hunters_forest | Coldfire Reread 2021: Black Sun Rising

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Coldfire Reread 2021: Black Sun Rising - Chapter 15

Sorry for the delay on this, guys - I was drained and peopled-out last night and wanted to do this chapter justice. Let us return to our regular schedule and watch our Mysterious Stranger #1 making friends. *hides under desk from Damien's wrath*

Plot summary

We start the chapter with a soul being hunted down and killed by something evil. Unaware of that, Damien, Senzei and Ciani choose this very place to stop for the night and Damien ends up offering his assistance to the mother of the killed soul (who turns out to be a teenage boy who's been in a coma for over a day). But something blocks him from seeing what is wrong, and he has to rejoin Senzei and Ciani without accomplishing anything. Dinner then brings the moment we've all waited for - Tarrant finally meets our group of intrepid travelers. While Damien tries to be sneaky about finding out more about the stranger, Ciani takes the direct approach and brings him to their table for some small-talk. Tarrant eventually offers to assist Damien with the unconscious boy, and is permitted to do so despite Damien's suspicions and jealousy. They discover that the boy's soul has been taken, and that all that is left is a mindless body. Tarrant prepares a Working to slowly kill the body, and while Damien initially protests, he lets it happen. They admit to each other that they are hunting the creature that has done this to the boy, but no more than that. Tarrant leaves the daes and heads out into the night, and Damien returns to his companions.

Quotes

For every faeborn consultant that sold legitimate Workings, there would be at least a dozen con artists imitating the trade. And knowing that, to be sure, a dae such as Briand must buy twelve times as much protection.

Damien looked about at the thick timber walls, the heavily plastered ceiling, and shook his head. “Do they really think this will stop a demon?”
“If the guests believe it,” Senzei countered, “doesn’t that give it some power?”
“Enough to matter?”

Sometimes, hungering for a symbol, followers of the One God would carry an earth-disk. Sometimes the need for a material symbol of their faith was simply too great, and their understanding of the Church’s goals too limited . . . and that was the most acceptable option. The Church had learned to tolerate it.

He tried to explain to her. About firearms, and how dangerous they were. About technology in general, and the power of human fear, and how sometimes when there was a physical process that a man couldn’t watch happen - because it was too small, or happened too fast, or was simply out of his sight - his fears could foul it up, and cause it to backfire. So that such a gun might well blow up in its owner’s hand at the moment he most needed it to function. Which meant that no man would carry such a thing, unless he’d had it Worked for safety. Or unless he was a total fool, who thrived on senseless risk. Or unless . . .
Unless he was an adept.

Slowly, calmly, in response to Damien’s fleeting touch, the stranger turned toward him. Across the length of the common room their eyes met. The man’s clear, steady gaze was more informative than any Working could have been - and much more discerning. Damien felt his own space invaded, the chill touch of a strange mind sorting out who and what he was - and then as quickly it was gone, and the space between them was impenetrable once more.

“I don’t kill innocents,” he said coldly.
The death-fae halted in its progress. Gerald Tarrant looked up at him.
“There are no innocents,” he said quietly.

And there are so many little things that are wrong, with him. Like the Earth medallion. His supposed allegiance to a Church that rejects his kind. No adept has made peace with my faith since the Prophet died.

“We’re better off without him,” he told her. Working the fae into his words. Trying to make himself sound convincing.
He wished he truly believed it himself.

Thoughts

The drug-filled dream was lovely, before it turned into a nightmare. Wouldn't blame the poor kid for wanting to escape that dae, based on the description.

I didn't remember the suspended bridges in Briand... the imagery they evoke is pretty, if dark.

We get a glimpse at what Damien can do in terms of Healing. Bless you, Reverend, for following your feelings about the dae's keeper.

At last, they meet! This chapter always makes me giggle like the biggest, silliest fangirl ever. I might even squee.

Damien and Senzei's jealousy towards Gerald is always interesting to read. Also, Damien struggling between jealousy, suspicion and disbelief.

