THE URTH OF THE NEW SUN

Gene Wolfe

Awake! for Morning in the Bowl of Night

Has flung the Stone that puts the Stars to Flight:

And Lo! the Hunter of the East has caught

The Sultan's Turret in a Noose of Light.

—FITZGERALD

APPENDIX

The Miracle of Apu-Punchau

NO SORT of wonder is more convincing to the primitive mind than oneaffecting the presumably immutable workings of the heavens. Severian'sprolongation of the night, however, may leave less credulous minds puzzlingover the ways in which such a marvel might be achieved without a cataclysmgreater than that which accompanied the arrival of the New Sun.

At least two plausible explanations could be put forward. Mass hypnosis isinvoked by historians to explain all multiply attested wonders that cannot bedegraded in any other fashion; but it is something no actual hypnotist offers toproduce.

If mass hypnosis is discarded, the only alternative appears to be an eclipse inthe broadest sense— that is, the passage of some opaque body between the OldSun and Urth.

In this context, it should be noted that the stars seen in the skies of theCommonwealth in winter rise in spring over the stone town (presumably dueto the precession of the equinoxes); but that during his prolongation of thenight Severian sees his accustomed spring stars. This would seem to favor thesecond explanation, as does the immediate manifestion of the Old Sun, alreadyhigher than the rooftops, after the capitulation of the autochthons. NothingSeverian writes indicates what the opaque body may have been; but thethoughtful reader will find little difficulty in advancing at least one plausiblespeculation.

—G. W.

CHAPTER ONE - THE MAINMAST

HAVING CAST one manuscript into the seas of time, I now begin again.Surely it is absurd; but I am not— I will not be— so absurd myself as tosuppose that this will ever find a reader, even in me. Let me describe then, tono one and nothing, just who I am and what it is that I have done to Urth.My true name is Severian. By my friends, of whom there were never verymany, I was called Severian the Lame. By my soldiers, of whom I oncecommanded a great many, though never enough, Severian the Great. By myfoes, who bred like flies, and like flies were spawned from the corpses thatstrewed my battlefields, Severian the Torturer. I was the last Autarch of ourCommonwealth, and as such the only legitimate ruler of this world when wecalled it Urth.

But what a disease this writing business is! A few years ago (if time retains anymeaning), I wrote in my cabin on the ship of Tzadkiel, re-creating frommemory the book I had composed in a clerestory of the House Absolute. Satdriving my pen like any clerk, recopying a text I could without difficulty bringto mind, and feeling that I performed the final meaningful act— or rather, thefinal meaningless act— of my life.

So I wrote and slept, and rose to write again, ink flying across my paper,relived at last the moment at which I entered poor Valeria's tower and heardit and all the rest speak to me, felt the proud burden of manhood droppedupon my shoulders, and knew I was a youth no more. That was ten years past,I thought. Ten years had gone by when I wrote of it in the House Absolute.Now the time is perhaps a century or more. Who can say?

I had brought aboard a narrow coffer of lead with a close-fitting lid. Mymanuscript filled it, as I knew it would. I closed the lid and locked it, adjustedmy pistol to its lowest setting, and fused lid and coffer into a single mass withthe beam.

To go on deck, one passes through strange gangways, often filled by anechoing voice that, though it cannot be distinctly heard, can always beunderstood. When one reaches a hatch, one must put on a cloak of air, aninvisible atmosphere of one's own held by what appears to be no more than ashining necklace of linked cylinders. There is a hood of air for the head, glovesof air for the hands (these grow thin, however, when one grasps something,and the cold seeps in), boots of air, and so forth.

These ships that sail between the suns are not like the ships of Urth. In place ofdeck and hull, there is deck after deck, so that one goes over the railing of oneand finds oneself walking on the next. The decks are of wood, which resists thedeadly cold as metal will not; but metal and stone underlie them.Masts sprout from every deck, a hundred times taller than the Flag Keep of

the Citadel. Every part appears straight, yet when one looks along theirlength, which is like looking down some weary road that runs beyond thehorizon, one sees that it bends ever so slightly, bowing to the wind from thesuns.

There are masts beyond counting; every mast carries a thousand spars, andevery spar spreads a sail of fuligin and silver. These fill the sky, so that if aman on deck desires to see the distant suns' blaze of citron, white, violet, androse, he must labor to catch a glimpse of them between the sails, just as hemight labor to glimpse them among the clouds of an autumn night.As I was told by the steward, it sometimes happens that a sailor aloft will losehis hold. When that occurs on Urth, the unfortunate man generally strikes thedeck and dies. Here there is no such risk. Though the ship is so mighty, andfilled with such treasures, and though we are so much nearer her center thanthose who walk upon Urth are to the center of Urth, yet her attraction is butslight. The careless sailor drifts among the shrouds and sails like thistledown,most injured by the derision of his workmates, whose voices, however, hecannot hear. (For the void hushes every voice except to the speaker himself,unless two come so near that their investitures of air become a singleatmosphere.) And I have heard it said that if it were not thus, the roaring ofthe suns would deafen the universe.

Of all this I knew little when I went on deck. I had been told that I would haveto wear a necklace, and that the hatches were so constructed that the innermust be shut before the outer can be opened— but hardly more. Imagine mysurprise, then, when I stepped out, the leaden coffer beneath my arm.Above me rose the black masts and their silver sails, tier upon tier, until itseemed they must push aside the very stars. The rigging might have beencobweb, were the spider as large as the ship— and the ship was larger thanmany an isle that boasts a hall and an armiger in it who thinks himself almosta monarch. The deck itself was extensive as a plain; merely to set foot on itrequired all my courage.

When I sat writing in my cabin, I had scarcely been aware that my weight hadbeen reduced by seven-eighths. Now I seemed to myself like a ghost, or rathera man of paper, a fit husband for the paper women I had colored and paradedas a child. The force of the wind from the suns is less than the lightest zephyrof Urth; yet slight though it was, I felt it and feared I might be blown away. Iseemed almost to float above the deck rather than to walk on it; and I knowthat it is so, because the power of the necklace kept outsoles of air between theplanks and the soles of my boots.

I looked around for some sailor who might advise me of the best way to climb,thinking that the decks would hold many, as the decks of our ships did onUrth. There was no one; to keep their cloaks of air from growing foul, allhands remain below save when they are needed aloft, which is but seldom.Knowing no better, I called aloud. There was, of course, no answer.A mast stood a few chains off, but as soon as I saw it I knew I had no hope ofclimbing it; it was thicker through than any tree that ever graced our forests,and as smooth as metal. I began to walk, fearing a hundred things that wouldnever harm me and utterly ignorant of the real risks I ran.

The great decks are flat, so that a sailor on one part can signal to his matesome distance away; if they were curved, with surfaces everywhere equally

distant from the hunger of the ship, separated hands would be concealed fromeach other's sight, as ships were hidden from one another under the horizonsof Urth. But because they are flat, they seem always to slant, unless one standsat the center. Thus I felt, light though I was, that I climbed a ghostly hill.Climb it I did for the space of many breaths, perhaps for half a watch. Thesilence seemed to crush my spirit, a hush more palpable than the ship. I heardthe faint taps of my own uneven footfalls on the planks and occasionally astirring or humming from beneath my feet. Other than these faint sounds,there was nothing. Ever since I sat under Master Malrubius's instruction as achild, I have known that the space between the suns is far from empty; manyhundreds and perhaps many thousands of voyages are made there. As Ilearned later, there are other things too— the undine I twice encountered hadtold me that she sometimes swam the void, and the winged being I hadglimpsed in Father Inire's book flew there.

Now I learned what I had never really known before: that all these ships andgreat beings are only a single handful of seed scattered over a desert, whichremains when the sowing is done as empty as ever. I would have turned andlimped back to my cabin, if I had not realized that when I reached it my pridewould force me out again.

At last I approached the faint descending gossamers of the rigging, cables thatsometimes caught the starlight, sometimes vanished in the darkness or againstthe towering bank of silver that was the top-hamper of the deck beyond. Smallthough they appeared, each cable was thicker than the great column's of ourcathedral.

I had worn a cloak of wool as well as my cloak of air; now I knotted the hemabout my waist, making a sort of bag or pack into which I put the coffer.Gathering all my strength into my good leg, I leaped.

Because I felt my whole being but a tissue of feathers, I had supposed I wouldrise slowly, floating upward as I had been told sailors floated in the rigging. Itwas not so. I leaped as swiftly and perhaps more swiftly than anyone here onUshas, but I did not slow, as such a leaper begins to slow almost at once. Thefirst speed of my leap endured unabated— up and up I shot, and the feelingwas wonderful and terrifying.

Soon the terror grew because I could not hold myself as I wished; my feetlifted of their own accord until I leaped half sidewise, and at last spun throughthe emptiness like a sword tossed aloft in the moment of victory.

A shining cable flashed by, just outside my reach. I heard a strangled cry, andonly afterward realized it had come from my own throat. A second cableshone ahead. Whether I willed it or not, I rushed at it as I might have rushedupon an enemy, caught it, and held it, though the effort nearly wrenched myarms out of their sockets, and the leaden coffer— which shot past my head—

almost strangled me with my own cloak. Clamping my legs around the icycable, I managed to catch my breath.

Many abuattes roamed the gardens of the House Absolute, and because thelower servants (ditchers, porters, and the like) occasionally trapped them forthe pot, they were wary of men. I often watched and envied them as they ranup some trunk without falling— and, indeed, seemingly without knowledge ofthe aching hunger of Urth at all. Now I had myself become such an animal.

The faintest tug from the ship told me that downward lay toward thespreading deck, but it was less than the memory of a memory: once, perhaps, Ihad fallen, somehow. I recalled recollecting that fall.

But the cable was a sort of pampas trail; to go up it was as easy as to go down,and both were easy indeed. Its many strands provided me with a thousandholds, and I scrambled up like a long-haunched little beast, a hare boundingalong a log.

Soon the cable reached a spar, the yard holding the lower main topsail. Isprang from it to another, slimmer, cable; and from it to a third. When Imounted to the spar that held it, I found I was mounting no longer; thewhisper of downwas silent, and the grayish-brown hull of the ship simplydrifted, somewhere near the limit of my vision.

Beyond my head, bank after bank of silver sails rose still, apparently asendless as before I had mounted into the rigging. To right and left, the mastsof other decks diverged like the tines of a birding arrow— or rather, like rowupon row of such arrows, for there were still more masts behind those nearestme, masts separated by tens of leagues at least. Like the fingers of the Increatethey pointed to the ends of the universe, their topmost starsails no more thanflecks of gleaming tinsel lost among the glittering stars. From such a place Imight have cast the coffer (as I had thought to do) into the waste, to be found,perhaps, by someone of another race, if the Increate willed it.

Two things restrained me, the first less a thought than a memory, the memoryof my first resolve, made when I wrote and all speculations about the ships ofthe Hierodules were new to me, to wait until our vessel had penetrated thefabric of time. I had already entrusted the initial manuscript of my account toMaster Ultan's library, where it would endure no longer than our Urthherself.

This copy I had (at first) intended for another creation; so that even if I failedthe great trial that lay before me, I would have succeeded in sending a part ofour world— no matter how trifling a part— beyond the pales of the universe.Now I looked at the stars, at suns so remote that their circling planets wereinvisible, though some might be larger than Serenus; and at whole swirls ofstars so remote that their teeming billions appeared to be a single star. And Imarveled to recall that all this had seemed too small for my ambition, andwondered whether it had grown (though the mystes declare it no longergrows) or I had.

The second was not truly of thought either, perhaps; only instinct and anovermastering desire: I wanted to mount to the top. To defend my resolution, Imight say that I knew no such opportunity might come again, that it scarcelyaccorded with my office to settle for less than common seamen achievedwhenever their duties demanded it, and so on.

All these would be rationalizations— the thing itself was glorious. For years Ihad known joy in nothing but victories, and now I felt myself a boy again.When I had wished to climb the Great Keep, it had never occurred to me thatthe Great Keep itself might wish to climb the sky; I knew better now. But thisship at least was climbing beyond the sky, and I wanted to climb with her.The higher I mounted, the easier and the more dangerous my climb became.No fraction of weight remained to me. Again and again I leaped, caught somesheet or halyard, scrambled until I had my feet on it, and leaped once more.

After a dozen such ascents, it struck me that there was no reason to stop until Ireached the highest point on the mast— that one jump would take me there, ifonly I did not prevent it. Then I rose like a Midsummer's Eve rocket; I couldreadily have imagined that I whistled as they did or trailed a plume of red andblue sparks.

Sails and cables flew past in an infinite procession. Once I seemed to see,suspended (as it appeared) in the space between two sails, an indistinct goldenshape veined with crimson; insofar as I considered it at all, I supposed it to bean instrument positioned where it might be near the stars— or possibly only anobject carelessly left on deck until some minor change in course had permittedit to float away.

And still I shot upward.

The maintop came into view. I reached for a halyard. They were hardlythicker than my finger now, though every sail would have covered ten score ofmeadows.

I had misjudged, and the halyard was just beyond my grasp. Another flashedby.

And another— three cubits out of reach at least.

I tried to twist like a swimmer but could do no more than lift my knee. Theshining cables of the rigging had been widely separated even far below, wherethere were for this single mast more than a hundred. None now remained butthe startop shroud. My fingers brushed it but could not grasp it.

CHAPTER TWO - THE FIFTH SAILOR

THE END of my life had come, and I knew it. Aboard the Samru, they hadtrailed a long rope from the stern as an aid to any sailor who might falloverboard. Whether our ship towed such a line, I did not know; but even if itdid, it would have done me no good. My difficulty (my tragedy, I am temptedto write) was not that I had fallen from the rail and drifted aft of the rudder,but that I had risen above the entire forest of masts. And thus I continued torise— or rather, to leave the ship, for I might as easily have been falling headdownward— with the speed of my initial leap.

Below me, or at least in the direction of my feet, the ship seemed a dwindlingcontinent of silver, her black masts and spars as slender as the horns ofcrickets. Around me, the stars burned unchecked, blazing with splendor never

seen on Urth. For a moment, not because my wits were working but becausethey were not, I looked for her; she would be green, I thought, like green Lune,but tipped with white where the ice-fields closed upon our chilled lands. Icould not find her, nor even the crimson-shot orange disk of the old sun.Then I realized I had been looking in the wrong place. If Urth was visible atall, Urth would be astern. I looked there and saw, not our Urth, but a growing,spinning, swirling vortex of fuligin, the color that is darker than black. It waslike some vast eddy or whirlpool of emptiness; but circling it was a circle ofcolored light, as though a billion billion stars were dancing.

Then I knew the miracle had passed without my notice, had passed as I copiedout some stodgy sentence about Master Gurloes or the Ascian War. We hadpenetrated the fabric of time, and the fuligin vortex marked the end of theuniverse.

Or its beginning. If its beginning, then that shimmering ring of stars was thescattering of the young suns, and the only truly magical ring this universewould ever know. Hailing them, I shouted for joy, though no one heard myvoice but the Increate and me.

I drew my cloak to me and pulled the leaden coffer from it; and I held thecoffer above my head in both my hands; and I cast it, cheering as I cast it, outof my unseen cloak of air, out of the purlieu of the ship, out of the universethat the coffer and I had known, and into the new creation as final offeringfrom the old.

At once my destiny seized me and flung me back. Not straight downwardtoward the part of the deck I had left, which might well have killed me, butdown and forward, so that I saw the mastheads racing by me. I craned myneck to see the next; it was the last. Had I been an ell or two to the right, Imight have been brained by the very tip of the mast. Instead I flashed betweenits final extension and the starsail yard, with the buntlines far out of reach. Ihad outraced the ship.

Enormously distant and at a different angle altogether, another of theuncountable masts appeared. Sails sprouted from it like the leaves on a tree;and they were not the now familiar rectangular sails, but triangular ones. Fora time, it seemed I would outrace this mast too, and then that I would strike it.Frantically, I clutched at the flying jib stay.

Around it I swung like a flag in a changing wind. I clung to its stinging cold fora moment, panting, then threw myself down the length of the bowsprit— forthis final mast was the bowsprit, of course— with all the strength of my arms. Ithink that if I had crashed into the bow, I would not have cared; I wantednothing more, and nothing else, than to touch the hull, anywhere and in anyway.

I struck a staysail instead, and went sliding along its immense silver surface.Surface indeed it was, and seemed all surface, with less of body than awhisper, almost itself a thing of light. It turned me, spun me, and sent merolling and tumbling like a wind-tossed leaf down to the deck.

Or rather, down to some deck, for I have never been certain that the deck towhich I returned was that which I had left. I sprawled there trying to catch mybreath, my lame leg an agony; held, but almost not held, by the ship'sattraction.

My frantic panting never stopped or even slowed; and after a hundred such

gasps, I realized my cloak of air was incapable of supporting my life muchlonger. I struggled to rise. Half-suffocated though I was, it was almost tooeasy— I nearly threw myself aloft again. A hatch was only a chain away. Istaggered to it, flung it wide with the last of my strength, and shut it behindme. The inner door seemed to open almost of itself.

At once my air freshened, as though some noble young breeze had penetrateda fetid cell. To hasten the process, I took off my necklace as I stepped out intothe gangway, then stood for a time breathing the cool, clean air, scarcelyconscious of where I was— save for the blessed knowledge that I was inside theship again, and not wandering wrack beyond her sails.

The gangway was narrow and bright, painfully lit by blue lights that creptslowly along its walls and ceiling, winking and seemingly peering into thegangway without being any part of it.

Nothing escapes my memory unless I am unconscious or nearly so; I recalledevery passage between my cabin and the hatch that had let me out onto thedeck, and this was none of them. Most of them had been furnished like thedrawing rooms of chateaus, with pictures and polished floors. The brownwood of the deck had given way here to a green carpeting like grass that liftedminute teeth to grip the soles of my boots, so that I felt as though the littleblue-green blades were blades indeed.

Thus I was faced with a decision, and one I did not relish. The hatch wasbehind me. I could go out again and search from deck to deck for my own partof the ship. Or I could proceed along this broad passage and search frominside. This alternative carried the immense disadvantage that I might easilybecome lost in the interior. Yet would that be worse than being lost among therigging, as I had been? Or in the endless space between the suns, as I hadnearly been?

I stood there vacillating until I heard the sound of voices. It reminded me thatmy cloak was still, ridiculously, knotted about my waist. I untied it, and hadjust finished doing so when the people whose voices I had heard came intoview.

All were armed, but there all similarity ended. One seemed an ordinaryenough man, such as might have been seen any day around the docks ofNessus; one of a race I had never encountered in all my journeyings, tall as anexultant and having skin not of the pinkish brown we are pleased to call white,but truly white, as white as foam, and crowned by hair that was white as well.The third was a woman, only just shorter than I and thicker of limb than anywoman I had ever seen. Behind these three, seeming almost to drive thembefore him, was a figure that might have been that of a massive man in armorcomplete.

They would have passed me without a word if I had allowed it, I think, but Istepped into the middle of the corridor, forced them to halt, and explained mypredicament.

"I have reported it," the armored figure told me. "Someone will come for you,or I shall be sent with you. Meanwhile you must come with me."

"Where are you going?" I asked, but he turned away as I spoke, gesturing tothe two men.

"Come on," the woman said, and kissed me. It was not a long kiss, but thereseemed to be a rough passion in it. She took my arm in a grip that seemed as

strong as a man's.

The ordinary sailor (who in fact did not look ordinary at all, having a cheerfuland rather handsome face and the yellow hair of a southerner) said, "You'llhave to come, or they won't know where to look for you— if they look at all. Itprobably won't be too bad." He spoke over his shoulder as he walked, and thewoman and I followed him.

The white-haired man said, "Perhaps you can help me." I supposed that hehad recognized me; and feeling in need of as many allies as I might enlist, Itold him I would if I could.

"For the love of Danaides, be quiet," the woman said to him. And then to me,

"Do you have a weapon?"

I showed her my pistol.

"You'll have to be careful with that in here. Can you turn it down?"

"I already have."

She and the rest bore calivers, arms much like fusils, but with somewhatshorter though thicker stocks and more slender barrels. There was a longdagger at her belt; both the men had bolos, short, heavy, broad-bladed jungleknives.

"I'm Purn," the blond man told me.

"Severian."

He held out his hand, and I took it— a sailor's hand, large, rough, andmuscular.

"She's Gunnie— "

"Burgundofara," the woman said.

"We call her Gunnie. And he's Idas." He gestured toward the white-hairedman.

The man in armor was looking down the corridor in back of us, but hesnapped, "Be still!" I had never seen anyone who could turn his head so far.

"What's his name?" I whispered to Purn.

Gunnie answered instead. "Sidero." Of the three, she seemed least in awe ofhim.

"Where is he taking us?"

Sidero loped past us and threw open a door. "Here. This is a good place. Ourconfidence is high. Separate widely. I will be in the center. Do no harm unlessattacked. Signal vocally."

"In the name of the Increate," I asked, "what are we supposed to be doing?"

"Searching out apports," Gunnie muttered. "You don't have to pay too muchattention to Sidero. Shoot if they look dangerous."

While she spoke, she had been steering me toward the open door. Now Idassaid, "Don't worry, there probably won't be any," and stepped so close behindus that I stepped through it almost automatically.

It was pitch dark, but I was immediately conscious that I no longer stood onsolid flooring but on some sort of open and shaky grillwork, and that I wasentering a place much larger than a common room.

Gunnie's hair brushed my shoulder as she peered past me into the blackness,bringing with it the mingled smells of perfume and sweat. "Turn on the lights,Sidero. We can't see a thing in here."

Lights blazed with a yellower hue than that of the corridor we had just left, ajaundiced radiance that seemed to suck the color from everything. We stood,

the four of us crowded together in a compact mass, upon a floor of black barsno thicker than a man's smallest finger. There was no rail, and the spacebefore us and below us (for the ceiling just above us must have supported thedeck) would have held our Matachin Tower.

What it now held was an immense jumble of cargo: boxes, bails, barrels, andcrates of all kinds; machinery and parts of machines; sacks, many ofshimmering, translucent film; stacks of lumber.

"There!" Sidero snapped. He pointed to a spidery ladder descending the wall.

"You go first," I said.

There was no rushing toward me— we were not a span apart— and thus notime for me to draw my pistol. He seized me with a strength I found amazing,forced me back a step, and pushed me violently. For an instant I teetered atthe edge of the platform, clawing air; then I fell.

Doubtless I would have broken my neck on Urth. On the ship, I might almostbe said to have floated down. Yet the slowness of my fall did nothing to allaythe terror I felt in falling. I saw ceiling and platform revolve above me. I wasconscious that I would land on my back, with spine and skull bearing theshock, and yet I could not turn myself. I clutched for some support, and myimagination fervently, feverishly conjured up the flying jib stay. The four faceslooking down at me— Sidero's armored visor, Idas's chalk-white cheeks,Purn's grin, Gunnie's beautiful, brutal features— seemed masks from anightmare. And surely no waking unfortunate flung from the top of the BellTower had so long in which to contemplate his own destruction.

I struck with a jolt that knocked out my breath. For a hundred heartbeats ormore I lay gasping, just as I had panted for air when I had at last regained theinterior of the ship. Slowly I realized that though I had suffered a fall indeed,it had been no worse than I might have suffered in falling from my bed to thecarpet in some evil dream of Typhon. Sitting up, I found no broken bones.Bundles of papers had been my carpet, and I thought Sidero must have knownthey were there and that I would not be hurt. Then I saw beside me a crazilytilted mechanism, spiky with shafts and levers.

I got to my feet. Far above, the platform was empty, the door that led to thecorridor closed. I looked for the spidery ladder, but all except the uppermostrungs were obscured by the mechanism. I edged around that, impeded by theunevenly stacked bundles (they had been tied with sisal, and some of the cordshad broken, so that I slipped and slid over documents as I might have oversnow), but greatly aided by the lightness of my body.

Because I was looking down to find my footing, I did not see the thing beforeme until I was actually peering into its blind face.

CHAPTER THREE - THE CABIN

MY HAND went to my pistol— I had it out and leveled almost before I knew it.The shaggy creature seemed no different from the stooped figure of thesalamander that had once nearly burned me alive in Thrax. I expected it torear erect and reveal the blazing heart within.

It did not, and until too late I did not fire. For a moment we waited motionless;then it fled, bouncing and scrambling across the boxes and barrels like anawkward puppy in pursuit of the lively ball that was itself. With that vileinstinct every man has to kill whatever may fear him, I fired. The beam—

potentially deadly still, though I had reduced it to its lowest strength to seal theleaden coffer— split the air and set a solid-looking ingot to clanging like agong. But the creature, whatever it was, was a dozen ells away at least, and inanother moment it had disappeared behind a statue swathed in protectivewrappings.

Someone shouted, and I thought I recognized Gunnie's husky contralto. Therewas a sound like a singing arrow, then a yell from another throat.The shaggy creature came bounding back, but this time, having regained mysenses, I did not shoot. Purn appeared and fired his caliver, swinging it like afowling piece. Instead of the bolt I expected, it shot forth a cord, somethingflexible and swiff that looked black in the strange light and flew with thesinging I had heard a moment before.

This black cord struck the shaggy creature and wrapped it with a loop or two,but seemed to produce no other result. Purn gave a shout and leaped like agrasshopper. It had not occurred to me before that in this vast place I couldleap myself just as I had on deck, but I imitated him now (mostly because I didnot wish to lose contact with Sidero before I had revenged myself) and nearlydashed out my brains against the ceiling.

While I was in the air, however, I had a magnificent view of the hold beneathme. There was the shaggy creature, which might have been fallow underUrth's sun, streaked with black yet still skipping with frantic energy; even as Isaw him, Sidero's caliver blotched him more. There was Purn nearly uponhim, and Idas and Gunnie, the latter firing even as she ran in great leaps, fromhigh place to high place across the jumbled cargo.

I dropped near them, climbed unsteadily atop the tilted breach of a mountaincarronade, and hardly saw the shaggy creature scrambling toward me until ithad bounced almost into my arms. I say "almost" because I did not actuallygrasp it, and certainly it did not grasp me. Nevertheless, we remainedtogether— the black cords adhered to my clothing as well as to the flat strips(neither fur nor feathers) of the shaggy creature.

A moment after we had tumbled from the carronade, I discovered anotherproperty of the cords: stretched, they contracted again to a length less than thefirst, and with great force. Struggling to free myself, I found myself moretightly bound than ever, a circumstance that Gunnie and Purn found highlyamusing.

Sidero crisscrossed the shaggy creature with fresh cords, then told Gunnie to

release me, which she did by cutting me free with her dagger.

"Thank you," I said.

"It happens all the time," she said. "I got stuck onto a basket like that once.Don't worry about it."

Led by Sidero, Purn and Idas were already carrying the creature away. Istood up. "I'm afraid I'm no longer accustomed to being laughed at."

"One time you were? You don't look it."

"As an apprentice. Everyone laughed at the younger apprentices, especiallythe older ones."

Gunnie shrugged. "Half the things a person does are funny, if you come tothink of it. Like sleeping with your mouth open. If you're quartermaster,nobody laughs. But if you're not, your best friend will slip a dust ball into it.Don't try to pull those off."

The black cords had clung to the nap of my velvet shirt, and I had beenplucking at them. "I should carry a knife," I said.

"You mean you don't?" She looked at me commiseratingly, her eyes as large,as dark, and as soft as any cow's. "But everybody ought to have a knife."

"I used to wear a sword," I said. "After a while I gave it up, except forceremonies. When I left my cabin, I thought my pistol would be more thanadequate."

"For fighting. But how much do you have to do, a man who looks like youdo?" She took a backward step and pretended to evaluate my appearance. "Idon't think many people would give you trouble."

The truth was that in her thick-soled sea boots she stood as tall as I did. In anyplace where men and women bore weight, she would have been as heavy too;there was real muscle on her bones, with a good deal of fat over it.I laughed and admitted that a knife would have been useful when Sidero threwme off the platform.

"Oh, no," she told me. "A knife wouldn't have scratched him." She grinned.

"That's what the whoremaster said when the sailor came." I laughed, and shelinked her arm through mine. "Anyway, a knife's not mainly for fighting. It'sfor working, one way or another. How're you going to splice rope without aknife, or open ration boxes? You keep your eyes open as we go along. Notelling what you'll find in one of these cargo bays."

"We're going in the wrong direction," I said.

"I know another way, and if we went out the way we came in, you'd never findanything. It's too short."

"What happens if Sidero turns out the lights?"

"He won't. Once you wake them up they stay bright until there's nobody towatch. Ah, I see something. Look there." I looked, suddenly certain she hadnoticed a knife during our hunt for the shaggy creature and was merelypretending to have found it now. Only a bone hilt was visible.

"Go ahead. Nobody'll mind if you take it."

"That wasn't what I was thinking about," I told her.

It was a hunting knife, with a narrowed point and a heavy saw-backed bladeabout two spans long. Just the thing, I thought, for rough work.

"Get the sheath too. You can't carry it in your hand all day."

That was of plain black leather, but it included a pocket that had once heldsome small tool and recalled the whetstone pocket on the manskin sheath of

Terminus Est. I was beginning to like the knife already, and I liked it more

when I saw that.

"Put it on your belt."

I did as I was told, positioning it on the left where it balanced the weight of mypistol. "I would have expected better stowage on a big vessel like this."Gunnie shrugged. "This isn't really cargo. Just odds and ends. Do you knowhow the ship's built?"

"I haven't the least idea."

She laughed at that. "Neither does anyone else, I suppose. We have ideas wepass along to each other, but eventually we usually find out they're wrong.Partly wrong, anyway."

"I would have thought you'd know your ship."

"She's too big, and there are too many places where they never take us, andwe can't find for ourselves, or get into. But she's got seven sides; that's so she'llcarry more sail, you follow me?"

"I understand."

"Some of the decks— three, I think— have deep bays. That's where the maincargo is. They leave the other four with wedge-shaped spaces. Some's used forodds and ends, like this bay. Some's cabins and crew's quarters and what not.But speaking of quarters, we'd better get back."

She had led me to another ladder, another platform. I said, "I imaginedsomehow that we would go through a secret panel, or perhaps only find that aswe walked these odds and ends, as you call them, became a garden."Gunnie shook her head, then grinned. "I see you've seen a bit of her already.You're a poet too, aren't you? And a good liar, I bet."

"I was the Autarch of Urth; that required a little lying, if you like. We called itdiplomacy."

"Well, let me tell you that this is a working ship; it's just that she wasn't builtby people like you and me. Autarch— does that mean you run the wholeUrth?"

"No, I ran only a small part of it, although I was the legitimate head of thewhole of it. And I've known ever since I began my journey that if I succeed, Iwon't come back as Autarch. You seem singularly unimpressed."

"There are so many worlds," she told me. Quite suddenly she crouched andleaped, rising into the air like a large blue bird. Even though I had made suchleaps myself, it was strange to see a woman do it. Her ascent carried her acubit or less above the platform, and she might honestly have been said to havefloated down upon it.

Without thinking, I had supposed the crew's quarters would be a narrowroom like the forecastle of the Samru. There was a warren of big cabinsinstead, many levels opening onto walkways around a common airshaft.Gunnie said she had to return to her duty, and suggested I look for an emptycabin.

It was on my tongue to remind her I had a cabin already, which I had left onlya watch before; but something stopped me. I nodded and asked her whatlocation was best— by which I meant, as she understood, which would benearest hers. She indicated it to me, and we parted.

On Urth the older locks are charmed by words. My stateroom had a speakinglock, and though the hatches had needed no words at all and the door Siderohad flung open had required none, the olive doors of these crew compartments

were equipped with locks of the same kind. The first two I approachedinformed me that the cabins they guarded were occupied. They must havebeen old mechaisms indeed; I noticed that their personalities had begun todifferentiate.

The third invited me to enter, saying, "What a nice cabin!"

I asked how long it had been since the nice cabin had been inhabited.

"I don't know, master. Many voyages."

"Don't call me master," I told it. "I haven't decided to take your cabin yet."There was no reply. No doubt such locks are of severely limited intelligence;otherwise they might be bribed, and they would surely go mad soon. After amoment the door swung open. I stepped inside.

It was not a nice cabin compared with the stateroom I had left. There weretwo narrow bunks, an armoire, and a chest; sanitary facilities in a corner.Dust covered everything to such a thickness that I could readily imagine itbeing blown from the ventilating grill in gray clouds, through the clouds wouldbe seen only by a man who had some means of compressing time as the shipcompressed it; if a man lived as a tree does, perhaps, for which each year is aday; or like Gyoll, running through the valley of Nessus for whole ages of theworld.

While thinking of such things, which took me much longer to meditate uponthan it has taken me just now to write about them, I had found a red rag in thearmoire, moistened it at the laver, and begun to wipe away the dust. When Isaw that I had already cleaned the top of the chest and the steel frame of onebunk, I knew that I had decided to stay, however unconsciously. I would locatemy stateroom again, of course, and more often than not I would sleep there.But I would have this cabin as well. When I grew bored, I would join the crewand thus learn more about the operation of the ship than I ever would as apassenger.

There was Gunnie too. I have had women enough in my arms to have noconceit about the number— one soon comes to realize that union cripples lovewhen it does not enhance it— and poor Valeria was often in my thoughts; yet Ihungered for Gunnie's affection. As Autarch I had few friends save for FatherInire, and Valeria was the only woman. Some quality in Gunnie's smilerecalled my happy childhood with Thea (how I miss her still!) and the longtrip to Thrax with Dorcas. It had been a journey I had counted mere exile atthe time, so that each day I had hurried forward. Now I knew that in manyways it had been the summer of my life.

I rinsed the rag again, conscious that I had done so often, though I could nothave told how often; when I looked about for another dusty surface to wipe, Ifound that I had wiped them all.

The mattress was not so easily dealt with, but it had to be cleaned in somefashion— it was as filthy as everything else had been, and we would surelywant to lie upon it occasionally. I carried it onto the walkway overhanging theairshaft and beat it until it yielded no more dust.

When I had finished and was rolling it up to take back into the cabin, the windfrom the airshaft brought a wild cry.

CHAPTER FOUR - THE CITIZENS OF THE SAILS

IT CAME from below. I peered over the twig-thin railing and as I peeredheard it again, filled with anguish and a loneliness that echoed and re-echoedamong the metal catwalks, the metal tiers of metal cabins.

Hearing it, it seemed to me for a moment that it was my own cry, thatsomething I had held deep inside me since that still-dark morning when I hadwalked the beach with the aquastor Master Malrubius and watched theaquastor Triskele dissolve in shimmering dust had freed itself and separateditself from me, and that it was below, howling in the faint, lost light.I was tempted to leap over the rail, for then I did not know the depth of thatshaft. As it was, I flung the mattress through the doorway of my new cabinand descended the narrow winding stair by jumping from one flight to thenext.

From above, the abyss of the shaft had seemed opaque, the strange radiance ofyellow lamps beating upon it without effect. I had supposed that this opacitywould vanish when I reached the lower levels— but it solidified instead, until Iwas reminded of Baldanders's chamber of cloud, though it was really not sothick as that. The swirling air grew warmer too, and perhaps the mist thatshrouded everything was only the result of warm, moist air from the bowels ofthe ship mixing with the cooler atmoshere of the upper levels. I was soonsweating in my velvet shirt.

Here the doors of many cabins stood ajar, but the cabins themselves weredark. Once, or so it seemed to me, the ship must have had a more numerouscrew, or perhaps had been used to transport prisoners (the cabins would havedone well as cells, if the locks were differently instructed) or soldiers.The cry came again, and with it a noise like the ringing of a hammer on ananvil, though it held a note that told me it rang from no forge, but from amouth of flesh. Heard by night, in a fastness of the mountains, they wouldhave been more terrible than the howling of a dire-wolf, I think. Whatsadness, dread, and loneliness, what fear and agony were there!

I paused for breath and looked around me. Beasts, so it seemed, were confinedin the cabins farther down. Or perhaps madmen, as we of the torturers hadconfined pain-crazed clients on the third level of the oubliette. Who could saythat every door was shut? Might not some of these creatures be unconfined,kept from the upper levels by mere chance or their fear of man? I drew mypistol and made sure it was at its lowest setting and that it had a full charge.My initial glimpse of the vivarium below confirmed my worst fears. Filmytrees waved at the edge of a glacier, a waterfall tumbled and sang, a dune

lifted its sterile yellow crest, and two score creatures prowled among them. Iwatched them for a dozen breaths before I began to suspect that they wereconfined nonetheless, and for fifty more before I felt sure of it. But each had itsown plot of ground, small or large, and they could no more mingle than couldthe beasts in the Bear Tower. What a strange group they made! If everyswamp and forest on Urth were combed for oddities, I do not believe such acollection could be assembled. Some gibbered, some stared, most lay comatose.I holstered my pistol and called, " Who howled? "That was only a joke made to myself, yet a response came— a whimper fromthe rear of the vivarium; I threaded my way through the beasts, following anarrow nearly invisible track made, as I soon afterward learned, by the sailorssent to feed them.

It was the shaggy creature I had helped catch in the cargo bay, and I beheldhim with a certain warmth of recognition. I had been so much alone since thepinnace had carried me from the gardens of the House Absolute to this shipthat to meet even so queer a being as he was seemed the second time almost areunion with an old acquaintance.

Then too, I was interested in the creature himself, since I had assisted in hiscapture. When we had pursued him, he had appeared almost spherical; now Isaw that he was in fact one of those short-limbed, short-bodied animals thatgenerally live in burrows— something like a pika, in other words. There was around head atop a neck so short that one had to take it on faith; a round bodytoo, of which the head seemed a mere continuation; four short legs, eachending in four long, blunt claws and one short one; a covering of flattened,brownish-gray hairs. Two bright black eyes that stared at me.

"Poor thing," I said. "How did you ever get into that hold?"

He came to the limit of the invisible barrier that enclosed him, moving muchmore slowly now that he was no longer frightened.

"Poor thing," I said again.

He reared upon his hind legs as pikas sometimes do, forelegs nearly crossedover his white belly. Strands of black cord still streaked the white fur. Theyreminded me that the same cords had stuck to my shirt. I plucked at whatremained of them and found them weak now, some crumbling under myfingers. The cords on the shaggy creature seemed to be falling away as well.He whimpered softly; instinctively, I reached out to comfort him as I wouldhave an anxious dog, then drew my hand away, fearful he might bite or clawme.

A moment later, I cursed myself for a coward. He had harmed no one in thehold, and when I had wrestled with him, there had been no indication that hewas trying to do more than escape. I thrust a forefinger into the barrier (whichproved no barrier to me) and scratched the side of his tiny mouth. He turnedhis head just as a dog would have, and I felt small ears beneath the fur.Behind me, someone said, "Cute, ain't it?" and I turned to look. It was Purn,the grinning sailor.

I answered, "He seems harmless enough."

"Most are." Purn hesitated. "Only most die and drift off. We only see a few of

'em, that's what they say."

"Gunnie calls them apports," I remarked, "and I've been thinking about that.The sails bring them, don't they?"

Purn nodded absently and stretched a finger of his own through the barrier totickle the shaggy creature.

"Adjacent sails must be like two large mirrors. They're curved, sosomewhere— in fact, in various places— they must be parallel, and thestarlight shines on them."

Purn nodded again. "That's what makes the ship go, as the skipper said whenthey asked about the wench."

"I once knew a man called Hethor who summoned deadly things to serve him.And I was told by one called Vodalus— Vodalus was not to be trusted, I'lladmit— that Hethor used mirrors to bring them. I've a friend who worksmirror spells too, though his are not evil. Hethor had been a hand on a shiplike this."

That captured Purn's attention. He withdrew his finger and turned to face me.

"You know her name?" he asked.

"The name of his ship? No, I don't think he ever mentioned it. Wait... He saidhe'd been on several. 'Long I signed on the silver-sailed ships, the hundred-masted whose masts reached out to touch the stars."'

"Ah." Purn nodded. "Some say there's only one. That's something I wonderabout, sometimes."

"Surely there must be many. Even when I was a boy, people told me of them,the ships of the cacogens putting into the Port of Lune."

"Where's that?"

"Lune? It's the moon of my world, the moon of Urth."

"That was small stuff, then," Purn told me. "Tenders and launches and soforth. Nobody never said there wasn't a lot of little stuff shuttling aroundbetween the various worlds of the various suns. Only this ship here and theother ones like it, allowing that there's more than the one, they don't come inso close, generally. They can do it all right, but it's a tricky business. Then too,there's a good bit of rock whizzing around, close in to a sun, usually."The white-haired Idas appeared carrying a collection of tools. " Hello! " hecalled, and I waved to him.

"I ought to get busy," Purn muttered. "Me and that one are supposed to betaking care of 'em. I was just looking around to be sure they were all rightwhen I saw you, uh, uh..."

"Severian," I said. "I was the Autarch— the ruler— of the Commonwealth;now I'm the surrogate of Urth, and its ambassador. Do you come from Urth,Purn?"

"Don't think I've ever been, but maybe I have." He looked thoughtful. "Bigwhite moon?"

"No, it's green. You were on Verthandi, perhaps; I've read that its moons arepale gray"

Purn shrugged. "I don't know."

Idas had come up to us by then, and he said, "It must be wonderful." I had nonotion of what he meant. Purn moved away, looking at the beasts.As if we were two conspirators Idas whispered, "Don't worry about him. He'safraid I'll report him for not working."

"Aren't you afraid I'll report you? " I asked. There was something about Idasthat irritated me, though perhaps it was only his seeming weakness.

"Oh, do you know Sidero?"

"Who I know is my own affair, I believe."

"I don't think you know anyone," he said. And then, as if he had committed amerely social blunder, "But maybe you do. Or I could introduce you. I will, ifyou want me to."

"I do," I told him. "Introduce me to Sidero at the first opportunity. I demandto be returned to my stateroom."

Idas nodded. "I will. Perhaps you wouldn't mind if I came there to talk withyou sometime? You— I hope you'll excuse me for saying this— you knownothing about ships, and I know nothing about such places as, ah..."

"Urth?"

"Nothing of worlds. I've seen a few pictures, but other than that, all I knoware these." He gestured vaguely toward the beasts. "And they are bad, alwaysbad. But perhaps there are good things on the worlds too, that never live longenough to find their way to the decks."

"Surely they're not all evil."

"Oh, yes," he said. "Oh, yes they are. And I, who have to clean up after them,and feed them, and adjust the atmosphere for them if they need it, wouldrather kill them all; but Sidero and Zelezo would beat me if I did."

"I wouldn't be surprised if they killed you," I told him. I had no desire to seesuch a fascinating collection wiped out by this petty man's spite. "Whichwould be just, I think. You look as though you belong among them yourself."

"Oh, no," he said seriously. "It's you and Purn and the rest who do. I wasborn here on the ship."

Something in his manner told me he was trying to draw me into conversationand would gladly quarrel with me if only it would keep me talking. For mypart, I had no desire to talk at all, much less quarrel. I felt tired enough todrop, and I was ravenously hungry. I said, "If I belong in this collection ofexotic brutes, it's up to you to see I'm fed. Where is the galley?"Idas hesitated for a moment, quite plainly debating some sort of exchange ofinformation— he would direct me if I would first answer seven questions aboutUrth, or something of that sort. Then he realized I was ready to knock himdown if he said anything of the kind, and he told me, though sullenly enough,how to get there.

One of the advantages of such a memory as mine, which stores everything andforgets nothing, is that it is as good as paper at such times. (Indeed, that maybe its only advantage.) On this occasion, however, it did me no more good thanit had when I had tried to follow the directions of that lochage of the peltastswhom I met upon the bridge of Gyoll. No doubt Idas had assumed I knewmore of the ship than I did, and that I would not count doors and look forturnings with exactness.

Soon I realized I had gone wrong. Three corridors branched where thereshould have been only two, and a promised stair did not appear. I retraced mypath, found the point at which (as I believed) I had become lost, and beganagain. Almost at once, I found myself treading a broad, straight passagewaysuch as Idas had told me led to the galley. I assumed then that my wanderingshad sent me wide of part of the prescribed route, and I strode along in highspirits.

By the standards of the ship, it was a wide and windy place indeed. No doubt it

was one that received its atmosphere directly from the devices that circulatedand purified it, for it smelled as a breeze from the south does on a rainy day inspring. The floor was neither of the strange grass I had seen before nor of thegrillwork I had already come to hate, but polished wood deeply entombed inclear varnish. The walls, which had been of a dark and deathly gray in thecrew's quarters, were white here, and once or twice I passed padded seats thatstood with their backs toward the walls.

The passageway turned and turned again, and I felt that it was rising ever soslightly, though the weight I lifted with my steps was so slight I could not becertain. There were pictures on the walls, and some of these pictures moved—

once a picture of our ship as it might have been limned by someone far distant;I could not help but stop to look, and I shuddered to think how near I hadcome to seeing it so.

Another turn— but one that proved not to be a turn, only the termination ofthe passageway in a circle of doors. I chose one at random and stepped into anarrow gangway so dark, after the white passage, that I could hardly see morethan the lights overhead.

A few moments later, I realized that I had passed a hatch, the first I had seensince reentering the ship; still not wholly free from the fear that had grippedme when I saw that terrible and beautiful picture, I took out my necklace as Istrode along and made certain it had not been damaged.

The gangway turned twice and divided, then twisted like a serpent.A door swung open as I passed, releasing the aroma of roast meat. A voice, thethin and mechanical voice of the lock, said, "Welcome back, master."I looked through the doorway and saw my own cabin. Not, of course, the cabinI had taken in the crew's quarters, but the stateroom I had left to launch theleaden coffer into the great light of the new universe aborning only a watch ortwo before.

CHAPTER FIVE - THE HERO AND THE HIERODULES

THE STEWARD had brought my meal and, finding me not in my stateroom,had left it on the table. The meat was still warm under its bell; I ate itravenously, and with it new bread and salt butter, celeriac and salsify, and redwine. Afterward I undressed, washed myself, and slept.

He woke me, shaking me by my shoulder. It was odd, but when I— theAutarch of Urth— had boarded the ship, I had scarcely noticed him, though he

brought my meals and willingly saw to various little wants; no doubt it wasthat very willingness which had unjustly wiped him from my attention. Nowthat I myself had been a member of the crew, it was as though he had turnedto show another face.

It looked down at me now, blunt-featured yet intelligent, the eyes bright withsuppressed excitement. "Someone wishes to see you, Autarch," he murmured.I sat up. "Someone you felt you should wake me for?"

"Yes, Autarch."

"The captain, perhaps." Was I to be censured for going on deck? The necklacehad been provided for emergency use, but it seemed unlikely.

"No, Autarch. Our captain's seen you, I'm sure. Three Hierodules, Autarch."

"Yes?" I fenced for time. "Is that the captain's voice I hear sometimes in thecorridors? When did he see me? I don't recall seeing him."

"I've no idea, Autarch. But our captain's seen you, I'm sure. Often, probably.Our captain sees people."

"Indeed." I was pulling on a clean shirt as I digested the hint that there was asecret ship within this ship, just as the Secret House was within the HouseAbsolute. "It must interfere with his other work."

"I don't believe it does, Autarch. They're waiting outside— could you hurry?"I dressed more slowly after that, of course. To draw the belt from my dustytrousers, I had to remove my pistol and the knife that Gunnie had found forme. The steward told me I would not need them; so I wore them, feelingabsurdly as though I were going to inspect a reconstituted formation ofdemilances. The knife was nearly long enough to be called a sword.It had not occurred to me that the three might be Ossipago, Barbatus, andFamulimus. As far as I knew, I had left them far behind on Urth, and they hadmost certainly not been in the pinnace with me, though of course theypossessed their own craft. Now here they were, disguised (and badly) ashuman beings, just as they had been at our first encounter in Baldanders'scastle.

Ossipago bowed as stiffly as ever, Barbatus and Famulimus as gracefully. Ireturned their greetings as well I could and suggested that if they wished tospeak to me, they were welcome in my stateroom, apologizing in advance forits disorder.

"We cannot come inside," Famulimus told me. "However much we would.The room to which we bring you is not too far away." Her voice, as always,was like the speaking of a lark.

Barbatus added, "Cabins like yours are not as safe as we might wish," in hismasculine baritone.

"Then I will go wherever you lead me," I said. "Do you know, it's trulycheering to see you three again. Yours are faces from home, even if they arefalse faces."

"You know us, I see," Barbatus said as we started down the corridor. "But thefaces beneath these are too horrible for you, I fear."

The corridor was too narrow for us to go four abreast; he and I walked side byside, Famulimus and Ossipago side by side behind us. It has taken me a longtime to lose the despair that seized me at that moment. "This is the firsttime?" I asked. "You have not met me before?"

Famulimus trilled, "Though we do not know you, yet you know us, Severian. Isaw how pleased you looked, when first you came into our sight. Often we

have met, and we are friends."

"But we will not meet again," I said. "It's the first time for you, who willtravel backward through time when you leave me. And so it's the last time forme. When we first met, you said, 'Welcome! There is no greater joy for usthan greeting you, Severian,' and you were saddened at our parting. Iremember it very well— I remember everything very well, as you had betterknow at once— how you leaned over the rail of your ship to wave to me as Istood upon the roof of Baldanders's tower in the rain."

"Only Ossipago here has memory like yours," Famulimus whispered. "But Ishall not forget."

"So it's my turn to say welcome now, and mine to be sad because we'reparting. I've known you three for more than ten years, and I know that thehideous faces beneath those masks are only masks themselves— Famulimustook hers off the first time we met, though I did not understand then that itwas because she had done so often before. I know that Ossipago is a machine,although he is not so agile as Sidero, who I am beginning to believe must be amachine too."

"That name means iron," Ossipago said, speaking for the first time. "ThoughI do not know him."

"And yours means bone-grower. You took care of Barbatus and Famulimuswhen they were small, saw to it that they were fed and so on, and you'veremained with them ever since. That's what Famulimus told me once."Barbatus said, "We are come," and opened the door for me.

In childhood, one imagines that any door unopened may open upon a wonder,a place different from all the places one knows. That is because in childhood ithas so often proved to be so; the child, knowing nothing of any place except hisown, is astonished and delighted by novel sights that an adult would readilyhave anticipated. When I was only a boy, the doorway of a certain mausoleumhad been a portal of wonder to me; and when I had crossed its threshold, I wasnot disappointed. On this ship I was a child again, knowing no more of theworld around me than a child does.

The chamber into which Barbatus ushered me was as marvelous to Severianthe man— to the Autarch Severian, who had Thecla's life, and the oldAutarch's, and a hundred more to draw upon— as the mausoleum had been tothe child. I am tempted to write that it appeared to be underwater, but it didnot. Rather we seemed immersed in some fluid that was not water, but was tosome other world what water was to Urth; or perhaps that we wereunderwater indeed, but water so cold it would have been frozen in any lake ofthe Commonwealth.

All this was merely am effect of the light, I believe— of the freezing wind thatwandered, nearly stagnating, through the chamber, and of the colors, tintingsof green shaded with blue and black: viridian, berylline, and aquamarine, withtarnished gold and yellowed ivory here and there shining sullenly.

The furnishings were not of furniture as we understand it. Mottled slabs ofseeming stone that yielded to my touch leaned crookedly against two walls andwere scattered across the floor. Tattered streamers hung suspended from theceiling and, because they were so light and the attraction of our ship hardly

felt, seemed in need of no suspension. So far as I could judge, the air was asdry here as in the corridor; yet the ghost of an icy spray beat against my face.

"Is this strange place your stateroom?" I asked Barbatus.

