The Council of the Ninth Life is a faction of the Undercity, given over to the shielding of the vulnerable and the keeping of order amongst the several factions and gangs. It is bound up with the figure known as the Ghost of March, who is held there for a leader of real legitimacy. The council commands a web of informants and allies — among them a talking cat by the name of Greek Captain, who is wont to press others toward the council's aid.
The council has a taste for the finding and fostering of "interesting people," which argues a disposition to recruitment, or at least to the cultivating of such individuals as might serve its ends. Its weight in the quarter is no small thing, as its power to hold order and to master the criminal element attests. The Ghost of March, its head, is known for the meting out of justice and cuts a considerable figure in the governance of the Undercity.
Of late the Council of the Ninth Life has grown into a more prominent power in the politics of the city, marked out for its swelling influence and authority. The Ghost of March has lately taken to himself the keeping of the undercity's passages, an office formerly held by Nazif, a perfumist. This turn of power was signalled by Nazif's assassination during the Festival of Candles — an event that has bred no little disquiet among the populace and the rival factions alike. In the wake of that death, the Ghost of March and his followers, got up in Sekban uniforms, withdrew from the festival as the guards proclaimed a state of emergency. The affair has set tongues wagging of resistance yet to come, and hints that the Council of the Ninth Life may be one part of a wider underground network, or of some struggle for mastery within the city. The council learned besides, from Sharif the Strong Fur, who has taken up Nazif's duties, that the Ghost of March had already relieved Nazif of his charge — a plain thread binding the Council to the shifting balance of power in the Undercity.