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masterghandalfThis is a repost from Das_Sporking2. Previous installments of this spork may be found here.
Warning: This post contains violence, misogyny and deaths, including the death of an infant.
MG: Well, everyone, it’s time to continue our journey through Robert Newcomb’s The Scrolls of the Ancients; we’re almost through, people! Last time, Wulfgar recruited the Necrophagians (but very rudely refused to tell us what he knows about their true nature and origin), Tristan and Celeste had an inexplicable picnic before consummating their relationship, and Wigg and Faegan finally explained what Krassus and now Wulfgar have been up to all along… just as the book is about to end, sigh. Today, Wulfgar’s fleet approaches Eutracia, while we meet some new characters who really, really deserved to be more than an afterthought (but, knowing Newcomb, it’s not at all surprising that’s how he leaves them). Joining us today will be Ash and Irinali!
Chapter Sixty-Four
Irinali: And so, we open with a robed woman kneeling by the cradle of a sick child; the woman calls upon her magic for healing, careful to limit it so the baby’s family can’t tell what she’s doing, but to no avail, as the baby quietly dies. The woman, Adrian, stands and sadly tells the grieving family that she did all she could. As the parents openly weep, Adrian leaves their cottage and heads out into the street to retrieve her horse; looking back, she sadly muses that soon this house will hang the black ribbon of mourning, which is the sort of worldbuilding detail Newcomb usually doesn’t pay attention to and feels worth noting here. As Adrian rides away, she reflects sadly on her failure, and on the tattoo on the inside of her arm depicting the Paragon, which marks Adrian of the House of Brandywyne as one of the Acolytes of Fledgling House. Ah, yes. That order of Vigors-aligned sorceresses that Wigg apparently created only under pressure from Morganna and was introduced with much fanfare last book and then largely forgotten until close to the end of this book (I believe before this scene, they were mentioned in Scrolls all of once). You know, if Newcomb wanted us to meet this woman and properly be invested in her or her order, and have them actually matter for the climax, we ought to have met them sooner. Perhaps all that time we spent having irrelevant adventures with pirates might have been used to introduce Adrian instead, hmmm? And I am compelled to wonder – could she perhaps have saved the child if she didn’t have to hide her powers? And whose fault is it that nobody knows about Fledgling House and the fact that it’s illegal for a woman to use magic, Wigg?
We learn that Adrian is in a city called Tanglewood, which had a reputation for being dreary and not one of Eutracia’s better parts (there are better parts?) even before the Sorceresses’ invasion. We have some description of how dull and run-down the neighborhood is, mixed with some rather generic depictions of the city wakening up as the sun slowly rises. Adrian smells something baking, realizes how hungry she is and, making sure she has enough kisa, and decides to buy breakfast before returning to her nearby village. We learn that Adrian is about thirty – neither young nor old, though I think it’s still fairly on the “young” side for a human, and would make her somewhat younger than Tristan and Shailiha, who are certainly treated as young people – that she’s unmarried, an only child whose mother died giving birth to her, and that her father is a Consul who she hasn’t seen for more than a year now, which makes her worried about his fate (and the plausible options are… not very good). Apparently, he was important enough to know the Directorate personally, and since Adrian has heard they’re dead (only most of them… unfortunately) she worries he is as well. In fact, it’s been a long time since she’s seen any Consuls at all, which worries her. However, Consuls or no Consuls, Adrian is a proud and dedicated woman and intends to remain true to her duties – convictions I don’t share, but I feel I can respect. We learn she was one of the first graduating class of Acolytes, and that she still misses Duncan and Martha, the closest thing to a real family she ever had (unfortunately, we all know that Duncan is dead, and Martha… has vanished from the book, which is a pity considering she was one of Newcomb’s only somewhat likeable characters).
Blood Matters: 220
Gender Wars: 86 (for the reminder that the Acolytes have to hide and work in secret, even though they work under the Directorate, because they’re women)
Gratuitous Grimdark: 67 (I’m going ahead and giving a point for the death of an infant)
Protagonist-Centered Morality: 99 (why haven’t you officially legalized the Acolytes, Wigg?)
Ash: …thank you for not making me comment on the death of the child. That would’ve been… painful. Anyway, we then learn that Adrian isn’t particularly beautiful – amazing, from Newcomb! – but she doesn’t mind, since she’s confident enough in herself that the quality of her femininity mattered far less than the quality of her service to the craft. I’m not sure if I should be proud of Adrian for being secure in herself, or furious at Newcomb for reducing “the quality of her femininity” exclusively down to being beautiful or not. So I think I’ll split the difference and just simmer. Anyway, we finally get a description:
Adrian was rather short and plain. Her wide, level eyes were deep brown. Her sandy, curly, shoulder-length hair always seemed to be getting in the way. The sleeves of her dark red acolyte’s robe fell loosely down around her wrists, and the hem gently swished across the tops of her boots when she walked. A black, knotted cord secured the robe at its middle, its tasseled ends falling down along the outside of her right thigh.
