Coldfire reread: Black Sun Rising - Chapter 1

[carmentalis.livejournal.com]

Thank you everybody for such a fantastic start on Monday!

Today it's chapter 1, where we meet a certain traveler called Damien, an adept called Ciani, and we hear rumours about a certain someone called the Hunter.


Plot summary

After dust, danger, and crossing mountain ranges where the paths go uphill both ways, Damien Kilcannon Vryce arrives in Jaggonath, on a mission from God. Or at least, on a mission from his superiors in Ganji.

After marvelling that people in Jaggonath are not nearly as afraid of the dark as everyone else he knows, his curiosity takes him to the local Fae Shoppe. In the shop, he encounters far more Worked objects than he ever thought possible, as well as a shop assistant who gets very little attention once the shop owner, certified adept and local Lore-Master enters the stage. Damien, despite his instant attraction to her, does the sensible thing and takes her out to dinner so he can get a competent introduction to this place that is so different from what he is used to. The matters first and foremost on his mind are Forest and rakh, and Ciani chooses to speak of the former.

She explains about the Forest's nature as a focal point of the dark fae, and about the creature called the Hunter, who dominates the Forest and uses it to snare his victims. She offers some insights on him - that he must be an adept, that she thinks the Hunter is a man, and that she believes him strong enough to rule the Forest rather than be ruled by it.

Damien takes Ciani home - road dust thwarts any progress beyond that - then returns to the destination of his journey: the Cathedral of Jaggonath. There he gets mistaken for someone unimportant, drops his name, and immediately is ushered in for a midnight chat with His Holiness.



Quotes

• The sensible thing to do would be to find an inn and drop off his things, get his mount under guard, and affix a few wards to his luggage . . . but when had he ever done the sensible thing, when curiosity was driving him?
  
  
• Be honest, Damien. You’ve always been attracted to things faewise, and here’s a true adept; would her looks have made much of a difference?
  
  
• Set against the dark evening sky, the building glowed as though fae-lit, and drew worshipers to it like moths to a flame. On its broad steps milled dozens - no, hundreds of worshipers, and their faith tamed the wild fae that flowed about their feet, sending it out again laden with calmness, serenity, and hope. Damien stared at it, awed and amazed, and thought, Here, in this wild place, the Dream is alive. A core of order, making civilization possible. If only it could have been managed on a broader scale . . .
  
  
• It was a focal point of the wildest fae, which in an earlier, less sophisticated age had been called evil. Now they knew better. Now they understood that the forces which swept across this planet’s surface were neither good nor evil in and of themselves, but simply responsive. To hopes and fears, wards and spells and all the patterns of a Working, dreams and nightmares and repressed desires. When tamed, it was useful. When responding to man’s darker urges, to the hungers and compulsions which he repressed in the light of day, it could be deadly. Witness the Landing, and the gruesome deaths of the first few colonists. Witness the monsters that Damien had fought in the Dividers, shards of man’s darkest imaginings given fresh life and solid bodies, laying traps for the unwary in the icy wilderness.
  Witness the Forest.
  
  
• “There’s a creature that lives within the Forest - maybe a demon, maybe a man - which has forced a dark sort of order upon the wild fae there. Legend has it that he sits at the heart of the whirlpool like a spider in its web, waiting for victims to become trapped in its power. His minions can leave the Forest and do, in a constant search for victims to feed to him.”
  “You’re talking about the Hunter.”
  
  
• In a whisper that was nine parts awe, and one part fear: "Father Vryce is a sorceror..."

Thoughts

• Damien's intro always makes me imagine the new sheriff riding along the deserted, dusty main street in a Western, just as all of Jaggonath has a touch of the Wild West. An obvious and intentional image, I'm sure, but it never fails to amuse me.
  
  
• Even with this first introduction of the fae, the rules are laid down. It responds to hopes, dreams, but also fears and nightmares - essentially, thoughts can become reality. It's quite a twisted concept of magic, and unlike how this is usually handled in fantasy. What do you think about it?
  
  
• To Damien, a Westerner, it is startling to see the differences between Jaggonath and the West. A Fae Shoppe with so many Worked items, people who stay out when they should be protecting themselves from the threats of the night, different customs... And yet he adapts almost immediately to the situation. Before, I've never noticed that his curiosity is one of the first things we learn about him. What about you?
  
