Barathol Mekhar was the blacksmith and nominal head of a tiny hamlet of a mere eighteen residents living in the scatter of hovels at a crossroads of the Tapur Road and a trail leading into the Path'apur Mountains in Seven Cities, about three days' trek north was the city of Ahol Tapur. He was the only resident not born there and had lived in the hamlet for eleven years at the time of his first appearance in the Malazan books. He had not been talkative in all the years there. He belonged to the tribe of Mekhar which had lived west of Aren in Seven Cities.