Coldfire Reread 2021: Black Sun Rising - Chapter 24

[alice_montrose]

It's finally time to meet another of the Hunter's (still) loyal henchmen and pet werewolf, the albino Amoril, who is ever so gracefully giving Damien and Senzei a tour of the Forest, complete with dangerous vegetation, (not) wyrms, undead horses and very large puppies. Fun times, I tell you. Fun times!

Plot Summary
Damien and Senzei are still following Tarrant’s trail, right into the Forest. Senzei longs to See, and barely stops himself – but even a half-formed Knowing is enough to nearly swallow him. At that point the Forest’s creatures attack, and Damien and Senzei must fight for their lives before they can move on. Damien kills an apparition of Ciani, they attempt to evade a pack of Forest wolves, and are finally confronted by an albino, who agrees to take them to see Tarrant.


Quotes

• He indicated the trees that loomed over them, the thick canopy of vegetation overhead. “No direct sunlight ever reaches the ground here,” he whispered. “Think of what that means! Have you ever watched during the true night, how quickly the dark fae moves out into the open, how powerful it gets even in that limited time? A very hungry, very volatile power, that tends to manifest man’s darker urges. But here - imagine this place in the summer, when those branches are thick with leaves . . . my God! Morning, even high noon . . . no light would ever touch the ground then. The dark fae would live on, oblivious to sunrise, and it would grow, and it would manifest-”


• How ancient the power must be here - and how sensitive, how deadly! He longed to see it on its own terms, to do battle with it directly. And for a moment - just a moment - the key to a Knowing was on his lips. He tasted the words . . . and then bit them back, forcing himself to swallow them. The currents had nearly dragged him under in Kale; here, in the Forest itself, he would be swept away to his death before he knew what hit him. And while even that might have tempted him once - to taste such power, even for an instant! - he had Ciani to think of. He hungered to cast himself into the black sun, drink in its power - but for now, it would have to rise without him.


• “How?” he gasped. His whole body was shaking. “How did you know?”
  The priest’s expression was grim, his face deeply lined.
  It seemed he had aged a decade in the past few hours. “She wouldn’t come into the light,” he said. “Ciani would have known that the Fire meant safety for her, and come to it at any cost. She invoked my god, not hers. She called you by your formal name - which she’s never done before, at least not in my presence. Do you want more?”
  “But you weren’t sure!” he exclaimed. “You couldn’t possibly be sure! And what if you were wrong?”
  “But I wasn’t, was I?” His face was like stone, his tone implacable. “You’d better learn this now, Zen. Some of the things that the darkness spawns can take on any form they like. They read your fears from the fae that surrounds you and design whatever image they need to break through your defenses. And you only get one chance to recognize them, one chance to react. If you’re wrong - or if you hesitate, even for an instant - they’ll do worse then kill you.” He looked off into the darkness; Senzei thought he saw him shiver. “Compared to some of what I’ve seen, death would be a mercy.”


• “Since you will not be driven,” he hissed, “then you must be led. Yes?” He kneed the gruesome mount into motion, one hand tangled in its death-bleached mane. “Follow me.”
  And he laughed softly - a silken, malevolent sound. “I believe the Hunter is expecting you.”

Thoughts

• We begin to see more of Gerald's genius at adapting his surroundings to suit him, rather than the other way around. And it is a fully functional ecosystem that functions in darkness. My little Goth heart says, "Sign me up!"


• Zen's descent into madness and darkness continues, as his hunger for power grows. We know the darkness is there... I wonder if in an alternate universe he would not have become one of the Hunter's servants, given the chance/choice. (Anyone looking for a Zen plot/art bunny?)


• Damien in battle mode is somewhat dispassionate, and that makes me hyped.


• The amount of hints Amoril drops about Gerald being the Hunter s even greater than I remembered:
  “In the keep. The Hunter’s warren. Where he belongs.”
  “I don’t keep track of the Hunter’s women.”
  “I believe the Hunter is expecting you.”
  It is all but handed to them on a platter, I swear I was squeeing again by the end of the chapter.

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

It's coming, guys! Almost there... just one day away...

Comments

[rekishi]

This chapter is so long. But I still love it.

The Forest is so incredibly creepy and yet my scientific heart is beating loudly. Me, a crush on Gerald's brain? Never.

[prettyarbitrary]

Ruthless Damien is kinda hot, it's true.

Poor Senzei. This is a very bad no-good day he's having.

Meanwhile Amoril just seems so SKEEVY. I've never quite gotten my head around the notion that Tarrant would be the type of guy interested in having a Renfield. I suppose Amoril must have some redeeming qualities, but we never see them.