Profiles in History: Aun Tanua
Aun Tanua, a great Tumerok warrior aligned with the Order of Dereth, was imprisoned by the Virindi and later by Black Ferah's Shadows. In Elysa's day, the boldest of adventurers visited him in his prison and brought back embers imbued with his spirit to burn in Aun Aulakhe's campfire and keep him in touch with his people. He was later released (we do not have the details) and helped to draft the Doctrine of the Order of Dereth.
Later, during the Fifth Sending, he was recaptured by Black Ferah, who imprisoned and tormented him along with Isin Dule. Tanua was finally released in PY 500. His tormentors could not break his will, but they had broken his mind. He was consumed by a desire for revenge, and demanded total war against the Shadow and Dominion. He learned that Shi Manaua had sacrificed his entire tribe to Wharu, the anima of decay. Tanua raised and interrogated Manaua's undead corpse, which told him that Manaua's former apprentice, Shi Tawapuh, had survived (or escaped, or been rejected from) the holocaust. Tanua went raging over Dereth in search of Tawapuh. Observers reported he seemed unsure whether he wanted to interrogate Tawapuh as to how he escaped, or merely to kill him. Tanua finally caught Tawapuh and killed him, learning nothing in the process. Nalicana cast him out of the Order, and he fled into the mountains with a band of fanatics. They occupied an old Order fortress in southern Omishan, and came out of it to kill anyone they considered tainted, which could be almost anyone, including the innocent Wandering Folk.
A band of adventurers, commissioned by Nalicana to invade the fortress, overcame Tanua's traitorous lieutenant Kogun and presented Tanua with evidence of the enormity of his crimes. Tanua left the fortress and submitted to Nalicana, though Kogun and the fanatics remain there.
Tanua then, with the help of the Animae, confronted the thing that had called itself Wharu and tore its disguise from it: the creature is not Wharu, the anima of decay necessary to the cycle of life, but the Kemeroi, the dark hungry spirit from outside the world, the Master that turned Ilservian Palacost into Bael'Zharon and loosed the Black Breath upon the world. Tanua unmasked it, and it crushed him.
Shi Honauri, an old healer, took up the broken body of Tanua and watched, weeping, until the last breath had left his body. Then he burnt him upon a pyre, as was done in the old days, rather than burying him in the earth and trapping his spirit there. When the fires were burnt out, Honauri scattered Tanua's ashes and found his breastplate among them, shining and powerful and restored to wholeness. Thus Honauri learned that the Animae had a final task for him, and he took the breastplate away with him.
