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Structure
Interesting Questions, Facts and Information
- There are a total of 30 general entries.
Special Topics
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 Interesting Questions, Facts, and Information
 Friedman, C.S.
to train possible sorcerors in Jaggonath's Church of the One God. The Patriarch of the Eastern Autocracy of God's Church is not fond of Damien or of the fact that he persists in using sorcery, but is determined to use every tool at his command to battle the evils of Erna.
he takes the life of a young boy whom Damien had tried to heal. Tarrant insisted that the boy's soul was gone, and that he was being merciful by taking the child's life. Damien never quite believed him, and the incident was the first of many sins the priest attributed to Tarrant.
he is really the Prophet, responsible for founding Damien's church. A thousand years prior to the story, the Neocount of Merentha (Gerald Tarrant) was known as the Prophet. He was a brilliant visionary who founded the Church of the One God in an effort to battle the evils of Erna. He succumbed to darkness and lived thereafter in a replica of his castle deep inside the Forest.
it is built over a fault zone. The Keeper of Souls was a woman whose obsession with power drove her to construct a castle over an active fault zone, using quake wards to stave off the earth's natural movement, while harnessing the tremendous energy of the site. It would be her demise, when Tarrant destroyed the quake wards and the castle collapsed around her.
Celesta tried to trick him into betraying himself, and he wants revenge. In the beginning of book one, the Hunter made a promise to Narilka, a Jaggonath woman, that he would never harm her. Celesta pretended to want to offer his services to Tarrant, and brought a woman as an offering. He tricked the Hunter, who almost killed Narilka. The bounds of his contract with the Unnamed forbid him from breaking his word, and would have caused his "death".
she is a human that can see and manipulate tidal fae. Before Jenseny, our heroes have never encountered a human that could work the dynamic tidal fae of Erna. Previously, this ability was limited to native species of Erna, which accounts for the mother-child relationship that developed between Jenseny and Hesseth, a native Ernan Rahkwoman.
the true status of a god: genuine immortality. Tarrant once told Damien that the surest way to lose one's soul was to bargain with a demon. He pretended to accept the Prince's offer while secretly devising a plan to allow Damien to destroy the Prince.
Gerald Tarrant killed Andrys' entire family. When Gerald Tarrant sacrificed his humanity for immortality, his vanity drove him to leave one decendant alive to continue his family name. One condition was that no other could ever take the title of "Neocount," because Gerald was never "dead." Andrys brother did so, and so every member of his family was murdered but for the one man that most resembled Gerald (Andrys).
altruism. The only way to destroy an Iezu demon is to bind it irrevocably to its opposite aspect. For example, Gerald Tarrant's friend, Karril, was a demon of pleasure, whose opposite was apathy (the inability to feel), while Celesta, a demon devoted to sadism, was defeated by his opposite, altruism, or unselfish sacrifice for the benefit of another.
they are the children of an alien spacefarer ship. The "Coldfire" trilogy ends with a stunning revelation about the "mother" of the Iezu, the very specific demons of Erna. These very specifically typed demons turn out to be the children of an ancient intelligent spacefaring vessel which landed before the time of humans on Erna, and created these "demons" in an effort to communicate with the humans.
Rakh. The Dark Ones were originally believed to be demons that fed on their victims’ memories. They lived in the rakhlands and were controlled by the Master of Lema. Damien and his group were hunting them because one of these creatures had stolen Ciani’s memories. They were successful in eliminating the Dark Ones, but Damien later told Tarrant that when they examined one of the bodies, they found out that the demons were actually rakh, and that someone had evolved them to become Dark Ones.
He swallowed the Fire. Senzei had always wanted very badly to be an adept; it was a hunger that consumed his thoughts constantly. One day when they were in the rakhlands, Ciani came to Senzei and told him that he could be an adept if he drank a little of the holy Fire that Damien carried as a weapon. This sounded too good to be true to Senzei, but what he didn’t know what that this wasn’t Ciani, but a demon who had gotten in his head and found his innermost thoughts. Senzei stole the Fire and swallowed the whole thing, which basically burned him alive from the inside out. As he died, he saw the demon come to feed on his suffering.
