Shadowed By Wings Spork, Part Seven

[epistler]

Part Seven: Zarq Continues To Be Useless

Zarq carries on with the dragon sex, and does pretty well for herself because she knows a lot about dragon care – unlike the others. So she tells the jailers she “learned” all sorts of things about how to keep dragons healthy, which makes her something of a star for a while. Meanwhile she now shacks up with Misutvia but doesn’t like it as much. Eventually though they get tired of her constantly going on about dragon fodder and whatnot, and she’s not the flavour of the month any more. Oh well, it was fun while it lasted.

A while after this a new girl notices that the eunuch hasn’t shown up when he was supposed to. They all wait around uselessly bickering for fear of getting into trouble, but nobody comes along and they start to get desperate since nobody’s bringing them any water. Eventually Misutvia stands up and declares that they’ve been abandoned and this is their opportunity to escape. The others are reluctant, but she manages to rally them.

Yeah, the secondary character is, once again, the proactive one while Zarq is useless. The only rebellious thing Zarq does in this scene is reveal her real name even though that’s a big no-no. My hero. *sigh*

They put together some makeshift weapons, and Zarq teaches the others some combat techniques we’ve never heard of her using before, one of which she apparently learned as a child while she was with those travelling merchants. In other words, it’s just like that bit earlier on in this book when we suddenly found out she learned how to build stuff at the convent, even though it was never mentioned. So it’s basically just New Powers As The Plot Demands. At least it’s not as egregious as it was in Eragon, but pull this trick more than once and the reader is going to stop trusting you pretty quickly, and by this point I wouldn’t trust Ms Cross if she told me the sky was blue.

They bust out of the room ready for a fight, only to find there’s nobody there. In fact there’s nobody about, period. They’ve been bricked in. (How did nobody notice anything going on? Building a stone wall tends to make a fair bit of racket). They realise they’re completely trapped, with no food or water. Oe noes!

They bicker some more, Zarq worries about the haunt escaping, and Misutvia eventually deduces that the place has been hastily sealed off in an attempt to disguise it from the outside, since the Temple doesn’t want anyone finding out about it. She gets excited, declaring that it must be because Malaban has come for her, and they must find a way to alert him that they’re inside before he leaves. She now reveals her real name: Caranku Bri, aka Jotan Bri (and the Star Wars vibe just keeps on coming). Apparently this title indicates that she’s a teacher, and she confirms that – oh, for fuck’s sake – she was an “academician” who was arrested for organising a protest over the disappearance of one of her colleagues.

In other words, she’s a fucking university professor. The author barely even tries to disguise it, as Misutvia talks about how her university-by-another-name teaches “arts and sciences”. Did nobody realise how jarring this is?

Oh, but it gets better. Zarq asks her if she’d do it again knowing what the consequences would be, and Misutvia answers with “If no one protests an injustice, it becomes ordinary and acceptable. In time, a greater injustice creeps on its heels. Society is shaped by dissent, Zarq, justice birthed by complaint.”

Yet again, a character is reduced to the author’s mouthpiece. Nobody talks like this! What sociology textbook are you quoting here anyway, Ms Cross? Gah. You know, you can deal with themes of social justice without throwing it in the reader’s face on every other page. You really can. Either way this results in a little catfight and they both go to bed pissed at each other. Zarq’s level of maturity continues to leave me soundly unimpressed.

During the night the haunt finally takes charge, possessing Zarq’s body while confining Zarq herself to her own womb (no, really). She wakes up to find out she’s used magic to destroy the place, and now everybody’s free – if petrified.

Misutvia however manages to get a grip on herself, and Zarq explains about the haunt. Misutvia says she’s heard of that sort of thing happening among the Djimbi sometimes, and after they’re done chatting they prepare to find a way out.  Yellow Face 2.0 throws a hissy fit, saying she’s going to report the pair of them, even though everyone else points out that the moment anyone finds out she’s escaped she’ll be killed. A boring argument ensues, during which Misutvia is hit over the head and knocked unconscious. Zarq talks a couple of the newbies into making a break for it with her, and they pick up Misutvia and finally skedaddle. Just why it had to take three freaking chapters, I’ve no idea.

They eventually run into a solitary guard (I refuse to keep calling them Retainers), and promptly kick his ass. Girl Power! I love how Zarq has somehow become a badass fighter right out of the blue (again).

After that the other two women suddenly chicken out, saying to leave the unconscious Misutvia behind (no, I don’t know why Zarq has reverted to thinking of her by her  prisoner name, but it’s not very respectful of her). One of them runs off and dies, and Zarq is then confronted by another guard and immediately concludes that she’s fucked. But psych! – it’s not a guard at all, but none other than the dragonmaster, and Kratt! They’ve finally tracked her down and are here to take her back, but Zarq insists that they take Misutvia with them. The dragonmaster isn’t interested, but when Kratt finds out she has a rich and important brother he declares that they’ll take her because he likes the idea of having the guy in his debt. He picks her up and carries her back, “draped over his shoulders like a gharial carcass”.

