Coldfire re-read: Black Sun Rising - chapters 29 & 30

[trobadora]

Click the cut and read all about our heroes' terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day ... ;-)

Plot Summary

Chapter 29
The Master of Lema summons the demon Calesta and orders him to go after Ciani and her companions himself this time.

Chapter 30
Damien dreams of a battlefield. He tries to Heal, but finds there is no fae - he is utterly helpless. He wakes in terror and rejoins Gerald, who's just had a good meal. *g* The party discusses the weakness of the currents, and the possible location of their enemy. They travel along the shore, and then up the Achron river. When they find shelter for the day, Damien twigs to the fact that there's something going on between Tarrant and Ciani, and he doesn't like it one bit. The next night, they are surprised by an earthquake, and Damien nearly drowns in the river before Tarrant rescues him - and, as if that wasn't enough, a group of rakh are threatening them with spears. Bad day, all around!

Quotes

• And nothing responds. Absolutely nothing. The planet is dead, unresponsive to his will. He feels the first cold bite of despair, then, a kind of fear he’s never experienced before. Danger he can deal with, death he’s confronted on at least a dozen occasions, but there’s never been anything like this before - never such absolute helplessness in the face of human suffering, such sudden awareness that his will doesn’t matter, he doesn’t matter, he has no more power to affect the patterns of fate than the dismembered limbs on this field, or the cooling blood that turns the dry earth to mud under his feet.


• “That was Earth, you know.”
  
  “Your vision of it.”
  
  “It’s the dream you serve. A future the Church hopes to make possible. A land in which the fae has no power, to alter fate or man . . . how do you like the taste of it, priest? The special savor of Terran impotence.”


• “The earth-fae is, and always has been, a predictable, ordered force. Faithful to its own laws of motion and power which, when understood, can be manipulated. Or have you forgotten your Prophet’s teachings?” he asked dryly.
  
  “Excuse me for challenging your canon.”


• “It’s a survey map,” the Hunter informed him. “A tectonic extrapolation. Done on board the Earth-ship, before the Landing. According to one document in my possession, that was standard procedure aboard such vessels. They would scan each possible landing site for seis­mic activity - and other variables - to assess the dangers that the colonists might face. It normally took five to ten Earth-years to determine whether or not a planet was suitable for colonization. In the case of Erna, nearly ninety were invested.” He tapped the map with a slender forefinger. “This was the reason.”
  
  “Seismic activity.” Damien’s tone was bitter.
  
  The Hunter nodded. “Enough to make colonization difficult, if not downright impossible. Maybe if there’d been an alternative, the ship would have moved on. Maybe somehow it knew that there was nothing beyond this - that it had come so far, rejecting so many planets along the way, that if it rejected this one there was no­where left to go. It was balanced on the brink of the galaxy, with nothing but darkness ahead of it, and it knew only two options: wake up the colonists and settle them here, or move on. No turning back. No going home. Those were the rules.”


• As he had guided their boat through the rakhland’s shallows, he now guided his party along the shoreline, across terrain that shifted from pebbled beach to half-submerged boulders to waist-high waters in a matter of minutes. And no one else could do it as well as he could. That was simple fact. The priest specialized in Healing skills, the arts of Life; the adept Gerald Tarrant, for all his awesome power, seemed ill at ease Working through the water, and preferred to leave that duty to another. And Ciani . . . it hurt him to think he was benefiting from her disability, but the truth was that he had never experienced this kind of pleasure be­fore - this absolute certainty of being needed, of having the skills which the moment required and needing to use them. Of being the only one who could use them. His years with her had been rich ones, in both experience and friendship, but he realized now just what it had cost him to function in her shadow all these years. How much of him had never lived, before this moment.


• “How are you at parting the waters?” Damien yelled to Tarrant - and it must have been some kind of religious joke, because the Hunter smiled dryly.


