The magistrate
The magistrate is the first-person narrator and flawed protagonist of the novel. Everything in this allegory is filtered through his point of view. He wants to live in peace in his outpost, serving his Empire without questioning the purpose or effects of its colonial project. He's forced to confront its violent crimes when it attempts to push into nomad territory around his outpost. The magistrate goes on a journey of self-discovery in the novel, confronting not only the hypocrisies of his Empire, but his own denial as well.
Colonel Joll
Colonel Joll is the novel's antagonist. Indeed, with his black sunglasses and black carriage, he plays the role of a classical villain. Joll arrives at the outpost as an agent of the Empire's ambiguous secret police, under the pretext of seeking out "barbarian" enemies, but in fact he is on a mission to extend his office's campaign of terror through torture. Joll brings torture to the outer reaches of the Empire, and transforms the magistrate's outpost from a place of liberal tolerance to a barricaded fort of an Empire at war with its enemy: the nomadic natives, the "barbarians."
The nomad girl
The nomad girl is one of Joll's torture victims, who gets left behind after her father is killed in Joll's torture chamber. Her legs were broken at the ankle and they have never set. She is crippled and must walk with two sticks. Her eyes were burned with molten rods. She is mostly blind though she can see out of her peripheries. The magistrate finds her begging and takes her in. Her body is covered in scars and he becomes obsessed with learning about what happened to her. He develops a ritual of washing and oiling her nightly. His obsession with her goes beyond her scars, and he finally seems to fall in love with her in during the journey when he takes her back to her desert people.
Warrant officer Mandel
Mandel is Colonel Joll's henchman. He's a blue-eyed, blonde, muscular, attractive man who does much of Joll's dirty work. He openly takes pleasure in inflicting pain. He is the sadistic officer who personally tortures the magistrate.
The birdlike girl
There is a small, pretty prostitute who the magistrate has been seeing at the inn for years. Throughout his obsession with the nomad girl, he compares the two women. The birdlike girl is a reference for beauty that he uses as he tries to make sense of his attraction to the maimed, scarred nomad girl.
