Coldfire re-read: Black Sun Rising - chapter 33

[trobadora]

This week, we have more rakh, joining forces, and a lovely confrontation between Gerald and Damien. Come on in! :-)

Plot summary

The humans and the rakh have a bit of a conference. Tarrant and Damien assure the rakh that they're here to kill the demons who eat rakhene as well as human souls, and the rakh tell them that there is a human sorceror in Lema. (Who, btw, is constantly referred to as "he", even though no one's ever seen "him". Neat trick.) Tarrant gets to interrogate and feed on the fear of a young rakh female, and the rakh agree to let the humans continue on their mission, with a khrast guide. (Guess who!) Before they leave, Damien confronts Gerald and gets him to reveal his bargain with the Unnamed, and explain a little about what he is. Naturally, it ends with Gerald provoking Damien, and Damien swearing to kill him. Again. :D

Quotes

• Tarrant’s voice was low and even, filled with quiet power. Damien could almost see the link he had established with the terrified woman - perhaps because of his own link to the Hunter, quiescent though it was. He felt the adept’s mesmerism as though it were directed at him. As though the man’s knowledge of English was flowing into him, not the woman - and with it, the Hunter’s enforced calm.


• She looked about the circle, studying her audience. Her eyes fixed on Tarrant for a long, silent moment, and suddenly Damien knew what manner of Working had quieted her. No: what manner of mesmerism made her seem so calm, while the Hunter drank in the sweet savor of her terror. Damien started forward instinctively, stopped himself only with great effort. There’s nothing you can do, he told himself bitterly. And: He needs it. He’s got to feed. If he doesn’t live off the fear he finds here, he’ll have to go out and inspire some of his own. And that’s even worse - isn’t it? But his soul ached to free her from that malignant bond, and only by reminding himself, Tarrant’s power is the only thing keeping her lucid, did he manage to keep himself from interfering.
  Damn you, Hunter. For making us need you. Damn you for everything.


• “This trip is getting more dangerous each night. It’s difficult enough planning for four instead of one; I won’t pretend it comes easily to me, or that I like it. But it has to be done. And I can’t do it efficiently when I don’t even know what I’m traveling with. Already we’ve been in one situation when I didn’t know what the hell to do, to try to help you or just leave you alone . . . I don’t like feeling helpless. And I did, back at the river. I don’t like traveling with ciphers, either - but you’re forcing me to do just that. And it makes everything that much harder for all of us.” He waited for a moment, hoping for a response; when he received none, he continued. “I think they could have killed you, back at the river. I don’t think you could have stopped them. Am I wrong? Centuries of life, more power than other men dare to dream of - and I think they could have ended it all with a single spearthrust. You tell me, Hunter - do I misjudge you?”


• Tarrant’s voice was low but tense. “You’re asking to know my weaknesses.”
  “I’m asking what you are. Is that so unreasonable? What manner of man - or creature - we’re traveling with. Damn it, man, I’m tired of guessing! Tired of hoping that we won’t get caught up in some situation where my ignorance might really cost us. I might have been able to help you, back at the river - but how was I to know what you needed? What really might bind your power, as opposed to what they thought might bind it? The closer we get to our enemy, the more powerful he looks. Some day very soon we’re going to face the bastard head-on, and you may have to count on one of us for support. God help us then, if all we have to go on then is my guesswork. You want to bank your life on that?”
  The Hunter looked at him. Cold eyes, and an even colder expression; his words slid forth like ice. “A man doesn’t explain his vulnerabilities to one who intends to destroy him.”


• “What do you want me to say?” Damien snapped. “That I approve of what you are? That it’s in my nature to sit back and watch while women are slaughtered for your amusement? I swore I’d be your undoing long be¬fore I met you. But that vow belongs to another time and place - another world entirely. The rules are different here. And if we both want to get home, we’d damn well better cooperate. After that . . . I imagine you know how to take care of yourself once you’re back in the Forest. Do you really think mere words can change that?”