As Adrian approaches an inn, she suddenly feels a strange sensation tugging on her. It’s not painful so much as needful… but needful of what? Which is somewhat unsettling, I can’t deny. Especially since as if suddenly possessed – why that, of all descriptions, Newcomb? – she turns around and rides off, knowing only she has to get to Tammerland and the palace. Apparently, it’s forbidden for the Acolytes to visit the palace, and the punishment is known to be severe - *sighs heavily* of course it is, Wigg – but Adrian’s newfound obsession is so powerful as to overwhelm her fear. Almost in a trance, she rides towards Tammerland, and apparently across Eutracia all the other Acolytes are doing the same. And all of this seems quite horrifying, because while I can gather it’s our (supposed) heroes making this call… just imagine what might happen if one of their enemies got ahold of something like this? What else can they make someone do? Gah, there was enough mind-control in this book already, and Newcomb’s insistence on using creepy language isn’t helping! We then cut to Wigg himself as he opens his eyes in the Redoubt library, where he and Faegan have been working on the Scroll. Faegan asks if something is done – I can guess what – and Wigg says it is, though he’s not sure if it will work. Faegan asks if he’s told Tristan and Celeste yet, and Wigg admits he hasn’t, and can’t bring himself to, because he loves them so much (oh, please). Faegan tells him he has to do it soon, or Faegan will do it instead. Wigg takes a long moment to consider the issue, then seems to come to a decision and summons a Minion warrior inside. Wigg and Faegan exchange a look, and then Wigg tells the Minion to bring him Tristan and Celeste, and the chapter comes to an end.
MG: The biggest issue with this chapter is that it comes far too late in the book, tbh. I maintain that Adrian, if she was going to be important, is a character we should have met long before this and actually gotten to know over the course of the book, instead of more-or-less getting a bulleted list of facts about her dropped on us all at once here. She seems like a decently interesting character, but at this point in the book it’s just so hard to care and far too late to be introducing new major characters (we’re almost 90% done!). I think it speaks to the shoddiness of some of Newcomb’s retcons, tbh – I can’t help but feel like he introduced Fledgling House and the Acolytes as a response to the (accurate) accusations about the sexism of the first book, but that he was never really invested in them and forgot about them almost entirely until he decided he needed them and dusted them off. And I also can’t help but think that we should have been introduced to Adrian by her saving the child – actually show us some of her skills and abilities as a sorceress! Having her fail makes her look ineffective when we should be seeing the opposite… and killing off a baby just to introduce a new character who failed to save her seems… miserably mean-spirited. In any case, that’s one chapter down – onward!
Exposition Intrusion: 285 (giving some points here for… everything about Adrian getting dropped on us in one big blob)
Gender Wars: 88
Protagonist-Centered Morality: 101
Chapter Sixty-Five
Irinali: We open as Tristan and Celeste enter the library and take a seat – with Newcomb going out of his way to note Tristan removing his weapons first (does he just wear those around his home, then?). Wigg pauses dramatically before telling them he needs to speak to them, and Tristan interrupts to say he wanted to talk to Wigg, too. *rolls her eyes* Well, isn’t that just convenient. Now everyone’s all hear and wants to talk to each other – let’s see what they have to say, hmm? Tristan asks if Wigg has come up with any ideas for how to beat Wulfgar. And Wigg admits he doesn’t, even though time is short. Useless old bastard. Tristan then says he has an idea and takes out something that the wizards recognize. Tristan remembers that the orbs can’t be summoned too far out over the Sea of Whispers, and thinks that if they can stop Wulfgar from making landfall, they can stop him from destroying the Orb of the Vigors. Which seems… rather obvious, and presumably “stopping Wulfgar before he makes landfall” is what you intended to do already.
In any case, they spend the next half hour going over plans (not telling us, of course); finally, Faegan admits it could work, but would require very precise timing and effort to pull off properly. Still, they compliment Tristan on his intelligence (gag), and at least promise to consider it (how much time for considering do you have, exactly? And indeed, even Tristan seems to recognize this, telling them to hurry). Then the conversation turns to what Wigg wanted to tell them. Wigg admits he has two things to say, and they both involve the Scroll, so he levitates it over as a glorified visual aid. First, he reminds everyone what the Watchwoman told him and Faegan about the “River of Thought” – don’t feel bad if you forgot that, I nearly did, too. Anyway, they figured out from the Scroll how to use the River, and Faegan put the proper Forestallment for it in Wigg’s blood. And so, alongside a description of what we already know about who the Consuls were and how they’re now all either dead or aligned with Wulfgar, Wigg explains that he used the River to summon the Acolytes of Fledgling House to the Redoubt, to take the Consuls’ place. Which, indeed, makes it seem like the Acolytes were only summoned out of hiding because Wigg needed more magical muscle, and was literally out of other options. Charming.
