hunters_forest | Coldfire re-read: Black Sun Rising

Today, we go deeper into the caves, see some pretty dark fae, learn Tarrant's related to Sherlock Holmes, and then - well, here's where it gets interesting: Damien has to make up his mind ...

Plot summary

Chapter 39
Three simulacra set out. The weather's bad, and one of them dies in the cold; the other two move on.

Chapter 40
The Lost One leads Damien, Ciani and Hesseth deep into the caves, to where the fringe folk live, rakh who live just at the borders of the Master's territory. On the way, Damien gets a brief taste of Tarrant's Vision when he accidentally touches the sword in the dark. After a brief stop with the rakh, they move on, and Ciani and Damien argue about what to do about Damien. In the end, it's Hesseth who convinces Damien.

Quotes

She had Worked her own vision, using the techniques that Tarrant had taught her.
Good for her, he thought. But his soul was sick as he contemplated the cost of that Working, the darkness that would slowly be taking root inside her.
She’ll never be what she was, he thought grimly. And what bothered him most of all was not that it was happening, or that he didn’t know how to stop it. It was that she didn’t care. Didn’t even recognize the problem.
It’s all the same power to her. He’s just another adept. More interesting than most, perhaps - but that only makes him more desirable. The cost of it means . . . nothing.

Ice-cold power slammed into him, and the tunnel errupted in violet iridescence. Twisting threads of light filled the air about him, too bright to look at directly. They tangled about his feet, clung to his clothes as though seeking the flesh beneath. And burned, with a purple brilliance that was blinding. He forced himself to release the sword, and after a moment - a very long moment - the power subsided. And with it, the vision. He forced himself to breathe steadily, slowly.
The dark fae, he thought. Awed by the vision, so unlike anything he had ever seen. Is that how it looks to him? It was an incredible concept, that the man who seemingly thrived on darkness lived in a world of such brilliant light. Never lacking illumination, because his vision was always Worked.

“Illusion?” he mused aloud.
The women looked at him. “You think?” Ciani asked.
“‘When one is in the presence of the seemingly impossible, that which is merely unlikely becomes more plausible by contrast.’ That’s a quote, you know, from-” He stopped suddenly, even as the words came to his lips. And forced himself to voice them. “The Prophet,” he told them. “His writings.”

“I would sooner walk through the gates of hell,” he told her, “than loose that man on the world again. Do you realize what he is? Do you realize what he does? The hundreds of people who will suffer because of him - the thousands! - because we set him free?”

“He’s in there because he values his own vulking life more than fifty of yours - and mine - combined! Because some little footnote in his survival contract dictated that he come here in order to safeguard his own existence. Nothing more than that - nothing, Cee! The man’s a monster - even worse than that, a monster who once was human. That’s far more dangerous than your average demonkind. Do you think he really cares for you? Do you think he cares for anything, other than his own continued existence? He’d sacrifice you in a minute if you stood in his way.” The words were pouring from him like a flood tide, and with it poured all his anger. All his hatred for the man and what he represented. Everything he had been suppressing for weeks.

“Don’t get me wrong,” she said quietly. “I have no illusions about his nature. I think maybe I even understand him a little better than you can” - and her eyes narrowed - “seeing as I’m not half-blinded by theological prejudice. Let me tell you what he is. Strip away the sword and the collar, and all the accoutrements of his evil . . . and what you come up with is an adept, plain and simple. What I was.” She just stared at him for a moment, giving the words time to sink in. “We’re the same,” she whispered, “he and I.”

“We were born the same way, Gerald Tarrant and I. Not like your kind, in the midst of a comprehensible world, born to parents who could foresee your troubles and prepare for them. Most born adepts don’t make it past infancy. Or if they grow up, they grow up insane. The infant brain just can’t handle that kind of input - it’s too much, too chaotic, they can’t sort it out. We spend our lives trying to adapt, fighting to impose some kind of order on the universe. He did it. So did I. Different paths, but the end goal was the same: stability. Of ourselves, and of our world.”

“As for what he is, that’s just his adaptation,” she said. “Don’t you see? To you it means something else, it’s all tied up with questions of faith and honor - but to me it’s just that. A terrible adaptation, it’s true - I don’t deny that - but does that make it any less of an accomplishment? He’s alive. He’s sane. Not many of our kind can lay claim to that much.”

“All right,” he said. “As you say. We’ll see what the situation is, first, and then decide. The three of us.” He felt somehow polluted, shamed by his betrayal of . . . what? His people? The rakh? The matter was too complex for simple answers, and he knew it. But he felt as though he had betrayed his faith - himself - and the shame of that burned like fire. He turned away from them both, lest they see the hot reddening of his cheeks. Lest they guess at his shame. Lest they realize that beneath his bitter hatred of Tarrant there ran an undercurrent of something else. A sharp sense of relief, that when they finally went into battle they might have Tarrant’s power backing them. And that shamed him more than anything.

Thoughts

There's next to no earth fae available in the caves, and there's dark fae aplenty, and yet it doesn't seem to pose any danger here. No manifestations of their fear, nothing happening on the way or in the caves while the Lost Ones are present. Instead, we get a startlingly beautiful impression of Tarrant's Vision of the darkness. It's a rare opportunity, to look at it without being threatened. Any thoughts about that? And what is it about the Lost Ones that makes this possible?

I admit it, I laughed out loud at that Prophet quote. Our dear Tarrant seems to have reinvented Sherlock Holmes's old maxim that "when you have excluded the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth." *g*

Tarrant seems to have shared rather a lot of himself, his mortal years, with Ciani. Why do you think that is?

Damien, once again, reacts rather strongly to Ciani being "tainted" by Tarrant's teachings. And yes, Ciani is rather detached about what the Hunter is - she's Loremaster through and through, and doesn't seem to be bothered at all. To her, most of Damien's problems with the Hunter are just theological prejudice. Just another adaptation, indeed. I'd say if there's darkness in her it's not from the Hunter's taint; she had enough on her own. Thoughts about that?

Some fascinating insights on adepts, too, especially the suggestion that plenty of them don't live to see adulthood, or go mad. Makes you wonder how the rest of them adapt.

Damien's outpouring of hate, at Ciani's suggestion that they should go and free Tarrant - he's been keeping so much bottled up, and yet while the hatred is certainly genuine enough, at the same time you know that's not the half of it. Doesn't he sound rather glad to be convinced in the end - not just because they'll have Tarrant's power, but simply to have a reason, a justification for saving Tarrant?