Motif · Book 6, The Eye of the Bedlam Bride

Ysalte

Goddess of Hopelessness and Insanity, level 250, once of the Dirt, then of Tears; the Semeru dwarves' only goddess, patron of outcasts and bards, half-sister and niece of her former lover Taranis, threatened with the Nothing by Apito and fled to Sheol; Amayon's ex and mother of his child. Sponsored by Pontifex Shine of the Nebular Balance and not driven, she arrives through Sister Ines's corpse as a young dwarf with a pickaxe and a flickering scream, turns every potion to vinegar, enslaves a Demon Prince — and is beheaded by her own totem. A memorial crystal waits on a future floor.

Segment appearances

• Chapter 62 — Where the Sidewalk Ends
• Chapter 64 — Spunky Jefferson
• Chapter 65 — Graupel
• Chapter 66 — The Missing Piece
• Chapter 67 — The Big O
• Chapter 69 — A deity has fallen
• Chapter 71 — The Eye of the Bedlam Bride
• Chapter 72 — Falling Up

Progression

A prince's scream — 'Ysalte, I will flay you again' — and a name Carl half remembers (ch. 62); Mordecai's briefing: she is called the Vinegar Bitch (ch. 64); a marked man (ch. 65); a dwarf with a pickaxe (ch. 66); a deck (ch. 67); her head off, by her own totem, and a memorial crystal for a future floor (ch. 69).