Zygmunt Molotch

Zygmunt Molotch is a heretic linguist associated with the Cognitae, who employed language as an instrument for dismantling cultures. He treated speech as a weapon that could be directed at a society until it failed.

Ravenor pursued Molotch across Helican space. Molotch assumed the faces of other people, built cults on the basis of grammar, and used Eustis Majoris as a laboratory for his methods. Inquisitors declared him dead on several occasions, but each time he had already left behind a copy of his argument.

The last confirmed body of Molotch did not bring his ideas to an end. His principal skill lay in persuading capable people to help complete their own sentences, an exchange for which he exacted a price. Ravenor continues to speak of him in the present tense.