Coldfire Reread 2021: Black Sun Rising - Chapters 31 & 32

[alice_montrose]

Life in the rakh camp, and look, look, it can fly!

Plot Summary

Chapter 31
The Master of Lema gets an update on the situation from Calesta, and finally exhibits some signs of proper villainy by ordering Tarrant and Ciani to be taken alive.

Chapter 32
Meanwhile, back in an icy river, Damien and Tarrant are still held at spear point by the rakh, which irritates Tarrant to no end. They are taken back to the rakh encampment, but before they can get very far, Tarrant breaks free and proceeds to demonstrate just how hard it is to keep him captive. Damien, despite not wanting to do so, cheers him on (though he'd explain it away with being freezing cold and exhausted if he had to). They reach the rakh camp, where Ciani stumps her companions by getting them all declared honourary rakh. They are questioned, and coincidence has it that Ciani has been with these rakh before, and still has their respect. Tarrant once more shows his displeasure with the situation by making mincemeat out of a rakh, which leaves a lasting impression. After he is gone, Damien, Ciani and Senzei are taken to see a rakh who has had his memories stolen as well. It is enough to convince the rakh that maybe those pesky humans can actually be useful.


Quotes

• The look in Tarrant’s eyes was murderous. What must it be like, Damien wondered, to have a soul that could command the ages, trapped in a body that could be made so vulnerable?


• Damien wondered if an adept could Work the fae without seeing it . . . and then realized what the answer had to be. The woman had seen him in Morgot, and knew his power. She had bound him well.


• Half of him was jubilant to see a member of his party freed - and the other half of him shuddered at the thought of the slaughter that might take place if Tarrant’s fury was fully unleashed. Was there any way to stop that from happening? Did he have any right to stop it from happening?


• Shape-changing wasn’t supposed to be possible, at least not for the flesh-born - but he had seen it done, and the memory chilled his blood more than weather and river-water combined. Against his will, he recalled it: a sudden burst of coldfire brilliance, so frigid that it blinded, human flesh dissolving as if in an acid bath, features running together like water in a whirlpool - and then, in that last instant, white wings rising up out of the conflagration, bearing the Hunter’s new body into a moonlit sky. But it wasn’t the transformation itself that made Damien’s blood turn to ice in his veins, or even the memory of human flesh dissolving before his eyes. It was the look on Tarrant’s face, in that last moment before he entrusted his life to the earth-fae. Utter discipline, total submission - and an echo of pain and fear so intense that Damien, remembering the man’s expression, still shivered before the force of it.


• Never thought I’d be this glad to have you around, you son of a bitch.


• Quite a woman, he thought, and his words resonated with admiration. She’s put us all to shame, for not having thought of it before.
  It surprises me that the Hunter can still experience shame, Damien thought back.
  Very rarely, he admitted. It’s not my favorite emotion.


• But then he glanced at Tarrant - at the clean, delicate profile, the perfect skin, the eyes brimming with vanity - and thought. No big surprise. The man’s got his priorities straight. Appearance tops the list. And he smiled to note that the adept’s hair, though still wet, had been Worked back into a smooth, gleaming mass; the holes that the rakh had poked in his finely woven garments had been cleaned of blood and repaired, with similar finesse. He looked like a refugee from a garden party.


• "Our ancestors foresaw a time when we might need such fluency, perhaps to bargain for our lives - and so they captured women of your tribes, and sometimes men, and forced them to interact with our young. Until your English took root here, and our few khrast families were established.” With a short, sharp gesture he indicated his companions. “Each one of us has spent time in the human lands, among your kind, absorbing the vernacular. Some have passed as demons, some as visions, some - occasionally - as humans. We’ve traveled in your world; we know your ways. We seven can interpret your words so that our people will under¬stand what you have to say."


• “We’ll pass on what you’ve told us and let the others decide. But you should know this: We’re not a forgiving people, and our hatred of your kind runs very deep. The punishment for humans who trespass in our lands has always been death. In all my years, I’ve only known of one exception to that rule. One human who managed to bridge the gap between our species, and earn the respect of a southern tribe, so that they permitted her to live. One.”


• Something that was coming to life in her, here . . . as it must have come to life the first time, so many years ago. They had sensed it in her, and it had saved her.
  Hunger. A thirst for knowledge, as powerful as Senzei’s yearning for power - or Tarrant's hunger for life. Or my - my what?
  What did he hunger for? If his life were to be rendered down to one ultimate statement of purpose, if the energy that kept him fighting were to be attributed to one driving force, what would it be?
  To know, when I died, that my descendants would inherit Earth’s dream. To know that my children’s children would possess the stars. To believe that I’ve changed the world that much. Then: Nice thought, he reflected dryly. You need to stay in one place long enough to have children, if you want all that.

I am exhausted, so I have no more thoughts in me beyond the following:

• The Master of Lema is a greedy one.


• Ciani is awesome!


• Gerald is insane. And talented. Insanely talented and balanced on a live wire of his own creation.


• Rakh social dynamics, yay!

Please discuss.

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

Comments

[prettyarbitrary]

I love the chatty mind-to-mind talk. Soulbonded to his enemy and Tarrant decides to use it to exposit. He absolutely CANNOT resist talking, can he? But it's hilarious that none of what he says is really necessary, but he's just got to tell somebody.

Also Tarrant catching Damien when he nearly falls off his horse. And later on we'll discover that he also used Coldfire on Damien sometime in these hours (and fed on him while doing it), after Damien bagan to develop probably-pneumonia from all the drowning and hypothermia. Augh, the things Friedman leaves off the page.

I would give so much to know more about Ciani's thoughts regarding the rakh. This is her life's work, and she's powerfully drawn to it even when she doesn't really remember that. I'm curious what about the rakh compels her so (I mean, there are plenty of possibilities), and what her thoughts about them are. Most of what we get about the rakh is from Damien's POV, and he tries to be academic about it but there's always a certain strain of patriarchy-powered anthropology to the way he presents his take. I'd love to get another perspective.

[rekishi]

So many tropes. So. Many. Tropes.

And still at the end of the day, I think Damien might still have more 'rescuing Gerald Tarrant' marks on his tally than Gerald does. It probably irks him.

Gerald is like one of those villains who monologue their whole plan while the hero is tied up and listens. Except that right now Gerald isn't even quite an antagonist just a slightly uncomfortable member of the party (which will also start to dissipate eventually). Also he's smart and vain and charming. But yeah, he's a smartass who likes to hear himself talk and now he's making full use of the soulbond.

Actually, do we see them use this often in this manner? Because I can't seem to be recall as much.

The social structure of the rakh is fascinating. I'm actually surprised they're not a matriarchal society. They're a bit like lions, aren't they? Where the females of the pride are actually responsible for hunting and feeding everyone and the father of the pride is just a showoff? But with more socialization, possibly.

[prettyarbitrary]

This is the only time they do the mind-speak! Which makes it feel even more tropey and unable to resist opinionating. To be fair, I don't think they're ever in another situation that calls for it. The Undying Prince's palace maybe, but I can understand if Tarrant was reluctant to risk even such a small working there.