Last time on I don’t even know exactly, Sidereals were stupid, but in the boring way instead of the interesting disaster type.
Ratcatcher had a certain theory about horses, namely that they, and not his liege lord, were the true servants of evil in the Realm.
Abyssals aren’t evil.
Even Infernals aren’t evil, best efforts of the new guard to fuck up aside.
What Abyssals are doing tends to be what everyone else in Creation would think of as evil, since we mostly don’t want to die and have everyone else die and get sucked into a black hole so there’s nothing left of existence. Some Abyssals are just in it for the murder, but even then, it’s just terribly cartoonish to call them evil instead of mass murderers. Other Abyssals made the trade because they were willing to damn themselves to stay alive, either out of fear, selfishness or because they felt they had something they needed to do. Still others sincerely believe that devouring all Creation is a good move because destroying everything is the only way to end suffering – and you have to admit Creation is a pretty awful place to live. And then there’s the ones who started off Solars and got stuffed into the torture ball for conversion.
The deathlords are similarly broken up into true believers, people trying to get revenge, and people who just didn’t want to accept their death. The Prince of Shadow’s deathlord is the first type.
Also, this is just stupidly twee.
Ratcatcher’s evidence horses are evil is that it’s walking slow on some road that’s going nowhere, but he’s the one who picked the road and he could just kick it if he wants it to go faster (and does shortly after this).
He still couldn’t say what had made him pick this path, save that it ran directly counter to the course he’d seen Pandeimos charting, and that was enough reason for anything.
Ratcatcher is so dedicated to spite he’s willing to fuck himself over in a way his target will never even notice. It’s really amazing he hasn’t been killed yet.
What’s really going on here is that the author wants Ratcatcher at a certain location, but can’t figure out why he’d be there. So he explains that scared priests run for home so it doesn’t make sense he’d go for the middle of nowhere instead, and really this makes no sense at all, but something unspoken told him that this path was worth following, and so dutifully he had gone.
Terrible, terrible writing.
You know what would have worked? If he tried to do a divination for Wren’s location and got the same divide by explosion error pointing to Middleofnowhereville. The divination seems associated with death, so it’s possible Abyssal divination will be close enough to get similar results. In fact, maybe Shooshpap was a dragon of a different color. Every now and then a random Dragonblood is born with an inclination toward necromancy rather than sorcery, and it’s not that obvious if you’re not looking for it and the person never tries to initiate into sorcery. This would also do a better job of explaining why his divination found something no one else besides because plot – they’re really rare, so it’s quite likely no others were in the group of people doing similar divination known by the Order.
While Ratcatcher is talking about plot holes, he notices there’s light in the distance, specifically that of torches and lamps.
Feeling vaguely excited by the prospect of a comfortable bed and anyone’s cooking but his own, Ratcatcher pressed forward.
There are points in this book where you can make an argument that the entire book may have been already written and all the Exalted stuff was added after the fact.
Now, while broadly you net resonance for acting like you’re still alive (the neverborn hate living things especially much, and Abyssals are technically alive, so to avoid their rage it’s a good idea to act like you’re dead. Kind of like with zombies, only it usually works) but by the rules you’ll only get smacked with oblivion hate if you sleep in a dwelling with mortals. If you murder them first, you’re fine.
Unfortunately, there’s no sign that’s what he means, which is a shame, because casually thinking about how great it’ll be to stay at someone’s house when you mean murdering everyone inside first is a much better way of showing how fucked up Abyssals are than the opening bit claiming they’re the servants of evil.
But nothing at all happens because when he gets there, he finds a temple as well as a few huts. Ratcatcher chats with his horse more about how maybe Wren’s here after all. For some reason, the author seems really loathe to have Ratcatcher just think things, his every thought needs to be spoken aloud. It makes him seem really fond of his horse despite the fact officially he’s supposed to be really hard on them.
He explains to his horse that they should find somewhere for the day, then come back later. He finds a rock formation…after going on a minute ago about how weird it was that there was a temple built with stone when there’s no quarry, but apparently the old remains of a stone tower don’t seem remarkable.
The land around it was uncultivated, and Ratcatcher had the definite feeling this was the sort of place yokels regarded as being “cursed.“
This is like saying people are dumb for believing in divination. It’s a world where land really does get cursed all the time.
Ratcatcher decides to sleep in his armor because he doesn’t understand armor is really uncomfortable.
Then things get weird. They’re traveling at night, so I assumed that it must be near morning and he says he’s going to sleep until tomorrow night, but the book says he’s only going to nap a few hours, as if assuming he’s sleeping until daybreak.
Before he can sleep, though, something howls and Ratcatcher leaps up in terror, which probably looked hilarious. He doesn’t see anything, and he figures out that it’s the wind through a tunnel somewhere.
The hole was large enough to admit a man in armor
Convenient! More, Ratcatcher can tell from the way the plants are damaged that someone else has been through here recently. So down he goes, telling his horse not to get eaten by anything while he’s gone.
This chapter is yet more obvious padding. We just spent pages on Ratcatcher finding a tunnel, then it ends as he walks in.