Character · Book 5, The Butcher's Masquerade

Diwata

A god of trees, squirrels and forest rats, one of Apito's brood but not a direct child, always changing sex, disliked by a pantheon that hates her power to give birth to ordinary new life: sponsored by Circe Took, born from a Crest hunter tricked into her temple as a birthing vessel, the dryads' blood flowing into his mouth, gone in five minutes to cure her daughter — as a male mantis — and stuck on the floor as a birthing female by her own spell. Mantises behead the security guards and Carl realises Diwata is in the castle; she is knocked out by Samantha's soul crystals, and is stripped from her driver by Laundry Day: 'has returned to the Halls of Ascendency.'

Segment appearances

Arc

Her shrine broken and Carl an Enemy of the Church (ch. 36); her dryads and their mayors turn town after town hostile (ch. 39, ch. 45); summoned by the dryads and bought by Circe Took (ch. 55). Marked for death by a god (ch. 61) who runs the other way: born in a church from a hunter, gone in five minutes to cure her daughter (ch. 62). Stuck on the floor as a birthing mantis by her own spell (ch. 70), the security-room guards are found beheaded and Carl knows she is there; she is knocked out by soul crystals in Samantha's mouth (ch. 73); in the pit Laundry Day strips her off her driver and she goes home (ch. 76).