Chapter 20 of 35 · Book 4, The Gate of the Feral Gods

Chapter 20 — Gwendolyn Duet

Book: The Gate of the Feral Gods · Previous: Chapter 19 — Orren · Next: Chapter 21 — Ghazi · Floor: Floor 5 — The Bubbles · Series: the series

Opening

» Time to Level Collapse: 4 Days and 22 Hours

Summary

Four days and twenty-two hours. The house arrives without its top floor, sawn off six inches below the ceiling because the stairwell closet would not leave the quadrant — Louis's Tiddy Twister solution — with a sheared water main arcing a rainbow that Mongo dances in. Firas and Louis are level 30 and have become pilots. While Carl was gone: Katia put the whole house and balloon in her inventory with the backpack; a patch popped it back out over a pub called Cuttlefish Point and wrecked it; Louis urinated on the furious pazuzu owner from the air and got them banned from town. The stairwell sits half a mile east of Hump Town under Langley's guard. The Red Equinox arrives tomorrow: sixteen hours of dark, storms twice as long, and on the land quadrant a storm that circles the island like a clock, with lightning. 'feral pazuzu' come out at night — anything that spends minutes in the Nothing goes mad, and that, Firas says, is the mage's doing. Carl's sting at learning Katia managed without him surfaces a memory in his father's voice: 'You will break after just one day […] Just like your fucking bitch of a mother.' Chat updates: Bautista's bubble cleared with most of its people dead; the Li trio at their last castle; Meadow Lark building an oil cannon; Gustavo 'accidentally' killed a party and Lucia Mar was shown sobbing alone; Florin emerged to a bubble where everyone else was already dead; Miriam Dom, a vegan, cursed into a vampire; the tomb raiders paralysed after Mike the banana was filled with Finger-sized Flesh Weasels. Descending the necropolis's carved Aztec-style face past empty buzz-ard nests; the sandcastle huddled against the tomb like a scared dog, three storeys with two thin towers, built around the main drainage tunnel and, Carl thinks, guarding the tomb's entrance. Vadim and Britney, the water quadrant's other survivors, will not go back.

Gwendolyn Duet, level 34: a First Nations Canadian of about forty-five with a faded double-V forehead tattoo, line-and-arrowhead tattoos on her hands, a spear, a punched-in nose and scarred knuckles; Carl knows the type from the shipyards. 'So you two finally fucking made it.' Katia, over chat: a superb fighter with no magic, a bully who says every thought aloud twice; Katia has promised herself not to take it, and Zev insisted they wait for Carl. The choice: the easy way — a drainage panel by the tomb wall that would blast the necropolis's water out through the drain and turn the sandcastle to mud, though the sub's pump would keep half the tomb flooded — or the hard way, for the winding box: cables from the two towers to the door, lightning during the storm, and a glass hallway that opens once per storm and closes fast. Ghazi, says a drunk scorpion guy via Katia, turned himself into a sand elemental hunting the Gate; the castle is solid sand around a stairwell. Louis and Firas stay outside so Gwen cannot flood it with them inside. Carl notices the second cable is redundant ('Loose wires cause fires!') and sends Tran, a Swashbuckler with metal detection, to drag it to a ring under the drainage wheel. Lightning hits, the sand electrifies, and a hallway of ice-cracking glass opens into the dark. Katia goes first.

Characters

• Carl — His father's voice, stung that Katia managed without him; reads a loose cable.
• Princess Donut — 'I feel out of the loop'; 'THAT TIME MACHINE MOVIE WHERE THE GUY MAKES OUT WITH HIS MOM'
• Katia Grim — Flew the house; a deal with Gwen; 'I wasn't going to take shit any more'; karaoke with Miriam.
• Mongo — Dances in the broken main.
• Louis and Firas — Level 30; pilots; a pub wrecked and a pazuzu urinated on.
• Gwendolyn Duet — Met: tattoos, a spear, a shipyard body; 'that Arnaaluk of a friend of yours.'
• Tran — A Swashbuckler with metal detection; sent with the cable.
• Langley — Guarding a closet in the sand.
• Daniel Bautista — Four castles taken, most of his bubble dead.
• Li Jun and Zhang — Li Jun, Li Na and their team about to storm their last, underwater castle.
• Lucia Mar — Sobbing alone after Gustavo killed a party.
• Florin — Alone in a dead bubble.
• Miriam Dom — A vegan turned vampire while looking for a panicking goat.
• Prepotente — A panic attack; ran off.
• The tomb raiders — Mike the banana eaten from inside; the rest waiting for a drain.
• Zev — Insisted Katia wait.
• Ghazi — A sand elemental now, mixed into his own castle.

Locations

• The sandcastle — Sand around a stairwell; two lightning towers; a drain; a glass hallway.
• The Necropolis of Anser — Its carved outer wall; a drainage panel at its foot.
• The land quadrant — An O of beach around the tomb; a dried reef; concentric storm channels.
• The Wasteland — Decapitated, flown, and once inside Katia's inventory.

Motifs

• The two suns — The Red Equinox tomorrow; a clockwise storm with lightning below.
• The Gate of the Feral Gods — The winding box in a mage made of sand; the hard way chosen for it.
• The gods — Minutes in the Nothing make anything feral.
• The Royal Chariot — Its makers now fly a house.
• Staying human — 'I wasn't as indispensable as I thought […] a necessary feeling.'
• The show — Lucia's first emotion shown; Miriam cursed because 'the assholes thought it’d be hilarious'