Place · Book 4, The Gate of the Feral Gods

The Wasteland

The air castle: the dreadnaught Wasteland, a ripped-up island three football fields wide under five colossal balloons, a rusting, flying oil rig of corrugated huts, ballistae, moored wrecks and hand-armed bombs, once a peaceful sky garden. Blown to pieces by missiles from a hijacked balloon, it is reduced to its core: a Texan suburban house under one magical balloon, with the stairwell in the master bedroom closet, later decapitated, flown by two Americans, and renamed the Twister.

Segment appearances

Arc

The Wasteland

A speck against the ceiling (ch. 1); through a FarSeerer, a floating junkyard three football fields wide under five balloons, ballistae, a house on top, huts and chains hanging underneath, and a Knock-Knock under a quadcopter (ch. 2). It keeps a schedule over the water, bombs the Bactrians, and lowers itself to bomb Hump Town (ch. 4, ch. 11). Eight missiles from a hijacked balloon blow its armour off and drop chunks of it across three quadrants; what remains is a house pinned to the ceiling like a lost balloon (ch. 12).

Jennifer and Dale's house

A beige Texan suburban house with a double garage, a basketball hoop, Christmas lights, a Dallas Cowboys welcome sign, 'We don't dial 911', a K-pop poster in a girl's room, and a plumber and a librarian and three children, likely asleep, Carl thinks, when it was taken (ch. 15, ch. 17); the stairwell in the master bedroom closet; Kane dead on the kitchen table; a goose in the garbage disposal (ch. 16). Landed, looted to the studs, kept aloft by a soul crystal on a string (ch. 17); decapitated so the closet could leave the quadrant, flown by Louis and Firas, once inside Katia's inventory, named the Twister (ch. 20, ch. 28); a runway for a biplane; a raft for depth charges and a healing cat; sent through a portal to the sixth floor full of changelings and children (ch. 33).