Inhaltsangabe
Blending science fiction and fantasy, the first book of the Coldfire Trilogy tells a dark tale of an alien world where nightmares are made manifest.
Over a millennium ago, Erna, a seismically active yet beautiful world was settled by colonists from far-distant Earth. But the seemingly habitable planet was fraught with perils no one could have foretold. The colonists found themselves caught in a desperate battle for survival against the fae, a terrifying natural force with the power to prey upon the human mind itself, drawing forth a person's worst nightmare images or most treasured dreams and indiscriminately giving them life.
Twelve centuries after fate first stranded the colonists on Erna, mankind has achieved an uneasy stalemate, and human sorcerers manipulate the fae for their own profit, little realizing that demonic forces which feed upon such efforts are rapidly gaining in strength.
Now, as the hordes of the dark fae multiply, four people—Priest, Adept, Apprentice, and Sorcerer—are about to be drawn inexorably together for a mission which will force them to confront an evil beyond their imagining, in a conflict which will put not only their own lives but the very fate of humankind in jeopardy.
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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor
An acknowledged master of Dark Fantasy, Celia Friedman is a John W. Campbell award finalist, and the author of the highly acclaimed Coldfire Trilogy, New York Times Notable Book of the Year This Alien Shore, In Conquest Born, The Madness Season, The Wilding, and The Magister Trilogy. Ms. Friedman worked for twenty years as a professional costume designer, but retired from that career in 1996 to focus on her writing. She lives in Virginia, and can be contacted via her website, www.csfriedman.com.
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The Coldfire trilogy tells a story of discovery and battle against evil on a planet where a force of nature exists that is capable of reshaping the world in response to psychic stimulus. This terrifying force has the power to prey upon the human mind, drawing forth a person's worst nightmare images or most treasured dreams. Two enemies, a warrior priest and a sorcerer, must unite to conquer an evil greater than anything their world has ever known.
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One
Damien Kilcannon Vryce looked like he was fully capable of handling trouble, for which reason trouble generally gave him a wide berth. His thick-set body was hard with muscle, his hands textured with calluses that spoke of fighting often, and well. His shoulders bore the weight of a sizable sword in a thick leather harness with no sign of strain, despite the fact that the dust stains on his woolen shirt and the mud which caked his riding boots said that he had been traveling long and hard, and ought to be tired. His skin had tanned and scarred and peeled and tanned again, over and over again with such constancy that it now gave the impression of roughly tanned leather. His hands, curled lightly about the thick leather reins, were still reddened from exposure to the dry, cold wind of the Divider Mountains. All in all a man to be reckoned with . . . and since the thieves and bravos of Jaggonath’s outskirts preferred less challenging prey, he passed unmolested through the crowded western districts, and entered the heart of the city.
Jaggonath. He breathed in its dusty air, the sound of its name, the fact of its existence. He was here. At last. After so many days on the road that he had almost forgotten he had a goal at all, that there was anything else but traveling . . . and then the city had appeared about him, first the timber houses of the outer districts, and then the brick structures and narrow cobbled streets of the inner city, rising up like stone crops to greet the dusty sunlight. It was almost enough to make him forget what it took to get here, or why they had chosen him and no one else to make this particular crossing.
Hell, he thought dryly, no one else was fool enough to try. He tried to picture one of the Ganji elders making the long trek from west-lands to east—crossing the most treacherous of all mountain ranges, fighting off the nightmare beasts that made those cold peaks their home, braving the wild fae and all that it chose to manifest, their own souls’ nightmares given substance—but the diverse parts of such a picture, like the facets of a badly-worked Healing, wouldn’t come together. Oh, they might have agreed to come, provided they could use the sea for transport . . . but that had its own special risks, and Damien preferred the lesser terrors of things he could do battle with to the unalterable destructive power of Erna’s frequent tsunami.
