Eken

• The word: Swedish ek is oak; eken is the oak. Ferdinand himself is a korkek, a cork oak, so the name says what Eken is: an oak, one of Ferdinand's own, the second burl, grown where the world tree's root comes into Codexia.
• One line: Eken is an oak who keeps every blow as a ring and every ring as a year, and who gave all three thousand of them back at once to break a wall.

• Build & height: a colossus of grey bark, 6 m tall kneeling, eleven metres standing (ch. 369–370). For three hundred years he had sunk to his knees in the Codexia floor and not moved. Draw the stone floor cracked and heaved up around his knees like ice around a pier: his roots are in it.
• Face: a bark face with a split for a mouth, a moss beard, and brows like shelf fungus. Two old axe-wounds have healed into eye-shapes, with a grey-green light deep inside.
• Eyes: the grey-green light in the axe-wound sockets. It brightens when a ring cracks. Since ch. 369 it is "dim and clear and empty, like a newborn's."
• Skin & burl-mark: grey, deeply ridged bark. No sin (Scarwood). His burl is a cross-section on his chest, where a blow sheared the bark off long ago: thousands of growth rings, each glowing faint grey-green. Rings he has spent are black: those are the years he no longer remembers. Since ch. 369 every ring is black, to the last thin ring at the edge.
• Clothing, layer by layer: none. He is hung with nine axes still stuck in his back, plus a sword, a spear, all grown over at the edges by bark. (The tooth of something that bit him once and regretted it was here too, until Mingus pulled it out, ch. 138.)
• Signature item: the nine axes in his back, a ridge of handles like a fence (the Examiners climbed them like a ladder, ch. 141).
• Movement: none, until something earns it. Then one arm moves, slowly and enormously, like a tree falling sideways ("dust pouring off it like sand off a lifted plank", ch. 138). Walking (ch. 370): "slow, careful steps on the light like someone learning to walk."
• Voice: slow as a falling tree. Every word lands like a stored blow. His balloons are thick-bordered, wood-grained, with wide spaces between the words ("Hit. … Me.").
• Variant looks: Ring-crack (the chest cross-section blazing, one ring splitting with light pouring out; ch. 141, 142). Drilled (hollow brass core-tubes sticking out of his sides: the Shelvers' work, ch. 138). Carried (ch. 361–369: kneeling on a square of Ring Hall floor sawn out and laid across three lashed Brygdar longships; then lifted like a tray by Tyngd). Standing (used, ch. 369: the sawn floor bursting into a thousand flying flagstones as he rises for the first time in three hundred years, eleven metres of bark, a loaf still in one hand). Black-ringed (ch. 369 on: the whole cross-section black; empty newborn eyes; a mouse with a scrap of paper on his palm). Walking (ch. 370: learning to walk down the road of light, the cracked Tyngd cradled in one arm).

Eken cannot be cut, broken or felled, by anything. Every blow ever struck at him becomes a growth ring under his bark, and the ring keeps the full force of that blow. Like an oak's rings, his are years: the ring is the year it was made.

• Release: whenever he chooses, he can break a ring and let its stored blow out: one blow, or a hundred, or every blow of three thousand years at once (ch. 369).
• Aim: a released blow goes where he points it, or back to whoever struck it, wherever they are now, in the exact shape of the original weapon (a brass rod, ch. 141; a bronze-headed war-engine, ch. 142; axes, spears, rams, catapult stones and a vast bite, ch. 369).
• The price is in the wood: the rings are his memory. Breaking a ring erases the year it was made. He never strikes first: he only gives back.
• The Kneel is a rooting: when he kneels across a passage, he roots there, and the passage is his body: nothing passes (even Rougeina's Swap comes back to where it started, ch. 138). That's why moving him meant moving the floor his roots were in (ch. 361), and why the floor burst when he stood (ch. 369).
• A young oak: since ch. 369 every ring is black. Black rings are heartwood: they keep no blow and no memory, but they bear weight. The next blow anyone strikes him will lay the first new pale ring outside three thousand black ones, and that ring will also be the first year he can remember.
• What it can't do: stop rot, which isn't a blow. He can't move fast, and he can't store anything that doesn't strike (a word, a spell that doesn't hit). He can't stop someone who doesn't hit him: climbers (ch. 141), drills (ch. 138), the hunters' finishing palms (ch. 369).
• No MACRO has ever felled him. Trollmage has tried, for science.