Blood Matters: 221
Exposition Intrusion: 288
Gender Wars: 89
Plot-Induced Stupidity: 105
Ash: *with the corner of one eye twitching rather ominously* Quite. Wigg then waxes poetic about how important it is to realize Morganna’s dream and give women practitioners of magic equality, as if he and his order weren’t the main obstacle to that in the first place, and how he would have called them sooner but had no way of doing so until he unlocked the River (which just makes him look like a bigger fool, creating a secret society he has no way to contact or command!). Tristan is stunned, though he worries some of the Acolytes might be imposters or traitors. Wigg points out that the real Acolytes will all be women of or under a certain age, will all be wearing red cloaks, and the wizards will, of course, check their blood signatures against their records to confirm their identities and be sure they haven’t been tampered with. *sigh* Which I suppose is an actually useful application of the blood obsession for once, not that it makes the rest of this concept less disturbing. He also wants the Minions to remove themselves from the palace to their campsites for the moment, so their presence doesn’t frighten the Acolytes away until they have a chance to explain (so, are none of the Acolytes based in Tammerland itself, then, where they would have seen them before?). Celeste wonders what the point of this is – oh, yes, what’s the point of summoning a small army of trained sorceresses to your side when you desperately need more magic on your side, who would ever think of that – and Faegan admits that now is the best time to get the Acolytes to safety before they can fall under Wulfgar’s influence. *rolls her eyes* Oh, so you need to protect them, rather than them being able to help fight your mutual enemies? Lovely.
The other thing the wizards want to discuss is whether Tristan and Celeste have been intimate – ah, yes, discussing her sex life with her father, this isn’t going to be awkward at all. Indeed, Tristan is shocked and offended, but Wigg insists it’s important, so Tristan fights down the urge to hit him (do it!) and finally he and Celeste admit they did it once, yesterday morning. Wigg asks if they saw a blue light, and Tristan says he might have, but he might have imagined it. Celeste wants to know why this is important, so Wigg calls her over and performs some spell examining her, which is blocked, as he says the Scroll said it might be. Faegan tries too, to similar results, and they have a bit of back-and-forth about the influence of Tristan’s blood meddling with things. Finally, Tristan demands to know what they’re on about, and Wigg assures them they’ve not done anything wrong (though I could argue Newcomb has, by thinking this pairing was a good idea…) but are caught up in forces they don’t understand. Faegan pulls a line of Old Eutracian text from the Scroll and makes it hover in midair, and Celeste reads it in growing horror.
Blood Matters: 223
Exposition Intrusion: 290
Gender Wars: 91
Plot-Induced Stupidity: 106
Irinali: Tristan angrily demands an explanation, pointing out how upset Celeste clearly is, so Faegan decides to read the passage aloud, in modern Eutracian:
“ ‘And should the Chosen One make use of his gifts before he is trained to do so, the ordeal shall alter the nature of his blood, changing it from red to azure. But with this change shall come a price. For should his seed then mingle with that of any female, the child they might produce would be horrible beyond description, for the blood of the Jin’Sai shall be tainted. And no endowed female in the world, except for the twin of the Jin’Sai, shall carry a blood signature strong enough to keep such a child from possessing the left-leaning signature that shall without question emerge. Such shall always be the case, until the blood of the Jin’Sai can be returned to red. Thus, no seed of the Jin’Sai may be allowed to walk the world at any price, and no practice of the craft shall be able to determine whether the Jin’Sai’s mate is with child. Only nature’s way of revealing the answer shall be available to those who shall both worry, and wonder . . .’ “
Irinali: Well, if that isn’t a contrivance, I don’t know what is. *rolls her eyes* Please, Newcomb, it couldn’t be clearer you just wanted to throw another complication into this relationship (especially as Tristan already had one “horrible” child, another would simply be redundant). And, I’ll note, that we still aren’t free of the cursed idea of “endowed blood” defining everyone’s actions. Tristan, stunned, demands to know why they weren’t told sooner, and the wizards, for once, have an excuse – they didn’t translate this passage until this morning (though that doesn’t explain why the Ones buried it here, if it’s so important). Tristan says he thought the Scrolls only contained Forestallments, and Wigg admits that they mostly do, but also have some further information, as the Tomen was (again, why bury it here without seeming rhyme or reason?). And, because of Tristan’s involvement muddling their spells, they won’t be able to tell if Celeste is pregnant until or unless she starts showing the normal way. How convenient (for Newcomb, inconvenient for the characters). For now, they’re forced to admit that Wulfgar is a more immediate threat and think it’s ironic how defeating the Coven saved the world but also turned Tristan’s blood blue, which no endangers it. *flatly* Ha. Ha.
