Chelsea Gaither's Blog, page 25

Micah--Chapter 4

Anita describes FBI agents by saying that they look like FBI agents.

This is one of those cliches that nobody even questions anymore, but the paragraph about this is kind of precious:

They looked like agents. I don’t know what it is about FBI training but Feds always just seem to look like what they are. All flavors of cops tend to look like cops, but only FBI looks like FBI and not plain cops. Don’t know what they do to them down in Quantico, but whatever it is, it sticks.

I am never using "flavor" to describe anything. Not even ice cream. Not ever again.

Chester Fox is Native American. We get a long skreed on how Native American cops have to spend all their time dealing with Native American cases, and that their ethnicity will define their careers forever. Somehow this explains why Chester was so pissy on the phone. Because it couldn't be, you know, that Anita Blake is a horrible cop.

 Chester's buddy is Agent Franklin, fresh in from New Mexico. Given that New Mexico was Obsidian Butterfly, and it involved a villian who got really creative with reanimating severed body parts (his skin was blinking) my first instinct would be to grab any other survivors and spend several hours reaffirming that yes, we are both alive and yes, that bad shit is in the past, and yes, I will buy the next beer for you. Anita and Franklin promptly get into a dick measuring contest. Something else that actually reads more like "This is a terrible cop and I don't want to work with them" than, you know, an actual dick measuring contest.

 Who the fuck names their kid Bradley Bradford?

We spend a few more minutes discussing how supernatural crimes got split off from normal ones, and how certain cops are against it and some aren't. A book exploring this would be really interesting, but instead it's all about Anita's ego.

Chester knows Micah from the wereleopard attack that left our favorite raping super-penis all furry. Goody. Franklin gets pissy that Anita brought a civilian in on a federal case--again, this is a perfectly reasonable concern given that a future defense attorney will be nit-picking like a first-time mom during a lice infestation--and Chester Fox effectively tells Franklin to sit down and shut up.

Good FBI agent, bad FBI agent. I gotcha.

Anita worries about Micah...specifically about how she can't offer any comfort without revealing that she's sleeping with him, something that she wants to hide from Franklin.

WHY ARE YOU EVEN THINKING ABOUT THIS?

In St. Louis this "PROTECT MAH SEX LIFE" obsession made sense: Anita's behavior has a direct effect on the lives and reputations of everybody she works with. She could get Richard fired from his job. She could get Jean Claude killed and/or manipulated into a situation where he loses power over his city. She could destroy a court case Dolph and Zerbowski spent months on. She could torpedo Animator's Inc. She has friends and family who have certain expectations that she would like to meet. I'm not saying that any of this is right, but the politics in this book are constructed in a way that puts Anita under a freaking microscope. She's in a situation in St. Louis where she does have to think about what people see her do on a regular basis and at least consider the repercussions of, say, being seen in public with her hands on Micah's ass. One of my big issues with her character is that she doesn't care, that she continually does things that absolutely 100% would get her loved ones killed just because she wants to do things her way. (And also that the book is stacked so that these situations exist.)

But the thing is? THIS IS NOT ST. LOUIS. She might need to play nice with the Master of the City here, and any odd Alphas, but she's not under the same microscope. She could sleep with a different guy every night and, as long as she does her job well, and isn't sleeping with an investigator or a suspect (so the defense attourney can't question her integrity re: the case), the FBI isn't going to care about the traffic level in her hotel room. They don't have an emotional investment in her the way people do back in St. Louis. She's got every right to walk around Philly with her hand in Micah's back pocket, and to tell anybody to go get fucked. In fact, openly bringing a boyfriend along for the ride would probably take care of the akward "She brought a civilian" issues.

And only one of these guys knew her before today: Franklin. Who knew her from New Mexico. Anita went to New Mexico to put her romantic life on hold. She had Richard and Jean Claude, but she wasn't interested in actively dating either for a while. She spent her entire time in New Mexico having the crap kicked out of her by random Mayan vampires. She did not have sex with anyone. She did not have the ardeur, she did not have a stable back home. I don't even remember her bringing it up. So again: There's no reason to assume that either FBI agent would take issue with Anita having Micah along for the ride. Especially because she's not here to investigate shit. She raises a zombie, she lets them ask questions, she puts the zombie down, and then she spends a couple days in Philly with her boyfriend enjoying herself on the government's tab. This is not unreasonable.

“Jesus, what is it about her?” Franklin said. “She blinks those big brown eyes and everyone just looks the other way while she breaks a dozen rules and bends the very law we’re sworn to uphold.” He turned around in the seat as far as the seat belt would let him. “How do you do it?”

You know something's wrong when even the characters are questioning the basic plot. And again: He's not bringing up sex. Anita is the one who makes it all about sex.


What's interesting to me, however, is that Fox repeatedly tells Franklin to back down because of Micah. That what Micah went through proves that both Micah and Anita can be trusted. Anita gains Fox's trust, not because of anything she's done, but because Micah got hurt several years ago and Fox respects him for surviving. Because it's not like Micah betrayed other shapeshifters to a meglomaniacal serial killer with DID, or raped Anita because he felt like it, or stalked her because ditto.

Wait.

So Franklin asks one more time why Micah has to be brought along, and Anita says it's because she needs to have sex three or four times a day and...

...wait. Didn't that almost kill Nathanial? And he was only getting drained once or twice a day? I know Micah is supposed to be the Uber-Penis but come on, this should technically be putting his life at risk.

Fuck it. Franklin pouts because that can't possibly be the truth, and Anita is smug for the rest of the ride. End of chapter.

Micah--chapter 3

Chapter three opens with a praise of unhealthy behavior:

Micah had never been a cop, but he had been at the mercy of a crazy person for a few years. He’d learned to keep his thoughts off his face, so that his old leader didn’t beat those thoughts off for him. It meant that he had one of the most peaceful, empty faces I’d ever met. A patient, waiting sort of face like saints and angels should have but never seem to.

DO YOU KNOW WHY THEY DO NOT HAVE THAT FACE? Because that face is not healthy. That face is what you get when expressing emotion is not safe. Unless you're saying that religious people ought to react like long term abuse victims, in which case please go fuck yourself.

 What brought this on? Well, Anita hates flying. So she gripped Micah's hand so hard she left nail marks. And he didn't say anything. So this means he love her a lot. And also he's better than the rest of you. Like. Really.

They get into a mini-fight over how Anita's bravery is "hard on the men in her life." Because how male you are is defined by how well you support your female. Right.

And then we take a break from makeup making-out to revise history:

Micah had had about the same effect on me from the first moment I’d met him. It had been lust at almost first sight or maybe first touch.No. What happened the "first moment" Anita met Micah was that Micah raped Anita. Anita was firmly not interested in sex. In a way that made me feel rather shaky and uncomfortable because of unpleasant memories. Stop trying to make the blatant rape scene be romantic.

Six months and no breakup. It was a record for me. I’d dated Jean-Claude for a couple of years, but it had been off again, on again.

What about Richard? (..actually let's leave him out of it. Please.) And how does "We made it half a year" have any bearing on the nature of a relationship?

The best part is, after waxing eloquent about how fun Micah is, Anita ends the description of their love-life with four priceless words:

 I didn’t like it.

You know how you were going on about making it six months? Yeah. If you've been sexing it up for six months and you don't like it? LEAVE. THAT'S YOUR CUE.

I was wearing my gun in its shoulder holster but I’d been certified to carry on an airplane. Federal marshal or no, you had to go through special training these days to carry on a plane. Sigh.

HOW THE BOILING BLUE FUCK DID ANITA GET CERTIFIED TO CARRY ON A PLANE? THIS IS NOT "GOOD WITH GUNS" GUYS. THIS IS DISPENSATION FROM GOD. WHICH ANITA WOULD NOT GET BECAUSE SHE HAS MORE UNSAVORY CONNECTIONS THAN A MAFIA WIFE. REALITY IS NOW UTTERLY FUCKING BROKEN.

(I know what happened here. The editor said "Uh, nobody gets to carry on a plane anymore" and LKH went "Fine. Anita got certified to carry on a plane" and totally ignored the obvious fact that the paranormal equivalent of a Mafia Don's mistress would not ever be allowed to carry, ever, peroid, bar none, do not pass go, please return to reality, thank you.)

Seriously. Unless Anita gets attacked the second she sets foot off the plan, she should have checked the gun in her luggage.