• Tempo: 2. He is slow: an oak's tempo. But a released blow strikes at the tempo it was dealt with: an Architect's war-engine ring hits at war-engine speed (ch. 142).
• Home tempo: the Ring Halls, where his rings are traced on the walls and his roots were in the floor.
• Heartbeat technique: THE RING-CRACK. Inside one heartbeat he can crack any number of rings and release all their stored blows together: three thousand years of violence in one beat (ch. 369). No one else spends centuries in a moment.
• Burn cost: every ring spent is a year of memory gone. He has forgotten his own name three times now: twice before the series, and a third time in ch. 369 (relearned from the mice's paper, ch. 370).

Memory. He remembered every enemy who ever struck him, because he hadn't spent those rings yet, and forgot everything else as he spent them. He forgot his own name twice before the series; the Library mice kept it written on a scrap of paper, and show it to him when he asks ("…Mouse. … Who."). In ch. 141 he gave back the blow that killed Stav, and with it the year he had known Stav. In ch. 369 he gave back everything: every ring black, his own name gone. He relearned it from the paper ("…Ek. … Hard. … Eken.", ch. 370).

• He couldn't move (until ch. 369). Go round him, or under, or don't hit him and he has nothing.
• Not being hit. Someone who never strikes him gives him no rings. That is how the crew earns passage (ch. 138), and how the Order got over him: they climbed the axes in his back like a ladder, and he couldn't stop them because he never strikes first ("…No. … Off. … Please.", ch. 141).
• Rot. Röta (his Scarwood sister) is the one being who could fell him: compost isn't a blow, and rot eats heartwood. They don't speak.
• Oswin's Shelvers (SHELVER · K-I · Archive Indexing): grey clerks who don't strike. They drill hollow brass core-tubes into him and draw out ring-samples for the Order's war records. It steals his years without breaking them (ch. 138).
• The completion-hunters: a stored blow is a blow still in progress, so their palms could finish his rings for nothing, blackening them one by one with no blow given back (ch. 369). That is why he spent them all on purpose.

• The nine axes, the sword and the spear: unwanted gifts from those who tried. The tooth went to Mingus (ch. 138), who keeps it.
• The Library mice: grey, ink-stained mice who live in the Codexia Library and nest in his axe-wounds and the paths through his ferns. They keep his name, and they read him the shelf of his own rings at night. Their eldest is Pärm, who read his rings aloud as they went black (ch. 369) and folded the paper so only his name showed (ch. 370).
• The paper: EKEN · BREAD-MAN · FRIENDS. THE ONE WHO DIDN'T HIT YOU. THE DOG HAS YOUR TOOTH. · STAV (written ch. 138–143). Since ch. 370 it is the whole of his memory, plus Öde's book ("It's kept twice.").
• The shelf of tracings in Codexia: rubbings of every ring.
• The sun-shaft: a narrow shaft cut by trolls long ago so the sun could touch him once a day (ch. 142).
• The sawn floor: the square of Ring Hall flagstones the Brygdar cut out and carried him on (ch. 361–369). It burst when he stood.

He waits to be struck. He opens by kneeling across the path and saying "Hit me". Everyone does, eventually, and every blow makes him stronger. He finishes by giving it all back. Since ch. 369 he has nothing to give back, and he does the other thing an oak does: he bears. Team combos (once he lets them pass): Eken + Smurjan: the Sightline reads exactly which ring holds which war, and Eken picks the one that hurts the enemy most. Eken + Vigolas: Vigolas lets Eken's stored blow carry a cube to an enemy at war-engine speed. Eken + Tyngd: the weightless king carries the oak to the wall; the oak gives back three thousand years; then the oak carries the king (ch. 369–370).

