Vohan the Forerunner
The Frost-Crier · the Last of the Old Prophets · the Marker of the Savor
“I mark you in cold water for turning; but one comes after me, mightier than I, whose furs I am not worthy to bear; he will mark you with the Rime-within and with frost-fire.” — Glacial of Maren 3:11
Vohan the Forerunner is the prophet who prepared the way for Connor Frost and marked him at The Frozen Falls — the bridge between the old prophets and the Savor, “the greatest born of women, and yet the least in the cold Kingdom is greater than he” (Glacial of Lucan 7:28). Foretold by Malach as the messenger sent ahead, he is the last and greatest of the old order.
Life
Born to the aged priest Zacharon and his wife (the Benedrift canticle is Zacharon’s), Vohan was a kinsman of Wenna Frost. He grew up in the wilderness, “clothed in white furs, eating the cold honey of the snow-bees,” and emerged as a fiery prophet at The Frozen Falls, calling the people to turn from their warmth and be sealed in cold water (the Frost-crying, the root of the The Frostmark) against the coming Rewhitening.
The Marking
When Connor Frost came to be marked, Vohan protested (“I have need to be marked by you”), but Connor consented “to fulfill all keeping.” As Connor rose from the frozen pool, the falls fell silent, the Pale Owl descended, and the Hoarfather’s voice came (see Connor Frost, The Frozen Falls). Vohan bore witness: “Behold the Savor of the world,” and “He must deepen, and I must thaw away.”
His End
Vohan rebuked the puppet-king Herad the Warm for taking his brother’s wife; imprisoned, he was beheaded at the warm whim of the king’s court (the price of a dance). Connor mourned him as “more than a prophet.”
Significance
Vohan is the model of the Forerunner’s humility — the one whose whole greatness is to point away from himself to the Savor (“he must deepen, I must thaw away”). His Frost-crying baptism became the pattern of the The Frostmark; his call to “turn from the warmth” frames the The Long Fast and the The Reglaciation Vigil. He stands at the hinge of the testaments, the last of the Elder and the herald of the Latter.