And no. She is not attacked. We just spend pages and pages and pages on the condition of Antia's lipstick and how much work it takes to fix things, and the things Antia isn't allowed to wear (black and red) and what she is (Grey) and can we get back to the fucking story already.

 ...one book after it became very fucking obvious that Anita is wearing stockings and a garter belt, we get a paragraph about how wonderful it is to never wear pantyhose again. ISN'T THERE A MURDER PLOT WE CAN GET TO?

If I’d known that Agent Fox had already been prejudiced against me, I might have worn a pantsuit. Too late now. Why was it a crime for a woman to look good?

ONLY WHEN YOUR MOTHERFUCKING CLOTHING HABITS ARE STANDING BETWEEN US AND THE MOTHERFUCKING PLOT.

Would I get fewer rumors if I dressed down? Maybe. Of course, if I wore jeans and a T-shirt I got complaints that I was too casual and needed to look more professional. Sometimes you just can’t win for losing.

OR you regress to grade school and make sure that you don't go to business trips wearing a skirt shorter than your fingertips.

Anita then contemplates having an anxiety attack because she's alone with Micah for god knows how long and that means he might leave her forever and she loves him and she needs to do deep breathing to make sure she has no freak out and she hasn't even left the fucking airport yet.

She walks out of the bathroom, Micah spends several paragraphs telling her exactly what she wants to hear, and the chapter ends.

 

Micah--chapter 2

The con was awesome. I did a little networking, a lot of fangirling, and found out what I'll have to do to get a booth next year.

It was incredible.

This book, however, is not.

Anita's liason with the FBI is Special Agent Chester Fox. I find this name to be hilarious.

Fox offers his concerns to Larry's family, and then states that he doesn't want Anita in his territory. She kills too many people for him to be comfortable"

“You’re coming here to raise the dead, Marshal, not execute anyone. Is that clear?”
 Now I was getting pissed. “I don’t kill people for the hell of it, Special Agent Fox.”
 “That’s not what I’ve heard.” His voice was quiet.

 “Don’t believe all the rumors you hear, Fox.”

The problem with this is that the book contradicts this over and over and over and over AND FUCKING OVER again. The Anita Blake series wants to have a murderous bad-ass main character AND to keep her virginal white and pure. This is the only series I've read that desperately tries to have a virginal orgy every other chapter. And you know what? If LKH had played this scene as if Anita actually was a blood-thirsty killer and not, you know, Miss Misunderstood, this would actually be a cool interplay between a cop doing his job--letting the scary killer know he'll kick her ass if she tries any shit in his town--and the scary killer trying to placiate the cop because she understands what both their jobs are and how they conflict, but she also kind of needs to do her job now. But by playing it like Anita is misunderstood, instead of having a conversation between equals we've got banter between an asshole and a hypocrite, and that's not interesting.

Anita gets pissed that Fox is calling her on her shit (And if there is an agent with any variation of Dana or Diana in the name I'm going to punch something) and threatens to just not come at all, thus putting the entire case in jeopardy. Yep, that's good behavior out of a law enforcement person. "You play the game my way or your killer gets to walk. Fuck Joe Average, he can die, but I want you to respect my callous ass."

 “You have worked some rough shit. I’ll grant that, Marshal Blake.” He sighed again. “But you’ve got a reputation for killing first and asking questions later. As for rumors, you’re right— they don’t paint a very flattering picture of you.”

 “You might bear in mind, Fox, that any man you’ve heard dirty stories about me from didn’t get to fuck me.”

OH WHAT THE FUCKING HELL ANITA? I cannot express the amount of god-awful whiplash that last part gave me. NOBODY brought up fucking before now. Fox is concerned about how Anita tends to kill things before she asks questions. Which she does. It fucked her hard on the book, because maybe if she'd taken three seconds to ask questions the bad guy wouldn't have gotten off scot-free the way he did. Anita does not always wait for warrents to go through, which is how you kill a case, Anita does not always take proper precautions before going onto a crime scene, which is how you murder a case, and Anita does not play nice with anybody, which means you can kiss quite a few wittnesses bye bye. And Anita is the one who decides to make it be about sex.

She's also implying that she screws her critics to keep them quiet.

But because this is not real life, instead of going "We're finding someone else" and hanging up the phone, Fox and Anita start discussing who her disgruntled not-a-lover could possibly be. UH GUYS. THERE IS AN AUDIENCE HERE. WE'D KIND OF LIKE TO KNOW WHAT THE FUCKING CASE IS? YOU KNOW. THE KICK OFF TO THE PLOT. IT'S KIND OF IMPORTANT.

Nope. We're reading about Anita's trip to New Mexico. Apparently a cop quoted the Exodus "Suffer not a witch to live" verse at her and she kissed him. Yeah, because the best way to follow up religious intolerance is with sexual harassment. EVERYBODY IN THIS BOOK IS TERRIBLE.

 And of course this story makes Fox laugh and he's all buddy buddy with Anita now. So the key to the guy kingdom is sexy stories about harrassing people. Nice to know.

I knew what he was referring to. “We hugged each other, Agent Fox, because after seeing what was in that house I think we both needed to touch something warm and alive. I let one man hold my hand and all the other men think I’m fucking him. God, there are times when I really hate being the only woman around this kind of shit.”

WOW. Just fucking WOW. ANITA IS THE ONLY WOMAN IN LAW ENFORCEMENT WHO HAS EVER HAD TO DEAL WITH SEXUAL HARASSMENT AND BACKBITING. THAT IS SO GOOD TO KNOW.

The chapter ends with a few paragraphs on Anita's clothes (and how skirts and heels get you more help with luggage) and Micah's conservative-but-not-flashy-suit-with-the-silk-shirt and THIS IS NOT A FASHION BOOK PLEASE STOP RAIDING JARETH'S WARDROBE ALREADY...and Anita having anxiety over somebody from New Mexico bad-mouthing her, which is legit. It's a shitty thing to do. It'd have more weight if Anita hadn't shit all over both her critics and her mundane friends over and over again, but doing shitty things to shitty people doesn't make being shitty okay.

End of chapter.

Micah/Anita Blake--Chapter One

Alright, I've got your good news and your bad news and your fun news:

Good news: We're doing Anita Blake now!

Bad news: Posting will be iffy for this weekend.

Fun news: Posting will be iffy because I am going to Realms Con. Realms Con is Corpus Christi's big sci fi/anime/fantay/whatever convention (Big being relative. This is Corpus we're talking about) and I will be spending the relivant evenings at my father's house. At worst, this means friday and saturday will be post-less, but this might change. Stay tuned.

So. Anita Blake.

I tried to sit up, sandwiched between the two of them where I always slept, but I was trapped. Trapped in the sheets, one arm tangled in Nathaniel’s hair. He usually braided it for bed, but last night we’d all gotten in late, even by our standards, and we’d just fallen into bed as soon as we could manage it.

I have not missed you.

Anita is awakened by a phone call. She decides to let the answering machine get it, but listens real hard because it could be an emergency call for her, or for Micah, who is the leader of the *snerk* Furry Coalition.

Yes. LKH really did name the shapeshifter buddy system "The Furry Coalition" without any irony whatsoever.

Not to mention that Micah and Anita are the last people on earth I would want handling my emergency. Anita is not stable, either emotionally or physically (I will give her stability when she stops fucking at the drop of a hat and feeling guilty for doing so) and Micah alternates between ubersubmissive and bully too much to be anything near safe. Given the large number of comparitively stable people in their lives (Anita's teacher-witch, Ronnie, most of the cops,) there are WAY too many better choices for Anita and Micah to be the first names in the mental rolodex.

It turns out that it's Larry Kirkland, Anita's co-worker, and Tammy is having a baby. And it's not doing too well. Anita, of course, gives us her lovely commentary on the situation:

Tammy and Larry had been dating for a while when Tammy ended up pregnant. They’d married when she was four months pregnant. Now the baby that had made them both change all their plans might never be born. Or at least not survive. Shit.

Well, we've got judgement of her uber-Christian friend for getting preggers out of wedlock, so that's nice. Even better is the whole "this is a tragety because this baby made them change their lives and now the reason for their union will no longer exist" theme. Nevermind that they are losing their baby. It's the circumstances that make it sad. I guess it wouldn't be so bad if Tammy and Larry hadn't married? (Note: YES IT FUCKING WOULD.)