• Tarrant will gain strength, then, he thought. He’ll come into his true power for the first time since our landing. It was a chilling thought, but somehow it lacked the power of his previous fears. Was it possible that Tarrant’s usefulness was beginning to outweigh the abhorrence of his nature, in Damien’s mind? That was dangerous, the priest reflected. That was truly frightening. That worried him more than the true night itself - more than all the rest of it combined. Could one become inured to the presence of such an evil? So much so that one lost sight of what it truly was, and saw no further than the elegant facade which housed it? He shivered at the thought, and swore he would keep it from happening. Prayed to his God that he could keep it from happening.

Thoughts

• Gerald and Damien really speak the same language, don't they? It's very obvious here, with the parting-the-water joke and the vision of Earth, even the idea of regaining the stars. And already Damien is having trouble not forgetting that he should hate Tarrant. Justified though it is, he does sound a bit like he's talking himself into abhorrence, doesn't he? *g*


• Friedman paints a very chilling picture of Earth - and I don't mean the battle. The idea of a world that is oblivious to the people who live on it - something so ordinary shouldn't be so terrible, should it? But she makes her world real enough that we can see ours from Erna's perspective, at least for a moment.


• I'm really starting to think it was a good thing that I never paid that much attention to Senzei before - he's starting to seriously annoy me with his constant whining of I WANNA BE EXTRA-SPESHUL TOOOOO. The way he puts down his friendship with Ciani here really bugs me. How did she ever tolerate him?


• That bit about the Earth-ship - fascinating, isn't it? We know so very little about the colonists, and the Earth they came from, but you have to wonder how they must have felt about being woken on this planet, with all its seismic activity, barely suited for colonisation - even before they found out about the fae, they must have had their share of trouble.


• And finally, we're meeting the rakh. Not that we see much of them in this chapter, but this is the start. Do any of you remember what you thought about the rakh when you first read the books? what you expected them to be like? Did you expect them to become as important to the plot as they turn out to be?

On Thursday, we'll be continuing with chapters 31 and 32.

Comments

[prettyarbitrary.livejournal.com]

Chapter 29 is easy to skip past, so I just want to draw attention to the imagery evoked here. It's a real surprise (to me, at least) when the Master of Lema is revealed as a woman. I never realized it before, but this chapter is a big part of why. Friedman evokes a lot of traditionally male imagery here in relation to the character--the black-gloved hands, the use of "sorcerer" instead of "sorceress," the forcefulness, the almost erotic hunger with which she craves the adepts...

In other words, she totally plays our expectations. It's only our assumptions that color all that as male, and that's interesting in a few ways. For one thing, the other characters share it, which is intriguing, because it means that the gender roles haven't changed so much (something the Hunter's preferred prey makes clear to some extent, but on the other hand it's a world where women can wield tremendous personal power and sorcerers and adepts, so it seems like a riskier assumption to make). For another, it says something about us, doesn't it? Whether or not we identified those things as "male," how much we're still clinging to those roles and assumptions ourselves.

So besides me, who else fell for it? :)

[winter]

Friedman paints a very chilling picture of Earth - and I don't mean the battle. The idea of a world that is oblivious to the people who live on it - something so ordinary shouldn't be so terrible, should it? But she makes her world real enough that we can see ours from Erna's perspective, at least for a moment.

This issue does make me wonder - if Ernans ever reach for the stars again, or should a ship appear (and forgive my subconscious for putting Miles Vorkosigan on said ship, just for the sheer fun of watching him make Gerald explode) and offer to take them into the great beyond, would they even be able to survive the journey without going mad? In a way, I think that particular dream may be already lost.

Re: Senzei and Ciani, I did get the impression that he was something of a pet for her. Or a crippled ward, a child who'll never outgrow her. She very effectively defused the danger he could have been, had he gone the way of the Master of Lema, but I didn't get that she was getting more than pet-like companionship out of the deal. And yet he does so much for her, the sacrifice at the shop included. He gets the short end of the stick in some ways.

Do any of you remember what you thought about the rakh when you first read the books? what you expected them to be like?

I remember being very happy Friedman didn't go with the noble-savages schtick. It's a believable culture evolved out of predators.