Bonus points for Ciani just getting up and sitting down with the unknown adept. “Knowing. [...] In the old Earth sense.”, indeed. Would this have happened before her memories were stolen, or would she have been more circumspect of the pretty unknown Adept who walked in at night? I'd think the latter, if only that she seems more interested to recover. Then again, she was flirting with Damien the first time they met, so maybe she'd have still done it.

Why is Gerald wearing the Earth medallion, do you think? He seems like the type to be in the non-symbol camp. I personally think it's for the very practical reason of manipulating people.

Gerald has a pistol, guys! And Damien tells us how technology tends to malfunction on Erna, unless one is an adept. (I for one dread living without the internet, so the first settlers must not have been happy at the idea of no/limited tech.)

Behold one of my favourite quotes. Ever. "There are no innocents." Indeed, Gerald, you are lucky that Damien does not share your cynicism.

Link to the previous discussion post (imported from LiveJournal).

How do you guys feel about this chapter? Should we feel sorry or hopeful for our valiant heroes now that they have met the fourth member of their party? Or should we feel sorry for Gerald, for having caused himself to get his biggest headache yet?

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And there are so many little things that are wrong, with him. Like the Earth medallion. His supposed allegiance to a Church that rejects his kind. No adept has made peace with my faith since the Prophet died.

This line makes me drum my heels on the floor every time I read it. INDEED, Damien. INDEED.

Or should we feel sorry for Gerald, for having caused himself to get his biggest headache yet?
Never. Every bit of headache he gets from Damien is well-earned. :D Not to mention fun to watch.

I remember, the first time I read these books, this chapter was the one where I sat up and took notice. It was interesting till this point, but the moment these two meet...the currents of dark temptation and seduction into tainted choices, the two-way tug of enemies/fascination....hhhhhh baby me imprinted on these books so hard, and it all begins here.

I always wonder: is Tarrant's interest (even if hostile) in Damien as piqued from the get-go as Damien's is? I feel like reasonably speaking, it would be Ciani he'd gravitate toward. Her lively mind, the intellectual curiosity they share, the shared background of adeptitude...Tarrant evinces a taste for these traits throughout the books. She's the one who fits his aesthetic.

His initial read on Damien certainly includes things like 'thick-skulled, stubborn, brash, likely to be annoyingly determined to kill me once he realizes who I am.' None of which is untrue. But I always wonder what else his first impressions and private reactions to the priest might involve...

And I remain fascinated by the fact that Damien doesn't try to stop him, when he starts to kill the boy. Damien's got so many things going on in his head there. So many reasons. But I can't tell which ones are the ones that really stay his hand--and of course he can't either.

since the Prophet died

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Just so!

This chapter holds a special place in my heart (along with the reveal at the Keep). The first time I read it, I called the friend who recced me the books and fangirled for 30 minutes. It was on a landline, and I hate calling people. So, yeah.

He probably felt drawn to Ciani at first, but I think once he started warming up to Damien it was the end of it. And he probably can't resist the theological discussions, I mean let's face it, the man thought that having a knight involved would be "interesting", but the way he said it... gah! For all that he shows little emotion, he wants to show off and irritate.

A knight of his own order, a devoted priest of his own faith. Hates the Hunter, adores the Prophet. Damien's a walking ego-wank for Tarrant.

And you know, I bet he pats himself on the back every time Damien does something cool and impressive too. That's an exemplar of HIS Church, people. Look at the quality of people his creed brings in.

Actually this makes me realize why Tarrant was actually so pissed off about Damien getting involved. I was always focused on the 'rubbing shoulders with human types' and the generally effects of day to day human socialization on the psyche of a man who's doing his best to forget all his decent human impulses.

But Damien really is a whole other level. He's a walking constant reminder of every good thing Tarrant ever accomplished, everything he took pride in for the sake of helping humanity. Tarrant can safely look at the Church from afar and generally feel smug about it, but being hurled back into his memories of WHY he loved it and why he put so much work into it and how passionate he was about his dream of saving humanity on Erna is an existential risk to everything he is now. And Damien goes out of his way to rub all that in Tarrant's face every chance he gets. Sometimes he's not even trying be a dick about it.