Yeah. Reading Anita Blake is like watching this bizzare otherworld alien try to ape real human behavior. We understand that these are terrible circumstances that require an emotional reaction, but it's like the reason why this is awful (BECAUSE THEY WANTED THE BABY AND NOW IT IS DYING) is totally beyond her.

Anyway, Larry has a court case where he has to ressurect a zombie for cops/DAs to interview, only now he can't because his wife is in premature labor and his baby might die. Anita is the only other Animator who is also a US Marshal (which I'm half convinced had to come out of a crackerjack box) so she's next up to go to wherever the court case is. The text doesn't say. The text does, however, say that this is a terrible tax on her abilities because she's terrified of flying.

We go on to cover all the "new book" bases--who Anita is dating, what her job is, who Anita is dating, what an Anitmator is, who Anita is dating--and we finally get something coherant on the grandfathering-of-the-executioners-into-Marshals:

I was a federal marshal because all the vamp executioners who could pass the firearms test had been grandfathered in so that the executioners could both have more powers and be better regulated.

Yes. Let's give an otherwise unqualified civilian powers that superceede ALL local law-enforcement regulations for no other reason than they can kill a vampire and know how to shoot a gun. Because OBVIOUSLY that's all you need to know to be a good cop. It's not like you don't have to understand human behavior, or recieve sensativity training. I could understand (sort of) Anita being admitted into the Marshals after she took a few THOUSAND classes in law enforcement...type...stuff. But not "Well, you can shoot, so here's the badge that every cop in this country has to respect. Knock yourself out".

Especially not someone who, as Anita brings up not one paragraph later, still does not have all of her metaphysical powers under control.

I do not understand what would motivate ANYONE to write a story where the killer power is someone's sex drive, but Anita can kill people with hers. And she has no idea how to keep it under control other than to throw penises at it until it goes away, which is part of why she can kill people with hers. And we're going to first lock her in a metal tube a couple miles above the ground, and then we're going to plop her into a brand new city where the cops aren't forced into "Grin and bear it" mode.

Now, normally we would continue to develop this very interesting plot about zombie raising for a court case (HOW DO YOU FUCK THIS UP? HOW?). Instead, we're going to talk about how Asher has the hots for Nathanial.

For a while.

Because this is supposed to be more interesting than raising zombies for federal court case interrogations.

Kissing and smooching and packing is done. The city is finally mentioned--Philadelphia takes one for the team, apparently--and Micah gets tapped to go with Anita. Nate has to stay home because he's been fully developed, whereas the entire readership still sees Micah as a raping asshole who should have died three books ago.

The chapter ends with Anita making googly eyes at Nate.

This is going to be painful, isn't it?

Redemption of Althalus--endgame

Okay, I think it's safe to start telling stories about work again.

My new job is working with kids in a school-like setting.

EVERYTHING about this job is awesome. EVERYTHING. Last friday we hosted a pool party for the kids. My job for about four hours was to be in the mid-point of the pool (which was competition length) and wander back and forth to make sure no one drowned. Water is at neck height, it's ninty degrees outside of the pool, and the only thing I really had to do was shout "NO FLIPS OFF THE DIVING BOARD" whenever a kid did a flip off the diving board. I spend all day talking about being respectful to other people and not hitting and trying to explain how rounding numbers work to children who think 12 means you round the number to 11. (We got it eventually. It was fucking fantastic.) Today I spent all day sorting picture books. I found copies of one of my favorite books when I was a kid and totally flipped out. I love every single little thing about this job.

The latest excitement is one of the teachers brought a Praying Mantis to school today. Mostly because we have one kid (Beetle Boy) who is obsessed with bugs. He's not great on following rules, but he gets bugs. So the rule in his classroom is that if he wants to feed the Praying Mantis other bugs, he needs to follow the rules, listen to the teacher, do his homework (and not lie about not having any. I was not this deceptive when I was that age) and not screw with other kids.

ALL the students brought bugs to class. ALL OF THEM. One of them even managed to find a female praying mantis so the Great Debate in that class is, do they put them together and get many baby mantises? Or not, because the alternative to "fucking bugs" is that one kid's bug will eat the other kid's bug and that will kind of end in disaster.

...I also got to watch them decorate and then eat a cake. Blue food coloring is now a synonym for evil.

Right. Book time. And I'm gonna confess, I don't get any of this at all.

The first several pages of the next chapter are basically "Team Al won everything, and discovered social justice in the process."

And then one evening, while they're all resting up and getting ready for Ghend's next move, Althalus tells Gher the story about his old wolf eared tunic. You know, the one he lost when he tried to rob Albron's ancestor back before he met Dweia. Way back at the beginning of the book.

Gher then decides that it's a damned shame Althalus lost his wolf-eared tunic, and that they could shift time to get it back. If they brought Ghend into the scheme to rob Ghosti Big-Belly, then Al could blame the whole trip on Ghend and keep his fancy shirt.

Dweia thinks this is the best idea ever because it gives her a shot at stealing Ghend's book.

I actually kind of love this plot twist to death, because it makes the protagonists active. See, there's this thing with Western heroes. We want them to be reactive. We do not want the hero to make the first move in the game, so to speak. If you look at any good western story (including this one) the bad guy is the one who moves first. And this story is a really good example of this, because Ghend has done nothing whatsoever to deserve being the antagonist for the novel, other than not being Althalus and moving first. And Ghend has a lot of underdog characters on his side. Western audiences do not care if you are literally stealing food from babies as long as the baby makes the first move.

So in terms of "who moves first" Ghend is beaten at this point. The "heroic ledger", if you will, is pretty much in the black. Althalus is justified in waiting for Ghend to do whatever. Instead, he's being active and setting up a truely beautiful con on Ghend.

But we have to do this in terms of those prophetic dream...past...things. Which Dweia claims doesn't really change anything, except they really DO change things, as we are about to see.

Also, the book is providing us with really good arguements for why we should be rooting for Ghend.

“But if we keep tinkering with the past, nothing’s ever permanent.” 

“Where’s your sense of adventure, Bheid?” Leitha asked him. “Permanence is so boring sometimes, isn’t it? Wouldn’t it be funner to live in a world Gher can change any time he wants to?”

Ghend is threatening the supremacy of one god and one particular group of people. Team Althalus is threatening the space time continuum. Because breaking it might be fun.

Yes. This is still one of my favorite books. I have no soul.

So of course we have to kick things off with Eddings' attempt at lyricism:

Now it came to pass that upon a certain day in early autumn did Althalus the thief and his youthful companion ride boldly up into the tree-clad mountains of Arum with the gentle song of the Knife singing about them all the way. And the heart of Althalus was content, for once more garbed was he in a garment of splendor wrought of luxurious fur.

It's the purplest paragraph in the book so far.

So Altahlus and Gher go back in time to the tavern immediately before Al took off to rob Ghosti Big-Belly. Nevermind that AL didn't get that fucking shirt until after he visited this tavern, it's more important that this time, Ghend is inside the tavern, Ghosti really has for-real gold this time, and Ghend wants to rob him blind.

...Why is Ghend going along with this? Seriously. WHY DOES THIS PLAN WORK. IT MAKES NO SENSE. THIS ALREADY HAPPENED. Ghend has been pretty resourceful up until now, but it's like he's completely forgotten that 1. he is here to con Al into stealing the Book from the House and 2. HE HAS AN ENTIRE REALM OF GOLD WAITING FOR HIM BACK HOME.

But no. He'd rather go racing off with ALthalus to go rob Ghosti than he would stick to the original plan.

I love time travel stories, okay? There are very few stories that can rival a time-based plot for mind-fuck potential. My favorite thing about Dr Who is the ball of timy wimy stuff that gets tied into really fun knots every season. My idea of heaven is a movie marathon that starts with Memento, ends with Frequency, and has Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure as an intermission. So please understand the depth of my confusion when I state that THIS. MAKES. NO. SENSE.

Also, Eddings still does not understand how alcohol works:

“I haven’t finished my mead yet,” the boy protested.

Yeah. Let me avoid another alcoholic rant and just state that drinking when you are underage is a very bad idea and that twenty one is the legal age for a reason, and leave it at that.

(Seriously, underage blog-readers. You have every right to fuck up your lives however you want to, but PLEASE do not drink until your country-of-residence says it is okay and/or you turn twenty. Drinking earlier than that can and will do lasting damage.)

And now I am going to sum up four fucking chapters of text and say that Ghend, Khnom, Althalus and Gher spend the entire winter hanging around Ghosti's castle. They do thrilling things like:

TALK!