He nodded as he removed his masks, revealing a face that was at oncehandsome, inhuman, and familiar. "We have seen the chambers your kindmakes. They are as disturbing to us as this must be to you, and since there arethree of us— "

"Two," Ossipago said. "It does not matter to me."

"I'm not offended, I'm delighted! It's the greatest of privileges for me to seehow you live when you live as you wish."

Famulimus's falsely human face was gone, revealing some huge-eyed horrorwith needle teeth; she pulled that away as well, and I saw (for one last time, asI then believed) the beauty of a goddess not born of woman. "How fast welearn, Barbatus, that these poor folk we'll meet, who hardly know what weknow best, know courtesy as guests."

If I had attended to what she said, it would have made me smile. As it was, Iwas far too busy still in looking about that strange cabin. At last I said, "Iknow your race was formed by the Hierogrammates to resemble those whoonce formed them. Now I see, or think I see, that you were once inhabitants oflakes and pools, kelpies such as our country folk talk of."

"On our home, as on yours," Barbatus said, "life rose from the sea. But thischamber has no more received its impression from that dim beginning thanyour own have received theirs from the trees where your forebears capered."Ossipago rumbled, "It is early to begin a quarrel." He had not removed hisdisguise, I suppose because it did not render him less comfortable; and in factI have never seen him do so.

"Barbatus, he speaks well," Famulimus sang. Then to me, "You leave yourworld, Severian. Like you, we three leave ours. We climb the stream of time—

you are swept down that stream. This ship thus bears us both. For you theyears are gone, when we will counsel you. For us they now begin. We greet younow, Autarch, with counsel we have brought. To save your race's sun, onething is needful only: that you must serve Tzadkiel."

"Who is that?" I asked. "And how do I serve him? I've never heard of him."Barbatus snorted. "Which is less than surprising, since Famulimus was notsupposed to give you that name. We will not use it again. But he— the personFamulimus mentioned— is the judge appointed to your case. He is aHierogrammate, as is to be expected. What do you know of them?"

"Very little, beyond the fact that they are your masters."

"Then you know very little indeed; even that is wrong. You call us Hierodules,and that is your word and not ours, just as Barhatus, Famulimus, and

Ossipagoare your words, words we have chosen because they are not commonand describe us better than your other words would. Do you know what

Hierodulemeans, this word of your own tongue?"

"I know that you are creatures of this universe, shaped by those of the next toserve them here. And that the service they desire of you is the shaping of ourrace, of humanity, because we are the cognates of those who shaped them inthe ages of the previous creation."

Famulimus trilled, " Hieroduleis 'holy slave.' How could Hierodules be holy,

did we not serve the Increate? Our master is he, and he only."

Barbatus added, "You've commanded armies, Severian. You're a king and ahero, or at least you were up until you left your world. Then too, you may ruleagain, should you fail. You must know that a soldier doesn't serve his officer,or at least, that he shouldn't. He serves his tribe, and receives instructionsfrom his officer."

I nodded. "The Hierogrammates are your officers, then. I understand. Ipossess my predecessor's memories, as you perhaps do not yet realize; so Iknow that he was tried as I will be and that he failed. And it's always seemedto me that what was done to him, returning him unmanned to watch our Urthgrow worse and worse, to take responsibility for everything, and yet know thathe had failed in the one attempt that might have set everything right, was cruelindeed."

Famulimus's face was almost always serious; now it seemed more serious thanever. "His memories, Severian? Have you no more than memories?"For the first time in many years, I felt the blood rise in my cheeks. "I lied," Isaid. "I am he, just as I am Thecla. You three have been my friends when Ihad few, and I should not lie to you, though so often I must lie to myself."Famulimus sang, "Then you must know that all are scourged alike. And yetthe nearer to success, the worse the pain each feels. That is a law we cannotchange."

Outside in the gangway, not far distant, someone screamed. I started towardthe door, and the scream ended on the gurgling note that signals that thethroat has filled with blood.

Barbatus snapped, "Wait, Severian!" and Ossipago moved to block the door.Famulimus chanted urgently, "I have but one thing more to tell. Tzadkiel isjust and kind. Though you may suffer much, remember so."

I turned on her; I could not help it. "I remember this— the old Autarch neversaw his judge! I didn't recall the name because he had striven so to forget it;but we recall everything now, and it was Tzadkiel. He was a kinder man thanSeverian, a more just person than Thecla. What chance does Urth standnow?"

Though I do not know whose hand it was— Thecla's, perhaps, or one of thedim figures behind the old Autarch— a hand was on my pistol; no more do Iknow whom it would have shot, unless it was myself. It never left the holster,for Ossipago seized me from behind, pinning my arms in a grip of steel.

"It is Tzadkiel who will decide," Famulimus told me. "Urth stands suchchance as you provide."

Somehow Ossipago opened the door without releasing me, or it may be that itopened itself at some command I did not hear. He whirled me around andthrust me out into the gangway.

CHAPTER SIX - A DEATH AND THE DARK

IT WAS the steward. He lay face down in the gangway the worn soles of hiscarefully polished boots not three cubits from my door. His neck had beennearly severed. A clasp knife, still closed, lay beside his right hand.For ten years I had worn the black claw I had pulled from my arm besideOcean. When first I ascended to the autarchy I had often tried to use it, alwayswithout result: for the past eight years, I had scarcely given it a thought. Now Itook it from the little leathern sack Dorcas had sewn for me in Thrax, touchedthe steward's forehead with it, and sought to do again whatever it had beenthat I had done for the girl in the jacal, the man-ape beside the falls, and thedead uhlan.

Although I have no wish to do so. I will try to describe what happened then:Once when I was a prisoner of Vodalus, I was bitten by a blood bat. There wasvery little pain, but a sensation of lassitude that grew more seductive everymoment. When I moved my foot and startled the bat from its feast, the wind ofits dark wings had seemed the very exhalation of Death. That was but theshadow, the foretaste, of what I felt then in the gangway. I was the core of theuniverse, as we always are to ourselves; and the universe tore like a client'srotten rags and fell in soft gray dust to nothing.

For a long time I lay trembling in the dark. Perhaps I was conscious. Surely Iwas not aware of it, nor of anything except red pain everywhere and suchweakness as the dead must feel. At last I saw a spark of light; it came to methat I must be blind, and yet if I saw that spark there was some hope, howeverslight. I sat up, though I was so shaken and weak that it was agony.The spark appeared again, an infinitesimal flash, less than the gleam thatsunlight summons from the point of a needle. It lay in my hand, but wasextinct before I realized it, long gone before I could move my stiff fingers anddiscover them slippery with my blood.

It had come from the claw, that hard, sharp, black thorn that had pricked myarm so long ago. I must have clenched my fist; I had driven the claw into thesecond joint of the first finger until its point had pierced the skin a second timefrom within, impaling it like a fishhook. I jerked it out, hardly conscious of thepain, and pushed it back into its sack still wet with my blood.

By then I was sure again that I was blind. The smooth surface on which I layseemed no more than the floor of the gangway; the paneled wall that mygroping fingers discovered once I clambered to my feet might easily have beenits wall. Yet the gangway had been well lit. Who would have carried meelsewhere, to this dark place, and made my whole body an agony to me? Iheard the moaning of a human voice. It was my own, and I clamped my jaw tosilence it.

In my youth, when I had traveled from Nessus to Thrax with Dorcas, andfrom Thrax to Orithyia largely alone, I had carried flint and steel to kindlefires. Now I had none. I searched my mind and my pockets for something thatwould give light, but I could hit on nothing better than my pistol. Drawing it, I

drew breath too, to shout a warning; and only then thought to cry out for help.There was no reply. I listened, but could hear no footfall. After making certainthe pistol was still at its lowest setting, I resolved to use it.

I would fire a single shot. If I could not see its violet flame, I would know that Ihad lost my sight. I would consider then whether I wished to lose my life aswell while I retained the necessary desperation, or whether I would seek outwhatever treatment the ship might offer. (And yet I knew even then thatalthough I— although we— might choose to perish, we could not. What otherhope had Urth?)

With my left hand, I touched the wall so that I might align the barrel with thegangway. With the other, I raised my pistol to shoulder height, as a marksmandoes who shoots at a distance.

A pinprick of light shone before me, like red Verthandi seen through clouds.The sight startled me so much that though it was my injured finger that jerkedback the trigger, I was hardly aware of it.

Energy split the dark. In the violet glare, I saw the steward's body, the half-open door of my stateroom beyond it, a writhing shape, and the flash of steel.Darkness returned instantly, but I was not blind. Sick, yes; aching in everylimb— I felt I had been spun about by a whirlwind and dashed against somepillar— but not blind. Not blind!

Rather, the ship was plunged in darkness as if in night. Again I heard thegroan of a human voice, but this voice was not my own. Someone had been inthe corridor after all; someone who had meant to take my life, since what Ihad glimpsed had surely been the blade of some weapon. The diminished beamhad seared him as the diminished beams of the Hierodules' pistols had onceseared Baldanders. This had been no giant, I thought, but he still lived asBaldanders had lived; and it might be that he was not alone. Stooping, Igroped with my free hand until I found the body of the steward, climbed overit like a crippled spider, and at last managed to creep through the door of mystateroom and bolt it behind me.

The lamp by whose light I had recopied my manuscript was as dark as thegangway lights, but as I fumbled the escritoire to find it, I touched a stick ofwax and remembered there was a golden candle too for melting the wax, acandle that lit itself at the pressing of a stud. This ingenious device had beenstored with the wax in a pigeonhole, so that to think of it should have been tolay my hand upon it. It was not there, but I soon found it among the litter onthe writing board.

Its clear yellow flame shot up at once. By its light I saw the ruin of mystateroom. My clothes had been strewn across the floor, and every seam ofevery garment ripped out. A sharp blade had opened my mattress from end toend. The drawers of the escritoire had been turned out, my books strewn overthe room, the very bags in which my belongings had been carried on boardhad been slashed.

My first thought was that all this had been mere vandalism; that someone whohated me (and on Urth there had been many such) had vented his fury at notfinding me asleep. A little reflection convinced me the destruction had been toothorough for that. Almost at the instant I had left it, someone had entered thestateroom. Doubtless the Hierodules, whose time ran counter to the time weknow, had foreseen his arrival and sent the steward for me largely to snatch

me from him. Finding me gone, he had searched my belongings for somethingso small it might have been concealed in the collar of a shirt.

Whatever he had sought, I had possessed only one treasure: the letter MasterMalrubius had given me, identifying me as the legitimate Autarch of Urth.Because I had not expected my stateroom to be robbed, I had not concealed itat all, merely putting it in a drawer with some other papers I had broughtfrom Urth; of course it was gone now.

On leaving my stateroom, the searcher had met the steward, who must havestopped him and attempted to question him. That could not be tolerated, sincethe steward would have been able to describe him to me later. The searcherhad drawn his weapon; the steward had tried to defend himself with a claspknife, but had been too slow. I had heard his scream as I talked with theHierodules, and Ossipago had prevented me from leaving so that I would notencounter the searcher. So much seemed clear.

But now came the strangest part of the whole affair. When I found thesteward's body, I had tried to reanimate it, using the thorn in place of the trueClaw of the Conciliator. I had failed; but then I had failed also on everyprevious occasion when I had sought to call upon whatever power I hadcommanded with the true Claw. (First, I believe, when I had touched thewoman in our oubliette who had constructed the furnishings of her room fromstolen children.)

Those failures, however, had been no more violent than the failure of a wordthat is not the word of power: one pronounces the word, but the door does notopen. So had I touched with the thorn, but no cure or resuscitation had takenplace.

This time had been quite different; I had been stunned in a fashion that hadleft me sick and weak still, and I had not the least notion what it was. Absurdthough it may sound, that gave me hope. Something had happened, at least,though it had nearly cost me my life.

Whatever it had been, it had left me unconscious, and the darkness had come.Emboldened by it, the searcher had returned. Hearing my cry for help (whicha well-intentioned person would have answered) he had advanced to kill me.All these thoughts took much less time than I have taken to write about them.The wind is rising now, blowing our new land, grain by grain, to the sunkenCommonwealth; but I will write for a little while more before I go to mybower to sleep: write that the only useful conclusion to which they carried mewas that the searcher might be lying wounded in the gangway still. If so, Imight induce him to reveal his motive and confederates, assuming that he hadeither. Snuffing the candle, I opened the door as silently as I could and slippedout, listened for a moment, then risked relighting it.

My enemy had gone, but nothing else had changed. The dead stewardremained dead, his clasp knife by his hand. The gangway was empty as far asthe wavering yellow light could probe it.

Fearing that I would exhaust the candle or it would betray my location, Iextinguished it again. At close quarters, the hunting knife Gunnie had foundfor me seemed likely to be more useful than a pistol. With the knife in onehand and the other brushing the wall, I went slowly down the gangway insearch of the Hierodules' stateroom.

When Famulimus, Barbatus, Ossipago, and I had gone there, I had paid noheed to either the route or the distance; but I could recall each door we had

passed, and almost every step I had taken. Though it took me so much longerto return than it had to go the first time, still I knew (or at least believed Iknew) precisely when I had arrived.

I tapped on the door, but there was no response. Pressed to it, my ear detectedno sounds from within. I knocked again, more loudly, but with no more result;and at last I pounded on it with the pommel of my knife.

When that too was without result, I crept through the dark to the doors oneither side (though each was some distance off, and I was sure both wereincorrect) and knocked at them as well. No one answered either.

To return to my stateroom would be to invite assassination, and Icongratulated myself heartily on having already secured a second lodging.Unfortunately, to reach it by the only route I knew, I would have to pass thedoor to my stateroom. When I had studied the history of my predecessors andscanned the memories of those whose persons are merged in mine, I had beenstruck by the number who had lost their lives in a last repetition of somehazardous action— in leading the last charge of a victory, or by riskingincognito a farewell visit to some mistress in the city. Recalling the route as Idid, I felt I could guess in which part of the ship my new cabin lay; I decided toproceed down the gangway, turn from it when I could, and double back, andso come eventually to my goal.

I shall pass over my wanderings, which were wearying enough to me and neednot weary you, my hypothetical reader. It should be enough to say that I founda stairway to a lower level and a gangway that seemed to run beneath the one Ihad left, but soon ended in another descending stair leading to a maze ofwalkways, ladders, and narrow passages as dark as the pit, where the floormoved beneath my feet and the air grew ever warmer and more humid.At length this sweltering air carried to me an odor pungent and oddlyfamiliar. I followed it as well as I could, I who have so often boasted of mymemory now sniffing along for what seemed a league at least like a brachetand ready almost to yelp for joy at the thought of a place I knew, after somuch emptiness, silence, and blackness.

Then I yelped indeed, because I saw far off the gleam of some faint light. Myeyes had grown so used to the dark in those watches of wandering through theentrails of the ship that, faint though the gleam shone, I could see the renitentsurface under my feet and the mossy walls about me; I sheathed my knifethen, and ran.

A moment later circular habitats surrounded me, and a hundred strangebeasts. I had returned to the menagerie where the apports were imprisoned—

the gleam proceeded from one of their enclosures. I made my way to it andsaw that the creature within was none other than the shaggy thing I hadhelped to capture. He stood upon his hind legs, with his forelegs braced againstthe invisible wall that contained him, and a phosphorescent glow rippled alonghis belly and shone strongly from his handlike forepaws. I spoke to him as Imight have to some favorite cat upon returning from a journey, and he seemedto welcome me as a cat might, pressing his furry body to the unseen wall andmewing, regarding me with beseeching eyes.

An instant later his little mouth split in a snarl and his eyes glared like ademon's. I would have started back from him, but an arm circled my neck anda blade flashed toward my chest.

I caught the assassin's wrist and stopped the knife without a thumb's width tospare, then struggled to crouch and throw him over my head.

I have been called a strong man, but he was too strong for me. I could lift himreadily enough— on that ship I could have lifted a dozen men— but his legsclamped my waist like the jaws of a trap; I bent to throw him, but I succeededonly in throwing us both to the ground. Frantically I twisted to get away fromhis knife.

Nearly in my ear, he screamed with pain.

Our fall had brought us inside the habitat, and the shaggy animal's teeth hadfastened on his hand.

CHAPTER SEVEN - A DEATH IN THE LIGHT

BY THE time I had recovered myself enough to rise, the assassin was gone. Afew bloodstains, nearly black in the light of the golden candle, remained in thecircle ruled by my shaggy friend. He himself sat upon his haunches with hishind legs folded in an oddly human way beneath him, his light extinguished,licking his paws and smoothing the silky hair around his mouth with them.

"Thank you," I said, and he cocked his head attentively at the sound.The assassin's knife lay not far off, a big, broad-bladed, rather clumsy bobwith a worn handle of some dark wood. He had been a common sailor then, inall probability. I kicked it away and called to mind his hand as I had glimpsedit— a man's hand, large, strong, and rough, but with no identifying marks, sofar as I had seen. A missing finger or two would have been convenient, but itwas at least possible that he had those now: a sailor with a badly bitten hand.Had he followed me so far through the dark, down so many stairs and ladders,along so many twisted passages? It seemed unlikely. He had come upon mehere by accident then, seized his opportunity, and acted— a dangerous man. Itseemed better to me to search for him at once than to wait until he had time torecover himself and concoct some tale to explain his injured hand. If I coulddiscover his identity, I would make it known to the officers of the ship; and ifthere was not time for that or they would take no action, I would kill himmyself.

Holding the golden candle high, I started up the stairs to the crew's quarters,knitting plans much faster than I walked. The officers— the captain the deadsteward had mentioned— would refurnish my stateroom or assign another to

me. I would have a guard posted outside, not so much to protect me (for Iintended to stay there no more than I had to in order to keep up appearances)as to give my enemies something to strike at. Then I...

Between one breath and the next, every light in that part of the ship came on. Icould see the unsupported metal stair on which I stood, and through thetwining black metal of its treads the pale greens and yellows of the vivarium.To my right, radiance from indistinct lamps lost itself in nacreous mist; thedistant wall at my left shone gray-black with damp, a dark tarn turned onedge. Above, there might have been no ship at all, but a clouded sky besiegedby a circling sun.

It lasted no longer than a breath. I heard distant shouts as sailors here andthere called the attention of their mates to, what could not in any case bemissed. Then a darkness fell that seemed more terrible than before. I climbeda hundred steps; light flickered as though every lamp were as tired as I, thenwent out again. A thousand steps, and the flame of the golden candle shrunk toa dot of blue. I extinguished it to save what little fuel remained and climbed onin the dark.

Perhaps it was only because I was leaving the depths of the ship and ascendingtoward that uppermost deck which confined our atmosphere, but I felt chilled.I tried to climb more quickly, to warm myself by the exertion, and found I wasunable to do so. Haste only made me stumble, and the leg that had been laidopen by some Ascian infantryman at the Third Battle of Orithyia drew therest toward the grave.

For a time I was afraid I would not recognize the tier that held my cabin andGunnie's, but I left the stair without thought, kindled the golden candle for aninstant only, and heard the creaking of hinges as the door swung open.I had shut the door and found the bunk before I sensed that I was not alone. Icalled out, and the voice of Idas, the white-haired sailor, answered me in a toneof mingled fear and interest.

I asked, "What are you doing here?"

"Waiting for you. I— I hoped you would come. I don't know why, but Ithought you might. You weren't with the others down there."

When I said nothing, he added, "Working, I mean. So I slipped away myselfand came here."

"To my cabin. The lock shouldn't have let you in."

"But you didn't tell it not to. I described you, and it knows me, you see. Myown cabin's near here. I told it the truth, that I only wanted to wait for you."I said, "I'll order it to admit no one but myself."

"It might be wise to make exceptions for your friends."

I told him I would consider it, actually thinking that he would certainly not besuch an exception. Gunnie, perhaps.

"You have a light. Wouldn't it be nicer if you used it?"

"How do you know I've got one?"

"Because when the door opened, there was a light outside for a moment. Itwas something you were holding, wasn't it?"

I nodded, then realized he could not see me in the dark and said, "I prefer notto exhaust it."

"All right. I was surprised, though, when you didn't use it to find that bed."

"I remembered where it was well enough."

The fact was that I had refrained from lighting the golden candle as a matter

of self-discipline. I was tempted to use it to see whether Idas had been burnedor bitten. But reason told me the assassin who had been burned would be in nocondition to make a second attempt on my life, and that the one who had beenbitten could hardly have reached the iron stair in the airshaft far enoughahead of me to have climbed it unheard.

"Would you mind if I talked to you? When we met earlier and you spoke ofyour home world, I wanted to very much."

"I'd like to," I told him, "if you wouldn't mind answering a few questions."What I would really have liked was a chance to rest. I was still far fromrecovered, but an opportunity to gain information was not to be squandered.

"No," Idas said. "Not a bit— I'd very much enjoy answering your questions, ifyou'll answer mine."

Seeking an innocuous way to begin, I took off my boots and stretched myselfupon the bunk, which complained of me softly. "Then what do you call thetongue we're speaking?" I began.

"The way we're talking now? Why, Ship, of course."

"Do you know any other languages, Idas?"

"No, not I. I was born on board, you see. That was one of the things I wantedto ask you about— how life is different for someone from a real world. I'veheard a lot of stories from the crew, but they're just ignorant seamen. I can tellthat you're a person who thinks."

"Thank you. Having been born here, you've had a lot of chances to visit realworlds. Have you found many where they spoke Ship?"

"To tell the truth, I haven't taken shore leave as often as I could have. Myappearance...you've probably noticed— "

"Answer my question, please."

"They speak Ship on most worlds, I suppose." Idas's voice sounded a triflenearer than it had, I thought.

"I see. On Urth, what you call Ship is spoken only in our Commonwealth. Wehold it a more ancient tongue than the others, but up until now I've never beensure that was true." I decided to steer the talk to whatever had plungedeverything in darkness: "This would be a great deal more satisfying if wecould see each other, wouldn't it?"

"Oh, yes! Won't you use your light?"

"In a moment, perhaps. Do you think they'll get the ship's lights workingagain soon?"

"They're trying to fix it so the most important parts have lights now," Idassaid. "But this isn't an important part."

"What went wrong?"

I could practically see his shrug. "Something conductive must have fallenacross the terminals of one of the big cells, but no one can find out what it was.Anyway, the plates burned through. Some cables too, and that shouldn't havehappened."

"And all the other sailors are working there?"

"Most of my gang."

I was certain he was nearer now, no more than an ell from the bunk.

"A few got off for other things. That was how I got away. Severian, your homeworld...is it beautiful there?"

"Very beautiful, but terrible too. Possibly the loveliest things of all are the ice

isles that sail up like argosies from the south. They're white and pale green,and they sparkle like diamonds or emeralds when the sun strikes them. Thesea around them looks black, but it's so clear you can see their hulls far downin the pelagic deeps— "

Idas's breath hissed ever so faintly. Hearing it, I drew my knife as quietly as Icould.

" — and each rears like a mountain against a royal-blue sky dusted with stars.But nothing can live on those ice isles...nothing human. Idas, I'm gettingsleepy. Perhaps you'd better go."

"I'd like to ask you much, much more."

"And so you will, another time."

"Severian, do men touch each other sometimes on your world? Clasp hands asa sign of friendship? They do that on a lot of worlds."

"And on mine, too," I said, and shifted the knife to my left hand.

"Let's clasp hands then, and I'll go."

"All right," I told him.

Our fingertips touched, and at that moment the cabin light came on.He was holding a bob, its blade below his hand. He drove it down with all hisweight behind it. My right hand flew up. I could never have stopped that blow,but I managed to deflect it; the broad point went through my shirt andplunged into the mattress so near my skin that I felt the chill of the steel.He tried to jerk the bob back, but I got his wrist, and he could not pull free ofmy grip. I could have killed him easily, but I ran my blade through hisforearm instead, to make him let go of the hilt.

He screamed— not so much from pain, I think, as from the sight of my bladethrusting from his flesh. I threw him down, and a moment later had the pointof my knife at his throat.

"Quiet," I told him, "or I'll kill you on the spot. How thick are these walls?"

"My arm— "

"Forget your arm. There'll be time enough to lick your blood. Answer me!"

"Not thick at all. The walls and floors are just sheets of metal."

"Good. That means there's no one about. I was listening while I lay on thebunk, and I didn't hear a single step. You may wail all you want. Now standup."

The hunting knife had a good edge: I slit Idas's shirt down the back and pulledit off, revealing the budding breasts I had half suspected.

"Who put you on this ship, girl? Abaia?"

"You knew!" Idas stared at me, her pale eyes wide.

I shook my head and cut a strip from the shirt. "Here, wind your arm withthis."

"Thank you, but it doesn't matter. My life's over anyway."

"I said to wind it. When I go to work on you, I don't want to get any moreblood on these clothes than I have already."

"There will be no need to torture me. Yes, I was a slave of Abaia's."

"Sent to kill me so I wouldn't bring the New Sun?"

She nodded.

"Chosen because you were still small enough to pass as human. Who are theothers?"

"There aren't any others."

I would have seized her, but she held up her right hand. "I swear it by LordAbaia! There may be others, but I don't know them."

"It was you who killed my steward?"

"Yes"

"And searched my stateroom?"

"Yes."

"But it wasn't you I burned with my pistol. Who was that?"

"Only a hand I hired for a chrisos; I was down the gangway when you fired.You see, I wanted to cast the body adrift, but I wasn't sure I could carry itwithout help and work the hatches too. Besides..." Her voice trailed away.

"Besides what?"

"Besides, he'd have had to help me with other things too, after that. Isn't thatright? Now, how did you know? Please tell me."

"It wasn't you that attacked me at the apport pens, either. Who was that?"Idas shook her head as though to clear it. "I didn't know you'd been attackedat all."

"How old are you, Idas?"

"I don't know."

"Ten? Thirteen?"

"We don't number the years." She shrugged. "But you said we weren'thuman, and we're as human as you. We're the Other People, the folk of theGreat Lords who dwell in the sea and underground. Now, please, I'veanswered your questions, so answer mine. How did you know?"

I sat on the bunk. Soon I would begin the excruciation of this lanky child; ithad been a long while— perhaps before she was born— since I had been theJourneyman Severian, and I would not relish the task. I was half hoping shewould bolt for the door.

"In the first place, you didn't talk like a sailor. I once had a friend who did, soI notice when others do, though that's much too long a tale to tell now. Mytroubles— the murder my steward and so on— started soon after I met you andothers. You told me at once that you'd been born on this ship, but the otherstalked like seamen, except for Sidero, and you didn't."

"Purn and Gunnie are from Urth."

"Then too, you misdirected me when I asked the way to the galley. You meantto follow me and kill me when you could, but I found my stateroom, and thatmust have seemed better to you. You could wait until I was asleep and talkyour way past the lock. That wouldn't have been hard, I suppose, since you'rea member of the crew."

Idas nodded. "I brought tools, and I told your lock I'd been sent to mend adrawer."

"But I wasn't there. The steward stopped you as you were leaving. What wereyou looking for?"

"Your letter, the one that the aquastors of Urth gave you for theHierogrammate. I found it and burned it there in your own stateroom." Hervoice held a note of triumph now.

"You would have found that easily enough. You were looking for somethingelse too, something you expected to be hidden. In a moment or two I'm goingto hurt you very badly unless you tell me what that was."

She shook her head. "Is it all right if I sit down?"

I nodded, expecting her to sit on the chest or the spare bunk, but she sank tothe floor, looking like a real child at last despite her height.

"A moment ago," I continued, "you kept asking me to kindle my light. Afterthe second, it wasn't hard to guess you wanted to be certain your thrust wouldbe a clean kill. So I used the words argosyand pelagic, because Abaia's slavesemploy them as passwords; long ago someone who thought for a moment Imight be one of you showed me a card saying he was to be found on ArgosyStreet, and Vodalus— you may have heard of him— once told me to a messageto one who should say to me, 'The pelagic argosy sights— '"I never finished my quotation. On the ship, where heavy things were so light,the child fell forward very slowly; and yet it was fast enough for a soft tapwhen her forehead struck the floor. I am sure she must have been dead almostfrom the beginning of my vainglorious little speech.

CHAPTER EIGHT - THE EMPTY SLEEVE

WHEN IT was too late I moved very swiftly, turning Idas upon her back,feeling for a pulse, pounding her chest to shock her heart into renewed life, allof it perfectly useless. I found no pulse, and the reek of poison in her mouth.It must have been hidden on her person. Not in her shirt, unless she hadalready slipped the pellet to her lips in the darkness, to be crushed andswallowed should she fail. In her hair, perhaps (though that seemed too shortto have concealed anything), or in the waistband of her trousers. From eitherplace she might easily have conveyed it unseen to her mouth as she staunchedthe blood from her arm.

Recalling what had occurred when I tried to reanimate the steward, I did notdare try to revive her. I searched her body, but found almost nothing beyondnine chrisos of gold, which I put into the pocket in the sheath. She had saidthat she had given a hand a chrisos to assist her; it seemed reasonable tosuppose that Abaia (or whichever of his ministers had sent her out) hadprovided her with ten. When I cut away her boots, I found that the toes theyhad concealed were long and webbed. I sliced the boots to bits, searching themjust as she had searched my own belongings a couple of watches earlier, butfound no more she than had.

As I sat on my bunk and contemplated her body, I thought it strange that Ihad been deceived, though certainly I had been at first, deceived not so muchby Idas as by my recollection of the undine who had freed me from the

nenuphars of Gyoll and accosted me at the ford. She had been a giantess; thusI had seen Idas as a gangling youth and not as a giant child, thoughBaldanders had kept a somewhat similar child— a boy, and much younger— inhis tower.

The undine's hair had been green, not white; perhaps that had done most ofall. I should have realized that such a true and vivid green is not found in menor beasts with hair or fur, and when it seems to occur is the effect of algae, likethat in the blood of the green man at Saltus. A rope left hanging in a pond willsoon enough be green; what a fool I had been.

Idas's death would have to be reported. My first thought was to speak to thecaptain, ensuring a favorable hearing for myself by contacting him throughBarbatus or Famulimus.

I had no more than shut the door behind me when I realized that such anintroduction was impossible. Our conversation in their stateroom had beentheir first encounter with me; it had therefore been my last with them. I wouldhave to reach the captain in some other way, establish my identity, and reportwhat had occurred. Idas had said that the repairs were being carried outbelow, and surely there would be an officer in charge of them. Once more Idescended the windswept steps, this time continuing beyond the caged apportsinto an atmosphere warmer and damper still.

Absurd though it seemed, I somehow felt that my weight, which had been onlyslight on the tier of my cabin, diminished further as I descended. Earlier, whenI had climbed the rigging, I had noticed that it dwindled as I ascended; ittherefore followed that it should increase as I moved down from level to levelin the bowels of the ship. I can only say that it was not so, or at least that it didnot seem so to me, but the very reverse of that.

Soon I heard footsteps on the stair below me. If I had learned anything duringthe past few watches, it was that any chance-met stranger might be bent uponmy death. I halted to listen, and drew my pistol.

The faint clanging of metal stopped with me, then sounded again, rapid andirregular, the noises of a climber who stumbled as he ran. Once there was aclatter, as of a sword or helmet dropped, and another pause before thefaltering footsteps came again. I was descending toward something that someother fled; there seemed no doubt of that. Common sense told me I should fleetoo, and yet I lingered, too proud and too foolish to retreat until I knew thedanger.

I did not have to linger long. After a moment I glimpsed a man in armor belowme, climbing with fevered haste. In a moment more, only a landing intervened,and I could see him well; his right arm was gone, and indeed appeared to havebeen torn away, for tattered remnants still dangled and bled from the polishedbrassard.

There seemed little reason to fear that this wounded and terrified man wouldattack me, and much more to think that he might fly if I appeared dangerous.I holstered my pistol and called to him, asking what was wrong and whether Icould help him.

He stopped and lifted his visored face to look at me. It was Sidero, and he wastrembling. "Are you loyal?" he shouted.

"To what, friend? I intend you no harm, if that's what you mean."

"To the ship!"

It seemed pointless to promise loyalty to what was no more than an artifact of

the Hierodules, however large; but this was clearly no time to debateabstractions. "Of course!" I called. "True to the death, if need be." In myheart I begged Master Malrubius, who had once tried to teach me somethingof loyalties, to forgive me.

Sidero began to climb the steps again, a little more slowly and calmly this time,yet stumbling still. Now that I could see him better, I realized that the darkoozing fluid I has supposed human blood was far too viscid, and a blackishgreen rather than crimson. The tatters I had thought shredded flesh werewires mingled with something like cotton.

Sidero was an android, then, an automaton in human form such as my friendJonas had once been. I upbraided myself for not having realized it sooner, andyet it came as a relief; I had seen blood enough in the cabin above.By this time, Sidero was mounting the last steps to the landing where I stood.When he reached me, he halted, swaying. In that gruff, demanding way oneunconsciously assumes in the hope of inspiring confidence, I told him to let mesee his arm. He did, and I recoiled in amazement.

If I merely write that it was hollow, that will sound, I fear, as if it were hollowas a bone is said to be. Rather, it was empty. The tiny wires and wisps of fibersoaked with dark liquid had escaped from its steely circumference. There wasnothing— nothing at all— within.

"How can I help you?" I asked. "I've had no experience in treating suchwounds."

He seemed to hesitate. I would have said that his visored face was incapable ofexpressing emotion; and yet it contrived to do so by its motions, the angles atwhich he held it, and the play of shadow created by its features.

"You must do exactly as I instruct. You will do that?"

"Of course," I said. "I confess I swore not long ago that I'd someday cast youfrom a height as you cast me. But I won't avenge myself upon an injuredman." I remembered then how much poor Jonas had wanted to be thought aman, as indeed I and many others had thought him, and to be a man in fact.

"I must trust you," he said.

He stepped back, and his chest— his entire torso— opened like a great blossomof steel. And it opened upon emptiness, revealing nothing.

"I don't understand," I told him. "How may I help you?"

"Look." With his remaining hand, he pointed to the inner surface of one of thepetallike plates that had made up that empty chest. "Do you see writing?"

"Lines and symbols, yes, in many colors. But I can't read them."Then he described a certain complex symbol and the symbols surrounding it,and after some searching I discovered it.

"Insert sharp metal there," he said. "Twist to the right, one quarter turn andno more."

The slot was very narrow, but my hunting knife had a needle point, which Ihad wiped clean on Idas's shirt. Now I wedged this point into the place Siderohad indicated and twisted it as he had told me. The seeping of the dark liquidslowed.

He described a second symbol on another plate; and while I hunted for it, Iventured to tell him I had never heard or read of any such being as he.

"Hadid or Hierro could explain us to you better. I perform my duties. I do notthink of such things. Not often."

"I understand," I said.

"You complain that I pushed you off. I did it because you did not attend to myinstructions. I have learned that men like you are a hazard to the ship. If theyare injured, it is no more than they would do to me. How many times do youthink such men have tried to destroy me?"

"I've no idea," I said, still scanning the plate for the symbol he had described.

"Nor do I. We sail in and out of Time, then back again. There is only one ship,the captain says. All the ships we hail between the galaxies or the suns are thisship. How can I know how often they have tried, or how often they havesucceeded?"

He was growing irrational, I thought, and then I found the symbol. When Ihad fitted the point of my hunting knife into the slot and turned it, the seepageof fluid dropped almost to nothing.

"Thank you," Sidero said. "I have been losing a great deal of pressure."I asked whether he would not have to drink new fluid to replace that he hadlost.

"Eventually. But now I have my strength again, and I will have full strengthwhen you make the last adjustment." He told me where it was and what to do.

"You asked how we came to be. Do you know how your own race came tobe?"

"Only that we were animals who lived in trees. That is what the mystes say.Not the monkeys, since the monkeys are there still. Perhaps something like thezoanthropes, though smaller. The zoanthropes always make for themountains, I've noticed, and they climb trees in the high jungle there. At anyrate, these animals communicated with one another, as even cattle do, andwolves, by certain cries and motions. Eventually, through the will of theIncreate, it came to be that those who communicated best survived while thosewho did so poorly perished."

"Is there no more?"

I shook my head. "When they communicated well enough that they could besaid to speak, they were men and women. Such are we still. Our hands weremade to cling to branches, our eyes to see the next branch as we move fromtree to tree, our mouths to speak, and to chew fruit and fledglings. So are theystill. But what of your own kind?"

"Much like yours. If the story is true, the mates wanted shelter from the void,from destructive rays, the weapons of hostiles, and other things. They builthard coverings for themselves. They wanted to be stronger too, for war andwork on deck. Then they put the liquid you saw into us so that our arms andlegs would move as they wanted, but with greater force. Into our genators, Iought to have said. They needed to communicate, so they added talk circuits.Then more circuits so we could do one thing as they did another. Controllersso we could speak and act even when they could not. Until at last we spoke instorage and acted without a mate inside. Are you unable to find it?"

"I'll have it in a moment," I told him. The truth was that I had found it sometime before, but I had wanted to keep him talking. "Do you mean the officersof this ship wear you like clothing?"

"Not often now. The mark is like a star, with a straight mark beside it."

"I know," I said, debating what I might do and judging the cavity inside him.My belt, with the knife and my pistol in its holster, would never fit, I thought;but without those I might go in well enough.

I told Sidero, "Wait a moment. I'm having to work in a half crouch to find thisthing. These are digging into me." I slipped my belt free and laid it down, withthe sheath and holstered pistol beside it. "This would be easier if you'd liedown."

He did so, and more quickly and gracefully than I would have thoughtpossible, now that he was no longer bleeding so much. "Be quick. I have notime to waste."

"Listen," I told him, "if somebody were after you, he'd have been here bynow, and I can't even hear anyone." While I pretended to dawdle, I wasthinking furiously; it seemed a mad idea, yet it would give protection and adisguise, if it succeeded. I had worn armor often. Why not better armor?

"Do you think I fled them?"

I heard what Sidero said, but I paid little attention to it. I had spoken amoment before of listening; now there was something to listen to, and afterlistening I recognized it for what it was: the slow beating of great wings.

CHAPTER NINE - THE EMPTY AIR

MY KNIFE point had already found the slot. I twisted it as I snatched off mycloak and rolled into Sidero's open body. I did not so much as try to see whatcreature those wings bore until I had thrust my head, with some pain, into hisand could look out through his visor.

Even then I saw nothing, or almost nothing. The air-shaft, which had beenfairly clear at this depth earlier, now seemed filled with mist; something hadcarried the cool upper air lower, mixing it with the warm, moist, reeking airwe breathed. Something that roiled that mist now, as though a thousandghosts searched there.

I could no longer hear the wings, or anything else. I might as well have had myhead locked in a dusty strong-box, peeping through the keyhole. Then Sidero'svoice sounded— but not in my ear.

I do not know just how to describe it. I know well what it is to have another'sthoughts in my mind: Thecla's came there, and the old Autarch's, before Igrew one with them. This was not that. And yet it was not hearing, either, as Ihad known it. I can come no nearer to it than to say that there is somethingmore that hears, behind the ear; and that Sidero's voice was there, withouthaving passed through the ear to reach it.

" I can kill you."

"After I repaired you? I have known ingratitude, but never such depths as

that." His chest had closed tightly, and I struggled to get my legs into his,pushing with hands braced against the hollows of his shoulders. If I had beenable to take a moment more outside, I would have removed my boots; then itwould have been easy. As it was, I felt I had already fractured both ankles.

" You have no right in me! "

"I have every right. You were made to protect men, and I was a man in needof protection. Didn't you hear the wings? You can't make me believe there issupposed to be a creatures like that loose in this ship."

" They have freed the apports. "

"Who has?" My sound leg had at last straightened itself. My lame leg ought tohave been easier, because its muscles had shrunk; but I could not summonstrength enough to force it down.

" The jibers."

I felt myself bent forward, as one sometimes is in wresting; Sidero was sittingup. He stood, and in standing shifted my position just enough for my lame legto straighten. It was easy then to thrust my left arm into his. My right enteredwhat had been his own right arm equally easily, but emerged from thedamaged brassard, protected only at the shoulder.

"That's better," I said. "Wait a moment."

He sprang up the stairs instead, able now to take three at a stride.I halted, turned, and descended again.

" I will kill you for this."

"For going back for my knife and pistol? I don't think you should; we mayneed them." I stooped and picked them up, the knife with my right hand, thepistol with my left, inside Sidero's. My belt had half fallen through thegrillwork floor; but I retrieved it without difficulty, threaded sheath andholster on it, and buckled it around Sidero's waist without a thumb's width tospare.

" Get out! "

I fastened my cloak about his shoulders. "Sidero, I've had people inside metoo, though you may not believe it. It can be pleasant and useful. Because I'mwhere I am, we have a right arm. You said you were loyal to the ship. So am I.Are we going to— "

Something pale dropped from the pale mist. Its wings were translucent as thewings of insects, but more flexible than the wings of bats. And they were huge,so wide they wrapped the landing where we stood like the curtains of acatafalque.

Suddenly I could hear again. Sidero had activated the circuits that conveyedsound from his ears to mine; or perhaps he was only too distracted to preventtheir functioning. However that might be, I heard the wind that roared aroundus from those great and ghostly wings, a hiss like the quenching of a thousandblades.

My pistol was in my hand, though I was not aware of having drawn it. I lookedfrantically for something, head or claws, at which to fire. There was nothing,and yet something gripped my legs, lifting me and Sidero too as a child lifts adoll. I fired at random. A rent— but, oh, how small a rent— appeared in thetitanic wings, its edges just defined by a narrow band burned black.The railing struck my knees. As it did, I fired again and smelled smoke.It seemed that it was my own arm that burned. I cried out. Sidero was

struggling with the winged creature without my volition. He had drawn thehunting knife, and I feared for a moment he had slashed my arm, that theburning pain I felt was that which we feel when sweat is carried to a wound. Ithought of turning my pistol on him, then realized that my own hand was inhis.

The horror of the Revolutionary gripped me once more; I fought to destroymyself, and I no longer knew whether I was Severian or Sidero, Thecla to liveor Thecla to die. We spun, head downward.

We fell.

The terror of it was indescribable. Intellectually, I knew we could fall butslowly in the ship; I was even half-aware that we fell no faster at the lowerlevels. And yet we were falling, air whistling by faster and faster, the side ofthe airshaft a dark blur.

All of it had been a dream. How strange it seemed. I had boarded a great shipwith decks upon every side, climbed into a metal man. Now I was awake atlast, lying on the icy slope of the mountain beyond Thrax, seeing two stars andimagining, half in dream, that they were eyes.

My right arm had shifted too near the fire, but there was no fire. It was thecold, then, that made it burn so. Valeria moved me to softer ground.The deepest bell in the Bell Tower was ringing. The Bell Tower had risen bynight on a column of flame, settling at dawn beside Acis. The iron throat of thegreat bell shouted to the rocks, and they reverberated with its echoing sound.Dorcas had played the recording "Deep Bells Offstage." Had I delivered myfinal lines? " In future times, so it has long been said, the death of the old sun

will destroy Urth. But from its grave will rise monsters, a new people, and the

New Sun. Old Urth will flower as a butterfly from its dry husk, and the New Urth

shall be called Ushas." What fanfaron! Exit Prophet.

The winged woman of Father Inire's book awaited me in the wings. Her handsshe clapped once, formally, as a great lady summons her maid. As they partedthere appeared between them a point of white light, hot and flaming. It seemedto me that it was my own face, and my face a mask that stared into it.The old Autarch, who lived in my mind but seldom spoke, muttered throughmy swollen lips. " Find another...

A dozen panting breaths had passed before I understood what he had told us:that it was time to surrender this body to death, time for us— time for Severianand Thecla, time for himself and all the rest who stood in his shadow— to takea step toward the shadows ourselves. Time for us to find someone else.

· · ·

He lay between two great machines, already splattered with some darklubricant. I bent, nearly falling, to explain what he must do.

But he was dead, his scarred cheek cold to my touch, his withered leg broken,the white bone thrusting through the skin. With my fingers I closed his eyes.Someone came with hastening steps. Before they reached me, someone else wasalready at my shoulder, a hand behind my head. I saw the light of his eyes,smelled the musk of his hairy face. He held a cup to my lips.

I tasted, hoping for wine. It was water; but cold, pure water that tasted betterthan any wine to me.

A throaty female voice called, "Severian!" and a big sailor crouched at myside. It was not until she spoke again that I realized the voice had been hers.

"You're all right. We were— I was afraid— " She had no words and kissed meinstead; as she did, the hairy face kissed us both. Its kiss was quick, but herswent on and on.

It left me breathless. "Gunnie," I said when she released me at last.

"Now how are you feeling? We were afraid you were going to die."

"So am I." I was sitting up now, though it was all I could do to do so. Everyjoint ached, my head ached worst of all, and my right arm seemed to havebeen thrust into a fire. The sleeve of my velvet shirt hung in rags, and the skinhad been coated with a yellow ointment. "What happened to me?"

"You must have fallen down the spiracle— that's where we found you. Oranyway, Zak did. He came and got me." Gunnie jerked her head toward thehairy dwarf who had held the water cup for me. "Before that, I guess you wereflashed."

"Flashed?"

"Burned by an arc when something shorted out. Same thing happened to me.Look." She was wearing a gray workshirt; now she pulled it down far enoughfor me to see that the skin between her breasts had been seared an angry redand was smeared with the same ointment. "I was working in the powerhouse.When I got burned, they sent me to the infirmary. They put this stuff on andgave me a tube to use later— I guess that's why Zak picked me. You're not upto hearing all this, are you?"

"I suppose not." The oddly angled walls had begun to turn, circling with aslow dignity like the skulls that had swung about me once.

"Lie down again while I get you something to eat. Zak will keep a watch forjibers. There don't seem to be any down this far anyway."

I felt I should ask her a hundred questions. Much more, I wanted to lie down,to sleep if the pain allowed it; and I was lying down and half-asleep before Ihad time to do more than think about it.

Then Gunnie had returned with a bowl and a spoon. "Atole," she said. "Eatit." It tasted like stale bread boiled in milk, but it was warm and filling. Ibelieve I ate most of it before I slept again.

When I woke next, I was no longer so near to agony, though I was yet in pain.My missing teeth were missing still, my mouth and jaw still sore; there was aknot the size of a pigeon's egg on the side of my head, and the skin of my rightarm was beginning to crack despite the ointment. It had been ten years andmore since Master Gurloes or one of the journeymen had thrashed me, and Ifound I was no longer so skilled at dismissing pain as once I had been.I tried to distract myself with an examination of my surroundings. The placewhere I lay appeared not so much a cabin as a crevice in some greatmechanism, the kind of place where one finds objects that appear to havecome from nowhere— but such a place magnified many times. The ceiling wasten ells high at least, and slanted. No door preserved privacy or repelledintruders; an unobstructed passage led from a corner.

I lay on a heap of clean rags near the corner diagonally opposite. When I satup to look around me, the hairy dwarf Gunnie called Zak appeared from theshadows and crouched beside me. He did not speak, but his posture expresseda concern for my well-being. I said, "I'm all right, don't worry," and at that heseemed to relax a bit.

The only light in the chamber came through the door; I used it to examine mynurse as well as I could. He seemed to me not so much a dwarf as a smallman— that is to say, there was no marked disproportion between his torso andlimbs. His face was not fundamentally different from any other man's exceptin being overshadowed by bushy hair and having a luxuriant brown beard andan even more luxuriant mustache, neither of which appeared ever to havebeen touched by scissors. His forehead was low, his nose somewhat flat, andhis chin (so far as it could be guessed at) less than prominent; but many menhave such features. He was indeed a man, I should add, and then a completelynaked one save for a thick crop of bodily hair; but when he saw me glance athis crotch, he pulled a rag from the pile and knotted it about his waist like anapron.

With some difficulty, I got to my feet and hobbled across the room. Heoutraced me and planted himself in the doorway. There every line of his bodyreminded me of a servant I had once watched restraining a drunken exultant;it pleaded with me not to do as I intended, and simultaneously announced itsowner's readiness to restrain me by force if I tried.

I was unfit for force of any sort, and as far as possible from those reckless highspirits in which we are ready to fight our friends when there are no enemies athand. I hesitated. He pointed down the passage, drawing a finger across histhroat in an unmistakable gesture.

"Danger there?" I asked. "You're probably right. This ship would make somebattlefields I've seen look like public gardens. All right, I won't go out."My bruised lips made it difficult to talk, but he appeared to have understoodme, and after a moment he smiled.

"Zak?" I asked, pointed to him.

He smiled again and nodded.

I touched my chest. "Severian."

"Severian!" He grinned, showing small, sharp teeth, and performed a littledance of joy. Still joyful, he took my left arm and led me back to the pile ofrags.

Though his hand was brown, it seemed faintly luminous in the shadows.

CHAPTER TEN - INTERLUDE

"YOU HAD a good rap on the head," Gunnie said. She was sitting beside mewatching me eat stew.

"I know."

"I ought to have taken you to the infirmary, but it's dangerous out there. Youdon't want to be anywhere other people know about."

I nodded. "Especially me. Two people have tried to kill me. Perhaps three.Possibly four."

She looked at me as if she suspected the fall had unsettled my wits.

"I'm quite serious. One was your friend Idas. She's dead now."

"Here, have some water. Are you saying Idas was a woman?"

"A girl, yes."

"And I didn't know it?" Gunnie hesitated. "You're not just making it up?"

"It isn't important. The important thing is that she tried to kill me."

"And you killed him."

"No, Idas killed herself. But there is at least one other and perhaps more thanone. You weren't talking about them, though, Gunnie. I think you meant thepeople Sidero mentioned, the jibers. Who are they?"

She rubbed the skin at the corners of her eyes with her forefingers, thewoman's equivalent of male head scratching. "I don't know how to explain it. Idon't even know if I understand them myself."

I said, "Try, Gunnie, please. It may be important."

Hearing the urgency in my voice, Zak abandoned his self-assigned task ofwatching for intruders long enough for a concerned glance.

"You know how this ship sails?" Gunnie asked. "Into and out of Time, andsometimes to the end of the universe and farther."

I nodded, scraping the bowl.

"There are I don't know how many of us in the crew. It may sound funny toyou, but I just don't. It's so big, you see. The captain never calls us all together.It would take too long, days of walking just for all of us to get to the sameplace, and then there'd be nobody doing the work while we were going thereand getting back."

"I understand," I told her.

"We sign on and they take us to one part or another. And that's where westay. We get to know the others who are already there, but there's lots ofothers we never see. The forecastle up from here where my cabin is, that's notthe only one. There's lots of othets. Hundreds and maybe thousands."

"I asked about the jibers," I said.

"I'm trying to tell you. It's possible for somebody, anybody, to lose himself onthe ship forever. And I mean Forever, because the ship goes there, and itcomes back, and that makes strange things happen to time. Some people getold on the ship and die, but some work a long time and never get any olderand make a load of money, until finally the ship makes port on their home,and they see it's almost the same time there now as when they got on, and theyget off, and they're rich. Some get older for a while then get younger." Shehesitated, afraid for a moment to speak more; then she said, "That's what'shappened to me."

"You're not old, Gunnie," I told her. It was the truth.

"Here," she said, and taking my leff hand, she laid it on forehead. "Here I'mold, Severian. So much has happened to me that I want to forget. Not just toforget, I want to be young there again. When you drink or drug, you forget.But what those things did to you is still there, in the way you think. You knowwhat I'm saying?"

"Very well," I told her. I took my hand from her forehead and held one of

hers instead.

"But you see, because those things happen, and sailors know it and talk aboutit even if most longshore people won't believe them, the ship gets people whoaren't really sailors and don't want to work. Or maybe a sailor will fight withan officer and get written up for punishment. Then he'll go off and join thejibers. We call them that because it's what you say a boat does when shemakes a turn you don't want— she jibes."

