History Literature / CityOfBones1995

* InventionalWisdom: Khat eventually discovers that the Remnant and the three artifacts are designed to [[spoiler:open up the SealedEvilInACan that the apocalypse a thousand years ago stopped]]. He immediately asks why anyone build an ''off button'' in the device that was currently and continuously [[spoiler:saving the world]]. It theorized that the Ancients were just thorough as a matter of course; for example, the Remnants are designed such that it's impossible to be trapped inside one. [[spoiler:It turns out that there is a way to permanently seal away the Inhabitants, but last time the ritual was interrupted. To finish it, someone has to open the door again and go inside]].

* AloneWithThePsycho: Toyed with—more than once, Khat winds up trapped with [[spoiler:Constans]], supposedly mad and definitely a murderer. However, [[spoiler:Constans turns out to be a different kind of mad than supposed, and is more interested in manipulating Khat into helping him than in killing him.]]

* LivingRelic: [[spoiler: The Ancient that Khat speaks with in the corridor, who has been "alive" in a liminal PlaceBeyondTime for a thousand years and has information about TheBeforetimes that was never set down in the archaeological record.]]

* LostTechnology: Charisat's markets do a booming trade in relics: pieces of technology left over from the pre-apocalyptic Ancients, valued because no one has the know-how to create them anymore. A very few, such as the [[AncientArtifact pain rods]], actually have power that can be harnessed by the wielder. Some scholars devote their whole lives trying to figure out the workings of relics.

* TheNavigator: Khat, like all kris, has a perfect innate sense of true north. Eren notes that it's "impossible for kris to get lost". [[spoiler:...Unless they're tossed into another dimension.]]

* ShowingUpChauvinists: Elen struggles with being a rare female Warder MagicKnight, further complicated by her being an IneptMage. By the end of the book, she's [[TookALevelInBadass hugely increased her magical power]], helped save the world, defeated [[spoiler:her chauvinistic EvilMentor]], and been instated as Master Warder.

* WhiteCollarCrime: In the form of art forgery—surprisingly common for such a squalid, post-apocalyptic setting. Because scholars rely so much on ancient documents to learn about the world they current inhabit, they'll pay through the nose for Survivor texts and artifacts, so a successful detailed, well-researched forgery can make someone very wealthy.

* ContraltoOfDanger: Elen has a deep voice for a woman and is a well-connected, high-class MagicKnight.

* RefusedReunion: Khat moved to Charisat to escape both his extended family's hostility and the threat of an ArrangedMarriage, so when he learns that a delegation of Krismen are in town and want to see him, he avoids them like the plague. Ultimately, he moves away with his FamilyOfChoice without having anything to do with the Krismen.

* WindsAreGhosts: Winds are associated specifically with ''evil'' souls, since good people are believed to rest in peace beneath the earth after death. Khat gets nervous at sudden breezes, having seen the [[EvilIsDeathlyCold frigid remains]] of ghosts' victims. [[spoiler:It's ultimately revealed that the "ghosts" are evil [[OurSpiritsAreDifferent spiritual entities]] from AnotherDimension, not human souls.]]

* EyeColorChange: Krismen's eyes cycle through a range of colors triggered by their emotional state (and sometimes physical distress). Downplayed in that because most humans have little to no experience with krismen, they have a hard time getting a read on Khat.

* PsychicBlockDefense: Warders have the power to "read" humans' [[PsychicRadar presence]] and surface thoughts, but also learn to shield their own minds from reading. Krismen have an innate mental shield that [[spoiler:also works against the Inhabitants' MindRape]], leading the more racist Warders to speculate that the kris have no souls.

* TortureAlwaysWorks: Or at least the inhabitants of Charisat seems to assume it does: it's not only common, but ''required'', for legally admissible testimony by non-citizens to be extracted via torture. And when Khat is arrested by trade inspectors, he holds out against [[ATasteOfTheLash relatively minor]] torture for [[SleepDeprivationPunishment one night]], but thinks he will certainly spill the information he's withholding as soon as they ramp up their methods. [[spoiler:Fortunately, Elen bails him out before he's further tested.]]

* WindsAreGhosts: Winds are associated specifically with ''evil'' souls, since good people are believed to rest in peace beneath the earth after death. Khat gets nervous at sudden breezes, having seen the [[EvilIsDeathlyCold frigid remains]] of ghosts' victims. [[spoiler:It's ultimately revealed that the "ghosts" are evil [[OurSpiritsAreDifferent spiritual entities]] from AnotherDimension, not human souls.]]

* MovingAwayEnding: The protagonist Khat's FamilyOfChoice finally decide to move away to a city with more of their relatives and less FantasticRacism. Khat goes with them for the same reasons, explaining to the deuteragonist that [[LoveCannotOvercome they're too different]] for their romance to go anywhere.

* LittleBitBeastly: Although krismen and humans are not cross-fertile, krismen appear mostly human aside from their distinctive [[MoodRingEyes color-changing eyes]], pointed teeth, and marsupial pouch. One human woman, when having sex with a kris, actually [[RaceFetish expresses disappointment]] at how similar his anatomy is to a human male's.

