- For the artificer daughter of Heralds Mags and Amily, see Abi.
Ari is a Master Artificer who always dreamed of being a Herald. and was bitterly disappointed that she was never Chosen. After graduating from the Collegium she returned to her home village, a small mining community in the north of Valdemar. Feeling that she had something to prove, she set to work as a mine engineer, designing the Demon's Den.
Built in shale rock in an area prone to frequent earth tremors, the Demon's Den mine was incredibly dangerous. However, Ari braced the mine in such a way that the tunnels moved with the quakes, rather than collapsing. Everything went fine for quite some time until the day the earth moved in a way she hadn't anticipated. The slippery shale rock fractured and parts of the mine caved-in, killing seventeen miners and trapping Ari. Three more miners, including Ari's brother and uncle, died while rescuing her in the wake of a second quake. Ari suffered massive injuries, losing both legs as well as her eyesight.
Drowning in guilt and bitterness, Ari barely spoke or interacted with anyone following the mining accident. Five years passed until the Companion Gervis came seeking help. His Herald, Jors, had followed a wounded mountain lion into the abandoned mine and been trapped following a small quake. When the village was unable to rescue Jors, Ari volunteered. Knowing the mine as intimately as she did, and being used to operating in total darkness, she was able to find and free him, freeing herself from her overwhelming guilt in the process.
Like most Artificers, Ari worked in more than one area of design and engineering. She was well-remembered around the Collegium for redesigning the hoists from the Collegium kitchen to prevent them from jamming, for fixing the pump that routinely flooded Bardic, and for designing a specialized practice dummy, among other things. She also created the intricate door latch for the family home where she still resides.
In the series[]
Ari appears in the following work:
- "The Demon's Den" by Tanya Huff, Sword of Ice and Other Tales of Valdemar, Valdemar Anthology, volume 1 (The story also appears in The Demon's Den and Other Tales of Valdemar.)