• “What are the rules of my existence? I learned them one by one. Like an actor who finds himself on an unfa¬miliar stage, mouthing lines he doesn’t know in a play he’s never read, I felt my way through the centuries. Did you think it was different? Did you imagine that when I made my sacrifice, someone handed me a guidebook and said, ‘Here, these are the new rules. Make sure you follow them.’ Sorry to disappoint you, priest.” He chuckled coldly. “I live. I hunger. I find things that will feed the hunger and learn to procure them. In the beginning my knowledge was crude, and I found crude answers: blood. Violence. The convulsions of dying flesh. As my understanding grew more sophisticated, so did my appetite. But the old things will still sustain me,” he warned. “Human blood alone will do that if nothing else is available. Does that answer your question?”
  “You were a vampire.”
  “For a time. When I first changed. Before I discovered that there were other options. A pitiful half-life, that . . . and gross physical assault has never appealed to me. I find the delicate pleasures of psychological manipulation much more . . . satisfying. As for the power that keeps me alive . . . call it an amalgamation of those forces which on Earth were mere negatives - but which have real substance here, and a potential for power that Earth never dreamed of. Cold, which is the absence of heat. Darkness, which is the absence of light. Death, which is the absence of life. Those forces comprise my being - they keep me alive - they determine my strengths and my weaknesses, my hungers, even my manner of think¬ing. As for how that power manifests itself . . .” He paused. “I take on whatever form inspires fear in those around me.”


• “You?” He laughed softly. “For you I’ve become the most subtle creature of all: a civilized evil, genteel and seductive. An evil you endure because you need its service - even though that very endurance plucks loose the underpinnings of your morality. An evil that causes you to question the very definitions of your identity, that blurs the line between dark and light until you’re no longer certain which is which, or how the two are di¬vided. That’s what you fear most of all, priest. Waking up one morning and no longer knowing who or what you are.” Pale gray eyes glittered hungrily in the moonlight. “Does that satisfy you? Is that what you wanted to hear?”
  For a moment, Damien said nothing; emotion was too hot in his brain for him to voice it effectively. Then at last, carefully, he chose his words. “When all this is over - when our enemy has been dealt with and we’re safely out of the rakhlands - I will kill you, Hunter. And rid the world of your taint forever. I swear it.”
  It was hard to say just what wry expression flickered across the Hunter’s face. Sadness? Amusement?
  “I never doubted that you’d try,” he whispered.


• He ought to have been grateful for the thick woolen shirt, for it kept out the autumn chill far better than his human wardrobe, but the vivid pictures that had been hurriedly painted onto it seemed somehow . . . conspicuous. Mere color had never bothered him, of course, and he had worn the stuffed and padded styles of Ganji-on-the-Cliffs without reserve, but to have his exploits - as the rakh understood them - splashed in vivid hues across his person . . . he wondered if there wasn’t just a hint of sarcasm hidden in those cryptic pictoglyphs, some little bit of rakhene humor at his expense. Or was the sight of his personal history splayed across his belly humor enough for their kind?


• He reminded himself what the adept had done for him. Not only saved his life at the river, but later cleansed him of the illness that had taken hold in those terrible, frozen hours. He shivered to remember the touch of coldfire in his veins, the pain and terror that racked his body (no doubt feed¬ing the Hunter as it did so) while the killing cure took hold - but the end result was more than he could have managed himself, in his weakened state.
  Call it what you like, he thought to the Hunter. It looked like a Healing to me.

Thoughts

• It's ... er ... interesting to see Damien observe Tarrant feed on the rakh girl, and imagine himself in her place, isn't it? :D


• Is this the first time Damien he deliberately chooses to stand by and do nothing while the Hunter feeds?


• We get to know a little bit more about Damien from that speech he gives Tarrant. Not that it's any surprise that he prefers to travel alone. *g* And don't you think in his way, he's almost as much of a control freak as Tarrant?


• Btw, that whole dialogue between them is just marvellous. Damien asks about Tarrant's weaknesses - and in the end, Tarrant tells. At the same time, Damien all but admits that once they're out of the rakhlands again, he may certainly try to kill the Hunter, but he knows damn well he doesn't have much of a chance of succeeding. It almost sounds as if that's a comfort to him, on some level: He needs to try - but he'll be just as glad if he doesn't succeed.