He prodded his horse through the city streets with an easy touch, content to take his time, eager to see what manner of place he had come to. Though night was already falling, the city was as crowded as a Ganji marketplace at high noon. Strange habits indeed, he mused, for people who lived so near a focal point of malevolence. Back in Ganji, shopkeepers would already be shuttering their windows against the fall of night, and making ward-signs against the merest thought of Coreset. Already the season had hosted nights when no more light than that of a single moon shone down to the needy earth, and the first true night was soon to come; all the creatures that thrived on darkness would be most active in this season, seeking blood or sin or semen or despair or whatever special substance they required to sustain themselves, and seeking it with vigor. Only a fool would walk the night unarmed at such a time—or perhaps, Damien reflected, one who lived so close to the heart of that darkness that constant exposure had dulled all sense of danger.
Or was it that there was simply safety in numbers, in a city so large that no matter how many were taken in the night, the odds were good that it wouldn’t be you?
Then something caught his eye; he reined up suddenly, and his three-toed mount snorted with concern. Laughing softly, he patted it on the neck. “No danger here, old friend.” Then he considered, and added, “Not yet, anyway.”
He dismounted and led the dappled creature across the street, to the place that had caught his eye. It was a small shop, with a warded canopy set to guard the walkway just outside, and a marquee that caught the dying sunlight like drops of fire. Fae Shoppe it said, in gleaming gold letters. Resident loremaster. All hours.
He looked back over his shoulder, to the gradually darkening street. Night was coming on with vigor, and God alone knew what that would mean. The sensible thing to do would be to find an inn and drop off his things, get his mount under guard, and affix a few wards to his luggage . . . but when had he ever done the sensible thing, when curiosity was driving him? He took a moment to remove his most valuable bag from the horse’s back—his only valuable bag, in fact—locked the beast’s lead chain to a hitching rack, and went inside.
Into another world. The dying sunlight gave way to orange and amber, the flickering light of tinted lamps. Warm-toned wood added to the sense of harmony, possibly aided by a ward or two; he could feel his travel-weary muscles relax as he entered, but the Working that made them do so was too subtle to define.
All about him were things. Marvelous objects, no two of them alike, which filled to overflowing the multitude of shelves, display cases, and braces that lined the interior of the shop. Some were familiar to him, in form if not in detail. Weapons, for instance: his practiced eye took in everything from blades to pistols, from the simple swords of his own martial preference to the more complicated marvels that applied gunpowder in measured doses—and just as often misapplied it. Household items, of every kind imaginable. Books and bookmarks and bookstands, pen and paper. And some objects that were clearly Worked: talismans etched with ancient Earth symbols, intricately knotted wards, herbs and spices and perfumes and oils, and all the equipment necessary to maximize their effect.
A bizarre sort of gift shop, or general grocery? He read some of the labels, and shook his head in amazement. Was it possible—really possible—that the objects surrounding him were Worked? All of them? What a fantastic notion!
In the center of the room, dividing the public area from that space which clearly served as a reference library, a glass counter served to support several dozen books and the man who was perusing them. He was pale in a way that westerners rarely were, but Damien sensed nothing amiss about the coloring; despite its stark contrast with his dark hair, eyes, and clothing, it probably meant nothing more sinister than that he worked the late shift. In a city that remained active all night, anything was possible.
The man lifted up his wire-rimmed spectacles as he noticed his visitor, then removed them; Damien caught a flash of delicately etched sigils centered in the circles of clear glass. “Welcome,” he said pleasantly. “Can I help you with anything?”
The counter was filled with more whimsical objects, taffeta-quilt hearts and small calico bags with rosette bows, wards made up to look like massive locks and chalices engraved with sexually suggestive motifs. All of them labeled. And if the labels were accurate. . . .
“Do they really Work?” he asked.
The pale man nodded pleasantly, as though he heard the question every day. “Lady Cee’s a certified adept. Each object in the shop has been fae-bound to a purpose. Results are guaranteed, in most cases. Can I show you something in particular?”
He was about to answer when a door in the back of the shop swung open—well camouflaged by the mountains of books that flanked it, or perhaps by a Working?—and a woman...
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