C.S. Friedman's "Coldfire" Trilogy Quiz

Answer: 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.

Answer: 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.

Answer: 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.

Answer: 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.

Answer: 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".

Answer: 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.

Answer: 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.

Answer: 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).

Answer: 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.

Answer: 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.