[trobadora]

Oh, that's interesting! I meant to draw attention to the skillful way she avoids pronouns, and the way she uses "Master" and "sorceror". But it hadn't occurred to me that the imagery could be considered masculine in itself.

I don't remember what I thought when I first read it, though, so I can't say whether I fell for it. *g*

[winter]

Well, there is the "Master" title. Which is what truly fooled me :>

[trobadora]

Hm. I always got a vibe of real friendship from Ciani, even though I don't really understand what it's founded on. Maybe we'll find out more in the remaining chapters ...

As for regaining the stars - I do think they haven't changed that much yet. (And now won't, "thanks" to the fae being inaccessible now.) It would take some adaptation, certainly - but if Earth colonists could survive on Erna, surely Ernans can survive in space. They're equally as alien to each other, and Erna is much more dangerous due to the way it responds to people's fears.

[trobadora]

Come to think of it, the only way not to fall for the "Master" bit is probably if you notice how carefully she avoids pronouns. *g*

[winter]

I do think it could make for an interesting story - just how much do they rely on the fae, and how jarring will the transition be? I thought they got off too lightly, but then I hate everything that happens after Shaitan with a fiery passion.

(And my Coldfire fics always detour into Gerald facepalming and thinking up ways to get fae-use back. How does the Patriarch think houses will hold up now?)

[prettyarbitrary.livejournal.com]

The whole encounter with the Rakh from chapter 30 on is one of my favorites parts of the books. There's so much stuff here!

The Earth-dream provides a lot of interesting details to pick through:

a "storm-yellow" sun--the color ours always is--would surely be odd compared to the white star Erna orbits around. Makes me wonder what color Erna's sky is.

He focuses on his own hunger to Work and the need to Heal - the desperate need to Heal - and the faith that has sustained him past pain, past death, into realms where only the holy may enter---this is, I think, one of the few times the ubiquitous theme of hunger is applied to Damien. And what does he hunger for? Helping people. That's got to burn Tarrant. :D Also the "sustained him past death" bit, in passing, is interesting. Yet again, you have to wonder what kind of crap Damien's gotten into in his life.

Speaking of which, Damien seems fairly familiar with a battlefield here, doesn't he?

I wonder what Ciani and Senzei make of it. Damien doesn't clue them in, but it's not exactly easy to hide that something's up in these circumstances. (Also, as an aside, I keep wondering whether Tarrant actually needs to breathe. Damien has noted at least a couple of times that he doesn't always seem to.)

“It’s the dream you serve. A future the Church hopes to make possible. A land in which the fae has no power, to alter fate or man...how do you like the taste of it, priest? The special savor of Terran impotence.”

I feel so privileged with possession of secret information whenever I read this, knowing what living on Earth is actually like...and then I think how false that is, seeing as I've never lived on Erna in order to compare it. But it invites the comparison, and that's the thing about Friedman's world-building. She shows it off to you, asks you to step in and think about it.

And do you get the vibe that Tarrant didn't only give Damien that dream to terrify him? He seems awfully enthusiastic about sharing his speculations about Earth with someone who can understand and appreciate them. I get the impression he might find it a little disquieting, himself.

[trobadora]

Thing is, it's only in the East that they use the fae this much - remember Damien's surprise when he arrived in Jaggonath? So some Ernans might have less trouble with it than others. (I find the ending utterly disappointing as well, and I've always wanted to write a proper fix-it. That would be a lot of work, though, and I'm lazy ... *g*)

[prettyarbitrary.livejournal.com]

While I don't think they've (all) reached the point where they're psychologically reliant on the fae, I agree it'd probably be a hell of a culture shock for them. Between Damien and Senzei and Tarrant, we've gotten the thread of an intellectual adaptation to the fae, regardless of physical adaptations. They muse on the deadness of a world like Earth, that doesn't respond readily to lifeforms. They boggle at the thought of not having the fae available to them (akin to us being stripped of technology and having to wander around in the woods surviving by our wits).

