Sort of.
Andais, Merry and the assorted men (that sounds like it should be a candy box) go into the hallway and find the pool of water that Merry restarted through symbolic sex. And she pouts because this means she wasn't powerful enough, or good enough, or whatever, to bring the magic back to life. Because it's not good enough to be magic, you have to be the ultimate magic.
Andais reveals that one of Merry's new guards got between Merry and Andais in the last chapter...which I thought was a guard's job, but we're in the lair of bloody psycopaths, so we can't expect much.
I would like for Andais to pout without the slut shaming, though:
The gentle look left her face as she turned to me. “You must truly be a wondrous piece of ass. One quick fuck and he risks his life for yours.”
She didn’t look pleased. “As I said, you must fuck like a courtesan. Bloody fertility goddesses, always think they’re so wonderful.”One: Merry is not a fertility goddess. Two: WHO CARES?!?
Merry works out that, because Andais promised anyone Merry slept with was hers, Andais is now forsworn for hacking on them all and Merry can do some very major shit to her if she wants to. Merry doesn't want to because Merry doesn't really want anything, so she promises Andais there won't be any reprisals for the forswearing part if she doesn't slaughter her own guards for not protecting her from Merry. The fact that Merry isn't gonna be punished for attacking her own queen is rather flabbergasting to me. It isn't even brought up.
Instead, Andais and the guards play dressup for a few pages. Then she pulls out her big heavy sword, lets Merry know that she knows her son did this, and then does absolutely nothing about it. Instead, they're going to kill the (female) guard who drugged her wine. Men are precious. Women are disposable.
I hate this book.
She looked at me, and something passed through her tri-grey eyes with their rings of black that left each grey darker and richer because of it, as if she had used eyeliner on her own irises.Probably that eye-burning mascara from Chronicles of Riddick. Which...would fit these people pretty damn well.
Merry talks the Queen into killing whomever her assassin might be--sworn under oath, actually--and then suggests the Queen call the Sluagh to protect her from her own court. Which is a really good move. Almost like LKH suddenly remembered she promised political intrigue and is yet to deliver.
She then tells the Queen to bring the Goblins in, and explains her deal. Every goblin-sidhe cross she brings into power, she gets another month out of the Goblins. Andais's response is...predictable.
“Will you fuck them all?” It was said with no offense, as if it was the only way she knew how to ask the question.
Now we go over--and over, and over--who Merry's champions are. Doyle and Frost. There's an almost-interesting moment between Merry, the Queen and Kitto.
The Queen asks how she can be so sure of Kurag's cooperation, and Merry points out that she's covered in blood and the Goblin King will probably lick her clean.
And that is the end of the chapter.
She looked at me, and something passed through her tri-grey eyes with their rings of black that left each grey darker and richer because of it, as if she had used eyeliner on her own irises.
ReplyDeleteI am in awe at the many levels of bad buried in this sentence. I mean, most bad writers have one or two bad things going on in any given bit of their writing, but this is just... Badness layered over badness.
We start with an action (She looked at me) and move on to some form of non-verbal communication caused by that action (and something passed through her tri-grey eyes), pause briefly at a bad description (Tri-grey eyes), then elaborate on that bad description (tri-grey eyes with their rings of black) and then streeeeeeetch out the bad description (tri-grey eyes with their rings of black that left each grey darker and richer because of it) and I'm not even sure what the description means anymore because there are irises, and they are multi-greyed, but they are also ringed in black, so I don't follow this at all but! it doesn't matter because now we're into an awful analogy (as if she had used eyeliner on her own irises) which sounds both painful and stupid. It's a 36 word sentence that leaves the reader completely unclear as to what is going on except "She looked at me", which means there are 32 words in there about nothing.
If Merry's men were a box of mixed chocolates they'd be the Whizzo Quality Assortment.
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