Enchanter Sporking: Part Twenty-Nine

Gentle readers, be prepared for this chapter. This… is the chapter where Borneheld dies. And it’s going to be extremely unpleasant to read, even at second hand.
We open with a description of people gathering in the Chamber of the Moons, where the first book more or less opened. Apparently they have “the presentiment that something strange would take place”. To my slight surprise, “presentiment” actually is a word. But I really think we could have done with something simpler.
Borneheld sits on his throne with his sword, and Faraday sits nearby looking suitably regal with Yr. Rather impressively, unlike everyone else Gautier – the guy we’re not supposed to like – has actually stuck by Borneheld rather than running off. Hey, remember the last book when we got a line about how Borneheld wouldn’t have been able to inspire the same loyalty in Gautier as Axis gets from literally everybody he meets? Guess that was a total lie.

Oh, and Yr can feel “the presence of the Prophecy strongly”. Urgh.

Cut to Axis on his way over by boat. He’s thinking about Azhure and Faraday and the totally irrelevant deal he made with the GateKeeper. Belial is thinking about his new bride and hoping she won’t be a bust. Charming. Rivkah is thinking about how she really hopes Borneheld is going to die, lovely person that she is.


For some damn reason the lake they’re on, which is one of the magical ones, provides them with directions by means of lights which click on down the bottom. Whut.

And we now go to EvenSong’s POV (seriously everyone in this scene gets a POV so we know what they’re thinking about, don’t ask me why). She’s thinking about FreeFall and how she tried to forget about him. By sleeping with Belial repeatedly, apparently. And I would love to see how Axis would react to finding out about that.


After a few more POV switches they reach the secret entrance, and we get an infodump about how Rivkah found it. Bit late for that, mate. Axis calls his pet eagle over and they all go in. This takes an entire page and a half, by the way.

We’re also informed – again via “telling” – that Axis and Belial have made it up. How so? Oh, because Belial apologised for taking Axis to task over the whole Azhure thing. Just when you started growing a spine you lose it again, Belial. I really hate how this guy keeps being the voice of reason, only to be dumped on and ignored and obliged to apologise for telling the Sues what they don’t want to hear.

After a bunch of description they get inside the castle, where they find some servants hanging around. Yet again Axis is described as “the golden man” and everyone’s awestruck, blah blah blah. Axis has some typically pompous thoughts about how he used to walk around the castle with Jayme, but now he walks “towards the prophecy”, and blah blah blah the Seneschal is eeevil. Somehow he can sense Faraday. Finally he declares that it’s time to “strike the final blow for Tencendor”, and strides dramatically into the throne room.

Predictably, we get descriptions of how his “golden tunic and hair” glow in the torchlight, and Faraday has some canned thoughts about how much he’s “changed” since they last met in the real world, and how he’s “a golden god”, which instantly gives me flashbacks to Almost Famous.
Axis tosses the eagle up onto a ledge, and Borneheld introduces him and his cronies as “the traitors”. Jayme looks at Axis with some vague hope that he “might still retain some measure of compassion, perhaps even love”, but nope – all he sees is “loathing and contempt”. Yeah, he only raised and loved you from infancy, Axis. You shouldn’t feel the slightest regret at being on opposite sides now, you complete and total wanker.

Meanwhile Rivkah is having a moment over being in the throne room again, and she starts thinking about the stupid prophecy and how it keeps using and manipulating her. Not that anyone including her seems to mind all that much about being used against their will. Because that’s not creepy at all.

Anyway, so Axis yells that Borneheld is the real traitor, and then starts going on about the “murder” of FreeFall, also the murder of Priam, and also the dead people in Skarabost, which he also refers to as murder.

But, y’know, the babies Axis burned alive and the guys he had tortured to death without a trial totally weren’t murder.


We now get an “even the odds” moment as Axis declares that he won’t be using any magic, and throws his special enchanter’s ring to StarDrifter. Oh yeah, he’s really up against it now. Because it’s not as if he hasn’t mown down endless waves of disposable baddies without using magic dozens of times already.