And you know, I bet he pats himself on the back every time Damien does something cool and impressive too. That's an exemplar of HIS Church, people. Look at the quality of people his creed brings in.

Hahaha, totally! :D

Sometimes he's not even trying be a dick about it.

LOL!

Don't you guys think that Gerald actually Knew the party before he came in?

I mean, he could have easily stayed out of the dae, he doesn't actually need or want human company (which is his cover story), but he makes the deliberate choice to go in. He could have easily Known them without Damien knowing about it and probably did way before he ever entered.

So yes, I think Gerald was curious about Ciani (because he'd made a promise to Karrill and wanted to know for whom), but Damien must have been a beacon of...something.

I think he's drawn to Damien at first because he's a priest and a knight of his own order, and then because of Damien's ... everything ... but he does also gravitate towards Ciani to some degree. Their interactions are really fascinating to me, and he ends up teaching her a bit too ...

So many reasons. But I can't tell which ones are the ones that really stay his hand--and of course he can't either.

Yes! And that must tell Gerald so much about him!

Giving this a separate post to give these two room, because it's so easy to overlook Ciani and Senzei when we hit this point, and like you said they're both being interesting and awesome in their own right in this chapter. Ciani's "fuck it" move is just fabulous. And Zen's jealousy here stands out but so does his very intelligent caution, and the fact that he's picking up a lot of the same cues, realizations and vibes as Damien. (Smart lads.)

I would so love to know what Ciani's reaction to Tarrant would have been if she'd been in possession of all her knowledge. Damien and Senzei interpret quite a lot from the details of Tarrant's kit and comportment, but I think she would have seen even more. Would she have recognized he was from the Forest? Would she have been able to guess who he really was? What would she have made of him walking in right under one of her own wards? And what kinds of conversation would they have had if they'd sat down together?

A while later, she's going to tell Damien she primarily sees the Hunter not as a thing of objective, innate evil (though certainly dangerous and morally upsetting), but as Tarrant's adaptation for survival. Would that have held true for the Ciani we meet at the beginning of this book, or has she changed as a person by the end?

They do deserve their own post, yes.

I need to do a character analysis of Ciani, she is far more fascinating than I remember. And she was plenty fascinating to me back then. I've always liked strong female characters that are not afraid to be themselves.

I somehow feel that we have all overlooked Senzei in our discussions so far. He hungers for the Sight, and he is losing everything to the fae, in a manner of speaking. The Shoppe, his relationship... his life... His steady decline throughout the book, while Damien remains steadfast and anchored, is its own tragic tale.

It really is tragic! We see a few times how competent and brave he can be. He really is an exceptional sorcerer. During the trip through the rakhlands, he basks in the way his sorcery saves them in small ways on a daily basis. If that could have been enough for him, the trip could have paved the way for him to so many paths toward success, wealth and glory.

But instead he keeps sinking further into the one thing he lacks.

It also gets me sometimes that Damien, by way of the bond he forges with Tarrent, does in fact end up being able to share some portion of his adept's sight--and it doesn't even matter to him.

Senzei is such a good man. Despite yearning for it that desperately, he sticks by his friends and resists any action that he believes would do them harm. Tarrant compares him one time with the Master of Lema and I always feel so righteous and protective of Senzei about it. He was messed up, sure, but he never would have become that.

I would so love to know what Ciani's reaction to Tarrant would have been if she'd been in possession of all her knowledge.

Very good question! Or her adeptitude - I wonder how it works when two adepts encounter each other, what they can tell about each other ...

Yeah! Adeptitude is not sorcery, though it provides incredible advantages to a sorcerer (and I'd speculate that almost every adept will learn to Work, out of self-preservation if nothing else). And on the subject of sorcerery I'm pretty sure Tarrant could trounce any sorcerer who hadn't had a few centuries to hone their craft and self-discipline. But I bet Ciani would've given him a run for his money. I would've loved to see that...

Yes! And I wish we could have seen them interacting at the end of the book, when she's got everything back.

