Chapter 62: The Portal of Smoke
Spoiler Notice
This page contains detailed plot spoilers for Chapter 62 of Badlands. If you haven’t read this far, proceed with caution.
Summary
A horrific entity births from Nash’s burning corpse—a smoke-wreathed, skeletal creature with lizard eyes and an eagle’s beak, its wings flickering with dark flame. The cultists stare in terrified awe. Nora seizes the moment to enact her plan: she blows the ancient skinwalker-repelling melody on Nash’s flute. The notes rise above the chaos, and the apparition screams, thrashing and stirring the pyre. Nash’s body disintegrates, and Bromley charges in a frenzy. Nora draws an obsidian knife; he impales himself upon it. Though wounded, Bromley rises, draws a revolver, and aims. Nora continues to play, and a tongue of smoke engulfs him before he can fire. The smoke seems to possess Bromley—his head snaps back, his movements become marionette-like, and he chants of transformation through a portal of smoke. The other cultists join the chant and follow him, lemming-like, over the cliff’s edge. One by one they plummet to their deaths, their refrains cut short. The entity’s deep, older voice fades with a dry laugh, leaving only glowing coals and silence.
Key Events
- A reptilian, winged smoke-creature emerges from Nash’s charred remains, towering over the mesa.
- Nora plays the skinwalker-banishing melody the wax cylinder revealed, causing the creature to recoil and lash out.
- Bromley rushes Nora and inadvertently impales himself on her obsidian knife.
- The wounded Bromley rises and tries to shoot Nora but is swallowed by a tendril of smoke.
- The entity possesses Bromley, making him lead a death march while chanting about the “portal of smoke.”
- The cultists echo the chant and throw themselves off the cliff, leaving Nora as the sole survivor.
Character Development
- Nora Kelly: Moves from terrified observer to decisive actor. Her recall of the ancient melody and ability to play it under terrifying conditions demonstrate her intellectual rigor and courage. She uses the obsidian knife not out of bloodlust but as a last resort, defending herself when Bromley attacks.
- Bromley: The fanatical leader’s control unravels. His earlier confidence dissipates into a desperate frenzy. After being stabbed and engulfed by smoke, he becomes a puppet—his religious fervor twisted into a suicidal spectacle.
- The cultists: Act as a single, passive unit. Their slack-jawed awe gives way to a collective, robotic obedience as they follow Bromley to their deaths, revealing the depth of their indoctrination and the entity’s power over their wills.
Themes, Symbols, or Motifs
- The ancient melody as a counterforce: The thousand-year-old song from the wax cylinder is the cultural and archaeological key that undoes the skinwalker. It shows how deep knowledge can prevail over blind ritual.
- Transformation perverted: The cult’s promised “gift of transformation” becomes a literal death march. The smoke-creature does not grant a higher plane but consumes its summoners.
- Smoke as a portal and prison: Throughout the chapter, smoke is both the creature’s medium and a boundary between worlds. When it enters Bromley, it becomes a possessing force that erases his identity.
- Fire and purification: The pyre and the dark flame on the creature’s wings represent uncontrollable forces of destruction that cleanse the mesa of the cult’s evil, albeit violently.
Why This Chapter Matters
Chapter 62 serves as the violent climax of the cult storyline. Nora’s active intervention—using archaeological research to reverse a supernatural summoning—completes her evolution from scholar to survivor. The mass suicide removes the immediate human threat and ends Bromley’s influence, but the entity’s ambiguous escape leaves a lingering mystery. The chapter also resolves the skinwalker’s summoning in a way that emphasizes the danger of tampering with forbidden knowledge. By having the cultists fall victim to their own ritual, Preston delivers a moral reckoning that ties together earlier themes of obsession and the intrusion of the past into the present.
Study Questions & Answers
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Why does the skinwalker melody seem to cause the entity to attack the cultists rather than simply repel it? The melody appears to sever the summoners’ control over the entity, leaving it enraged and unbound. With no master, the creature turns its fury on those who called it forth, using their own delusions of transformation against them.
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How does the obsidian knife function as more than a weapon in this chapter? The knife is an artifact tied to the site’s ancient rituals and to Nash’s earlier power. Nora uses it defensively, but its presence also symbolically positions her as an agent of the old, protective traditions—contrasting with Bromley’s corrupted modern ritual.
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What is the significance of Bromley’s chant before he jumps? The chant—repeating “Xuçtúhla,” “gift of transformation,” and “portal of smoke”—echoes the entity’s deeper voice. It reveals that the creature has fully possessed him and is using his beliefs to orchestrate a mass self-destruction, mocking the cult’s theology.