"I understand," I said again.

"Some just stay in one place, I think, like we're staying here. Some travelaround looking for money or a fight. Maybe just one comes to your mess, andhe has some story. Sometimes so many come nobody wants to give themtrouble, so you pretend they're crew, and they eat, and if you're lucky they goaway."

"You're saying that they're only common seamen, then, who've rebelledagainst the captain." I brought in the captain because I wanted to ask herabout him later.

"No." She shook her head. "Not always. The crew comes from differentworlds, from other star-milks, even, and maybe from other universes. I don'tknow about that for sure. But what's a common seaman to you and me mightbe somebody pretty strange to somebody else. You're from Urth, aren't you?"

"Yes, I am."

"So am I, and so are most of the others here. They put us together because wetalk the same and think the same. But if we went to another fo'c'sle,everything might be different."

"I thought I'd traveled a great deal," I told her, laughing inwardly at myself.

"Now I see I haven't gone quite as far as I believed."

"It would take you days just to get out of the part of the ship where most ofthe sailors are more or less like you and me. But the jibers who move aroundget mixed up. Sometimes they fight each other; but sometimes they jointogether until there are three or four different kinds in one gang. Sometimesthey pair up, and the woman has children, like Idas. Usually the children can'thave children, though. That's what I've heard."

She glanced significantly toward Zak, and I whispered, "He's one?"

"I think he must be. He found you and came and got me, so I thought it wouldbe all right to leave you with him while I went for food. He can't talk, but hehasn't hurt you, has he?"

"No," I told her. "He's been fine. In ancient times, Gunnie, the peoples of Urthjourneyed among the suns. Many came home at last, but many others stayedon that world or this. The hetrochthnous worlds must by this time havereshaped humanity to conform to their own spheres. On Urth, the mystesknow that each continent has its own pattern for mankind, so that if peoplefrom one shift their bode to another, they will in a short time— fiftygenerations or so— come to resemble the original inhabitants. The patterns ofother worlds must be yet more distinct; and yet the human race would remainhuman still, I think."

"Don't say, 'By this time,'" Gunnie told me. "You don't know what the timewould be if we were to stop at some sun. Severian, we've talked a lot and youlook tired. Don't you want to lie down now?"

"Only if you will lie down too," I said. "You are as tired as I, or more. You've

been going around collecting food and medicine for me. Rest now, and tell memore about the jibers." The truth was that I was sufficiently better to wish toput my arm about a woman and even to bury myself in a woman; and withmany women, of whom, I think, Gunnie was one, there is no better way toattain intimacy than to permit them to talk, and to listen to them.She stretched herself beside me. "I've already told you about everything Iknow. Most are sailors gone bad. Some are their children, born on the shipand hidden till they're old enough to fight. Then too, do you remember how wecaught the apport?"

"Of course," I said.

"Not all the apports are animals, though there's a lot more of those thananything else. Sometimes they're people, and sometimes they live long enoughto get inside the ship where there's air." She paused, then giggled. "You know,the others on their home worlds must wonder where they went when they wereapported. Especially when it's somebody important."

It seemed strange to hear so massive a woman giggle, and I who seldom smile,smiled myself.

"Some people say too that some jibers are taken on board with the cargo, thatthey're criminals who want to get away from their home worlds and havestowed aboard that way. Or that they're only animals on their worlds andhave been shipped as live cargo, though they're people like us. We'd only beanimals on those worlds— that's what I think."

Her hair, near my face now, was piercingly fragrant; and it occurred to methat it could hardly be thus always, that she had perfumed herself for mebefore returning to our cranny.

"Some people call them muties because so many can't talk. Maybe they havesome language of their own; but they can't talk to us, and if we catch one hehas to talk by signs. But Sidero said one time that mutistmeans a rebel."I said, "Speaking of Sidero, was he around when Zak took you to the bottomof the airshaft?"

"No, there was nobody there but you."

"Did you see my pistol, or the knife you gave me when we first met?"

"No, there wasn't anything there. Did you have them on when you fell?"

"Sidero had them. I was hoping he'd been honest enough to return them, butat least he didn't kill me."

Gunnie shook her head by rolling it back and forth on the rags, a process thatbrought one round and blooming cheek into contact with mine. "He wouldn't.He can play rough sometimes, but I never heard that he killed anybody."

"I think he must have struck me while I was unconscious. I don't think I couldhave hurt my mouth in the fall. I was inside him, did I tell you that?"She drew away to stare at me. "Really? Can you do that?"

"Yes. He didn't like it, but I think that something in the way he's built kepthim from trying to expel me as long as I was conscious. After we fell, he musthave opened up and pulled me out with his good arm. I'm lucky he didn'tbreak both my legs. When he got me out, he must have struck me. I will killhim for that; when we meet again."

"He's only a machine," Gunnie said softly. She slipped her hand inside myruined shirt.

"I'm surprised you know that," I told her. "I would have thought you'd thinkhim a person."

"My father was a fisherman, so I grew up on boats. You give a boat a nameand eyes, and a lot of times it acts like a person and even tells you things. But itisn't a person, not really. Fishermen are funny sometimes, but my father usedto say that you could tell when a man was really crazy, because if he didn't likehis boat he'd sink it instead of selling it. A boat has a spirit, but it takes morethan a spirit to make a person."

I asked, "Did your father approve of your signing on this ship?"

She said, "He drowned first. All fishermen drown. It killed my mother. I'vegot back to Urth pretty often, but it was never when they were alive."

"Who was Autarch when you were a child, Gunnie?"

"I don't know," she said. "It wasn't the kind of thing we cared about."She wept a little. I tried to comfort her, and from that we might have slippedvery quickly and naturally into making love, but her burn covered most of herchest and abdomen, and though I fondled her, and she me, the memory ofValeria came between us as well.

At last she said, "That didn't hurt you, did it?"

"No," I told her. "I'm only sorry I hurt you as much as I did."

"You didn't. Not at all."

"But I did, Gunnie. It was I who burned you in the gangway outside mystateroom, as we both know."

Her hand sought her dagger, but she had discarded it when she undressed. Itlay beneath her other clothing and well out of her reach.

"Idas told me she'd hired a sailor to help her dispose of the corpse of mysteward. She called that sailor 'he,' but she hesitated before she said the word.You were one of her workmates, and even though you didn't know she wasfemale, it would have been quite natural for her to seek the help of a woman, ifshe had no male lover"

"How long have you known?" Gunnie whispered. She had not begun to sobagain, but in the corner of one eye I could see a tear, large and rounded asGunnie herself.

"From the first, when you brought me that gruel. Because it had beenexposed, my arm had been burned by the digestive juices of the flyingcreature; it was the only part of me that hadn't been protected by Sidero'smetal hide, and of course I thought of that at once when I regainedconsciousness. You said you'd been seared by a flash of energy, but such thingsdon't discriminate. Your face and forearms, which had been exposed, wereunburned. Your burns were in places that would surely have been protectedby a shirt and trousers."

I waited for her to speak, but she did not.

"In the dark, I called out for help, but no one answered. Then I fired my pistolwith the beam set low, to give me light. I held it at eye level when I fired, but Icouldn't see the sights, and the beam was angled down a bit. It must have hityou at the waist. When I slept, you went looking for Idas, I suppose, so youcould sell me to her for another chrisos. You didn't find her, of course. She'sdead, and her body's locked in my cabin."

"I wanted to answer when you called," Gunnie said. "But we were supposed tobe doing something secret. All I knew was that you were lost in the dark, and Ithought the lights would come on again soon. Then Idas put his knife— herknife, you say, but I didn't know that— against my neck. He was right behind

me, so close he didn't even get hurt when you shot me."

I said, "However that may be, I want you to know that Idas had nine chrisoson her when I searched her body. I put them in the pocket of the sheath onthat knife you found. Sidero has my knife and pistol; if you'll return them tome, you may keep the gold and welcome."

Gunnie did not want to talk after that. I feigned sleep, though in fact I watchedfrom beneath my lids to see if she would try to stab me.

Instead she rose and dressed, then crept out of the chamber, stepping over thesleeping Zak. I waited for a long time, but she did not return, and at last Islept myself.

CHAPTER ELEVEN - SKIRMISH

I LAY in the nothingness of sleep, and yet some part of me remained awake,floating in the gulf of unconsciousness, which contains the unborn and somany of the dead.

" Do you know who I am? "

I did, though I could not have said how. "You are the captain."

" I am. Who am I? "

"Master," I said, for it seemed I was an apprentice once more. "Master, I donot understand."

" Who captains the ship? "

"Master, I do not know."

" I am your judge. This blossoming universe has been given to my guardianship.

My name is Tzadkiel."

"Master," I said, "is this my trial?"

" No. And it is my own trial that grows near, not yours. You have been a warrior

king, Severian. Will you fight for me? Fight willingly? "

"Gladly, master."

My own voice seemed to echo in the dream: "Master...master...master..."There was no reply beyond a booming reverberation. The sun was dead, and Iwas alone in the freezing dark.

"Master! Master!"

Zak was shaking my shoulder.

I sat up, thinking for a moment that he had more speech than I had supposed.

"Hush, I'm awake," I said.

He parroted me: " Hush! "

"Was I talking in my sleep, Zak? I must have been, for you to hear that word.

I remember— "

I fell silent because he had cupped a hand to his ear. I listened too and heardyells and scuffling. Someone called my name.

Zak was out the door before me, not so much running as launching himself ina flat leap. I was not far behind him, and after bruising my hands on the firstwall, I learned to twist myself and strike them with my feet first as he did.A corner and another, and we caught sight of a knot of struggling men.Another leap shot us among them, I not knowing which side was ours, or evenif we had one.

A sailor with a knife in his left hand sprang at me. I caught him as MasterGurloes had once taught me and threw him against a wall, only then seeingthat he was Purn.

There was no time for apology or question. The dagger of an indigo giantthrust for my lungs. I struck his thick wrist with both arms, and too late saw asecond dagger, its blade held beneath his other hand. It flashed up. I tried towrithe away; a struggling pair pushed me back, and I beheld the steel-heartedblue nenuphar of death.

As if the laws of nature had been suspended for me, it did not descend. Thegiant's backward motion never stopped, fist and blade continuing backwarduntil he himself was bent backward too, and I heard his shoulder snap, andthe wild scream he gave when the jagged bones tore him from within.Big though his hand was, the pommel of his dagger protruded from it. I got itin one hand and a quillon in the other, and wrenched the weapon free— thendrove it up into his rib cage. He fell backward as a tree falls, slowly at first, hislegs always stiff beneath him. Zak, hanging from his uplifted arm, tore theother dagger from him, much as I had the one I held.

Each was large enough for a short sword, and we did some damage with them.I would have done more if I had not had to step between Zak and some sailorwho thought him a jiber.

Such fights end as suddenly as they begin. One runs, then another, and then allthe rest must, being too few to fight. So it was with us. A wild-haired jiber withthe teeth of an atrox tried to beat down my blade with a mace of pipe. I halfsevered his wrist, stabbed him in the throat— and realized that save for Zak Ihad no comrades left. A sailor dashed past, clutching his bleeding arm. Ifollowed him, shouting for Zak.

If we were pursued, it was with little zeal. We fled down a twisting gangwayand through an echoing chamber full of silent machinery, along a secondgangway (tracking those we followed by fresh blood on the floors andbulkheads, and once by the body of a sailor) and into a smaller chamber wherethere were tools and workbenches, and five sailors, full of sighs and curses asthey bandaged one another's wounds.

"Who are you?" one asked. He menaced me with his dirk.

Purn said, "I know him. He's a passenger." His right hand had been wrappedin bloodstained gauze and taped.

"And this?" The sailor with the dirk pointed toward Zak.

I said, "Touch him and I'll kill you."

"He's no passenger," the sailor said doubtfully.

"I owe you no explanation and give none. If you doubt that the two of us cankill all of you, try us."

A sailor who had not spoken before said, "Enough, Modan. If the sieurvouches for him..."

"I will. I do."

"That's enough, then. I saw you killing the jibers, and your hairy friend thesame. How can we help you?"

"You can tell me why the jibers were killing you, if you know. I've been toldthere are always some on the ship. They can't always be that aggressive."The sailor's face, which had been open and friendly, closed— though it seemednothing in his expression had changed. "I've heard tell, sieur, that there'ssomebody aboard this voyage that they've been told to do for, only they can'tfind him. I don't know no more than that. If you do, you know more than me,like the hog told the butcher."

"Who gives them their orders?"

He had turned away. I looked around at the rest, and at last Purn said, "Wedon't know. If there's a captain of the jibers, we've never heard of him tillnow."

"I see. I'd like to speak to an officer— not just a petty officer like Sidero, but amate."

The sailor called Modan said, "Well, bless you, sieur, so'd we. You think wejumped all them jibers, without no leader nor proper weapons? We was awork gang, nine hands, and the jumped us. Now we're not goin' to work nomore without we have pikes, and marines posted."

The others nodded their agreement.

I said, "Surely you can tell me where I'd be likely to find a mate."Modan shrugged. "For'ard or aft, sieur. That's all I can say. Mostly they're inone place or the other, those bein' the best for navigation and observations, theinstruments not bein' blocked off so much by her sails. One or t'other."I recalled seizing the bowsprit rigging during my wild career among the sails.

"Aren't we pretty far forward here?"

"That's so, sieur."

"Then how can I get farther forward?"

"That way." He gestured. "And foller your nose. That's what the monkey toldthe elephant."

"But you can't tell me precisely how I should go?"

"I could, sieur, but it wouldn't be mannerly. Can I give you some advice,sieur?"

"That's what I've been asking for."

"Stay with us till we get someplace safer. You want a mate. We'll turn youover to the right one, when we can. You go off on your own and the jibers willkill you sure."

Purn said, "Right when you come out that door, then straight along till youcome to the companionway. Up, and take the widest passage. Keep going."

"Thank you," I said. "Come on, Zak."

The hairy man nodded, and when we were outside jerked his head andannounced, "Bad man."

"I know, Zak. We have to find a place to hide. Do you understand? You lookon this side of the corridor, and I'll look on that one. Keep quiet."He stared at me quizzically for a moment, but it was plain he understood. Ihad gone no more than a chain down the corridor when he pulled at my sound

arm to show me a little storeroom. Although most of its space was taken up bydrums and crates, there was room enough for us. I positioned the door so thata hairline crack remained for us to look through, and he and I sat down ontwo boxes.

I had been sure the sailors would leave the chamber in which we had foundthem soon, since there was nothing there for them once they had treated oneanother's wounds and caught their breath. In the event, they stayed so longthat I was almost convinced we had missed them— that they had gone back tothe scene of the fight, or down some branching passage that we hadoverlooked. No doubt they had disputed long before setting out.

However it had been, they appeared at last. I touched a finger to my lips towarn Zak, though I do not think that was necessary. When all five had passedand seemed likely to be fifty ells or more ahead, we crept out.

I had no way of knowing how long we would have to follow them before Purnwould be last among them, or if he would ever be last; in the worst case, I wasprepared to pin our hopes on our courage and their fears, and take him fromtheir midst.

Fortune was with us— Purn soon lagged a few steps behind. Since succeedingto the autarchy, I have often led charges in the north. I feigned to lead such acharge now, shouting for pandours who consisted exclusively of Zak to follow.We rushed upon the sailors as though at the head of an army, flourishing ourweapons; and they turned and fled as one man.

I had hoped to take Purn from behind, sparing my burned arm as much as Icould. Zak saved me the trouble with a long flying leap that sent him crashinginto Purn's knees. I needed only to hold the point of my dagger at his throat.He looked terrified, as well he should: I expected to kill him when I had wrungas much information from him as I could.

For the space of a breath or two we remained listening to the retreating feet ofthe four who had fled. Zak had snatched Purn's knife from its sheath, and nowwaited with a weapon in either hand, glaring at the fallen seaman frombeneath beetling brows.

"You'll die at once if you try to run," I whispered to Purn. "Answer me andyou may live awhile. Your right hand's bandaged. How was it hurt?"Although he lay flat on his back, with my dagger against his throat, his eyesdefied me. It was a look I knew well, an attitude I had seen broken again andagain.

"I haven't enough time to waste any on you," I told him, and I prodded himwith the point just enough to draw blood. "If you won't answer, say so plainly;and I'll kill you and be done with it."

"Fighting the jibers. You were there. You saw it. I tried to get you, sure, that'strue enough. I thought you were one of them. With that jiber— " His eyesflickered toward Zak. "With him with you, anybody would have. You weren'thurt, and no harm done."

"'As the viper told the sow.' So a man called Jonas used to say. He was a sailortoo, Purn, but as quick to lie as you are. That hand was wrapped in bandagesalready when Zak and I joined the fight. Take the bandages off."He did so, reluctantly. The wound had been treated by a skillful leech, nodoubt at the infirmary Gunnie had mentioned; the tear in his flesh wassutured now, yet it was clear enough what sort of wound it had been.

And as I bent to look at it, Zak, bending too, drew his lips back from his teethas I have sometimes seen tame apes do. I knew then that the wild conjecture Ihad been trying to dismiss was the simple truth: Zak had been the shaggy,bounding apport we had hunted in the hold.

CHAPTER TWELVE - THE SEMBLANCE

TO HIDE my confusion, I planted my foot on Purn's chest and barked, "Whydid you try to kill me?"

For some men, there comes a moment when they accept the certainty of death,and so are no longer afraid. That moment came for Purn, a change asunmistakable as the opening of an eye. "Because I know you, Autarch."

"You're one of my own people, then. You boarded the ship when I did."He nodded.

"And Gunnie boarded with you?"

"No, Gunnie's an old hand. She's not your enemy, Autarch, if that's whatyou're thinking."

To my amazement, Zak looked at me and nodded. I said, "I know more of thatthan you do, Purn."

As if he had not heard me, he said, "I'd been hoping she'd kiss me. You don'teven know the way they do it here."

"She kissed me," I told him, "when we met."

"I saw it, and I saw you didn't know what she meant. On this ship, every newhand's supposed to have an old one for a lover, to teach him ship's ways. Thekiss is the sign."

"Women have been known to kiss and kill."

"Not Gunnie," Purn insisted. "Or anyhow, I don't think so.

"But you'd have killed me for that? For her love?"

"I signed to kill you, Autarch. Everybody knew where you were going, andthat you meant to bring back the New Sun if you could, turn Urth upsidedown and kill everybody."

So stunned was I, not just by what he said but by his very evident sincerity,that I took a step backward. He was up in a trice. Zak lunged for him. Butthough Zak's long blade gashed his arm, it did not go deep; he was off like ahare.

He would have had Zak after him like a hound if I had not called him back.

"I'll kill him if he tries to kill me again," I said. "And you may do the same.But I won't hunt him down for doing what he believes is right. We're bothtrying to save Urth, it seems."

Zak stared at me for a moment, then lifted his shoulders. "Now I want toknow about you. You worry me a great deal more than Purn. You can speak."He nodded vigorously. "Zak talk!"

"And you understand what I say."

He nodded again, though more dubiously.

"Then tell me the truth. Wasn't it you I helped Gunnie and Purn and theothers capture?"

Zak stared, then shook his head and looked to one side in a fashion thatshowed very plainly he did not wish to continue the conversation.

"It was I, actually, who caught you; and I didn't kill you. I think perhaps youfeel grateful for that. When Purn tried to kill me— Zak! Come back!"He had bolted, as I should have guessed he would, and with my crippled leg Ihad no hope of overtaking him. By some freak of the ship, he remained visiblefor a long time, appearing from one direction only to vanish in another, thesoft slapping of his bare feet still audible even when Zak himself was out ofsight. I was vividly reminded of a dream in which I had seen the orphan boywith the same name as my own, wearing the clothes I had worn as anapprentice, fleeing down corridors of glass; and it seemed to me that just aslittle Severian the orphan had in some sense been playing my part in thatdream, so Zak's face had taken on something of the long proportions of myown.

Yet this was no dream. I was wide awake and not drugged, merely lostsomewhere in the innumerable windings of the ship. What sort of creature wasZak? Not an evil one, I thought; but then how many of the millions of specieson Urth can be called evil in any real sense? The alzabo, certainly, and theblood bats and scorpions, perhaps; the snake called "yellow beard" and otherpoisonous snakes, and a few more. A dozen or two all told out of millions. Iremembered Zak as he had been when I had seen him first in the hold: fallow-hued, with a shaggy coat that was not of hair or feathers; four-limbed andtailless, and surely headless as well. When I had seen him next in his cage, hehad been covered with hair and had possessed a blunt-featured head; I hadsupposed my original impression mistaken without ever calling it clearly tomind.

On Urth there are lizards that take on the coloration of the things aboutthem— green if they are among leaves, gray among stones, and so on. They dothis not in order to capture their prey, as one might think, but to escape theeyes of birds. Might it not be, I thought, that on some other world there hadcome into being an animal that assumed the shape of others? Its original shape(if it could be said to possess one) might have been even stranger than the four-legged, nearly spherical thing I had first seen in the hold. Predators do notprey on their own kind, as a rule. What greater assurance of safety could theprey have than the appearance of a predator?

Human beings must have presented it with some severe problems: intelligence,speech, and even the distinction between hair on the head and clothing on thebody. Quite possibly, the shaggy, ribbonlike covering had been a first attemptat clothing, made when Zak had believed it to be an organic part of hispursuers. He had soon learned differently; and if he had not been released bythe mutists with the rest, we would eventually have discovered a naked man inhis enclosure. Now he was a man for practical purposes, and at large. But it

was no wonder he had run from me— to escape a member of the imitatedspecies who probed his masquerade must have been one of his deepestinstincts.

Pondering all this, I had been walking down the passage in which Zak had leftme. It soon split into three, and I halted there for a moment, uncertain whichto follow. There seemed to be no reason to prefer one to another, and I chosethe left at random.

I had not gone far before I noticed I was having difficulty in walking. My firstthought was that I was ill, my second that I had been drugged. Yet I felt noworse than I had upon leaving the cranny where Gunnie had hidden me. I wasnot dizzy, and did not sense that I might fall; nor did I experience anydifficulty in maintaining my balance.

And yet I had begun to fall even as these thoughts crossed my mind. It was notthat I had failed to recognize that I had lost my equilibrium, but simply that Iwas unable to take a step quickly enough to catch my weight, although I fellvery slowly indeed. My legs seemed bound by some incomprehensible force,and when I tried to stretch my arms before me, they were bound too; I couldnot lift them from my sides.

Thus I hung in the air, unsupported and subject to the very slight attraction ofthe holds of the ship, but not falling. Or rather, falling so slowly that it seemedI should never come to rest on the dingy brown walkway of the passage.Somewhere in a more distant part of the ship, a bell tolled.

All this persisted without change for a long time, or at least for a time thatseemed very long to me.

At last I heard footsteps. They were behind me; I could not turn my head tosee. Fingers reached for the long dagger. I could not move it, but I clenchedmy fist on the grip and resisted. There was a jolt, and rushing blackness.It seemed to me that I had fallen from my warm bed of rags. I groped for it,but found only a cold floor. The floor was not uncomfortable— I lay too lightlyfor that. Almost, I floated. Yet it was chill, so chill I might have floated in oneof the shallow pools that form sometimes upon the ice of Gyoll, when there is abrief season of warmth, sometimes even in midwinter.

I wished to lie upon my rags. If I failed to find them again, Gunnie would notfind me. I groped for them, but they were not there.

Seeking them, I stretched my mind. I cannot explain how; it seemed to take noeffort at all to fill the whole ship with my mind. I knew the holds around whichwe crept as rats in a house creep through the walls encompassing its rooms,and they were mighty caverns crammed with strange goods. The mine of theman-apes had held silver bars, and gold; but every hold of the ship (and therewere many more than seven) was mightier by far, and the least of theirtreasures were of distant stars.

I knew the ship, its strange mechanisms and those stranger still that were notin truth mechanisms, or living creatures, or anything for which we havewords. In it were many human beings and many more that were not human—

all sleeping, loving, working, fighting. I knew them all, but there were some Irecognized and many I did not.

I knew the masts, taller by a hundred times than the thickness through thehull; the great sails spread like seas, objects huge in two dimensions thatscarcely existed in the third. Once a picture of the ship had frightened me.

Now I knew her through some sense better than sight, and I surrounded her asshe surrounded me. I found my bed of rags, yet I could not reach it.Pain brought me to myself. Perhaps that is what pain is for, or perhaps it isonly the chain forged to bind us to the eternal present, forged in a smithy wecan but guess at, by a smith we do not know. However that may be, I felt myconsciousness falling in upon itself as the matter does in the heart of a star, asa building does when stone comes to stone again as they were deep in Urth inthe beginning, as an urn does that is broken. Ragged figures leaned above me,many of them human.

The largest of all was the raggedest of all, and that seemed strange to me untilI realized that he might be unable to obtain clothing to fit him, and socontinued to wear what he had worn aboard, having it patched and patchedagain.

He seized me and pulled me erect, aided by some others, though he in no wayrequired their help. It was the height of folly to struggle with him— they wereten at least, and all armed. And yet I did so, striking and being struck in abrawl I could not win. Since I had cast my manuscript into the void, it seemedthat I have been chivied from place to place, never my own master for morethan a few moments at a time. Now I was ready to strike at whoever sought togovern me, and if it were my fate that governed me, I would strike at that too.But it was useless. I hurt the leader, I believe, about as much as the franticwarfare of a boy often would have hurt me. He pinned my arms behind me,and another tied them there with wire and prodded me to walk. So driven, Istaggered along, and at last was pushed into a narrow room where there stoodthe Autarch Severian, by his courtiers surnamed the Great, royally attired inhis yellow robe and gem-rich cape, the bacculus of power in his hand.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN - THE BATTLES

IT WAS only an image, yet so real an image that for an instant I was ready tobelieve it was a second self who stood there. As I watched, he wheeled, wavedwith preposterous grandeur toward a vacant corner of the room, and took twostrides. With the third he vanished; but he had no sooner done so than hereappeared at the spot where he had first been. For a long breath he remainedthere, then he turned, waved once more, and strode forward.

The barrel-chested leader croaked an order in a tongue I did not understand,and someone loosed the wire that bound my hands.

Again my semblance stepped forward. Having relieved myself of something of

the contempt I felt for him, I was able to note his dragging foot and thearrogant angle at which he poised his head. The leader spoke again, and alittle man with dirty gray hair like Hethor's told me, "He desires you to dolikewise. If you do not, we will kill you."

I scarcely heard him. I recalled the finery and gestures now, and without theleast desire to return in memory to that time, I was captured by it as by thedevouring wings in the air shaft. The pinnace (which I had not then knownwas merely the tender of this great ship) reared before me, its pont extendedlike a cobweb of silver. My Praetorians, shoulder to shoulder for more than aleague, formed an avenue at once dazzling and nearly invisible.

" Get him! "

Ragged men and women swirled around me. For an instant I supposed I wasto be killed because I would not walk and raise my arm; I tried to call to themto wait, but there was no time for that or anything.

Someone seized my collar and jerked me backward, choking. It was an error;when I reeled against him, I was too near for him to use his mace, and I drovemy thumbs into his eyes.

Violet light stabbed at the frenzied crowd; half a dozen died. A dozen morewith half-ruined faces and missing limbs screamed. The air was full of thesweet smoke of burning flesh. I wrested his mace from the man I had blindedand laid about me. It was foolish— yet the jibers, who bolted from the room asrats fly a ferret, fared worse than I; I saw them reaped like grain.More wisely, the barrel-chested leader had thrown himself to the floor at thefirst shot, an ell or so from my feet. Now he sprang for me. The mace head wasa gear wheel; it struck him where the shoulder joins the neck, with everyounce of strength I possessed behind it.

I might as effectively have clubbed an arsinoither. Still conscious and stillstrong, he struck me as that animal strikes a dire-wolf. The mace flew frommy hands, and his weight crushed the breath from my body.

There was a blinding flash. I saw his seven-fingered hands upraised, but therewas between them only the stump of a neck that smoldered as stumps dowhere a forest has burned. He charged again— not at me but at the wall,crashed into it, and charged once more, wildly, blindly.

A second shot nearly cleaved him in two.

I tried to rise and found my hands slippery with his blood. An arm, immenselystrong, circled my waist and lifted me. A familiar voice asked, "Can youstand?"

It was Sidero, and quite suddenly he seemed an old friend. "I think so," I said.

"Thank you."

"You fought them."

"Not successfully." I recalled my days of generalship. "Not well."

"But you fought."

"If you like," I said. Sailors boiled around us now, some flourishing fusils,some bloody knives.

"Will you fight them again? Wait!" He moved his own fusil in a gesture meantto silence me. "I kept the knife and the pistol. Take them now." He was stillwearing my belt, with my weapons on it. Clamping the fusil under whatremained of his right arm, he released the buckle and handed the whole to me.

"Thank you," I repeated. I did not know what else to say; and I wondered

whether he had indeed struck me unconscious, as I had supposed.

The metal vizard that was his face provided no clues to his feelings, his harshvoice hardly more. "Rest now. Eat, and we will talk later. We must fight againlater." He turned to face the milling hands. " Rest! Eat! "I felt like doing both. I had no intention of fighting for Sidero, but the thoughtof a meal shared with comrades who would guard me while I slept wasirresistible. It would be easy (so I supposed) to slip off afterward.The hands had carried rations, and we soon turned up more, the stores of thejibers whom we had killed. In a short time, we were sitting down to a fragrantdinner of lentils boiled with pork and accompanied by fiery herbs, bread, andwine.

Perhaps there were beds or hammocks nearby, as well as the food and thestove, but I for one was too exhausted to look for them. Though my right armstill pained me, I knew it could not do so severely enough to keep me awake;my aching head had been soothed by the wine I had drunk. I was about tostretch myself where I sat— though I wished that Sidero had preserved mycloak too— when a strongly built sailor squatted beside me.

"Remember me, Severian?"

"I should," I said, "since you know my name." The fact was that I did not,though there was something familiar in his face.

"You used to call me Zak."

I stared. The light was dim, but even after allowance had been made for that, Icould hardly believe him the Zak I had known. At last I said, "Withoutmentioning a matter neither of us wishes to discuss, I cannot help but remarkthat you appear to have changed a great deal."

"It's the clothes— I took them from a dead man. I've shaved my face too. AndGunnie has scissors. She cut off some of my hair."

"Gunnie's here?"

Zak indicated the direction with a motion of his head. "You want to talk toher. She'd like to talk too, I think."

"No," I said. "Tell her I'll talk with her in the morning." I tried to think ofsomething more to say, but all I could manage was, "Tell her what she did forme more than repaid any harm."

Zak nodded and moved away.

Mention of Gunnie had reminded me of Idas's chrisos. I opened the pocket ofthe sheath and glanced inside to establish that they were still there, then laydown and slept.

When I woke— I hesitate to call it morning because there was no truemorning— most of the hands were already up and eating such food asremained after the feast of the night before. Sidero had been joined by twoslender automatons, such creatures as I believe Jonas must once have been.The three stood some distance apart from the rest of us, talking in tones toolow for me to overhear.

I could not be sure if these volitional mechanisms were nearer the captain andthe upper officers than Sidero, and as I was debating whether to approachthem and identify myself, they left us, disappearing at once in the maze ofpassages. As if he had read my thoughts, Sidero walked over to me.

"We can talk now," he said.

I nodded and explained that I had been about to tell him and the others who Iwas.

"It would do no good. I called when first we met. You are not what you say.The Autarch is secure."

I began to expostulate with him, but he held up his hand to silence me. "Let usnot quarrel now. I know what I was told. Let me explain before we argueagain. I hurt you. It is my right and duty to correct and chastise. Then I hadjoy of it."

I asked him if he referred to his striking me when I lay unconscious, and henodded. "I must not." He seemed about to speak further, but did not. After amoment he said, "I cannot explain."

"We know what moral considerations are," I told him.

"Not as we. You believe you do. We know, and yet often make mistakes. Wemay sacrifice men to save our own existence. We may transmit and originateinstructions to men. We may correct and chastise. But we may not become asyou are. That is what I did. I must repay."

I told him he had already, that he had repaid me in full when he saved mefrom the jibers.

"No. You fought and I fought. This is my payment. We go to a greater fight,perhaps the last. The jibers stole before. Now they rise to kill, to take the ship.The captain tolerated jibers for too long."

I sensed how hard it was for him to speak critically of his captain, and howmuch he wished to turn away.

"I excuse you," he said. "That is my payment to you."

I asked, "You mean I don't have to join you and your seamen in the battleunless I want to?"

Sidero nodded. "We will fight soon. Get away quickly."

That was, of course, what I had intended, but I could not do so now. To escapeby my own cunning, in the face of danger and by my own will, was one thing—

to be ordered away from the battle like a spado was quite another.In a few moments, our metal leader commanded us to fall in. When we did, thesight of my assembled comrades entirely failed to fill me with confidence;Guasacht's irregulars had been crack troops by comparison. A few had fusilslike Sidero's, and a few bore calivers like those we had used to capture Zak. (Itamused me to see Zak himself so armed now.) A sprinkling of others had pikesor spears; most, including Gunnie, who stood some distance from me andwould not look toward me, had only their knives.

And yet all of them marched forward readily enough and gave the impressionthey would fight, though I knew that as likely as not half or all would run atthe first shot. I sought and got a position well in the rear of their stragglingcolumn, so that I could better judge the number of deserters. There seemed tobe none, and most of these sailors turned warriors appeared to find theprospect of a pitched battle a welcome change from their usual drudging.As always in every sort of war I have known, there was delay in place of theexpected fight. For a watch or more, we trooped through the bewilderinginterior of the ship, once entering a vast, echoing space that must have been anempty hold, once halting for an unexplained and unnecessary rest, twicejoined by smaller parties of sailors who appeared human, or nearly so.To one who had directed armies, as I have, or taken part in battles in which

whole legions withered like grass cast into a furnace— again, as I have— it wasa great temptation to look on our marchings and our halts with amusement. Iwrite "temptation" because it was one in the formal sense of being wrongbecause false. The most trivial skirmish is not trivial to those who die in it, andso should not be trivial in any ultimate sense to us.

Let me confess, however, that I surrendered to that temptation, as I havesurrendered to many another. I was amused, and still more amused whenSidero (plainly hoping to put me in a position of safety) created a rear guardand ordered me to take charge of it.

The sailors assigned to me were obviously those he felt least able to bearthemselves with credit when our ragtag force went into action. Of ten, six werewomen, and all of them women far smaller and less muscular than Gunnie.Three of the four men were undersized and, if not actually old, at least wellpast the zenith of their strength; I was the fourth, and only I had a weaponmore formidable than a work knife or a steel crowbar. On Sidero's orders, wewalked— I cannot say marched— ten chains to the rear of the main body.Could I have done so, I would have led my nine hands, for I was eager that anyof the poor creatures who wished to desert should do it. I could not; theshifting colors and shapes, the floating light of the ship's interior, stillbewildered me. I would have lost all track of Sidero and the main body atonce. As the best available alternative, I put the most nearly able-bodiedseaman ahead of me, told him what distance to maintain, and let the rest trailalong behind us if they would. I admit to speculating on whether we would somuch as be aware of it, should those ahead make contact with the enemy.They did not, and we were aware of it at once.

Looking past my guide, I saw something leap into view, hurl a spinning, many-pointed knife, and spring at us with the heavy-shouldered bounds of athylacosmil.

Though I do not remember feeling it, the pain of my burn may have slowedmy hand. By the time I had my pistol clear of the holster, the jiber washurtling over the unlucky seaman's body. I had not increased the pistol'ssetting, but Sidero must have; the gout of energy that struck the jiber blewhim apart, pieces of his dismembered body flying by my head in a paroxysmalflock.

There was no time to glory in victory, even less to aid our guide, who lay at myfeet drenching the jiber's hydra-knife with blood. I had no more than stoopedto look at his wound than two score jibers surged from a gallery. I fired fivetimes as fast as I could press the trigger.

A bolt of flame from some contus or war spear roared like a furnace, splashingblue fire across the bulkhead in back of me, and I turned and ran as fast as mybad leg would permit for half a hundred ells, driving the remaining sailorsbefore me. As we fled, we could hear the jibers engaging the rear of the mainbody.

Three pursued us. I shot them down and distributed their weapons— twospears and a voulge— to sailors who declared they knew how to use them. Wepressed forward past a dozen or more dead, some of them jibers, someSidero's.

A whistling wind sprang up behind us, nearly snatching the tattered shirt from

my back.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN - THE END OF THE UNIVERSE

THE SAILORS were wiser than I, putting on their necklaces at once. I did notunderstand what had taken place until I saw them.

Not far from us, the explosion of some dreadful weapon had opened thegangways to the void, and the air that had been held in this part of the shipwas rushing out. As l got my necklace on, I heard the slamming of greatdoors., a slow, hollow booming, like the war drums of titans.

No sooner did I snap the catch of my necklace than the wind seemed to vanish,though I could still hear its song and see mad swirls of dust storming off likeskyrockets. Around me, only a tempered breeze danced.

Creeping forward— for we expected at any moment to come upon morejibers— we reached the spot. Here if anywhere (I thought) I would be able tosee enough of the structure of the ship to learn something of its design. I didnot. Shattered wood, tortured metal, and broken stone mingled withsubstances unknown to Urth, as smooth as ivory or jade but of outlandishcolors or no color. Others suggested linen, cotton, or the rough hair ofnameless animals.

Beyond this layered ruin waited the silent stars.

We had lost contact with the main body, but it seemed clear the breach in theship's hull would have to be closed as soon as possible. I signaled the eightremaining hands of what had been the rear guard to follow me, hoping that bythe time we arrived on deck we would find a repair gang at work.Had we been on Urth, the climb up the ruined levels would have beenimpossible; here it was easy. One leaped cautiously, caught some twisted beamor stanchion, and leaped again, the best method being to cross the gap witheach leap, which would have been madness elsewhere.

We achieved the deck, though it seemed at first that we had achieved nothing;it was as unpeopled as the plain of ice I had once surveyed from the highestwindows of the Last House. Huge cables snaked across it; a few more trailedupward like columns, still mooring, far aloft, the wreckage of a mast.One of the women waved, then pointed to another mast, whole leagues away. Ilooked, but for a moment could see nothing but a mighty maze of sail, yard,and line. Then came a faint violet spark, wan among the stars— and fromanother mast, an answering spark.

And then something so strange that for a moment I thought my eyes haddeceived me, or that I dreamed it. The tiniest fleck of silver, leagues overhead,seemed to bow to us, then, very slowly, to grow. It was falling, of course; butfalling through no atmosphere at all so that it did not flutter, and falling underan attraction so weak that to fall was to float.

Hitherto, I had led my sailors. Now they led me, swarming up the rigging ofboth masts while I stood on deck, entranced by that incredible spot of silver.In a moment I was alone, watching the men and women of the command thathad been mine flying like arrows from cable to cable, and sometimes firingtheir weapons as they flew. Still I hesitated.

One mast, I thought, must surely be held by the mutists, the other by the crew.To mount the wrong one would be to die.

A second fleck of silver joined the first.

The shooting away of a single sail might be an accident, but to shoot away two,one after the other, could only be intentional. If enough sails, enough masts,were destroyed, the ship would never reach its destination, and there could beonly one side that wished it should not. I leaped for the rigging of the mastfrom which the sails fell.

I have already written that the deck recalled Master Ash's plain of ice. Now inmidleap, I saw it better. Air still rushed through the great rent in the hullwhere a mast had sprouted; as it hastened forth, it grew visible, a titan's ghost,sparkling with a million million tiny lights. These lights fell like snow—

floating down slowly indeed, though not more slowly than a man might—

leaving that mighty deck white and gleaming with frost.

Then I stood again before Master Ash's window and heard his voice: "Whatyou see is the last glaciation. The surface of the sun is dull now; soon it willgrow bright with heat, but the sun itself will shrink, giving less energy to itsworlds. Eventually, should anyone come and stand upon the ice, he will see itonly as a bright star. The ice he stands upon will not be that which you see, butthe atmosphere of this world. And so it will remain for a very long time.Perhaps until the close of the universal day."

It seemed to me that he was beside me again. Even when the nearness ofrigging brought me to myself once more, it seemed he flew with me, his wordsreechoing in my ears. He had vanished that morning as we walked down agorge in Orithyia, when I would have taken him to Mannea of the Pelerines;on the ship I learned whence he had fled me.

I learned too that I had chosen the wrong mast; if the ship foundered betweenthe stars, it would matter very little whether Severian, once a journeymantorturer, once an Autarch, lived or died. Instead of clinging to the riggingwhen I reached it, I spun myself around and leaped again, this time for themast the jibers held.

No matter how often I seek to describe those leaps, I will never paint thewonder and terror of them. One jumps as on Urth— but the first instant isextended to a dozen breaths, as it is for a ball children throw; glorying in it,one knows that should one miss every line and spar, it is destruction— as if theball should be thrown into the sea and lost forever. Leaping, I felt all this evenwith the vision of the plain of ice still before my eyes. And yet my arms werestretched before me, my legs behind, and I felt myself not so much a ball as a

magical diver in some old story, who dove where he would.

Without sound or warning, a new cable appeared before me in the spacebetween the masts where no cable should be— a cable of fire. Another crossedit, and another; and then all vanished as I streaked across the void where theyhad been. The jibers had recognized me then, and were firing from their mast.It is seldom wise to permit an enemy mere target practice. I jerked my pistolfrom its holster and took aim at the point from which the last bolt had come.Much earlier I told how, when I stood in the dark corridor outside mystateroom with the dead steward at my feet, the tiny charge light at the breechof my pistol had frightened me. Now it frightened me again, for I glimpsed itjust as I pulled the trigger, and there was no spark there.

Nor was there any bolt of violet energy a moment afterward. If I had been aswise as I have sometimes pretended to be, I would have cast the pistol from methen, I think. As it was, I thrust it back into its holster out of habit and hardlynoticed another bolt of fire, the nearest of all, until it was past.

Then no time remained for shooting or being shot at. The cables of the riggingrose on every side, and because I was yet in its lower parts, they were like thetrunks of great trees. Ahead I saw the cable I would have to hold, and on it ajiber who ran along it to reach the place. At first I thought him a man likemyself, though an uncommonly large and powerful one; then— all this in muchless time than is needed to write of it— I saw that he was not, for he was able togrip the cable in some way with his feet.

He extended his hands toward me as a wrestler does who prepares to receivehis opponent, and the long claws on those hands shone in the starlight.He had reasoned, I feel sure, that I would have to catch the cable or die, andthat as I caught it he would make an end to me. I did not catch it, but dovestraight at him and stopped my leap by burying my knife in his chest.I said I stopped my leap, but the truth is I nearly failed to. For a moment ortwo we swung about, he like a moored boat, I like a second tied to it. Blood, thesame crimson, I thought, as human blood, welled up from around the bladeand formed spheres like carbuncles, which simultaneously boiled, froze, andwithered as they drifted outside his mantle of air.

For a moment, I feared I would lose my grip on the knife. Then I tugged at it,and as I hoped, his ribs provided resistance enough for me to pull myself to thecable. Of course, I should have mounted higher at once, but I paused for amoment to look at him, with some vague notion that the claws I had seenmight be artificial, like the steel claws of the magicians or the luciveewithwhich Agia had torn my cheek, and if artificial, they might be of some use tome.

They were not, I thought. Rather they seemed the result of some hideoussurgery performed while he was a child, as are the mutilations of the men incertain tribes among the autochthons. The claws of an arctother had beenshaped from his fingers— ugly and innocent, incapable of holding any otherweapon.

Before I could turn aside, my attention was caught by the humanity of his face.I had stabbed him as I had killed so many others, without our ever exchanginga word. It had been a rule among the torturers that one should not speak to aclient, nor understand anything a client chanced to say. That all men are

torturers was one of my earliest insights; here it was confirmed for me by thebear-man's agony that I remained a torturer still. He had been a jiber, true;but who could say he had chosen that allegiance freely? Or perhaps he had feltthat his reasons for fighting for the jibers were as good as I had felt mine to bewhen I fought for Sidero and a captain I did not know. With a foot braced onhis chest, I bent and wrenched my knife free.

His eyes opened, and he roared, though foaming blood flew from his mouth.For an instant, it seemed stranger to me that I should hear him in that infinitesilence than that he, who had appeared dead, should live again; but we were sonear that our atmospheres joined, and I could hear the very gushing of hiswound.

I stabbed at his face. By ill luck, the point struck the thick frontal bones of theskull; with no purchase for my feet, the thrust lacked force enough topenetrate and drove me back, backward into the emptiness that surroundedus.

He lunged for me, his claws tearing my arm, so that we floated furiouslytogether with the knife hanging between us, its polished, bloody bladegleaming in the starlight. I tried to snatch it, but his claws batted it whirlinginto the void.

My fingers caught his necklace of cylinders and jerked it free. He should haveclung to me then, but perhaps he could not, with those hands. He struck meinstead, and I watched him gasp for air and die as I spun away.Any triumph I might have felt was lost in remorse and the certainty that Imust soon follow him in death. Remorse because I regretted his death with allthe easy sincerity the mind calls up when there is no danger it will be put tothe test; certainty because it was clear from my course and the angles of themasts that I would never come nearer than I was now to any strand of rigging.I had only the vaguest idea how long the air bound by the necklaces wouldlast: a watch or more, I thought. I had a double supply— say, three watches atmost. At the end of that time, I would die slowly, gasping faster and faster asmore and more of the life principle in my atmosphere became locked in theform that only trees and flowers may breathe.

I remembered then how I had cast the leaden coffer that had held mymanuscript into the void, and so been saved; and I tried to think of what Imight cast now. To discard the necklaces was to die. I thought of my boots, butI had sacrificed boots once before, when I had stood for the first time in mylife beside this all-devouring sea. I had cast the ruins of Terminus Estinto LakeDiurturna; that suggested the hunting knife that had served me so ill. But itwas already gone.

My belt remained, on it the black leather sheath with nine chrisos in thesheath's small compartment, and my empty pistol in its holster. I pocketed thechrisos, took off belt, sheath, pistol, and holster, whispered a prayer, and flungthem away.

At once I began to move faster, but not (as I had hoped I would) toward thedeck or any strand of rigging. Already I was level with the top-hamper of themasts to either side. Looking toward the rapidly receding deck, I saw a singlebolt of violet flash between masts. Then there were no more, only the uncannysilence of the void.

Soon, and with that intensity which signals our desire to escape all thoughts ofdeath, I began to wonder why no one had shot at me, as they had when I

leaped for the mast, and why no one was firing now.

I rose above the top of the sternward mast, and at once all such petty puzzleswere swept aside.

Rising over the topmost sail as the New Sun of Urth might someday rise abovethe Wall of Nessus (yet far, far larger and more beautiful than even the NewSun can ever be, just as that smallest and uppermost sail was an entirecontinent of silver, compared to which the mighty Wall of Nessus, a fewleagues in height and a few thousand long, might have been the tumbledownfence of a sheepfold), was such a sun as no one with his feet set upon grass willever see— the birth of a new universe, the primal explosion containing everysun because from it all suns will come, the first sun, that was the father of allthe suns. How long I watched it in awe I cannot say; but when I looked againat the masts below, they and the ship seemed very far away.

And then I wondered, for I recalled that when my little band of sailors hadreached the rent in the hull and looked upward there, I had seen the stars.I turned my head, and looked the other way. There the stars swarmed still, butit seemed to me they formed a great disk in the sky, and when I looked at theedges of that disk, I saw they were streaked and old. Since that time I haveoften pondered on that sight, here beside the all-devouring sea. It is said thatso great a thing is the universe that no one can see it as it is, but only as it was,just as I, when I was Autarch, could not know the present condition of ourCommonwealth, but only its conditions as they were when the reports I readwere written. If that is so, then it may be that the stars I saw were no longerthere— that the reports of my eyes were like those reports I found when weopened the suite that had once been the Autarchs' in the Great Keep.In the middle of this disk of stars, as it at first appeared to me, shone a singleblue star larger and brighter than all the rest. It waxed even as I watched it, sothat I soon understood that it could not be as remote as I had supposed. Theship, driven by light, outraced light, even as the ships upon the uneasy seas ofUrth, driven by the wind, had once outraced that wind, close-hauled. Yet evenso, the blue star could be no remote object; and if it were a star of any sort, wewere doomed, for we steered for its heart.

Larger it grew and larger, and across its center there appeared a single,curving line of black, a line like the Claw— the Claw of the Conciliator as ithad appeared when I had seen it first, when I had drawn it forth from mysabretache, and Dorcas and I had held it up to the night sky, astonished at itsblue radiance.

Though the blue star waxed, as I have said, that curving line of black waxedfaster, until it nearly blotted out the disk (for by this time it was a disk) ofblue. At last I saw it for what it was— a single cable still linking the mast thatthe mutists had blown away to our ship. I caught it, and from that vantagepoint saw our universe, which is called Briah, fade until it vanished like adream.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN - YESOD

BY ALL logic, I ought to have climbed down that cable to the ship, but I didnot. I had caught it at a point near enough to the ship that the jibsailssomewhat blocked my view, and I (whether thinking myself indestructible oralready destroyed, I cannot say) climbed instead until I reached the detachedmast itself, and then out upon a tilted yard to the end; and there I clung andwatched.

What I saw cannot truly be described, though I will attempt it. The blue starwas already a disk of clear azure. I have said it was not so distant as the ghoststars. But it was truly there, as they were not; so who is to say which wasfarthest? As I stared at it, I became more aware of their falsity— not merelythat they were not where they appeared to be, but that they did not exist at all,that they were not merely phantoms, but, like most phantoms, lies. The azuredisk widened until at last I saw it streaked with wisps of cloud. Then I laughedto myself, and in laughing was suddenly aware of my danger, aware that Imight perish at any moment for having done as I had done. Yet I remainedwhere I was for some time more.

Into the center of that disk we plunged, so that for a moment there was a ringof ebony set with ghostly stars all around our ship, the Diadem of Briah.Then we were through and seemed suspended in azure light; behind us, whereonce I had seen the corona lucis of the young suns, I now saw our universe, acircle no larger than an ebon moon in the sky of Yesod, a moon that soonshrank to a solitary mote, then vanished.

If you who may someday read this retain the least respect for me despite themanifold follies I have recounted, you must lose it now, for I am about to tellyou how I started as a baby does to see a turnip ghost. When Jonas and I rodeto the House Absolute, we were attacked by Hethor's notules, mirror-fetchedcreatures that fly like so many scraps of scorched parchment up a chimney,but for all their insubstantiality can kill. Now I, looking aft toward thevanishing of Briah, thought to see such creatures again, but of silver, notfuligin as the notules were.

And I was struck by terror and sought to hide myself behind the yard. Amoment later I realized what they were, as you have no doubt realizedalready— mere tatters torn from the gossamer burden of the ruined mast andwhipped to frenzy by a wind. Yet that meant there was an atmosphere here,however thin, and not the void. I looked at the ship and saw it in all itsvastness bare, all its sails vanished, ten thousand masts and a hundredthousand spars standing like a wood in winter.

How strange it was to cling there, breathing my own already outwornatmosphere, knowing but never feeling the mighty tempest that raged around

me. I pulled both necklaces from my neck, and at once I was nearly torn frommy perch, my ears filled with the roaring of a hurricane.

And I drank in that air! Words cannot do it justice save by saying that it wasthe air of Yesod, icy cold and golden with life. Never before had I tasted suchair, and yet I seemed to know it.