Celeste, on the verge of tears, promises Tristan they’ll find a way around this, swearing that if she is pregnant, she’ll figure out how to have the child safely and I just. Don’t. Care. Tristan, himself on the verge of tears, can only nod, thinking once again about how he hates his blue blood (which, again, just makes me think Newcomb himself decided this was a stupid idea and is desperate to find a way to walk it back). He takes Celeste and hugs her for what seemed forever as the chapter finally ends.
MG: And this one, honestly, was mostly just exposition that seems to exist to either throw more curveballs into the story at a moment when it doesn’t need them (and, iirc, won’t amount to much anyway, considering the fate Celeste meets in the next book), or to describe things (Tristan’s plan to defeat Wulfgar, the return of the Acolytes) that should have been developed much earlier and can’t help but feel crammed in at the last minute. *sighs heavily* Anyway, one more chapter to go, and it’s a short one. Onward!
Blood Matters: 225
Contrivances and Coincidences: 61
Exposition Intrusion: 294
Gender Wars: 92
Gratuitous Grimdark: 68
Chapter Sixty-Six
Ash: And so, we open with two Minion warriors we’ve not seen before named Osiv and Takir as they circle above the Sea of Whispers, scouting but seeing nothing. Suddenly they spot a lone ship approaching, flying no flag (isn’t that normally a sign of a pirate ship?) and they swoop in to take a look… to find the ship mysteriously unmanned. This appropriately creeps Osiv out, as he remembers stories of ghost ships from Minion elders who claimed to have encountered them, and now I find myself wanting to know more about the oral history and culture of the Minions – it sounds much more interesting than, well, this. And, of course, faced with the “ghost ship,” they decide… to land on it and investigate, both of them, without sending Takir away to report what they found *facepalm*. They land on the ship, which seems completely deserted, and are distracted by a sudden sound. They go belowdecks, still seeing no one but finding signs of recent habitation; they wonder what happened and if it was the Necrophagians, despite their being no sign of a struggle. Returning to the deck, the two Minions… relax and start idly wondering where the crew could have gone. *headdesk* Save it for when you’re safely in the air, gentlemen – something is clearly terribly wrong here, and whatever it is could claim you next at any time! And indeed, their conversation is interrupted as Osiv’s head is suddenly sliced in two, in loving detail.
Takir draws his dreggan, demanding the enemy come face him, and only belatedly realizes he should fly away and report back to the fleet. *headdesks yet again* But a voice agrees to face him, then something runs him through and he dies. A blue glow appears in front of him before resolving into Wulfgar and his demonslaver crew. Wulfgar picks up Osiv’s dreggan from where it fell, waxing poetic about the craftsmanship and how he’s heard even his brother the Jin’Sai uses one. Okay, one, where did you hear that? The Consuls? Two… no, it’s not well-crafted. It’s a gimmick weapon that’s only good for one thing, because the blade is going to be weak and easily broken in the middle where the mechanism to extend it is, that’s an inherent flaw in this design that can’t be gotten rid of, that’s why nobody uses weapons like this except as toys and showpieces! Goddess help me, we’re almost through… But Wulfgar (sneering, so we know he’s the bad guy) tosses the dreggan overboard and tells the slavers to do the same to the corpses. As they do so, he thanks Nicholas for leaving them information about the Minions, from which he can guess their main fleet is no more than two days’ sailing away, and thanks Krassus for giving him the Forestallment of invisibility (so, wait, was everyone just standing really still on the ship so the Minions wouldn’t hear them, while being very careful to make sure neither of the Minions brushed or bumped into them? Or is this like that “invisibility” spell from the first book, that also makes you intangible for no readily apparent reason and hasn’t been used again?). Wulfgar then watches the Necrophagians messily devour the Minion corpses, apologizing there weren’t more but promising they’ll eat their fill soon enough, then turns the whole ship invisible as the chapter ends.
MG: And really, the only point of this chapter was to establish again that Wulfgar is coming, that he’s evil now, and that he can turn invisible. Kind of a waste, really. As for these chapters as a whole… they mostly seem filled with stuff that we should have had earlier, but because we spent so long getting sidetracked with pirate adventures and getting to know Wulfgar and Serena before they had their brains scooped out and were replaced with entirely different people, we had to cram it all in at the very end. Adrian and the Acolytes only being introduced properly now stands out as especially egregious and sloppy, but “Tristan and Celeste’s kid might be some sort of abomination” (when Tristan has already had a son who was basically the antichrist) has got to be up there as well, and just feels like Newcomb wanted to add a completely random last-minute conflict. *sigh* In any case, we’re almost done with the book, and by extension, the trilogy – per my schedule, only three more posts of actual sporking to go! Next time, the final battle begins. We’ll see you then! Our counts stand at:
Blood Matters: 226
Contrivances and Coincidences: 61
Dastardly Deeds: 139
Exposition Intrusion: 294
Gender Wars: 92
Gratuitous Grimdark: 68
Plot-Induced Stupidity: 110 (adding several points for The Dumbest Minions)
Protagonist-Centered Morality: 101
Retcons and Revelations: 29
Warning: This post contains violence, misogyny and deaths, including the death of an infant.