Faraday freaks the fuck out and has flashbacks to the vision she had of Axis “dying”, and starts whispering “no” dramatically. Wow, we’re really milking this, aren’t we?

Axis draws his sword and does it in typical Sue fashion with lots of fancy description, and the two of them finally start fighting.

Now you’d expect the ensuing fight to be dramatic and exciting, right? This is after all a scene that’s been built up since the first book.


Instead it’s just summarised and not even told from Axis’ POV.

Hell, it’s not even from a consistent POV, as we go from Faraday to Rivkah, and then to StarDrifter. Predictably, Rivkah has some canned thoughts about how Axis fights with “grace and fluidity”, and how his fancy clothes “imbue[d] him with an almost ethereal beauty”. Because now is totally the time to be thinking about how good-looking Axis is and how nice his outfit is.

StarDrifter listens to the noise of combat and realises it sounds like “dark music” and “the dance of death”, and OMG how is the prophecy using dark music? Or… something like that. It’s weird.

Time passes and now Axis and Borneheld are tired, apparently.

It’s boring.

Faraday keeps watching while thinking about the Treehugger Vision we’re all so very invested in.

Finally we cut to Axis’ POV… for a paragraph, as he thinks about how tired he is and how Borneheld’s “eyes [are] gleaming with madness”. Uh-huh. Remember, boys and girls - "mad" = eeeevil!

But big surprise – then Axis wins! …by means of Deus Ex Machina. Yup, even in a “fair fight” with even odds he can’t win except via author favour. Some hero. Why am I supposed to be impressed by a guy who literally cannot do anything without relying on luck always falling in his favour for no reason?

The eagle spits out a feather, which lands in Axis’ hair. Axis shakes it off, and it lands on the floor, where Borneheld slips on it. Axis quickly knocks him down and disarms him, and Borneheld, pinned to the floor under Axis’ boot, thinks about how he’s gonna die now.

But because Axis is a good, noble, heroic person, he refuses to kill an unarmed, defeated opponent because that would be dishonourable. Instead he lets Borneheld up, and-

Oh wait. That’s what an actual hero would do. What Axis does is… well… this.

Last warning, you guys. It’s sickening.
Instead of just finishing the guy off cleanly, Axis hits him over the head to stun him, then tosses his sword away, “straddles” him (but no homo!), then pulls out a knife and… I’m just gonna have to quote this.

“[Axis] slid the knife deep and long into the man’s chest. He used both hands wrapped about the haft of the knife to get enough leverage to split Borneheld’s sternum in two and crack open his rib cage, grunting with the effort.

“The sound of bone splitting open was horrifying. [snip] Borneheld’s eyes rolled back in his head, and his hands clenched by his sides. His entire body spasmed as Axis threw the knife to one side and took hold of Borneheld’s exposed rib cage with both hands and tore it apart.

“Under the pressure of Axis’ fingers, Borneheld’s aorta [they know what an aorta is now?] split asunder. A massive gout of his blood arced out of his chest and splattered across Faraday’s neck and chest, running down between her breasts in warm rivulets.

“[snip] His arms bloodied to the elbow, his entire shirt-front warm with his brother’s heart blood, Axis reached into Borneheld’s open chest cavity and seized his brother’s frantically beating heart with his bare hands. Then he tore it out, spraying blood over all those within the immediate vicinity.”
Yeeeaaah, that seriously just fucking happened. Axis just ripped a guy’s heart out while he was still alive.


And then he throws it to his pet eagle, who starts eating it in front of everyone. Yup, that also seriously just happened.

Axis grabs Faraday and rips off her big ruby wedding ring, which he then throws into Borneheld’s chest cavity, yelling to the GateKeeper that he’s kept his part of the bargain.

And the chapter ends on this… uh, memorable note.

Excuse me but why, oh why was this necessary? I mean I… I’m at a loss for words right now. I suppose I could go off on a long rant about the sheer horror and evil of what just happened, but it seems unnecessary. Honestly, I don’t think I could condemn this vile scene any more than it condemns itself.

Will anyone’s opinion of Axis change as a result?

Of fucking course not.

I think I’ll just end this part now and have a lie down.

Because it's only going to get worse.