Who killed thegharialguy? Film at eleven.

On the way out they’re confronted by some of the daronpius who ran the place (I’m still not sure what a daronpu is, but I’m assuming it’s some sort of priest). They threaten Kratt, but he coolly talks his way out of the situation with the judicious use of a few subtle threats, and I’m actually starting to like this guy. He’s definitely smarter and more capable than Zarq, not that that’s at all difficult.

It takes “several days” to get back home, which is odd because I could have sworn the journey over there took just a few hours. What gives? Did they not travel on dragonback? If not, why not? Kratt arrived on a dragon, so why didn’t they fly back?

Either way Zarq wakes up back in the dragonmaster’s stable, which means she’s basically back to square one. Which means the whole “imprisonment and torture” thing was – you guessed it! – completely pointless. Yet the blurb decided to make out as if it was the main plot of the book, despite the fact that it takes up less than a quarter of the page count and doesn’t go anywhere. Someone at Roc is a big fat liar.

Zarq is yet again desperate for more venom. The dragonmaster tries to get her to eat and get back to her training, but she’s not interested and just lies there for days, demanding a fix. She has unsupervised dragonsex during a fit of desperation, and almost dies. It was about this point that I mentally replaced her with a talking sack of rocks, being as she’s about as useful as one. The dragonmaster decides to stage an intervention and brings her a visitor – none other than Daronpu Gen, the crazy guy who took her in in the previous book after she got slashed up the back with a sword. The same guy who owned the scroll with the information about how a circumcised woman could work with dragons. Remember him?

In typical fashion, he roars on about how Zarq is fucked up and needs to be weaned off the venom or she’ll die. He is somehow able to see the haunt and then kisses Zarq on the mouth (???!!), which causes her to see his psyche, Eragon mindrape-style. I have absolutely no idea what the fuck is going on here. He then declares that he’ll make up some sort of potion to fix her, then leaves.

He comes back two days later with a small boy who has obviously had the shit abused out of him. He’s a eunuch, he’s been branded on the forehead, he’s missing a finger and one ear, and looks pathetic in general. To her horror, Zarq realises that it’s none other than her little brother. You know, the same little brother neither her nor her mother gave a damn about. The one she’s barely so much as thought of since he was essentially sold into a lifetime of slavery. That little brother. Zarq has spent more time wangsting about KZ than she’s devoted to worrying about what might have become of the kid (ie. not at all).

Gen prompts the kid into talking about the nightmares he’s been having recently, and it turns out the poor sod is in servitude to Kratt’s principal wife… and that Kratt rapes him whenever he catches him alone, which he apparenty does to a lot of his underlings. Because apparently it’s not enough that he murderd Zarq’s dad and drove her mother into exile; he has to be a pedophile as well. I’m honestly reminded of Terry Goodkind’s usual shortcut for making his villains look villainous, and not in a good way.

Gen then tells Zarq that if she doesn’t survive the Arena, the haunt will pass on to her brother. He adds that if that happens he won’t be able to fulfill the prophecy because he’s not the prophecised one, or some junk like that. Zarq finally asks just what the hell the prophecy even is, and… okay, you’re not ready for this. Are you sitting down? Not drinking anything?

Okay, the prophecy is this:

Nashe.

It’s literally one word. And a made-up word at that. Apparently it’s Djimbi for “hatching”, and it’s supposed to be some sort of metaphor. In the mainsteam language it translates into another made-up word: “manumission”, which means “setting the enslaved free”. Wow, that’s… so non-specific it’s all but useless.

Gen and the dragonmaster bicker a bit, and then Gen confronts her with the kid, commanding her to take his hand and promise not to condemn him to even worse suffering than what he’s already had to endure. She asks the kid his name and he says it’s “Naji” – the exact same name Zarq was given while she was locked up. Wow, talk about an amazing (and completely meaningless) coincidence. Zarq angrily informs him that his actual name at birth was Re Darquel’s Waikar. She also tells him the names of their parents, and adds that their mother loved him. (I guess that’s why she forgot all about the kid five minutes after he was taken away). He asks if Zarq knew her, and whether she’s alive, and Zarq is evasive on both. Why she doesn’t just tell him she’s his sister, I’ve no idea.

Zarq then gives him his adult name, apropos of nothing: Ingalis Hadrun Alun. Apparently it means “the will to be responsible to yourself”. She reassures him that he won’t be bothered by Kratt or nightmares again.