MG: Well, everyone, it’s time to continue our journey through Robert Newcomb’s The Scrolls of the Ancients; we’re almost through, people! Last time, Wulfgar recruited the Necrophagians (but very rudely refused to tell us what he knows about their true nature and origin), Tristan and Celeste had an inexplicable picnic before consummating their relationship, and Wigg and Faegan finally explained what Krassus and now Wulfgar have been up to all along… just as the book is about to end, sigh. Today, Wulfgar’s fleet approaches Eutracia, while we meet some new characters who really, really deserved to be more than an afterthought (but, knowing Newcomb, it’s not at all surprising that’s how he leaves them). Joining us today will be Ash and Irinali!
Chapter Sixty-Four
Irinali: And so, we open with a robed woman kneeling by the cradle of a sick child; the woman calls upon her magic for healing, careful to limit it so the baby’s family can’t tell what she’s doing, but to no avail, as the baby quietly dies. The woman, Adrian, stands and sadly tells the grieving family that she did all she could. As the parents openly weep, Adrian leaves their cottage and heads out into the street to retrieve her horse; looking back, she sadly muses that soon this house will hang the black ribbon of mourning, which is the sort of worldbuilding detail Newcomb usually doesn’t pay attention to and feels worth noting here. As Adrian rides away, she reflects sadly on her failure, and on the tattoo on the inside of her arm depicting the Paragon, which marks Adrian of the House of Brandywyne as one of the Acolytes of Fledgling House. Ah, yes. That order of Vigors-aligned sorceresses that Wigg apparently created only under pressure from Morganna and was introduced with much fanfare last book and then largely forgotten until close to the end of this book (I believe before this scene, they were mentioned in Scrolls all of once). You know, if Newcomb wanted us to meet this woman and properly be invested in her or her order, and have them actually matter for the climax, we ought to have met them sooner. Perhaps all that time we spent having irrelevant adventures with pirates might have been used to introduce Adrian instead, hmmm? And I am compelled to wonder – could she perhaps have saved the child if she didn’t have to hide her powers? And whose fault is it that nobody knows about Fledgling House and the fact that it’s illegal for a woman to use magic, Wigg?
We learn that Adrian is in a city called Tanglewood, which had a reputation for being dreary and not one of Eutracia’s better parts (there are better parts?) even before the Sorceresses’ invasion. We have some description of how dull and run-down the neighborhood is, mixed with some rather generic depictions of the city wakening up as the sun slowly rises. Adrian smells something baking, realizes how hungry she is and, making sure she has enough kisa, and decides to buy breakfast before returning to her nearby village. We learn that Adrian is about thirty – neither young nor old, though I think it’s still fairly on the “young” side for a human, and would make her somewhat younger than Tristan and Shailiha, who are certainly treated as young people – that she’s unmarried, an only child whose mother died giving birth to her, and that her father is a Consul who she hasn’t seen for more than a year now, which makes her worried about his fate (and the plausible options are… not very good). Apparently, he was important enough to know the Directorate personally, and since Adrian has heard they’re dead (only most of them… unfortunately) she worries he is as well. In fact, it’s been a long time since she’s seen any Consuls at all, which worries her. However, Consuls or no Consuls, Adrian is a proud and dedicated woman and intends to remain true to her duties – convictions I don’t share, but I feel I can respect. We learn she was one of the first graduating class of Acolytes, and that she still misses Duncan and Martha, the closest thing to a real family she ever had (unfortunately, we all know that Duncan is dead, and Martha… has vanished from the book, which is a pity considering she was one of Newcomb’s only somewhat likeable characters).
Blood Matters: 220
Gender Wars: 86 (for the reminder that the Acolytes have to hide and work in secret, even though they work under the Directorate, because they’re women)
Gratuitous Grimdark: 67 (I’m going ahead and giving a point for the death of an infant)
Protagonist-Centered Morality: 99 (why haven’t you officially legalized the Acolytes, Wigg?)
Ash: …thank you for not making me comment on the death of the child. That would’ve been… painful. Anyway, we then learn that Adrian isn’t particularly beautiful – amazing, from Newcomb! – but she doesn’t mind, since she’s confident enough in herself that the quality of her femininity mattered far less than the quality of her service to the craft. I’m not sure if I should be proud of Adrian for being secure in herself, or furious at Newcomb for reducing “the quality of her femininity” exclusively down to being beautiful or not. So I think I’ll split the difference and just simmer. Anyway, we finally get a description:
Adrian was rather short and plain. Her wide, level eyes were deep brown. Her sandy, curly, shoulder-length hair always seemed to be getting in the way. The sleeves of her dark red acolyte’s robe fell loosely down around her wrists, and the hem gently swished across the tops of her boots when she walked. A black, knotted cord secured the robe at its middle, its tasseled ends falling down along the outside of her right thigh.
