Bomanz
From Glen Cook Wiki
Bomanz (aka Seth Chalk) is a powerful wizard who accidentally releases The Lady from her imprisonment in the Barrowland. He is unassuming in appearance, rather short, pudgy, and balding. Popular legend generally considers him a fool snared by the Lady's siren song, but as a more detailed portrait emerges, Bomanz is revealed as a thoughtful and remarkably ethical sorcerer, especially given his magical strength; he is nearly as powerful as many of the Taken.
History
Bomanz went to the University at Oar when he was young, where he made a name for himself on the "Black Campus," the quasi-secret underground campus where wizards learned their trade. During his studies, he accidentally stumbled across what he believed to the the true name of the Lady. This inspired him to spend his life developing a way of communicating with her; he believed that he could do this without freeing her and, armed with her name, he would be able to compel her to reveal many great magical secrets.
He works for years posing as an relic-hunter near the Barrowlands, supposedly digging for artifacts to sell under license at a shop with his wife Jasmine. He works under the strict suspicious supervision of Besand, the head of the guards assigned to the Barrowland. Mainly Bomanz is drawing a secret map of the enchantments in the Barrowland, mapping a way for him to reach in and talk with the Lady.
He succeeds in doing so, and manages to project his spirit into the Barrowland. However, two errors trip him up; first, he does not actually have the correct true name of the Lady (he mistakes her for her sister Ardath) and second, his son Stancil is exposed as a Resurrectionist when he disrupts Bomanz's spell. He hurries back to his body and kills his son, but fails to stop the Resurrectionist Tokar, who follows Bomanz's path and frees the Lady. Lady and the Taken begin bursting out of their barrows, and Bomanz, desperate to undo what he's done, races into the whirling firestorm of the Barrowland enchantments and the guardian dragon, apparently to his doom.
In fact he is not killed, but imprisoned in a kind of stasis. The Company learns this when One-Eye and Goblin project themselves into the Barrowland to learn what's become of Raven's spirit. The Lady has Bomanz removed and revived; he awakens unharmed (though much thinner), and quite chagrined to learn that Lady has been ruling for a hundred years.
He appears to sacrifice himself again when the dragon guardian is released from the Barrowland, but manages to escape and emerges again later to help the White Rose. He sacrifices himself for real in trying to stop the Limper, or the creature that used to be the Limper, outside Oar.
