. 231).
• Eyes: small, sharp, sea-grey. In Saga V they don't water and don't burn in Hallbard's Beam (ch. 231 P20).
• Skin & sin-mark: salt-browned, rope-scarred, a spray of old fishhook scars on the back of the left hand. No sin-mark (ch. 17).
• Clothing, layer by layer: a wool undershirt · a patched navy sea-coat with deep pockets (charcoal, a stub of chalk, string) · canvas trousers rolled at the shin · sea-boots · a hat (off when he grieves, ch. 12) · from ch. 65, the bell-rope mask, and after ch. 198 it hangs round his neck (ch. 204) or in his hand (ch. 224).
• Signature item: the brass spyglass, an heirloom ("That's been in my family since— since I had a family!", ch. 153), with a crack clean across the lens since ch. 20, when he blocked a bark-hook meant for Smurjan with it. And the bell-rope mask: woven from the Kettle's bell-rope, "a plain oval, two eyeholes, a stern rope-brow, salt-dark and sea-worn. It looks like Drekk: grumpy and stubborn and made of something that has already survived one shipwreck." (ch. 65).
• Movement: a rolling deck-gait even on land; one hand always finds a rail. At the wheel he steers with his eyes half shut, by the shiver in the spokes and the lean of the deck (ch. 65). 90).
• Voice: gruff, clipped, salty; he barks orders and mutters endearments to boats. Calls Vigolas "captain", Kompis "lad", Smurjan, eventually, "big man", and any ship "old girl". Balloons: rough-edged, a slightly ragged border like frayed rope. Through the mask (ch. 65–195) the balloons get a second, dotted inner border: muffled.
• Variant looks: The Kettle years (ch. 204: younger, fuller beard, at the tiller) · Faceless (ch. 59–195: "Smooth. Blank. Like an egg.", then the rope mask) · The rim (ch. 178: the long beard, tally-marks on the rail, the barley harvested twice, the bell polished) · Face returned (ch. 195–198: "…Uglier than I remembered.") · The Beam (Saga V: at the wheel in silver light, beard whipping, eyes wide open).

• Sight while faceless: he sees dim shapes and steers by feel: the shiver in the spokes, the lean of the deck.

Drekk has no sin-power. What he has is thirty years at sea and a body that learned to read a ship.

• Navigation: "Lucky for you, I'm the good navigator." (ch. 32). He read the Archive's aisles "like a coastline" (ch. 18) and counts seconds "the way old navigators count seconds between lighthouse flashes" (ch. 95).
• Steering by feel (faceless, from ch. 65): "the shiver in the spokes, the lean of the deck under his boots, the hum of the hull." He felt Rougeina land on the mast and turned toward the weight. He swung the Marka out from under the falling Sea Frame (ch. 94), turned into a scheduled gust before it came (ch. 95), and rammed barges in pitch dark (ch. 136: "Dark's nothing to a man with no face.").
• The doors breathe (ch. 90): he can't see Wendlan's gate-frames, and never could, but he feels them: "…They breathe." He called Vigolas's steps through the Gate Yard "like a helmsman calls a reef" ("CAPTAIN! STOP LOOKING WITH YOUR EYES!"). Smurjan: "He's steering a man like a ship."
• Reading the Beam (Saga V): the only human who can read Hallbard's Beam without going blind. He sees its silver thread off the Marka's bow "as clear as a chart line" and holds on to the last faint line long after anyone else would lose it.
• Knots: re-taught Vigolas the bowline his own way (ch. 64, 86; the shard: "Hild's right-over-left, Drekk's way now"). Taught Ysel the best knots on any boat (ch. 204).
• What it can't do: anything a K-I body can't. He can't stop a blade, can't touch the Null (he fell into the white in ch. 201 and the Griffin caught him by the collar), can't be Called, can't enter a sealed match. Mingus is the one thing aboard he never has to count: the dog is always there.

