Motif · Book 7, This Inevitable Ruin

The war mages

Explained on the Iron Tangle before they are met: You're Not Done Yet is a War Mage spell of 'the brutal, mass combat that will occur on the ninth floor', turning the fallen into fleshers and bones; Carl beheads one named Dismember on a train and keeps its head.

Segment appearances

• Chapter 34 — The king's message; Rosetta's whip
• Chapter 35 — Volteeg; the dwarves' tunnel
• Chapter 39 — Alliances break; Operation Snake Pit
• Chapter 43 — Odette hosts; 'It's coming'
• Chapter 56 — Justice Light; the Nest
• Chapter 57 — Thirty-two boxes; the last prisoner
• Chapter 60 — Meatus; the King's Point erupts
• Chapter 61 — The War Mage Rebellion
• Chapter 62 — A non-team entity
• Chapter 65 — Bear Witness
• Chapter 68 — The Grease Monkey
• Chapter 69 — Interlude — Several days earlier; Interlude — Rosetta; Zarogoths
• Chapter 70 — City of Broken Dreams
• Chapter 71 — Donkey Kong
• Chapter 72 — Diah
• Chapter 73 — An act of fiendish cruelty
• Chapter 74 — Bijanbi
• Chapter 75 — Stayfast Ink
• Chapter 76 — The Oak Fell
• Chapter 77 — Not yet
• Chapter 78 — The Scavenger's daughter is with us now
• Chapter 83 — Psamathe confesses

Progression

A dozen robed riders on clockwork mounts, and a primal dread (ch. 35); Stalwart's largest force of them ever (ch. 34). Their card: nobody made them; a flesher re-sleeves a body until the magic goes sapient; heads that explode ten minutes after death; 'maybe you should ask that pissed-off changeling army' (ch. 61). They kill a king, spare Elle, take the Gate, and go to Juice Box (ch. 61, ch. 62); a non-team entity with standing, a residual for a warlord, a Conscription potion for gods and a zarogoth generator in a theatre (ch. 68, ch. 69, ch. 70). Carl's own plan would have made thousands more, and he is relieved when it fails (ch. 65). They leave with the Scavenger's daughter (ch. 78).