Chapter 35 of 89 · Book 7, This Inevitable Ruin

Chapter 35 — Volteeg; the dwarves' tunnel

Book: This Inevitable Ruin · Part: The Ramp-Up · Previous: Chapter 34 — The king's message; Rosetta's whip · Next: Chapter 36 — Orren's zero zone · Floor: Floor 9 — Faction Wars · Series: the series

Opening

Volteeg did not consider himself worthy of love.

Summary

The Volteeg interlude: a pet bird who did not consider himself worthy of love. Mistress Henspar kept his cage clean, hid him in her jacket at the market with stolen berries, and cried when he sang; the pet biscuit gave him speech, the gargoyle race on the third floor gave him a mind and took his song; she died on the seventh floor to a crossbow bolt while he screamed over her, and the rage came, and then the Cookbook, whose hidden words in a prayer projection he only read on the ninth, hiding from the Conscription spell, until at the very end he made his one entry. A deal on the tenth: twenty-six seasons as an unprotected gargoyle guard, never fighting a crawler, sleeping as stone. Outside, the gargoyle body failed — no sleep, no stone, collapsing under gravity — and the Outreach guild found him security work on the Auditor General's compliance barge among the One-Offs, unique broken former crawlers, with a wheelchair-bound djinn and a burned cave fairy for friends. Now he is Weeper Commander Volteeg of the Operatic Collective, his racial powers back, a former crawler hidden among the mercenaries by Porthus's mole in the Syndicate bureaucracy who changed his pet designation; the other former crawlers who came in on the wrong side were found and fed to King Rust's ring for levels, as Porthus had underestimated. Rosetta recognised his name and Porthus asked him to his face; 'Because I am ashamed at my inaction'; 'It's not too late to do something about it.' He watches Rosetta behead the king. Bloc chat: Stalwart ('What's happening?'), Warlord Hortense Leadership Unit of the Operatics ('That newswoman did us all a favor'), Hortense declaring himself Bloc leader over Stalwart's dispute, a reluctant advance ('Can't we, you know, just go back and wait to die?'). The Weeper's flaw: its energy balls are volatile for the instant before firing unless the driver removes the fire-control chamber and keeps them. Dozens hum in his tank like a hive; Mozart on the console; he sings in a voice like rocks and steers for Hortense's shielded litter; a blitz stick — 'Show me Mistress Henspar' — into the ball on his lap. His card: Tank Buttress, Gargoyle born Sturnus, top level 71, author of the seventh edition; died detonating a Weeper in the centre of the Bloc force, killing over ten thousand including Hortense, eliminating the Operatic Collective.

Carl runs into the smoke for the king's body while Rosetta, kneeling with a datapad, presses Rust's ring and then his severed head to it for a retina scan — 'Are you… are you robbing him?' — and swaps credit chits. The Bone Clan's mercenaries hesitate at the smoke; a dozen war mages in glowing robes ride clockwork mounts, a horse, a dinosaur, a panther, a mantid, and Carl feels a primal dread. A Dispel strips the smoke and the ground: they drop twelve feet into a car-sized tunnel of the Semeru diggers among two dozen dwarves, who heal the yak, have already killed the two guards, and rush off shouting 'War mage in the tunnel! […] Destroy the heads!' The blast overhead bulges the roof. Hortense falls — 'accidental or a fragging incident, which would be funny as shit' — and the Operatics' assets go to the Bone Clan. Rosetta, weeping, presses a button: 'Transfer approved! Thank you for using Colloid Bank', and collapses sobbing. The enemy is retreating. 'What is this about Princess Formidable?' Carl is teleported before he can answer.

Characters

• Volteeg — The seventh edition's author: a singing bird made a gargoyle, who blew up an army for his mistress.
• Rosetta Thagra — A retina scan from a severed head; a bank transfer; sobbing in a tunnel.
• King Rust — Looted: a ring, an eye, a password.
• Hortense — The Operatics' warlord on a litter, 'the fat pile of goo that was Hortense', dead in the blast.
• Prince Stalwart — King now; disputes the Bloc's leadership from the rear.
• Carl — Head in hand under fire; dropped into a tunnel; pulled away mid-sentence.
• Princess Donut — On a rhino, through a floor.
• Simoom — Falls with the yak; comforts it.

Locations

• The dwarven tunnels — Car-sized passages under the plains for the diggers, held by Semeru.

Motifs

• The Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook — Volteeg's shame, Porthus's hand on his shoulder, one entry and one blast.
• The Ring of Divine Suffering — Former crawlers fed to Rust's ring for levels.
• Faction Wars — The Operatics eliminated by their own tank; assets to the Bone Clan.
• The mobs are victims — A pet with a biscuit; the One-Offs who cannot live outside.
• The war mages — Robed riders on clockwork beasts, a dozen of them, and dread.