It stripped my torn shirt from my back and sent it flapping off to join thescraps of the ruined sails, and in that instant I knew it indeed. On the eveningI departed the Old Citadel for exile, I walked the Water Way, seeing theargosies and carracks that plied the wide river-road of Gyoll, and a wind hadsprung up that sent my guild cloak billowing behind me and told me of thenorth; now that wind blew again, chanting loud of new years and singing allthe songs of a new world.

But where? Beneath our ship, I saw nothing but an azure bowl and such wispsof cloud as I had beheld while we were yet in the old and soiled universestanding before this. After a moment or two (for it was an agony to remaininactive in that air) I gave up the puzzle and began the climb down to the ship.And then I saw it— not below, where I had looked, but over my head, a vastand noble curve stretching away to either side, with white cloud flying betweenourselves and it, a world all speckled over with blue and green like the egg of awild bird.

And I saw a thing stranger still— the coming of Night to that new world. Likea brother of the guild, she wore a cloak of fuligin, spreading it over all that fairworld as I watched, so that I recalled she had been the mother of Noctua in thetale I had once read Jonas from the brown book, that dire-wolves had friskedabout her heels like puppies, and she had passed behind Hesperus and Sirus;and I wondered what made the ship fly on as it did, outracing the night, whenits sails were furled and no light could urge it forward.

In the air of Urth, the ships of the Hierodules went where they would, andeven the ship that had carried me (with Idas and Purn, though I had notknown it) to this ship had initially made use of other means. Clearly this shipcommanded them too, but it seemed strange her captain urged her straight onin such a way. As I climbed down, I considered these things— finding it easierto consider them than to come to any conclusion.

Before I reached the deck, the ship herself was plunged in darkness. The windblew unabated, as though to sweep me away. It seemed to me that I shouldnow feel the attraction of Yesod, but there was only the slight pull of the holds,as it had been in the void. At last I was so foolish as to try a short leap. Thehurricane breath of Yesod caught me like a windblown leaf, and my leap sentme tumbling down the deck like a gymnast; I was fortunate that it did notsend me crashing into a mast.

Bruised and bewildered, I groped along the deck in search of a hatch. I foundnone, and I had reconciled myself to waiting for day when day came, assudden as the voice of a trumpet. The sun of Yesod was of purest white-hotgold, and it lifted itself above a dark horizon as sharply curved as the top of abuckler.

For an instant it seemed to me that I heard the voices of the Gandharvas, thesingers before the throne of the Pancreator. Then I saw far ahead of the ship(for my wanderings in search of a hatch had taken me nearly to the bow) thefar-spreading wings of a great bird. We rushed toward it like an avalanche,

but it saw us, and with a single beat of those mighty wings rose above us,singing still. Its wings were white, its breast like frost; and if a lark of Urthmay be likened to a flute, the voice of this bird of Yesod was an orchestra, forit seemed to have many voices that sang all together, some high and piercinglysweet, some deeper than any drum.

Cold though I was— and I felt nearly frozen— I could not but stop and listen toit; and when it was astern and out of hearing, and I could see it no longerbecause of the thronging masts, I looked forward again for another.There was none, but the sky was not empty. A ship of a kind new to me sailedthere on wings wider than the bird's and as slender as sword blades. Wepassed beneath it as we had passed beneath the bird; when we did, it folded itslong wings and dove at us, so that I thought for a moment it must crash into usand perish, for it had not a thousandth part of our bulk.

It passed above the top of the masts as a dart flies over the spears of an army,drew ahead of us once more, and settled on our bowsprit until it lay there as apard stretches itself upon some slender branch to watch a trail for deer, or tobask in the sun.

I waited for the crew of the smaller ship to appear, but they did not. After amoment, it seemed their ship held ours more closely than I had supposed; andafter a moment more, as I watched wondering— that I had been mistaken tothink it a ship at all and surely wrong to believe I had seen it hanging alone,argent against that cerulean world, or soaring above the forest of our masts.Rather it seemed a part of our own ship, of the ship on which I had now sailed(as it seemed to me) for so long, an oddly thickened bowsprit or beakhead, itswings no more than flying braces to hold it the more firmly to the bow.Soon I recalled that when the old Autarch had been brought to Yesod, justsuch a ship had come for him. Glorying, I raced over the deck searching for ahatch; and it was good to run in that cold and in that air, though every limpingstride stung my feet; and at last I leaped up, and the wind took me again as Ihad known it would and bore me far down that immense hull before I couldseize hold of a backstay that nearly tore my arms from their sockets.It was enough. In my wild flight I had caught sight of the rent through whichmy little command had climbed to the deck. I ran to it and plunged into thefamiliar warmth and errant gleams of the interior.

That voice which could never be distinctly heard and yet could always beunderstood thundered in every corridor, calling for the Epitome of Urth; and Iran on, happy for the warmth, feeling the pure air of Yesod penetrate evenhere, sure that my time of testing was at last at hand, or nearly so.Parties of sailors were searching the ship, but for a long while I could notmake contact with them, though I could hear them all about me, andsometimes catch a glimpse of one. At last, opening a shadowy door, I steppedthrough onto a grillwork platform and saw in the dim radiance from overheada vast plain of jumbled lumber and machinery, where papers spilled likebanks of dirty snow and scented dust lay in pools like water. If it were not thespot from which Sidero had thrown me, it was very like it.

Toward me across this space moved a small procession, and after a moment Irealized it was a triumphal one. Many of the sailors carried lights, and slashedthe dimness with their beams to create fantastic patterns, while others caperedor danced. Some were singing:

Away, mate, away! We'll dig no more today!

For we're signed aboard on a long, long trip,

To the end of the sky on a big, big ship,

And we won't come back till her sails rip!

No, we won't come back at all!

And so on.

Not all those in this procession were sailors, however. I saw several beings ofpolished metal, and indeed after a moment I realized that one was Siderohimself, easily identified because his arm had not been repaired.

A little separated from all these were three figures new to me, a man and twowomen in cloaks; and ahead of them, leading the column as it seemed, a nakedman taller than any of the rest, who walked with his head bowed and his long,fair hair falling over his face. At first I believed him deep in thought, for hishands seemed clasped at his back, and I had often walked so myself, ponderingthe manifold difficulties that beset our Commonwealth; then I saw that hiswrists were bound behind him.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN - THE EPITOME

NO LONGER so unlearned as I had been, I leaped off the platform and, aftera long, slow fall rather pleasant than otherwise, met the procession halfway.The prisoner did not so much as glance up. Though I could not see his facewell, I saw enough to make me certain I had not seen it before. He was of theheight of an exultant at least, and I would judge half a head taller than most.His chest and shoulders were magnificently developed, as were his arms, fromwhat I could see of them. As he trudged along, great muscles in his thighsslipped like anacondas beneath skin translucently pale. His golden hair heldno trace of gray; and from it and the slenderness of his waist, I judged him nomore than twenty-five, and perhaps younger.

The three who followed this extraordinary prisoner could not have appearedmore commonplace. All were of average height and seemed to have reachedmiddle age. The man wore tunic and hose under his cloak; the two women hadloose gowns that ended just below the knee. None were armed.

As they approached, I stepped well to one side; but only the sailors paid anyattention to me. Several (though there were none I recognized) motioned forme to join them, their faces those of revelers who in their excess of joysummon every bystander to their celebration.

I hurried over, and before I knew it Purn had seized me by the hand. I felt a

thrill of fear— he was near enough to have stabbed me twice over— but hisexpression held only welcome. He shouted something I could not quite hear,and slapped my back. In a moment, Gunnie had pushed him to one side andkissed me as soundly as at our first meeting.

"You wormy guiser," she said, and kissed me again, not so roughly this time,but longer.

It was no use trying to question them in that uproar; and in truth if they werewilling to make peace, I (with no friend on board except Sidero) was morethan glad they should.

Our procession wound out a doorway and down a long, swooping passage thatled to a part of the ship like nothing I had seen before. Its walls wereinsubstantial, not because they were in any way dreamlike, but because theysomehow suggested that they were thinner than tissue and might be burst inan instant, so that I was reminded of the trumpery booths and pavilions of thefair at Saltus, where I had killed Morwenna and met the green man. And for amoment or two I stood amid the hubbub, trying to understand why it shouldbe so.

One of the cloaked women mounted a seat and clapped her hands for quiet.Because the sailors' high spirits had not been fueled with wine, she was soonobeyed, and my riddle answered: through the thin walls I could hear, howeverfaintly, the rush of the icy air of Yesod. No doubt I had heard it before withoutbeing conscious of it.

"Dear friends," the woman began. "We thank you for your welcome and yourhelp, and for all the many kindnesses all of you have shown us on board yourvessel."

Various sailors spoke or shouted replies, some merely good-natured, othersglowing with that rustic politeness which makes the manners of courtiers seemso cheap.

"Many of you are yourselves from Urth, I know. Perhaps it would be well todetermine how many. May I see a show of hands? Raise one hand, please, ifyou were born upon the world called Urth."

Nearly everyone present raised his hand.

"You know that we have condemned the peoples of Urth, and why. They nowfeel they have earned our forgiveness, and the chance to resume the placesthey held of old— "

Most of the sailors booed and jeered, including Purn, but not (as I noted)Gunnie.

"And they have dispatched their Epitome to claim it for them. That he lostheart and concealed himself from us should not be counted against him orthem. Rather we consider that the sense of his world's guilt so manifestedshould be reckoned in their favor. As you see, we are about to take him toYesod for his assize. Even as he will represent Urth in the dock, so must othersrepresent it on the gradins. None of you need come, but we have your captain'spermission to take from among you those who wish to come. They will bereturned to this ship before it sails again. Those who do not should leave usnow."

A few hands slipped from the back of the crowd.

The woman said, "We ask also that all those not born upon Urth leave us."A few more departed. Many of those who remained appeared hardly human to

me.

"All the rest of you will come with us?"

There was a chorus of assent.

I called, " Wait! " and sought to push my way to the front, where I would beheard. " If— "

Three things happened at once: Gunnie clapped her hand over my mouth;Purn pinned my arms behind me; and what I had believed only some strangechamber of our ship fell from under me.

It fell sidelong, tumbling the crowd of sailors and us into a single strugglingmass, and its fall was not in the least like the leaps I had made in the rigging.The hunger of a world drew us at once; and though I do not think it was asgreat as that of Urth, after so many days in the weak pull of the holds itseemed great indeed.

A monstrous wind shouted outside the bulkheads, and in the wink of an eyethe bulkheads themselves vanished. Something, we could not tell what, keptout that wind. Something kept us from tumbling out of the little flier like somany beetles swept from a bench— yet we were in the midst of the sky ofYesod, with only the narrow floor beneath our feet.

That floor tilted and leaped like a destrier in the wildest charge of the mostdesperate battle ever fought. No teratornis ever slipped down a mountain ofair so swiftly as we, and at its bottom we shot upward like a skyrocket,spinning like a shaft in flight.

A moment later, and we were skimming the mastheads of the ship like aswallow, then like a swallow indeed we dove among them and darted betweenmast and mast, between cable and spar.

Because so many sailors had fallen or half fallen, I could see the faces of thethree from Yesod who had led us into the flier, and I was able for the first timeto see the full face of their prisoner too. Theirs were calm and amused; hisennobled by the most resolute courage. I knew my own reflected my fear, andfelt much as I had when the Ascian pentadactyls had whirled over Guasacht'sschiavoni. I felt something more as well, of which I shall write in a moment.Those who have never fought suppose that the deserter who flies the field isconsumed by shame. He is not, or he would not desert; with only triflingexceptions, battles are fought by cowards afraid to run. And it was just so withme. Ashamed to reveal my terror to Purn and Gunnie, I forced my featuresinto an expression that no doubt resembled real resolution about as much ashis death mask resembles the smiling countenance of an old friend. I liftedGunnie then, muttering some nonsense to the effect that I hoped she had notbeen hurt. She answered, "It was the poor boy I fell on who caught it," and Irealized she was ashamed just as I was and, just as I was, determined to standfirm though her bowels had turned to milk.

As we spoke, the flier rose above the masts again, leveled its flight, and spreadits wings, so that we felt we stood upon the back of some great bird.The woman who had addressed us before said, "Now you have an adventureto recount to your shipmates when you return to your ship. There is no causefor alarm. There will be no more tricks, and you cannot fall from this craft."Gunnie whispered, "I knew what you were going to tell her, but can't you seethey've found the real one?"

"I am what you call the real one," I said, "and I don't know what's happening.

Have I told you— no, I haven't. I carry the memories of my predecessors, andindeed you may say I am the predecessors themselves as well as myself. Theold Autarch who gave me his throne went to Yesod too. Went as I'm going— orrather, as I thought I was going."

Gunnie shook her head; I could see she pitied me. "You think you rememberall that?"

"I do remember it. I can recall each step of his journey; I feel the pain of theknife that unmanned him. It wasn't like this at all; he was taken from the shipwith the proper respect. He endured long testing on Yesod, and at last wasjudged to have failed, as he judged himself to have failed." I looked to wherethe woman and her companions stood, hoping I had attracted their attention.Purn was beside us again. "Then you still claim you're really the Autarch?"

"I was," I told him. "And yes, I will bring the New Sun if I can. Will you stillstab me for that?"

"Not here," he said. "Probably not at all. I'm a simple man, see? I believedyou. Only when they caught the real one, I knew you'd been yarning me up.Or maybe your wits are mixed. I've never killed anybody, and I wouldn't wantto kill a man for yarning. Killing a Port o' Lune man's worse— sure bad luck."He spoke to Gunnie as though I were not there. "You think he really believesit?"

"I'm positive he does," she said. After a moment she added, "It might even bethe truth. Listen to me, Severian, because I've been on board a long time. Thisis my second voyage to Yesod, so I guess I was in the crew when they took yourold Autarch, though I never saw him and didn't get to come down till later.You know this ship moves in and out of Time like a darning needle, don't you?

Don't you know that by now?"

I said, "Yes, I'm coming to understand so."

"Then let me ask you. Isn't it possible we've been carrying two Autarchs? Youand one of your successors? Suppose you were to go back to Urth. You'd haveto choose a successor sooner or later. Mightn't he be the one? Or the one hechose? And if he is, what's the use of your going through with it, and losingsome things you don't want to lose when it's over?"

"You mean that what I do can make no difference to the future."

"Not when the future's already up at the front of this tender."

We had talked as though the other sailors were not present, but it is neverwholly safe to do that— one does it only with the sufferance of the ignored. Oneof the sailors to whom I had paid no heed grasped me by the shoulder andpulled me half a step toward him so that I could see better through the hyalinesides of our flier.

"Look!" he said. "Look at that, will you!" But for a beat of my heart I lookedat him instead, suddenly aware that he who had been nothing to me waseverything to himself, and I only a supernumerary to him, a lay figurepermitting him, by sharing his joy, to double it.

Then I looked, because it would have seemed a species of betrayal not to; and Isaw that we were turning, slowing, in a wide, wide, circle, above an isle set inan endless sea of blue, translucent water. The isle was clearly a single hilltopthat rose above the waves, and it was dressed in the green of gardens and thewhite of marble, and it wore a fringe of little boats.

There was nothing to be seen so impressive as the Wall of Nessus, or even theGreat Keep. Yet in its way, the isle was more impressive, because everythingabout it was beautiful, without exception, and there was a joy there thattowered higher than the Wall, as high as a thunderhead.

It came to me then, seeing that isle and the stupid and brutal faces of the menand women all about me, that there was something more I did not see. Amemory rose, sent by one of those dim figures who stand, for me, behind theold Autarch, those predecessors whom I cannot see clearly and often cannotsee at all. It was the figure of a lovely virgin, clothed in silks of many hues anddewed with pearls. She sang in the avenues of Nessus and lingered by itsfountains until night. No one dared to molest her, for though her protector wasinvisible, his shadow fell all around her, rendering her inviolate.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN - THE ISLE

IF I were to say to you, who were born upon Urth and have drawn your everybreath there, that the flier landed like a huge waterbird, you would imagine acomic splashing. It did, and yet it was not so; for on Yesod, as I saw from thesides of the flier a moment or two after we were down, the water birds havelearned to drop onto the waves so gently and gracefully one might think thewater only a cooler air to them, as it is to those little birds we see besidewaterfalls, who hop into the falls to catch minnows and are as much at homethere as another bird could be in a bush.

So we did, settling onto the sea and folding our immense wings even as wetouched it, gently rocking while it seemed we still flew. Some of the sailorstalked among themselves; and perhaps Gunnie or Purn would have talked tome, if I had given them the opportunity. I did not, because I desired to absorball the wonders I might, and because I sensed that I could not speak withoutfeeling still more keenly my duty to tell those who held another prisoner that itwas myself they sought.

Thus I stared out (as I believed) through the sides of our flier, and tasted thewind, that glorious wind of Yesod that carries the fresh purity of its saltless seaand the perfume of all its glorious gardens, and life with them, and found thatthe sides, which earlier could not be seen, could not now be felt, so that werode as though on a narrow raft, with our wings for a canopy overhead. And Isaw much.

As was to be expected, one of the sailors pushed her companion into the water;but others farther down our long hull drew her out again; and though shecomplained loudly of the cold, the water was not so cold as to harm her, as I

found by stooping and dabbing my hands in it.

Then I cupped them and drew up so much as they would hold and drank of it,of the water of Yesod; and though it was chill, I was glad when some ran downmy chest. For I recalled an old tale in the brown book I once carried inmemory of Thecla, and how it told of a certain man who, crossing a wastelandlate one night, saw other men and women dancing and joined them; and howwhen the dance was through he went with them and bathed his face in a springnever seen by day, and drank of its water.

And how his wife, counseled by a certain wise device, went to the same place ayear later to the day, and there heard wild music and her husband's voicesinging alone, and the sound of many dancing feet— yet saw no one. And howwhen she questioned that device concerning those things, she was told herhusband had drunk of the waters of another world and washed in them, andwould return to her no more.

Nor did he.

I held myself apart from the sailors as we trooped up the white street that ledfrom the mooring to the building at the top of the hill, doing so by walkingnearer the three and their prisoner than any of them dared to. Yet I myself didnot dare to tell the three who I was, though I began to do so a hundred times atleast, without making a sound. At last I spoke, but it was only to ask whetherthe trial would be held that day or the next.

The woman who had addressed us glanced back at me, smiling. "Are you soeager to see his blood?" she asked. "You will not. The HierogrammateTzadkiel does not sit in his Seat of Justice today, so we will have thepreliminary examination only. That can be carried out in his absence, if needbe."

I shook my head. "I have seen much blood; believe me, my lady, I've no itch tosee more."

"Then why did you come?" she inquired, still smiling.

I told her the truth, though it was not the whole truth. "Because I felt it wasmy duty. But tell me, suppose Tzadkiel is not in his seat tomorrow, either. Willwe be permitted to wait here for him? And are all of you not Hierogrammatestoo? And do all of you speak our tongue? I was surprised to hear it on yourlips."

I had been walking a half step behind her; and she, as a consequence, hadspoken to me more or less across her shoulder. Now with her smile grownwider, she dropped behind the others to link her arm in mine. "So manyquestions. How am I to remember them all, much less to answer them?"I was ashamed and tried to mumble some apology; but I was so unnerved bythe touch of her hand, warm and seeking as it slipped into my own, that Icould only stammer.

"Nevertheless, for your sake I will try. Tzadkiel will be here tomorrow. Wereyou afraid you would be unable to return to your mopping and carrying soonenough?"

"No, my lady," I managed. "I would remain forever, if I could."

Her smile faded at that. "You will remain on this isle for less than a day alltold. You— we, if you wish it— must do what we can with that."

"I do wish it," I told her, and in fact I did. I have said she was an ordinary-looking woman of middle age, and so she was: not tall, a few wrinkles

apparent at her eyes and mouth, her hair touched at the temples with frost.Yet there was something I could not resist. Perhaps it was only the aura of theisle— so some common men find all exultant women attractive. Perhaps it washer eyes, which were large and luminous and of the deep, deep blue of her sea,unfaded by age. Perhaps it was some third thing, sensed unconsciously; but Ifelt again as I had when, so much younger, I had encountered Agia— a desireso strong that it seemed more spiritual than any faith, its flesh burned away inthe heat of its own yearning.

"...after the preliminary examination," she said.

"Of course," I answered. "Of course. I am my lady's slave." I hardly knew towhat I had agreed.

A wide flight of white stone steps flanked by fountains rose before us with theairy lightness of a cloud bank. She looked up with a bantering smile I foundinfinitely attractive. "If you were truly my slave, I would have you carry meup this stair, halt leg or none."

"I will do it gladly," I said, and I stooped as though to pick her up.

"No, no." She had begun to climb, and as lightly as any girl. "What wouldyour shipmates think?"

"That I had been signally honored, my lady."

Still smiling, she whispered, "Not that you had deserted Urth for us? But wehave a moment before we reach the court, and I will answer your questions aswell as I can. We are not all Hierogrammates. On Urth, are the children ofsannyasins holy men and women themselves? I do not speak with your tongue,nor do any of us. Neither do you speak as we do."

"My lady..."

"You do not understand."

"No." I sought for something more to say, but what she had told me seemed soabsurd that no reply was possible.

"I will explain after the examination. But now I must require a small service ofyou."

"Anything, my lady."

"Thank you. Then you will lead the Epitome into the dock for us."I looked at her in bewilderment.

"We try him— we will examine him now— with the consent of the peoples ofUrth, who have sent him to Yesod in their stead. To show it, a man or womanof Urth, who will represent his world just as he does though in a lesssignificant way, must conduct him."

I nodded. "I'll do it for you, my lady, if you'll show me where I must takehim."

"Good." She turned to the man and the other woman, saying, "We have acustodian." They nodded, and she took the prisoner by the arm and pulledhim over (although he could easily have resisted her) to where I waited. "Wewill bring your shipmates into the Hall of Justice, where I will explain what isto take place. I doubt that you need that. You— what is your name?"I hesitated, wondering whether she knew what the Epitome's name ought tobe.

"Come, is it so great a secret?"

Soon I should have to confess in any case, although I had hoped I would be

able to hear the preliminary examination first, so that I would better equippedto succeed when my own turn came. As we paused at the portico I said, "It'sSeverian, my lady. Is it permitted that I ask yours?"

Her smile was as irresistible as when I had first seen it. "We have no need ofsuch things among ourselves, but now that I am known to someone who does, Iwill be called Apheta." She saw my doubt and added, "Never fear, those towhom you say my name will know of whom you speak."

"Thank you, my lady."

"Now take him. The arch is to your right." She pointed. "Go through there.You will find a long, elliptical corridor from which you cannot stray, since it iswithout doors to either side. Convey him to the end, then out and into theExamination Chamber. Look at his hands; do you see how they are fettered?"

"Yes, my lady."

"In the Chamber you will see the ring to which his fetter is to be fastened.Lead him there and chain him— there is a sliding link, you will understand itat once— and take your place among the witnesses. When the examination iscomplete, wait for me. I will show you all the wonders of our isle."Her tone made clear what she meant. I bowed and said, "My lady, I'm whollyunworthy."

"Of that I shall judge. Go now. Do as I told you, and you shall have yourreward."

Bowing again, I turned and took the giant's arm. I have said already that hewas taller than any exultant, and so he was, nearly as tall as Baldanders. Hewas not so heavy, but young and vigorous (as young as I had been, I thought,on the day when I had left the Citadel through the Corpse Door bearing

Terminus Est). He had to stoop to pass beneath the arch, but he followed me asone sees a yearling ram in the market follow the shepherd boy who has made apet of him and now means to sell him to some family who will wether him tofatten for a feast.

The corridor was of the shape of the egg conjurors stand on end upon thetable, having a high, almost pointed arch overhead, widely curved sides, and aflattened walkway. The lady Apheta had said that no doors opened from it,and she had been correct, but there were windows on both sides. Thesepuzzled me, because I had supposed it to wind about a courtroom in the centerof the building.

I looked out of them to right and left as we walked, at first with some curiosityabout the Isle of Yesod, then with wonder to see it so like Urth, and at last withastonishment. For snow-capped mountains and level pampas gave way tostrange interiors, as though I looked from each window into a differentstructure. There was a wide, empty hall lined with mirrors, another evenwider where standing shelves held disordered books, a narrow cell with a high,barred window and a straw-strewn floor, and a dark and narrow corridorlined with metal doors.

Turning to the client, I said, "They were expecting me, that seems clearenough. I see Agilus's cell, the oubliette under the Matachin Tower, and so on.But they think you're me, Zak."

As though my speaking of his name had broken a spell, he whirled on me,tossing his long hair back to reveal his blazing eyes. The muscles of his armsstood out as though they would burst the skin as he strained against his

manacles. Almost automatically, I stepped past his leg and threw him acrossmy hip as Master Gurloes had taught me so long ago.

He fell to the white stone as a bull falls in the arena, and the crash seemed toshake that solid building; but he was on his feet again in a moment, manacledor not, and running down the corridor.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN - THE EXAMINATION

I RAN after him, and soon saw that, though long, his strides were clumsy—

Baldanders had run better— and he was handicapped by having his armspinioned at his back.

His was not the only handicap. My lame leg seemed to have a weight tied to itsankle, and I am sure our race gave me more pain than his fall had given him.The windows— charmed, perhaps, or perhaps merely cunning— crept by as Ihobbled along. A few I looked through consciously, most I did not; yet theyremain with me still, hidden in the dusty chamber that lies behind, or perhapsbeneath, my mind. The scaffold where I once branded and decapitated awoman was there, a dark river bank, and the roof of a certain tomb.I would have laughed at those windows, if I had not been laughing at myselfalready so that I would not weep. These Hierogrammates who ruled theuniverse and what lay beyond had not merely mistaken another for me, butnow sought to remind me, who could forget nothing, of the scenes of my life;and did so (so it seemed to me) less skillfully than my own memories couldhave. For though every detail was present, there was something subtlymistaken about each view.

I could not stop, or at least I felt I could not; but at last I turned my head as Ilimped past one of these windows and truly studied it as I had not any of theothers. It opened into the summerhouse on Abdiesus's pleasure grounds whereI had questioned and at last freed Cyriaca and in that single, long glance Iunderstood at last that I saw these places not as I had seen them andremembered them but as Cyriaca, Jolenta, Agia and so on had perceivedthem. I was aware for example when I looked into the summer house, of ahorrible yet benign presence just beyond the view framed by the window—

myself.

That was the final window. The shadowy corridor had ended, and a secondarch, brilliant with sunlight, rose in front of me. Seeing it, I knew with asickening certainty only another who had grown up in the guild could

understand, that I had lost my client.

I bolted through it and saw him standing bewildered in the portico of the Hallof Justice, surrounded by a surging crowd. At the same instant, he saw me andsought to push through them toward the principal entrance.

I called out for someone to stop him, but the crowd moved aside for him andseemed purposely to obstruct me. I felt as though I were in one of thenightmares I had suffered as Lictor of Thrax and that I would wake in amoment gasping for breath with the Claw pressing my chest.

A little woman dashed from the crowd and caught Zak by one arm, and heshook himself as a bull shakes to dislodge the darts in its hide. She fell, butgrasped his ankle.

It was enough. I laid hold of him, and though I was lame once more here,where the greedy pull of Yesod was Urth's or nearly, I was still strong and hestill manacled. With an arm at his throat I bent him back like a bow. At oncehe relaxed; and I knew, in the mysterious way we sense another's intent attimes by a touch, that he would resist me no longer. I released him.

"Won't fight," he said. "No more run."

"All right," I told him, and stooped to raise the woman who had helped me. Irecognized her then, and without much thought glanced down at her leg. Itwas perfectly normal, which is to say perfectly healed.

"Thank you," I muttered. "Thank you, Hunna."

She was staring. "I thought you were my mistress. I don't know why."Often I have to make an effort to prevent Thecla's voice from issuing from mylips. Now I permitted it. We said, "Thank you," again, adding, "You were notmistaken," and smiling at her confusion.

Shaking her head, she backed into the crowd, and I caught sight of a tallwoman with dark, curling hair entering the arch through which I had takenZak. Even after so many years, there could be no doubt, no doubt at all. Wetried to call her name. It remained in our throat, leaving us sick and silent.

"Don't cry," Zak said, his deep voice somehow child-like. "Please don't. Ithink it will be all right."

I turned to tell him I was not, and realized I was. If I had ever wept before, itwas when I was so small I can scarcely remember it— apprentices learn not to,and those who do not are tormented by the rest until death takes them. Theclahad cried at times, and had wept often in her cell; but I had just seen Thecla.I said, "I'm crying because I want so much to follow her, and we must goinside."

He nodded, and at once I took him by the arm and brought him into theExamination Chamber. The corridor along which the lady Apheta had sentme merely circled it, and I led Zak down a wide aisle, while the sailorswatched from the banked benches on either side. There were many moreplaces on the benches than sailors, however, so that the sailors occupied onlythe ones nearest the aisle.

Before us was the Seat of Justice, a seat far grander and more austere thanany judge I had ever seen had occupied upon Urth. The Phoenix Thronewas— or is, if it yet exists beneath the waters— a great, gilt armchair uponwhose back is displayed an image of that bird, the symbol of immortality,worked in gold, jade, carnelian, and lapis lazuli; upon its seat (which wouldhave been murderously uncomfortable without it) was a cushion of velvet,

with golden tassels.

This Seat of Justice of the Hierogrammate Tzadkiel was as different as couldbe imagined, and indeed was hardly a chair at all, but only a colossal boulderof white stone, shaped by time and chance to resemble one about as much asthe clouds in which we profess to see a lover's face or the head of some paladinresemble the persons themselves.

Apheta had told me only that I would find a ring in the chamber, and for amoment or two, while Zak and I walked slowly down that long aisle, Isearched for it with my eyes. It was what I had at first supposed to be the soledecoration of the Seat of Justice: a wrought circle of iron held by a great ironstaple driven into the stone at the termination of one armrest. I looked then forthe sliding link she had mentioned; there was none, but I led Zak toward thering anyway, certain that when we reached it someone would step forward toassist me.

No one did, but when I looked at the manacle I understood as Apheta had saidI would. The link was there; when I opened it, it seemed to me it slipped backso easily that Zak himself might have loosed it with a finger. It united loops ofchain that held each wrist, so that when I removed it the whole affair droppedfrom him. I picked it up, put the chains about my own wrists, lifted my armsabove my head so that I could put the ring into the link, and awaited myexamination.

None took place. The sailors sat gaping at me. I had supposed that someonewould take Zak, or he would flee. No one approached him. He seated himselfon the floor at my feet, not cross-legged (as I would have sat in his place) butsquatting in a way that reminded me at first of a dog, then of an atrox or someother great cat.

"I am the Epitome of Urth and all her peoples," I told the sailors. It was thesame speech the old Autarch had made, as I realized only after I had begun it,though his examination had been so different. "I am here because I hold themin me— men, women, and children too, poor and rich, old and young, thosewho would save our world if they could, and those who would rape its last lifefor gain."

Unbidden, the words rose to the surface of my mind. "I am here also because Iam by right the ruler of Urth. We have many nations, some larger than ourCommonwealth and stronger; but we Autarchs, and we alone, think notmerely of our own lands, but know our winds blow every tree and our tideswash every shore. This I have proved, because I stand here. And because Istand here, I prove it is my right."

The sailors listened in silence to all this; but even as I spoke I looked past themfor the others, for the lady Apheta and her companions, at least. They werenot to be seen.

Yet there were other hearers. The crowd from the portico now stood in thedoorway through which Zak and I had come; when I had finished they filedslowly into the Examination Chamber, coming not down the central aisle as wehad, and as the sailors doubtless had, but dividing their column, left and right,into two that crept between the benches and the walls.

I caught my breath then, for Thecla was among them, and in her eyes I sawsuch pity and such sorrow as wrung my heart. I have not often been afraid,but I knew the pity and sorrow were for me, and I was frightened by the depthof them.

At last she turned from me, and I from her. That was when I saw Agilus in thecrowd, and Morwenna, with her black hair and branded cheeks.

With them were a hundred more, prisoners from our oubliette and theVincula of Thrax, felons I had scourged for provincial magistrates andmurderers I had killed for them. And a hundred more besides: Ascians, tallIdas, and grim-mouthed Casdoe with little Severian in her arms; Guasachtand Erblon with our green battle flag.

I bent my head, staring at the floor while I awaited the first question.No questions came. Not for a very long time— if I were to write here how longthat time seemed to me, or even how long it actually was, I would not bebelieved. Before anyone spoke, the sun was low in the bright sky of Yesod, andNight had put long, dark fingers across the isle.

With Night came another. I heard the scrabble of its claws on the stone floor,then a child's voice: " Can't we go now? " The alzabo had come, and its eyesburned in the blackness that had entered through the doorway of theExamination Chamber.

"Are you held here?" I asked. "It is not I who hold you."

Hundreds of voices cried out, saying, " Yes, we are held! "I knew then that they were not to question me, but I to question them. Still Ihoped it might not be so. I said, "Then go." But not one moved.

"What is it I must ask you?" I asked. There was no reply.

Night came indeed. Because that building was all of white stone, with anaperture at the summit of its soaring dome, I had scarcely realized it was unlit.As the horizon rose higher than the sun, the Examination Chamber grew asdark as those rooms the Increate builds beneath the boughs of great trees. Thefaces blurred and went out, like the flames of candles; only the eyes of thealzabo caught the fading light and shone like two red embers.

I heard the sailors whispering among themselves with fear in their voices, andthe soft sighing of knife blades clearing well-oiled sheaths. I called to them thatthere was no reason to be afraid, that these were my ghosts, and not theirs.The voice of the child Severa cried, " We're not ghosts! " with childish scorn.The red eyes came closer, and again there was the scrape of terrible claws onthe stone floor. All the rest fidgeted in their places, so that the chamber echoedwith the rustlings of their garments.

I wrenched futilely at the manacles, then fumbled for the sliding link andshouted to Zak not to try to stop the alzabo without a weapon.

Gunnie called (for I recognized her voice), "She's only a child, Severian."I answered, "She's dead! The beast speaks through her."

"She's riding on its back. They're here by me."

My numb fingers had found the link, but I did not open it, knowing with asudden certainty that could not be denied that if I were to free myself now andhide among the sailors, as I had planned, I would surely have failed.

"Justice!" I shouted to them. "I tried to act justly, and you know that! Youmay hate me, but can you say I harmed you without cause?"

A dark figure sprang up. Steel gleamed like the alzabo's eyes. Zak sprang too,and I heard the clatter of the weapon as it struck the stone floor.

CHAPTER NINETEEN - SILENCE

IN THE confusion I could not tell at first who had freed me. I only knew thatthey were two, one to either side, and that they took my arms when I was freeand led me quickly around the Seat of Justice and down a narrow stair.Behind us was pandemonium, the sailors shouting and scuffling, the alzabobaying.

The stair was long and steep, but it had been constructed in line with theaperture at the apex of the dome; faint light spilled down it, the final glimmerof a twilight yet reflected from a scattering of cloud, though Yesod's sun wouldappear no more until morning.

At the bottom we emerged into darkness so intense that I did not realize wewere outdoors until I felt grass beneath my feet and wind on my cheek.

"Thank you," I said. "But who are you?"

A few paces away, Apheta answered, "They are my friends. You saw them onthe craft that brought you here from your ship."

As she spoke, the two released me. I am tempted to write that they vanished atonce, because that is how it seemed to me; but I do not think they did. Rather,perhaps, they walked away into the night without a word.

Apheta slipped her hand into mine as she had before. "I pledged myself toshow you wonders."

I drew her farther from the building. "I'm not ready to see wonders. Yours, orany other woman's."

She laughed. Nothing is more frequently false in women than their laughter, amerely social sound like the belching of autochthons at a feast; but it seemedto me that this laughter held real merriment.

"I mean what I say." The aftermath of fear had left me weak and sweating,but the wild bewilderment I felt had little or nothing to do with that; and if Iknew anything at all (though I was not certain I did), it was that I did not wantto begin some casual amour.

"Then we will walk— away from this place you wish so much to leave— andtalk together. This afternoon you had a great many questions."

"I have none now," I told her. "I must think."

"Why, so must we all," she said sweetly. "All the time, or nearly."We went down a long, white street that meandered like a river, so that its slopewas never steep. Mansions of pale stone stood beside it like ghosts. Most weresilent, but from some there came the sounds of revelry, the clink of glasses,strains of music, and the slap of dancing feet; never a human voice.When we had passed several I said, "Your people don't speak as we do. Wewould say they don't speak at all."

"Is that a question?"

"No, it's an answer, an observation. When we were going into the Examination

Chamber, you said you didn't speak our tongue, nor I yours. No one speaksyours."

"It was meant metaphorically," she told me. "We have a means ofcommunication. You do not use it, and we do not use the one you use."

"You weave paradoxes to warn me," I said, though my thoughts wereelsewhere.

"Not at all. You communicate by sound, we by silence."

"By gestures, you mean."

"No, by silence. You make a sound with your larynx and shape it by the actionof your palate and lips. You have been doing that for so long that you havealmost forgotten you do it; but when you were very young you had to learn todo it, as each child born to your race must. We could do it too, if we wished.Listen."

I listened and heard a soft gurgling that seemed to proceed not from her, butfrom the air beside her. It was as though some unseen mute had come to joinus, and now made a croaking in his throat. "What was that?" I asked.

"Ah, you see, you have questions after all. What you heard was my voice. Wecall so, occasionally, when we are injured or in need of help."

"I don't understand," I said. "Nor do I wish to. I must be alone with mythoughts."

Between the mansions were many fountains and many trees, trees that seemedto me tall, strange, and lovely even in the darkness. The waters of thefountains were not perfumed as so many of ours were in the gardens of theHouse Absolute, but the scent of the pure water of Yesod was sweeter than anyperfume.

Flowers grew there too, as I had seen when we had left the flier and as I was tosee again in the morning. Most had now folded their hearts in the bowers oftheir petals, and only a pale moonvine blossomed, though there was no moon.At last, the street ended at the cool sea. There the little boats of Yesod weremoored, just as I had seen them from above. Many men and women werethere too, men and women who went to and fro among the boats, and betweenthe boats and the shore. Sometimes a boat put out into the dark, lappingwater; and at times some new boat appeared, with sails of many colors I couldscarcely make out. Only rarely was there a light.

I said, "Once I was so foolish as to believe Thecla alive. It was a trick to drawme to the mine of the man-apes. Agia did it, but I saw her dead brothertonight."

"You do not comprehend what happened to you," Apheta told me. Shesounded shamed. "That is why I am here— to explain it to you. But I will notexplain until you are ready, until you ask me."

"And if I never ask?"

"Then I will never explain. It may be better, though, for you to know,especially if you are the New Sun."

"Is Urth really so important to you?"

She shook her head.

"Then why bother with it or me?"

"Because your race is important to us. It would be far less laborious if wecould deal with it all at once, but you are sown over tens of thousands ofworlds, and we cannot."

I said nothing.

"The worlds are very far apart. If one of our ships goes from one to another asfast as the starlight, the voyage takes many centuries. It does not seem so tothose on the ship, but it does. If the ship goes even faster, tacking in the windfrom the suns, time runs backward so that the ship arrives before it sails."

"That must be very inconvenient for you," I said. I was staring out over thewater.

"For us, not for me personally. If you are thinking that I am in some fashionthe queen or guardian of your Urth, dismiss the thought. I am not. But yes,imagine that we desire to play shah matupon a board whose squares are raftson that sea. We move, yet even as we move the rafts stir and slip into some newcombination; and to move, we must paddle from one raft to the next, whichtakes so long."

"Against whom do you play?" I asked.

"Entropy."

I looked around at her. "It is said that game is always lost."

"We know."

"Is Thecla really alive? Alive outside myself?"

"Here? Yes."

"If I took her to Urth, would she be alive there?"

"That will not be permitted."

"Then I will not ask whether I can stay here with her. You have alreadyanswered that. Less than a day all told, you said."

"Would you stay here with her if it were possible?"

I thought about that for a moment. "Leaving Urth to freeze in the dark? No.Thecla was not a good woman, but..."

"Not good by whose measure?" Apheta asked. When I did not reply, she said,

"I am truly inquiring. You may believe there is nothing unknown to me, but itis not so."

"By her own. What I was going to say, if I could find the words, was thatshe— that all the exultants except a very few— felt a certain responsibility. Itused to astonish me that she who had so much learning cared so little about it.That was when we used to talk together in her cell. A long time afterward,when I had been Autarch for several years, I realized it was because she knewof something better, something she had been learning all her life. It was arough ethology, but I find I can't say exactly what I mean."

"Try, please. I would like to hear it."

"Thecla would defend to the death anyone who could not help beingdependent on her. That was why Hunna held Zak for me this afternoon.Hunna saw something of Thecla in me, though she must have known I was notreally Thecla."

"Yet you said Thecla was not good."

"Goodness is so much more than that. She knew that too."

I paused, watching the white flashes the waves made in the darkness beyondthe boats while I tried to collect my thoughts. "What I was trying to say wasthat I learned it from her— that responsibility— or rather I absorbed it when Iabsorbed her. If I were to betray Urth for her now, I would be worse than she,not better. She wants me to be better, as every lover wants his lover to bebetter than he."

Apheta said, "Go on."

"I wanted Thecla because she was so much better than I, socially and morally,and she wanted me because I was so much better than she and her friends, justbecause I did something necessary. Most exultants don't, on Urth. They have agreat deal of power, and they pretend they're important; they tell the Autarchthat they're ruling their peons, and they tell their peons they're ruling theCommonwealth. But they don't really do anything, and in their hearts theyknow it. They're afraid to use their power, or at least the best of them are,knowing they can't use it wisely."

A few sea birds, pale birds with huge eyes and bills like swords, wheeledoverhead; after a time I saw a fish jump. "What was I talking about?" I asked.

"Why you could not leave your world to freeze in the dark."

I had remembered something else. "You said you didn't speak my language."

"I think I said I do not speak any tongue, that we have no tongues. Look."She opened her mouth and held it up to me, but it was too dark for me to seewhether she had deceived me. "How is it I hear you?" I asked. Then Iunderstood what it was she wished, and kissed her; that kiss made me certainshe was a woman of my own race.

"Do you know our story?" she whispered as we parted.

I told her what the aquastor Malrubius had told me upon another night uponanother beach: that in a previous manvantara, the men of that cycle hadshaped companions for themselves from other races, and that at thedestruction of their universe these had escaped here to Yesod; that they ruledour universe through the Hierodules, whom they themselves had shaped.Apheta shook her head when I had finished. "There is much more than that."I said I had never supposed there was not, but that what I had just recited wasall I knew. I added, "You said that you are the children of theHierogrammates. Who are they, and who are you?"

"They are those of whom you spoke, those who were made in your image by arace cognate to your own. As for us, we are what I have told you we are."She ceased to speak, and when some time had passed I said, "Go on."

"Severian, do you know the meaning of that word you used? OfHierogrammate?"

I told her that someone had once told me it designated those who recorded therescripts of the Increate.

"So much is correct." She paused again. "Possibly we are too much in awe.Those whom we do not name, the cognates I spoke of; evoke such feelings still,though of all their works only the Hierogrammates remain. You say theydesired companions. How could they shape companions for themselves, whowere themselves ever reaching higher and higher?"

I confessed I did not know; and when she seemed disinclined to tell me more, Idescribed the winged being I had seen in the pages of Father Inire's book andasked whether it had not been a Hierogrammate.

She said it was. "But I will speak no more of them. You asked about us; we aretheir larvae. Do you know what larvae are?"

"Why, yes," I answered. "Masked spirits."

Apheta nodded. "We carry their spirit, and even as you say, until we attain totheir high state we must go masked— not with an actual mask such as thoseour Hierodules wear, but with the appearance of your own race, the race thatour parents, the Hierogrammates, first set forth to follow. Yet we are not yetHierogrammates, nor are we truly like you. You have listened to my voice for

a long while now, Autarch. Listen to this world of Yesod instead and tell mewhat you hear, other than my words, when I speak to you. Listen! What doyou hear?"

I did not understand. I said, "Nothing. But you are a human woman."

"You hear nothing because we speak with silence, even as you with sound.Whatever noises we find we shape, canceling those which are unneeded,voicing our thoughts in the remainder. That is why I led you here, where thewaves murmur always; and why we have so many fountains, and trees to stirtheir leaves in the wind from our sea."

I hardly heard her. Something vast and bright— a moon, a sun— was rising,madly shaped and drenched with light. It was as though some golden seedsoared in the atmosphere of this strange world, borne aloft upon a billionblack filaments. It was the ship; and the sun called Yesod, though the horizonwas above it, struck that vast hull full and was reflected with a light thatseemed like day.

"Look!" I called to Apheta.

And she cried back, "Look! Look!" pointing to her mouth. I looked and sawthat what I had taken for her tongue when we had kissed was but a lump oftissue protruding from her palate.

CHAPTER TWENTY - THE COILED ROOM

I CANNOT say how long the ship hung so in the sky. It was less than a watch,surely, and it seemed no longer than a breath. While it was there, I had eyesfor nothing else; what Apheta did then, I have no notion. When it was gone, Ifound her sitting on a rock near the water and looking at me.

"I've so many questions," I said. "Seeing Thecla again put them out of mymind, but now they're there again; and there are questions about her too."Apheta said, "But you are exhausted."

I nodded to that.

"Tomorrow you must face Tzadkiel, and tomorrow is not far off. Our littleworld spins more quickly than your own; its days and night must seem shortto you. Will you come with me?"

"Gladly, my lady."

"You think me a queen, or something of the sort. Will it amaze you to discoverI live in a single room? Look there."

I looked and saw an archway concealed among trees, only a dozen paces fromthe water.

"Is there no tide here?" I asked.

"No. I know what that means because I have studied the ways of your world—

thus I was chosen to bring the shipmen, and later to speak with you. ButYesod, having no companion, has no tides."

"You knew from the first that I was Autarch, didn't you? If you have studiedUrth, you surely knew. Putting manacles on Zak was only a stratagem."She did not reply, even after we had reached the dark arch. Set in a whitestone wall, it seemed the entrance to a tomb; but the air within was as freshand sweet as all the air of Yesod.

"You must lead me, my lady," I said. "I cannot see in this blackness."I had no sooner spoken than there was light, a dim light like a flame reflectedfrom tarnished silver. It came from Apheta herself, and pulsed like the beatingof a heart.

We stood in a wide room, hung on every side with muslin curtains. Paddedseats and divans were scattered upon a gray carpet. One after another, thecurtains were twitched aside, and behind each I saw the silent, somber face ofa man; when he had looked at us for a moment, each man let his curtain fall.

"You're well guarded, my lady," I told her. "But you've nothing to fear fromme."

She smiled, and it was odd to see that smile lit by its own light. "You would cutmy throat in an instant, if it would save your Urth. We both know that. Or cutyour own, I think."

"Yes. At least I hope so."

"But these are not protectors. My light means that I am ready to mate."

"And if I am not?"

"I will choose another while you sleep. There will be no difficulty, as you see."She thrust aside a curtain, and we entered a wide corridor that bent to the left.Scattered about were seats such as I had seen outside, and many other objectsas mysterious to me as the appliances in Baldanders's castle, though they werelovely and not terrible. Apheta took one of the divans.

"Does this not lead us to your chamber, my lady?"

"This is mine. It is a spiral; many of our rooms are, because we like thatshape. If you follow it, you will come to a place where you may wash, and bealone for a time."

"Thank you. Have you a candle to lend me?"

She shook her head, but told me it would not be entirely dark.

I left her and followed the spiral. Her light went with me, growing fainter andfainter but reflected by the curving wall. At the end, which I was not long inreaching, a breath of wind suggested that what Gunnie had called a spiraclestretched from the roof to this place. As my eyes grew accustomed to the dark,I saw it as a circle of darkness less intense. Standing below it, I beheld thespangled sky of Yesod.

I thought about it while I relieved myself and washed, and when I returned toApheta, who lay on one of the divans with her naked loveliness pulsingthrough a thin sheet, I kissed her and asked, "Are there no other worlds, mylady?"

"There are very many," she murmured. She had unbound her dark hair,which floated about her shining face, so that she seemed herself some eeriestar, wrapped in night.

"Here in Yesod. On Urth we see myriad suns, dim by day, bright by night.

Your day sky is empty, but your night sky is brighter than ours."

"When we require them, the Hierogrammates will build more— worlds as fairas this, or more fair. Suns for them too, should we require more suns. Thus forus they are there already. Time runs as we ask here, and we like their light."

"Time does not run as I ask." I seated myself on her divan, my aching legstretched before me.

"Not yet," she said. And then, "You are lame, Autarch."

"Surely you've noticed that before."

"Yes, but I am seeking a way to tell you that for you time will run as for us.You are lame now, but if you bring the New Sun to your Urth, you shall notalways be so."

"You Hierarchs are magicians. You're more powerful than those I once met,but magicians still. You talk of this wonder and that, but though your cursesmay blast, I feel your rewards are false gold that will turn to dust in thehand."

"You misunderstand us," she told me. "And though we know so much morethan you, our gold is true gold, got as true gold is, often at the cost of ourlives."

"Then you're lost in your own labyrinth, and no wonder. Once I had thepower to cure such things— sometimes, at least." And I told her of the sick girlin the jacal in Thrax, and of the Uhlan on the green road, and of Triskele; andlast of all, I told her how I had found the steward dead at my door.

"If I try to unravel this for you, will you understand that I do not, no morethan you yourself, know all the secrets of your Briah, although they have beenmy study? They are without end."

"I understand," I said. "But on the ship I thought we had come to the end ofBriah when we came here."

"So you did, but though you may walk into a house at one door and walk outat the other, you do not know all the secrets of that house."

I nodded, watching her naked beauty pulse beneath the fabric and wishing, ifthe truth be known, that it lacked so strong a hold on me.

"You saw our sea. Did you notice the waves there? What would you say tosomeone who told you that you saw not waves, but only water?"

"That I've learned not to argue with fools. One smiles and walks away."

"What you call time is made up of such waves, and as the waves you sawexisted in the water, so time exists in matter. The waves march toward thebeach, but if you were to cast a pebble into the water, new waves, a hundredthor a thousandth the strength of the old, would run out to sea, and the wavesthere would feel them."

"I understand."

"So do future things make themselves known in the past. A child who willsomeday be wise is a wise child; and many who will be doomed carry theirdooms in their faces, so that those who can see even a short way into the futurefind it there and turn away their eyes."

"Aren't we all doomed?"

"No, but that is another matter. You may master a New Sun. Should you, itsenergy will be yours to draw upon, though it will not exist unless you— andyour Urth— triumph here. But as the boy foreshadows the man, something of

that faculty has reached you through the Corridors of Time. I cannot saywhence you drew when you were on Urth. Partly from yourself, no doubt. Butnot all or even most can have come from you, or you would have perished.Perhaps from your world, or from its old sun. When you were on the shipthere was no world and no sun near enough, so you took what could be drawnfrom the ship itself, and nearly wrecked it. But even that was not sufficient."

"And had the Claw of the Conciliator no power at all?"

"Let me see it." She held out a shining hand.

"It was destroyed long ago by the weapons of the Ascians," I told her.She made no answer, but only stared at me; and when a heartbeat had passed,I saw that she was looking at my chest, where I carried the thorn in the littlepouch Dorcas had sewn for me.

I looked myself, and saw a light— fainter far than hers, yet steady. I took outthe thorn, and its golden radiance shone from wall to wall before it died away.

"It has become the Claw," I said. "So I saw it when I drew it from the rocks."I held it out to her; she did not look at it, but at the half-healed wound it hadmade. "It was saturated with your blood," she said, "and your blood containsyour living cells. I doubt that it was powerless. Nor do I wonder that thePelerines revered it."