• I'm always fascinated by the little snippet of Tarrant's story we get here - how he gradually discovered what he'd become, and learned to deal with it, and how he changed over the centuries. I wish we'd seen more of that! It also makes one wonder - what else might he have become in time? Any thoughts?


• One of my favourite quotes from the trilogy: that part where Tarrant explains exactly what Damien fears most. Chilling and beautiful. ♥ (Although I admit I could have quoted the entire conversation. *g*)
  
• And about that not-Healing - not only is Tarrant already making a habit of saving Damien, he's already compromising himself for that. Just as much as Damien is compromising himself. They're changing each other - and that is the best part of their relationship, isn't it?


• Everyone loves to play dress-up doll with Damien, don't they? Even the rakh. *g* And possibly someone in Ganji, too. (Where is he from, originally? We never hear, do we? Lack of Damien backstory again. *sighs*)

On Thursday, we'll be continuing with chapter 34.

Comments

[winter]

I've always found the feeding sequence curious, for two reasons.

One, how come Tarrant can feed on a rakh? Demons can't, it's plainly said. Could it be he's more and more in tune with Erna's currents by now?

Two, here and again in WTNF, the feeding itself seems to take the fear away from the victim, leaving her calmer, if numb. Looks pretty much like mercy to me...

[mariem-1.livejournal.com]

One, how come Tarrant can feed on a rakh? Demons can't, it's plainly said. Could it be he's more and more in tune with Erna's currents by now?

Friedman explained that here (http://www.merentha.org/faq.asp):

"I have been pondering this special question for some time now and never managed to get a satisfying answer. It is said, repeatedly that Fae-born creatures can't feed at the Rakh, not from a native species of the planet. But Tarrant feed from that Rakh girl in BSR, and Calesta seems to feed on the sadistic deeds of Rakh. How is that possible? Or have I just gotten something wrong here?

Savvy reader, two brownies for her :-)

Tarrant isn't faeborn, he's human.

Calesta isn't faeborn, he's the offspring of humans and the Mother. That was one of the first clues that something odd was going on with the Iezu, that they did not follow the same rules as those that were truly "faeborn". There are others :-) - c.s.friedman@comcast.net"

[winter]

Which in turn may be another clue that Tarrant's so much more human ;) And also, isn't he the first human to be able to feed this way?

[trobadora]

For the first - as mariem_1 says, it's because he's human. Demons can only feed on humans because they're created by humans, but living things that feed in similar fashion can feed on anything. Tarrant can, the modified rakh ("Dark Ones") can, the Iezu can.

As for the second, yes, I agree with you. Fascinating, isn't it?

[winter]

It's a bunny. Especially seeing as most of the Hunter's surviving victims killed themselves soon afterwards. Too empty? Longing for that perfect peace above all else?

[trobadora]

Ooooh, cool bunny! :D

[fyrie.livejournal.com]

That moment, when Damien says he'll kill him, that was one of my single favourite moments of the trilogy. That whole exchange in fact - they understand each other more than they would like to acknowledge, even to themselves, and you can see certain matches in nature and personality. There are no words for how much I adored that scene, just because they both know how to hit each other's buttons so hard.

[trobadora]

Yes! *shivers* It's awesome. I love these chapters so, so much. ♥

[carmentalis.livejournal.com]

Gerald telling Damien about his weaknesses goes so much against those priciples of "survival first, (almost) everything else after that", it's stunning. This is at a point where he's still convinced Damien will not go out of his way to help him - why explain vulnerabilities when you don't expect to see protection from them? But he still does it in the end - but why? Because Damien asked politely? Because he thinks Damien is smart enough to make for a good discussion partner?

[trobadora]

Because he agrees with Damien's point that not knowing will be too much of a liability on their quest?

It does go against every bit of the self-preservation he's put above all other concerns for so long, I agree. But he also needs to help Ciani or lose his honour, and with that the one thing he believes keeps him human, so ... he's pretty much between a rock and a hard place here.

I would say that when he says he never doubted Damien would try to kill him, it almost sounds like "sorry I'm going to have to kill you".

