Sinner Sporking: Part Eight

[epistler]

The next chapter returns to Leagion. She’s still basically a captive, and also Cosmo has an army of about fourteen thousand guys which they’ve joined up with. Leagion isn’t sure what the hell is going on and is feeling pretty damn miserable. It’s clear she’s fallen out of love with Cosmo the Multiple Rapist, which is to be expected. So much for True Wuv.

Blah blah the army crosses a river. Leagion decides to cross too in spite of the danger, and gets swept away. She almost dies but Cosmo jumps in and hauls her out. He’s crying. How incredibly hypocritical! He takes her to an empty shepherd’s hut where they both have to get out of those wet clothes. The usual romantic scenario. Except in this case rather than making mad passionate love on a polar bear fur in front of the fire, they get into a violent argument. Cosmo still thinks he’s in love with Leagion and seems blissfully unaware that the wonderfully romantic sex they’ve been having is actually just rape. That or he’s lying. He’s also convinced himself that she’s pregnant, and gets all indignant when Leagion threatens to tell everyone he raped her. He gets even more indignant when she accuses him of only caring about getting her inheritance, and screams ‘How dare you say that to me?’ right in her face. So now we’re getting domestic abuse on top of everything else.

Oh, but it gets worse.

He insists he totally will marry her the moment they find a “notary”, and then starts feeling her up. This fails to excite her, however. And now pay close attention to the wording of what follows.

“She murmured, trying to pull away from him, but again, as on their first night, he was too strong, and he pulled her down to the floor before the fire. As he made love to her…”

If I’d been the editor, that last line would have been changed to “As he raped her yet again” so fast my trusty red pen would have caught fire. I mean really.

The next chapter returns to Drago, thank goodness. At least there’s a character I genuinely like in this bucket of dog vomit posing as a novel. He’s still travelling south with Faradeer following him, still enjoying dreams of being a powerful hunter. Somehow he’s making supernatural levels of progress, which puzzles him. He thinks maybe it’s his trapped Enchanter powers.

After three weeks he reaches the Barrow Downs- uh, I mean the Ancient Barrows, and starts looking for an entrance. He doesn’t find one and goes to sleep. Faradeer curls up next to him and can see some of his dreams. She feels sorry for him, and thinks about his parents. She also thinks about the Rainbow Sceptre and how the Sentinels gave their lives to make it. “Jackass and Zara, the seductive Yr, and the irrepressible brothers Ogden and Veremund”. Aw, isn’t that cute – we’re still being expected to think of those two patronising idiots as funny and likeable.

Nope. Still glad they’re dead. Along with the other three, most notably Jackass. Fuck that guy.

Drago wakes up and gets back to work looking for an entrance. He spots some Icarii hanging around and trails a couple of them to a hole. The moment the coast is clear he goes in, and Faradeer follows. This is actually pretty exciting stuff!

Drago goes down through the tunnel. Eventually he hears someone coming and grabs a rock just in case. The someone turns out to be an Icarii. In fact it’s one we’ve met before: PaleStar SnapWing (oh those names). It doesn’t matter if you don’t remember her; she made a couple of appearances in the last book. Drago freaks out, thinking he’s SO busted now… but PaleStar just walks right past him as if he’s not there. Drago is all like what the hey? and decides to keep on going.

Cut to Wendy Orr the ferryman, who’s still down by the Star Gate Atlantis. He’s feeling pretty shaken up, because he can hear the murdered Icarii kids whispering from the other side but is convinced there’s something else behind them which is a lot worse.

Just then Drago shows up, and the two of them get into a scuffle. Wendy grabs the Rainbow Sceptre and is immediately subjected to a scary vision of being hunted in “the Maze”. This makes him freak the fuck out and Drago can’t get the Sceptre out of his hands. He starts yelling “Qeteb” and “Grail King”, but Drago can’t hear him. He finally manages to get the Sceptre back from him and uncovers the head. It shoots beams of rainbow light all over the place, which hit Faradeer.