• Tempo: 3. An ordinary K-I heart that has never burned for a power.
• Home tempo: the wheel of the Marka, with the Kettle's bell at the bow.
• Heartbeat technique: THE HEAD-COUNT. Inside one heartbeat, by sound and weight alone, he counts every soul on his deck and knows if one is missing, and the wheel is already turning toward the gap before he knows why. Shown in ch. 94, under the falling Sea Frame, eyes shut: "Captain. Lazy one. Big man. Assassin. Cat. Kompis. Dog. …All of you." No one else knows a whole crew is safe without looking. (Kompis reads threads; Drekk counts boots.)
• Burn cost: the count always comes up short. Every full head-count counts the missing too (the Kettle, Marka, Old Stav), and for the beat after, his hands come off the spokes. A K-I heart that tried to count a fleet would overflow; he counts his own deck and nothing else.

Drekk pays with things he loses, not with tempo. The Kettle burned and sank in the fjord (ch. 8: "NOT THE KETTLE—"). Marka held Bakasura's jaws open so he could run (ch. 15). His face, stolen by Räva at the crew's own fire (ch. 59), was gone for 136 chapters and came home only in ch. 195. He lost four months at Stilla's rim, waiting in normal time while the crew lived a day and a half (ch. 178: "I talked to the bell, captain. For four months. She's a terrible listener."). Hence the line the whole arc of Saga IV hangs on: "…I'm not losing a third thing."

• A K-I body. Frozen by Stillmark's gaze (ch. 62) and Timekeeper batons (ch. 96); hooked through the shoulder on Tyngden (ch. 103); his head cracked on the spokes by a ridden Kompis (ch. 47); hauled out of a floor Solvig un-made under him (ch. 214, Ysel's rope).
• Grief. A Mirror-Ward pulled his grief and nearly turned him on Smurjan (ch. 82: "…No. No. Not again."). Räva beat him with Marka's face and a laugh (ch. 59: "Let me have tonight.").
• No face, ch. 59–195: couldn't see his left side while masked (ch. 82).
• Never defeated outright. His defeats are losses: the Kettle (ch. 8), Marka (ch. 15), his face (ch. 59).

• The spyglass: brass, family heirloom, lens cracked (ch. 20); taken by the Ränta (ch. 153), back from the smashed jars (ch. 157); he drops it when he sees Ysel (ch. 200) and when he sees the Beam (ch. 230).
• The bell-rope mask (ch. 65): routed away by Edvar's slip (ch. 130), flew home (ch. 132: "…Welcome back."). He kept it after his face returned: "Rope's earned its place. Face is for Sundays." (ch. 198).
• The Kettle's bell: he dived into the fjord for it (ch. 17: "…Stay there, old girl. I'm coming."), hung it at the Marka's bow (ch. 28); embedded in the deck on Tyngden (ch. 103), rehung (ch. 110); rings half a note at the Tideline (ch. 199).
• The Kettle's old oar (ch. 213). A boarding axe (Saga II on), a frying pan (Saga I), a knife, a belaying pin, a bucket.
• The bench by the wheel, its rail scratched with tally-marks of four months (ch. 178); the grey uncounted some of them (ch. 191).
• Malm's parcel, held for Kompis through the four months: FOR THE BOY. WHEN HE'S READY. — M. ("You didn't look ready. So I didn't tell you.", ch. 184).
• Companions: Ysel, his second hand at the wheel (ch. 208); the Kettle's red pennant she flies under the Marka's flag.

