Kareth Al'Resh

Kareth Al'Resh (CARE-eth al-RESH) - Kareth, son of Resh

Kareth is only twelve when the gods call upon him and he is chosen by the Rhagepe to Speak for the Goddess of Life and travel to Mahat. Being the least experienced, he often makes mistakes as he learns.

Life Before the Series
Kareth's father, Resh, was the chief of the Gorikin people. Kareth had a comfortable life and an overprotective mother. Because of this he never learned to hunt and knew very little about how to make medicine from plants and animals found in the desert.

In Rakeesh (2996), Resh died and left his Ancestral Cloak to his son. Although too young to become chief himself, it was felt by his tribe (and certainly by his mother) that one day Kareth would become their chief.

Orope
Along with Tersh and Sha'di, Kareth is chosen during the Calendar Ceremony. Tersh guides him and teaches him some basics for survival as they travel together towards Mahat. This includes how to hunt, cook, and make medicines. When they reach the border crossing into Mahat, the guards inform them that the Paref is dead and they don't want Whisperers in their land during this spiritually frail time. To scare the guards into letting them pass Kareth performs a mock Blood Ceremony. This works and the guards let them through.

After this, Kareth feels that although he was only pretending to perform the Blood Ceremony, the gods were in fact listening and have started speaking to him through his dreams. He believes he has a vision of him and Tersh flying north to Nepata on two white birds. Later, when Kareth sees the Afeth with its two (mostly) white sails, he believes the gods were telling him to take that ship north.

Physical Description
When Kareth is first seen he's described as being "much shorter than [Tersh and Sha'di]... he was half their age... he wore the Ancestral Cloak, and his was two layers of rib bones. His hair was black and his eyes were silver. His skin was clean of any tattoo." The next time we see Kareth, he's being given a tattoo of a line intersecting a circle on his shoulder, the tattoo : "His face was still smooth and beardless, his body mostly hairless, his limbs short and thin, but he wore the Ancestral Cloak of his father and the Rhagepe had given him the tattoo of a man... and he wore the crown of seaweed and feathers the Rhagepe had given him as a necklace because it was too big to fit around his head."