Exit Zarq’s brother, and no he won’t be seen ever again, so let’s just assume Gen kept his promise to find a nice new home for him and that he lived happily ever after.

The chapter ends with Zarq declaring that she’ll be getting up off her backside and preparing to fight in the arena after all. Woo. Who knew getting out of drug-induced depression was that easy? I bet that old schoolmate of mine who jumped to his death off a balcony right after gratuation feels like a right idiot now. (Rest in Peace, Mike).

So Zarq returns to the training yard, only to find everyone being rather standoffish and hostile. She’s not sure why, but the dragonmaster tells her it’s because while she was gone a daronpus came by every day to preach (about what I’m not sure) and from now on she has to stay separate from everyone else and not accept any food or drink that doesn’t come directly from him.

So now everyone hates Zarq (join the club), and the dragonmaster brings her a nice little picnic basket for her dinner. Here we find out that people in this setting eat gharial meat, and that it smells “rich and oily”.

The gruesome fate of thegharialguy’s body – full report tonight at six.

He also gives Zarq the potion Gen promised, saying it’s got some sort of “charm” on it. Zarq, typical of a lot of fantasy protagonists, stupidly parrots everything he says and then asks what’s in it. Gen loses his rag and basically jams the bottle in her mouth, telling her to STFU and drink it because it’ll clear the venom out of her system fast and he needs her to stay sharp. Zarq obligingly drinks the potion.

Then the preacher she’s heard about shows up, wearing a ridiculous outfit. He starts banging on about Sin and Damnation, like pretty much every loudmouth preacher I’ve ever encountered, and everyone gives Zarq the stinkeye. She goes back to training, this time with just the dragonmaster, and he tells her to abandon her “no killing” philosophy. Zarq, predictably, says no. She gets a venom craving and instantly pictures her brother, and this causes her to realise that what the spell on the potion does is force her to think of him any time she thinks about getting high.

That’s actually… very effective. I kind of wish they could have done that to a certain friend of mine before he wound up frying his own brain with illicit substances. But no such luck.

The dragonmaster is frustrated by Zarq’s “noble” vow of no killing, and eventually gives up. We’re basically told that if she insists on keeping up her pacifist code, she’ll die. And then the book will be over, so I have no objections. Zarq goes back to her hammock, only to find it’s been slashed to pieces. But she “bravely” remembers the cell she had to sleep in earlier, where there was no bed, and just curls up on the floor.

After this her training continues, but it’s still not going well thanks to her stupid vow and the fact that she’s just plain not in good shape. The other apprentices help things along by leaving little surprises of shit and renimgar guts in her sleeping quarters (no I still don’t know what the hell a renimgar is).

In any case it appears that Zarq will only survive the Arena if the Skykeeper shows up (and we all know it will).

One day the dragonmaster is called away, and under his instructions Zarq goes to the training yard to practise alone. She comes across Ringus (remember him?), who hastily avoids her. For whatever reason she follows him into the stable, where in an utterly bizarre turn of events, blue light starts glowing and one of the dragons starts making “come hither” motions with her tongue. Zarq sticks her head in the dragon’s mouth, and a light display described in very purple terms shows up. She tells Ringus (who will never be important) that she’s not evil, and that “the grace of the One Dragon touches all who touch me”. End scene.

Excuse me, but what the fuck just happened and what was the point?

I have no idea, and no it won’t be explained. It just randomly happened. Next!

A while later Zarq wakes up one morning and realises that she hasn’t felt the haunt in days. It’s simply vanished without explanation. Oh no!  Now what is she going to do? She goes outside and spots none other than Dono, working with one of the dragons. Zarq demands to know what the hell he’s doing there, and the dragonmaster explains that he had him banished when he found out what he had gone and done, but he’s now been brought back on the orders of one of the higher-ups from the Temple. Zarq asks why, and he says that they want her dead and are going to use Dono as their assassin.  Dono sees Zarq and gives her a murderous stare. Wow, he really doesn’t cope well with rejection does he?

Blah blah, Zarq continues her training, and we find out the bull dragon will be leaving his usual home for the Arena in three weeks. End chapter. And now we’re finally lurching toward the climax, so at least there’s not much further to go before we can all get on with our lives.

 

Comments

[masterghandalf]

In the mainsteam language it translates into another made-up word: “manumission”, which means “setting the enslaved free”.

I know this is an old post and nobody will probably see this comment, but "manumission" is a real word, if somewhat archaic, and does indeed mean "setting the enslaved free."

[epistler]

Some smartass actually did point that out in the comments section when this was originally posted! I wish I'd copied the comments over when I did the repost, but I was lazy. :(

[pangolin20]

It seems the "smartass" in question was Anya! Trust her to point that out, I'd say.

[epistler]

Ha! Yep, linguistics and correcting people about it are her Thing.