Arbiter of Knives

Arbiter of Knives
Species:	Firmament
Place of origin:	10,000 Dawns
Father:	Arbiter of Eternity
First appearance:	Rachel Survived
Appearances:	PROSE: The Gendar Conspiracy

The Arbiter of Knives , sometimes simply "Knives", was a member of the Firmament, the species who were to the 10,000 Dawns as the Great Houses were to the Totality. She was the amoral daughter of their leader, the Arbiter of Eternity, and as her name implied, was an incredibly skilled knife-fighter.

Biography

The daughter of the even older Arbiter of Eternity, the Arbiter of Knives was incredibly old, and, like him, eventually became extremely bored with her unchanging existence.

One day, after the Arbiter of Eternity complained that he had exhausted every book that had ever been written in the 10,000 Dawns and lacked for entertainment, the Arbiter of Knives told him of the Book of Books, a supernatural, infinitely-long tome which had found its way to another universe alongside a cache of books from the 10,000 Dawns, which described the great space-time war of the other universe as fiction. Though leery of attracting the attention of their counterparts in that universe and starting an interdimensional war, the Arbiter of Eternity authorised the mission so long as the Arbiter of Knives understood that he would deny all knowledge of it in case anything went wrong.

The meeting was spied upon by operatives of the Great Assimilation and Dawn, both of whom followed the Arbiter of Knives to the Totality. Dawn were the ones to find out how to access the books (which were being held by the New York Public Library in the 21st century): they prevailed upon friends in low places to ensure that events surrounding a woman native to this universe, Rachel Edwards, would not be monitored for a few days. However, the Arbiter caught wind of this, as did the Assimilation spies and local aliens known as the Strid — all of whom then tried to abduct Rachel. Eventually, the Arbiter fought her way to the room were the books were held, easily taking out representatives of local powers such as people in silver jumpsuits, people in golden robes and people with masks who'd guilelessly shown up for the books with no knowledge of the interdimensional interlopers, and wanted to get their hands on the intel contained in the fictional books.

The Strid, however, were the ones to take hold of the Book of Books, and decided to auction it off between the three 10,000 Dawns factions now represented. The Arbiter offered the Strid their own planet in the Dawns, an offer matched and then outbid by the Assimilation, while Dawn refused to negotiate with the murderous aliens. In the end, however, Rachel managed to outwit the interdimensional visitors by threatening to kill herself, which would remove their protection and thus call down the wrath of the "Firmament-equivalents" upon them. Accepting she had been beaten, the Arbiter retreated aboard her Factory of Crystal. (PROSE: Rachel Survived)

Some time later, Sergeant-Instructor Littlejohn was dispatched to Vo'lach Prime to investigate the theft of a Gendar urn form the Vo'lach, which had been effected by a group of suspected interdimensional interlopers. Before leaving, the thieves had turned on one another, leaving behind two bodies; recognising one of them as a Firmament, Littlejohn contacted the 10,000 Dawns and was joined on Vo'lach Prime by the Arbiter of Knives, whom he cowed into helping with the investigation. They travelled together to Gendar proper and met with Virtuoso, the Gendar leader who'd presented the urn to the Vo'lach as a gift. Virtuoso, whom they both silently realised was an exiled Firmament in disguise, shame-facedly confirmed that the urn was no mere artefact but the key to a secret cache beneath the temple of the Goddess; she had sent it away from the planet out of fear that unscrupulous individuals would stop at nothing to get their hands on it, wanting it as far away from her and her charges as possible.

Hurrying to the cache in question, they found that it had already been opened and emptied; a third betrayed thief who'd survived and also followed the main thieves to Gendar, a rogue Firmament in blue robes, explained that in fact, the brains of the operation, Auteur, was none other than the Goddess herself, with her and her associate Gideon being responsible for the very existence of Gendar civilisation as a long con intended to give them a home base where they were worshipped as gods. The man in blue hinted that Auteur had a greater masterplan involving the destruction of the 10,000 Dawns, but he didn't know it in full, and refused to share the full of what he knew when he realised the Arbiter of Knives intended to take him in.

Trying to escape, he attempted to use his life-force-sucking gauntlet on Littlejohn, not realising what Littlejohn was; as he absorbed the "time" within Littlejohn, he found himself briefly hurled back to his birth from a cloning tank, so long ago. Littlejohn, aware of this escapade in time, was surprised to learn new Firmament were created through ordinary cloning tanks as opposed to anything more sophisticated. Returned to the present, the man in blue tried to the same trick on the Arbiter of Knives, which proved lethal. Littlejohn and the Arbiter parted ways as the latter returned to the 10,000 Dawns with the criminal's body; Littlejohn was not exceedingly upset at the trail having apparently gone cold, musing that "these things tend to come back around". (PROSE: The Gendar Conspiracy)

Appearance

During her visit to New York City, she wore a robe of a "cartoonishly intense" black colour, "flared gently at the boots like a bell". Every edge of it was trimmed with blue, and there was "a point at the crest of the hood like a wide beak". (PROSE: Rachel Survived) During her visit to Vo'lach Prime and Gendar, she instead wore "dark blue" robes, which still had a "beak-pointed hood" leaving only the lower half of her face visible. (PROSE: The Gendar Conspiracy)

In a holographic show created by Archimedes Von Ahnerabe using characters modelled on famous actors known to Rachel Edwards, the Arbiter of Knives was "played" by Tracy Thoms. (PROSE: Rachel Survived)