[carmentalis.livejournal.com]

But he's so... thorough about it, liability or not. It's as if he almost enjoys discussing it, and that when Damien has just promised to come back and kill him. It's like he's trying to make it more inviting for Damien to stick around afterwards by making sure Damien knows he's got at least something of a chance.

"What a pity I'll have to kill you, you're the first decent conversationalist in literally centuries."

[trobadora]

"What a pity I'll have to kill you, you're the first decent conversationalist in literally centuries."

Yes, that!

He so clearly enjoys discussing this with Damien - he can't have had very entertaining company, the poor boy. *g*

[carmentalis.livejournal.com]

He's been sitting in a gloomy castle breeding carnivorous giant worms. Company has definitely been lacking.

[prettyarbitrary.livejournal.com]

I'd forgotten about this particular session of dress-up. :D You have to wonder what it is about him that inspires such costuming exploits.

Damien describes in one breath the soul-wrenching horror of his experience with coldfire, and then in the next says it looks like a Healing to him? Hmmm, methinks you're losing a bit of perspective there, priest. :)

Ahhhh, yes, the infamous "fear" discussion! :D I wonder: how much of a stretch is it for him to become what Damien fears most? Or is that just who he is to begin with?

And when Damien swears again to kill him: sadness? Amusement? Which do you think?

(Funny that they both end up getting what they want, isn't it? Of course, by then they don't want it anymore...)

[trobadora]

Damien describes in one breath the soul-wrenching horror of his experience with coldfire, and then in the next says it looks like a Healing to him? Hmmm, methinks you're losing a bit of perspective there, priest. :)

I love that bit, because there's so much in it. Damien's ruthless practicality, focusing on results - if the end result is a healthy patient, he can deal with the process. And yet ... It's chilling and thrilling, and it hits all my buttons. :D

I wonder: how much of a stretch is it for him to become what Damien fears most? Or is that just who he is to begin with?

I think they're just made for each other. *g*

And when Damien swears again to kill him: sadness? Amusement? Which do you think?

To me, Gerald's next sentence almost sounds like "sorry I'm going to have to kill you", so the sadness wouldn't be completely out of place. ;)

[fyrie.livejournal.com]

To me, Gerald's next sentence almost sounds like "sorry I'm going to have to kill you", so the sadness wouldn't be completely out of place. ;)

In the kinked sense? ;) Or in the "for the first time in centuries, someone has the nerve to answer me back and challenge and question me, and it's refreshing"? At this point, I would go with the latter. Anything else is still developing ;)

[trobadora]

Hee, yes, definitely the latter. *g*

[prettyarbitrary.livejournal.com]

Oh, I like them both. :D I'd somehow missed that reading of it before, but it's instantly my favorite!

[trobadora]

Now I'm curious - how did you read it?

[prettyarbitrary.livejournal.com]

I guess I was reading "sadness" more as "disappointment." Like he'd been hoping Damien might have the sense not to charge at him when they got back.

[trobadora]

Ah. No, that never occurred to me - possibly because I can't imagine anyone thinking Damien would back down. *g*

[prettyarbitrary.livejournal.com]

See, it never worked that well for me, either, so I'm happy to take your version. :D

[fragorl.livejournal.com]

mmmm yay I love this chapter!!!! :) Its like the hunter wants an enemy to come after him to give him some sort of purpose but his also sorry at the same time...

it seemed somehow . . . conspicuous. Mere color had never bothered him, of course, and he had worn the stuffed and padded styles of Ganji-on-the-Cliffs without reserve, but to have his exploits - as the rakh understood them - splashed in vivid hues across his person . . . he wondered if there wasn’t just a hint of sarcasm hidden in those cryptic pictoglyphs, some little bit of rakhene humor at his expense. This also seems really clever, it gives the rhak a totally new perspective that so many alien species never get, the idea that they have in jokes and details of customs that the characters just never understand - no wonder Ciani is so interested in them :)

[trobadora]

It's a neat little paragraph - makes me wish we'd seen more of the rakh in general. I can totally imagine them making fun of Damien. :D

[carmentalis.livejournal.com]

Ciani's interest in the rakh might also explain her interest in dressing up Damien in ridiculous colours. ;-)