Chapter 23 of 35 · Book 4, The Gate of the Feral Gods

Chapter 23 — The winding box explained

Book: The Gate of the Feral Gods · Previous: Chapter 22 — Mrs. Ghazi · Next: Chapter 24 — Samantha · Floor: Floor 5 — The Bubbles · Series: the series

Opening

One morning, back when Bea and I first moved in together, I decided to make pancakes.

Summary

A memory: the pancake morning, the bath, the emergency room. Donut wakes underwater and screams like 'amplified baby combined with an outboard motor', sinks, and is calmed only by 'MONGO NEEDS YOU.' Corpses of Nude Glabers — pink, wrinkled, mole-rat-headed, drowned in their settlements when the tomb flooded — sink past; a Bubble Beluga with a glass spear through her head. A shark eats the alarm trap and circles up playing Jump Around. Donut's move called 'Hekla' (Second Chance plus Clockwork Triplicate) sends the beluga and two exploding clockwork copies at it, and Concierge Sharks — black, red-eyed, 'Death's Welcoming Committee', attracted to blood — arrive by the dozen and eat each other while Carl swims under the drain's torrent to the far side. On the surface: the castle simply gone, the two towers glinting like obelisks, a feeding frenzy off to the right. The garage's plastic kayak comes out of inventory; the scrolls expire and both vomit lungfuls of brown water, Donut's ending in a live fish. 'That was pretty awesome.' 'Go fuck yourself, Carl.'

Home is now a pub in Pandinus, a town of pazuzu — scorpion-centaurs in Mad Max leather. Gwen's team digs out the stairwell under the drain spray. No boss box: the ooze is not fully 'defeated' — probably, Carl guesses, a grain of sand somewhere in the ocean; Milquetoast! ('paying money to a prostitute just so she'll cuddle with you') and I was in the pool! ('an honorary mudskipper') instead. Donut gets a Belt of Buoyancy she swears never to need and a Dodge potion to 10, which gives permanent Deflection — arrows half as accurate against her, and more likely to hit Carl or Mongo. Carl gets two Potions of Bloodlust (strength and speed doubled, a 'Where the Fuck Am I? Who the Fuck Are You?' debuff, faster with every kill), which Mordecai says once made a man kill half his party. Ghazi's looted note to Tish explains the artifact: dial a time on one watch and it mirrors on the other; times are places; put both in the box and wind it; the second watch ticks until it matches the current location, the alarm sounds, the box is armed; remove the watches and a one-way portal opens for twenty minutes or until the box and watches go through — after which the opening side stays open, two-way, into the Nothing until something comes through, often a feral god, and weak minds near the door catch the madness. The box alone, wound and charged, opens straight into the Nothing; that is how Ghazi met 'Yarilo'. The note breaks off where his plan to defeat Psamathe begins, and a page is missing; of the ooze's jealousy he wrote only 'I can use this. I don’t yet know how.' Katia: the listed times are all places around Larracos, and she can map the ninth floor from them. Mordecai: crawlers cannot hop floors; a gate to the Plains of Larracos would only let something out. Ghazi's last drawing shows the one combination that releases nothing (a watch on each side, the box inside); Carl fixes on the second-to-last — 'Holy fucking shit' — and says nothing. Four and a half days. 'Is there a Desperado Club in this town?'

Characters

• Carl — A bath, once; a kayak; Bloodlust potions pocketed; an idea from a drawing.
• Princess Donut — The scream; 'Hekla' underwater; a fish; a Belt of Buoyancy; Dodge 10.
• Katia Grim — Reads the note: a map of the ninth floor from a list of times.
• Mordecai — 'Don't use those'; no floor-hopping; onto something with the yam.
• Mongo — Chirps in agreement with the outrage.
• Gwendolyn Duet — Digging out a buried stairwell.
• Ghazi — His note to Tish; the missing page.
• Tish — The note's addressee; the next expedition.
• Bea — The pancake morning.
• Louis and Firas — Asleep in Pandinus.

Locations

• The water quadrant — Concierge Sharks; Nude Glaber corpses; a quarter mile to shore.
• Pandinus — A pazuzu town in post-apocalyptic leather; a pub with a door home.
• The sandcastle — Gone but for two towers; the stairwell under the spray.
• Larracos — Every destination on the list; the Plains; a closed gate in the casino.

Motifs

• The Gate of the Feral Gods — How it works, in Ghazi's hand; the safe combination; the one Carl wants.
• Achievements — Milquetoast!; I was in the pool!
• Loot boxes — Boss boxes worth less each floor; city-boss and up from here.
• The gods — Weak minds near the door; things bigger than the bubble.
• The sand ooze — A grain of sand in an ocean.
• 'Goddamnit, Donut' — 'This is a betrayal worse than when you gave my pet biscuits to that danger dingo.'