I left her then, and groping, found my way to the beach once more, and for along time I walked up and down the sand. But the thoughts I had there haveno place here.

· · ·

When I returned, Apheta was waiting for me still, her silver pulsing moreimportunate than before. "Can you?" she asked, and I told her she was verybeautiful.

"But can you?" she asked again.

"We must talk first. I would be betraying my kind if I did not question you."

"Then ask," she whispered. "Though I warn you that nothing I say will helpyour race in the test to come."

"How is it you speak? What sound is there here?"

"You must listen to my voice," she told me, "and not to my words. What doyou hear?"

I did as she had instructed me, and heard the silken sliding of the sheet, thewhisper of our bodies, the breaking of the little waves, and the beating of myown heart.

A hundred questions I had been ready to ask, and it had seemed to me thateach of the hundred might bring the New Sun. Her lips brushed mine, andevery question vanished, banished from my consciousness as if it had neverbeen. Her hands, her lips, her eyes, the breasts I pressed— all wondrous; butthere was more, perhaps the perfume of her hair. I felt that I breathed anendless night...

Lying upon my back, I entered Yesod. Or say, rather, Yesod closed about me.It was only then that I knew I had never been there. Stars in their billionsspurted from me, fountains of suns, so that for an instant I felt I knew howuniverses are born. All folly.

Reality displaced it, the kindling of the torch that whips shadows to theircorners, and with them all the winged fays of fancy. There was something bornbetween Yesod and Briah when I met with Apheta upon that divan in that

circling room, something tiny yet immense that burned like a coal conveyed tothe tongue by tongs.

That something was myself.

I slept; and because I slept without a dream, did not know I slept.When I woke, Apheta was gone. The sun of Yesod had come through thespiracle at the narrow end of the spiral chamber. Ever fainter, its illuminationwas directed to me by the white walls, so that I woke in a gilded twilight. I roseand dressed, wondering where Apheta might be; but as I pulled on my boots,she entered with a tray. I was embarrassed to have so great a lady serve me,and I told her so.

"Surely the noble concubines of your court have waited upon you, Autarch."

"What are they compared with you?"

She shrugged. "I am not a great lady. Or at least, only to you, and only today.Our status is decided by our closeness to the Hierogrammates, and I am notvery near."

She set her tray down and sat beside it. It held small cakes, a carafe of coolwater, and cups of some steaming liquid that looked like milk and yet was notmilk.

"I cannot believe you are far from the Hierogrammates, my lady."

"That is merely because you think yourself and your Urth so important,imagining that what I say to you and what we do now will decide her fate. Itisn't so, none of it. What we will do now will have no effect, and you and yourworld are of importance to no one here."

I waited for her to say more, and at last she said, "Except to me," and took abite from one of the cakes.

"Thank you, my lady."

"And that only since you have come. Though I cannot but dislike you and yourUrth, you care so much for her."

"My lady..."

"I know, you thought I desired you. It is only now that I like you enough to tellyou I do not. You are a hero, Autarch, and heroes are always monsters, cometo give us news we would sooner not hear. But you are a particularlymonstrous monster. Tell me, as you walked the circular hall around theExamination Chamber, did you study the pictures there?"

"Only a few," I said. "There was the cell where Agia had been confined, and Inoticed one or two others."

"And how do you suppose they came to be there?"

I took a cake myself, and a sip from the cup nearest me. "I've no idea, mylady. I've seen so many wonders here that I've ceased to wonder about anysave Thecla."

"But you could not ask much about her— even Thecla— last night for fear ofwhat I might say or do. Although you were ready to do so a hundred times."

"Would you have liked me better, my lady, if I'd questioned you about an oldlove while I lay with you? Yours is a strange race indeed. But since you'vebrought her up yourself, tell me about her." A drop of the white beverage,which I had swallowed without tasting, ran down the side of the cup. I lookedaround for something with which to blot it, but there was nothing.

"Your hands shake."

"So they do, my lady." I put down the cup, and it rattled against the tray.

"Did you love her so much?"

"Yes, my lady, and hate her too. I'm Thecla and the man who loved Thecla."

"Then I will tell you nothing about her— what could I tell you? Perhaps shewill tell you herself after the Presentation."

"If I succeed, you mean."

"Would your Thecla punish you if you failed?" Apheta asked, and a great joyentered my heart. "But eat, then we must go. I told you last night that ourdays are short here, and you have already slept away the first part of thisone."

I swallowed the cake and drained the cup. "What of Urth," I said, "if I fail?"She stood. "Tzadkiel is just. He would not make Urth worse than she is, noworse than she would have been had you not come."

"That is the future of ice," I said. "But if I succeed, the New Sun will come."As though the cup had been drugged, I seemed to stand infinitely far frommyself, to watch myself as a man watches a mote, to hear my own voice as ahawk hears the squeaking of a meadow mouse.

Apheta had pushed aside the curtain. I followed her out into the stoa. Throughits open arch shone the fresh sea of Yesod, a sapphire flecked with white.

"Yes," she said. "And your Urth will be destroyed."

"My lady— "

"Enough. Come with me."

"Purn was right, then. He wanted to kill me, and I should have let him." Theavenue we took was steeper than that we had descended the night before,going straight up the hillside toward the Hall of Justice, which loomed aboveus like a cloud.

"It was not you who prevented him," Apheta said.

"Earlier, in the ship, my lady. It was he, then, last night in the dark. Someonestopped him then, or I should have died. I couldn't free myself."

"Tzadkiel," she said.

Though my legs were longer than hers, I had to hurry to keep up with her.

"You said he wasn't there, my lady."

"No. I said he did not sit in his Seat of Justice that day. Autarch, look aboutyou." She halted, and I with her. "Is this not a fair town?"

"The fairest I've ever seen, my lady. Surely a hundred times more fair thanany on Urth."

"Remember it; you may not see it again. Your world might be as fair as this, ifall of you wished it so."

We climbed until we stood at the entrance to the Hall of Justice. I hadimagined pushing throngs, such as we had at our public trials, but the hilltopwas wrapped in morning silence.

Apheta turned again and pointed toward the sea. "Look," she said again.

"Can you see the isles?"

I did. They were scattered— endlessly as it seemed— across the water, just as Ihad beheld them from the ship.

"Do you know what a galaxy is, Autarch? A whorl of stars, uncountable,remote from all others?"

I nodded.

"This isle on which we stand judges the worlds of your galaxy. Each isle yousee judges another. I hope knowing that will aid you, because it is all the aid Ican give you. If you do not see me again, remember that I shall see you,

nonetheless."

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE - TZADKIEL

ON THE previous day, the sailors had been seated in the front of theExamination Chamber. The first thing I noticed when I entered it again wasthat they were not there. Those who had those places were wrapped in adarkness that seemed to emanate from them, and the sailors were by the doorand toward the sides of the room.

Looking past the dark figures and down the long aisle that led to Tzadkiel'sSeat of Justice, I saw Zak. He was seated upon that throne. Over the walls ofwhite stone on each side of it, there spread what seemed tapestries of the finesttissue, worked in a pattern of eyes in gorgeous colors. It was not until theymoved that I realized they were his wings.

Apheta had left me at the foot of the steps, and from that time I had beenunguarded; as I stood staring at Zak, two sailors appeared to take my armsand lead me to him.

They left me, and I stood before him with head bowed. No speech of the oldAutarch's came unbidden to my mind this time; there was only confusion. Atlast I stammered, "Zak, I've come to plead for Urth."

"I know," he said. "Welcome." His voice was deep and clear, like the blowingof a golden horn far away, so that I recalled a certain foolish tale of Gabriel,who wore the war horn of Heaven across his back, suspended on the rainbow.It suggested Thecla's book, in which I had read it; and that, in turn, the greatvolume of pavonine leather the old Autarch had shown me when I had askedhim the way to the garden, when he, having been told of me, supposed that Ihad arrived to replace him and would go to plead for Urth at once.I knew then that I had seen Tzadkiel before I helped Sidero and the rest catchhim as Zak, and that the male form I saw was no more true (though no less)than the winged woman whose glance had stunned me then, and that neitherwas more true, or less, than the animal shape that had saved me when Purnhad tried to kill me outside his cage.

And I said, "Sieur— Zak— Tzadkiel, mighty Hierogrammate— I don'tunderstand."

"Do you mean that you do not understand me? And why should you? I do notunderstand myself, Severian, or you. Yet I am as I am, your own race havingmade us so before the apocatastasis. Were you not told that they had shapedus in their image?"

I tried to speak, but I could not. At last I nodded.

"The form you have now was their first, the shape they bore when they werenewly sprung from the beasts. All races change, shaped by time. Are youaware of it?"

I recalled the man-apes of the mine, and said, "Not always for the better."

"Indeed. But the Hieros grasped their own shaping, and that we might followthem, ours as well."

"Sieur— "

"Ask. Your final trial comes soon, and it cannot be just. Whatever reparationwe can make, we will make. Now or after."

My heart froze at those words; behind me all those who sat upon the bencheswhispered, so that I heard their voices like the soughing of leaves in a forest,though I did not know who they were.

When I could speak again, I said, "Sieur, it is a foolish question. But once Iheard two tales of shape-changers, and in one an angel— and I think that you,sieur, are such an angel— tore open his breast and gave the power he had tochange his shape to a barnyard goose. And the goose used it at once, becominga swift salt goose forever. Last night, the lady Apheta said I might not go lamealways. Sieur, was he— was Melito— instructed to tell me that story?"A little smile played at the corners of Tzadkiel's lips, recalling the way Zakused to grin at me. "Who can say? Not by me. You must understand that whena truth is known, as that has been known by so many for so many aeons, itspreads abroad and changes its own shape, taking many forms. But if you areasking that I give my ability to you, I cannot. If we could bestow it at will, wewould give it to our children. You have met them, and they are imprisonedstill in the form you wear now. Have you another question before weproceed?"

"Yes, sieur. A thousand. But if I am permitted only one, why did you comeaboard the ship as you did?"

"Because I wished to know you. When you were a boy on your own world, didyou never bend the knee to the Conciliator?"

"On Holy Katharine's Day, sieur."

"And did you believe in him? Did you believe with all your being?"

"No, sieur." I felt I was about to be punished for my unbelief, and to this day Icannot say whether I was or not.

"Suppose you had. Did you never know of one of your own age who did?"

"The acolytes, sieur. Or at least, so it was said among us, who were thetorturers' apprentices."

"Would they not have wished to walk with him, if they could? Stand besidehim when he was in danger? Care for him, perhaps, when he was ill? I havebeen such an acolyte, in a creation now vanished. In that too there was aConciliator and a New Sun, though we did not use those names.

"But now we must talk of something else, and quickly. I have many duties,some more demanding than this. Let me say plainly that we have tricked you,Severian. You have come to stand our examination, and thus we have talked ofit to you, and even told you this building is our Hall of Justice. None of it isso."

I could only stare at him.

"Or if you wish it put in another way, you have already passed our testing,which was an examination of the future you will create. You are the New Sun.You will be returned to your Urth, and the White Fountain will go with you.The death agonies of the world you know will be offered to the Increate. Andthey will be indescribable— continents will founder, as has been said. Muchthat is beautiful will perish, and with it most of your race; but your home willbe reborn."

Although I can, as I do, write the words he used, I cannot convey his tone oreven hint at the conviction it carried. His thoughts seemed to thunder forth,raising pictures in the mind more real than any reality, so that while Iimagined I saw the continents perish, I heard the crashing of great buildingsand smelled Urth's bitter sea wind.

An angry murmur rose behind me.

"Sieur," I said, "I can remember the examination of my predecessor." I felt asI had when I was the youngest of our apprentices.

Tzadkiel nodded. "It was necessary that you recall it; it was for that reason hewas examined."

"And unmanned?" The old Autarch trembled in me, and I felt my own handsshake.

"Yes. Otherwise a child would have stood between you and the throne, andyour Urth would have perished forever. The alternative was the death of thechild. Would that have been better?"

I could not speak, but his dark eyes seemed to bore into every heart that beatin mine, and at last I shook my head.

"Now I must go. My son will see that you are returned to Briah and Urth,which will be destroyed at your order."

His gaze left me, and I followed it to the aisle behind me, where I saw the manwho had brought us from the ship. The sailors were rising and drawing theirknives, yet I scarcely noticed them. The center places that had been theirs theday before held others now, figures no longer shadowed. Sweat sprang frommy forehead as blood had when I had first seen Tzadkiel, and I turned to cryout to him.

He was gone.

Lame leg or not I ran, hobbling as swiftly as I could around the Seat of Justicein search of the stair by which I had been led away the night before. I think itonly fair to myself to say that I fled not so much from the sailors as from thefaces of the others I had seen in the Chamber.

However that may be, the stair was gone too; I found only a smooth floor ofstone slabs there, one of which was, no doubt, raised by some concealedmechanism.

Now another such mechanism acted. Swiftly and smoothly, Tzadkiel's thronesank, as a whale that has surfaced to bask in the sun sinks back into the ice-choked Southern Sea. At one moment the great stone seat stood between meand the larger part of the Chamber, as solid as a wall; at the next the floor wasclosing over its back, and a fantastic battle spread before me.

The Hierarch whom Tzadkiel had called his son lay sprawled in the aisle. Overhim surged the sailors, their knives flashing and many bloodied. Against themstood a score or so who seemed at first as weak as children— and indeed I sawat least one child among them— but held their ground like heroes and, when

they had only their hands to fight with, fought weaponless. Because theirbacks were toward me, I told myself I did not know them; but I knew it for alie.

With a roar that echoed from the walls, the alzabo burst from this encircledband. The sailors fell back, and in an instant it was crushing a man in its jaws.I saw Agia with her poisoned sword, and Agilus too, swinging a crimsonedavern like a mace, and Baldanders, unarmed until he seized a sailor andsmashed another to the floor with her.

And Dorcas, Morwenna, Cyriaca, and Casdoe. Thecla, already down, theblood that trickled from her throat stanched by a ragged apprentice. Guasachtand Erblon slashed with their spathae as though they fought from the saddle.Dana wielded a slender saber in either hand. Somehow chained again, Piathrottled a sailor with her chain.

I dashed past Merryn and found myself between Gunnie and Dr. Tabs, whoseflickering blade felled a man at my feet. A raging sailor charged me, and I— Iswear it— welcomed him for his weapon, seizing his wrist, breaking his arm,and wrenching his knife away all in a single motion. I had no time to wonderat the ease of it before I saw that Gunnie had stabbed him in the neck.It seemed that I had no sooner joined the battle than it was over. A few sailorsfled from the Chamber; twenty or thirty bodies lay upon the floor or over thebenches. Most of the women were dead, though I saw one of the women-catslicking blood from her stubby fingers. Old Winnoc leaned wearily on one ofthe scimitars used by the Pelerines' slaves. Dr. Tabs cut a dead man's robe towipe the blade of his cane sword, and I saw that the dead man was MasterAsh.

"Who are they?" Gunnie asked.

I shook my head, feeling I scarcely knew myself. Dr. Tabs seized her hand andbrushed its fingers with his lips. "Allow me. I am Tabs, physician, playwright,and impresario. I'm— "

I no longer listened. Triskele had bounded up to me with blood-smeared flews,hindquarters quivering with joy. Master Malrubius, resplendent in the fur-trimmed cloak of the guild, followed him. When I saw Master Malrubius Iknew, and he, seeing me, knew I did.

At once he— with Triskele, Dr. Tabs, the dead Master Ash, Dorcas, and therest— fell to silver shards of nothingness, just as he had that night on the beachafter he had rescued me from the dying jungle of the north. Gunnie and I wereleft alone with the bodies of the sailors.

Not all were corpses. One stirred and groaned. We tried to bind the wound inhis chest (it was from the doctor's narrow blade, I think) with rags rippedfrom the dead, though blood bubbled from his mouth. After a time theHierarchs came with medicine and proper bandages, and took him away.The lady Apheta had come with them, but she remained with us.

"You said that I would not see you again," I reminded her.

"I said that you might not," she corrected me. "Had things fallen outotherwise here, you would not have."

In the stillness of that chamber of death, her voice was scarcely a whisper.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO - DESCENT

"THERE MUST be many questions you want to ask," Apheta whispered. "Letus go out into the portico, and I will answer them all."

I shook my head, for I heard the water-music of rain through the opendoorway.

Gunnie touched my arm. "Is somebody spying on us?"

"No," Apheta told her. "But let us go out. It should be pleasant there, and wehave only a short time now, we three."

"I can understand you well enough," I told her. "I'll stay here. Perhaps someothers among these many dead will begin to moan. That would make a fitvoice for you."

She nodded. "It would indeed." I had seated myself where Tzadkiel hadcrouched on the first day; she sat down beside me, no doubt so that I mighthear her better.

In a moment Gunnie sat too and sheathed her dagger, having cleaned theblade on her thigh. "I'm sorry," Gunnie said.

"Sorry for what? Because you fought for me? I don't blame you."

"Sorry the others didn't, that the magic people had to defend you against us.Against all of us but me. Who were they? Did you whistle them up?"

"No," I said. Apheta, "Yes."

"They were people I'd known, that's all. Some were women I'd loved. Manyare dead— Thecla, Agilus, Casdoe... Perhaps they're all dead now, all ghosts,though I didn't know it."

"They are unborn. Surely you know that time runs backward when the shipsails swiftly. I told you myself. They are unborn, as you are."

She spoke to Gunnie. "I said he had called them because it was from his mindthat we drew them, seeking those who hated him, or at least had reason to.The giant you saw might have mastered the Commonwealth, had Severian notdefeated him. The blond woman could not forgive him for bringing her backfrom death."

I said, "I can't stop you from explaining all this, but do it elsewhere. Or let mego where I need not hear it."

Apheta asked, "It gave you no joy?"

"To see them all again, tricked into defending me? No. Why should it?"

"Because they were not tricked, no more than Master Malrubius was on anyof the occasions when you saw him after his death. We found them amongyour memories and let them judge. Everyone in this Chamber, save yourself,saw the same things. Has it not struck you as odd that I can scarcely speak

here?"

I turned to stare at her, feeling I had been away and come back to hear hertalk when it was of some other matter.

"Our rooms are always filled with the sound of water and the sighing of thewind. This was built for you and your kind."

Gunnie said, "Before you came in, he— Zak— showed us that Urth had twofutures. It could die and be born new. Or it could go on living for a long timebefore it died forever."

"I've known that since I was a boy."

She nodded to herself, and for a moment I seemed to see the child she hadbeen instead of the woman she had become. "But we haven't. We hadn't." Hergaze left my face, and I saw her looking from corpse to corpse. "In religion,but sailors never pay much attention to that."

For want of something better to say, I said, "I suppose not."

"My mother did, and it was like she was crazy, someplace in a corner of hermind. You know what I mean? And I think that was all it was."I turned to Apheta and began, "What I want to know— "But Gunnie caught me by the shoulder, her hand large and strong for awoman's, and drew me back to her. "We thought it wouldn't be for a longwhile yet, a long while after we were dead."

Apheta whispered, "When you sign aboard that ship, you sail from theBeginning to the End. All sailors know that."

"We didn't think about it. Not until you made us. He made us see it. Zak."I asked, "And you knew it was Zak?"

Gunnie nodded. "I was with him when they caught him. I don't think I wouldhave known otherwise. Or maybe I would. He'd changed a lot, so I knewalready he wasn't what we thought at first. He's— I don't know."

Apheta whispered, "May I tell you? He is a reflection, an imitation, of whatyou will be."

I asked, "You mean if the New Sun comes?"

"No. I mean that it is coming. That your trial is over. You have been obsessedwith it for so long, I know, and it must be difficult for you to realize that it istruly over. You have succeeded. You have saved your future."

"You have succeeded too," I said.

Apheta nodded. "You understand that now."

Gunnie said, "I don't. What are you talking about?"

"Don't you see? The Hierarchs and their Hierodules— and theHierogrammates too— have been trying to let us become what we were. Whatwe can be. Isn't that right, my lady? That's their justice, their whole reason forbeing. They bring us through the pain we brought them through. And— " Icould not complete the thought. The words had become iron on my lips.Apheta said, "You in turn will make us go through what you did. I think youunderstand. But you" — she looked to Gunnie— "do not. Your race and oursare, perhaps, no more than each other's reproductive mechanisms. You are awoman, and so you say you produce your ovum so that there will someday beanother woman. But your ovum would say it produces that woman so that

someday there will be another ovum. We have wanted the New Sun to succeedas badly as he has wanted to himself. More urgently, in all truth. In savingyour race he has saved ours; as we have saved ours of the future by savingyours."

Apheta turned back to me. "I told you that you had brought unwelcome news.The news was that we might indeed lose the game you and I spoke of."I said, "I have three questions, my lady. Let me ask them and I'll go, if you'lllet me."

She nodded.

"How is it that Tzadkiel could say my examination was over, when theaquastors had to fight and die to save me?"

"The aquastors did not die," Apheta told me. "They live in you. As forTzadkiel, he spoke as he did because it was the truth. He had examined thefuture and found the chance high that you would bring a fresh sun to yourUrth, and thus save that strand of your race, so that it might produce ours inyour Briahtic universe. It was on that examination that everything hinged; itwas over, and the result favorable to you."

Gunnie looked from Apheta to me and seemed about to speak, but she saidnothing.

"My second question. Tzadkiel said also that my trial could not be just, andthat he would make what reparation he could. You have said that he istruthful. Did my trial differ from my examination? How was it unjust?"Apheta's voice seemed no more than a sigh. "It is easy for those who need notjudge, or judging need not toil for justice, to complain of inequity and talk ofimpartiality. When one must actually judge, as Tzadkiel does, he finds hecannot be just to one without being unjust to another. In fairness to those onUrth who will die, and especially to the poor and ignorant people who willnever understand what it is they die for, he summoned their representatives—

"

"Us, you mean!" Gunnie exclaimed.

"Yes, you shipmen. And he gave you, Autarch, those who had reason to hateyou for your defenders. That was just to the shipmen, but not to you."

"I have deserved punishment often before, and not received it."

Apheta nodded. "For that reason certain of the scenes you saw, or at leastmight have seen had you troubled to look, were made to appear in the narrowpassage that rings this room. Some recalled your duty. Others were meant toshow you that you yourself had often meted out the harshest justice. Do yousee now why you were chosen?"

"A torturer, to save the world? Yes."

"Take your head out of your hands. It is enough that you and this poorwoman can scarcely hear me. At least permit me to hear you. You have askedthe three questions you spoke of. Have you more?"

"Many. I saw Dana. And Guasacht and Erblon. Had they reason to hate me?"

"I do not know," Apheta whispered. "You must ask Tzadkiel, or those whoassisted him. Or ask yourself."

"I suppose they had. I would have displaced Erblon if I could. As Autarch, Icould have promoted Guasacht, but I did not; and I never tned to find Danaafter the battle. There were so many other things— so many importantthings— to do. I see why you called me a monster."

Gunnie exclaimed, "You're no monster, she is!"

I shrugged. "Yet all of them fought for Urth, and so did Gunnie. That waswonderful."

"Not for the Urth you have known," Apheta whispered. "For a New Urthmany will never see, except through your eyes and the eyes of others whorecall them. Have you more questions?"

Gunnie said, "I've got one. Where are my shipmates? The ones who ran andsaved their lives?"

I sensed that she was ashamed for them. I said, "Their running saved ours too,very likely."

"They will be returned to the ship," Apheta told her.

"What about Severian and me?"

I said, "They'll try to kill us on the voyage home, Gunnie; or perhaps not. Ifthey do, we'll have to deal with them."

Apheta shook her head. "You will be returned to the ship indeed, but by adifferent way. Believe me, the problem will not arise."

Dark-robed Hierarchs came down the aisle with travails, gathering the dead.

"They will be interred in the grounds of this building," Apheta whispered.

"Have we reached your last question, Autarch?"

"Nearly. But look there. One of those bodies belongs to one of your ownpeople, to Tzadkiel's son."

"He will lie here as well, with those who fell with him."

"But was it intended so? Did his father plan that too?"

"That he should die? No. But that he should risk death. What right would wehave to risk your life and the lives of so many others if we would bear no riskourselves? Tzadkiel risked death with you on the ship. Venant here."

"He knew what would happen?"

"Do you mean Tzadkiel or Venant? Venant surely did not know what wouldhappen, yet he knew what might happen, and he went forth to save our race,as others have gone forth to save theirs. For Tzadkiel I cannot speak."

"You told me each of the isles judges a galaxy. Are we— is Urth— important toyou after all?"

Apheta rose, smoothing her white gown. Her floating hair, which had seemeduncanny to me when I had seen it first, was familiar now; I felt sure that sucha dark aureole was depicted somewhere in old Rudesind's illimitable gallery,though I could not quite call the proper painting to mind. She said, "We havewatched with the dead. Now they go, and it is time that we went also. It may bethat from your ancient Urth, reborn, the Hieros will come. I believe it to be so.But I am only one woman, and of no high position. I said what I did so thatyou would not die despairing."

Gunnie started to speak, but Apheta motioned her to silence, saying, "Nowfollow me."

We did, but she walked only a step or two to the spot where Tzadkiel's Seat ofJustice had stood. "Severian, take her hand," she told me. She herself took myfree hand, and Gunnie's.

The stone on which we stood sank under us. In an instant the floor of theChamber of Examination closed above our heads. We dropped, or so itseemed, into a vast pit filled with harsh yellow light, a pit a thousand timeswider than the square of stone. Its sides were mighty mechanisms of green andsilver metals, before which men and women hovered and darted like so many

flies, and across which titanic scarabs of blue and gold clambered like ants.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE - THE SHIP

WHILE WE fell I could not speak. I gripped Gunnie's hand and Apheta's, notbecause I feared they might be lost, but because I feared I might; and therewas no room left in my mind for any thought but that.

At last we slowed— or rather, we seemed to be dropping no more rapidly. Irecalled my leaps among the rigging, for it seemed that here too the insensatehunger for matter had been abated. I saw my own expression of relief uponGunnie's face when she turned to Apheta to ask where we were.

"In our world— our ship, if you are more comfortable calling it so, though itonly circles our sun and requires no sails."

A door had opened in the wall of the well, and though it seemed we fell still, wedid not leave this door behind. Apheta drew us there, into a dark and narrowcorridor I blessed when I felt its firm floor beneath my feet. Gunnie managedto say, "On our ship, we don't have water on deck."

"Where do you have it?" Apheta asked absently. It was not until I noticed howmuch stronger her voice was here that I was aware of the noise, a humminglike the song of bees (how well I remembered it!) and distant clatterings andclickings, as though destriers galloped down a plank road while locusts trilledunseen in trees that surely could not flourish in this place.

"Inside," Gunnie told Apheta. "In tanks."

"It must be terrible to go to the surface of such a world. Here it is somethingwe look forward to very much."

A woman who looked rather like Apheta was striding toward us. She traveleda great deal faster than her walk should have carried her, so that she rushedpast in an instant. I turned to stare after her, suddenly reminded of the waythe green man had vanished down the Corridors of Time. When she hadpassed from sight, I said, "You do not come to the surface often, do you? Ishould have guessed; all of you are so pale."

"It is a reward for us, for working long and hard. On your Urth, women wholook as I do, do no work at all— or so I have heard."

Gunnie said, "Some do."

The corridor divided, and divided again. We too rushed along, and it seemedto me that our path swung in a long curve, counterclockwise and descending.Apheta had said her people loved the spiral; perhaps they favor the helix as

well.

Just as a wave rises abruptly before the bow of a storm-tossed carrack, doubledoors of tarnished argent rose before us. We halted in a way that made it seemwe had never moved save at a walk. Apheta motioned toward the doors, whichgroaned like clients but would not swing back until I helped her push them.Gunnie looked up at the lintel and, as though she read the words there,recited, " No hope for those who enter here."

"No, no," Apheta murmured. "Every hope." The hum and the clickings hadbeen left behind.

I asked, "Is this where I will be taught to bring the New Sun?"

"You will not have to be taught," she told me. "You are gravid with theknowledge, and it will be born as soon as you approach the White Fountainsufficiently for you to be aware of it."

I would have laughed at her figure of speech, had not the utter emptiness ofthe chamber to which we had come stilled all amusement. It was wider thanthe Chamber of Examination, with silver walls that rose to a great arch in thatcurve one sees traced by a stone hurled into the air; but it was empty, utterlyempty save for us, who whispered in its doorway.

Gunnie repeated, "No hope," and I realized she had been too frightened to payheed to Apheta or me. I put an arm around her shoulders (though the gestureseemed strange directed toward a woman who was as tall as I) and tried tocomfort her, thinking all the while what a fool she would be to accept thecomfort when it was clear I could do no more here than she herself.She continued, "We used to have a sailor who said that. She was alwayshoping to go home, but we never landed in her time again, and after a whileshe died."

I asked Apheta how I came to carry such knowledge without being aware of it.

"Tzadkiel gave it to you as you slept," she said.

"You mean he came to your chamber last night?" I had spoken before Irealized it would give Gunnie pain. I felt her muscles tighten as she shruggedmy arm away.

"No," Apheta told me. "On the ship, I believe. I cannot tell you the precisemoment."

I recalled then how Zak had bent over me in that hidden corner Gunnie hadfound for us— Tzadkiel become the savage that we, his paradigms, had oncebeen.

"Come now," Apheta was saying. She led us forward. I had been wrong inthinking there was nothing in the chamber; there was a wide area of blackupon the floor. Some of the flaking silver of the arched ceiling had fallen there,where it was most visible.

"You have, both of you, those necklaces sailors carry?"

In some astonishment, I felt for mine and nodded. Gunnie did the same.

"Put them on. You will be without air soon."

Only then did I realize what that sparkling darkness was. I drew out thenecklace, wondering, I confess, whether each of its linked prisms functionedstill, put it on, and went forward to look. My cloak of air came with me, so thatI was conscious of no wind; but I saw Gunnie's hair tossed by a gale I couldnot feel, streaming before her until she had her own necklace in place, andApheta's strange hair, which did not flutter as a human woman's does, butstood out like a banner.

That blackness was the void; yet as I walked, it rose as though it sensed myapproach, and before I reached it, it had become a sphere.

I tried to stop.

In a moment Gunnie was beside me, struggling too and grasping my arm. Thesphere was like a wall. At its center, just as I had seen it pictured on board,was the ship.

I have written that I sought to stop. It was difficult, and soon I could not resist.It may be that the void held some attraction like that of a world. Or perhaps itwas only that the pressure of the wind on the air held static around me was sostrong that I was driven forward.

Or perhaps the ship had some hold upon us both. If I dared, I would say thatmy destiny drew me, yet Gunnie cannot have been drawn by the same destiny,though perhaps her quite different fate drew her toward the same place. For ifit were merely the wind, or the insensate hunger of matter for matter, why wasApheta not drawn with us?

I will leave it to you to explain these things. Drawn I was, and Gunnie too Isaw her flying through the void behind me, twisting and whirling as theuniverse twisted and whirled, saw her just as one leaf twirling in a springstorm might see another. Somewhere behind or before us, above us or belowus, was a wide circle of light, spinning, frantically spinning, a thing like Lune,if such a thing as a moon of the most brilliant white can be imagined. Gunniefluttered across it once or twice before she was lost in the diamond-deckedblackness. (And once it seemed to me— and still seems when I call that franticmemory forth— that I saw Apheta's face as she leaned from that moon.)With the next wild spin, it was not Gunnie who was lost but that spot ofshining white, lost somewhere among the billions of staring suns. Gunnie wasnot far off, and I saw her turn her head to look at me.

Nor was the ship lost; it was indeed so near that I could see a sailor here andthere in the rigging. Perhaps we were still falling. Surely we must have beentraveling with great velocity, because the ship herself must have been hurtlingfrom world to world. Yet all such speed was invisible, as the wind vanisheswhen a swift xebec scuds before a tempest on the Ocean of Urth. We drifted solazily that if I had not had faith in Apheta and the Hierarchs, I would havefeared we would never reach the ship at all and be lost forever in that endlessnight.

It was not so. A sailor sighted us, and we watched him leap from one toanother of his comrades, waving and pointing until he was close enough fortheir cloaks of air to touch, so that he could speak.

Then one who carried a burden climbed a mastnear us, rising in practicedleaps, until standing upon the topmost spar he took a bow and an arrow fromhis bundle, drew the bow, and sent the arrow hurtling toward us, trailing aninterminable line of silver no thicker than a pack thread.

The arrow passed between Gunnie and me, and I despaired of catching theline; but Gunnie was more fortunate, and when she held it and had beenpulled toward the ship some distance by the burly sailor, she cracked it as adrover snaps his whip, so that a long wave ran from her to me like a live thingand brought the line near enough for me to snatch.

I had not loved the ship when I had been a passenger and a seaman aboardher, but now the mere thought of returning to her filled me with pleasure.

Consciously I knew, as I was reeled toward the mast, that my task was farfrom complete, that the New Sun would not come unless I brought it, and thatin bringing it I would be responsible for the destruction it would cause as wellas the renewal of Urth. Thus every common man who brings a son into theworld must feel himself responsible for his woman's labor and perhaps for herdeath, and with reason fears that the world will in the end condemn him witha million tongues.

Yet though I knew all this, my heart thought it was not so: that I, who haddesired so desperately to succeed and had bent every effort toward success,had failed; and that I would now be permitted to reclaim the Phoenix Throne,as I had in the person of my predecessor— to reclaim it and enjoy all theauthority and luxury it would bring, and most of all that pleasure in dealingjustice and rewarding worth that is the final delight of power. All this whilefreed at last from the unquenchable desire for the flesh of women that hasbrought so much suffering to me and to them.

Thus my heart was wild with joy, and I descended to that titanic forest ofmasts and spars, those continents of silver sail, as any shipwrecked marinerwould have clambered from the sea to some flower-decked coast with friendlyhands helping him ashore, and, standing with Gunnie on the spar at last,embraced the sailor as I might Roche or Drotte, grinning I am sure like anyfool, and leaped down from halyard to stay with him and his mates no morecircumspectly than they, but as though all the wild elation I felt were centerednot in my heart, but in my arms and legs.

It was only when my final leap carried me to the deck that I discovered suchthoughts were no idle metaphors. My crippled leg, which had pained me somuch when I had descended from the mast after casting away the leadencoffer that held the record of my earlier life, did not pain me at all but seemedas strong as the other. I ran my hands from thigh to knee (so that Gunnie andthe sailors who had gathered around us believed I had injured it) and foundthe muscle there as abundant and firm as that of the other.

I leaped for joy then, and leaping left the deck and the others far below, andspun myself a dozen times as a gambler spins a coin. But I returned to thedeck sobered, for as I spun I had beheld a star brighter than all the rest.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR - THE CAPTAIN

WE WERE soon taken below. To tell the truth, I was happy enough to go. It isdifficult to explain— so much so that I am tempted to omit it altogether. Yet I

think it would be easy if only you were as young as once you were.An infant in its crib does not at first know that there is a distinction betweenits body and the wood that surrounds it or the rags upon which it lies. Orrather, its body seems as alien as all the rest. It discovers a foot and marvels tofind so odd a thing a part of itself.

So with me. I had seen the star; and seeing it— immensely remote though itwas— had known it a region of myself, absurd as the baby's foot, mysterious ashis genius is to one who has only just discovered it. I do not mean that myconsciousness, or any consciousness, rested in the star; at that time, at least, itdid not. Yet I was aware of existence at two points, like a man who standswaist deep in the sea, so that wave and wind are alike to him in that both aresomething less than the whole, the totality of his environment.

Thus I walked with Gunnie and the sailors cheerfully enough and held myhead high. But I did not speak, or remember to take off my necklace until Iobserved that Gunnie and the sailors had removed theirs.

What a sad shock I felt then! The air of Yesod, to which I had in a day becomeaccustomed, left me; and an atmosphere like— and yet unlike and inferior to—

the atmosphere of Urth rushed to fill my lungs. The first fire must have beenkindled in an age now inconceivably remote. At that instant, I felt as someancient must toward the end of his lifetime, when none save the eldest recalledthe pure winds of bygone mornings. I looked at Gunnie and saw that she waslooking at me. Each knew what the other felt, though we did not speak of it,then or subsequently.

How far we threaded the ship's mazed passages I cannot say. I was toowrapped in my own thoughts to count my strides; and it seemed to me thatthough time as it existed on that ship was not other than time as it existedupon Urth, yet time upon Yesod had been otherwise, stretched to the frontierof Forever yet over in a wink. Musing on that and the star, and a hundredfurther wonders, I plodded forward, knowing nothing of where I had beenuntil I noticed that most of the sailors had gone, replaced by Hierodulesmasked as men. I had been so far lost amid chimeric speculations that for awhile I supposed that those whom I had thought sailors had always beenmasked Hierodules, and had been recognized as such by Gunnie from thebeginning; but when I cast back my mind to the moment we first stood uponthe deck again, I found it was not so, though so charming a thought. In ourmean universe of Briah, extravagance is but a weak recommendation of truth.The sailors had merely slipped away unnoticed by me, and the Hierodules—

taller and far more formally arrayed— had taken their places.

I had only begun to study them when we halted before great doors of a shaperecalling those through which Gunnie and I had passed with Apheta a watchbefore on Yesod. These, however, did not require my shoulder, but swungslowly and ponderously open of themselves, revealing a long vista ofmarmoreal arches— each at least a hundred cubits high— down which playedsuch light as was never seen upon any world that circled a star, light silver,gold, and berylline by turns, flashing as though the air itself held splinteredtreasures.

Gunnie and the remaining hands recoiled in fear at all this and had to be

driven through the doorway by the Hierodules with orders and even withblows; but I stepped inside readily enough, believing that from my years onthe Phoenix Throne I recognized the pomps and wonders with which wesovereigns cow poor, ignorant people.

The doors shut behind us with a crash. I drew Gunnie to me, telling her as wellas I could that there was nothing to fear, or at least that I thought there wasnothing or little, and that if some danger arose, I would do anything I could toprotect her. Overhearing me, the sailor who had shot the line to us (one of thefew who remained with us) remarked, "Most that come here don't come back.This is the skipper's quarters."

He himself did not seem much frightened, and I told him so.

"I run with the tide. A man has to recollect that most is sent here forpunishment. Once or twice she's commended a man here, instead of in front ofhis mates. They've come back, I believe. Not having nothing he wants hid doesmore to make a man brave than burnt wine, you'll find. That way he can runwith the tide."

I said, "You have a good philosophy."

"It's the only one I know, which makes it easy to stick with."

"I'm Severian." I put out my hand.

"Grimkeld."

I have big hands, but the hand that clasped mine was bigger, and as hard aswood. For a moment we matched strength.

While we walked the tramping of our feet had grown to a solemn music, joinedby instruments that were not trumpets nor ophicleides nor any others knownto me. As our hands parted the strange music reached a crescendo, the goldenvoices of unseen throats calling all about us, one to another.

In an instant everyone fell silent. The winged figure of a giantess appeared, assudden as the shadow of a bird but towering like the green pines of thenecropolis.

All the Hierodules bowed at once, and a moment later so did Gunnie and I.The sailors who had come with us made their obeisance as well, pulling offtheir caps, bending their heads and knuckling their foreheads, or bowing lessgracefully but even more abjectly.

If Grimkeld's philosophy had protected him from fear, my memory hadprotected me. Tzadkiel, I felt certain, had been the captain of this ship when Ihad sailed upon her previously. Tzadkiel, I felt certain, was her captain now;and on Yesod I had learned not to fear him. But at that instant I looked inTzadkiel's eyes and saw the eyes that spangled her wings, and knew myself fora fool.

"There is a great one among you," she said, and her voice was like the playingof a hundred citharae, or the purr of the smilodon, the cat that slew our bullsas wolves kill sheep. "Let him step forward."

It was as difficult as anything I have done in all my lives, but I strode to thefront as she had asked. She took me up as a woman lifts a puppy, holding mecupped between her hands. Her breath was the wind of Yesod, which I hadthought never to feel again.

"Whence does so much power come?" It was but a whisper, yet it seemed tome that such a whisper must shake the whole fabric of the ship.

"From you, Tzadkiel," I said. "I have been your slave in another time."

"Tell me."

I tried to do so, and found, I do not know how, that each word of mine nowcarried the meaning of ten thousand, so that when I said Urth, the continentscame with it, and the sea and all the islands, and the indigo sky wrapped in theglory of the old sun reigning amid his ring of stars. After a hundred suchwords, she knew more of our history than I had known I knew; and I hadreached the moment when Father Inire and I had embraced, and I hadmounted the pont to the ship of the Hierodules, which was to take me to thisship, the ship of the Hierogrammate, the ship of Tzadkiel, though I did notknow it. A hundred words more, and all that had befallen me on the ship andin Yesod stood shining in the air between us.

"You have undergone trials," she said. "If you wish, I can give you that whichwill make you forget them all. Though only by instinct, you will still bring ayoung sun to your world."

I shook my head. "I don't want to forget, Tzadkiel. I've boasted too often thatI forget nothing, and forgetting— which I have known once or twice— seems tome a kind of death."

"Say instead that death is a remembering. But even death can be kind, as youlearned upon the lake. Would you rather I set you down?"

"I am your slave, as I've said. Your will is mine."

"And if it were my will to drop you?"

"Then your slave would seek to live still, so that Urth might live too."She smiled and opened her hands. "You have forgotten already what a slightthing it is to fall here"

I had indeed, and felt a momentary terror; but to have fallen from a bed onUrth would have been a more serious matter. I settled to the floor ofTzadkiel's quarters as lightly as thistledown.

Even so, it was a moment or two before I collected my thoughts sufficiently tonote that the others were gone and I stood alone. Tzadkiel, who must haveseen my look, whispered, "I have sent them away. The man who rescued youwill be rewarded, as will the woman who fought for you when the rest wouldhave slain you. But it is not likely you will see either again."

She moved her right hand toward me until the tips of its fingers rested on thefloor before me. "It is expedient," she said, "that my crew think me large, andnot guess how often I move among them. But you know too much about me tobe deceived in that way, and you deserve too much to be deceived in any. Itwould be more convenient for us now if we were of similar size."I scarcely heard the last word. Something so astounding was taking place thatall my attention was seized by it. The uppermost knuckle of her index fingerwas shaping itself into a face, and it was the face of Tzadkiel. The nail dividedand redivided, then the whole of the first and second joints too, so that thelowest knuckle became her knees. The finger stepped away from the hand andput out arms and hands of its own, and eye-spangled wings; and the giantessbehind it vanished like a flame blown out.

"I will take you to your stateroom," Tzadkiel said. She was not so tall as I.I would have knelt, but she lifted me up.

"Come. You are fatigued— more than you know, and no wonder. There is agood bed for you there. Food will be brought to you whenever you wish it."I managed to say, "But if you are seen..."

"We will not be seen. There are passages here that are used only by me."

Even as she spoke, a pilaster swung away from the wall. She led me throughthe opening it revealed and down a shadowy corridor. I remembered then thatApheta had told me her people could see in such darkness; but Tzadkiel didnot pulse with light as Apheta had, and I was not so foolish as to suppose wewould share the bed she had mentioned. After what seemed a long walk, dawncame— low hills dropping below the old sun— and it seemed we were not in acorridor at all. A fresh wind stirred the grass. As the sky grew lighter, I saw adark box set in the ground before us. "That is your stateroom," Tzadkiel toldme. "Be careful. We must step down into it."

We did so, onto something soft. Then we stepped down again, and at last ontoa floor. Light flooded the room, which was much larger than my old stateroomand oddly shaped. The morning meadow from which we had come was nomore than a picture on the wall behind us, the steps the back and seat of a longsettee. I went to the picture and tried to thrust my hand into it, but met solidresistance.

"We have such things in the House Absolute," I said. "I see whence FatherInire took his model, though ours are not so well contrived."

"Mount that seat confidently, and you may go through," Tzadkiel told me. "Itis the pressure of a foot upon the back that dissolves the illusion. Now I mustgo, and you must rest."

"Wait," I said. "I won't be able to sleep unless you tell me..."

"Yes?"

"I have no words. You were a finger of Tzadkiel's. And now you areTzadkiel."

"You know our power to change shape; your younger self encountered me inthe future, as you told me only a few moments ago. The cells of our bodiesshift, like those of certain sea creatures on your Urth, which can be pressedthrough a screen yet reunite. What then prevents me from shaping aminiature and constricting the connection until it parts? I am such an atomy;when we reunite, my greater self will know all I have learned."

"Your great self held me in her hands, then vanished like any dream."

"Yours is a race of pawns," Tzadkiel told me. "You move forward only, unlesswe move you back to begin the game again. But not all the pieces on the boardare pawns."

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE - PASSION AND THE PASSAGEWAY

EXHAUSTION operates strangely upon the mind. Left alone in my stateroom,I could only think that my door was unguarded now. Throughout my time asAutarch, there had always been sentries at my door, usually Praetorians. Iwandered through several rooms searching for it merely to verify that therewere none now; but when I opened it at last, half-human brutes in grotesquehelmets sprang to attention.

I closed it again, wondering whether they were meant to keep others out, ormyself inside; and I wasted a few moments more searching for some means ofextinguishing the light. I was too spent, however, to keep that up for long.Dropping my clothing to the floor, I stretched myself across the wide bed. Asmy thoughts drifted toward that misty state we call dreaming, the lightdimmed and went out.

I seemed to hear footsteps, and for what seemed a long time I struggled to situp. Sleep pressed me to my mattress, holding me as securely as any drug. Atlast, the walker sat beside me and brushed back the hair from my forehead.Breathing her perfume, I drew her to me.

Curls brushed my cheek as our lips met.

When I woke, I knew I had been with Thecla. Though she had not spoken andI had not seen her face, there was no question in my mind. Odd, impossible,wonderful, I called it to myself, yet it was so. No one in this universe or anyother could have deceived me so long through so much intimacy. But it wasnot, surely not, impossible at all. Tzadkiel's children, the mere infants shebrooded upon her world in Yesod, had brought Thecla back with the rest tofight the sailors. Surely it was not impossible for Tzadkiel herself to bring heragain.

I leaped up, then turned to see if there were not some trace— a hair or acrushed blossom left upon the pillow. I would (as I told myself) have treasuredsuch a token always. The unfamiliar pelt with which I had covered myself wassmoothly spread. No impression of a second body showed next to the one leftby my own.

Somewhere in those laborious writings I assembled in the clerestory of theHouse Absolute and even more laboriously will repeat aboard this ship at anunknown date in the future that has become my past, I have said that I haveseldom felt myself alone, though I must have seemed so to the reader. Infairness to you, then, should you ever come across these writings as well, allowme to say that I did feel alone then, that I knew myself alone, though I was, asmy predecessor had trained his equerries to call him, Legion.

I was that predecessor, and alone, and his predecessors; each as solitary asevery ruler must be until better times— or rather, better men and women—

shall come to Urth. I was Thecla too, Thecla thinking of a mother and halfsister never to be seen again, and of the young torturer who had wept for herwhen she no longer had tears left for herself. Most of all was I Severian, andhorribly lonely, as the last man on some derelict ship knows loneliness when hedreams of friends and wakes to find himself as solitary as ever, and goes ondeck, perhaps, to stare at the peopled stars and the tattered sails that willnever bear him to any of them.

That fear gripped me, even while I sought to laugh it away. I was alone in thegreat suite Tzadkiel had called my stateroom. I could hear no one; and itseemed possible, as all the delirious things we dream seem possible in the

moment of waking, that there was no one to hear, that Tzadkiel, for her ownunfathomable reasons, had emptied the ship while I slept.

I bathed in the balneary, and scraped the disturbingly unscarred face thatwatched me from the glass, all the while listening for a voice or a footfall. Myclothes were torn, and so dirty I hesitated to put them on again. The closetsheld clothing of many colors and many kinds, and particularly, so it seemed tome, of those kinds that can be readily adapted to masculine or feminine wear,and to any frame, all of them of the richest materials. I selected a pair of loose,dark trousers bound at the waist with a russet sash, a tunic with an open neckand large pockets, and a cloak of the true fuligin of that guild of which I amstill officially a master, lined with particolored brocade. So arrayed I steppedat last from my door and was saluted as before by my monstrous ostiaries.I had not been abandoned, and indeed by the time I had dressed myself thefear of it had largely left me; yet as I walked the grand and empty gangwaybeyond my suite, my mind dwelt upon the thought; and from the dreamedThecla who had delighted and deserted me, it passed to Dorcas and Agia, toValeria, and at last to Gunnie, whom I had been glad enough to take as mylover when she could be of service to me and I had no other, and from whom Ihad allowed myself to be separated without a word of protest when Tzadkieltold me she had sent the sailors away.

Throughout my life, I have been far too ready to abandon women who havehad a claim on my loyalty— Thecla, of course, until it was too late to do morethan ease her death; and after Thecla, Dorcas, Pia, and Dana, and at lastValeria. On this vast ship, I seemed about to cast aside another, and I resolvednot to do so. I would seek out Gunnie, wherever she might be, and bring her tostay with me in my stateroom until we reached Urth and she could return, ifshe wished, to her fishing village and her own people.

So determined I strode along, and my newly mended leg permitted me to walkat least as rapidly as when I had set off up the Water Way that runs withGyoll; but my thoughts were not wholly of Gunnie. I was conscious of the needto take note of my surroundings and the direction in which I walked, fornothing would have been easier than to lose myself aboard this vast ship, as Ihad done more than once on the voyage to Yesod. I was conscious too ofsomething else, a bright point of light that seemed infinitely far, yet immediate.Allow me to confess here that I confused it even then with that globe ofdarkness which was to become a disk of light when Gunnie and I passedthrough it. Certainly it is impossible that the White Fountain which has savedand destroyed Urth, the roaring geyser spewing raw gasses from nowhere, isthe portal through which we passed.

That is to say, I have always found it impossible when I was busy in the daylitworld, the world that would have perished without a New Sun; but sometimesI wonder. May it not be that Yesod, seen from our universe, is as differentfrom Yesod seen from within as a man seen from without is from the image hesees of himself? I know myself often foolish and sometimes weak— lonely andfrightened, too much inclined to passive good nature and all too ready, as Ihave said, to desert my closest friends in pursuit of some ideal. Yet I haveterrified millions.

May it not be that the White Fountain is a window to Yesod after all?

The gangway twisted and twisted again; and as I had before, I observed thatalthough it seemed, if not commonplace, at least nearly so in the part Ioccupied, yet the length that stretched ahead of me and the length I had leftbehind grew stranger and stranger as my eyes traversed them, full of mistsand uncanny lights.

It occurred to me at last that the ship shaped herself for me as I passed andreturned herself to herself for her own uses once I was gone, just as a motherdevotes herself to her child when that child is present, speaking in the simplestwords and playing babyish games— but pens an epic or entertains a lover atother times.

Was the ship in fact a living entity? That such a thing was possible, I did notdoubt; but I had seen little to suggest it, and if it were so, why should sherequire a crew? The thing might have been done more easily, and whatTzadkiel had said the night before (reckoning the time in which I had slept tohave been night) suggested a simpler mechanism. If the picture could bepenetrated when the weight of my foot was on the back of the settee, might itnot be that the light in my stateroom gradually extinguished itself when theweight of my feet left the floor, and that these protean gangways reshapedthemselves to my footfalls? I resolved to use my mended leg to defeat them.On Urth I could not have done so— but then on Urth that whole great shipwould have crumbled to ruin beneath its own weight; and here on board,where I had been able to run and even to leap before, I could now outrace thewind. I dashed along; when I reached the next turning, I leaped and kicked thewall, sending myself hurtling down the gangway even as I had leaped throughthe rigging.