Somebody has to steer. In a fight he stays at the wheel and puts the ship where the fight should be: between the enemy and the crew, under a falling frame, between three enemy hulls in one beat (ch. 150). When he has to fight with his hands, he grabs what's nearest: a table (ch. 2), a frying pan (ch. 7), a belaying pin, an axe, a bucket (BONK, ch. 190), an oar. Team combos: Drekk + Kompis's Shared Beat (he moves on Kompis's kept line, ch. 109, 159) · Drekk + Kali (she borrows his sin, lent, and swings his axe with him, both at once, ch. 125; he spins the wheel and the Marka slides between three ships, ch. 150) · Drekk + Vigolas ("FEEL YOUR NECK!", ch. 90) · Drekk + Ysel (wheel and rope: she ropes him out of un-being stone, ch. 214) · Drekk + Hallbard (Saga V: the Beam and the man who can read it).

• Wants: nobody else lost. And, under it, Marka's old dream: "She always wanted to see it. The Current. She said we'd go when we were old." / "We never got old." (ch. 32).
• Fears: the third thing.
• Contradiction: the grumpiest man aboard is the softest. He shouts at Ysel that she burned his boat, then asks where she's been (ch. 201). He insists the Marka isn't his ("It's not my boat. Ask him.", ch. 208), and steers her as if she were.
• Humour: dry and cranky. "Then we've had a nap." (ch. 3) · "There's grass on my deck." (ch. 169) · "You couldn't have done that gently?" (ch. 102).
• Habits: counts everything ("Marka used to say I counted everything. Waves. Stars. Her bad jokes.", ch. 95); talks to the bell; sleeps hugging his spyglass (ch. 4); scratches tally-marks.
• Alone: at the wheel at night, talking to the bell.

• Ysel (Lillskugga): his third thing. "Do you hate her?" / "…I've tried." (ch. 204). He told Öde everything about her in one night so Öde could remember her whole. "…Ysel. Lillskugga. Come on." (ch. 207). "…Drekk. You got old." She's his second hand at the wheel (ch. 208). "Ysel. Third thing. Remember?" (ch. 215).
• Smurjan: the slowest thaw on the ship. "Get out." (ch. 16) → "You carry her right. Or I'll take her out of you myself." (ch. 28) → "…Good fight." (ch. 44) → a hand on his shoulder (ch. 59, the first time) → "Big man" in the head-count (ch. 94).
• Bakasura: "Go on, then… Don't be sorry. He's hungry." / "So feed him." (ch. 66). "…Hold on, you big ugly thing. Just a bit longer." (ch. 97). Bakasura still can't meet his eyes.
• Vigolas: "captain". Re-taught him the bowline; called his steps through the gates; "Camilla!" (ch. 224: "You nailed her name to my rail! You're worth the Kettle and Marka and everything I lost to get to you!").
• Kompis: "You're up late, lad." (ch. 47). Kompis talked him into steering blind (ch. 65). He kept Bror's parcel for him.
• Mingus: "Your dog is a LION." (ch. 6) · "YOUR DOG IS A BIRD." (ch. 25) · "He's the best one of us. Nobody argue." (ch. 13).
• Räva: stole his face and kept Marka's safe. "You kept hers safe." / "Then we're square." (ch. 198).
• Kali ("the little navigator", ch. 20) · Trollmage (carried "like a sack of flour") · Old Stav ("You old log." / "He laid her keel.") · Öde ("There's grass on my deck.") · Isa · Levla ("It's worth more than fifteen.", his axe) · Aldhrun ("ALDHRUN! Let me through!", ch. 205).

• "…Fine. Somebody has to steer." (ch. 2)
• "She's ugly. She's slow. She leaks when it rains and when it doesn't." / "She's mine." … "…She's ours." (ch. 8)
• "She always wanted to see it. The Current. She said we'd go when we were old." / "We never got old." (ch. 32)
• "You know what I learned without one? You don't need a face to know who's at the wheel." (ch. 94)
• "I talked to the bell, captain. For four months. She's a terrible listener." (ch. 178)
• "…I lost the Kettle. Then I lost Marka. She held the jaws open so we could run. I couldn't do anything." … "…I'm not losing a third thing." (ch. 204)
• "…I can see it. The line. Where we're going." (ch. 231)