Coldfire Reread 2021: Black Sun Rising - Chapter 15

[alice_montrose]

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?

Comments

[rekishi]

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?

[prettyarbitrary]

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.

[trobadora]

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

[prettyarbitrary]

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.

[rekishi]

Also probably exactly what the paralytics are supposed to prevent

[rekishi]

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.

[prettyarbitrary]

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?

[trobadora]

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?

[rekishi]

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

[trobadora]

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

[rekishi]

❤ :D

[trobadora]

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?

[rekishi]

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'.

[prettyarbitrary]

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.

[trobadora]

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