In an instant, I had left the passage I knew behind, and found myself amongeerie angles and ghostly mechanisms, where blue-green lights flew like cometsand the walkway writhed like a worm's gut. My feet struck its surface, but notin a fresh stride; they were numb, and my legs like the loose limbs of amarionette when the curtain has fallen. I went tumbling down the gangway,which shrank to a painfully bright but diminishing dot in a field of utterdarkness.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX - GUNNIE AND BURGUNDOFARA

AT FIRST I thought my vision blurred. I blinked, and blinked again; but thefaces, so much alike, would not become one. I tried to speak.

"It's all right," Gunnie told me. The younger woman, who seemed not so

much a twin now as a younger sister, slipped her hand under my head and puta cup to my lips.

My mouth was filled with the dust of death. I sucked the water eagerly,moving it from cheek to cheek before I swallowed, feeling the tissues revive.

"What happened?" Gunnie asked.

"The ship changes herself," I said.

Both nodded without comprehension.

"She changes to suit us, wherever we are. I ran too fast— or failed to touch thefloor enough." I tried to sit up, and to my own astonishment succeeded. "I gotto a part where there wasn't any air— where there was only a gas that wasn'tair, I think. Perhaps it was meant for people from some other world, or for noone at all. I don't know."

"Can you stand?" Gunnie asked.

I nodded; but if we had been on Urth, I would have fallen when I tried. Evenon the ship, where one fell so slowly, the two women had to catch me and propme as though I were sodden drunk. They were of the same height (which is tosay each was nearly as tall as I) with wide dark eyes and broad, pleasant facesdotted with freckles and framed in dark hair.

"You're Gunnie," I muttered to Gunnie.

"We both are," the younger woman told me. "I signed on last voyage. She'sbeen here for a long time, I believe."

"For a lot of those voyages," Gunnie agreed. "In time, it's forever, but lessthan nothing. The time here isn't the time you grew up with on Urth,Burgundofara."

"Wait," I protested. "I must think. Isn't there any place here where we canrest?"

The younger woman pointed to a shadowy archway. "That's where we were."Through it I glimpsed falling water and many padded seats.

Gunnie hesitated, then helped me in.

The high walls were adorned with large masks. Watery tears dripped slowlyfrom their eyes to splash into quiet basins, and cups like the one the youngerwoman had filled for me stood upon the rims. There was an angled hatch inthe farther wall of the chamber; from its design, I knew it opened onto a deck.When the women had seated themselves on either side of me, I told them,

"You two are the same person— so you say, and so I believe."

Both nodded.

"But I can't call you by the same name. What shall I call you?"Gunnie said, "When I was her age and I left my village to ship on here, Ididn't want to be Burgundofara anymore; so I got my mates to call meGunnie. I've been sorry I did, but they wouldn't have changed it back if I'dasked them to— just made a joke of it. So call me Gunnie, because that's who Iam." She paused to take a deep breath. "And call the girl I used to be by myold name, if you will. She's not going to change it now."

"All right," I said. "Perhaps there's some better way to explain what bothersme, but I'm still weak, and I can't think clearly enough to find it. Once I saw acertain man raised from the dead."

They only stared at me. I heard Burgundofara's indrawn breath.

"His name was Apu-Punchau. There was someone else there too, a man called

Hildegrin; and this Hildegrin wanted to stop Apu-Punchau from returning tohis tomb."

Burgundofara whispered, "Was he a ghost?"

"Not quite, or at least I don't think so. Or maybe it only depends on what youmean when you say 'ghost.' I think perhaps he was someone whose roots intime went so deep that he couldn't be wholly dead in our time, perhaps not inany. However that may be, I wanted to help Hildegrin because he was servingsomeone who was trying to cure one of my friends..." My thoughts, stillbewildered by the deathly atmosphere of the gangway, stuck on that point offriendship. Had Jolenta indeed been a friend? Might she have become one ifshe had recovered?

"Go on," Burgundofara urged me.

"I ran up to them— to Apu-Punchau and Hildegrin. There was something Ican't really call an explosion, but it was more like that, or like lightningstriking, than anything else I can think of. Apu-Punchau was gone, and therewere two Hildegrins."

"Like us."

"No, the same Hildegrin twice. One who wrestled an invisible spirit andanother who wrestled me. Then the lightning struck, or whatever it was. Butbefore that, before I had even seen the two Hildegrins, I saw Apu-Punchau'sface; and it was mine. Older, but mine."

Gunnie said, "You were right to want to stop somewhere. You have to tell us."

"This morning— Tzadkiel, the captain, gave me a very nice cabin. Before Iwent out I washed, and I shaved with a razor I found there. The face I saw inthe mirror troubled me, but I know now whose it was."

Burgundofara said, "Apu-Punchau's?" and Gunnie, "Your own."

"There's something more I didn't tell you. Hildegrin was killed by the flash. Ithought I understood that, later, and I still do. There were two of me, andbecause there were, two Hildegrins also; but the Hildegrins had been createdby division, and a man cannot be divided so and live. Or perhaps it was onlythat once divided he could not reunite, when there was only one Severianagain."

Burgundofara nodded. "Gunnie told me your name. It's a beautiful name, likea sword blade." Gunnie motioned her to silence.

"Now here I am, with both of you. There's only one of me, as far as I can tell.Do you see two?"

Burgundofara said, "No. But don't you see that it wouldn't matter if we did?

If you haven't been Apu-Punchau yet, you can't die!"

I told her, "Even I know more of time than that. I was the future Apu-Punchau of what is now a decade past. The present can always change itsfuture."

Gunnie shook her head. "I think I know more about time than you do, even ifyou're going to bring a New Sun and change the world. This man Hildegrindidn't die ten years ago, not to us here. When you get to Urth again, you mayfind it was a thousand years ago or who knows how many years ahead. Hereit's not one nor the other. We're between the suns and the years too, so therecan be two Gunnies with no danger to anybody. Or a dozen."

She paused. Gunnie had always spoken slowly, but now her words crept fromher as those who still live creep from the hulk of a wreck. "Yes, I can see two

Severians, even if they're just what I can remember. One's the Severian Igrabbed one time and kissed. He's gone, but he was a handsome man in spiteof his scarred face and lameness, and the gray in his hair."

"He remembered your kiss," I said. "He'd kissed many women, but he'd notoften been kissed himself."

"And the other one's the Severian who was my lover, when I was a girl andnewly signed. It was for his sake I kissed you then and fought for you later, theonly real person fighting for you among the phantoms. I stabbed my old matesfor him, even though I knew you didn't remember me." She rose. "You don'tknow where we are, neither of you."

Burgundofara said, "It seems to be a waiting room, but nobody's using it butus."

"I meant where the ship is. We're outside the circle of Dis."

I said, "Once I was told by a man who knew much of the future that a womanI sought was aboveground. I thought he meant merely that she was still alive.The ship's always been outside the circle of Dis."

"You know what I mean. When I came on board with you, I thought we had along voyage ahead of us. But why should they— Apheta and Zak— have donethat? The ship's leaving eternity now, slowing down so the tender can find her.Until she slows down, she isn't really a ship at all, did you know? We're like awave, or a shout going through the universe."

"No," I told her. "I didn't. And I can hardly believe it."

"What you believe makes a difference sometimes," Gunnie said. "But notevery time. That's something I've learned here. Severian, I told you one timewhy I kept on sailing. Do you remember?"

I glanced at Burgundofara. "I thought perhaps..."

Gunnie shook her head. "To be what I was again, but myself. You mustremember yourself when you really were her age. Are you the same personnow?"

As clearly as if he were in that chamber of tears with us, I saw the youngjourneyman striding along, his fuligin cloak billowing behind him and thedark cross of Terminus Estrising above his left shoulder. "No," I admitted. "Ibecame another long ago, and another after that."

She nodded. "So I'm going to stay here. Maybe here, when there's only one ofme, it'll happen. You and Burgundofara are going back to Urth."

She turned and left us. I tried to rise, but Burgundofara pulled me downagain, and I was too weak to resist. "Let Gunnie go," she said. "It's alreadyhappened to you. Let her have her chance." The door swung shut.

"She's you," I gasped.

"Then let me have mine. I've seen what I'll be later. Is it still wrong, when youdo that, to feel sorry for yourself?" There were tears in her eyes.I shook my head. "If you don't weep for her, who will?"

"You are."

"But not for that reason. She was a true friend, and I haven't had many."Burgundofara said, "I see now why all the faces cry. This is a hall made forcrying."

A new voice murmured, "For those who come and go." I turned to see twomasked Hierodules, and because I was not expecting them, it took me amoment to recognize Barbatus and Famulimus. It was Famulimus who hadspoken, and I shouted for joy. "My friends! Are you coming with us?"

Famulimus said, "We only came to bring you here. Tzadkiel sent us for you,but you were gone, Severian. Tell me if you will see us more."

"Many times," I told her. "Good-bye, Famulimus."

"You know our nature, that is plain. We greet you then, and say farewell."Barbatus added, "The hatches will open when Ossipago dogs down the door.You both have amulets of air?"

I took mine from my pocket and put it on. Burgundofara produced a similarnecklace.

"Then, like Famulimus, I greet you," Barbatus said, and stepped backwardthrough the doorway, which closed after him.

The paired doors at the end of the room opened almost at once; the tears ofthe masks vanished as they fell, then dried altogether. Beyond the open doorsshone the black curtain of night, hung from star to star.

"We have to go," I said to Burgundofara, then realized she could not hear andmoved near enough to take her hand, at which there was no longer any needfor speech. Together we left the ship, and it was only when I paused at thethreshold and turned to look back that it struck me I had never known hertrue name, if she had one, and that three of the masks were the faces of Zak,Tzadkiel, and her captain.

The tender waiting for us was far bigger than the little craft that had broughtme to the surface of Yesod, as large as that which had carried me to the shipfrom Urth. And indeed, I think it likely that it was the same vessel.

"Sometimes they bring the big one in a good bit closer than this," the handdetailed to guide us confided as we came aboard. "Only they can't help gettingbetween somebody's eyes and a few stars when they do. So you'll be about aday with us."

I asked her to point out Urth's Sun to me, and she obliged. He was a mere dotof crimson over the rail, and all his worlds, even Dis, were invisible save asspecks that darkened when they crossed his sullen face.

I tried to indicate the faint white star that was a part of me; but the handcould not make it out, and Burgundofara looked frightened. Soon we walkedthrough the portal of the tender and into the deckhouse.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN - THE RETURN TO URTH

I HAD NOT been ceratin Burgundofara and I would be lovers; but we wereassigned a single cabin (one perhaps a tenth the size of the stateroom I hadoccupied on my final night aboard the ship), and when I embraced anddisrobed her she did not object. I found her less skillful far than Gunnie,

though of course no virgin. How strange to think that Gunnie and I had laintogether only once.

Her younger self told me afterward that no man had treated her gently before,kissed me for it, and fell asleep in my arms. I had never thought myself atemperate lover; I lay awake for some time, meditating upon it and listening,as once I had promised myself I would, to the centuries dashed against thehull.

Or perhaps they were merely years, the years of my life. I had thought at first,when I felt my mended leg beneath me, and later when I had shaved mystrange new face in the stateroom, that they had somehow been lifted from me,as Gunnie had hoped hers would be lifted from her. Now I understood that itwas not so.

It was only that the damage done by some nameless Ascian's spear, by Agia'spalmed claws and the blood bat's teeth, had been undone; I was the man Iwould have been without those (and perhaps other) wounds, and thus it wasthat my face was the face of that strange being— for what being can bestranger than oneself, or act more inexplicably? I was Apu-Punchau, whom Ihad seen resurrected in the stone town. To me it had seemed youth, and it leftme mourning for the years I might have had. Perhaps someday I will boardTzadkiel's ship once more, to search for true youth as Gunnie has; but if I amcarried to Yesod again, I will remain there if I am suffered to do so. Incenturies, perhaps, that air might wash the years from me.

As I contemplated them and the few that came before them, it seemed to methat my acts toward women had depended not upon my will, but upon theirattitude toward me. I had been brutal enough with the khaibit Thecla of theHouse Azure, then as mild and clumsy as any untouched boy with the realThecla in her cell; fevered at first with Dorcas, quick and clumsy with Jolenta(whom I might have been said to have raped, though I believed then andbelieve still that she wished it). Of Valeria I have said too much already.Yet it cannot be thus for all men, since many act in the same way toward allwomen; and it may not even be so for me.

I dozed, thinking of all these things— and woke to find myself upon my otherside and Burgundofara no longer in my arms, dozed again, woke again, androse, unable to sleep more and longing, though I could not have said why, for aglimpse of the White Fountain. As quietly as I could, I put on the necklace andmade my way on deck.

The endless night of the void was almost vanquished. The shadows of themasts, and my own shadow too, seemed drawn upon the planks in the blackestpaint, and the Old Sun had grown from a faint star to a disk as large as Lune.His light made the White Fountain appear farther and weaker than ever. Urthhad ceased to streak across his crimson face, but hung just beyond thebowsprit, spinning like a top.

The officer of the watch came to speak to me, telling me I had better go below.Not, I think, because I was in any actual danger, but because it made himuneasy to have someone on deck who was not under his command. I told him Iwould, but that I wanted an interview with the captain of this vessel, and thatmy companion and I were hungry.

Burgundofara appeared while we were talking, saying that she had felt thesame urge as I, though I think in her case it was in fact no more than a desire

to look about and see the ship again before she left all such ships forever. Shesprang up a mast, which so distracted the officer that I thought he mightactually do her some harm. Had he not been a Hierodule, I would have laidhands on him; and as it was, I was forced to stand between them when a partyof sailors had brought her down.

We argued with him until our air grew foul, mostly for the sport of it on mypart (and hers too, I think), then went below docilely enough, found the galley,and ate like two children, laughing and recounting our adventures.

The captain— not another masked Hierodule, but a man who appeared to bean ordinary human being— visited us in our cabin a watch or so afterward. Itold him I had talked to no one in authority since Tzadkiel had left me, andthat I hoped to get instructions from him.

He shook his head. "I've none to give you. I feel sure Tzadkiel will havearranged for you to know all you need to."

Burgundofara interjected, "He's got to bring the New Sun!" adding when Iglanced at her, "Gunnie told me."

"Can you?" the captain asked.

I tried to explain that I did not know, that I could feel the White Fountain as ifit were a part of me, and that I had been trying to bring it closer; but that itdid not seem to move.

"What is it?" he asked. Then, seeing my expression, "No, I really don't know.I was told nothing except that I was to take you and this woman to Urth andland you safely north of the ice."

"It's a star, I think, or something like one."

"Then it's too massive to move the way we do. When you're on Urth, you'll nolonger be moving in the uranic sense. Perhaps then it will come for you."Burgundofara asked, "Won't it take a long time for a star to get to Urth?"He nodded. "Centuries at least. But I really understand nothing about it— agreat deal less than your friend here must. If it's part of him, he must feel it, ashe tells us he does."

"I do. I feel its distance." As I spoke, I seemed to be standing again before thewindows of Master Ash, looking out at the endless plains of ice; possibly insome sense I had never left them. I said, "Could it be that the New Sun willcome only after our race is gone? Would Tzadkiel play such a trick on us?"

"No. Tzadkiel doesn't play tricks, though she may seem to. Tricks are forsolipsists, who think everything will pass away." He stood. "You wanted to askme questions. I don't blame you, but I've no answers. Would you like to go ondeck and watch us land? It's the only real gift I can give you."Burgundofara looked bewildered and asked, "So soon?" I confess I felt somyself.

"Yes, pretty soon now. I've got a few supplies for you, mostly food. Will youwant weapons besides your knives? I can give them to you, if you need them."I asked, "Do you advise it?"

"I don't advise anything. You know what you have to do. I don't."

"Then I'll take none," I said. "Burgundofara may decide for herself."

"No," she said. "Neither will I."

"Then come," the captain told us, and this time it was a command and not aninvitation. We put on the necklaces and followed him out onto the deck.Our ship skimmed high above the clouds, which appeared to boil beneath us,

yet I felt that we had arrived. Urth flashed from blue to black, then blue again.The rail was ice cold in my hands, and I searched for Urth's ice caps; but wewere too near, already too close for them to be visible. There was only theazure of her seas, glimpsed through the rents in her surging clouds, andoccasionally a flash of land, brown or green.

"It is a lovely world," I said. "Not as lovely as Yesod, perhaps, but beautifulnonetheless."

The captain shrugged. "We could make it as good as Yesod if we wanted to."

"We will," I told him. I had not known I believed that until I said it. "We willwhen enough of us have left it and come back."

The clouds grew calmer, as though some mage had whispered a spell or awoman had bared her breast to them. Our sails were furled already; the watchswarmed aloft, making certain all our hamper was secure and as well bracedas it could be.

As they leaped down again, the first thin winds of Urth struck us, impalpable,but bringing back (like the single motion of a coryphaeus's hand) the wholeworld of sound. The masts shrilled like rebecs while every strand of riggingsang.

A moment more, and the ship herself yawed, pitched, and went down at thestern until the sunlit clouds of Urth rose behind her quarterdeck andBurgundofara and I were left clinging to the railposts.

The captain, standing at ease with one hand on a halyard, grinned at us andshouted, "Why, I thought the girl was a sailor, anyway. Lift him up there,darling, or we'll send you to help the cook."

I would have aided Burgundofara if I could, and she tried to assist me as thecaptain had directed her; thus by clinging to each other we managed to stayerect on the deck (now steeper than many stairs, though it seemed as smoothas a dancing floor) and even to take a few cautious steps toward him.

"You've got to ship on a little 'un before you're a sailor," he told us. "It's apity I've got to land you now. I might make proper seamen of you."I managed to say that our arrival on Yesod had not been so violent.He turned serious. "You didn't have much potential to lose there, you see.You'd used it up reaching the higher plane. We've come in without a rag tobrake us, like we were falling into the star. Stay away from the railing for abit. The wind there will broil the skin right off your arm."

"Wouldn't our necklaces preserve us from it?"

"They've got a good field; without them you'd fry like a crackling. But theycan only put out so much, like any other device, and that wind...well, it's toothin to breathe, but. if the keel weren't taking the brunt, we'd be blown away."For a time the apostis glowed like a forge; gradually it dimmed and went out,and our ship resumed a more conventional position, though the wind stillscreamed in the rigging and the clouds scudded under us like flecks of foam ina mill race.

The captain climbed to his quarterdeck, and I went with him to ask whetherwe might not remove our necklaces. He shook his head and pointed at therigging, which was now rimmed with ice, saying we could not stay on decklong without them and asking if I had not noticed my air freshening.I admitted I had, but explained that I had thought myself deceived.

"There's some mixing," he told me. "When there's no air, the amulet drawsback any that gets to the edge of the field. But it can't tell the difference

between air it brought up from below and wind that's penetrated its pressurezone."

How the tender could have a wake above the clouds, I do not understand; butit left one, long and white, stretched across the sky behind us. I merely reportwhat I saw.

Burgundofara said, "I wish I'd been on deck when we left Urth. Even when wegot to the big ship, they made us stay below until we had some training."

"You'd only have been in the way," the captain told her. "We set all sail assoon as we're free of the atmosphere, so that's a busy time. Was it this vessel?"

"I think so."

"And now you're coming back somebody important, mentioned by name inTzadkiel's orders. Congratulations!"

Burgundofara shook her head, and I noticed that enough wind waspenetrating now to make her dark ringlets dance. "I don't even know how shecame to know it."

I said, "One usually doesn't, with her," reflecting that just as I was many in asingle body, Tzadkiel was many bodies in a single person.

The captain pointed over the taffrail, where the sea of cloud seemed almost towash the planking of the tender's hull. "We're about to go down into that.When we get under it, you can take off your amulets without freezing."For a time we were trapped in mist. In a brown book I took from Thecla's cell,I have read that a region of mist separates the living from the dead, and thatthe forms we call ghosts are nothing more than the remnants of this barrier ofmist clinging to their faces and their garments.

Whether that is true, I cannot say; but certainly Urth is separated from thevoid by such a region, and that seems strange to me. Possibly the four realmsare but two, and we entered the void and left it at last just as specters visit thecountry of the living.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT - THE VILLAGE BESIDE THE STREAM

I RECALL thinking, as I leaned over the railing and watched dots of red andgold turn to woodlots, and brown smudges to fields of tangled stalks, howstrange we should have looked had there been anyone to watch us, a trimpinnace— just such a vessel as might have lain alongside some wharf inNessus— floating silently down out of the sky. I felt sure there was no one. Itwas earliest morning, when even small trees cast long shadows and scarletfoxes trot denward through the dew like flecks of fire.

"Where are we?" I asked the captain. "Which way does the city lie?"

"North by northeast," he said, pointing.

The supplies he was giving us were in long sarcins of about the bigness of ademicannon's barrel lashed to the base of the bonaventure. He showed us howto carry them, the strap over the left shoulder and fastened at the hip. Heshook our hands, and seemed, so far as I could judge to wish us well sincerely.A silver pont slid from the seam where the deck met the tender's side.Burgundofara and I went down it and stood once more upon the soil of Urth.We turned— as I believe no one could have helped turning— and watched thetender rise, righting herself as soon as her keel was free of the soil, bobbing ina gentle swell none but she could feel and lifting like a kite. We had come toUrth through clouds, as I have said; but the tender found an opening in them(I cannot but think it was so we might watch her) and rose through it, higherand higher, until hull and masts were no more than a pinprick of golden light.At length we saw her blossom to a shining speck, like the steel that falls from afile; then we knew that her crew had freed her sails, all of silver metal andeach bigger than many an isle, and sheeted them home, and that we would notsee her again. I looked away so that Burgundofara would not notice the tearsin my eyes. When I looked back to tell her we should be going, I found that shehad been weeping too.

Nessus lay north by northeast, so the captain had said; with the horizon still sonear the sun, it was not hard to keep our course. We crossed frost-killed fieldsfor half a league or more, entered a little wood, and soon reached a streamwith a path meandering along its bank.

Burgundofara had not spoken until then, and neither had I; but when we sawthe water, she went to it and scooped up as much as her hands would hold.When she had drunk it, she said, "Now I know we've really come home. I'veheard that for landsmen it's eating bread and salt."

I told her that was so, though I had nearly forgotten it.

"For us it's drinking the water of a place. There's usually bread and saltenough on the boats, but water goes bad or leaks away. When we come to anew landing we drink its water, if it's good water. If it isn't, we put our curseon it. Do you think this runs to Gyoll?"

"I'm sure it must, or to some larger stream that does. Do you want to return toyour village?"

She nodded. "Will you come with me, Severian?"

I remembered Dorcas, and how she had begged me to come with her downGyoll to find an old man and a house fallen to ruin. "I will if I can," I told her.

"I don't think I'll be able to stay."

"Then maybe I'll leave when you do, but I'd like to see Liti again first. I'll kissmy father and all my relations when I get there, and probably stab them whenI go. Just the same, I have to see it again."

"I understand."

"I hoped you would. Gunnie said you were that kind of man— that youunderstood a lot of things."

I had been examining the path as she spoke. Now I motioned her to silence,and we stood listening for perhaps a hundred breaths. A fresh wind stirred thetreetops; birds called here and there, though most had already flown north.The stream chuckled to itself.

"What is it?" Burgundofara whispered at last.

"Someone's run ahead of us. See his tracks? A boy, I think. He may havecircled to watch us, or fetched others."

"A lot of people must use this path."

I crouched beside the footprint to explain to her. "He was here this morning,when we came. See how dark a mark he made? He'd come across the fieldsjust as we did, and his feet were wet with dew. It will dry soon. His foot's smallfor a man's, but he runs with long strides— a boy that's nearly a man."

"You're deep. Gunnie said you were. I wouldn't have seen that."

"You know a thousand times more about ships than I do, though I've spentsome time on both kinds. I was a mounted scout for a while. This is the sort ofthing we did."

"Maybe we should go the other way."

I shook my head. "These are the people I've come to save. I won't save themby running from them."

As we walked on, Burgundofara said, "We haven't done anything wrong."

"You mean anything they know of. Everyone has done something wrong, andI a hundred such things— or rather, ten thousand."

Because the wood was so hushed and I had not smelled smoke, I had supposedthat the place to which the boy had run was a league away at least. The pathturned sharply, and a silent village of a dozen huts stood before us.

"Can't we just walk through?" Burgundofara asked. "They must be asleep."

"They're awake," I told her. "They're watching us through their doorways,standing to the rear so we won't see them."

"You've got good eyes."

"No. But I know something of villagers, and the boy got here before us. If wewalk through, we may get pitchforks in our backs."

I looked from hut to hut and raised my voice: " People of this village! We're

harmless travelers. We have no money. We ask only the use of your path."There seemed a slight stirring in the silence. I walked forward and motionedfor Burgundofara to follow.

A man of fifty stepped from one of the doorways; his brown beard wasstreaked with gray, and he carried a flail.

"You're the hetman of this village," I said. "We thank you for yourhospitality. As I told you, we come in peace."

He stared at me, reminding me of a certain mason I had once encountered.

"Herena says you came from a ship that fell from the sky"

"What does it matter where we came from? We're peaceful travelers. We asknothing more than that you let us pass.''

"It matters to me. Herena is my daughter. If she lies, I must know of it."I told Burgundofara, "You see, I don't know everything." She smiled, though Icould see she was frightened.

"Hetman, if you would trust a stranger's word and not your daughter's,you're a fool." By then the girl had edged near enough the door for me to seeher eyes. "Come out, Herena," I said. "We won't hurt you."

She stepped forward, a tall girl of fifteen with long brown hair and a witheredarm no larger than an infant's.

"Why were you spying on us, Herena?"

She spoke, but I could not hear her.

"She wasn't spying," her father said. "She was gathering nuts. She's a goodgirl."

Sometimes, though only rarely, a man looks at something he has seen a scoreof times and sees it in a new way. When I, sulky Thecla, used to set up my easelbeside some cataract, my teacher always told me to see it new; I neverunderstood what he meant and soon convinced myself he meant nothing. NowI saw Herena's withered arm not as a permanent deformity (as I had alwaysseen such things before), but as an error to be righted with a few strokes of thebrush.

Burgundofara ventured, "It must be hard..." Realizing she might give offense,she concluded, "Going out so early."

I said, "I'll correct your daughter's arm, if you wish it."

The hetman opened his lips to speak, then shut them again. Nothing in his faceseemed to have changed, but there was fear there.

"Do you wish it?" I asked.

"Yes, yes, of course."

His eyes, and the unseen stares of all the other villagers, oppressed me. I said,

"She must come with me. We won't go far, and it won't take long."He nodded slowly. "Herena, you must go with the sieur." (I suddenly realizedhow rich the clothes I had taken from the stateroom must have looked to thesepeople.) "Be a good girl, and remember that your mother and I will always..."He turned away.

She walked before me, back along the path until the village was out of sight.The place where her withered arm joined her shoulder was concealed underher tattered smock. I told her to take it off; she did so, drawlng it over herhead.

I was conscious of the crimson-and-gold leaves, the pink-tinged brown of herskin, as I might have been of the jeweled colors of some microcosm at which Ipeered through an aperture. Birdsong and water-music were as remote and assweet as the tinkling of an orchestrion in a courtyard far below.

I touched Herena's shoulder, and reality itself was clay to be smoothed andstretched. With a pass or two I molded her a new arm, the mirror image of theother. A tear that struck my fingers as I worked felt hot enough to scald them;the girl trembled.

"I'm finished," I said. "Put on your smock." I was in the microcosm again,and again it seemed the world to me.

She turned to face me. She was smiling, though her cheeks were streaked withtears. "I love you, my lord," she said, and at once knelt and kissed the toe ofmy boot.

I asked, "May I see your hands?" I myself could no longer believe what I haddone.

She held them out. "They'll take me now to be a slave far away. I don't care.No, they won't— I'll go to the mountains and hide."

I was looking at her hands, which seemed perfect to me in every detail, evenwhen I pressed them together. It is rare for a person to have hands as preciselythe same size, the hand used most being always the largest; yet hers were. Imuttered, "Who'll take you, Herena? Is your village raided by cultellarii?"

"The assessors, of course."

"Just because you have two good arms now?"

"Because I haven't anything wrong now." She stopped, stricken by a new

possibility, eyes wide. "I don't, do I?"

It was no time for philosophy. "No, you're perfect— a very attractive youngwoman."

"Then they'll take me. Are you all right?"

"A little weak, that's all. I'll be better in a moment." I used the hem of mycloak to wipe my forehead, just as I had when I was a torturer.

"You don't look all nght."

"It was mostly Urth's energies that corrected your arm, I think. But they hadto come through me. I suppose they must have carried off some of my ownwith them."

"You know my name, my lord. What's yours?"

"Severian."

"I'll get you food at my father's house, Lord Severian. There's still some left."A wind sprang up that sent the brightly colored leaves swirling about our facesas we walked back.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE - AMONG THE VILLAGERS

MY LIFE HAS held many sorrows and triumphs, but few pleasures outsidethe simple ones of love and sleep, clean air and good food, the things anyonemay know. Among the greatest I count the village hetman's expression whenhe saw his daughter's arm. Such a mixture of wonder, fear, and delight it wasthat I would have shaved his face for him in order to see it better. Herena, Ithink, enjoyed it as much as I; but when she had feasted upon it to the full, shehugged him and told him she had promised us refreshment and duckedthrough the doorway to embrace her mother.

As soon as we were inside too, the villagers' fear turned to curiosity. A few ofthe boldest men pushed their way in and squatted silently behind us as we saton mattings around the little table where the hetman's wife— weeping andbiting her lips all the while— spread our feast. The rest merely peered throughthe doorway and peeped through chinks in the windowless walls.

There were fried cakes of pounded maize, apples somewhat damaged by frost,water, and (as a great delicacy, and one at which some of the silent onlookersslavered openly) the haunches of two hares, boiled, pickled, salted, and servedcold. The hetman and his family did not partake of these. I have called it afeast, for so these people thought it; but the simple sailor's dinner we hadeaten on the tender a few watches before had been a banquet compared with

it. I found I was not hungry, though I felt tired and very thirsty. I ate one ofthe cakes and picked at the meat while drinking copious draughts of water,tben decided that the higher courtesy might consist in leaving the hetman'sfamily some of their food, since they plainly had so little, and began to cracknuts.

This, it appeared, was the signal that my host might speak. He said, "I amBregwyn. Our village is called Vici. My wife is Cinnia. Our daughter isHerena. This woman" — he nodded to indicate Burgundofara— "says that youare a good man."

"My name is Severian. This woman is Burgundofara. I am a bad man tryingto be a good one."

"We of Vici hear little of the far world. Perhaps you will tell us what chancehas brought you to our village."

He said this with an expression of polite interest and no more, yet it gave mepause. It would have been easy enough to put off these villagers with some taleof trade or pilgrimage; and indeed, if I had told him we hoped to returnBurgundofara to her home beside the Ocean, it would not have been wholly alie. But had I the right to say such things? I had told Burgundofara earlierthat these were the people I had gone to the end of the universe to rescue. Iglanced at the hetman's toil-worn, tearful wife and at the men, with theirgrizzled beards and hard hands. What right did I have to treat them likechildren?

"This woman," I said, "is from Liti. Perhaps you know of it?"

The hetman shook his head.

"The people there are fishers. She hopes to find her way back." I drew a deepbreath. "I..." The hetman leaned forward ever so slightly as I groped forwords. "I have been able to help Herena. To make her more whole. You knowthat."

"We are grateful," he said.

Burgundofara. touched my arm. When I looked at her, her eyes told me thatwhat I was doing might be perilous. I knew it already.

"Urth herself is not whole."

The hetman, and all the other men who squatted with their backs to the wallsof the hut, edged closer. I saw a few nod.

"I have come to make her whole."

As though the words were forced from him, one of the men said, "It snowedbefore the corn was ripe. This is the second year." Several others nodded, andthe man who sat behind the hetman, and thus facing me, said, "The sky peopleare angry with us."

I tried to explain. "The sky people— the Hierodules and Hierarchs— do nothate us. It is only that they are remote from us, and they fear us because ofthings we did before, long ago when our race was young. I have gone to them."I watched the villagers' expressionless faces, wondering whether any of themwould believe me. "I have effected a conciliation— brought them nearer us andus nearer them, I think. They've sent me back."

That night while Burgundofara and I lay in the hetman's hut (which he andhis wife and daughter had insisted on vacating for us), she had said, "They'llkill us eventually, you know."

I had promised her, "We'll leave here tomorrow."

"They won't let us," she had replied; and morning showed that we had bothbeen correct, in some fashion. We left indeed; but the villagers told us ofanother village, called Gurgustii, a few leagues away, and accompanied usthere. When we arrived, Herena's arm was exhibited and aroused muchwonder, and we (not only Burgundofara and I, but Herena, Bregwyn, and therest) were treated to a feast much like the last, save that fresh fish weresubstituted for the hares.

Afterward I was informed of a certain man who was a very good man andvery valuable to Gurgustii, but who was now very ill. I told his fellow villagersthat I could not guarantee anything, but that I would examine him and helphim if I could.

The hut in which he lay seemed as old as the man himself, reeking of diseaseand death. I ordered the villagers who had crowded into it after me to get out.When they were gone, I rummaged about until I found a piece of raggedmatting large enough to block the doorway.

With it in place, the hut was so dark I could scarcely see the sick man. As Ibent over him, it seemed to me at first that my eyes were growing accustomedto the darkness. After a moment I realized it was no longer quite so dark as ithad been. A faint light played across him, moving with the movements of myeyes. My first thought was that it came from the thorn I kept in the littleleather sack Dorcas had sewn for the Claw, though it seemed impossible that itcould shine through the leather and my shirt in such a way. I took it out. Itwas as dark as it had been when I had tried to light the corridor outside mycabin with it, and I put it away again.

The sick man opened his eyes. I nodded to him and tried to smile.

"Have you come to take me?" he asked. It was no more than a whisper.

"I'm not Death," I told him, "though I've been mistaken for him oftenenough."

"I thought you were, sieur. You look so kind."

"Do you want to die? I can manage that in a moment if you wish it."

"Yes, if I can't be well." His eyes closed again.

I pulled down the homespuns that had covered him and found he was nakedbeneath them. His right side was swollen, the lump the size of a child's head. Ismoothed it away, thrilling to the power that surged out of Urth, through mylegs and out my fingers.

Suddenly the hut was dark again, and I was sitting on its pounded earthenfloor listening spell-caught to the sick man's breathing. It seemed that a longtime had passed. I stood, tired and feeling I might soon be ill— it was just theway I had felt after I had executed Agilus. I took down the matting andstepped out into the sunshine.

Burgundofara embraced me. "Are you all right?"

I told her I was, and asked whether we could not sit down somewhere. A bigman with a loud voice— I suppose he was one of the sick man's relations—

elbowed his way through the crowd demanding to know whether "Declan"would recover. I said I did not know, all the while trying to force my waythrough the press in the direction Burgundofara indicated. It was after nones,and the autumn day had grown warm, as such days sometimes do. If I had feltbetter, I would have found the milling, sweating peons comic; they were justsuch an assembly as we had terrified when we had performed Dr. Tabs's play

at Ctesiphon's Cross. Now I was suffocated by them.

"Tell me!" the big man shouted in my face. "Will he be well?"

I turned on him. "My friend, you think that because your village has fed me,I'm obligated to answer your questions. You are mistaken!"

Others pulled him away, and I think knocked him down. At least, I heard thesound of a blow.

Herena took my hand. The crowd opened before us, and she led me to aspreading tree, where we sat on smooth, bare ground, no doubt where thevillage elders met.

Someone came bowing up to ask whether I required anything. I wanted water;a woman brought it, cold from the stream, in a dew-drenched stone jar cappedwith a cup. Herena had seated herself on my right, Burgundofara on my left,and we passed the cup among us.

The hetman of Gurgustii approached. Bowing, he indicated Bregwyn and said,

"My brother has told me how you came to his village in a ship that sailed theclouds, and that you have come to reconcile us with the powers in the sky. Allour lives we have gone to the high places and sent the smoke of offerings tothem, yet the sky people are angry and send frost. Men in Nessus say the sungrows cold— "

Burgundofara interrupted. "How far is it?"

"The next village is Os, my lady. From there one may take a boat to Nessus ina day."

"And from Nessus we can get passage to Liti," Burgundofara hissed to me.The hetman continued, "Yet the monarch taxes us as before, taking ourchildren when we cannot give him grain. We have gone to the high places asour fathers did. We of Gurgustii burned our best ram before the frost came.What is it we should do instead?"

I tried to tell them how the Hierodules feared us because we had spreadthrough the worlds in the ancient times of Urth's glory, extinguishing manyother races and bringing our cruelty and our wars everywhere. "We must beone," I said. "We must tell only the truth, that our promises may be reliedupon. We must care for Urth as you care for your fields."

He and some of the rest nodded as though they understood, and perhaps theydid. Or perhaps they at least understood some part of what I had said.There was a disturbance at the back of the crowd, shouts and the sounds ofrejoicing and weeping. Those who had sat leaped up, though I was too tired todo so. After more yelling and confused talk, the sick man was led forward, stillnaked except for a cloth (a length of homespun I recognized as one of hiscoverings) knotted around his waist.

"This is Declan," someone announced. "Declan, explain to the sieur how youcame to be well."

He tried to speak, but I could not hear him. I gestured to the rest to be quiet.

"While I lay in my bed, my lord, a seraph appeared, clothed all in light."There were chuckles from the peons, who nudged one another as he spoke.

"He asked me whether I desired to die. I told him I wished to live, and I slept;and when I woke again I was as you see me now."

The peons laughed, and several said, "It was the sieur here who cured you,"and the like.

I shouted at them. "This man was there, and you were not! You makeyourselves fools when you claim to know more than a witness!" It was the fruit

of the long days I had spent in Thrax listening to the proceedings of thearchon's court, and still more of those spent sitting in judgment as Autarch, Ifear.

Though Burgundofara wanted to continue to Os, I was too fatigued to gofarther that day, and I had no desire to sleep in a stuffy hut again. I told thevillagers of Gurgustii that Burgundofara and I would sleep under their counciltree, and that they should find places in their homes for those who had comewith me from Vici. They did so; but when I woke in the watches of the night, itwas to find that Herena lay with us.

CHAPTER THIRTY - CERYX

WHEN we left Gurgusth many of its peons would have come with us, as woulda few of those who had brought us from Vici. I forbade them, not wanting tobe carted about like a relic.

They objected at first; but when they saw I was adamant, contentedthemselves with lengthy (often repetitious) speeches of thanks and thepresentation of gifts: a tangled staff for me, the frantic work of the two bestwood-carvers in the place; a shawl embroidered with colored wool forBurgundofara that must have been the richest item of feminine apparel there;and a basket of food for us both. We ate the food on the road and threw thebasket into the stream; but we kept the other things, I liking the staff forwalking and she delighted with her shawl, which relieved the masculineseverity of her slop-chest clothes. At twilight, just before the gates were shut,we entered the little town of Os.

It was here that the stream we had followed emptied into Gyoll, and here therewere xebecs, carracks, and feluccas tied up along the riverfront. We asked fortheir captains, but all had gone ashore on missions of business or pleasure, andthe sullen watchmen left to guard their vessels assured us we would have toreturn in the morning. One recommended the Chowder Pot; we were on ourway there when we happened upon a man robed in tyrian and green, whostood upon an inverted tub addressing an audience of a hundred or so:

" — buried treasure! Everything hidden revealed! If there are three birds in abush, the third may not know of the first, but I know. There is a ring— even asI speak— beneath the pillow of our ruler, the wise, the transcendent— Thankyou, my good woman. What is it you wish to know? I know it, to be sure, butallow these good folk to hear it. Then I shall reveal it."

A fat townswoman had handed him a few aes. Burgundofara said, "Come on.I'd like to sit down and get something to eat."

"Wait," I told her.

I stayed in part because the mountebank's patter reminded me of Dr. Tabs,and in larger part because something in his eyes recalled Abundantius. Yetthere was another thing more fundamental than either, though I am notcertain I can explain it. I sensed that this stranger had traveled as I had, thatwe had gone far and returned in a way that even Burgundofara had not; andthat though we had not gone to the same place or returned with the same gain,we had both known strange roads.

The fat woman muttered something; the mountebank announced, "She begs tobe informed as to whether her husband will find a new site for his stew, andwhether the venture will succeed."

He threw his arms above his head, clasping a long wand with both hands. Hiseyes remained open, rolling upward until the whites showed like the skins oftwo boiled eggs. I smiled, expecting the crowd to laugh; yet there wassomething terrible about his blind, invocatory figure, and no one did. Weheard the lapping of the river and the sigh of the evening breeze, though itblew too gently to stir my hair.

Abruptly his arms fell and his snapping black eyes were back in place. "Theanswers are: Yes! And yes! The new bathhouse will stand not half a leaguefrom where we are now."

"Easy enough," Burgundofara whispered. "The whole town can't be a leagueacross."

"And you shall have more from it than you ever had from the old," themountebank promised. "But now, my dear friends, before the next question Iwish to tell you something more. You think I prophesied for the money thisgood woman gave me." He had retained the aes in his hand. Now he tossedthem up in a dark little column against the darkening sky. "Well, you'rewrong, my friends! Here!"

He flung them to the crowd, a good deal more than he had received from thewoman, I think. There was a wild scramble.

I said, "All right, let's go."

Burgundofara shook her head. "I want to listen to this."

"These are bad times, friends! You are hungry for wonders. Forthaumaturgical cures and apples from pine trees! Why, only this afternoon Ilearned that some quack-salver has been touring the villages up the Fluminis,and was headed our way." His gaze locked with mine. "I know that he is herenow. I dare him to step forward. We shall hold a competition for you,friends— a trial of magic! Come, fellow. Come to Ceryx!"

The crowd stirred and murmured. I smiled and shook my head.

"You, my good man." He leveled a finger at me. "Do you know what it is totrain your will until it's like a bar of iron? To drive your spirit before you likea slave? To toil ceaselessly for an end that may never come, a prize so remotethat it seems it willnever come?"

I shook my head.

"Answer! Let them hear you!"

"No," I said. "I haven't done those things."

"Yet they are what must be done, if you would seize the scepter of theIncreate!"

I said, "I know nothing of seizing that scepter. To tell the truth, I'm certain itcould not be done. If you wish to be as the Increate is, I question whether youcan do it by acting as the Increate does not."

I took Burgundofara by the arm and drew her away. We had passed onenarrow side street when the staff I had been given in Gurgustii snapped with aloud report. I tossed the half that had remained in my hand into the gutter,and we continued up the steep slope that led from the embankment to theChowder Pot.

It seemed a decent enough inn; I noticed that those who had gathered in itspublic room seemed to be eating almost as much as drinking, which was ever afavorable sign. When the host leaned across his bar to speak to us, I askedwhether he could provide us with supper and a quiet room.

"Indeed I can, sieur. Not equal to your station, sieur, but as good as you'll findin Os."

I got out one of Idas's chrisos. He took it, stared at it for a moment as thoughsurprised, and said, "Of course, sieur. Yes, of course. See me in the morning,sieur, and I'll have your change for you. Perhaps you'd like your supperserved in your room?"

I shook my head.

"A table, then. You'll want to be far from the door, the bar, and the kitchen. Iunderstand. Over there, sieur— the table with the cloth. Would that suit you?"I told him it would.

"We've all manner of freshwater fish, sieur. Freshly caught, too. Ourchowder's quite famous. Sole and salmon, smoked or salted. Game, beef, veal,lamb, fowl...?"

I said, "I've heard food's hard to come by in this part of the world."He looked troubled. "Crop failures. Yes, sieur. This is the third in a row.Bread's very dear— not for you, sieur, but for the poor. Many a poor child willgo to bed hungry tonight, so let's give thanks that we don't have to."Burgundofara asked, "You've no fresh salmon?"

"Only in the spring, I'm afraid. That's when they run, my lady. Otherwisethey're sea caught, and they won't stand the trip so far up the river.

"Salt salmon, then."

"You'll like it, my lady— put down in our own kitchen not three months ago.You needn't trouble about bread, fruit, and so on now. We'll bring everything,and you may choose when you see it. We've bananas from the north, thoughthe rebellion makes them dear. Red wine or white?"

"Red, I think. Do you recommend it?"

"I recommend all our wines, my lady. I won't have a cask in my cellar I can'trecommend."

"Red, then."

"Very good, my lady. And for you, sieur?"

A moment before, I would have said I was not hungry. Now I found I salivatedat the mere mention of food; it was impossible to decide what I wanted most.

"Pheasant, sieur? We've a fine one in the spring house."

"All right. No wine, though. Maté. Do you have it?"

"Of course, sieur."

"Then I'll drink that. It's been a long time since I've tasted it."

"It should be ready at once, sieur. Will there be anything more for you?"

"Only an early breakfast tomorrow; we'll be going to the quay to arrangepassage to Nessus. I'll expect my change then."

"I'll have it for you, sieur, and a good, hot breakfast in the morning, too.Sausages, sieur. Ham, and..."

I nodded and waved him away.

When be was gone, Burgundofara asked, "Why didn't you want to eat in ourroom? It would have been much nicer."

"Because I have hopes of learning something. And because I don't want to beby myself, to have to think."

"I'd be there."

"Yes, but it's better when there are more people."

"What— "

I motioned her to silence. A middle-aged man who had been eating alone hadstood and tossed a last bone on his trencher. Now he was carrying his glass toour table. "Name's Hadelin," he said. "Skipper of Alcyone."I nodded. "Sit down, Captain Hadelin. What can we do for you?"

"Heard you talking to Kyrin. Said you wanted passage down the river. Someothers are cheaper and some can give you better quarters. I mean bigger andmore ornaments; there's none cleaner. But there's nothing faster than my

Alcyone'cept the patrols, and we sail tomorrow morning."

I asked how long it would take him to reach Nessus, and Burgundofara added,

"And to the sea?"

"We should make Nessus day after, though it depends on wind and weather.Wind's generally light and favorable this time of year, but if we get an earlystorm, we'll have to tie up."

I nodded. "Certainly."

"Otherwise it should be day after tomorrow, about vespers or a bit before. I'llland you anywhere you want, this side of the khan. We'll tie up there two daysto load and unload, then go on down. Nessus to the delta generally takes afortnight or a bit less."

"We'll have to see your ship before we take passage."

"You won't find anything I'm ashamed of, sieur. Reason I came over to talk iswe'll be leaving early, and if it's speed you want, we've got it. In the run ofthings we'd have sailed before you got to the water. But if you and her willmeet me here soon as you can see the sun, we'll eat a bite and go downtogether."

"You're staying in this inn tonight, Captain?"

"Yes, sieur. I stay on shore when I can. Most of us do. We'll tie up somewheretomorrow night too, if that be the will of the Pancreator."

A waiter came with our dinners, and the innkeeper caught Hadelin's eye fromacross the room. "'Scuse me, sieur," he said. "Kyrin wants something, and youand her'll want to eat. I'll see you right here in the morning."

"We'll be here," I promised.

"This is wonderful salmon," Burgundofara told me as she ate. "We carry saltfish on the boats for the times when we don't catch anything, but this is better.I didn't know how much I'd missed it."

I said I was glad she was enjoying it.

"And now I'll be on a ship again. Think he's a good captain? I bet he's ademon to his crew."

By a gesture, I warned her to be quiet. Hadelin was coming back.

When he had pulled out his chair again, she said, "Would you like some of mywine, Captain? They brought a whole bottle."

"Half a glass, for sociability's sake." He glanced over his shoulder, then turnedback to us, a corner of his mouth up by the width of three hairs. "Kyrin's justwarned me against you. Said you gave him a chrisos like none he'd seen."

"He may return it, if he wishes. Do you want to see one of our coins?"

"I'm a sailor; we see coins from extern lands. Then too, there's some fromtombs, sometimes. Plenty of tombs up in the mountains, I suppose?"

"I have no idea." I passed a chrisos across the table.

He examined it, bit it, and gave it back to me. "Gold all right. Looks a triflelike you, 'cept he seems to have got himself cut up. Don't suppose younoticed."

"No," I said. "I never thought of it."

Hadelin nodded and pushed back his chair. "A man doesn't shave himselfsidewise. See you in the morning, sieur, madame."

Upstairs, when I had hung my cloak and shirt on pegs and was washing myface and hands in the warm water the inn servants had brought,Burgundofara said, "He broke it, didn't he?"

I knew what she meant and nodded.

"You should have contended with him."

"I'm no magus," I told her, "but I was in a duel of magic once. I was nearlykilled."

"You made that girl's arm look right."

"That wasn't magic. I— "

A conch blared outside, followed by the confused clamor of many voices. Iwent to the window and looked out. Ours was an upper room, and ourelevation gave me a good view over the heads of the crowd to its center, wherethe mountebank stood beside a bier supported on the shoulders of eight men. Icould not help thinking for a moment that by speaking of him Burgundofarahad summoned him.

Seeing me at the window, he blew his conch a second time, pointed to drawattention to me, and when everyone was staring called, "Raise up this man,fellow! If you cannot, I will. The mighty Ceryx shall make the dead walk Urthonce more!" The body he indicated lay sprawled in the grotesque attitude of astatue overthrown, still in the grip of rigor.

I called, "You think me your competitor, mighty Ceryx, but I've no suchambition. We're merely passing through Os on our way to the sea. We'releaving tomorrow." I closed the shutters and bolted them.

"It was him," Burgundofara said. She had stripped and was crouched besidethe basin.

"Yes," I said.

I expected her to reproach me again, but she only said, "We'll be rid of him assoon as we cast off. Would you like me tonight?"

"Later, perhaps. I want to think." I dried myself and got into our bed.

"You'll have to wake me, then," she said. "All that wine's made me sleepy."The voice of Ceryx came through the shutters, lifted in an eerie chant.

"I will," I told her as she slipped beneath the blankets with me.

Sleep was just closing my eyes when the dead man's ax burst open the door,and he stalked into the room.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE - ZAMA

I DID not know it was the dead man at first. The room was dark, the crampedlittle hall outside nearly as dark. I had been half asleep; I opened my eyes atthe first blow of the ax, only to see the dim flash of steel when its edge brokethrough with the second.

Burgundofara screamed, and I rolled out of bed fumbling for weapons I nolonger possessed. At the third blow, the door gave way. For an instant the deadman was silhouetted in the doorway. His ax struck the empty bed. Its framebroke, and the whole affair collapsed with a crash.

It seemed the poor volunteer I had killed so long ago in our necropolis hadreturned, and I was paralyzed with terror and guilt. Cutting the air, the deadman's ax mimicked the hiss of Hildegrin's spade as it swung past my head,then struck the plaster wall with a thud like the kick of a giant's boot. Thefaint light from the doorway was extinguished for a moment as Burgundofarafled.

The ax struck the wall again, I think not a cubit from my ear. The dead man'sarm, as cold as a serpent and scented with decay, brushed my own. I grappledwith him, moved by instinct, not thought.

Candles appeared, and a lantern. A pair of nearly naked men wrestled thedead man's ax away, and Burgundofara held her knife to his throat. Hadelinstood beside her with a cutlass in one hand and a candlestick in the other. Theinnkeeper held his lantern up to the dead man's face, and dropped it.

"He's dead," I said. "Surely you've seen such men before. So will you and I bein time." I kicked the dead man's legs from under him as Master Gurloes hadonce taught us, and he fell to the floor beside the extinguished lantern.Burgundofara gasped, "I stabbed him, Severian. But he didn't— " Her mouthsnapped shut with the effort not to weep. The hand that held her bloodiedknife shook.