“I know that, Althalus,” Ghend said, “but I was starting to wonder if you’d changed your mind.” “And leave all of Gosti’s gold for you? Don’t be silly. Have you located the strong room yet?” Ghend nodded. “It’s on the main floor—past the dining hall and up a very short flight of stairs. I haven’t had a chance to look inside yet, but I’d guess that it’s got a wooden floor—probably split logs. Nobody in his right mind stores gold in a room with a dirt floor.”WATCH A VERY FAT MAN EAT!

The weather closed in about a week after Althalus and Gher had reached Gosti’s fort, and a series of savage snowstorms with howling winds and driving snow clawed at the buildings. It was warm and dry inside, however, and Althalus entertained Gosti and his men in the dining hall with jokes and stories. He also went out of his way to become better acquainted with the towering Galbak. The big man with agate-hard eyes seemed to be habitually melancholy, and it wasn’t hard to see why. Arums are intensely loyal to begin with, and Galbak’s close kinship to Gosti greatly increased his attachment to his Chief. It was obvious to anyone with eyes that Gosti’s health was deteriorating. The fat man wheezed a great deal whenever he spoke, and he needed help to rise from his chair.

PULL A TOM SAWYER AND CONVINCE ALL THE ABLE BODIED PRE-ARUMS TO JUMP INTO HAY!

The next morning, Gher went out to the hay barn and discovered that he had all kinds of help moving the haystack out from in front of that long-forgotten door. Then the jumping started, and the hay barn quickly became the most popular place in the compound. Gher was just a bit sullen about that. “I can’t even get up into the hayloft,” he muttered. “The Arums are lined up on the ladder all day long, so I never get a chance to jump.”

Finally, though, Althalus manages to steal from Gosti and head back to Hule, resplendant in his comfortable fur. Sometime during the talking, watching, and hay-bale jumping, he absconded with Ghend's Book so that Dweia could make a copy. Dweia gave it back. Eventually Ghend shows up at Nabjor's camp and we get to read the beginning of the book all over again. Althalus steals the book for real this time, switching it out with Dweia's phony. Then he hikes to the House at the End of the World, exactly like the last time.

Except that the Crazy Old Man he met the first time around turns out to be God. Literally. He gives AL the "if you hurt my sister I'll kill you" speech. Only it's more of a "She's cute when she's angry" deal:

“Very noisy, but that’s part of the fun. She’s absolutely adorable when she flares up like that, so I nudge her in that direction every so often. It’s a game we’ve been playing for a long, long time, but that’s a family matter that doesn’t really involve you.” Then the old man’s face grew deadly serious. “You haven’t seen the last of Ghend, Althalus. You’ll meet him one more time, so you’d better be ready for him.”

They get Ghend's book back to the house. It turns out that Dweia also has a book, which she turned into the Knife, which she then turns back into her Book. It turns out the only way to destroy a Book is to stack one book on top of another, so they do that. Ghend's book starts to smoke.

Ghend uses his doors to appear in the House at the End of the World, and he grabs his book and tries to run off with it.

Eliar and Gher suck him into a black hole. Not even remotely kidding. Somehow this manages to suck Daeva and his entire realm into total nothingness:

Ghend, armored in fire and still clutching his burning Book, flailed about with his free arm, desperately seeking something he could cling to as the emptiness beyond the doorway drew him across the smooth marble floor of the tower room. Shrieking and cursing, he clawed at the marble, but still he slid inexorably toward his fate. And at the last moment, he looked with pleading eyes at the face of his enemy and reached out a supplicating hand. “Althalus!” he cried. “Help me!” And then he vanished through that awful doorway with his Book still clutched to his breast, and his scream faded behind him as he fell forever into the nothing that had finally claimed him. “Close the door, Eliar,” Althalus said with profound sadness. “We’re finished with it now.”

Thus perished the bad guys, who did nothing on screen to nobody, and who died for the ultimate crime of not being the protagonists in a David Eddings novel.

And there is an epilogue. There is an epilogue in which all the characters in the book who are male get married to all the characters in the book who are female, and Dweia gets preggers with Althalus's spawn,

End of book.

Yeah, we're doing Anita Blake next. Be braced, my friends.

Redemption of Althalus chapter 39-40

Okay, book news: Everything sucks.

Alright, that's a small exaggeration. I've actually been stalling (Duh) to give the last chunk of Dragon Breath time to cool off, give me time to save money, and to work on the artwork I promised donators. Mostly the artwork. I've also been trying to finish the last Gray Prince story, and that got hopelessly bogged down, and by the time I fixed it again, everything sucked.

Also the job change happened. For the better, and it's an awesome job, but it's still a job.

You can tell me later how you want me to make up for it.

Also, here's the artwork. It's about halfway done.

It's cropped down, and I'm fighting on the shading for Shalthessa's feathers (Why the fuck did I give dragons feathers? Why did I think that was a good idea? FEATHERS. I WILL BE DREAMING ABOUT THEM) but I've never been so happy with shading on a human. Or hair. I think I'd like to paint Joey about another six bazillion times, if this is how she's gonna come out every time.

I haven't decided if this part of book one would actually flow quite so...um...peacefully. The scene should be rather obvious to those of you who've read DBPT1, and Joey's...well...JOEY. But it's an image that lodged in my head for a while, so...*shrugs*

I am not a perfect artist, there are an approximate seven bazillion problems with this, but this is probably the best thing I've done EVER.

But fuck feathers. Seriously.

(I mean for fuck's sake, I wrote a motherfucking tutorial on making feathers. It's the most popular thing I've got on DA. THE LITTLE FUCKERS SHOULD BE EASY. WHY. ARE. THEY. NOT. EASY.)

Okay, on to the flog (There should only be two or three more posts of this and then I'm doing Anita Blake, I promise)

So when we last left Althalus he was trying to con the leader of the Brown Robes (now known as Brown Guy) into...something. What, exactly, is never made clear because Dweia has Brown Guy dreaming about hell now. Because it's driven him insane. ...Because she can, I guess.

Seriously. It kind of makes him impossible to work with and I think you kind of needed him for...something.

It turns out that having a major member of the religion go absolutely bugfuck during a peasant rebellion isn't the brightest idea Team Al has ever had. The other two branches of this religion have to act, so they're probably going to show up over the next couple of days...and while Bheid's former boss, Black Guy has no fucking clue what's going on, White Guy from the kingdom of killer shepherds knows damn well that Althalus and company aren't exactly on the up and up here. Given that Brown Guy has completely lost his shit, the other two orders might try to take the Brown Robes over for good...which would probably cause a religious civil war that would make the currant war look like babies playing with toy soldiers...which would suit Ghend, Argan and Daeva just fine.

In other words, Oops.

They decide the best thing to do is have the shit hit the fan now, before Argan starts making peasants set things on fire. They push Brown Guy into doing something...um...pretty fucking pointless.

“The restoration of the altar sort of leaps to mind. Back in the good old days, my altar was sheathed in gold. The Brown Robes peeled the sheathing off when they usurped my temple. If I planted the notion of putting it back into Aleikon’s mind . . .” She left it hanging.

At any rate, they get the leaders of the religion down, and they use the House to speed things up a bit.

When they get there, Althalus promptly starts fucking with them because he wouldn't be Althalus if he didn't. Eventually, they all gather in the Brown Robes' main room, where White Guy and Black Guy do everything short of threaten to pull Al's head off and shit down his neck if he doesn't start explaining what the blue hell is going on here.

At which point Dweia steps in.

Then one wall of Aleikon’s high-vaulted library was no longer there. Where the wall had been was the perfect face of Dweia: calm, beautiful, and so enormous that Althalus flinched back in near panic. Her perfect arms were crossed on what had been the floor, and her chin was resting pensively on those arms. “I sometimes forget how small you people are,” she murmured. “So tiny, so imperfect.” She reached out with one vast hand and gently picked up the rigid body of Exarch Emdahl and placed him on the palm of her other hand. Then she took up Yeudon and stood him beside Emdahl. “Does this put things in perspective for you gentlemen?” she asked.

The assorted Robes decide the smartest thing they can do is cooperate. They go into the house and accomplish...um, exactly nothing except basic nerve settling. Then Dweia decides to break out her own prophetic dream. And...uh...I think Eddings was shooting for utterly fucking incomprehensible because that's what he accomplished.