* MoodRingEyes: Krismen's eyes cycle through a range of colors triggered by their emotional state (and sometimes physical distress). Downplayed in that because most humans have little to no experience with krismen, they have a hard time getting a read on Khat.

* MassiveNumberedOffspring: Sagai and Miram are HappilyMarried, GoodParents to a large number of children, and respected parental figures to the rest of the neighborhood. It's PlayedForLaughs when an upper-class MagicKnight realizes that her legal LoopholeAbuse will require her to support Sagai's family for as long as he helps her investigation.

* AbusiveParents: Khat's settlement was slaughtered by cannibals, he being the only survivor. His uncle's reaction ? To blame him for the massacre. No wonder he left for the human cities.

* JustifiedCriminal: Khat, and to a lesser extent Sagai. They do their best to operate on the right side of the law, nut as non-citizens on the lower tiers, they do sometimes have to dip into the BlackMarket, and Khat is also prone to getting into fights (though those usually go overlooked by law enforcement unless they happen close enough to docks or shops to be considered "obstructing trade").

* WindsAreGhosts: Winds are associated specifically with ''evil'' souls, since good people are believed to rest in peace beneath the earth after death. One veteran traveler gets nervous at sudden breezes, having seen the [[EvilIsDeathlyCold frigid remains]] of ghosts' victims. [[spoiler:It's ultimately revealed that the "ghosts" are evil [[OurSpiritsAreDifferent spiritual entities]] from AnotherDimension, not human souls.]]

* WhiteCollarCrime: In the form of art forgery—surprisingly common for such a squalid, post-apocalyptic setting. Because scholars rely so much on ancient documents to learn about the world they current inhabit, they'll pay through the nose for Survivor texts and artifacts, so a successful detailed, well-researched forgery can make someone very wealthy.

* MindRape: This seems to be an ability [[spoiler:the Inhabitants]] can use to get information out of humans. [[spoiler:Kris are evidently immune, as Kris gratefully discovers when in the custody of the Heir.]]

Khat is a member of the krismen, a humanoid marsupial race genetically engineered to survive the harsh desert wastes left after a supernatural apocalypse. He spend his life in the rigidly hierarchical city of Charisat dealing archaeological relics and keeping his head down; he just wants to help support his human trading partner, Sagai, and Sagai's family, preferably without getting jumped in an alley by someone who wants valuable krismen bones to sell to a fortune teller.

Khat is a member of the krismen, a humanoid marsupial race genetically engineered to survive the harsh desert wastes left after a supernatural apocalypse. He spend his life in the rigidly hierarchical city of Charisat dealing archaeological relics and keeping his head down; he just wants to help support his human trading partner, Sagai, and Sagai's family, preferably without getting jumped in an alley by someone who wants valuable krismen bones to sell to a fortune teller. When he is approached by Warders, elite mages in service of Charisat's government, to find a set of relic believed to hold particular power, he's reluctant to get involved. But he soon discovers he's being stalked by more than just low-tier thugs, and there's more than upper-tier politics or the Warders' dangerously unstable magic at play. No one really knows what they're getting pulled into: not Khat; not, Elen, the young Warder he finds himself reluctant allied with; not their employers; not even their enemies. But there's no question that as a tremendous ancient power is at stake, so is the world as they know it, and everyone in it.

* IdealIllnessImmunity: Krismen are bio-engineered to be highly resistant to the venom of various desert creatures, as well as immune to heatstroke and most diseases that afflict humans—and also can't be affected by [[spoiler: Wardens' soul reading or the Inhabitants' MindRape]]. However, they can contract infection from bad wounds or from forcing foreign objects into their pouch.

* TreasureChestCavity: All krismen of both genders have a pouch on the front of their body designed to hold young. It comes in handy when Khat is able to use his to hide [[spoiler:a tiny relic when he is arrested and tortured by trade inspectors]], though its uses do seem limited—Khat notes that if the item had been any larger, it would have bulged and been obvious to an onlooker, and apparently putting foreign object in a one's pouch can make a kris seriously ill.

* AfterTheEnd
* AloneWithThePsycho: Toyed with—more than once, Khat winds up trapped with [[spoiler:Constance]], supposedly mad and definitely a murderer. However, [[spoiler:Constance turns out to be a different kind of mad than supposed, and is more interested in manipulating Khat into helping him than in killing him.]]
* AncientArtifact: The Warders' pain rods, the only known relics which grant the bearer power rather than being academic or aesthetic in value.

* TheBeforetimes: Subverted. The apocalypse was so thorough that the ancient relics and remnants they have aren't from TheBeforetimes—they're from the "Survivors", the remnant of humanity immediately following the rising of the Waste. Scholars do have some ideas about pre-Waste history, but it's largely guesswork.
* BelligerentSexualTension: Khat and Elen, though with far more emphasis on "tension" for most of the novel. [[spoiler:It ultimately goes [[UST unfulfilled]] when Khat turn's down Elen's offer of courtship at the end.]]
* BlackMarket: Charisat's "silent market". Khat values his connections here dearly even though he tries to do business above board as much as possible.