As I put my arm about her, someone shouted, " Look out! "Slowly, the dead man was getting to his feet. His eyes, which had been closedwhile he lay on the floor, opened, though they still held the unfocused stare ofa corpse, and one lid drooped. A narrow wound in his side oozed dark blood.Hadelin stepped forward, his cutlass raised.

"Wait," I said, and held him back.

The dead man's hands reached for my throat. I took them in my own, nolonger afraid of him or even horrified by him. I felt instead a terrible pity forhim and for us all, knowing that we are all dead to some degree, half sleeping

as he was wholly asleep, deaf to the singing of life in us and around us.His arms dropped to his sides. I stroked his ribs with my right hand, and lifeflowed through it, so that it seemed each finger was to unfold petals and bloomlike a flower. My heart was a mighty engine that would run forever and shakethe world with every beat. I have never felt so alive as I did then, when I wasbringing life to him.

And I saw it— we all saw it. His eyes were no longer dead things, but thehuman organs by which a man beheld us. The cold blood of death, the bitterstuff that stains the sides of a butcher's block, stirred again in him and gushedfrom the wound Burgundofara had made. That closed and healed in aninstant, leaving only a crimson stain upon the floor and a white line on hisskin. Blood rose in his cheeks until they were no longer sallow but brown andheld the look of life.

Before that moment, I would have said a man of middle age had died; theyouth who stood blinking before me was no more than twenty. RecallingMiles, I put my arm about his shoulders and told him that we welcomed himonce more to the land of the living, speaking softly and slowly as I would haveto a dog.

Hadelin and the others who had come to aid us backed away, their faces filledwith fear and wonder; and I thought then (as I think now) how strange it wasthat they should have been so brave when they faced a horror, but suchcowards when confronted by the palinode of fate.

Perhaps it is only that when we contend with evil, we are engaged against ourbrothers. For my own part I understood then something that had puzzled mefrom childhood— the legend that in the final battle whole armies of demonswill fly from the mere sight of a soldier of the Increate.

Captain Hadelin was last out the door. He paused there, mouth agape, seekingthe courage to speak or perhaps merely seeking the words, then spun aboutand bolted, leaving us in darkness.

"There's a candle here someplace," Burgundofara muttered. I heard hersearching for it.

A moment later I saw her as well, wrapped in a blanket, stooped over the littletable that stood beside the ruined bed. The light that had come to the sickman's hut had come again, and she, seeing her own shadow traced black by itbefore her, turned and saw it and ran shrieking after the rest.

There seemed little to be gained by running after her. I blocked the doorwayas well as I could with chairs and the wreck of the door, and by the light thatplayed wherever I directed my eyes dragged the torn mattress to the floor, sothe man who had been dead and I might rest.

I said rest and not sleep, because I do not think either of us slept, though Idozed once or twice, waking to hear him moving about the room on journeysnot confined by our four walls. It seemed to me that whenever I shut my eyesthey flew open to watch my star burning above the ceiling. The ceiling hadbecome as transparent as tissue, and I could see my star hurling itself towardus, yet infinitely remote; and at last I rose and opened the shutters, and leanedout of the window to look at the sky.

It was a clear night, and chill; each star in heaven seemed a gem. I found Iknew where my own star hung, just as the gray salt geese never fail of theirlanding, though we hear their cry through a league of fog. Or rather, I knew

where my star should be; but when I looked, I saw only the endless dark. Rich-strewn stars lay in every other corner of the sky like so many diamonds castupon a master's cloak; and perhaps belonged, every star, to some foolishmessenger as forlorn and perplexed as I. Yet none were mine. Mine was there(somewhere), I knew, though it could not be seen.

In writing such a chronicle as this, one wishes always to describe process; butsome events have no process, taking place at once: they are not— then are. Soit was now. Imagine a man who stands before a mirror; a stone strikes it, andit falls to ruin all in an instant.

And the man learns that he is himself, and not the mirrored man he hadbelieved himself to be.

So it was with me. I knew myself the star, a beacon at the frontier of Yesodand Briah, coursing through the night. Then the certainty had vanished, and Iwas a mere man again, my hands upon a windowsill, a man chilled and soakedwith sweat, shaking as I listened to the man who had been dead move aboutthe room.

The town of Os lay in darkness, green Lune just vanishing behind the darkhills beyond black Gyoll. I looked at the spot where Ceryx had stood with hisaudience, and in the dim light it seemed I could make out some traces of themstill. Moved by an impulse I could not have explained, I stepped back into theroom and dressed myself, then sprang over the sill and down onto the muddystreet below.

The jolt was so severe that for a moment I feared I had broken an ankle. Onthe ship, I had been as light as lanugo, and my new leg had given me, perhaps,more confidence than it could support. Now I learned that I would have tolearn to jump on Urth again.

Clouds had come to veil the stars, so that I had to grope for the objects I hadseen from above; but I found that I had been correct. A brass candlepan heldthe guttered remains of a candle no bee would have acknowledged. The bodiesof a kitten and a small bird lay together in the gutter.

As I was examining them, the man who had been dead leaped down beside me,managing his jump better than I had mine. I spoke to him, but he did notreply; as an experiment I walked a short distance down the street. He followedme docilely.

I was in no mood for sleep by then, and the fatigue I had felt after I restoredhim to life had been sponged away by a sensation I am not tempted to callunreality— the exultation of knowing that my being no longer resided in themarionette of flesh people were accustomed to call Severian, but in a distantstar shining with energy enough to bring ten thousand worlds to flower.Watching the man who had been dead, I recalled how far Miles and I hadwalked when neither of us should have walked at all, and I knew that thingswere now otherwise.

"Come," I said. "We'll have a look at the town, and I'll stand you a drink assoon as the first dramshop unbars its door."

He answered nothing. When I led him to a patch of starlight, his face was theface of one who wanders amid strange dreams.

If I were to describe all our ramblings in detail, reader, you would be boredindeed; but it was not boring for me. We walked along the hilltops, north untilwe were halted by the town wall, a tumbledown affair that seemed to have

been built as much from pride as fear. Turning back, we made our way downcozy, crooked lanes lined with half-timbered houses, to reach the river just asthe first light of the new day peeped over the roofs behind us.

As we strolled along admiring the many-masted vessels, an old man, an earlyriser and doubtless a poor sleeper (as so many old people are) stopped us.

"Why, Zama!" he exclaimed. "Zama, boy, they said you was dead."I laughed, and at the sound of my laughter the man who had been dead smiled.The old man cackled. "Why, you never looked better in your life!"I asked, "How did they say he'd died?"

"Drowned! Pinian's boat foundered up by Baiulo Island, that's what I heard."

"Does he have a wife?" When I saw the old man's curious glance, I added, "Ionly met him last night when we were out drinking, and I'd like to drop himoff someplace. He's stowed a little more than's good for him, I'm afraid."

"No family. He's boardin' with Pinian. Pinian's old woman takes it out of hispay." He told me how to get there and how to recognize the house, whichsounded squalid enough. "Not that I'd bring him to 'em so early, with himshippin' water. Pinian'll beat the cake out of him, sure as scullin'." He shookhis head in wonder. "Why, everybody heard they'd fished out Zama's remainsand brought 'em back with 'em!"

Not knowing what else to say I told him, "You never know what to believe,"and then, moved by this wretched old man's clear delight at finding a strongyoung man still alive, I put my hand upon his head and mumbled some setphrases about wishing him well in this life and the next. It was a blessing I hadoccasionally given as Autarch.

I had intended to do nothing at all, and yet the effect was extraordinary. WhenI took away my hand, it seemed that the years had covered him like dust, andunseen walls had fallen to let in the wind; his eyes opened so that they lookedas big as dishes, and he fell to his knees.

When we were some distance away, I glanced back at him. He was kneelingthere still and staring after us, but no longer an old man. Nor was he a youngone, but simply a man in essence, a man freed of the gyre of time.Though Zama did not speak, he put his arm about my shoulders. I put mineover his, and in that fashion we strolled up the street Burgundofara and I hadtaken the evening before and found her at breakfast with Hadelin in the publicroom of the Chowder Pot.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO - TO THE ALCYONE

THEY HAD expected neither of us— there were no extra places set at thetable. I pulled up a chair for myself, and then (when he only stood and stared)another for Zama.

"We thought you were gone, sieur," Hadelin said. His face, and hers, toldplainly enough where Burgundofara had spent the night.

"I was," I said, speaking to her and not to him. "But I see you got into ourroom all right to get your clothes."

"I thought you were dead," Burgundofara said. When I did not reply, sheadded, "I thought this man had killed you. The doorway was blocked up withstuff I had to push over, but the shutters had been broken open."

"Anyway, sieur, you're back." Hadelin tried to sound cheerful and failed.

"Still going downriver with us?"

"Perhaps," I said. "When I've seen your craft."

"Then you will be, sieur, I think."

The innkeeper appeared, bowing and forcing himself to smile. I noticed he hada butcher knife thrust through his belt behind his leather apron.

"Fruit for me," I told him. "Last night you said you had some. Bring some forthis man too; we'll see whether he eats it. Maté for both of us."

"Immediately, sieur."

"After I've eaten, you and I can go up to my room. It's been damaged, andwe'll have to decide by how much."

"That won't be necessary, sieur. A trifle! Perhaps we can agree upon anorichalk as a token payment?" He tried to rub his hands in the way suchpeople often do, but their tremors made the gesture ridiculous.

"Five, I should think, or ten. A broken door, a damaged wall, and a brokenbed— you and I shall go up and make a reckoning."

His lips were trembling too, and suddenly it was no longer pleasant to terrifythis little man who had come with his lantern and his stick when he heard oneof his guests attacked. I said, "You shouldn't drink so much," and touched hishands.

He smiled, chirped, "Thank you, sieur! Fruit, yes, sieur!" and trotted away.It was all tropical, as I had half expected: plantains, oranges, mangoes, andbananas brought overland to the upper river by trains of sumpters andshipped south. There were no apples and no grapes. I borrowed the knife thathad stabbed Zama to peel a mango, and we ate in silence. After a time Zamaate too, which I thought a good sign.

"Something more, sieur?" the innkeeper asked at my elbow. "We've plenty."I shook my head.

"Then perhaps...?" He nodded toward the stair, and I rose, motioning for theothers to remain where they were.

Burgundofara said, "You should have kept him frightened. It would have beencheaper." The innkeeper shot her a glance of raw hatred.

His inn, which had looked small enough the night before when I had been tiredand it was wrapped in darkness, I saw to be tiny now, four rooms on our floor,and four more, I suppose, on the floor above. The room itself, which hadseemed capacious enough when I lay upon the torn mattress listening to Zamamove about, was hardly larger than the cabin Burgundofara and I had sharedon the tender. Zama's ax, old and worn and intended for wood, stood in onecorner.

"I didn't want you to come so I could get money from you, sieur," theinnkeeper told me. "Not for this or anything. Not any time."

I looked about at the destruction. "But you'll have it."

"Then I'll give it away. There's many a poor man in Os these days."

"I imagine so." I was not really listening to what he said or to what I saidmyself, but examining the shutters; it was to see them that I had insisted oncoming upstairs. Burgundofara had mentioned that they had been broken,and she was right. The wood had split away from the screws that had held thebolt. I recalled bolting them and later opening them. When I retraced myactions in memory, I found that I had merely touched them and they hadflown open.

"It would be wrong, sieur, for me to take anything after what you've broughtme. Why, the Chowder Pot will be famous forever all up and down the river."His eyes stared off into some heaven of notoriety invisible to me. "Not thatwe're not known already— the best inn in Os. But some'll come and stay herejust to see this." Inspiration seized him. "I won't have it fixed, not nothing! I'llleave it just like it is!"

I said, "Charge them to come in."

"Yes, sieur, you have it. Not patrons, to be sure. But I'll charge the others, yesindeed!"

I was about to order him to do no such thing, to have the damage repairedinstead; but when I had opened my mouth to speak, I shut it again. Was it tosnatch away this man's good fortune— if good fortune it was— that I hadreturned to Urth? He loved me now as a father loves a son he admires withoutunderstanding. What right had I to harm him?

"My patrons were talking last night. I don't suppose, sieur, you know whathappened after you brought poor Zama back?"

"Tell me," I said.

When we were downstairs again, I insisted on paying him, though he did notwant to accept the money. "Dinner last night for the woman and me. Lodgingfor Zama and me. Two orichalks for the door, two for the wall, two for thebed, two for the shutters. Breakfast for Zama and me this morning. Put thewoman's lodging and breakfast to Captain Hadelin's score and see what minecomes to."

He did, writing out a full list on a scrap of brown paper with a sputtering andmuch chewed quill, then counting out neat stacks of silver, copper, and brassfor me. I asked whether he was sure I had so much due.

"It's the same prices for everybody here, sieur. We don't charge by what aman has, but by what he's had— though I don't like charging youat all."Hadelin's bill was settled with much less calculation, and the four of us left. Ofall the inns at which I have stayed, I think I most regret leaving the ChowderPot, with its good food and drink, and its company of honest rivermen. Often Ihave dreamed of going back, and perhaps sometime I shall. Certainly moreguests came to our aid when Zama broke our door than there was any reasonto expect, and I would like to think that one or even several of them weremyself. Indeed it sometimes seems to me that I caught a glimpse of my ownface in the candlelight that night.

However that may be, I had no thought of it as we stepped out into themorning-fresh street. The first hush of dawn was past, and carts rumbled

along its ruts; women with their heads wrapped in kerchiefs paused on theirway to market to stare at us. A flier like a great locust thrummed overhead; Iwatched it until it was out of sight, feeling the ghost of the strange wind blownfrom the pentadactyls that had attacked our cavalry at Orithyia.

"You don't see many anymore, sieur," Hadelin remarked with a gruffness Ihad not yet learned to recognize as deference. "Most won't fly now."I confessed I had never seen any like that at all.

We turned a corner and had a fine view down the hill: the dark stone quayand the ships and boats moored there, and broad Gyoll beyond, its waterglittering in the sun and its farther bank lost behind shining mist. "We mustbe well below Thrax," I said to Burgundofara, confusing her for a momentwith Gunnie, to whom I had told something of Thrax.

She turned, smiling, and attempted to take my arm. Hadelin said, "A goodweek, unless the wind's with you all the way. Safe here. Surprised you know ofa country place like that."

By the time we reached the quay, a crowd trailed after us, keeping well backfor the most part but whispering and pointing at Zama and me. Burgundofaratried to drive them off, and when she failed appealed to me to do it.

"Why?" I said. "We'll sail soon enough."

An old woman cried out to Zama and rushed up to embrace him. He smiled,and it was clear she meant no harm. A moment later I saw him nod when shebegged to know if he was all right, and I asked whether she was hisgrandmother.

She made a countrified curtsy. "Oh, no, sieur. But I knew her and all thechildren in the old days. When I heard Zama was dead, I felt like a piece ofme'd died with him."

"So it had," I told her.

Sailors came to take our sarcins, and I realized I had been watching Zama andthe old woman so intently I had never spared a glance for Hadelin's vessel. Shewas a xebec and looked handy enough— I have always been lucky in my ships.Already aboard, Hadelin motioned to us.

The old woman clung to Zama, tears rolling down her cheeks. As I watched,he wiped one away and said, "Don't cry, Mafalda." It was the only time hespoke.

The autochthons say that their cattle can speak but do not, knowing that tospeak is to call up demons, all our words being only curses in the tongue of theempyrean. Zama's seemed so in fact. The crowd parted as waves separate forthe terrible jaws of a kronosaur, and Ceryx advanced through it.

His iron-shod staff was topped with a rotting human head, his lean framedraped in raw manskin; but when I saw his eyes I wondered that he botheredwith such trumpery, as one wonders to see a lovely woman decked with glassbeads and gowned in false silk. I had not known him so great a mage.Impelled by the training of my boyhood, I took the knife Burgundofara putinto my hand and saluted him before the Increate should judge between us,the flat of the blade before my face.

No doubt he thought I meant to kill him, as Burgundofara was demanding. Hespoke into his left hand and made ready to cast the poisoned spell.Zama changed. Not slowly, as such things occur in tales, but with a suddennessmore frightful he was again the dead man who had burst into our room. Therewas a cry from the crowd, like the shriek of a troop of apes.

Ceryx would have fled, but they closed before him like a wall. Perhapssomeone held him, or obstructed him intentionally; I do not know. In aninstant Zama was upon him, and I heard his neck break as a bone snaps in thejaws of a dog.

For a breath the two lay together, the dead man on the dead man; then Zamarose, living once more and now alive fully, or so it appeared. I watched himrecognize the old woman and me, and his lips parted. Half a dozen bladespierced him before he could speak.

By the time I reached him, he was less a man than a gobbet of bleeding flesh.Blood spurted in weakening streams from his throat; no doubt his heart stillbeat under its welter of blood, though his chest had been opened with abillhook. I stood over him and tried to call him to life yet again. The eyes of thehead on Ceryx's fallen staff rolled in their putrid sockets to stare at me;sickened, I turned away, wondering to find myself, a torturer, grown so cruel.Someone took my hand and led me toward the ship. As we went up the shakygangplank, I discovered it was Burgundofara.

Hadelin received us among hurrying sailors. "They got him that time, sieur.Last night we were all afraid to strike first. Daylight makes a difference."I shook my head. "They killed him because he was no longer dangerous tothem, Captain."

Burgundofara whispered, "He ought to lie down. It takes a great deal out ofhim."

Hadelin pointed to a door under the sun deck. "If you'll go below, sieur. I'llshow you the cabin. It's not big, but— "

I shook my head again. There were benches on either side of the door, and Iasked to rest there. Burgundofara went to look at the cabin while I sat tryingto wipe the image of Zama's face from my eyes and watching the crew makeready to cast off. One of the sun-browned rivermen seemed familiar; but I,who can forget nothing, sometimes have difficulty in bringing the quarry tobay in a memory that grows ever more vast.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE - ABOARD THE ALCYONE

SHE WAS a xebec, low in the water and narrow at the waist. Her foremastcarried an immense lateen sail, her pole mainmast three square sails thatcould be dropped to the main deck for reefing, and her mizzen a gaffsail, witha square topsail above it. Her gaffsail boom was lengthened by a flagstaff, sothat on festive occasions (and such it appeared Hadelin considered our

departure to be) an overwrought banner could be hung over the water. Flagsof like design, representing no nation on Urth so far as I knew, flapped fromthe tops.

In truth, there is something irresistibly festive about a sailing, provided ittakes place in daylight and good weather. At every moment it seemed to methat we were about to depart, and at every moment my heart grew lighter. Ifelt it was wrong to be happy, that I should be miserable and exhausted, asindeed I had been when I looked down at poor Zama's body and for some timeafter. Yet I could not continue so. I pulled up the hood of my cloak as I hadonce drawn up the hood of my guild cloak when I strode smiling down theWater Way to exile, and although this cloak (which I had taken from mystateroom on Tzadkiel's ship upon a morning that now seemed as remote asthe first dawn of Urth) was fuligin purely by chance, I smiled once more at therealization that the Water Way stretched along this very river and the waterlapping our sides must soon wash its dark curbs.

Afraid Burgundofara might return or that some sailor would glimpse my face,I climbed the few steps to the quarterdeck and discovered we had put outwhile I sat alone with my thoughts. Os was already far behind us, and wouldhave been out of sight had not the atmosphere been as clear as hyalite. Itswretched lanes and vicious people I knew well enough; but the sparklingmorning air made its staggering wall and tumbledown towers seem those ofjust such an enchanted town as I had seen in Thecla's brown book. Iremembered the story, of course, as I remember everything; and I began totell it to myself, leaning over the railing and whispering the words as I watchedthe fading town, lulled by the easy rocking of our vessel, which heeled scarcelyat all under the slightest of breezes.

THE TALE OF THE TOWN THAT FORGOT

FAUNA

Long ago, when the plow was new, nine men journeyed up a river in search ofa site upon which to establish a new city. After many a day of weary rowingthrough mere wilderness, they came upon a place where an old woman hadbuilt a hut of sticks and planted a garden.

There they beached their boat, for the supplies they had carried with themwere gone, and for many days they had eaten only such fish as they couldcatch in the river and drunk only river water. The old woman, whose namewas Fauna, gave them mead and ripe melons, beans white, black, and red;carrots and turnips; cucumbers as thick as your arm; and apples, cherries,and apricots.

That night they slept before her fire; and in the morning, as they walked overthe land eating its grapes and strawberries, they saw that everything needed tobuild a great city was there, where stone could be floated down from themountains upon rafts of logs, where there was good water in abundance andthe rich soil engendered a green birth from every seed.

Then they held a council. Some urged that they should kill the old woman.Others, more merciful, that they should only drive her away. Still othersproposed that they should trick her by this means or that.

But their leader was a pious man who said, "If we do any of these evil things,you may be sure the Increate will not permit it to pass without notice, for shehas welcomed us and given us of all she possesses except her land. Let us offerour money for that. It may be she will accept it, not knowing the value of whatshe has."

So they polished each brass or copper bit, put them into a bag, and offered itto the old woman. But she refused, for she loved her home.

"Let her be tied, and laid into one of her own tubs," some said. "Then we willonly have to push the tub into the current, and we will be rid of her; andwhich of us will have her blood upon his hands?"

Their leader shook his head. "Surely her ghost would haunt our new town,"he told them. And so they added their silver to the money in the sack andoffered it again; but the old woman refused as before.

"She is old," one said, "and in the course of nature she must die soon. I willremain here to care for her while you return to your families. When she isdead I will return also, bearing the news."

At this the leader shook his head, for he saw murder in the speaker's eyes; andat last they added their gold (which was not much) to the money already in thebag and offered that to the old woman as well. But she, who loved her home,refused just as before.

Then their leader said, "Tell us what you will take for this place. For I warnyou we will have it by one means or another, and I cannot much longerrestrain the rest." At that the old woman thought long and hard; and at lastshe said, "When you build your town, you must put a garden in the midst of it,with trees that blossom and fruit, and humble plants likewise. And in thecenter of this garden you must erect a statue of me made of precious stuffs."To this they readily agreed, and when they returned to the place with theirwives and children, the old woman was no more to be seen. Her hut, herdovecotes, and her rabbit hutches they used for firewood, and they feasted onher produce while they built their town. But in the center of it, as they hadsworn, they made a garden; and though it was not a large garden, theypromised to make it bigger by and by. In the middle of this garden, theyerected a statue of painted wood.

Years passed; the paint peeled away, and the wood cracked. Weeds sprang upin the flower beds, though there were always a few old women who pulledthem out and planted marigolds and hollyhocks, and scattered crumbs for thedoves that perched on the shoulders of the wooden figure.

The town gave itself a grand name and grew walls and towers, though its wallswere but little walls to keep out beggars, and owls nested in the emptyguardrooms of its towers. Its grand name was not used by travelers orfarmers, the former calling the place Pestis and the latter Urbis. Yet manymerchants and many outlanders settled there, and it grew until it reached theheels of the mountains, and the farmers sold their fields and meadows andwere rich.

At last a certain merchant purchased the weedy little garden in the center ofthe Old Quarter and built godowns and shops upon its flower beds. He burnedthe gnarled old apples and mulberries in his own fireplaces, for wood wasdear; and when he burned the wooden woman, ants fled from her to explodeamong the coals.

When the harvest was poor, the town fathers took what corn there was and

shared it out at the price paid the year before; but a year came when theharvest failed. The merchants demanded to know by what right the fathers ofthe town did this, for they desired to sell what corn there was for the price itwould bring.

Prompted by the merchants, the town's many poor asked too, demandingbread at public cost. Then the town fathers recalled that their own fathers hadtaught them the name by which they governed the town, but none could laytongue to it. There was fighting and many fires— but no bread— and beforethe last fire had smoldered out, many had left the town to search for berriesand hunt rabbits.

That town lies in ruins now, all its towers cast down; yet it is said that one oldwoman remains, who has made a garden at its center among the tumbledwalls.

When I murmured the words I have just written here, Os had nearlyvanished; but I remained where I was, leaning on the rail of the littlequarterdeck near the stempost, looking back along the upper river that laygleaming to the north and east.

This part of Gyoll, below Thrax but above Nessus, is as different from thatbelow Nessus as can be imagined. Though it carries already its burden of siltfrom the mountains, it flows too swiftly to foul its channel; and because it doesnot, and is hemmed by rocky hills on either side, it runs as straight as a sparfor a hundred leagues.

Our sails had brought us to the center of the flood, where the current will beara vessel three leagues in a watch; close-hauled, they gave us just enough wayfor the rudder to bite the swirling water. The upper world was fair andsmiling and full of sunshine, though in the farthest east there was a patch ofblack no bigger than my thumb. From time to time the breeze that filled oursails died away, and the strange, stiff flags ceased their uneasy stirring and felllifelessly to the masts.

I had been aware of two sailors crouched nearby but had assumed they wereon watch, waiting to trim the mizzen (our mizzenmast extended through thesun deck) if the need arose. When I turned at last, thinking to go to the bow,they were looking up at me; and I recognized both.

"We've disobeyed you, sieur," Declan muttered. "But we did it because welove you for our lives. We beg you to forgive us." He could not meet my eyes.Herena nodded. "My arm ached to follow you, sieur. It will cook and washand sweep for you— do whatever you order it to do."

When I said nothing, she added, "It's only my feet that rebel. They won'tstand idle when you go away."

Declan said, "We heard the doom you laid on Os. I can't write, sieur, but Iremember it all, and I'll find someone who can. Your curse upon that evil citywon't be forgotten."

I sat on the deck before them. "It isn't always good to leave your native place."Herena held out her cupped hand— the hand I had shaped for her— thenturned it upside down. "How can it be good to find the master of Urth and losehim again? Besides, I'd have been taken if I'd stayed with Mother. But I'dfollow you anywhere, though an optimate waited to wed me."

"Did your father follow me too? Or any others? You can't remain with meunless you'll tell me the truth."

"I'd never lie to you, sieur. No, no others. I would have known them."

"Did you really follow me, Herena? Or did you and Declan run ahead of us,just as you ran ahead of us after you'd seen us land from the flying ship?"Declan said, "She didn't mean to lie, sieur. She's a good girl. It was just amanner of speaking."

"I know that. But did you go ahead of me?"

Declan nodded. "Yes, sieur, we did. She told me the woman had been talkingabout going to Os the day before. So when you wouldn't let any of us go withyou yesterday..." He paused, rubbing his grizzled chin and ruminating on thedecision that had caused him to leave his native village.

"We went first, sieur," Herena finished simply. "You said nobody but thewoman was to come with you and nobody could follow you. But you didn't saywe couldn't go to Os at all. We left while Anian and Ceallach were making astaff for you."

"So you arrived before we did. And you talked to people, didn't you? You toldthem what had happened in your villages."

"We didn't mean any harm, sieur," Herena said.

Declan nodded. "I didn't. That's what she should say. It wasn't really her thattalked, not until they asked her. It was me, though I've always been so slowwith my words. Only I'm not, sieur, when I'm talking about you." He drew inbreath, then burst out, "I've been beaten before, sieur. Twice by the taxgatherers, once by the law. The second time I was the only man in Gurgustiithat fought, and they left me for dead. But if you want to punish me, all youhave to do is tell me. I'll jump into the water right now if you tell me to,though I can't swim."

I shook my head. "You meant no harm, Declan. Thanks to you, Ceryx learnedabout me, and poor Zama had to die a second death, and a third. But whetherall that came to good or evil, I don't know. Until we reach the end of time, wedon't know whether something's been good or bad; we can only judge theintentions of those who acted. How did you learn that I was going to take thisship?"

The wind was rising; Herena drew her stola more closely around her. "We'dgone to sleep, sieur— "

"In an inn?"

Declan cleared his throat. "No, sieur, it was in a tun. We thought it would keepthe rain off if it rained. Then too I could sleep at the open end and her in thebutt, so there couldn't anyone get at her without passing me. There was somepeople that didn't want us to, but when I had explained how it was to them,they let us."

"He knocked two of them down," Herena said, "but I don't think he hurtthem, sieur. They got back up and ran away."

"Then, sieur, when we'd been asleep for a while, a boy came and woke me. Hewas a potboy, sieur, at the inn where you were, and he wanted to tell me abouthow you were staying there and he'd served you and you'd brought back adead man. So then she and I went up to see. There was a lot of people in thetaproom, all talking about what had gone on, and some that knew us becausewe'd told them about you before. Like the potboy, sieur. They stood us alebecause we didn't have any money, and we got boiled eggs and salt that wasfree to drinkers there. And she heard a man say you and the woman was goingon the Alcyonetomorrow."

Herena nodded. "So this morning we came. Our tun wasn't far from the dock,sieur, and I got Declan up as soon as it was light. The captain wasn't there yet,but there was a man he'd left in charge, and when we said we'd work if they'dtake us, he said all right, and we helped carry things. We saw you come, sieur,and what happened on the bank, and we've tried to stay close to you eversince."

I nodded, but I was looking toward the bow. Hadelin and Burgundofara hadcome up and were standing on the forecastle deck. The wind pressed herragged sailor clothes against her, and I wondered to see how slender she was,remembering Gunnie's heavy, muscular body.

Declan whispered hoarsely, "That woman— Down under this floor here, sieur,with the captain— "

"I know," I told him. "They lay together last night too, at the inn. I have noclaim on her. She's free to do as she wishes."

Burgundofara turned for a moment, glancing up at the sails (which were fullnow as though big with child) and laughing at something Hadelin had said toher.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR - SALTUS AGAIN

BEFORE NOON we were racing along like a yacht. The wind sang in therigging, and the first big drops of rain spattered the ship like paint flung at hercanvas. From my position by the quarterdeck rail, I watched the mizzentopand main topgallant struck and the remainder of our hamper reefed again andagain. When Hadelin came to me, excessively polite, to suggest I go below, Iasked him if it would not be wise to tie up.

"Can't, sieur. There's no harbor between here and Saltus, sieur. Wind'd beachus if I tied to the bank, sieur. A blow's coming, sieur, it is indeed. We've rodeout worse, sieur." He dashed away to belabor the mizzen gang and shoutobscenities at the helmsman.

I went forward. I knew there was a chance I would soon be drowned, but I wasenjoying the wind and found I did not greatly care. Whether my life had cometo its end or not, I had both succeeded and failed. I had brought a New Sunthat could not possibly cross the gulf of space in my lifetime— nor in that ofany infant born in mine. If we reached Nessus, I would reclaim the PhoenixThrone, scrutinize the acts of the suzerain who had replaced Father Inire (forI felt sure the "monarch" mentioned by the villagers could not be Inire), and

reward or punish him as his conduct deserved. I would then live out theremainder of my life amid the sterile pomp of the House Absolute or thehorrors of battlefields; and if I ever wrote an account of it, as I had theaccount of my rise whose final disposal began this narrative, there would belittle of interest in it once I had described the termination of this voyage.The wind snapped my cloak like a banner and made our lateen foresail flaplike the wings of some monstrous bird as the tapered yard bent again andagain to spill the blasts. The foresail had been reefed to the last point, and withevery gust Alcyoneshied toward Gyoll's rocky shore like a skittish steed. Themate stood with one hand on the backstay, watching the sail and cursing asmonotonously as a barrel organ. When he caught sight of me, he stoppedabruptly and mouthed, " May I speak with you, sieur? "He looked absurd doffing his cap in that wind; I smiled as I nodded. "Isuppose you can't furl the foresail without making her harder to steer?"It was just at that moment that the full fury of the storm descended on us.Though so much of her hamper had been struck or reefed, Alcyonewas laid onher beam ends. When she righted herself (and to the glory of her builders, shedid right herself) the water all around us was boiling with hail, and thedrumming of the hailstones on her decks was deafening. The mate sprinted forthe overhang of the sundeck. I followed him and was startled to see him fall tohis knees as soon as he had gained its shelter.

"Sieur, don't let her sink! I don't want it for me, sieur, I got a wife— twobabies— only married last year, sieur. We— "I asked, "What makes you think I can save your ship?"

"It's the captain, ain't it, sieur? I'll see to him, soon as it gets dark." Hefingered the hilt of the long dirk at his side. "I got a couple hands that's sure tostand by me, sieur. I'll do it— I swear it to you, sieur."

"You're talking mutiny," I said. "And nonsense." The ship rolled again untilone end of the main yard was under water. "I can no more raise storms— "I was addressing no one. He had bolted from beneath the overhanging deckand vanished into the hail and pouring rain. I seated myself once more on thenarrow bench from which I had watched the ship loaded. Or rather, I rushedthrough the void as I had been rushing through the void since Burgundofaraand I had leaped into the black emptiness under that strange dome on Yesod;and as I did, I made the lay figure I moved with strings that might havestrangled half Briah sit upon the bench.

In the space of a dozen breaths, or a hundred, the mate returned with Herenaand Declan. He knelt again, while they crouched at my feet.

"Stop the storm, sieur," Herena pleaded. "You were kind to us before. Youwon't die, but we will— Declan and me. I know we've offended you, but wemeant well and we beg you to forgive us."

Declan nodded mutely.

I told them all, "Violent thunderstorms are common in autumn. This one willsoon pass, like other storms."

Declan began, "Sieur..."

"What is it?" I asked him. "There's no reason you shouldn't speak."

"We saw you. She and I did. We were up there where you left us when the raincame. The mate here, he ran. You walked, sieur. You walked, and the hail

didn't hit you. Look at my clothes, sieur, or hers."

"What do you mean, Declan?"

The mate mumbled, "They're soaked, sieur. So'm I. But feel your cloak, sieur,feel your cheeks."

I did, and they were dry.

When it is confronted with the incredible, the mind flies to the commonplace;the only explanation I could think of was that the fabric was of some externweave that could not be wet, and that my face had been shielded by the hood. Ipushed it back and stepped out into the waist.

With my face turned to the wind, I could see rain streaming toward my eyesand hear the whizzing hail as it passed my ears; but no hailstone ever struckme, and my face and hands and cloak remained dry. It was as though thewords— the foolish words, as I had always believed— of the munis had becometruth, and all I saw and heard was mere illusion.

Almost against my will, I whispered to the storm. I had thought to speak asmen speak to men, but I found that my lips produced the sounds of soft wind,of distant thunder rolling among the hills, and of the gentle tympanation of therain of Yesod.

A moment passed, then another. The thunder rumbled away, and the windfell. A few hailstones, like pebbles flung by a child, plopped into the river. Iknew that with those few words I had called the storm back into myself, andthe feeling was indescribable. Earlier I had somehow sent forth my feelings,and they had become a monster as wild as I was then, a monster with thestrength of ten thousand giants. Now they were only feelings again, and I wasangry again as I had been angry before, and not least angry because I was nolonger certain where the line ran between this strange, sordid world of Urthand myself. Was the wind my breath? Or was my breath the wind? Was it therush of my blood or the song of Gyoll that sounded in my ears? I would havecursed, but I feared what my curse might do.

"Thank you, sieur. Thank you!"

It was the mate, kneeling again and ready to kiss my boot if I had been readyto permit it. I made him rise instead and told him that there was to be nomurder of Captain Hadelin. In the end I was forced to make him swear it,because I could see that he— like Declan or Herena— would cheerfully haveacted in what he felt to be my cause in direct disobedience to my orders. I hadbecome a miracle monger whether I liked it or not, and miracle mongers arenot obeyed as are Autarchs.

Of the remainder of that day, as long as the light lasted, there is little to say. Ithought much, but I did nothing but wander once or twice from thequarterdeck to the forecastle deck and back, and watch the riverbanks slideby. Herena and Declan, and indeed all the crew, left me strictly alone; butwhen Urth seemed about to touch the red sun, I called Declan to me andpointed toward the eastern shore, now brilliantly illuminated.

"Do you see those trees?" I asked. "Some are in ranks and files like soldiers,some in clusters, and some in triangles interlaced. Are those orchards?"He shook his head sadly. "I'd my own trees, sieur. Nothing from them thisyear but green apples for cooking."

"But those areorchards?"

He nodded.

"And on the west bank too? Are those orchards as well?"

"The banks are too steep for fields, sieur. If you plow them, the rain washeseverything away. But they do well enough in fruit trees."

Half to myself I said, "Once I stopped at a village called Saltus. There were afew fields and a few cattle, but it wasn't until I got farther north that I sawmuch fruit."

Hadelin's voice surprised me. "Strange you should mention that. Dock atSaltus in half a watch, sieur."

He looked like a boy who knows he is to be beaten. I sent Declan away and toldHadelin he had nothing to fear, that I had indeed been angry with him andwith Burgundofara too, but that I was angry no longer.

"Thank you, sieur. Thank you." He turned aside for a moment, then lookedback, meeting my eyes, and said something that required as much moralcourage as anything I have ever heard. "You must think we were laughing atyou, sieur. We weren't. In the Chowder Pot, we thought you'd been killed.Then down in your cabin, we couldn't help it. We were pulled together. Shelooked at me and me at her. It happened before we knew. Thought we weregoing to die, after, and I s'pose we nearly did."

I told him, "You have nothing more to worry about."

"I'd best go below and talk to her, then."

I went forward, but soon discovered that close-hauled as we were the view wasactually better from the quarterdeck, which was higher. I was standing there,studying the northwestern bank, when Hadelin came back, this time bringingBurgundofara. When she saw me, she released his hand and went to thefarther side of the deck.

"If you're looking for the spot where we're going to dock, sieur, it's justcoming into sight. Can you see it? Look for the smoke, sieur. Not the houses."

"I see it now."

"They'll be fixing dinner for us in Saltus, sieur. A good inn's there."I answered, "I know," thinking as I did how Jonas and I had walked therethrough the forest after the uhlans had scattered our party at the PiteousGate, of finding the wine in our ewer, and many other things. The village itselfseemed larger than I remembered. I had thought most of the houses stone;these were wood.

I looked for the stake to which Morwenna had been chained when I had firstspoken with her. As the crew struck our sails and we glided into the little bay,I found the patch of waste ground where it had stood, but there were no stakeand no chain.

I searched my memory, which is perfect, except perhaps for a few slight lapsesand distortions. I recalled the stake and the soft clinking of the chain whenMorwenna raised her hands in supplication, the way the midges buzzed andbit, and Barnoch's house, all built of mine stone.

"It's been a long time," I told Hadelin.

Sailors loosed the halyards, sail after sail dropped to the deck, and with theway remaining to her, the Alcyoneslid toward her berth; hands with boathooks stood on the grating decks that extended behind the sundeck andbeyond the forecastle, ready to fend us from the wharf or draw us to it.They were hardly needed. Half a dozen loungers scurried out to catch ourlines and make them fast, and the helmsman laid us alongside so smoothly thatthe fenders of old cordage hanging from Alcyone's quarter merely kissed the

timbers.

"Terrible storm today, Cap'n," one of the loungers called. "Just cleared awaya bit ago. Water up over the street here. You're lucky you missed it."

"We didn't," Hadelin said.

I went ashore half-convinced that there were two villages with the samename— perhaps Saltus and New Saltus, or something of the sort.

When I reached the inn it was not as I recalled it; yet it was not so verydifferent, either. The courtyard and its well were much the same; so were thewide gates that let in riders and carts. I took a seat in the public. room andordered supper from an innkeeper I did not recognize, wondering all the whilewhether Burgundofara and Hadelin would sit with me.

Neither did; but after a time Herena and Declan came to my table, bringingwith them the brawny sailor who had manned the aft boat hook and a greasy,close-faced woman they said was the ship's cook. I invited them to sit down,which they did only reluctantly and after making it quite clear that they wouldnot permit me to buy them food or wine. I asked the sailor (who I assumedmust have stopped here often) if there were no mines in the area. He told me ashaft had been driven into a hillside about a year ago upon the advice of ahatif that had whispered in the ears of several of the principal citizens of thevillage, and that a few interesting and valuable items had been brought to thesurface.

From the street outside we heard the tramp of booted feet, halted by a sharpcommand. They reminded me of the kelau who had marched singing from theriver through that Saltus to which I had come as an exiled journeyman, and Iwas about to mention them in the hope of leading the conversation to the warwith Ascia when the door burst open and a gaudily uniformed officer stalkedin, followed by a squad of fusiliers.

The room had been abuzz with talk; it fell deathly still. The officer shouted tothe innkeeper, "Show me the man you call the Conciliator!"

Burgundofara, who had been sitting with Hadelin at another table, rose andpointed to me.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE - NESSUS AGAIN

WHEN I LIVED among the torturers, I often saw clients beaten. Not by us,for we inflicted only such punishments as had been decreed, but by thesoldiers who conveyed them to us and took them from us. The moreexperienced shielded their heads and faces with their arms, and their bellies

with their shins; it leaves the spine exposed, but little can be done to protectthe spine in any case.

Outside the inn I tried to fight at first, and it seems probable that the worst ofmy beating took place after I lost consciousness. (Or rather, when themarionette I manipulated from afar had.) When I became aware of Urthagain, the blows still rained down, and I tried to do as those unlucky clientshad.

The fusiliers used their boots and, what were much more dangerous, the iron-shod butts of their fusils. The flashes of pain I felt seemed remote; I was awaremostly of the blows, each sudden, jolting, and unnatural.

At last it was over, and the officer ordered me to rise; I floundered and fell,was kicked, tried again, and fell again; a rawhide noose was slipped aroundmy neck, and I was lifted with that. It strangled me, yet helped me balance too.My mouth was full of blood; I spit it out again and again, wondering whethera rib had punctured my lungs.

Four fusiliers lay in the street, and I recalled that I had wrested his weaponfrom one, but had been unable to release the catch that would have allowed itto fire— on such small matters do our lives turn. Some comrades of the fourexamined them and found that three were dead.

"You killed them!" the officer shouted at me.

I spat blood in his face.

It was not a rational act, and I expected another beating for it. Perhaps Iwould have received one, but there were a hundred people or more around us,watching by the light that streamed from the windows of the inn. Theymuttered and stirred, and it seemed to me that a few of the soldiers felt as theydid, reminding me of the guardsmen in Dr. Tabs's play who had sought toprotect Meschiane, who was Dorcas and the mother of us all.

A litter was contrived for the injured fusilier, and two village men pressed intoservice to carry it. A cart filled with straw sufficed for the dead. The officer,the remaining fusiliers, and I walked ahead of them to the wharf, a distance ofa few hundred paces.

Once, when I fell, two men dashed out of the crowd to help me up. Until I wasagain on my feet, I supposed that they were Declan and the sailor, or perhapsDeclan and Hadelin; but when I gasped my thanks to them, I found that theywere strangers. The incident seemed to enrage the officer, who fired his pistolinto the ground at their feet to warn them away when I fell a second time, andkicked me until I rose again with the aid of the noose and the fusilier who heldit.

The Alcyonelay at the wharf, just as we had left her; but alongside her wassuch a craft as I had never seen before, with a mast that looked too slight tocarry sail, and a swivel gun on her foredeck far smaller than the Samru's.Seeing the gun and the sailors manning it seemed to put new heart into theofficer. He made me stop and face the crowd, and ordered me to point out myfollowers. I told him I had none and that I knew none of the people before me.He struck me with his pistol then. When I got up once more, I sawBurgundofara near enough to have touched me. The officer repeated hisdemand, and she vanished into the darkness.

Perhaps he struck me again when I refused again, but I do not recall it; I rodeabove the horizon, futilely directing my vitality toward the broken figuresprawled so far away. The void put it at naught, and I channeled Urth's

energies instead. His bones knit, and his wounds healed; but I noted withdismay that the cheek torn by the pistol sight was that which Agia's iron clawhad once torn too. It was as if the old injury had reasserted itself, only slightlyweakened.

It was still night. Smooth wood supported me, but leaped and pounded asthough lashed to the back of the most graceless destrier that ever galloped. Isat up and found I was aboard a ship, and that I had lain in a puddle of myown blood and spew; my ankle was chained to a staple. A fusilier stood nearbywith one hand on a stanchion, keeping his balance with difficulty on that wilddeck. I asked him for water. As I had learned when I marched through thejungle with Vodalus, when one is a captive it does no harm to ask favors— theyare not often granted, but when they are refused nothing is lost.

This principle was confirmed when (to my surprise) my guard lurched offtoward the stern and returned with a bucket of river water. I stood, cleanedmyself and my clothing as thoroughly as I could, and began to take an interestin my surroundings, which were in fact novel enough.

The storm had cleared the sky, and the stars shone on Gyoll as though theNew Sun had been flourished across the empyrean like a torch, leaving a trailof sparks. Green Lune peered from behind towers and domes silhouetted onthe western bank.

Without sails or oars, we skipped like a thrown stone down the river. Feluccasand caravels with all sail set appeared to ride at anchor in midchannel; wedarted among them as a swallow flits between megaliths. Aft, two gleamingplumes of spray rose as high as the barren mast silver walls erected anddemolished in a moment.

Not far away I heard guttural, half-formed sounds that might almost havebeen words. It was as if some suffering beast sought to speak, and then towhisper. Another man lay on the deck near where I had lain, and a thirdcrouched over him. My chain would not let me reach them; I knelt to add thelength of my calf to it, and thus got close enough to see them as well as theycould be seen in the darkness.

Both were fusiliers. The first lay on his back, unmoving yet twisted as if inagony, his expression a hideous grimace. When he noticed me he tried to speakagain, and the other man murmured, "It's right, Eskil. Doesn't matter now."I said, "Your friend's neck has been broken."

He answered, "You should know, vates."

"I broke it, then. I thought so."

Eskil made some strangled sound, and his comrade bent over him to listen.

"He wants me to kill him," he told me when he straightened up again. "He'sbeen asking for the last watch— ever since we put out."

"Do you intend to do it?"

"I don't know." His fusil had been across his chest; as he spoke, he laid it onthe deck, holding it there with one hand. I saw light glint on the oiled barrel.

"He'll die soon no matter what you do. You'll feel better afterward if you lethim die naturally."

I would have said more, perhaps, but Eskil's left hand was moving, and I fellsilent to watch it. Like a crippled spider it crept toward the fusil, and at lastclosed on it and drew it toward him. His comrade could have taken it backeasily; but he did not, and seemed as fascinated as I.

Slowly, with an infinity of pain and labor, Eskil lifted and turned it until itsbarrel was directed toward me. Dimly by starlight, I watched his stiff fingers,fumbling, fumbling.

As the striker, so the stricken. Earlier I might have saved myself, if only Icould have discovered the catch that would have permitted the weapon to fire.He who knew so well where it was and how it operated would have killed me,could only he have made his numb fingers release it. Impotent both, we staredat each other.

At last his strength could no longer support the weight of the fusil. It fellclattering to the deck, and I felt that my heart would burst for pity. In thatmoment I would have pulled the trigger myself. My lips moved— but I scarcelyknew what it was I said.

Eskil sat up and stared.

As he did, our vessel slowed. The deck sank until it was nearly level, and theplumes of water behind us vanished as a wave does that breaks on the beach. Istood up to see where we were; Eskil stood too, and soon the friend who hadnursed him and my guard joined us.

The embankment of Gyoll rose to our left, cutting off the night sky like theblade of a sword. We drifted along it almost in silence, the roaring of whateverengines they had been that had propelled us with such speed muffled now.Steps descended to the water, but there were no friendly hands to tie us up. Asailor leaped from the bow to do it, and another threw him our mooring line.A moment more and a gangplank stretched from ship to stair.

The officer appeared at the stern, flanked by fusiliers with torches. He haltedto stare at Eskil, then called all three soldiers to him. They held a longconference in tones too faint for me to hear.

At last the officer and my guard approached me, followed by the men withtorches. After a breath or two the officer said, "Take off his shirt."Eskil and his friend came to stand beside us. Eskil said, "You must removeyour shirt, sieur. If you don't we'll have to tear it off."

To test him I asked, "Would you do that?"

He shrugged, and I unfastened the fine cloak I had taken from the ship ofTzadkiel and let it fall to the deck, then pulled the shirt over my head anddropped it on the cloak.

The officer came nearer and made me turn so that he could examine my ribson both sides. "You should be nearly dead," he muttered. And then, "It's true,what they tell of you."

"Since I don't know what's been said, I can neither confirm nor deny it."

"I'm not asking you to. Dress yourself again. I advise it."

I looked around for my cloak and shirt, but they were gone.

The officer sighed. "Somebody's filched them— one of the sailors, I suppose."He glanced toward Eskil's friend. "You must have seen it, Tanco."

"I was looking at his face, sieur, not at his clothes. But I'll try to find them."The officer nodded. "Take Eskil with you." At a gesture from him, one of thetorchbearers handed his torch to the other and bent to free my leg.

"They won't find them," the officer told me. "There are a thousand hidingholes on a boat like this, and the crew will know them all."

I told him I was not cold.

The officer slipped off his uniform cape. "The man who took them will cut

them up and sell the pieces, I imagine. He should make something from them.Wear this— I've got another one in my cabin."

I disliked taking his cape, but it would have been foolish to refuse hisgenerosity.

"I must fetter your hands. Regulations." The manacles gleamed like silver inthe torchlight; still, they bit into my wrists like others.

The four of us crossed the gangplank to water stairs that seemed nearly new,mounted them, and marched in single file up a narrow street bordered withlittle gardens and rambling houses mostly of a single story: a torchbearer first,I following him, the officer behind me with his drawn pistol hanging at hisside, and the second torchbearer bringing up the rear. A laborer on his wayhome stopped to stare at us; other than he, there was no one about.I looked over my shoulder to ask the officer where he was taking me.

"To the old port. One of the hulks there has been fitted up to hold prisoners."

"And then?"

I could not see him, but I could visualize his shrug. "I don't know. My orderswere to arrest you and bring you here."

So far as I could see, "here" was a public garden. Before we walked into thedarkness beneath the trees, I looked up and beheld myself through their frost-blighted leaves.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX - THE CITADEL AGAIN

IT WAS MY hope to see the old sun rise before I was locked away. That wasnot to be. For a long time, or at least for what felt like a long time, we climbeda gentle hill. More than once our torches set fire to raddled leaves overheadthat ignited a few others, releasing the pungent smoke that is the very breathof autumn before they smoldered out. More leaves strewed the path we trod,but they were sodden with rain.

At last we came to a brooding wall so lofty that the light of our torches failedto reveal its summit, so that for a moment I took it for the Wall of Nessus. Aman in half armor leaned on the shaft of his vouge before the dark and narrowarchway of a sally port in the wall. When he caught sight of us, he did notstraighten his stance, or show any other sign of respect for the officer; butwhen we had traced the path almost to his feet, he pounded the iron door withthe steel-shod butt of his weapon.

The door was opened from within. As we passed through the thickness of thewall— which was great, but not nearly so great as that of the Wall of Nessus— I

stopped so suddenly that the officer behind me collided with me. The guardwithin was armed with a long, double-edged sword, whose squared tip hepermitted to rest upon the paving stones.

"Where am I?" I asked the officer. "What is this place?"

"Where I told you I would bring you," he answered. "There is the hulk."I looked and saw a mighty tower, all of gleaming metal. The guard drawled,

"He's afraid of my blade. She has a good edge, fellow— you'll never feel it."The officer snapped, "You will address this prisoner as sieur."

"While you're here, sieur, perhaps."

What the officer might have said or done to him then, I do not know; whilethey spoke a woman had come out of the tower, followed by a serving boy witha lantern. The officer saluted this woman, who by the richness of her uniformwas of superior rank, in the most negligent fashion and said, "You find sleepdifficult, I see."

"Not at all. Your message said you would come, and I know you for a man ofyour word. I prefer to inspect our new clients personally. Turn about, fellow,and let me see you."

I did as she bid.

"A fine specimen, and you haven't marked him at all. He didn't resist?"The officer said, "We present you with a tabula rasa."