We don't really see the long-term response of people being unable to access the fae after Shaitan. I kind of regret that. I do bet that given some time, there'd be a whiplash effect. Mind you, most of the people lurking around the Forest at the end are regular joes, who've probably never gotten much use from the fae, but sorcerers and adepts? Yeah, I bet they wouldn't be happy, given a couple of months for it to sink in. (And let's not forget that probably the largest extant collection of Earth science went up in smoke when they burned Tarrant's keep, so Earth technology becomes that much harder to recreate. The ending strikes me as fairly bleak, actually.)

[trobadora]

The rakh are fantastic, aren't they? Can't wait for those chapters. :-)

I absolutely got the same vibe from Tarrant - he enjoys discussing this stuff with Damien, and he sounds almost proud when he says, "Your faith is strong", doesn't he?

[winter]

Mind you, that's use for everyday Worked objects and quake wards. And that is what let them come up with what, judging by Damien's reaction, is a more advanced civilisation than the western one. Actual big cities, for one - which are now stopped dead from expanding, and may crumble one by one once their wards give out. How many decades before the prayer on Jaggonath cathedral runs out, unrenewed?

And then there's the Healing.

[trobadora]

The ending strikes me as fairly bleak, actually.

Me too, which is one reason I really dislike it - I always feel like the book is trying to sell it to us as a good thing, but I just can't imagine it working out like that.

[trobadora]

Oh, absolutely - it's really not that much of a happy ending!

[winter]

The other thing that struck me is that while they have medical technology, I'd bet Healers are relied on as well, especially when it comes to actually quelling infection. If they'd had antibiotics available, Damien would have stuffed Senzei full of them before going into the Forest, preventively, or at least as soon as he realised Senzei's off playing with the fairies.

After the Sacrifice, I foresee a sudden population drop due to death in childbirth and from infectious illness. Perhaps even a plague or three? You can still Heal with a Sacrifice, but to be equal, it would probably have to be life-for-life.

[prettyarbitrary.livejournal.com]

He might hate Damien at this point, but he respects him. And if he built his religion strong enough to catch the heart of a man like that a thousand years later, then he obviously did good work.

More rakh! Yes! I never felt like we got enough rakh in these books--and I say that with the understanding that we did indeed see quite a bit of them. <3

[prettyarbitrary.livejournal.com]

Exactly! I think it's pretty clear that the bulk of their medical knowledge (and it's fairly extensive, seeing as Damien can repair broken bones, life-threatening wounds and infections so handily--maybe even better than our current level) is fae-based. Which makes for a horrific scenario once that's removed.

[winter]

I think half the problem is the SF versus fantasy conflict - the ending is good in a SF way, Man triumphing over Alien, but from a fantasy point of view, and from an emotional point of view, it's a cop-out.

*pokes most recent fic* I'm really, really tempted to ignore the Sacrifice part in it. A female Gerald will be trouble enough.

[trobadora]

I thought it was bad in a SF way - as in, very chauvinistic, Man trampling all over Alien. *g*

(Female Gerald? Really? Wow.)

[winter]

And from Gerald's history we can deduce the medical knowledge developed over the years. They'll get dropped straight back in Renaissance at best.

[carmentalis.livejournal.com]

I fell for it, but I have to say that it actually annoyed me to find out it was a woman in the end. The "master" and "sorcerer" bits felt very misleading to me. It was just a little too much to make me enjoy the discovery.

[winter]

Old-style SF ;) I always prefer the ones where Man and Alien go skipping off into the sunset.

(Alix Lessing, to be exact :> Since I'll be altering elements of Gerald's bargain as well, I think I've got a free hand.)

[prettyarbitrary.livejournal.com]

A bit too much like being deliberately deceived?

[trobadora]

I always prefer the ones where Man and Alien go skipping off into the sunset.

You and me both. *g*

(I can't wait to read that - it sounds fascinating!)

[carmentalis.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure how to describe it. It was as if she made too much of the whole "oh, but the Master is a woman!" when the reveal came around. To the plot it doesn't matter that much, it's like she makes a fuss over it because she's managed to trick the reader over a minor detail.