  
• We see the first description of the Hunter in this chapter - the resident evil demon, or maybe a human adept who dominates the concentration of dark fae that is the Forest. To the people in the East, he is an omnipresent evil that cannot be eradicated, but very little concrete information is available. People seem to have arranged their lives around him, but they know nothing beyond speculation. Thoughts?
  
  
• What do you think about the differences between East and West? There is very little we learn about the West throughout the books (actually this chapter might be the most informative one), but the East seems very strange in some aspects to a Westerner like Damien. Here, sorcery is thriving, while it is not welcomed at all by the Church at the same time.

Like before, feel free to start your own comment threads, join others, and generally post to your heart's content. :-)

On Monday, we'll continue with chapters 2, 3 and 4 - three chapters at once, since they are very short ones. You can find the schedule here.

Comments

[trobadora]

Actually, I've just checked the next couple chapters, and it does seem like the failed crusade against the Forest led to a major war that did end up setting everything back and splintering the Church. At least it sounds that way to me. Huh. I didn't remember that at all. (The chapter where Damien gets the flask with the sunlight.)

(Also, I don't think we can properly speak of the Church before Gerald, anyway - he was the one who invented the project that makes it what it is, after all. And Damien's remark certainly talks about the splintering of that project, the "great dream".)

[carmentalis.livejournal.com]

Huh. So Gerald actually damaged the Church. Which would explain why he's now so adamant not to do anything else that could harm it.

The details we find out in this slow re-reading!

[trobadora]

Yes, I think he can't have been very happy about the results of that crusade!

And it seems that the current attitude towards sorcery is majorly influenced by that, too - back then, they did seem to try to fight fae with fae, sorcery with sorcery, hence the bound solar fae. Seems they did allow sorcery in the service of the Church - and it failed. After that, they seem to have turned away from sorcery even more than before. Fascinating.

(Must remember to bring that up again in the appropriate chapter! Remind me if I forget.)

[carmentalis.livejournal.com]

And of course the East would be more affected by it, since that particular war took place in their territory rather than the West. So the East has a reason to think that sorcery is not a tool the church should use, while the West hasn't had the immediate experience.

[trobadora]

Do we know when the split between East and West occurred? It might not even have taken place until that war. But even in the West, the decision to use sorcery is very recent - actually, that might make sense: influenced by the same experience of the war, but with time and distance from that hot spot of wild fae, it's faded, and they overcame that trauma in a way the Church in the East hasn't yet managed.

[carmentalis.livejournal.com]

I was under the impression that the split was there ever since both continents were settled, but it's something I'm not certain about anymore.

[trobadora]

I'm not so sure about that - the Church as the Prophet conceived and created it wasn't founded until long after both continents were settled, weren't they? (Or were they?) So it was originally one body, which then split into two through sheer geographical necessity, perhaps pushed along by other things, such as the aftereffects of the war. At least, that's how it seems to me right at this very moment; more rereading may change that again!

[carmentalis.livejournal.com]

Let's see... twelve centuries in total for mankind on Erna, and Gerald came around sometime in the 300s After Landing. They sent two expeditions to the Eastern Continent (the far eastern one) in Gerald's time already, so we know they tried to settle that one then already. But I'm not sure they really had the numbers in the early centuries to settle all continents.

[trobadora]

I don't think they'd have sent expeditions to settle on an unknown continent if there'd been one here that was still empty.

Gerald lived in the 300s. Hm. When was that crusade against the Forest again? Because I think it says elsewhere that he only became the Hunter 500 years ago, which means in the 600s or so. No telling when exactly he took charge of the Forest. Grmpf, why is there no timeline for this stuff?!

Damn, I wish there was an official companion to Coldfire, or a wiki or something. So many snippets of info, so hard to pull them all together into a coherent picture!

[carmentalis.livejournal.com]

Alice and I tried to pull together a timeline at one point, but it's very, very hard. The one thing I can tell you for sure, as far as dates go, is that he was the Hunter in 1048 AS. There are a few hints again in CoS. Guess in whose chapters.

(You know, setting up a wiki isn't actually that hard... )

[trobadora]

Alice and I tried to pull together a timeline at one point

Share, please?