• Wants: to remember his own name without the mice's paper.
• Fears: forgetting the enemies before he's given their blows back. (Since ch. 369: there are no enemies left in him to forget.)
• Contradiction: the most complete history of violence in the universe was kept by a gentle giant who has never struck first.
• Humour: slow deadpan, delivered one word a panel. "No. … Thank. … You." · "…You do." (when Stav says Ulla said he snored, ch. 141) · "…Rude. … Like her."
• Oak patience: a Tuesday is a Tuesday whenever the bread comes ("It. … Is. … Now.", ch. 369).
• Habits: counts his rings; asks the mice what year it is ("…Mouse. … What year … is it?", ch. 142).
• Alone: listens to the mice read his rings aloud, and nods at the parts he remembers. Since ch. 370 they read him his paper.

• Vigolas: the crew needs the Ring Halls during the troll rising. Eken says "Hit me." Vigolas doesn't: he takes Eken's Bark-Hand full in the chest and gets up laughing ("That's the biggest hand I've ever been hit with!"). "You. … Didn't. … Hit. … Me. … Nobody … ever … doesn't." That earns passage (ch. 138). Eken lifts him off his shoulder with one slow palm (ch. 143).
• Old Stav: the first Bread-Man. "Tuesday." Killed shielding the sleeping king by a rod that glanced off Eken on its way; Eken gave it back and forgot him: "…Stav. … I don't remember him. … I remember … bread." (ch. 141, 143)
• Trollmage: a Brygdar heir with Runa's ears; after Stav, the Bread-Man ("I'll bring it now.", ch. 143). In ch. 369 Eken gives him the title: "Bread. … Man." / "That was Stav." / "Now. … You." In ch. 370 Eken doesn't know him, and he brings the bread anyway ("It's Tuesday." / "It's Thursday, friend." / "It's Tuesday for him."); Eken reads the paper: "…You?" / "Me." / "Good."
• Kompis + Mingus: Mingus tugs the old tooth out of his back as a chew-toy, the first thing taken from him without a blow in three thousand years. He lets the dog keep it (ch. 138). The one thing he remembers in ch. 361: "The. … Dog. … Has. … My. … Tooth." After the forgetting: "Hello. … Dog." (ch. 370)
• Pärm and the mice: his memory, on paper.
• Tyngd: carried him into the Gate and broke under the weight ("I'll carry you there. You do the rest." / "There. … Is. … A. … Lot. … Of. … Rest."); Eken carried him back (ch. 369–370).
• Öde: writes his name in her book of names: "It's kept twice." (ch. 370)
• Rougeina: her blades can't cut him, and her Swap can't pass him, which annoys her enormously ("…I hate him.", ch. 138). Kali: "Oh, I like him."
• Smurjan: reads his rings with the Sightline ("Three thousand years. Every ring is someone who hit him.", ch. 138). Eken asks him to read the ones he can't remember.
• Ingrith: stood on his shoulder through her last night (ch. 141–143).
• Oswin Draekholm (Architect Five): his Shelvers' drills. A grudge Eken has not spent.
• Röta: sister, the only one who could fell him. Mutual distance.

• "Hit me. I'll keep it. I'll give it back later."
• "You. … Didn't. … Hit. … Me. … Nobody … ever … doesn't." (ch. 138)
• "I. … Remember. … You. … Here. … It. … Is." (ch. 141)
• "…Stav. … I don't remember him. … I remember … bread." (ch. 143)
• "If. … I. … Am. … To. … Forget. … I. … Will. … Forget. … On. … Purpose." (ch. 369)
• "…Mouse. … What. … Is. … My. … Name." (ch. 369)
• "Is. … It. … A. … Good. … One?" / "It's yours." (ch. 370)
• "No. … Thank. … You."