The next day we find Solten Gris standing on one of Spiteos' overlooks, gazing out at the bleak vista and waxing poetic about the "noble majesty" of the pitiless Great Desert, where two-hundred-foot dust storms called "Sun-dancers" swirl across the lifeless sands, each colored differently depending on what minerals they've swept up. Apparently the land used to be verdant and productive, which doesn't make a lick of sense to me - checking the map provided, there's not a water source around for two hundred miles. At least there aren't any rivers starting in the middle of nowhere like the ones in Eragon.
Gris thinks the dust devils resemble a dancing chorus singing his dirge, and is considering flinging himself from the battlements and ending this "dekalogy" early. His bribe to buy Dr. Crobe's silence came up ten credits short, so the meat artist will be telling Hisst about Heller's missed appointments, and of course Gris is still five grand in the hole. Then Snelz comes up in a brand-new uniform, enjoying an expensive chank-pop - more goodies from Heller.
As Gris tries to work up the energy to knife Snelz and hurl his corpse from the top of Spiteos, the commander explains that he consulted an expert on cheating, who described the trick dice used the other night as "thudder dice," because if you listen closely you can hear those tiny lead pellets rattling around. Apparently if you shake the dice too much, or even blow on them too often, the friction causes the glue and the pellet inside to heat up and not stick anymore. Luckily for them, Heller never figured out he was playing against loaded dice, because plenty of gamblers have been killed for using them.
Just when Gris is about to murder his minion, Snelz gives him his cut of today's Heller-related income - a ten-credit note. So Gris takes the cash to meet his debt to Crobe, and remarkably enough doesn't kill Snelz afterward. Instead he takes the trick dice, gives them a "blasphemous funeral," and hurls them from Spiteos. That's right, you show those dice, Gris! Teach them to thwart you! Make an example of them to the other inanimate objects!
And so the completely pointless "bankrupt Heller through a fixed game of dice" arc of The Invaders Plan comes to an end. Next time it looks like we're up for a needless and meaningless action scene, and then the main plot will take another tottering step forward.
Back to Chapter Eight
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