The vast temple in Maghu seemed deserted, and then two cleaning ladies with brooms and mops and dust rags entered. They wore aprons, and their hair was protected by kerchiefs. And as they entered, the song of the Knife serenaded them. One scrubwoman was pale blond Leitha, and the other was perfect Dweia. And pale Leitha, weeping, did seat herself upon the stones of the temple floor, and she took up a garment of finest weave. Still sobbing, she tore one sleeve from the garment and cast it up into the silent air, and the Knife cried out also as the sleeve vanished in the air...And then did (Dweia) cast the fruit of her brushing into the air, and it was even as dust. Then caused she that window that men call Bheid to be opened. And behold, a great wind did issue forth from the window Bheid. And the Knife sang, and the dust was there no more. And then the Goddess looked about with calm satisfaction. “And now,” she spake, “my temple is once more immaculate and undefiled.”

Gang, this makes the book of Ezekiel look calm, well adjusted and sane, and that's the part of the bible with the Wheels within Wheels and the four headed six-winged angels...basically the Glenn Beck to Revelation of John's Fox News.

Of course, it's like that because it is all SYMBOLISM and using SYMBOLISM avoids the danger of a paradox...somehow. Basically Dweia prophet dreams=good, Daeva prophet dreams=bad. Somehow.

In the morning, everybody troops up to the Windows to get a look at Argan's speech making skills...which IRL would fall flat on its face but in the book are treated as charged up works of fine art. The three Robe Guys spend a lot of time staring at each other and muttering "We're fucked" under their breath, because there's an awful lot of people behind Argan and the red robes.

And then Black Guy decides that the absolute best thing he can do, under the circumstances, is borrow a couple sheets from Althalus's book and con the Brown Guy into giving up his order and dropping off the face of the planet, because he fucked up that bad.

“Emdahl views this current unrest in Perquaine as a golden opportunity, dear,” Leitha explained. “The Brown Robe order’s totally corrupt, and Emdahl has a sort of grand plan to jerk the Brown Robe power base right out from under Aleikon. Without the support of the nobility of Perquaine, the Brown Robes are likely to be reduced to a mendicant order, begging at the roadside.”

"Dear" is no longer looking like a word.

Eventually White Guy clues in and they both start railroading Brown Guy into the desired position. Finally they decide that they need a whole new order of clergy who will wear a whole new shade of robe--because color coding your priests is the only way to go, I guess--and they'll use this new group to smash Argan's Red Robes because this is totally doable.

Oh, and Bheid is going to be the leader of the new Robes.

This does not go over well.

“Absolutely out of the question,” Bheid announced quite firmly. “I’m not even a priest anymore.” “The vow is permanent,” Emdahl rasped. “You can’t give it and then take it back.” “I murdered a man, my Exarch,” Bheid said in a flat, emotionless voice. “You did what?” “I drove a sword through a man in Arya Andine’s throne room. I am damned.” “Well, now,” Aleikon said, his plump face suddenly creased with a broad smile. “That changes everything, doesn’t it, Emdahl? I guess I won’t be leaving Maghu after all.”

Black Guy thinks about this for approximately two seconds, and then holds a mock trial for Bheid, in which they convict him of murder and sentence him to poverty and penance as the leader of the Gray Robe order, leaving both Bheid and Brown Guy sputtering over in their respective corners.

Althalus takes Brown Guy and some of his supporters through the house under the guise of protecting them from their political enemies, and dumps them on a mostly deserted island on the other side of the world.

Argan, his peasant army and Ghend's mind-reader Koman approach the temple. Leitha is hanging around inside the temple because Prophetic Dream Says So, and Bheid and Eliar are waiting outside for Argan to show up and give his little speech.

Bheid has Eliar show off his knife, and all of Argan's red robes turn into random demons before vanishing in puffs of brimstone. So basically it's a Chick Tract. Argan and Koman run into the temple, which is also somehow one of the Doors from the House. Bheid gives a speech that sounds exactly like all of Argan's, right down to the planted shills. But I guess shills are okay when you're the good guys.

Still, they could probably find a few people who understand what subtly means:

“It’s Exarch Bheid!” a disguised Grey Robe priest declared. “He’s the holiest man alive.”
 “Listen to him!” another cried. “The Grey Robes are the only friends we have!”

Really?

Inside the temple, Leitha faces off with Koman. Dude has no idea what's going on and he tries to sneak into her thoughts...and she starts shutting his mind-reading ability down, somehow, using what she learned from the book. Apparently this is the worst thing you can do to a mind-reader and she's very repentant and remorseful while she slowly and deliberately drives another human being insane.

Meanwhile Dweia just plain fucking evaporates Argan because fuck that remorse shit.

Bheid opens a window. That's his entire purpose for being in the temple.

 Have I mentioned yet that this entire scene is written in Eddings' patented "Lyrical Not Poetry" style?

And Koman screamed as even greater emptiness did settle around him. And he fell to the floor of the holy temple of the Goddess Dweia, and clung he in terror-stricken desperation to the thought of she who even now closed each door that had always stood open for him.
 And the soul of Althalus was wrenched with pity. 

I beseech thee, my beloved father, pale Leitha’s thought cried out in anguish, bend not thy despite upon me for this cruelty. The cruelty is not mine, but is that of necessity. And Althalus hardened his heart toward hapless Koman and stood sternly by as pale Leitha did perform the final act compelled of her by stern necessity.

NOTHING else in the book (other than the dreams) is like this. WHY is it like this? Oh, and as for the evaporation of Argan...yeah.

And the glittering motes of that which had been Argan were swept away in that great wind, leaving behind only the faint echoes of his despairing scream to mingle with the song of the Knife. And the face of Divine Dweia was filled with satisfaction, and spake she. “And now is my temple once more immaculate.” And the song of the Knife soared in indescribable beauty as it sang its blessing upon the holy place.

The good guys. They disintegrate their enemies with great satisfaction.

End of chapter.

Redemption of Althalus--chapter 34-38

So most of the next chapter is basically moping shit up. Albron and Astarell get married. Bheid has a mental breakdown because he killed a man and this is apparently a bad thing (his hiring of assassins notwithstanding). The Arums decide to invade Kanthon and make Andine the queen of that region too and...uh...Andine gives a speech:

“With all of Arum at my back, I could ride roughshod over Kanthon and impose my will upon her citizens, but what would that accomplish—except to arouse eternal enmity? I watched with astonishment this day when the most warlike people on earth bowed to reason and averted a return to the clan wars of antiquity. I am but a foolish girl, but the lesson you have presented this day has impressed itself upon me indelibly. Therefore, I go to Kanthon not as a conqueror, but as a liberator. We will not burn Kanthon, nor will we slaughter the citizens, nor loot the city. Sweet reason shall be our guide—even as it was your guide in your discussions this day. I will follow your example, my brave warriors—braver still in that you chose not to fight this day.”

One: humility is good. Humility in a leader is better. THIS IS NOT HUMILITY. This is self-abasement to appease someone who doesn't approve of the role you've taken. I fuck up a lot, kids. I just learned not to talk about it on the blog. I will absolutely be the first person to say "I am sorry I should not have done that". I've just also learned that "I'm sorry I should not have done that" is not something you do in public because it doesn't actually mean anything to the people hearing it. And like I said, having the leader of a fucking country talk about how stupid and small and slight they are IS NOT A HEALTHY THING FOR A LEADER TO DO. Healthy is to shut the fuck up about their capabilities and just do what needs to be fucking done. Don't say "I'm a good leader". Don't say "I'm a bad leader". Just do it and let the people around you come to their own conclusions. They're gonna do it anyway.

Second: And that's, like, the dialogue for every hateful dictator ever. I'm pretty sure Hitler said, multiple times, that he was saving Europe.

Leitha is also having a nervious breakdown, mostly because she knows she's got to do something awful and she can't draw streingth from Bheid anymore. And it's that latter part, not the former part. She's known she's had to do something since she read the Knife, but she's been using Bheid as her life support and now that he's fractured, she's shattering.

Andine takes over Kanthon. Althalus helps everybody buy food because they burned most of their crops during the invasion, because wars are actually a pretty shitty thing to have happen.

Something religious in nature starts happening over in Peraquaine. Ghend is behind it, but everybody is more preoccupied with buying grain and getting various secondary characters married off.

Also: David Eddings is about to try on Social Justice, just to see if it fits. It's kind of precious.

