hunters_forest | Coldfire re-read: Crown of Shadows

A little earlier than usual, here's today's discussion post for chapters 3 and 4, with a rare Hunter POV chapter and a look at the Patriarch.

Plot summary

Chapter 3
The Hunter returns home, and takes his time to check whether any unwelcome demons have been trespassing. He can't find anything, so he lets himself be comforted by the normalcy of dark fae currents, weird albino servants, and mortally terrified women. If only he had an easy way to wash off that irritating taint of Vryce-ish goodness from his soul, and a Wikipedia entry on Iezu lore, the night would have been perfect.

Chapter 4
The Patriarch has started to have the sort of nightmares to rival Damien's, only without the Hunter having any direct hand in it. He now spends his nights as an elderly superhero in priestly get-up, rushing through the dark streets to rescue people from religious mobs. In true superhero fashion, he fails at tragic moments to inspire drama and angst, but also succeeds at times to keep morale up. This time all works out, and just as he gets back to the Batcave, he receives the news that Vryce is back.

Quotes

He could feel the force of the Forest's fae coursing through his veins like blood, even from this height, invigorating him body and soul. Let Calesta test him now, with all his power at hand, and that Iezu would see how quickly and how ruthlessly the Hunter dealt with his enemies.

Had it really been less than three years ago that he had lived this isolated life, surrounded by nothing but his trees and his servants and his precious experiments? Would that he could simply reclaim that life, and let the darkness of the Forest heal him of all the wounds the living world had inflicted!

Afterward, he promised himself. When all this is over, when Calesta is neutralized and my compact defended and Vryce has gone off to make a separate fate from mine ... then I will have the time and the leisure to find myself again. To define myself anew, on such terms that living men may never again compromise my spirit.

God willing, when this all was over he would have a chance to establish himself anew and cleanse the taint of Vryce's human spirit from his soul.

"I left them impaled on tree limbs, in such a posture that implied the trees might have more volition than Mordreth gives them credit for." His eyes sparkled redly. "They'll think twice before fetching their axes again."
"Excellent," he approved. And it was. A taste of normalcy, after so many months of tension.

Once Calesta was safely out of the picture there'd be time enough to teach Amoril the fine points of a Cleansing, and to see that he received sufficient practice in its use.

There, on shelves stacked ten feet high, were accumulated all his notes from the last five hundred years. Would that I had begun this work earlier! He withdrew a volume of demonological data and handed it to Amoril. Would that I had understood, in the arrogance of my youth, just how much memory can be lost after nine hundred years.

He would have given anything for Ciani of Faraday's notebooks right now; she had specialized in that demonic family, and must have uncovered countless bits of lore in her many years of study. But she was in the rakhlands now, and all her notebooks were ash. Not for the first time, he cursed Senzei Reese for his damnable shortsightedness. Better to shed human blood for sacrifice - even one's own-than destroy such treasures as that.

How good it was to be home again, where women were raised to fear him! How good it was to have five centuries of the Hunter's reputation to draw upon, to lend flavor to an otherwise quick snack.

This was a nightmare of clairvoyance, a forced voyeurism that made him witness to the evils of his world without giving him the power to change anything.

He burst into the temple, so filled with righteous indignation that the fae surrounding him seemed to take fire, lighting the air about his head like a halo.

What did they see when they looked at him, adorned in all the glory of his faith? A ruler of priests, fit counselor for kings. Little short of a god himself, by their pagan standards; certainly a god's favored messenger. That such a man should come in person to quell their riot was a thing to be wondered at; that such a man should save their idol and defend their faith was a thing past comprehension.
And that is the difference between us, he thought. That is it exactly.

Have you forgotten that our greatest enemy is not a foreign idol or even a foreign god, but the very force that gives this planet life? Our most sacred duty is to preserve our human identity, and if we fail in that, all the prayers ever voiced won't win this world salvation.

The Prophet was right, when he said that faith was the most powerful force on Erna. He looked at the pagan emblems on the wall and shook his head sadly. If only we could harness it in unity, as he intended.

With a dry smile the Patriarch greeted him. "Some new problem, is it? Don't worry, my son. There's not much you can say to me now that will make this night any worse.”
"Vryce is back," the man said quietly.
For a moment he just stared at him. Then, with a deep sigh, he rubbed his temples again.
"Yeah," he muttered. 'That did it."

Thoughts

Why pick Amoril as an apprentice? At the very least, his ideas of hygiene seem to be repulsive to Gerald, so why not take someone else? He's been quite taken with Ciani, and in a way he's even apprenticed Damien (on a religious rather than a fae-working level, at least). These two seem much more likely to please him than a creature like Amoril. Ciani might not even have had much trouble with the Hunter's habits, and someone like Damien would have presented a permanent challenge rather than blind subservience.

One thing I appreciate about Gerald is his attitude towards books and knowledge. He knows them for the treasures they are, and he knows what's lost when something is destroyed or not recorded at all.

Gerald clearly would have been happy to stay in his Forest and tinker with new insect species rather than accompany Damien on trips and risk the darkness of his soul along the way. If Calesta had kept his creatures under tighter control and prevented them from attacking Ciani, he could have saved himself a lot of trouble due to the Hunter not getting involved.

I'm not a big fan of the Patriarch, but I like his POV chapters because they give a lot of insight into the Church and the Prophet. Under different circumstances, he and Gerald could have had great conversations.

Why does the Patriarch not recognize that his dreams are Divinings? I'm guessing that it would be obvious to any fae user. And even with Workings being forbidden by the Church, he's an educated man and surely he's informed about at least the basics.

The final lines of this chapter never fail to make me smile. Damien does leave lasting impressions on people he meets.

On Thursday we tackle chapters 5 and 6 - Andrys goes and embarrasses himself in public, Damien confesses his sins to the Patriarch, and Narilka dreams of the Hunter. Come join us!