The sun was too dangerous to him. When Gerald Tarrant made his transformation into the Hunter, he became a nightborn entity. Any sort of light, especially sunlight, was extremely dangerous to him and would kill him. This was why their group traveled at night, even though normally it would be considered very dangerous to do this. Yet when they escaped from the tunnels during the earthquakes, Tarrant wasn’t killed when he had to stay behind and thus be exposed to sunlight. According to him, it was all “a matter of degree”.
Loremaster. Before her memory was taken from her, Ciani ran a business in Jaggonath called the Fae Shoppe. Her title was the resident loremaster, or archivist, where she did research and collected information. In addition to being a loremaster, Ciani was also a very talented adept, but when the Dark Ones fed on her, they stole her memories and her adept abilities.
His nightmares. The journey through the Canopy seriously drained Tarrant of his powers, and there were no humans in the rakhlands for him to feed upon and therefore regain his strength and power. Damien knew that they would need his strength, so he consented to Tarrant creating a channel between them so that Tarrant could feed on Damien’s nightmares. Their plan did work sufficiently. After Tarrant was exposed to the fire at the House of Storms, both Damien and Ciani gave him blood so that he would live.
Earthquakes. Erna was an extremely seismically active planet. Therefore, earthquakes were a very common occurrence and quite a few happened in this story. At the House of Storms, however, the Master of Lema had set up quake-wards so that no earthquakes occurred. She meant to draw the earthquake energy from them, but such a situation was highly unstable. Tarrant managed to cause the wards to blow, which destroyed the evil Master of Lema in the process. This action also resulted in a huge earthquake, decades in the making. At the beginning of the story, it was also noted that Erna had a frequent tsunami.
Xandu. The xandu were animals that the rakh used for transport. They were very similar to horses, with very thick fur, five toes on each foot, and large horns. After visiting the rakh camp, Damien's group was given some xandu to replace the horses they had lost in the earthquake.
Translator. Hesseth’s rank in the rakh tribe was that of khrast, and she was a translator. She was one of the rakh who could speak English. She was chosen to accompany Damien's group on its mission, as the Dark Ones had attacked rakh as well. The rakh were Erna’s native species and a complement to the human species. Despite the rakhs’ natural hatred of humans, Hesseth worked well with the humans and was a valuable asset to their mission.
A demon. Karril was a demon who was close to Ciani. He had helped her when she had been to the rakhlands before, but he couldn’t help her this time. He also ended up telling the Hunter of the whole affair. Karril was known as the demon of pleasure, and he really wasn’t a bad sort at all, despite being a demon.
Healing. Damien was a Healer, meaning he could heal people and animals of injuries and ailments. It was the only type of Working that the Church allowed and condoned, and Damien was a priest of the Church. Damien’s healing ability was demonstrated when he healed his horse’s broken leg. However, Damien was unable to Heal as they reached the House of Storms due to the lack of fae to draw from, which hindered them all in many ways.
Katassah. Katassah was the top male rakh under the Prince’s command. When Jenseny’s father visited the Black Lands, he sensed that Katassah was unhappy with the Prince’s rule and might be a potential ally. When the Prince was driven from his body, he chose to inhabit Katassah’s body, much to Katassah’s displeasure. However, after the Prince was killed, Katassah kept up the charade that he was the Prince so that his people would have a leader. He also helped Damien rescue Tarrant from the sun.
Because a rakh took over her father’s body. Jenseny's father, Protector Kierstaad, had set up a controlled invasion on his Protectorate by the southern enemy, but his efforts failed and he was betrayed. He was killed and a rakh took over his body. When he went home, Jenseny, due to her tidal fae ability, was able to see what he truly was. This caused her to run away from her home in terror. Jenseny had never really been outside before; her father had kept her hidden all her life due to her powerful adept capabilities because adepts were murdered in that region. But, she risked it anyway.