As Adrian approaches an inn, she suddenly feels a strange sensation tugging on her. It’s not painful so much as needful… but needful of what? Which is somewhat unsettling, I can’t deny. Especially since as if suddenly possessed – why that, of all descriptions, Newcomb? – she turns around and rides off, knowing only she has to get to Tammerland and the palace. Apparently, it’s forbidden for the Acolytes to visit the palace, and the punishment is known to be severe - *sighs heavily* of course it is, Wigg – but Adrian’s newfound obsession is so powerful as to overwhelm her fear. Almost in a trance, she rides towards Tammerland, and apparently across Eutracia all the other Acolytes are doing the same. And all of this seems quite horrifying, because while I can gather it’s our (supposed) heroes making this call… just imagine what might happen if one of their enemies got ahold of something like this? What else can they make someone do? Gah, there was enough mind-control in this book already, and Newcomb’s insistence on using creepy language isn’t helping! We then cut to Wigg himself as he opens his eyes in the Redoubt library, where he and Faegan have been working on the Scroll. Faegan asks if something is done – I can guess what – and Wigg says it is, though he’s not sure if it will work. Faegan asks if he’s told Tristan and Celeste yet, and Wigg admits he hasn’t, and can’t bring himself to, because he loves them so much (oh, please). Faegan tells him he has to do it soon, or Faegan will do it instead. Wigg takes a long moment to consider the issue, then seems to come to a decision and summons a Minion warrior inside. Wigg and Faegan exchange a look, and then Wigg tells the Minion to bring him Tristan and Celeste, and the chapter comes to an end.
MG: The biggest issue with this chapter is that it comes far too late in the book, tbh. I maintain that Adrian, if she was going to be important, is a character we should have met long before this and actually gotten to know over the course of the book, instead of more-or-less getting a bulleted list of facts about her dropped on us all at once here. She seems like a decently interesting character, but at this point in the book it’s just so hard to care and far too late to be introducing new major characters (we’re almost 90% done!). I think it speaks to the shoddiness of some of Newcomb’s retcons, tbh – I can’t help but feel like he introduced Fledgling House and the Acolytes as a response to the (accurate) accusations about the sexism of the first book, but that he was never really invested in them and forgot about them almost entirely until he decided he needed them and dusted them off. And I also can’t help but think that we should have been introduced to Adrian by her saving the child – actually show us some of her skills and abilities as a sorceress! Having her fail makes her look ineffective when we should be seeing the opposite… and killing off a baby just to introduce a new character who failed to save her seems… miserably mean-spirited. In any case, that’s one chapter down – onward!
Exposition Intrusion: 285 (giving some points here for… everything about Adrian getting dropped on us in one big blob)
Gender Wars: 88
Protagonist-Centered Morality: 101
Chapter Sixty-Five
Irinali: We open as Tristan and Celeste enter the library and take a seat – with Newcomb going out of his way to note Tristan removing his weapons first (does he just wear those around his home, then?). Wigg pauses dramatically before telling them he needs to speak to them, and Tristan interrupts to say he wanted to talk to Wigg, too. *rolls her eyes* Well, isn’t that just convenient. Now everyone’s all hear and wants to talk to each other – let’s see what they have to say, hmm? Tristan asks if Wigg has come up with any ideas for how to beat Wulfgar. And Wigg admits he doesn’t, even though time is short. Useless old bastard. Tristan then says he has an idea and takes out something that the wizards recognize. Tristan remembers that the orbs can’t be summoned too far out over the Sea of Whispers, and thinks that if they can stop Wulfgar from making landfall, they can stop him from destroying the Orb of the Vigors. Which seems… rather obvious, and presumably “stopping Wulfgar before he makes landfall” is what you intended to do already.
In any case, they spend the next half hour going over plans (not telling us, of course); finally, Faegan admits it could work, but would require very precise timing and effort to pull off properly. Still, they compliment Tristan on his intelligence (gag), and at least promise to consider it (how much time for considering do you have, exactly? And indeed, even Tristan seems to recognize this, telling them to hurry). Then the conversation turns to what Wigg wanted to tell them. Wigg admits he has two things to say, and they both involve the Scroll, so he levitates it over as a glorified visual aid. First, he reminds everyone what the Watchwoman told him and Faegan about the “River of Thought” – don’t feel bad if you forgot that, I nearly did, too. Anyway, they figured out from the Scroll how to use the River, and Faegan put the proper Forestallment for it in Wigg’s blood. And so, alongside a description of what we already know about who the Consuls were and how they’re now all either dead or aligned with Wulfgar, Wigg explains that he used the River to summon the Acolytes of Fledgling House to the Redoubt, to take the Consuls’ place. Which, indeed, makes it seem like the Acolytes were only summoned out of hiding because Wigg needed more magical muscle, and was literally out of other options. Charming.