Would she have known he's the Hunter and stayed away from him though?

Those are two separate questions, and I'm honestly not sure about either.

I feel like she might have been able to identify who he was, from the way the fae touches him, gets tainted and flows off in the direction of the Forest.

Whether that would have made her not go near him? 'Run away from the danger' doesn't seem to be her first impulse.

Hm.

Damien is such an alpha male, isn't he? This is, I think, the first time we really see his jealousy this much but it won't be the last and it's not just directed at Gerald either.

Which is pretty interesting when we get to the rakh later, who have a much more instinctual response to life. Damien sees it and Damien displays a lot of what I would consider xenophobia (even after travelling with Hesseth for months we still see that, I'm not sure if I'm more sensitive to it now or if I interpreted it differently before), and we see him analyze a lot if the rakh behaviours in terms of animal instinct but he also fails to see it in himself. Of course he's the POV character and we're always blind to our own deepest faults, but he's such a blustering Guy.

And at the same time honestly, he has way more complex feelings about Gerald than he has about the various women he sleeps with, even before he knows his name.

A few more things:

The Jaggonath drugs are interesting. Jaggonath's drug market being regulated (I'm laughing so much you guys) makes for a fascinating subject, but what I'm more interested in: Why? Is it because things like Blackout stop your mind from affecting the fae and that's why they were developed? Gerald knows the taste, obviously, and we do have that drug dream, but I wonder if maybe there was a drug-drug-interaction.

Gerald has a pistol, guys! And Damien tells us how technology tends to malfunction on Erna, unless one is an adept.

Well, unless one knows exactly how the mechanism works, because the fae will fuck with the mechanism and manifest the user's fears. If one is an adept, of course, this is less of an issue because Gerald can....feel, see, whatever the fae. (It feels very synaesthetic to me from what he and Ciani describe throughout the book.)

Which makes me wonder: What other mechanisms or machines could adepts build? They have steam engines in general, which are pretty basic, but why hasn't Gerald engineered himself an actual generator?

As for the Earth medallion... Do we know when they switched to something tangible in the faith? Gerald may use it as a concession to other people's feelings. After all, you see how the dae's keeper react to the 'Pagan masses'. It doesn't even need to be manipulation as such but more an easy shorthand.

More interesting about the medallion: What do people make of the fact that the Hunter's sigil is engraved on a Church emblem?? Shouldn't that be anathema?

The drugs are regulated so that people can't cut them with other substances, right? I thought that was what Damien was explaining.

Now what interests me is that the drug that kid was on apparently allowed him to see the fae? Or was the kid an adept or sorcerer to begin with and was using the drug to power him up?

I'm not sure Gerald usually lets people see both sides of the medallion. If one side is the sigil of Jehanna and the other is the Earth disc then he can pick and choose. But it's pretty interesting that he of all people has the Earth disc on there to begin with, isn't it? He doesn't exactly hang with many religious types these days. It would be useful for soothing tense Church-goers, but how often does he encounter those?

We don't know that Gerald hasn't built a generator, do we? :D Who knows what all he has stashed in the basement of the keep.

From the description of the boy's room I gathered he was dabbling in sorcery - "the boy was trying to Work", it says.

This is such a teenage thing to do. Working while under the influence seems like an incredibly terrible idea, but also exactly the kind of thing that would appeal to an incredibly bored thrill-seeking kid.

Also probably exactly what the paralytics are supposed to prevent

I wonder if this means that the Keys are widely accessible? Because after 1200 on Erna this seems to be formalized (I want to talk about a few things when we get to WTNF because it jumped out at me the other day.)

I always assumed you'd at least need someone to teach you the basics.

From what we see of Damien and Tarrant, it takes more than just knowing the Keys. It seems to largely be a matter of practice to learn focus and self-discipline. Hence Damien says "He was trying to Work."

I mean no shade to the kid. If that's the case, then sorcery is the kind of thing that just takes years of practice and there's no getting around it. Like art or playing an instrument.

But where he learned them from is an interesting question. Are there books on them? Did he pick it up from some traveling sorcerers?