Guess in whose chapters.

LOL. He's really determined to haunt us, isn't he? *g*

(You know, setting up a wiki isn't actually that hard... )

Then let's do it, dammit. Now's the time, if ever - we're never going to collect more tiny tidbits of info than now as we're rereading everything chapter by chapter.

[carmentalis.livejournal.com]

I'll have to dig into my IM logs and see whether we ever put it together in an actual timeline, or just threw the dates at each other.

In that case, give me until the weekend, and start thinking of a domain name.

[trobadora]

Cool, thanks! And I'll give it some thought. *g*

[alice_montrose]

Gerald-pedia. :)

*goes pass out now*

[trobadora]

Off the top of my head, I vote for something to do with loremasters. Would be fitting, don't you think?

[carmentalis.livejournal.com]

We could just call it Fae Shoppe. ;-)

[prettyarbitrary.livejournal.com]

I never got the impression that there was a real split. I think it was more of a case of geographical necessity dictating a head of the Church for each region--same as waaaaay back in the early days of the Catholic Church, when it was so hard to get information around reliably that there were multiple Patriarchs.

Which would explain why relations between the Patriarch and Matriarch seem fairly cordial, aside from a bit of personality conflict.

But the thing is, it seems pretty obvious that the East is the older, more established region. Bigger population centers, the county seat of Merentha, Gerald's presence...so then why would there be no members of his own Order in the East? Was that branch all killed in the War against the Forest, and never re-established due to disagreements about using the fae? But then as one of you pointed out, the training of priests in sorcery seems to be a new project...so I'm confused...

[trobadora]

It's more of an organisational split, sure, but I was wondering when that occurred. If the Church started out in one place - which is probably the East, I would say - when did there develop a separate branch in the West? Was the West settled before that or after that? So many questions, and I'm quite frustrated that there are no answers!

And you've got a good point about the Order of the Flame. It existed in King Gannon's time, and still exists today - but where are all the knights? How many of them are there? There's a viable order, so it can't just be two or three. *g* I don't think the order had anything to do with sorcery, but with or without that it's strange.

[alice_montrose]

Perhaps it is not such a big order to begin with. Moreover, Ernan society seems to have moved past the feudal organization pattern. From what I remember, nobility titles are pretty much like they currently are around here. So one can hardly expect knights in shining armour swarming the place. Moreover, if Gerald founded the Order, I hardly dare think what the requirements for joining must be like! *shudder*

My personal theory is that most of the knights keep to the West, where their official quarters (or chapter house) are located. And if the use of the fae for church purposes is specific to Damien's Order alone, as I suspect it is, then it's all the more reason to keep away from the East, where such use was not sanctioned until Damien's arrival. (And the Patriarch seemed most reluctant to cooperate.)

[trobadora]

Can I ask you where the idea that Damien's order has something to do with using the fae is coming from? Because if there's a hint about that in the books, I don't remember it, and yet a few people have brought up that idea here. A later chapter even explicitly states that using the fae is pretty new for the Church in the West, too.

[alice_montrose]

Maybe the Order of the Flame is not the only one to use the fae, but in my twisted mind, it makes sense. (O course, I could be completely wrong about it!) I'm not really sure where the idea came from, but the moment I reread the section that led to this brilliant conclusion I'll be sure to point it out. In fact, it's likely to be in one of the next chapters we have to discuss. (Or was it in something he said to the others? Damn, I can't remember! See, this is why the reread was such a great idea!)

[trobadora]

Cool, I'm really curious about that, so I'm looking forward to finding out!

[alice_montrose]

Yeah, well, I still have to make a pertinent post about Ciani... sometime. I'm just too busy with stuff this weekend. *grumble*

Anyway, be informed that, since the wiki is partly your fault, you'll probably be enlisted for maintenance. Just in case alighiera didn't inform you yet. (You may blame me for this.)

[trobadora]

Looking forward to that, too!

(& yes, absolutely, as soon as I get the hang of this wiki thing - I already volunteered. *g* Will remember to blame you anyway, though, because you always need someone to blame.)

[prettyarbitrary.livejournal.com]

As one of the people who came to that dubious conclusion, so do I! :D