Ten Who Were Taken

From Glen Cook Wiki

The Ten Who Were Taken are ten incredibly powerful sorcerers enslaved by the Dominator centuries in the past. They were Taken over a period of 44 years and continued to support the Dominator and the Lady until they were defeated by the White Rose and interred in a charmed barrow. Over four hundred years later, the misguided wizard Bomanz, hoping to establish communication with the Lady, accidentally released her. She released the Taken, but left her husband locked in the barrow. Over the next century, the Lady and the Taken re-established an empire spanning thousands of miles, building a new fortress at Charm as headquarters. However, the Taken perpetually schemed against one another and some secretly worked to resurrect the Dominator. Most of them appeared to perish during the monumental Battle of Charm, where over a quarter million people died. However, several survived and continued to plague the fortunes of the Black Company for decades.

The Ten

The original Taken were Shapeshifter, Bonegnasher, The Howler, Stormbringer, The Faceless Man, The Limper, Moonbiter, Nightcrawler, The Hanged Man, and Soulcatcher. Shapeshifter was the first to be Taken, but little is known about the order of the others.

Three of the Taken are female (Soulcatcher, Stormbringer, and either Nightcrawler or Moonbiter). The Black Company never encounters Moonbiter, Nightcrawler, or the Faceless Man directly; little is known about them.

Taking

Taking results in a powerful form of enslavement, but, despite early impressions, does not appear to confer any abilities upon the victim. At one point Croaker, marveling at the endurance of a badly wounded Howler, asks Lady if the Taken "get nine lives." She responds in the negative, telling him that "any wizard of this drive and power will have taken steps to protect himself." Neither does it confer complete mental control over the Taken: they remain free to scheme against each other and even the Lady. However, it is evident that, once Taken, a wizard is completely at the mercy of the taker. Quite possibly the Taken are compelled to reveal their true name during the enslavement. This is a logical conclusion because, when her Taken turned on her, Lady was able to completely strip them of all magical power (a feat normally undertaken by utilizing the true name of the target).

It seems clear that the original Ten were unusually powerful sorcerers to start with. Many of them take unbelievable physical punishment, including decapitation, and are capable of coming back. Although Croaker describes them as "undead", a better term might be "undying" - they have all taken steps to preserve themselves, to the point where physical destruction of their brains is required to truly kill them. Some of them bear the scars of normally fatal wounds (e.g. the Hanged Man), but it seems that this is a case of living through the damage rather than actually coming back from the dead. Some of them eat food, if only occasionally.

The Lady's New Taken

Taking appears to be among the most complicated and rare of all magical spells and rituals. It was long thought that only the Dominator could Take; Lady surprised Soulcatcher when she revealed that she too was able to perform the spell. (Lady proceeded to Take several sorcerers to replace the original Taken who fell in battle or fled south after the Battle of Charm, though, overall, none of these New Taken truly measured up to the Dominator's ten originals.) Croaker witnessed the Taking of Whisper, and although his memories are not clear, he says Whisper was "shattered, slain and brought back to life as a slave."