“There’s a certain amount of unrest among the peasantry, I’m told, but that crops up every ten years or so. It’s the fault of the property owners, when you get right down to it. Perquaines tend to be egomaniacs who spend millions building palaces. The peasants live in hovels, and the differences between ‘your palace’ and ‘my hovel’ are very obvious. The notion of ‘comfortable but not showy’ hasn’t occurred to the Perquaines yet. The property owners show off, and the peasants resent it. There’s nothing new about that.”

And just in case you think that maybe I'm blowing it out of proportion, the words "social justice" appear in the text just a few pages later. It turns out Argan, Ghend's pet priest, has introduced Red Robes to the White, Black and Brown combo Dweios uses. Bheid is a black robe, if you remember, the white robes, lead by White Guy, were in charge of the Shephards, and the Brown Robes are in charge of Peraquaine...and they ain't exactly St. Francis.

Hey, let's take a break to let Khalor marry Eliar's mother. I mean, we've had all these unattached strapping men running around being heroic. We need to get them settled down with a door prize or three.

Leitha finally has an emotional breakdown in Althalus's arms, and Al decides the best way to react to that is to go beat sense into Bheid so that he'll get off his ass and go take care of his woman.

Dead serious.

 This is all beside the point, though. If you don’t open the door to your mind to Leitha, I’ll do exactly the same thing to that door as I did to the one to this room. Your silly wallowing in guilt and self-pity’s destroying Leitha, you blithering idiot. I don’t care how many people you kill, Bheid, but if you hurt Leitha anymore, I’ll reach down your throat and jerk out your heart!”

This puts Bheid back together long enough to preform a wedding, and then he goes back into hibernation. Althalus gives up and tells Albron to keep Leitha and Andine in his house for a little while so that Al, Bheid and the other men can go take care of business.

Our heroes.

Bheid and Dweia start explaining the politics in Periquaine to Althalus and Khalor. And it's bad. We've got forced labor and starvation:

“There are agitators out there, Alkos,” the noble said. “We’re going to keep our peasants so busy that they don’t have time to listen to speeches.” “Ah,” the overseer said. “I guess that makes sense. You’re going to have to feed them a little more, though. I’ve had a dozen of them collapse today.” “Nonsense.” The nobleman snorted. “They’re playacting. That’s what your whip’s for, Alkos. Keep them moving until dark. Then let them go eat. Tell them to come back at first light tomorrow.”

Rape:

“Why don’t I just tell him that you’ll evict him from that stick-and-wattle hut of his unless he hands his daughter over to you? It’s winter now, and his whole family will starve—or freeze to death—without shelter or food. I think he’ll come around.”

And basic theft of property:

“Can we actually get away with that, Brother Sawel?” the Baron asked dubiously. The priest shrugged. “Who’s going to stop us, my Lord?” he asked. “The aristocracy controls the land, and the Church controls the courts. Between us, we can do just about anything we want to do.”

Dweia shows them examples of all this through one of her magic windows, and that's all it takes to make the gang gung-ho for killing every noble in Peraquaine. Dweia talks them into simply finding a non-murdery solution to the problem.

Which, of course, starts with Althalus conning the entire Brown Robe clergy.

He's posing as a duke with a great deal of money who is having terrible nightmares. He wants the Brown Robes to clean up his dreams--which he swears are about Hell AKA Daeva's version of the House at the End of the World. This gives the leader of the Brown Robes--now known as Brown Guy--a problem. Althalus offers them a lot of money to clean up his dream-life, but he'll only pay after his dreams are nightmare-free. Which the Brown Guy can't do. And he knows it.

And then Dweia drives the brown guy totally insane.

Our heroes.

End of chapter.

Redemption of Althalus--chapter 33-34

Chapter thirty three opens with Althalus staring at Dweia.

“You’re staring again, Althie,” she said, not even looking up.

 “I know. I’ve got a permit, though. You’ve got very pretty arms, did you know that?”

This is not fan fiction. A grown man wrote that. Expecting it to be romantic.

Admittedly, it's the Althie I have issues with.

Dweia then has Althalus summon everyone to the tower in the House, even though she could do it herself. Andine brings up that this is kind of her kingdom being invaded, she probably should be spending time in her palace. Dweia basically says "I'm a Goddess, I can handle it" and pats Andine on the head.

I liked her better when she wanted to gut Eliar.

Dweia is more irritated, however, with the assassins that Bheid hired. When and where he'd have a chance to hire them, I have no idea, but he did. Apparently the worship of Deiwos requires an underground system of paid irreligious assassins. Who knew?

These assassins could upset the prophesy-dream's timetable, and Dweia wants him to tell his hired guns to wait until after Andine surrenders to start killing people. Oh, and the target is Andine's alternate, Pheglat, Aryo of Kanthon. The dude that hired Eliar way back in the beginning, in the civil war that got her father killed.

“Let’s establish some rules right here and now,” Dweia said sternly. “No murders, no armies out of nowhere, no rounding up of spies, and no mutinies among the Arum clans until after Gelta enters Andine’s throne room in Osthos. You will do nothing to interfere with that dream vision. If any one of you slaps me across the face with a paradox, I’ll be very cross with you.”

You know, it's kind of sad when you have so many gods in your machine that you have to actively tell your characters not to use them. Yes, we do have a magical not-tardis full of crack troops, but we just can't use them right now because that'd make this book too short.


And what this chapter is all about--dragging feet until we get to the actual surrender scene. Only instead of making it interesting with front-line fighting, we're jumping from one unimportant thing to another. Argan finds the note about the traitors that Althalus wants dead. Great. Bheid tells his killers to wait. Fantastic.

Oh, hey, street-to-street fighting in Poma. Yeah, that's kind of plot related.

Twengor is having a lot of fun burning someone else's city down. Althalus and company drop by just as he's smoking out a sniper--literally. He sets the building next door on fire because the archer in an upper window keeps trying to part his hair with an arrow. It'd take a lot to fuck this up. I mean--

Go tell Khalor that I’m still sober and that I can drive the enemy out of town at a moment’s notice. Isn’t that more or less what he wanted to know?”

Yeah, because the hard part about being a recovering alcoholic is the getting sober part. It's not like he has to re-learn basic things like socializing and relaxing and IDK fucking sleeping. Yeah, boys and girls, an alcoholic becomes so used to drinking until they pass out at night that going to sleep is now this strange foreign activity that they do not understand. Everything an alcoholic has revolves around the booze. His ideas of socialization. His hobbies. His family. The word "co-dependent" was coined by people working with alcoholics when they realized that otherwise sober families become just as dependent on the booze as the drinker. They know how to cope with a drunk Mom or Dad or Daughter, but they've got no fucking idea how to relate to a sober one. Healing from alcoholism is hard.  The process of recovery, as I have said before, is not a one-time process. It's an every day thing. And the reason why AA is so big on "one day at a time"? It's because thinking further than today is fucking impossible. If you think about going a week without drinking, it feels like climbing Mt. Everest. Recovery very often boils down to "I'm going to make it through the next minute without having a drink. Okay. Now I'm going to make it through the next minute. Okay." And meanwhile your family is still in "Daddy is a Drunk" mode, and their usual hyper-vigilance, which you didn't notice before because you were too fucked up to care, now simultaneously gets on your nerves AND triggers your massive guilt complex.


And most alcoholics love booze. They love being drunk. If you offered an alcoholic the chance to get drunk one more time without repercussions? They'd take it. My dad once talked to one of the kids in the foster home about booze. He can't remember things like when he went on his first date and his first car, and even the memories of when me and my brother were born are a little blurry, but he remembers his first beer. He remembers how his first beer tastes. He remembers how the condensation dripped down the side. And he really likes talking about it.

And apparently in this universe you can forget all of that no problem.

So team Althalus moves on to the other walled cities, given that Poma is now less "walled" and more "smoking ruin ringed round with rubble."

One of the other clan cheifs makes the following observation:

“This particular enemy has more than pure stupidity working against it,” Koleika added. “One of their Generals is a woman.”

Thanks bunches, Dave.

Meanwhile, the duke Koleika is trying to keep alive has been having fun developing new toys for war. This does not end well for Gelta's men.

“I saw right off that one spear would only kill one man,” Koleika replied modestly, “and only if it happened to hit him. I suggested to Nitral that replacing the steel points with earthenware jugs filled with boiling pitch might be an improvement.” Then he made a wry face. “You’ve got to be careful about making suggestions to Nitral. He takes a good, sound idea and immediately starts to expand it. He went me one—or maybe three—better. He liked the pitch idea so much that he added naphtha, sulphur, and something his brewers boil out of good strong beer. One spark is all it takes to set fire to that mixture, and you probably noticed that each spear had a burning rag tied around the shaft.”