Blood Matters: 221
Exposition Intrusion: 288
Gender Wars: 89
Plot-Induced Stupidity: 105
Ash: *with the corner of one eye twitching rather ominously* Quite. Wigg then waxes poetic about how important it is to realize Morganna’s dream and give women practitioners of magic equality, as if he and his order weren’t the main obstacle to that in the first place, and how he would have called them sooner but had no way of doing so until he unlocked the River (which just makes him look like a bigger fool, creating a secret society he has no way to contact or command!). Tristan is stunned, though he worries some of the Acolytes might be imposters or traitors. Wigg points out that the real Acolytes will all be women of or under a certain age, will all be wearing red cloaks, and the wizards will, of course, check their blood signatures against their records to confirm their identities and be sure they haven’t been tampered with. *sigh* Which I suppose is an actually useful application of the blood obsession for once, not that it makes the rest of this concept less disturbing. He also wants the Minions to remove themselves from the palace to their campsites for the moment, so their presence doesn’t frighten the Acolytes away until they have a chance to explain (so, are none of the Acolytes based in Tammerland itself, then, where they would have seen them before?). Celeste wonders what the point of this is – oh, yes, what’s the point of summoning a small army of trained sorceresses to your side when you desperately need more magic on your side, who would ever think of that – and Faegan admits that now is the best time to get the Acolytes to safety before they can fall under Wulfgar’s influence. *rolls her eyes* Oh, so you need to protect them, rather than them being able to help fight your mutual enemies? Lovely.
The other thing the wizards want to discuss is whether Tristan and Celeste have been intimate – ah, yes, discussing her sex life with her father, this isn’t going to be awkward at all. Indeed, Tristan is shocked and offended, but Wigg insists it’s important, so Tristan fights down the urge to hit him (do it!) and finally he and Celeste admit they did it once, yesterday morning. Wigg asks if they saw a blue light, and Tristan says he might have, but he might have imagined it. Celeste wants to know why this is important, so Wigg calls her over and performs some spell examining her, which is blocked, as he says the Scroll said it might be. Faegan tries too, to similar results, and they have a bit of back-and-forth about the influence of Tristan’s blood meddling with things. Finally, Tristan demands to know what they’re on about, and Wigg assures them they’ve not done anything wrong (though I could argue Newcomb has, by thinking this pairing was a good idea…) but are caught up in forces they don’t understand. Faegan pulls a line of Old Eutracian text from the Scroll and makes it hover in midair, and Celeste reads it in growing horror.
Blood Matters: 223
Exposition Intrusion: 290
Gender Wars: 91
Plot-Induced Stupidity: 106
Irinali: Tristan angrily demands an explanation, pointing out how upset Celeste clearly is, so Faegan decides to read the passage aloud, in modern Eutracian:
“ ‘And should the Chosen One make use of his gifts before he is trained to do so, the ordeal shall alter the nature of his blood, changing it from red to azure. But with this change shall come a price. For should his seed then mingle with that of any female, the child they might produce would be horrible beyond description, for the blood of the Jin’Sai shall be tainted. And no endowed female in the world, except for the twin of the Jin’Sai, shall carry a blood signature strong enough to keep such a child from possessing the left-leaning signature that shall without question emerge. Such shall always be the case, until the blood of the Jin’Sai can be returned to red. Thus, no seed of the Jin’Sai may be allowed to walk the world at any price, and no practice of the craft shall be able to determine whether the Jin’Sai’s mate is with child. Only nature’s way of revealing the answer shall be available to those who shall both worry, and wonder . . .’ “
Irinali: Well, if that isn’t a contrivance, I don’t know what is. *rolls her eyes* Please, Newcomb, it couldn’t be clearer you just wanted to throw another complication into this relationship (especially as Tristan already had one “horrible” child, another would simply be redundant). And, I’ll note, that we still aren’t free of the cursed idea of “endowed blood” defining everyone’s actions. Tristan, stunned, demands to know why they weren’t told sooner, and the wizards, for once, have an excuse – they didn’t translate this passage until this morning (though that doesn’t explain why the Ones buried it here, if it’s so important). Tristan says he thought the Scrolls only contained Forestallments, and Wigg admits that they mostly do, but also have some further information, as the Tomen was (again, why bury it here without seeming rhyme or reason?). And, because of Tristan’s involvement muddling their spells, they won’t be able to tell if Celeste is pregnant until or unless she starts showing the normal way. How convenient (for Newcomb, inconvenient for the characters). For now, they’re forced to admit that Wulfgar is a more immediate threat and think it’s ironic how defeating the Coven saved the world but also turned Tristan’s blood blue, which no endangers it. *flatly* Ha. Ha.
