Last time on Abyssals Abyssals Abyssals, Ratcatcher got into a fight in the Labyrinth.
In a shocking turn of events, this chapter has Ratcatcher again.
There’s a long description of the castle (it’s dark and scary) followed by a description of Ratcatcher and his horse (they’ve been riding hard). The horse is a mess, so when Ratcatcher arrives he hops off it and immediately slices its throat. The ghosts lap up the blood as he strides off.
In his travels, Ratcatcher had heard all sorts of whispered stories about what the inside of a Deathknight’s citadel was like.
This would seem to mean the Prince of Shadows is an Abyssal because deathknight is meant to be a synonym for them alone. The real question with this book, though, is if the author doesn’t know that, or doesn’t understand that you don’t get massive differences in power between same type exalts of the same age, or if the author doesn’t remember from scene to scene if one’s an Abyssal or not.
We then get a description of these stories:
torture pits and groaning souls, of walls that dripped blood and vivisection tables manned by grinning cannibals.
That sure does sound exciting. So…?
It was all that Ratcatcher could do to keep from laughing aloud. The Prince of Shadows’ home held none of these things. All it housed was dim lights and the silence of death, which was precisely what its master desired.
why you do this book
why
Ratcatcher goes to see the Prince, but the doors are closed. Showing why he’s the unfavorite, he guesses that despite beingtold saying I WANT YOU HERE YESTERDAY clearly he should just mosey off and try again later. Luckily, before he gets far the doors open on their own and the Prince points out he’s being a dumbfuck.
Ratcatcher tries to explain his reasoning, and the Prince also points out that he’s really sick of the whole “talking” thing Ratcatcher keeps insisting on doing. But despite how we keep hearing he’s a terrifying badass who’ll tear you apart on a whim, the Prince lets this pass. This is starting to approach the level of an informed attribute.
the only furniture was the massive, ominous throne of the Prince of Shadows himself. It rose straight from the stone of the floor and had been carved into the shape of a huge, crashing wave. Looking up at it, Ratcatcher could not shake the impression that he was about to be overwhelmed by a tide of darkness, which was no doubt why the Prince had ordered it crafted thus.
One of the things that happens a lot in this book is how it manages to make perfectly decent concepts extremely boring. I think part of it’s how bloated the word count is. This all should have been compressed into one line of thought, and for god’s sake Ratcatcher, no fucking duh that’s why he made it look like that.
Ratcatcher had long ago learned not to follow the motions of those shadows; they did things that he was quite certain shadows should not do.
Also, Ratcatcher is a complete wuss.
He then describes the Prince of Shadows himself. Short version: he’s a bishie.
The Prince notes there’s blood on Ratcatcher’s knife.
I gave my horse to the ghosts in the courtyard.” He paused. “It was of no further use to me. I was forced to take it through the Labyrinth, and it . . .suffered there.”
This is, possibly by accident, another interesting little glimmer. Ratcatcher didn’t need to kill it if he was tired of it, he could have just left it. He was oddly attentive to it last chapter, talking constantly about how the horse was scared by the monkey ghost whenever something happened. And his reason for killing it is that it was suffering. This is what “good” Abyssals should look like – completely willing to ride a horse bloody when they think it’s necessary, but not to leave it alive and in pain afterward when they no longer need it.
Totally contradicts his thing about deliberately leaving one person alive so they can suffer, though.
Anyway, Ratcatcher is pretty perky and starts saying he’s found a new Solar’s grave, ignoring the fact that he was sent to find Wren and he hasn’t accomplished that in the least. He spends two entire pages on the recap, it’s unbelievable. Here’s a chunk to give you the idea:
“I headed towards this batch of hovels because I thought the temple-Earth aspect, of course-might provide me with some amusement, as well as a good place to find some information on this priest of yours. I never got that far, though, at least not at first.”
“What happened?”
“I found a sinkhole when I went to ground for the day. I could hear dead men’s whispers down in it, so I thought it best to explore. That’s when I found out why they call the nearest town Boneford.”
“And why is that?” The Prince’s tone showed a dangerous level of boredom. Ratcatcher swallowed hard, and continued.
“My prince, the master undertakers of Sijan could labor in the catacombs under that temple for a decade and not clear away a tenth part of the bones that rest there. I talked to many of the dead men there, though most fled from me. One told me that a battle had been fought there eight centuries ago, and that an entire army had made war on a single woman.”
Five paragraphs and the only bit that’s actually worth saying is the final line. It’s all like that, with Ratcatcher babbling on and on. Ratcatcher follows it by also telling the Prince about his encounter with the Devouring One and, very, very belatedly, having the slightest concern that this was maybe a fuckup, but the Prince brushes it off.
The Prince says the real issue is the loose end he left – the kid. Ratcatcher interrogated the priests, but not the kid who turns out to have been involved. Yushuv really isn’t, or at least wasn’t, important. The knife he found was accidental and has no connection to the fact he’s later shown the sword in a completely different area.
Ratcatcher says that he thought the kid was mortally wounded. In a few sentences he’ll instead say that he left him alive on purpose to pay for his help. I can’t tell if this is meant to be a contradiction or if the author is doing a very bad job of trying to say that Ratcatcher chose to give him a lingering rather than immediate death because the kid helped him. The more sane option is that Ratcatcher is just making excuses. But since when does sanity factor into character behaviors? The Prince just keeps going on about how he should have questioned the kid.
“As a matter of fact, it is entirely possible that this boy might have seen the Solar’s grave even before the dead men showed him.
Well, not really, because presumably if they saw the kid find it, they wouldn’t bother with showing him again.
“My prince, he was just a bone rat!”
This is apparently a bad move because the Prince of Shadows used to work in Sijan, the undertaker city, and not a bad move because it’s fucking idiotic, why would the fact he’s a kid who runs around stealing from dead bodies mean he would be unfamiliar with dead bodies that have valuable things on them?
Anyway, the Prince is still bitching. And, uh, stroking Ratcatcher’s injured and bleeding cheek. It would be really homoerotic if not for everything about the writing, but what’s curious is I can’t figure out why else it’d be included if that wasn’t the intention.
he lives, and with knowledge that many, many folk would gladly kill for. If I did not know better, I’d swear you were growing soft on me, my servant.”
But that’s good for you! Somehow, and granted I’m not clear on how it’s possible, you seem to be unable to beat the information out of the local ghosts. Now there’s a mortal who knows it as well, so all you need to do is find him and you’ll have the answer. Why are you pissed off about this?
The Prince of Shadows had obtained a mastery of power that he could barely dream of; if he raised his hand to his lord, it would be the last action he ever took.
Well, I guess there had to be someone who loved having all-powerful NPCs your character would never be able to touch running around calling the shots.
Anyway, so, the Prince says that tomorrow, Ratcatcher will go and find the boy. And he’s still got to find Wren. Surprisingly, Ratcatcher does not make any comment regarding the fact that if the Prince wants him to find Wren so badly maybe it’s dumb to call him back for a chat while he’s looking for the guy, which is weird because he’s been complaining about all sorts of minor or nonexistant things yet when faced with an actual bout of stupidity he holds his tongue.
So in conclusion, we spent several chapters on what could have been covered by the two just having a quick dream chat or something. And that’s how you stretch a short story into a novel, I guess.