Well, it looks spectacular, at any rate.

So Finally Andine sends Althalus out as her negotiator. And while you'd think that'd work out like a Bruce Willis movie, he actually pushes the bland and boring envelope as far as it'll go:

“Madam,” Althalus said coldly, “this is neither the time nor the place for threats. Circumstances have given you a slight advantage, and my Arya has instructed me to inquire as to your terms.” 
“There are no terms, you silly fop!” Gelta flared. “Open your gates to me, or I will destroy your city!” 

“Try to maintain your perspective, madam,” Althalus replied. “Take a moment, if you wish, to go outside and have a look at the walls of Osthos. Our city will stand, no matter what you throw at those walls. A prolonged siege, however, would inconvenience the citizens slightly. To put it to you bluntly, how much will you take to go away?”

...I kind of like that.

Anyway, they agree to let Gelta and her troops sack the city for one day...which just so happens to be their best guestimate for the prophesy dream's date. Oh, and they're going to let Andine do a ceremonial surrender because it's not like Ghend knows she's on Althalus's side (He totally does).

Gelta confirms that the day is right and Althalus goes running off to tell Dweia all about the new plan. They spend the night evacuating civilians from Osthos, and spend the dark hours of the morning trucking in thier own troops because god forbid the enemy put up a fair fight.

Once again, our heroes demonstrate their honorable moral fiber.

“You’re being obvious, Khalor,” Gebhel growled. “What do you want me to do with them after I’ve rounded them up?” “I couldn’t care less,” Khalor replied. “You’ll have about ten thousand prisoners on your hands. Maybe you’ll get lucky and come across a slave trader.” Gebhel’s eyes brightened. “It’s a thought,” he said. “I get twenty percent,” Khalor advised him. “Don’t be ridiculous. Five at the most.”

Thrilling.

Meanwhile, Andine, the trained orator and great leader, is biting her fingernails because she's so nervious about surrendering her sovereignity to the forces of Satan.

Gelta, however, spokes the wheel by bringing more troops than she ought to have, making the mock invasion very real. Andine is very meek-seeming and quivering, and Althalus is panicking inwardly because holy fuck, that's a lot of soliders out there. Andine does the whole kneeling-on-the-floor thing and Gelta puts her boot on Andine's neck.

Althalus is still panicking.

Argan, meanwhile, decides that the very best thing he can do, now that Gelta is occupied and Althalus has lost his marbles, is order one of Ghend's scary underlings to kill Bheid. The scary underling tries to, but Salkan the Shepherd gets in the way mostly on purpose, and dies.

Bheid goes fucking apeshit and pins the scary underling to the wall with a broadsword. With him dead, the soldiers vanish, and Andine reverts back to form:

“Get your foot off me, you stinking hag!” Andine’s soaring voice broke through the stunned silence that had fallen over the throne room, even as the wild wailing faltered and the song of the Knife soared.

They show Gelta the Magical Will Stealing Knife, which makes her start screaming in agony, and then they dump her into a room in the House that has no doors. We never see Gelta again.

Our heroes.


End of chapter.

Redemption of Althalus-31-32

When everything's arranged with Andine's people, Khalor goes off in the not-Tardis to go look at Gelta's troops. Salkan the Shepherd is still around, off playing with Gher somewhere. This becomes important later. Dweia sends Althalus to go get Gher and his new best friend.

"...It’s almost suppertime anyway, and Emmy can cook much better than Sergeant Gebhel’s field cooks can. Let’s go have a decent meal, shall we?”

...stay classy Al. Stay classy.

Khalor finds out that Gelta has second class mercs on her side, and that Daeva gave her a bunch of his non-human footsoldiers to make up for her army basically sucking. Eliar shows up--apparently the ladies are talking about clothes again--and says that the Knife just told him Ghend is down with the troops. Khalor, of course, zooms in on the enemy general, who is rather pissed that his paid for traitors seem to be helping Althalus out an awful lot.

So basically everything's going according to plan there.

Argan and Ghend also let slip that they've got something religious cooking, and that Daeva's nonhuman soldiers are supposed to be a suprise for later, so Don't let Althalus know about them, whatever you do.

Oops.

Khalor is irritated because they have to let the traitors out of the House eventually, due to their having no good reason not to. Gher asks why they can't just lie and say that Argan is a hired killer, and show the traitors a picture to prove it, and explain that they're putting the traitors into protective custody...oh, and they'll kill Ghend's messenger on sight, seeing as how he's a "paid assassin" and all. Althalus thinks this is a wonderful idea and heads off to tell the traitor's generals that someone is trying to kill their cheifs.

Their reaction is less than what Althalus would have wanted:

“Let him,” Gelun said flatly. “I’ll even lend him my knife if he wants to kill them that much.”

Althalus quickly talks them into letting him protect their bosses for a while.

We then take a break from all the fighting to establish that Andine and Eliar are now dating. We really needed to know this.

They start installing the armies in their respective cities. They get the more mundane one taken care of before Andine has a meltdown over the whole "surrendering my soveriginity" thing. Gee, I wonder why a trained-from-birth ruler would have issues with being pressured to leave her throne due to a prophetic dream.

Althalus, of course, cons her back into line:

“When you’re setting a trap for an animal, you have to bait the trap, little Princess. If you’re trying to trap a bird, you use seeds for bait. If you’re after a wolf or a bear, meat works fairly well. Gelta’s a different sort of animal, so you’ll have to use a different bait. We do want to have baked Gelta for supper, don’t we?” “That’s disgusting, Althalus!” “I was speaking figuratively, Andine. You’d need a lot of spice to make Gelta edible. The bait we’re going to use to trap her has to be so alluring that she won’t be able to resist it. That’s your job. Be irresistible, Andine. Be soft and tender and delicious—right up until she touches you. That’s when we spring the trap and send her off to the bake oven.”

Whee.

They check on their cavalry for a minute and then head on over to go stick Twengor into Poma.

This book's been low-level awful for a while, but it isn't doing anything actively dangerous. Let's change that, shall we?

See, Twengor's big problem is that he's an alcoholic. A very long term, very active, constantly drunk alcoholic. Somewhere between "late stage" and "yellow eyeballs". Althalus decides that it'll be much faster to put the drunk soldiers to sleep, march them through a door that somehow fastforwards their time by three weeks, and have them wake up sober.

“Time’s the only thing that’ll sober a drunk man up, so I’ll need a week at least. I’m going to start our sodden friends here to walking in their sleep. Then I want you to lead them into last week and back. Then we’ll take them through the Poma road door...Twengor and his men will go to last week and back while they’re passing through the doorway. They’ll be drunk as lords here, and sober as judges there, because they’ll have had two weeks to get sober during that single step through the doorway. And, since they’ll be walking in their sleep, they won’t really know what’s happened.”

I spent a very long time deciding how to react to this, and I decided to go with my first one.



Yeah. There's an idea in most circles that if you're a drunk you can, you know, stop fucking drinking and everything will be fine. This is technically true IF the person is still a casual drunk and IF the withdrawals from alcohol aren't too bad. When you're drinking large amounts of booze every single day? You can't just stop drinking. If you are a long term, late stage alcoholic and you cold turkey on booze you can die. If you are drinking from the moment you wake up to the moment you pass out, and your hands are shaking? You WILL die if you try to stop drinking on your own. Alcohol is one of the hardest chemicals to detox from because the process can be fatal if the addiction is too severe. The list of alcohol withdrawal symptoms reads like something out of a zombie movie. If a late stage alcoholic wants to sober up they absofuckinglutely posifuckingtively have to be under a doctor's supervision.

See, the myth is that what's causing the withdrawal symptoms is the loss of that chemical, and that you only have to suffer through the entire metabolic process--that once the chemical is completely gone, you're going to feel okay. This is not what's happening. Addiction only occurs when the chemical has replaced another, natural chemical produced by the human body--this is usually something in the brain. You've taught your brain that it doesn't have to make its own supply anymore, because you're giving it the fun, artificial version. So when you stop taking the drug, your body no longer has either the natural or the artificial chemical in its system, and the worst symptoms occur while your body is trying to re-learn how to make itself work right.

And it isn't like the people in this book wouldn't understand this. Dweia jury-rigged antiseptics and neurosurgery to save Eliar's life. She could take the three or four seconds required to explain to Althalus that the human body does not work like this.

