Chapter 42 of 74 · Book 6, The Eye of the Bedlam Bride

Chapter 42 — Sharp-Elbows

Book: The Eye of the Bedlam Bride · Part: The Father · Previous: Chapter 41 — Jola the Yule Cat · Next: Chapter 43 — The motorcycle · Floor: Floor 8 — The Ghosts of Earth · Series: the series

Opening

<Note added by Crawler Drakea.

Summary

The epigraph, from Drakea (22nd Edition), observes that mobs on the tenth floor and below meet death with joy, curiosity and frustration, as if the voice that runs the world keeps trying and failing to know what it is like to lose it all. In the turkey barn the boss event negates Carl's extinction sigil. The AI's description of Tom, level-75 Bereft Shaman and Deckmaster Eight, observes that turkeys were bred white so that those holding the butcher knife face less revulsion; his god Wakinyan was tossed into the Nothing and lately killed by a goat, and his rudderless congregation accepted an ogre necromancer witch's protection for a small daily sacrifice. The AI warns a bomb may go off early, and Carl works it out: the heat lamps, on purpose.

That witch is Sharp-Elbows, level 80, Deckmaster Nine, seven feet of green rags and dripping two-foot spikes. The AI sulks through her description, which it has been told to keep short. The Thief steals one of her two Unk Tehi lizard temple guards, brothers who fight each other. Two persistent mystics shape the field: Idolized turns every turkey red and gobbling, and Ralphie dispels all magic and mutes all minions — including Carl, who counts as a minion in card battles. The barn's far end drops off the cliff; a heater sets turkeys alight. Shi Maria is summoned and snared straight back.

Then Sharp-Elbows plays the Worm Fulcrum — a mystic Necro and a Walking Stick totem, a gnarled tree with a black beating heart, pulled up spewing worms — and the dead turkeys rise under zombie-movie rules. Carl activates the Daughter's Kiss, a skill rather than a spell, and kicks a hole in the world: Tom is obliterated, the north wall bows, and the floor tilts. The living birds flee toward the edge and the zombies fall on them; Mongo tumbles, is caught by the tail, and bolts into the rafters.

Sharp-Elbows rolls into Carl like a truck, spikes through arms, stomach, legs, neck and both eyes. Blind and teeth to teeth, she tells him they are starved: 'When we're not here, we are there […] And when we're there, they make certain the hunger festers. You can stop it. You can satiate us all, Carl.' Raul snaps the staff, a Heal returns Carl's sight to her pleading, afraid eyes — eyes he has seen before — and the crab takes her head. Pater Coal's secret ring, disguised as his strength ring, burns against overload. Dangling from a pole over the edge, Carl pockets corpses as his wounds reopen; Donut lands on his shoulder and Puddle Jumps them away, and he blacks out as the barn goes into the sea.

Characters

• Carl — Kicks a hole in the world; blinded by spikes; hears a plea from the mob.
• Princess Donut — Steals a card, anchors Mongo with her claws, jumps them out.
• Mongo — Unconscious, then sliding, then gone up the rafters.
• Sharp-Elbows — Ogre necromancer of the Ioway, 'They starve us'; sad eyes.
• Tom — A bereft shaman whose god a goat killed; 'Gobble?'
• Raul — Snaps a staff and a neck; earns 'Master Carl'
• Lazarus-A-Bang-Bang — An RPG that goes off early.
• Pater Coal — The secret ring, overloading.

Locations

• Dallas County, Iowa — The turkey barn tilting into the ocean.

Motifs

• The System AI — 'Our special connection'; observing things; Drakea's theory of a voice entering dying minds.
• Waking the NPCs — 'When we're not here, we are there […] You can satiate us all.'
• T'Ghee totems — Persistent mystics, a totem that is also a mystic, a minion named Carl.
• The Scavenger's Daughter — The Kiss as a skill under Ralphie's mute.
• Explosives — Heat lamps built to detonate his bombs.
• The Nothing — Wakinyan's escape and death by goat.
• The three phases — Nine tokens; two deckmasters at once.