Children. The Terata were feared as demons in a region south of the Protectorates. When Damien and Hesseth were escaping from the Matria, they were captured by the Terata, and were astonished to see that they were just children. The Terata worshipped Calesta; the Iezu demon Damien and Tarrant were battling. Tarrant rescued them and destroyed the Terata, and he revealed that the Terata were not children, but very ancient people whose diseases were destroying their bodies. Calesta provided the illusion that they were children while their true bodies rotted away.
She fell into a ravine. Damien, Hesseth, and Jenseny had barely recovered from the effects of the Wasting when Hesseth sensed that something was after them. That something turned out to be hideous predatory scaled creatures that could smell their trail. Damien, Hesseth, and Jenseny hurried away and eventually found a ravine. They managed to get a tree trunk across the ravine to use as a crossing, but the creatures had caught up to them. Damien and Hesseth were trying to dislodge the tree, but the tree broke as she was standing on it and fighting a creature, sending her plummeting down to the ravine’s depths. Damien and Jenseny were very grieved at Hesseth’s death.
A knife. After that long and arduous journey, Tarrant betrayed Damien by making a deal with the Prince behind Damien’s back. Damien and Jenseny were held far underground so that they wouldn’t be able to work the fae. One day Tarrant himself brought them their meal, and while he expressed no remorse, Damien later found a sharp knife hidden in his napkin. Tarrant had also Worked the knife so that it could be efficiently hidden. This was the first indication that maybe Tarrant hadn’t really betrayed them after all.
Jenseny. The way the Prince stayed alive was by taking control of someone’s body when his present body became too old. When Damien stabbed the Prince with Tarrant’s knife, the Prince moved quickly to the nearest body available, which happened to be Katassah’s. The Prince wanted to use Damien's body, but Jenseny convinced him to use hers instead as he would be able to see the tidal fae. What no one knew was that Jenseny had snatched Tarrant's knife, and when the Prince moved into her body, she stabbed herself in the throat and used the tidal fae to bind him to her, thus killing them both. It was the ultimate sacrifice on Jenseny's part.
Trees. The Wasting’s trees were horrible things that managed to survive in that barren land. The trees snared their prey by lulling their victims to sleep and then fibers from the tree would invade the body, thus eating the prey from the inside out. There were many skeletons as evidence of this, and this almost happened to Damien, Hesseth, and Jenseny, but Damien realized what was happening and got them moving. However, many fibers had invaded Jenseny and the matter was life-threatening, but Damien Healed her. These trees were how the Prince ensured that no one could survive the Wasting.
Pilot of the Golden Glory. Rasya Maradez was the very competent pilot of the Golden Glory, the ship Damien, Tarrant, and Hesseth traveled on to reach the East. Rasya was also Damien's lover while he was aboard the ship. When the Matrias were exposed, murderous mobs rose up and not only destroyed the Matrias, but anyone who looked “odd” and nightborn. As Rasya was paler and had lighter colored hair than the locals, it was inferred that she was murdered for looking so “foreign”.
That the highest rank in the church was reserved for women. Toshida was Regent of Mercia, which was the highest rank a man could aspire to in the Church in the East. The absolute highest rank, called the Matrias, was for women only. This was a constant source of bitterness for the ambitious Toshida, but he kept his frustrations hidden. However, Damien picked up on this during their interview when he told Toshida that a man could be the Patriarch of the Church in the West. The reason for only women having the highest rank was because the Matrias were really rakh, and only females could manipulate the tidal fae that provided the illusion of being human. When the Matrias were killed, Toshida ascended to Patriarch.
He was thrown out of the Church service. Because Tarrant couldn’t receive his form of nourishment while crossing the ocean, Damien had to provide him nightmares through the channel they shared. In this dream Damien was reporting to the Patriarch about his mission with Tarrant, which could be seen by some in the Church as unethical. The Patriarch grew angry that Damien had not reported sooner and also about the focus of the mission itself, stripping Damien of his priesthood and throwing him out of the Church forever. Of course, this was only a dream for Tarrant's benefit, but it hit much too close to home for Damien.
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