Yeah, that's a very good question! I don't remember ever hearing about anyone learning sorcery just from books, but who's to say it isn't possible?

It's what Casca used, but I want to talk about him when we start WTNF, I have....questions.

Oh! Oh, yes, we're definitely going to have to talk about Casca.

❤ :D

The way I understood it, Jaggonath drug regulations are supposed to guarantee reliability, so you know what you get and what risks you take. And the paralytic is probably so you can't harm yourself or others under the influence?

Yes, all of this is true, but we still have a recreational drug market that is regulated. Regulated means that this is manufactured according to a standard process, contains standard ingredients, and is probably somehow controlled by the city. It's less 'let's make cannabis legal' in our case but more 'let's make lsd legal'.

Oh absolutely. It's...interesting!

I am curious about taboos and conventions around things like sex, sexuality, drugs and so on in their society actually.

Yes, it's super fascinating! I'd love to know how that came about.

I had forgotten that we got a section from the POV of the boy with the drug addiction! One of the things I really love about these books is what they do with POV, how many different and sometimes exotic ones (the xandu!) they smoothly integrate.

For every faeborn consultant that sold legitimate Workings, there would be at least a dozen con artists imitating the trade. And knowing that, to be sure, a dae such as Briand must buy twelve times as much protection.

That is such a fascinating tidbit! Something so crucial, yet you can't rely on it. And I wonder if the (necessary) distrust diminishes the efficacy of the actually functional ones?

Why is Gerald wearing the Earth medallion, do you think?

Yeah, manipulation, mostly. Because people trust the Church, and because it will work on exactly the people the Forest's symbol wouldn't work on. But a little bit also because it’s true – it's the symbol of his faith.

The problems with technology are awful. Once something fails – and everything always fails eventually, nothing lasts forever – if you can't put it out of your mind immediately, that'll just make it keep failing. :(

I love that Ciani's personality comes through so vividly here. She's lost her memories and her abilities, but she’s still curious and willing to put herself out there, making contact, acquiring knowledge.

I’m always fascinated by Gerald's claim of a mercy killing here. He's obviously testing and provoking and tempting Damien – but is there a level on which it's also true? He can't admit it even to himself, if it is, but he's not entirely immune to such things, in the end.

And Gerald is hinting heavily here, with his "the hunter must move on" ... Is that just a private joke, or is he laying a seed? Is there part of him that wants Damien to figure it out? Hmmm.

Is there part of him that wants Damien to figure it out?

He introduces himself by name later. I'm surprised Damien doesn't go "!!!!!" inside at that point, really. Because he clearly knows the Prophet's name. Granted, it's been a thousand years and people need names and such, but I feel like he should at least note a "huh what coincidence" thing.

Yeah, I had the theory that "Gerald Tarrant" is a very common name, so Damien had already met several and therefore didn't have a reaction. *g*

Feasible (the price of Infamy?) but he is pretty startled later at the Keep so I wonder.

My first, gut-level, reaction to the drug-dream was to think about the aniq in This Alien Shore—Friedman pulls from a lot of similar-feeling imagery there, chaotic and beautiful and full of the need to run away from the big-scary-unknown-predator.

There's so much worldbuilding wrapped up in the descriptions of the dae. It's a delight.

and then there's Tarrant, the one we all love and were waiting for.

The way he's described as he enters says so much: Darkness poured in—and with it a man whose movement was so fluid, so graceful, that it was hard to believe he couldn't have simply flowed in through cracks in the door, had he wanted to.

All the key-words about Tarrant: grace and power and darkness and beauty, compelling as the night and as full of the thrill of potential danger.

I also love how Damien feels a need to say "attractive to women" specifically while thinking about how Tarrant looks. He's right, but also he's noticing and having some feelings about Tarrant's looks himself.

I'm so excited that Tarrant's around, and I don't know if feeling hopeful or sorry for our protagonists; I think there's more of an adrenaline thrill as the danger (known and otherwise) begins to creep closer alongside their own crew slowly forming.

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Coldfire Reread 2021: Black Sun Rising - Chapter 15

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