Twengor has spent decades being boots up in a wine barrel, and he just had all that alcohol pulled out of his system instantly. That's not a detox. That's a death sentence.


It's also really careless, because it re-enforces the misinformation that your long-term drunk friend could get sober if they really really want to. That might have been true ten years ago, but it isn't now. Yes, they dug the hole. It's deep enough that they cannot get out of it on their own, and placing the expectation of self reliance on someone when the only self reliant solution WILL kill them is fucking wrong. Implying that the solution to long-term alcoholism is unsupervised cold turkey is like implying that the solution to Ebola is an atomic warhead. This is the kind of misinformation that gets people killed. This is it. Right here. This is what actively dangerous writing looks like.

Anyway, after surviving the biological equivilant of a nuclear holocaust (and that's not hyperbole) Twengor starts throwing the badly-constructed city around like it's a brand new castanet. I don't think it's going to end well for the city of Poma.

Althalus discovers that Argan is still trying to get to the Traitors, and that Gher left a note in the tent they're supposed to be in confessing to full cooperation with Althalus. So basically they've set up their enemies to get murdered.

Our heroes. Putting allies' lives in danger and setting up the murder of their enemies every damn day.

Redemption of Althalus--chapter 29-30

So we wrap up the entire battle with lots of quick explinations for things that we had already figured out through the subtext.

The most important plot element introduced is a girlfriend for Cheif Albron, because letting anything male be unattached is a huge no-no. They decide to stow her in the house for safekeeping, kind of like a side of beef.

Hey, wasn't there another kingdom being invaded at the moment?

Well, yeah, but it's a female leader in trouble so it takes an entire chapter of Althalus conning various people and Albron looking doe-eyed at his door prize for us to get there.

When we do, we get a very quick run down of what the emergency is:

Dhakan nodded. “The walls of Kadon and Mawor are quite substantial, but those around Poma have sort of fallen into disrepair. Technically, those three cities are a part of the Osthos Alliance. They were independent city-states some centuries back, and when the Kanthons began having imperial urges for the first time, we all joined together to repel them. The Dukes of those three cities still maintain the fiction of independence, but when you get right down to the bottom of things, they take orders from Osthos.”

Andine, however, is a little more gobsmacked by another factor:

“That’s idiocy! The peasants don’t have anything to do with the wars between the cities! Nobody’s ever killed the peasants before. They’re an asset. If you don’t have peasants, who’s going to grow your food?”

This, by the way, is not treated as ignorance on her part.

And of course, since this is Andine's problem, the person at the helm is once again Gelta. It's girl on girl.

And then Ghend hands Althalus a big chunk of Edding's outline for the rest of the book:

“Submit unto me, frail child,” the dark Queen commanded, “and should thy submission please me, mayhap I shall spare thy life.” And the haunted wail filled the room. And Arya Andine knelt to signify her submission. “On thy face!” stern Gelta commanded. “Grovel before me that I may know that thy submission is absolute!” And, weeping, did Arya Andine lower her face to the very stones of the floor. And the heart of Gelta was full, and the taste of victory on her tongue was sweet, sweet. And placed she then her rough-booted foot upon the soft neck of groveling Andine in exultant triumph, declaring, “All that was yours is now mine, Andine, yea, verily, even thy life and all thy blood.” And the triumphant cry of the Queen of the Night echoed down the marble-clad palace of the fallen Arya of Osthos, and the despairing wail echoed also.

DAVE. WHY WOULD YOU WRITE LIKE THIS.

However, this dream is different. This dream is not a past-dream, which makes things that didn't happen happen even though they haven't really happened. Nope. This is a future dream, so letting it not happen would create a paradox and that would be bad. So now the good guys absolutely have to let Gelta into Andine's throne room so she can stand on Andine's neck. Dweia's orders.

This has never made any sense to me.

Dweia elaborates on it a little tiny bit:

“I don’t think he’d dare, Sergeant,” she replied. “Part of the danger of jumping around in time in a dream vision is the possibility of paradox. If two entirely different things happen in the same place at the same time, reality starts to come apart, and we really don’t want that to happen. Changing the past is fairly safe—if you don’t go too far. Changing the future is an entirely different matter.”

Except this is a dream. The past-dreams made a little sense because they were sort of brainwashing--like trying to convince the world that John McCain won in 2008 instead of Obama so that when we woke up the next morning with him in the White House nobody would freak--but this future dream shit is like...uh, HELLO. DREAMING. But we never get more concrete information than this.

Althalus now has to shove Gelta into Andine's throne room six weeks from now.

Andine is less than happy about this:

“No!” Andine’s voice soared. “I will not bow down to that pock-marked cow!”

I love how they take even her defiance away. It's not her protesting being railroaded into surrender. No. It's her voice that's doing it.

Everybody reminds her that the Knife told her to obey. She basically tells them all to get fucked, it's her country, she's not giving it up because of some stupid prophetic dream.

Althalus decides he's going to let Dweia try to talk Andine into surrendering her sovereignity, and he heads off to go meet with their pet traitors.

Yeah, two of the clan cheifs of the mercenaries are in Ghend's pocket, and Althalus has been keeping them in the House because the longer he does, the more likely Ghend is to kill them when he finally lets them out. And he's going to be using their troops as his first line of defense.

They're about to explode. The only reason they're still alive is their clan would be more-or-less obligated to kill whoever kills them, and Althalus quickly figures out that "obligated" is the operative word. these clans hate their leaders, and they're pretty much ignoring them as much as they can. Althalus hunts down the guys who are really making all the decisions and tells them what to do. He also drops hints that he'd really like to be free of the traitors, which the two good guys pretty much agree with.

Leitha picks up hints that one of Ghend's other henchmen is playing with religion. This comes into play later.

She also starts calling Althalus "Daddy".

It's exactly as creepy as it sounds.

Khalor inspects the cities they need to defend, so he knows which clan to stick where. One place is nice enough, though their Duke is more worried about harvest and profit and when everybody can get back to work than he is about, you know, war. They decide to stick a cheif named Laiwon in there.

Poma is basically a falling down heap of rocks run by a Duke too scared to tax his merchants.

Bherdor was hardly more than a boy, and he had a weak chin—and a disposition to match. “I know that things aren’t quite up to standard, Lord Althalus,” he apologized tremulously when Althalus took him to task for the condition of his city walls, “but my poor, poor city’s teetering on the brink of total bankruptcy. I’d raise taxes to repair them, but the merchants have all warned me that a tax increase would send the local economy into total collapse.” “What is your current rate, your Grace?” Althalus asked. “Three and a half percent, Lord Althalus,” Bherdor replied tremulously. “Do you think that’s too high?” he added with some apprehension.

They decide to stick  Twengor, the raving drunk clan chief, into this pigstye. Mostly because the wall can't be defended and Twengor is the only person who will know how to sucker the enemy in and make sure they never get out.


He's also the main reason I decided to review this book. Holy shit do I have a big problem with him.

The last city apprently has very pretty walls that will never, ever, ever come down. Apparently the duke in charge of that city is an archetect, and he's using his city as his own personal hobby. This is actually the best of the lot:

If we put Koleika Iron Jaw here in Mawor, Gelta might lay siege to the place, but she won’t get into the city, and she won’t be able to leave.” “I don’t quite follow that,” Althalas admitted. “As soon as she turns around to leave, Koleika’ll come blasting out through the gates and cut her army all to pieces. He’ll lock them in place right here.” Khalor squinted. “It sort of matches what Leitha told us about what Gelta was thinking in that dream. There was something that was preventing the invaders from marching on Osthos, and I think it might just have been the combination of this fortress and Iron Jaw. Put those two together, and this is a natural trap. The invasion stops right here. They won’t be able to get in, and they won’t be able to leave. It’s perfect.”

Khalor then decides he needs to have a talk with Andine's generals. Okay, apparently she does have an army. That she never uses.

I have no idea why.

Khalor promised with a bleak smile. He looked at Andine, who was sweating in her robes of state. “Would it bother you very much if I broke up some of the furniture, little girl?”

Yeah, that's really respectful. Basically he chops furnature into kindling until the generals start listening to him, and he tells them they can all take their toys and go home.

In most universes this would cause another civil war. In this one, it makes Khalor a genious orator.

Andine's entire contribution to this is snuggling with Dweia in cat-form over in a corner.

Nice.

End of chapter.