Coldfire Reread 2021: Black Sun Rising - Chapters 29 & 30

[alice_montrose]

Click the cut and read all about our heroes' terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day ... ;-)

Plot Summary

Chapter 29
The Master of Lema summons the demon Calesta and orders him to go after Ciani and her companions himself this time.

Chapter 30
Damien dreams of a battlefield. He tries to Heal, but finds there is no fae - he is utterly helpless. He wakes in terror and rejoins Gerald, who's just had a good meal. *g* The party discusses the weakness of the currents, and the possible location of their enemy. They travel along the shore, and then up the Achron river. When they find shelter for the day, Damien twigs to the fact that there's something going on between Tarrant and Ciani, and he doesn't like it one bit. The next night, they are surprised by an earthquake, and Damien nearly drowns in the river before Tarrant rescues him - and, as if that wasn't enough, a group of rakh are threatening them with spears. Bad day, all around!


Quotes

• And nothing responds. Absolutely nothing. The planet is dead, unresponsive to his will. He feels the first cold bite of despair, then, a kind of fear he’s never experienced before. Danger he can deal with, death he’s confronted on at least a dozen occasions, but there’s never been anything like this before - never such absolute helplessness in the face of human suffering, such sudden awareness that his will doesn’t matter, he doesn’t matter, he has no more power to affect the patterns of fate than the dismembered limbs on this field, or the cooling blood that turns the dry earth to mud under his feet.


• “That was Earth, you know.”
  “Your vision of it.”
  “It’s the dream you serve. A future the Church hopes to make possible. A land in which the fae has no power, to alter fate or man . . . how do you like the taste of it, priest? The special savor of Terran impotence.”


• “The earth-fae is, and always has been, a predictable, ordered force. Faithful to its own laws of motion and power which, when understood, can be manipulated. Or have you forgotten your Prophet’s teachings?” he asked dryly.
  “Excuse me for challenging your canon.”


• “It’s a survey map,” the Hunter informed him. “A tectonic extrapolation. Done on board the Earth-ship, before the Landing. According to one document in my possession, that was standard procedure aboard such vessels. They would scan each possible landing site for seis­mic activity - and other variables - to assess the dangers that the colonists might face. It normally took five to ten Earth-years to determine whether or not a planet was suitable for colonization. In the case of Erna, nearly ninety were invested.” He tapped the map with a slender forefinger. “This was the reason.”
  “Seismic activity.” Damien’s tone was bitter.
  The Hunter nodded. “Enough to make colonization difficult, if not downright impossible. Maybe if there’d been an alternative, the ship would have moved on. Maybe somehow it knew that there was nothing beyond this - that it had come so far, rejecting so many planets along the way, that if it rejected this one there was no­where left to go. It was balanced on the brink of the galaxy, with nothing but darkness ahead of it, and it knew only two options: wake up the colonists and settle them here, or move on. No turning back. No going home. Those were the rules.”


• “Only a fool builds his fortress on a fault line,” Tarrant assured her. “It’s one thing to ward against the tremors of an earthquake - and quite another to try to maintain a structure when half the ground beneath it suddenly rises, or sinks, or moves to the west of that which remains. Even an adept will die if the roof falls in and crushes his head, lady. Especially if it happens at the one time he dares not Work to save himself.”


• As he had guided their boat through the rakhland’s shallows, he now guided his party along the shoreline, across terrain that shifted from pebbled beach to half-submerged boulders to waist-high waters in a matter of minutes. And no one else could do it as well as he could. That was simple fact. The priest specialized in Healing skills, the arts of Life; the adept Gerald Tarrant, for all his awesome power, seemed ill at ease Working through the water, and preferred to leave that duty to another. And Ciani . . . it hurt him to think he was benefiting from her disability, but the truth was that he had never experienced this kind of pleasure be­fore - this absolute certainty of being needed, of having the skills which the moment required and needing to use them. Of being the only one who could use them. His years with her had been rich ones, in both experience and friendship, but he realized now just what it had cost him to function in her shadow all these years. How much of him had never lived, before this moment.


• “How are you at parting the waters?” Damien yelled to Tarrant - and it must have been some kind of religious joke, because the Hunter smiled dryly.


• Tarrant will gain strength, then, he thought. He’ll come into his true power for the first time since our landing. It was a chilling thought, but somehow it lacked the power of his previous fears. Was it possible that Tarrant’s usefulness was beginning to outweigh the abhorrence of his nature, in Damien’s mind? That was dangerous, the priest reflected. That was truly frightening. That worried him more than the true night itself - more than all the rest of it combined. Could one become inured to the presence of such an evil? So much so that one lost sight of what it truly was, and saw no further than the elegant facade which housed it? He shivered at the thought, and swore he would keep it from happening. Prayed to his God that he could keep it from happening.

Thoughts

• We finally meet the Master of the dark creatures, and the deceptive mastermind behind him. Like, seriously, there's so little of Calesta in this book, I never expected him to be the antagonist of the trilogy. So that made the ending of BSR so much more fun.


• Damien's nightmare really packs a punch. Nothing responds. To one who is used to using the fae, and Heals, so much "death" must be true horror. No wonder this was chosen as the nightmare.


• The banter between Damien and Gerald turns back to the faith, and this is so much fun to read and makes me squee. Because these small scenes gradually turn into something much more elaborate, and it's like watching a play unfold.


• Gerald has a survey map from teh Earth-ship, and I'm sure the inner scholar in him is cringing at having brought his treasure along and sharing it with others.


• Senzei, Senzei... your thoughts betray you as your hunger grows stronger. I am starting to hate you, Zen.


• It's not an easy trip, and they struggle on. Until, at last, they meet the rakh. We'll save the rakh for Thursday. :)

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

Comments

[lunabee34]

I actually have a lot of sympathy for Senzei in this part. That feeling of finally being the one in the forefront, the one whose skills are needed, of not being in the shadow of greatness--I can empathize with that.

[prettyarbitrary]

Senzei's bit there...on one hand I can sympathize with it. I've felt trapped in places in my life. But like, nobody's keeping him there? With friends like Ciani in his corner, he could have bloomed out of that feeling of being trapped and overshadowed any time he wanted. He basically gets a job off on the spot while he's working on this; his skills are valuable. He could have gone anywhere, become anything he wanted. But he hasn't moved a muscle. He isn't even interested when he gets the offer.

And it occurs to me just now that later on, not-Ciani is going to play him like a fiddle not only by tempting him with power, but tempting him with being more impressive than Damien or the others in the group. Senzei doesn't just want to excel or be loved and admired on his own merits. He wants to be more than the people he stands beside.

So that makes me wonder why he really covets adeptitude so much. Is it because he thirsts for the sight? To be able to experience the world in that uniquely beautiful, visceral, immersive way? Or because he craves the way it would make him more special than everyone else?

[rekishi]

I keep trying to find hints for the identity of the Master of Lema but... Somehow I fail at it each time.

Damien serves a cause he doesn't realize fully. And yet he will actually see it come true. Ah Damien.

So what strikes me here is: Erna is in a position to see a sun, two moons....and the core. For that, Erna have to close to the center of the galaxy, not on the rim. We on Earth are somewhere on the other arms (source 1, source 2, I'm not linking you physics paper, I don't understand those myself). So in order to see the core, Erna would have to be closer to the center of the galaxy (and possibly have higher gravity, but that depends on several factors). Which means, for the ship to go further would mean sooner or later falling into the black hole at the center of the Milky Way rather than going out into nothingness.

Also Gerald, you make copies of such things, you don't lug the original around. *wince*