And then – I swear I’m not making this up – she explodes.

Yes, really. Faradeer fucking explodes. Venison and hair all over the place. Whut.

Meanwhile Drago accidentally hits Wendy Orr in the head with the Sceptre and he falls down and dies. Oops.

Drago covers the damn thing up again, and then sees – brace yourselves – none other than Faraday, brought back to life! Or brought back to Human, whichever. Don’t ask me why she had to explode for that to happen. Either way she’s back, good as new. Who would have thought it?

Faraday cryptically tells Drago she’s going to “take WolfStar’s place” and Drago has to come with her. Drago insists that he has to go through the Star Gate, so she’s like fine, then come and join me when you get back. Drago tells her if he does come back it’ll only be so he can get even, and then jumps through the gate.

End chapter.

The next one is still with Drago. It’s finally time to find out what’s on the other side of that gate! Excited?

At first Drago feels a whole lot of pain, and next thing he’s floating in nothingness. He hears the stupid Star Dance for the first time in his life, and concludes that he must be dead and on his way to the “AfterLife”. He has a bit of a cry about that, then realises the Rainbow Sceptre is gone.

But all is not lost! Some voices start calling out to him and someone invites him to “join the quest”. Drago says yes absolutely. Now they just need to recruit an elf, a dwarf, a kender and a barbarian. Once the party is complete, the Dragon Gem is all but theirs!

Cut back to Faraday, who we learn had a vision too when the Rainbow Sceptre hit her. We flash back to it now, and turns out she met a guy in a spaceship. No really. His name is Noah, apparently. He’s got some quests to hand out, and promises that if she goes ahead with it she either gets to live happily ever after or will be annihilated.

She has to be Drago’s friend, also his “trust”, she has to bring him to meet Noah ASAP, and she has to “find that which is lost”. Noah doesn’t specify what the hell that means, because he’s a mentor/quest giver in a dumb fantasy novel and therefore has to be vague and mysterious for no reason. Well, for a paragraph anyway, because after some pointless waffling he tells her what it is.

I’m not sure I can bring myself to tell you, to be perfectly honest. It’s not horrifying; it’s just… really really really REALLY silly.

And I mean REALLY silly.

She has to go and find “Katie’s Enchanted Song Book”.

Yes, really.

Yes. Really.

YES. REALLY.

Noah explains that Katie was his daughter but she’s now long gone. Except for her book of nursery rhymes, apparently.

Noah says he tried to get WolfStar to do it, but the guy was too untrustworthy so now he wants her to take his place. Faraday accepts and gets a power-up.

Cut back to the present moment, and Faraday thinks that she’s got time before she has to get on with it. She realises that for the first time in forever she’s completely free*. No more stupid prophecy controlling her life, and she can do whatever she likes! She’s joyful about it, as anyone would be, and finally decides to go and see Zenith. So she strolls off by herself, feeling awesome. Good for her! It was about time the poor woman caught a break.



(*Tell me What I Did There, and win a fabulous prize!).

Comments

[epistler]

Oh my fucking god why. Cosmo BETTER be shown to be a jerk (and get what he deserves), or I'm going to go and dig up Douglass and yell at her myself.

I actually don't remember what happens to him in the end, so I guess we'll find out.

And of course the woman is 'seductive'. Wow. Because that's the most important thing about a powerful wizard that lived thousands of years.

In case you didn't read the original sporkings, that was literally Yr's only personality trait. Someone once described her as "an utterly stereotypical Tart With a Heart", and it was accurate.

And isn't Veremund the name of someone in the IC? (I think it's just coincidence this time.

Um, well there's Vermund, the evil dragon from the WormFork book.

Also, the Icari kids whispering seem insanely creepy. I can't believe no one's tried to plug the Stargate up or destroy it.

Me neither. I mean you'd think that at the very least someone would suggest it. But instead it just never comes up.