Celeste, on the verge of tears, promises Tristan they’ll find a way around this, swearing that if she is pregnant, she’ll figure out how to have the child safely and I just. Don’t. Care. Tristan, himself on the verge of tears, can only nod, thinking once again about how he hates his blue blood (which, again, just makes me think Newcomb himself decided this was a stupid idea and is desperate to find a way to walk it back). He takes Celeste and hugs her for what seemed forever as the chapter finally ends.
MG: And this one, honestly, was mostly just exposition that seems to exist to either throw more curveballs into the story at a moment when it doesn’t need them (and, iirc, won’t amount to much anyway, considering the fate Celeste meets in the next book), or to describe things (Tristan’s plan to defeat Wulfgar, the return of the Acolytes) that should have been developed much earlier and can’t help but feel crammed in at the last minute. *sighs heavily* Anyway, one more chapter to go, and it’s a short one. Onward!
Blood Matters: 225
Contrivances and Coincidences: 61
Exposition Intrusion: 294
Gender Wars: 92
Gratuitous Grimdark: 68
Chapter Sixty-Six
Ash: And so, we open with two Minion warriors we’ve not seen before named Osiv and Takir as they circle above the Sea of Whispers, scouting but seeing nothing. Suddenly they spot a lone ship approaching, flying no flag (isn’t that normally a sign of a pirate ship?) and they swoop in to take a look… to find the ship mysteriously unmanned. This appropriately creeps Osiv out, as he remembers stories of ghost ships from Minion elders who claimed to have encountered them, and now I find myself wanting to know more about the oral history and culture of the Minions – it sounds much more interesting than, well, this. And, of course, faced with the “ghost ship,” they decide… to land on it and investigate, both of them, without sending Takir away to report what they found *facepalm*. They land on the ship, which seems completely deserted, and are distracted by a sudden sound. They go belowdecks, still seeing no one but finding signs of recent habitation; they wonder what happened and if it was the Necrophagians, despite their being no sign of a struggle. Returning to the deck, the two Minions… relax and start idly wondering where the crew could have gone. *headdesk* Save it for when you’re safely in the air, gentlemen – something is clearly terribly wrong here, and whatever it is could claim you next at any time! And indeed, their conversation is interrupted as Osiv’s head is suddenly sliced in two, in loving detail.
Takir draws his dreggan, demanding the enemy come face him, and only belatedly realizes he should fly away and report back to the fleet. *headdesks yet again* But a voice agrees to face him, then something runs him through and he dies. A blue glow appears in front of him before resolving into Wulfgar and his demonslaver crew. Wulfgar picks up Osiv’s dreggan from where it fell, waxing poetic about the craftsmanship and how he’s heard even his brother the Jin’Sai uses one. Okay, one, where did you hear that? The Consuls? Two… no, it’s not well-crafted. It’s a gimmick weapon that’s only good for one thing, because the blade is going to be weak and easily broken in the middle where the mechanism to extend it is, that’s an inherent flaw in this design that can’t be gotten rid of, that’s why nobody uses weapons like this except as toys and showpieces! Goddess help me, we’re almost through… But Wulfgar (sneering, so we know he’s the bad guy) tosses the dreggan overboard and tells the slavers to do the same to the corpses. As they do so, he thanks Nicholas for leaving them information about the Minions, from which he can guess their main fleet is no more than two days’ sailing away, and thanks Krassus for giving him the Forestallment of invisibility (so, wait, was everyone just standing really still on the ship so the Minions wouldn’t hear them, while being very careful to make sure neither of the Minions brushed or bumped into them? Or is this like that “invisibility” spell from the first book, that also makes you intangible for no readily apparent reason and hasn’t been used again?). Wulfgar then watches the Necrophagians messily devour the Minion corpses, apologizing there weren’t more but promising they’ll eat their fill soon enough, then turns the whole ship invisible as the chapter ends.
MG: And really, the only point of this chapter was to establish again that Wulfgar is coming, that he’s evil now, and that he can turn invisible. Kind of a waste, really. As for these chapters as a whole… they mostly seem filled with stuff that we should have had earlier, but because we spent so long getting sidetracked with pirate adventures and getting to know Wulfgar and Serena before they had their brains scooped out and were replaced with entirely different people, we had to cram it all in at the very end. Adrian and the Acolytes only being introduced properly now stands out as especially egregious and sloppy, but “Tristan and Celeste’s kid might be some sort of abomination” (when Tristan has already had a son who was basically the antichrist) has got to be up there as well, and just feels like Newcomb wanted to add a completely random last-minute conflict. *sigh* In any case, we’re almost done with the book, and by extension, the trilogy – per my schedule, only three more posts of actual sporking to go! Next time, the final battle begins. We’ll see you then! Our counts stand at:
Blood Matters: 226
Contrivances and Coincidences: 61
Dastardly Deeds: 139
Exposition Intrusion: 294
Gender Wars: 92
Gratuitous Grimdark: 68
Plot-Induced Stupidity: 110 (adding several points for The Dumbest Minions)
Protagonist-Centered Morality: 101
Retcons and Revelations: 29