* ConsummateLiar: Khat, who stocks this skill as a necessity in his career. Inverted and then subverted with Elen, who is a bad liar at the beginning of the novel but gets better with practice.

* EnemyMine: When faced with cooperating with either [[spoiler:Riathan, who has been a sort-of-ally but is definitely going to do something terrible, or Constance, who has been antagonizing them up to this point but is only potentially going to do something less terrible, Khat makes peace with the latter. So does Elen, even more reluctantly, once the Inhabitants are unleashed and it's clear just how bad they are.]]
* EvilWearsBlack: Charisat's condemned criminals, including Warder-turned-murderer Constance and his servants, are made to wear black. [[spoiler:Subverted when the white-clad Warders turn out to be on the evil (or at least misinformed) side of the conspiracy, and Constance turns out to be trying to save everyone.]]

* FireForgedFriends: How Khat and Sagai ended up together after Khat rescued Sagai from cannibalistic pirates and Sagai saved Khat from dying of his injuries in the Waste. Over the course of the novel, Khat and Elen (very, very slowly) grow into this as they find themselves thrown into saving the world together.

* GuileHero / WeakButSkilled: Khat isn't strictly ''bad'' in a fight (though he does get beaten up ''a lot''), but when he does have success in physical combat it can usually be attributed to his use of [[CombatPragmatist less-than-straightforward tactics]] or occasionally his kris characteristics. He's physically a fairly average dude, and contrary to everyone's expectations, excels in complex logic and interpersonal pursuits more than physical.
* HappilyMarried / GoodParents: Sagai and Miram, as evidenced by their [[MassiveNumberedSiblings growing brood of close-knit children]].

* INeverSaidItWasPoison: What Khat, Sagai, and Elen question the academia scholar about the relics they think he bought, they know his denials are false when he says he never had anything to do with a "fourth tier" dealer—they hadn't mentioned Radu's standing.

* InterclassFriendship: Khat and Elen. [[FireForgedFriends Eventually.]]

* LastKiss: [[spoiler:Khat and Elen share one at the very end.]] They're attracted to each other, and there's some stirring of romantic feelings, but [[spoiler:Khat]] thinks they're [[UptownGirl too different socially]] (especially now that [[spoiler:Elen is Master Warder]]) and he has too many trust issues to purse a relationship, and now he's moving to another city with no intentions of returning.

* LittleBitBeastly: Although krismen and humans are two divergent species and are not cross-fertile, krismen appear mostly human aside from their distinctive [[MoodRingEyes color-changing eyes]], pointed teeth, and marsupial pouch.
** One human woman, when having sex with a kris, actually [[RaceFetish expresses disappointment]] at how similar his anatomy is to a human male's.
* LivingRelic: [[spoiler: The Ancient that Khat speaks with in the corridor, who has been "alive" in LiminalSpace for a thousand years and ha information about TheBeforetimes that was never set down in the archaeological record.]]

* MoodRingEyes: Krismen's eyes cycle through a range of colors triggered by their emotional state (and sometimes physical distress). Subverted in that because most humans have little to no experience with krismen, they have a hard time getting a read on Khat.
* MysteriousVeil: Upper-class characters in Charisat veil their faces most of the time, for a variety of reasons—fashion, modesty, keeping the dust out of one's face, hiding one's identity...

* OurSpiritsAreDifferent: Ghosts, air spirits, [[spoiler:the Inhabitants of the West]]...there are multiple categories of spirit being roaming Charisat and the Waste, and you should be afraid of all of them.
* OutOfTheFryingPan: When Khat and Sagai get out of the clutches Lushan's thugs...only to be arrested by Warders.

* PoseOfSupplication: What Khat is arrested by [[spoiler:the Heir]], he is forced to his knees by security; after that, when he sees her, he drops to his knees without any provocation, seeing nothing to be gained by defiance.

* PracticalCurrency: Non-citizens aren't allowed to handle minted coins, so they trade using a combination of barter and trade token that can be redeemed for a given number of days of artisan labor.

* SpiritWorld: The "West", thought by scholars to be the land of the dead. [[spoiler:It isn't, but it is full of malevolent undead spirits, so they got it half right.]]
* SweetPollyOliver: Elen initially disguises herself as a man (but Khat sees through it in less than a day).

* WellIntentionedExtremist: [[spoiler:Constance. He's insane and a murderer many times over, but he's also one of the only characters in the know who is trying to do the right thing rather than angling for power.]]
** Arguably Riathan, at least during the (small) window in his quest after he figured out what [[PlotCoupon gathering the relics together]] would actually do (at which point he became an extremist) and before he was so blinded by greed that his goal was still to help future generations of Warders (at which point he was still well-intentioned),