When he added nothing further, one of the soldiers with torches whispered,

"He fought like a devil, Madame Prefect." The officer shot him a glance thatindicated he would pay for the remark.

"With such a docile client," the woman continued, "I'll hardly need you andyour men to get him to a cell, I suppose?"

The officer said, "We'll lock him up for you, if you wish."

"But if you don't, you'll have to have his irons now."

He shrugged. "I've signed for them."

"Take them, then." She turned to her serving boy. "He may try to escape us,Reechy. If he does, give me your lantern and retake him"

The officer murmured, " Don't," as he freed my hands, then stepped away andmade me a quick salute. The man with the sword grinned and swung back thenarrow sally port door, the officer and his torchbearers filed out, and the doorshut with a crash. I felt I had lost my only friend.

"That way, a Hundred and Two," the woman said, and pointed toward thedoorway through which she had come.

I had been looking about, at first with the hope of escape, then with a numbastonishment I cannot possibly describe. Words burst from me; I could nomore have held them back than I could have silenced my heart. " That's our

Matachin Tower! That one's the Witches' Keep— but it's straight now! And

there's the Bear Tower! "

"You're called a holy man," she said. "I see you're wholly deranged." As shespoke, she held out her hands so I could see she was not armed, and gave me atwisted smile that would have been enough warning if the officer had notwarned me already. It was plain the ragged boy had no weapon and posed nothreat; she, I imagined, had a pistol or something worse under her richuniform.

Most do not know it, but it is difficult to learn to strike another human beingwith all one's force; some ancient instinct makes even the most brutal soften

the blow. Among the torturers I had been taught not to do so. I struck her, theheel of my hand against her chin, as hard as I have ever struck anyone in mylife, and she crumpled like a doll. I kicked the lantern, which went out as itflew from the boy's hand.

The guard at the sally port raised his sword, but only to bar the way. I whirledand made off toward the Broken Court.

The pain that struck me at that moment was like the pain of theRevolutionary, the only pain I have ever felt that could be compared with it. Iwas being torn apart, and the separation of each limb was prolonged andprolonged until being quartered with the sword would have been nothing to it.The ground seemed to leap and reel under me, even when that hideous flash ofpain was gone and I lay in the dark. All the great guns of the Battle of Orithyiawere thundering together.

Then I had returned to the World of Yesod. Its pure air filled my lungs, andthe music of its breezes soothed my ears. I sat up and found that it was onlyUrth as she seemed to one who had suffered Abaddon. As I rose I thought ofall the aid I had sent this ruined body; yet my arms and legs were stiff andcold, and pain lingered in every joint.

I had lain upon a cot in a room that seemed oddly familiar. The door, which Ifelt sure had been of solid metal when I had last seen it, was a lattice of bars; itlooked out into a narrow hall whose twistings I had known from childhood. Iturned back to study the odd shape of the room.

It was the bedchamber Roche had occupied as a journeyman, and it was tothis very room that I had come to don lay clothing on the evening of ourexcursion to the House Azure. I stared at it in astonishment. Roche's bed, atrifle wider, had stood just where my cot was now. The position of the port (Irecalled how surprised I had been to find Roche had a port, and that I myselfhad later been given a room without one) and the angles of the bulkheads wereunmistakable.

I went to the port. It was open, admitting the breeze that had awakened me.No bars crossed it; but of course no one could have climbed down the smoothwalls of the tower, and only a very small man could have squeezed hisshoulders through the port. I thrust out my head.

Below me lay the Old Yard just as I recalled it, basking in the late summersunshine; its cracked flagstones looked a trifle newer, perhaps, but otherwisethey were the same. The Witches' Keep now leaned awry, precisely as it hadalways leaned in the recesses of my memory. The wall lay in ruins, exactly asin my day, its unsmeltable metal slabs half in the Old Yard and half in thenecropolis. A lone journeyman (so I already thought him) lounged at theCorpse Door, and though he wore a strange uniform and clasped a sword, asBrother Porter had not, he stood at the spot where Brother Porter used tostand.

Soon a boy, just such a ragged apprentice as I myself had been, crossed theOld Yard on some errand. I waved and shouted to him, and when he lookedup I recognized him and called his name: " Reechy! Reechy! "He waved in return and went on about his business, clearly afraid to be seenspeaking to a client of his guild. His guild, I write, but I was sure by then thatit had been mine too.

Long shadows told me it was still early morning; they were confirmed a fewmoments later by the slamming of doors and the footsteps of the journeyman

bringing my atole. My door lacked the slot it ought to have had, so that he wasforced to stand aside holding his stack of trays while another journeyman witha vouge, looking almost like a soldier, unlocked for him.

"You seem well enough," he said as he put my tray on the floor inside thedoorway.

I told him that at times I had felt better.

He edged closer. "You killed her."

"The woman called Madame Prefect?"

He nodded, as did the other journeyman. "Broke her neck."

"If you'll take me to her," I told them, "I may be able to restore her."They exchanged a glance and went away, slamming the barred door behindthem.

So she was dead, and from the looks I had seen she had been hated. OnceCyriaca had asked me whether my offer to free her was not a final torment.(The latticed summerhouse floated from the depths of memory to stand,complete with twining vines and green moonlight, in my morning-bright cell.)I had told her that no client would believe us; but I had believed MadamePrefect— believed at least that I could escape from her, though I had knownshe did not. And all the while some weapon had been trained upon me fromthe Matachin Tower, perhaps from this very port, though more likely from thegun room near the top.

My reverie was interrupted by the arrival of still another journeyman, thistime accompanied by a physician. My door was thrown open once again; thephysician stepped inside, and the journeyman locked it behind him and stoodback, ready to fire through the bars.

The physician sat on my cot and opened a leather case. "How do you feel?"

"Hungry." I tossed aside my bowl and spoon. "They brought me this, but it'smostly water."

"Meat is for the monarch's defenders, not for subversives. You were hit by theconvulsor?"

"If you tell me so. I know nothing about it."

"You were not, in my opinion. Stand up."

I stood, then moved my arms and legs as he ordered, let my head roll back andto each side, and so forth.

"You weren't hit. You're wearing an officer's cape. Were you an officer?"

"If you like. I was a general, at least by courtesy. Not recently."

"And you don't tell the truth. That's a junior officer's, for your information.These idiots think they hit you. I hear the man who fired at you swears it."

"Then question him."

"To listen to him denying what I know already? I'm not such a fool. Shall Iexplain what happened?"

I told him I wished someone would.

"Very well. The earthquake came as you fled from Madame Prefect Prisca, atthe instant this idiot on the gun deck fired. He missed as anyone would; butyou fell and struck your head, and he thought he'd hit you. I've seen a goodmany of these supposedly wonderful happenings. They're always quite simple,once you realize that the witnesses are confusing cause and effect."I nodded. "There was an earthquake?"

"Certainly, and a big one— we're fortunate to have got off as lightly as we did.

Haven't you looked outside yet? You must be able to see the wall from here."He stepped over to the port and looked out himself, then pointed (as people do)as if I had. "A big section fell next to the zoetic transport there. Lucky the shipdidn't fall too. You don't think you knocked that down yourself, do you?"I told him I had never had any notion of why it had fallen.

"This coast is quake prone, as the old records indicate clearly enough— praiseto our monarch, by the way, for having them brought here— but there hasn'tbeen one since the river changed its course, so most of these fools think there'llnever be another." He chuckled. "Though after last night a few have changedtheir minds, I imagine."

He was already on his way out as he spoke. The journeyman banged my doorclosed and locked it again.

I thought of Dr. Tabs's play, in which the ground shakes and Jahi says: "Theend of Urth, you fool. Go ahead and spear her. It's the end for you anyway."How little I had talked with him upon the World of Yesod.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN - THE BOOK OF THE NEW SUN

AS IN MY time, we prisoners were fed twice a day and our water carafesreplenished at the evening meal. The apprentice carried my tray, gave me awink, and returned when the journeyman was no longer about, with cheeseand a loaf of fresh bread.

The evening meal had been as scanty as the morning one; I began to eat whathe had brought me, while I thanked him for it.

He squatted in front of my cell door. "May I talk to you?"

I said I did not govern his acts, and he was likely to know the rules of the placebetter than I.

He flushed, his dark cheeks growing darker still. "I mean, will you talk withme?"

"If it won't get you a beating."

"I don't think there'll be any trouble, at least not now. But we ought to keepour voices down. Some of the others are probably spies."

"How do you know I'm not?"

"Because you killed her, of course. The whole place is turned upside down.Everybody's glad she's dead, but there's sure to be an investigation and notelling who'll be sent to take her place." He paused, seeming to think deeplyabout what he would say next. "The guards say you said you might be able tobring her back."

"And you don't want me to."

He waved that away. "Could you have? Really?"

"I don't know— I'd have to try. I'm surprised they told you."

"I wait around and listen to them talk, shine boots or run errands for money."

"I have none to give you. Mine was taken from me by the soldiers whoarrested me."

"I wasn't after any." He stood up and dug in one of the pockets of his raggedtrousers. "Here, you better take these."

He held them out; they were worn brass tokens of a design unfamiliar to me.

"Sometimes you can get people to bring you extra food or whatever."

"You brought me more food, and I gave you nothing."

"Take them," he said. "I want to give them to you. You might need them."When I would not extend my hand, he tossed them through the bars anddisappeared down the corridor.

I picked up his coins and dropped them into one of my own pockets, aspuzzled as I have ever been in my life.

Outside, afternoon had become chill evening with the port still open. I pushedthe heavy lens shut and dogged it down. Its broad, smooth flanges, of a shape Ihad never considered, had clearly been intended to hold the void at bay.As I finished my bread and cheese, I thought of our passage back to Urth onthe tender and my exultation aboard Tzadkiel's ship. How marvelous it wouldbe to send this old Matachin Tower hurtling among the stars! And yet therewas something sinister about it, as about all things perverted from a noblepurpose to a shameful one. I had grown to manhood here feeling nothing ofthat.

The bread and cheese gone, I wrapped myself in the cape the officer had givenme, shut out the light with one arm, and tried to sleep.

Morning brought more visitors. Burgundofara and Hadelin arrived, escortedby a tall journeyman who saluted them with his weapon and left them outsidemy door. My surprise was no doubt written on my face.

"Money can do wonders," Hadelin said; his twisted mouth showed howpainful the amount had been, and I wondered whether Burgundofara hadconcealed the wages she had brought from the ship, or if he considered thatmoney his own now.

Burgundofara told me, "I needed to see you one last time, and Hadelinarranged it for me." She wanted to say more, but the words caught in herthroat.

Hadelin said, "She wants you to forgive her."

"For leaving me for him, Burgundofara? There's nothing to forgive; I had noright to you."

"For pointing you out when the soldiers came. You saw me. I know you sawme."

"Yes," I said, remembering.

"I didn't think— I was afraid— "

"Afraid of me."

She nodded.

Hadelin said, "They'd have got you just the same. Somebody else would havepointed you out."

I asked him, "You?"

He shook his head and stepped back from the bars.

When I had been Autarch, supplicants had often knelt before me; nowBurgundofara knelt, and it seemed hideously inappropriate. "I had to talk toyou, Severian. One last time. That was why I followed the soldiers to the wharfthat night. Won't you forgive me? I wouldn't have done it, but I was soafraid."

I asked whether she remembered Gunnie.

"Oh, yes, and the ship. Except that it seems like a dream now."

"She was you, and I owe her a great deal. For her sake— your sake— I forgiveyou. Now and at every other time. Do you understand?"

"I think so," she said; and instantly she was happy, as if a light had beenkindled in her. "Severian, we're going down the river to Liti. Hadelin goesthere often, and we'll buy a house where I'll live when I'm not with him on

Alcyone. We want to have children. When they come, can I tell them aboutyou?"

Although I believed at the time that it was only because I could see Hadelin'sface as well as hers, a strange thing took place as she spoke: I grew consciousof her future, as I might have been of the future of some blossom that Valeriahad plucked in the gardens.

I told her, "It may be, Burgundofara, that you will have children as you wish;if you do, you may tell them anything you like about me. It may also be that ina time to come you'll want to find me again. If you look, you may. Or you maynot. But if you look, remember you aren't looking because I've told you to, orbecause I've promised you'll find me."

When they had gone, I thought for a moment about her and about Gunnie,who had once been Burgundofara. We say that a man is as brave as an atrox,or that a woman is as lovely as a red roe, as Burgundofara was. But we lackany such term for loyalty, because nothing we know is truly loyal— or rather,because true loyalty is found only in the individual and not in the type. A sonmay be loyal to his father or a dog to its master, but most are not. As Thecla Ihad been false to my Autarch, as Severian to my guild. Gunnie had been loyalto me and to Urth, not to her comrades; and perhaps we are unable to advancesome paragon of loyalty to an apothegm only because loyalty (in the finalanalysis) is choice.

Yet how strange that Gunnie should sail the empty seas of time to becomeBurgundofara again. A poet would sing that she searched for love, I suppose;but it seemed to me she searched for the illusion that love is more than it is,though I would like to believe that it was for some higher love which has noname.

Another visitor soon came— but was no visitor at all, since I could not see hisface. A whisper that seemed to originate in the empty corridor asked, "Areyou the theurgist?"

"If you say it," I answered. "But who are you, and where are you?"

"Canog, the student. I'm in the cell next to you. I heard the boy talking to you,and the woman and the captain just now.

I asked, "How long have you been here, Canog?" hoping he might advise meupon certain matters.

"Nearly three months. I'm under sentence of death, but I don't think it'll becarried out. Usually they're not, after such a long time. Probably the old

phrontiserion has interceded for her erring child, eh? At least, I hope so."I had heard much such talk in my own day; it was strange to find itunchanged. I said, "You must know the ways of the place by now."

"Oh, it's just as the boy told you, meaning not so bad if you've a little money. Igot them to give me paper and ink, so now I write letters for the guards. Thentoo, a friend brought a few of my books; I'll be a famous scholar if they keepme here long enough."

Having always asked the question when I toured the dungeons and oubliettesof the Commonwealth, I asked why he was imprisoned.

He was silent for a time. I had opened the port again, but even with a breath ofwind coming through it I was conscious of the reek from the slop jar under mycot as well as the general stench of the place. The cawing of rooks rode uponthe breeze; through my barred door came the endless tramping of boots uponmetal.

At last he said, "We don't pry into those matters here."

"I'm sorry I've offended you, but you asked such a question of me. You askedif I was the theurgist, and it's as a theurgist that I've been imprisoned."Another long pause.

"I killed a fool of a shopkeeper. He'd been asleep behind his counter, Iknocked over a brass candlestick, and up he came roaring, with the pillowsword in his hand. What else could I do? A man has a right to save his ownlife, doesn't he?"

"Not under every circumstance," I said. I had not known the thought was inme until I had expressed it.

· · ·

That evening the boy brought my food, and with it Herena, Declan, the mate,and the cook I had seen briefly in the inn of Saltus.

"I got them inside, sieur," the boy said. He tossed back his wild black hairwith a gesture fit for any courtier. "The guard owes me a few favors."Herena was weeping, and I pushed my arm between the bars to stroke hershoulder. "You're all in danger," I told them. "You may be arrested becauseof me. You mustn't stay here long."

The mate said, "Let them come for me with their sweet-arsed soldier boys.They'll find no virgin."

Declan nodded and cleared his throat, and I realized with some astonishmentthat he was their leader. "Sieur," he began in his deep, slow voice, "it's youwho are in danger. They kill people in this place as we do pigs at home."

"Worse," the boy put in.

"We mean to speak to the magistrate on your behalf, sieur. We waited therethis afternoon, but we weren't admitted. Poor people wait for days, they say,before they get to speak with him; but we'll wait as long as we have to.Meantime, we mean to do what we can in other ways."

Alcyone's cook looked at him with a significance I did not understand.Herena said, "But now we want you to tell all of us about the New Sun'scoming. I've heard more than the others, and I've tried to tell them what youtold me, but that was only a little. Will you tell us everything now?"

"I don't know whether I can explain so you'll understand it," I said. "I don'tknow that I understand it myself."

"Please," the cook said. It was the only word I was ever to hear from her.

"Very well, then. You know what's happened to the Old Sun: it is dying. I

don't mean that it's about to go out like a lamp at midnight. That would take avery long time. The wick— if you can think of it so— has been trimmed by onlythe width of a hair, and the corn has rotted in the fields. You don't know it,but the ice in the south is already gathering new strength. To the ice of tenchiliads will be added the ice of the winter now almost upon us, and the twowill embrace like brothers and begin their march upon these northern lands.Great Erebus, who has established his kingdom there, will soon be drivenbefore them, with all his fierce, pale warriors. He will unite his strength withAbaia's, whose kingdom is in the warm waters. With others, less in might butequal in cunning, they will offer allegiance to the rulers of the lands beyondUrth's waist, which you call Ascia; and once united with them will devourthem utterly."

But everything that I said to them is much too long to be written here, eachword a word. I told them all I knew of the history of the Old Sun's dying, andwhat that would do to Urth, and I promised them that at last someone wouldbring a New Sun.

Then Herena asked, "Aren't you the New Sun yourself, sieur? The womanwho was with you when you came to our village said you were."I told her I would not speak of that, fearing that if they knew it— yet saw meimprisoned— they would despair.

Declan wished to know how Urth would fare when the New Sun came; and I,understanding little more than he did himself, drew upon Dr. Tabs's play,never thinking that in a time yet to come Dr. Tabs's play would be drawn frommy words.

When they had gone at last, I realized I had not so much as touched the foodthe boy had brought me. I was very hungry, but when I reached for the bowl,my fingers brushed something else— a long and narrow bundle of rags soplaced that it lay in shadow.

The voice of my neighbor floated through the bars. "That was a fine tale. Itook notes as fast as I could, and it should make a capital little book wheneverI'm released."

I was unwinding the rags and scarcely heard him. It was a knife— the longdirk the mate had worn aboard the Alcyone.

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT - TO THE TOMB OF THE MONARCH

FOR THE remainder of the evening, I gazed at the knife. Not in fact, ofcourse; I had rewrapped it in its rags and hidden it under the mattress of mycot. But as I lay upon that mattress staring up at the metal ceiling that was solike the one I had known in the apprentices' dormitory as a child, I felt theknife below my knees.

Later it revolved before my closed eyes, luminant in the darkness and distinctfrom hilt of bone to needle point. When I slept at last, I found it among mydreams as well.

Perhaps for that reason, I slept badly. Again and again I woke and blinked atthe cell light glowing above my head, rose and stretched, and crossed to theport to search for the white star that was another self. At those times I wouldgladly have surrendered my imprisoned body to death, if I could have done itwith honor, and fled, streaming through the midnight sky to unite my being.In those moments I knew my power, that could draw whole worlds to me andincremate them as an artist burns his earths for pigments. In the brown book,now lost, that I carried and read so long that at last I had committed tomemory its whole contents (though they had once seemed inexhaustible) thereis this passage: " Behold, I have dreamed a dream more; the sun and the moon

and eleven stars made obeisance to me." Its words show plainly how muchwiser the peoples of ages long past were than we are now; not for nothing isthat book titled The Book of the Wonders of Urth and Sky.I too dreamed a dream. I dreamed that I called the power of my star downupon myself, and rising, crossed (Thecla as well as Severian) to our barreddoor, and grasping its bars, bent them until we could easily have passedbetween them. But when we bent them it seemed we parted a curtain, andbeyond it beheld a second curtain and Tzadkiel, neither larger than ourselvesnor smaller, with the dirk afire.

When the new day like a flood of tarnished gold poured at last through theopen port and I waited for my bowl and spoon, I examined those bars; andthough most were as they ought to have been, those at the center were notquite so straight as the rest.

The boy carried in my food, saying, "Even if I only heard you once, I learned alot from you, Severian. I'll be sorry to see you go."

I asked whether I was to be executed.

As he set down my tray, he glanced over his shoulder at the journeyman guardleaning against the wall. "No, it's not that. They're just going to take yousomewhere else. A flier's coming for you today, with Praetorians."

"A flier?"

"Because it can fly over the rebel army, I suppose. Have you ever ridden inone? I've only watched them taking off and landing. It must be terrific."

"It is. The first time I flew in one, we were shot down. I've ridden in themoften since, and even learned to operate them myself; but the truth is that I'vealways been terrified."

The boy nodded. "I would be too, but I'd like to try it." Awkwardly, he offeredhis hand. "Good luck, Severian , wherever they take you."

I clasped it; it was dirty but dry, and seemed very small. "Reechy," I said.

"That's not your real name, is it?"

He grinned. "No. It means I stink."

"Not to my nose."

"It's not cold yet," he explained, "so I can go swimming. In the winter I don't

have much chance to wash, and they work me pretty hard."

"Yes, I remember. But your real name is . .

"Ymar." He withdrew his hand. "Why are you looking at me like that?"

"Because when I touched you, I saw the flash of gems about your head. Ymar,I think I'm beginning to spread out. To spread through time— or rather, to beaware that I am spread through time, since all of us are. How strange that youand I should meet like this."

I hesitated for a moment, my voice bewildered among so many swirlingthoughts. "Or perhaps it isn't really strange at all. Something governs ourdestinies, surely. Something higher even than the Hierogrammates."

"What are you talking about?"

"Ymar, someday you will become the ruler. You'll be the monarch, although Idon't think you'll call yourself that. Try to rule for Urth, and not just in Urth'sname as so many have. Rule justly, or at least as justly as circumstancespermit."

He said, "You're teasing me, aren't you?"

"No," I told him. "Even though I know no more than that you will rule, andsomeday sit disguised beneath a plane tree. But those things I doknow"When he and the journeyman were gone, I thrust the knife into the top of myboot and covered it with my trouser leg. As I did, and afterward while I satwaiting on my cot, I speculated upon our conversation.

Was it not possible Ymar had reached the Phoenix Throne only because someepopt— myself— had prophesied he would? So far as I am aware, history holdsno record of it; and perhaps I have created my own truth. Or perhaps Ymar,now feeling he rides his destiny, will fail to make the cardinal effort that wouldhave won him a signal victory.

Who can say? Does not Tzadkiel's curtain of uncertainty veil the future evenfrom those who have emerged from its mists? The present, when we leave itbefore us, becomes the future once more. I had left it, I knew, and waited deepin a past that was in my own day scarcely more than myth.

Watch followed weary watch, as ants creep through autumn to winter. Whenat last I had concluded beyond question that Ymar's information had beenmistaken, that the Praetorians would come not that day but the next— or notat all— I glanced out the port hoping to amuse myself with the errands of thosefew persons who chanced to cross the Old Yard.

A flier rode at anchor there, as sleek as a silver dart. I had no sooner seen itthan I heard the measured tread of marching men— broken as they mountedthe stair, resumed when they reached the level at which I waited. I rushed tothe door.

A bustling journeyman led the way. A bemedaled chiliarch sauntered afterhim; thrust well into his sword belt, his thumbs proclaimed him not asubordinate, but one infinitely superior. Behind them, in a single filemaintained with the disciplined precision of hand-colored troops commandedby a child (though they were less visible than smoke), tramped a squad ofguardsmen in the charge of a vingtner.

As I watched, the journeyman waved in the direction of my cell with his keys,the chiliarch nodded tolerantly and strolled nearer to inspect me, the vingtnerbellowed some order, and the boots of the squad halted with a crash,

succeeded at once by a second bellow and a second crash, as the ten phantomguardsmen grounded their weapons.

The flier differed scarcely at all from the one in which I had once inspected thearmies of the Third Battle of Orithyia; and indeed it may have been the samedevice, such machines being maintained by generation after generation. Thevingtner ordered me to lie on the floor. I obeyed, but asked the chiliarch (ahatchet-faced man of forty or so) whether I might not look over the side as weflew. This permission was refused, he doubtless fearing I was a spy— as insome sense I was; I had to content myself with imagining Ymar's farewellwave.

The eleven guardsmen who lined the seat astern, fading like so many ghostsinto its pointillé upholstery, owed their near invisibility to the catoptric armorof my own Praetorians; and I soon realized they were my own Praetorians infact, their armor, and what was more important, their traditions having beenhanded down from this unimaginably early day to my own. My guards hadbecome my guards: my jailers.

Because our flier hurtled through the sky and I sometimes glimpsed streakingclouds, I expected our journey to be short; but a watch at least elapsed, andperhaps another, before I felt the flier drop and saw the landing line cast.Dismal walls of living rock rose upon our left, reeled, and were lost to sight.When our pilot retracted the dome, the wind that lashed my face was so chillthat I supposed we had flown south to the ice-fields. I stepped out— and lookedup to see instead a towering ruin of snow and blasted stone. All around usragged, faceless peaks loomed through pent clouds. We were amongmountains, but mountains that had not yet put on the carven likenesses of menand women— such unshaped mountains, then, as are to be seen in the oldestpictures. I would have stood staring at them until dusk, but a cuff on the earknocked me sprawling.

I rose consumed with impotent rage; I had suffered such abuse after I hadbeen taken at Saltus and had succeeded in making that officer my friend. NowI felt I had accomplished nothing, that the cycle had begun again, that it wasfated to persist, and perhaps to continue to my death. I resolved it would not.Before the day was over, the knife thrust into the top of my boot would end alife.

Meanwhile my own streamed from my clangorous ear, hot as though from thekettle where it drenched my chilled flesh.

I was driven into a stream far greater, of vast, hurrying wains burdened withyet more shattered rock, wains that rolled forward without oxen or slaves todraw them, no matter how steep the gradient, launching dense clouds of dustand smoke into the shining air and bellowing like bulls when we crossed theirpath. Far up the mountain, a giant in armor dug stone with his iron hands,looking smaller than a mouse.

The hurrying wains gave way to hurrying men as we went among plain andeven ugly sheds whose open doorways revealed curious tools and machines. Iasked the chiliarch I intended to kill where he had brought me. He motionedto the vingtner, and I got another blow from the vingtner's gauntlet.In a round structure larger than the rest, I was driven down aisles lined withcabinets and seats until we reached a circular curtain, like the wall of anindoor tent or pavilion, at its center. I had recognized the building by then.

"You are to wait here," the chiliarch instructed me. "The monarch will speakto you. When you leave, you will— "

A voice from the other side of the curtain, thick with wine and yet familiarstill, called, " Loose him."

"Obedience and obeisance!" The chiliarch jerked erect, and he and hisguardsmen saluted. For a moment all of us stood like so many images.When that voice was not heard again, the vingtner freed my hands. Thechiliarch whispered, "When you leave this place you will say nothing of whatyou may have heard or seen. Otherwise you will die."

"You are mistaken," I told him. "It is you that will die." There was suddenfear in his eyes. I had been reasonably sure he would not dare signal thevingtner to strike me there, under the unseen gaze of his monarch. Nor was Iwrong; for the space of a heartbeat we stared at each other, slayer and slain byboth accounts.

The vingtner barked a command, and his squad turned their backs to thecurtain. When the chiliarch had assured himself that none of the guardsmenwould be able to see what lay beyond the curtain when it parted, he told me,"Go through."

I nodded and advanced to it; it was of crimson triple silk, luxurious to thetouch. As I pushed it aside, I saw the faces I had expected. Seeing them, I bowed to their owner.

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE - THE CLAW OF THE CONCILIATOR AGAIN

THE TWO-HEADED man lounging upon the divan beyond the crimsoncurtain raised his cup to acknowledge my bow. "I see you know to whom youcome." It was the head on the left that spoke.

"You're Typhon," I said. "The monarch— the sole ruler, or so you think— ofthis ill-starred world, and of others as well. But it wasn't to you I bowed, but tomy benefactor, Piaton."

With a mighty arm that was not his, Typhon brought the cup to his lips. Hisstare across its golden rim was the poisoned regard of the yellowbeard. "Youhave known Piaton in the past?"

I shook my head. "I'll know him in the future."

Typhon drank and set his cup upon a small table. "What is said of you is true,then. You maintain that you are a prophet."

"I hadn't thought of myself in that way. But yes, if you like. I know that you'lldie on that couch. Does that interest you? That body will lie among the straps

you no longer need to restrain Piaton and the implements you no longer needto force him to eat. The mountain winds will dry his stolen body until it is likethe leaves that now die too young, and whole ages of the world will strideacross it before my coming reawakens you to life."

Typhon laughed, just as I had heard him laugh when I bared Terminus Est.

"You're a poor prophet, I fear; but I find that a poor prophet is more amusingthan a true one. If you had merely told me that I would lie— should my deathever occur, which I've begun to doubt— among the funeral breads in the skullcavity of this monument, you would only have told me what any child could. Iprefer your fantasies, and it may be that I can make use of you. You'rereported to have performed amazing cures. Have you true power?"

"That's for you to say."

He sat up, the muscular torso that was not his swaying. "I am accustomed tohaving my questions answered. A call from me, and a hundred men of my owndivision would be here to cast you" — he paused and smiled to himself— "frommy sleeve. Would you enjoy it? That's how we treat workmen who won'twork. Answer me, Conciliator! Can you fly?"

"I can't say, having never tried."

"You may have an opportunity soon. I will ask twice." He laughed again. "Itsuits my present condition, after all. But not thrice. Do you have power? Proveit, or die."

I allowed my shoulders to rise a finger's width, and fall again. My hands werestill numb from the gyves; I rubbed my wrists as I spoke. "Would you allowthat I have power if I could kill a certain man who had injured me just bystriking this table before us?"

The unfortunate Piaton stared at me, and Typhon smiled. "Yes, that would bea satisfactory demonstration."

"Upon your word?"

The smile grew broader. "If you like," he said. "Prove it!"'

I drew the dirk and drove it into the tabletop.

I doubt that there were provisions for the confinement of prisoners on themountain; and as I considered those made for me, it occurred to me that mycell in the vessel that would soon be our Matachin Tower must have been amakeshift as well, and a shift made not very long ago. If Typhon had merelywished to confine me, he might easily have done it by emptying one of thesolidly built sheds and locking me inside. It was clear he wished to do more—

to terrify and suborn me, and thus win me to his cause.

My prison was a spur of rock not yet cut from the robe of the giant figure thatalready bore his face. A little shelter of stones and canvas was set up for me onthat windswept spot, and to it were brought meat and a rare wine that musthave been stored for Typhon himself. As I watched, a timber nearly as thick asthe Alcyone'smizzenmast, though not so high, was set into the rock where thespur left the mountain, and a smilodon chained to its base. The chiliarch hungfrom the top of this timber on a hook passed between his hands, which weremanacled as my own had been.

For as long as the light lasted I watched them, though I soon realized that abattle raged at the foot of the mountain. The smilodon appeared to have beenstarved. From time to time it sprang up and sought to grasp the chiliarch's

legs. Always he lifted them so it fell a cubit short; and its great claws, thoughthey grooved the wood like chisels, would not support it. In that one afternoonI had as much vengeance as I wish ever to have. When night came I carriedfood to the smilodon.

Once on my journey to Thrax with Dorcas and Jolenta, I had freed a beastbound much as the chiliarch was now; it had not attacked me, perhapsbecause I bore the gem called the Claw of the Conciliator, perhaps onlybecause it had been too weak to do so. Now this smilodon ate from my handsand licked them with its broad, rough tongue. I touched its curving tusks, likethe ivory of the mammoths; and I scratched its ears as I would have Triskele's,saying, "We have borne swords. We know, do we not?"

I do not believe the beasts can comprehend more than the simplest and mostfamiliar phrases, yet I felt the massive head nod.

The chain was fastened to a collar with two buckles as wide as my hand. Iloosed it and set the poor creature free, but it remained at my side.The chiliarch was not so readily released. I was able to climb the timber easilyenough, locking my knees around it as I once had locked them around thepines in the necropolis as a boy. By then the horizon had dropped far belowmy star, and I could easily have lifted him free from his hook and flung himinto the gulf below; but I dared not drop him for fear he would fall into it, orthat the smilodon would attack him. Although the light was too faint for me tosee it, its eyes gleamed as it stared up at us.

In the end I looped his hands about my neck and clambered down as well as Icould, nearly slipping and half choking, but reaching the safety of the rock atlast. When I carried him to the shelter, the smilodon followed and lay at ourfeet.

By morning, when seven guardsmen arrived with food, water, and wine for meand torches lashed to poles with which to drive back the smilodon, theirchiliarch was fully conscious and had eaten and drunk. The consternation onthe soldiers' faces when they saw that he and the smilodon were goneentertained us; but it was nothing compared to their expressions when theydiscovered both in my shelter.

"Come ahead," I told them. "The beast won't harm you, and your chiliarchwill discipline you only if you have been false to your duty, I feel sure."They advanced, though hesitantly, eyeing me with almost as much fear as thesmilodon.

I said, "You saw what your monarch did to your chiliarch because hepermitted me to retain a weapon. What will he do to you when he learnsyou've permitted your chiliarch to escape?"

The vingtner answered, "We'll all die, sieur. There'll be a couple more stakes,and three or four of us hung from each." The smilodon snarled as he spoke,and all seven stepped back.

The chiliarch nodded. "He's right. I'd order it myself, if I retained my office."I said, "Sometimes a man is broken by losing such an office."

"Nothing's ever broken me," he replied. "This won't, either."

I think that was the first time I looked at him as a human being. His face washard and cold, but full of intelligence and resolution. "You're right," I toldhim. "Sometimes indeed— but not this time. You must flee and take these menwith you. I put them under your orders."

He nodded again. "Can you release my hands, Conciliator?"

The vingtner said, "I can, sieur." He stepped forward with the key, and thesmilodon voiced no protest. When the manacles fell to the rock upon which wesat, the chiliarch picked them up and tossed them over the edge.

"Keep your hands clasped behind you," I told him. "Cover them with yourcape. Have these men march you to the flier. Everyone will think you're beingtaken elsewhere for further punishment. You'll know where you can land withsafety better than I."

"We'll join the rebels. They should be glad to get us." He rose and saluted,and I rose too and returned his salute, having been habituated to it during mytime as Autarch.

The vingtner asked, "Conciliator, can't you free Urth from Typhon?"

"I could, but I won't unless I must. It's easy— very easy— to slay a ruler. Butit's very difficult to prevent a worse one from coming to his place."

"Rule us yourself!"

I shook my head. "If I say I have a mission of greater importance, you'll thinkI'm joking. Yet it's the truth."

They nodded, clearly without comprehension.

"I'll tell you this. This morning I've been studying this mountain and the speedwith which the work here is going forward. From those things, I know Typhonhas only a short time to live. He'll die on the red couch where he lies now; andwithout his word, no one will dare to draw aside the curtain. One afteranother will creep away. The machines that dig like men will return for freshinstructions, but they won't receive them, and in time the curtain itself will fallto dust."

They were staring at me openmouthed. I said, "There will never be anotherruler like Typhon— a monarch over many worlds. But the lesser ones who willfollow him, of whom the best and greatest will be named Ymar, will imitatehim until every peak you see around us wears a crown. That's all I'll tell younow, and all I can tell you. You must go."

The chiliarch said, "We'll stay here and die with you, Conciliator, if you desireit."

"I don't," I told them. "And I won't die." I tried to reveal the workings ofTime to them, though I do not understand them myself. "Everyone who haslived is still alive, somewhen. But you are in great danger. Go!"

The guardsmen backed away. Their chiliarch said, "Won't you give us sometoken, Conciliator, some proof that we once encountered you? I know myhands are profaned with your blood, and so are Gaudentius's; but these mennever harmed you."

The word he had used suggested the token he received. I took off the thongand the little sack of manskin Dorcas had sewn for the Claw, which now heldthe thorn I had plucked from my arm beside unresting Ocean, the thorn uponwhich my fingers had closed aboard Tzadkiel's ship. "This has been drenchedin my blood," I told them.

With one hand on the smilodon's head, I watched them walk the promontorythat held my shelter, their shadows still long in the morning light. When theyreached the mass of rock that was fast becoming Typhon's sleeve, the chiliarchconcealed his wrists under his cape as I had suggested. The vingtner drew hispistol, and two soldiers aimed their weapons at the chiliarch's back.Thus disposed, prisoner and guard, they descended the stair on the farther

side and were lost to me in the bustling roadways of that place I had not yetnamed the Accursed Town. I had sent them away lightly enough; but now thatthey were gone, I knew once more what it was to lose a friend— for thechiliarch too had become my friend— and my heart, though it may be (as somehave said) as hard as metal, felt ready to crack at last.

"And now I must lose you too," I told the smilodon. "In fact, I should havesent you away while it was still dark."

It made a deep rumbling that must have been its purr, surely a sound seldomheard by man and woman. That thunderous purr was echoed faintly from thesky.

Far across the lap of the colossal statue, a flier lifted into the air, rising slowlyat first (as those vessels always do when they rely upon the repulsion of Urthalone), then streaking away. I recalled the flier I had seen when I had partedfrom Vodalus, after the occurrence I placed at the very beginning of themanuscript I cast into the ever-changing universes. And I resolved then that ifever leisure should come to me again, I would pen a new account, beginning asI have with the casting away of the old.

Whence comes this unslakable thirst to leave behind me a wandering trail ofink, I cannot say; but once I referred to a certain incident in the life of Ymar.Now I have spoken with Ymar himself, yet that incident remains asinexplicable as the desire. I would prefer that similar incidents in my own lifenot suffer a similar obscurity.

The thunder that had been so distant sounded again, nearer now, the voice ofa column of night-black cloud that outreached even the arm of Typhon'scolossal figure. The Praetorians had laid down the food and drink they hadbrought at some distance from my little shelter. (Such service is the price ofundying loyalty; those who profess it seldom labor quite so diligently as acommon servant whose loyalty is to his task.) I went out, the smilodon withme, to carry it back to whatever protection we could give it. The wind hadalready begun her storm song, and a few raindrops splattered the rock beforeus, as big as plums and icy cold.

"This is as good a chance as you'll ever have," I told the smilodon. "They'rerunning for shelter already. Go now!"

It leaped away as though it had been awaiting my consent, clearing ten cubitsat every bound. In a moment it had vanished over the edge of the arm. In amoment more it reappeared, a tawny streak darkening to rain-wet brownfrom which workers and soldiers fled like coneys. I was glad to see that, for allthe weapons of beasts, no matter how terrible they seem, are merely toyscompared to the weapons of men.

Whether it returned safely to its hunting grounds, I am unable to say, though Itrust it did. As for myself, I sat under my shelter for a time listening to thestorm and munching bread and fruit, until at last the wild wind snatched thecanvas from over my head.

I rose; when I looked through the curtains of the downpour, I saw a party ofsoldiers cresting the arm.

Astonishingly I also saw places without rain or soldiers. I do not mean thatthese newly seen places now spread themselves where the abyss had stretched.Its aching emptiness remained, rock dropping a league at least like a cataract,with the dark green of the high jungle far below— the jungle that would hold

the village of sorcerers through which the boy Severian and I would pass.Rather it seemed to me that the familiar directions of up and down, forwardand back, left and right, had opened like a blossom, revealing petalsunguessed, new Sefiroth whose existence had been hidden from me until now.One of the soldiers fired. The bolt struck the rock at my feet, splitting it like achisel. Then I knew they had been sent to kill me, I suppose because one of themen who had gone with the chiliarch had rebelled against his fate andreported what had transpired, though too late to prevent the departure of therest.

Another leveled his weapon. To escape it, I stepped from the rain-swept rockinto a new place.

CHAPTER FORTY - THE BROOK BEYOND BRIAH

I STOOD in flower-spangled grass, sweet-smelling and softer than any other Ihave known; overhead the sky was azure, racked with clouds that hid the sunand barred the upper air with indigo and gold. Faintly, very faintly, I couldstill hear the roar of the storm that swept across Mount Typhon. Once therecame a flash— or rather the shadow of a flash, if such a thing can beimagined— as if lightning had struck the rock, or one of the Praetorians hadfired again.

When I had taken two steps, these things were no longer to be discerned; yet itseemed not so much that they were gone as that I had lost the ability (orperhaps only the will) to detect them, as when grown we no longer see thingsthat interested us as children. Surely, I thought, this cannot be what the greenman called the Corridors of Time. There are no corridors here, but only hillsand waving grass and a sweet wind.

As I went farther, it seemed to me that everything I saw was familiar, that Iwalked in a place where I had been before, though I could not recall what itwas. Not our necropolis with its mausoleums and cypresses. Not the unfencedfields where I had once walked with Dorcas and so come upon Dr. Tabs'sstage— those fields had cowered beneath the Wall of Nessus, and there were nowalls here. Not the gardens of the House Absolute, full of rhododendrons,grottos, and fountains. Closest, I thought, to the pampas in spring, but for thecolor of the sky.

Then I heard the song of rushing water, and a moment later I saw its silvergleam. I ran to it, remembering as I ran how once I had been lame, and how I

had drunk from a certain stream in Orithyia, then seen the pug marks of asmilodon; I smiled to myself between draughts to think that they would notfrighten me now.

When I lifted my head, it was not a smilodon I saw, but a minute woman withbrightly colored wings who was wading upon the water-washed stones somedistance upstream as though to cool her legs. " Tzadkiel! " I shouted. Then I fellmute with confusion, having recalled the place at last.

She waved and smiled; and, most astonishingly, leaped from the water andflew, her gay wings rippling like dyed faille.

I knelt.

Still smiling, she dropped to the bank beside me. "I don't think you've seen medo that before."

"Once I saw you— a vision of you— hanging with wide wings in the vacancybetween the stars."

"Yes, I can fly there because there's no attraction. Here I must be quite small.Do you know what a gravity field is?"

She waved an arm no longer than my hand at the meadow, and I said, "I seethis one, mighty Hierogrammate."

She laughed at that, a music like the tintinnabulation of tiny bells. "But itseems we have met?"

"Mighty Hierogrammate, I am the least of your slaves."

"You must be uncomfortable there on your knees, and you've met another selfof mine since I parted from her. Sit down and tell me about it."And so I did. And it was pleasant indeed to sit upon that bank, occasionallyrefreshing my laboring tongue with the cold, clean water of the brook, andrecount to Tzadkiel how I had seen her first between the pages of FatherInire's book, and how I had helped to capture her aboard her own ship, andhow she had been male and called herself Zak, and how she had cared for mewhen I was injured. But you, who are my reader, know all these things (ifindeed you exist), because I have written them here, omitting nothing, or atleast very little.

When I spoke to Tzadkiel beside the brook, I strove to be as brief as I could;but she would not allow it, urging me down this byway and that one until I hadtold her of the small angel (of whom I had read in my brown book) who hadmet Gabriel, and of my childhoods in the Citadel, at my father's villa, and inthe village called Famulorum near the House Absolute.

And at last, when I had paused for breath for perhaps the thousandth time,Tzadkiel said, "No wonder I accepted you; in all those words there was notone lie."

"I've told lies when I thought there was need of them, and even when therewas none."

She smiled and made no answer.

I said, "And I'd lie to you now, mighty Hierogrammate, if I thought my lieswould save Urth."

"You've saved her already; you began aboard my ship and you completedyour task in our sphere, upon and within the world you call Yesod too. It musthave appeared to Agilus and Typhon, and to many of the others who struggledagainst you, that the fight was an unequal one. If they had been wise, theywould have known the fight was over already, some where and some time; butif they had been wise, they would have known you for our servant and not

fought against you at all."

"Then I cannot fail?"

"No, you havenot failed. You could have on the ship and later; but youcouldn't die before the test, nor can you now, until your task is accomplished.If it weren't so, the beating would have killed you, and the weapon in thetower, and much else. But your task will be accomplished soon. Your power isfrom your star, as you know. When it enters your old sun and brings the birthof the new..."

I said, "I've boasted too often of not fearing death to tremble at the thoughttoday."

She nodded. "That's well. Briah's no enduring house."

"But this place is Briah, or part of it. It's a passage in your ship, the one youshowed me when you led me to my stateroom."

"If that is so, you were near Yesod when you were with me on our ship. This isthe Brook Madregot, and it runs from Yesod to Briah."

"Between the universes?" I asked. "How can that be?"

"How could it not be? Energy gropes for some lower state, always; which ismerely to say that the Increate tosses all the universes between his hands."

"But it's a stream," I protested. "Like the streams of Urth."

Tzadkiel nodded. "Those too are of energy seeking a lower state, and what isperceived is dictated by the instrument. If you had other eyes, or anothermind, you would see all things otherwise."

I thought about that for a time, and at last I said, "And how would I see you,Tzadkiel?"

She had been sitting upon the bank beside me; now she lay down in the grass,her chin in her hands and her bright wings rising above her back like fanswith painted eyes. "You called these fields of gravity, and so they are, amongother things. Do you know the fields of Urth, Severian?"

"I've never followed the plow, but I know them as well as a city man can."

"Just so. And what is found at the edges of your fields?"

"Fences of split wood or hedges, to keep out cattle. In the mountains, walls ofdry-laid stones to discourage deer."

"And nothing else?"

"I can think of nothing," I said. "Though perhaps I saw our fields with thewrong instrument."

"The instruments you have are the right instruments for you, because you'vebeen shaped by them. That's another law. Nothing else?"

I recalled the hedgerows, and a sparrow's nest I had once seen in one. "Weedsand wild things."

"Here too. I myself am such a wild thing, Severian. You may think I've beenstationed here to help you. I only wish it were so, and because I do I'll help youif I can; but I'm a part of myself that was banished long ago, long before thefirst time you met me. Perhaps someday the giantess you call Tzadkiel—

although that's my name too— will want me to be a part of her again. Untilthen I will remain here, between the attractions of Yesod and Briah.

"To answer what you asked, if you had some other instrument, you might seeme as she does; then you could tell me why I've been exiled. But until you cansee such things, I know no more than you. Do you wish, now, to return to yourworld of Urth?"

"I do," I replied. "But not to the time I left. As I told you, when I got back toUrth I thought it must freeze before the New Sun came; no matter how fast Idrew my star to me, it was so distant that whole ages of the world would passbefore it reached us. Then I realized I was in no age I knew, and I thought I'dhave to wait in weariness. Now I see— "

"Your whole face brightens when you talk of it," the small Tzadkielinterrupted me. "I understand how they knew you for a miracle. You willbring the New Sun before you sleep."

"If I can, yes."

"And you want my help." She paused to stare at me with as serious a face asever I was to see her wear. "I've many times been called a liar, Severian, but Iwould help you if I could."

"Yet you cannot?"

"I can tell you this: Madregot flows from the glory of Yesod" — she pointedupstream— "to the destruction of Briah, down that way." She pointed again.

"Follow the water, and you'll be at a time nearer the coming of your star."

"If I'm not there to guide— but I'm the star too. Or at least I was. I can't...it'sas if that part of myself is numb."

"You're not in Briah now, remember? You'll know your New Sun again whenyou return there— if he still exists."

"He must!" I said. "He— I— will need me, need my eyes and ears to tell himwhat passes on Urth."

"Then it would be best," the small Tzadkiel remarked, "not to go too fardownstream. A few steps, perhaps."

"When I came here, I wasn't in sight of it. I may not have walked straighttoward it."

Her little shoulders moved up and down, carrying her tiny, perfect breastswith them. "Then there's no telling, is there? So this is as good a place as any."I stood, recalling the brook as I had first seen it. "It went straight across mypath," I told her. "No, I think I'll take a few steps with the water, as yousuggested."

She rose too, leaping into the air. "No one can say just how far a step will takehim."

"Once I heard a fable about a cock," I said. "The man who told it said it wasonly a foolish tale for children, but there was some wisdom in it, I think.Seven, it said, was a fortunate number. Eight carried the little cock too far." Itook seven strides.

"Do you see anything?" the small Tzadkiel asked.

"Only you, the brook, and the grass."

"Then you must walk away from it. Don't jump across it, though, or you'll endin another place. Go slowly."

I turned my back to the water and took a step.

"What do you see now? Look down the stems of the grass to the roots."

"Darkness."

"Then take another step."

"Fire— a sea of sparks."

"Another!" She fluttered beside me like a painted kite.

"Only stems, as of common grass."

"Good! A half step now."

I edged forward cautiously. During the whole time we had talked in thatmeadow, we had been in shadow; now it seemed some blacker cloud obscuredthe face of the sun, so that a band of darkness stood before me, no wider thanmy outspread arms, yet deep.

"What now?"

"Twilight before me," I said. And then, though I sensed rather than saw it, "Ashadowy door. Must I go through?"

"That's for you to decide."

I leaned closer, and it seemed to me that the meadow was strangely tilted, justas I had seen it from my shelter on the mountain. Though it was only threesteps behind me, the music of the Madregot sounded far away.

Dim letters floated in the darkness; it was a moment before I realized theywere reversed and that the largest spelled my name.

I stepped into the shadow, and the meadow vanished; I was lost in night. Mygroping hands felt stone. I pushed at it, and it moved— reluctantly at first,then smoothly, yet with the resistance of great weight.

As though at my ear, I heard the crystal chiming of the small Tzadkiel'slaughter.

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE - SEVERIAN FROM HIS CENOTAPH

A COCK crowed; and as the stone swung back, I saw the starry sky and thesingle bright star (blue now with its velocity) that was myself. I was whole oncemore. And near! Fair Skuld, rising with the dawn, was not so brilliant and didnot show so broad a disk.

For a long time— or at least, for a time that seemed long to me— I studied myother self, still far beyond the circle of Dis. Once or twice I heard the murmurof voices, but I did not trouble to see whose they were; and when at last Ilooked around me, I was alone.

Or nearly so. An antlered buck watched me from the crest of a little hill to myright, his eyes faintly gleaming, his body lost in the deeper dark beneath thetrees that crowned the hill. On my left, a statue stared with sightless eyes. Alast cricket chirped, but the grass was jeweled with frost.

As I had in the meadow about Madregot, I had the feeling of being in afamiliar place without being able to identify it. I was standing upon stone, and

the door I had pushed back was of stone also. Three narrow steps led to aclipped lawn. I went down them, and the door swung silently behind me,changing its nature, or so it seemed, as it moved; so that when it had shut itappeared no door at all.

I stood in the slightest of dells, a thousand paces or more from lip to lip, setamong gentle hills. There were doors in these, some no wider than those ofprivate rooms, some greater than the stone doorway in the obelisk behind me.The doors and the flagged paths that led from them told me I stood upon thegrounds of the House Absolute. The long shadow of the obelisk was not bornof the plenilune moon, but of the first crescent of the sun, and that shadowpointed to me like an arrow. I was in the west— in a watch or less the horizonwould rise to conceal me.

For a moment I regretted that I had given the Claw to the chiliarch; I wantedto read the inscription on the stone door. Then I remembered how I hadexamined Declan in the darkness of his hut, and I stepped nearer it and usedmy eyes.

To the Honor of

SEVERIAN THE GREAT

Autarch of Our Commonwealth

by Right the First Man of Urth

Memorabilus

It was a lofty shaft of blue chalcedony, and something of a shock. I wasthought dead, so much was clear; and this pleasant vale had been appointedmy proxy resting place. I would have preferred the necropolis beside theCitadel— the place where I must indeed repose at last, or at least be thoughtto— or the stone town, to which the first remark would apply with greaterforce.

That led me to wonder just where on the grounds I was, as well as to speculateon whether Father Inire or some other had been the erector of my monument.I shut my eyes, allowing my memory to rove at will, and to my astonishmentfound the little stage that Dorcas, Baldanders, and I had cobbled together forDr. Tabs. Here was the very spot, and my absurd memorial stood where atanother time I had feigned to think the giant Nod a statue. Recalling themoment, I glanced at the one I had seen upon stepping back into Briah, andfound it was, just as I had supposed, one of those harmless half-livingcreatures. It was moving slowly toward me now, its lips curved in an archaicsmile.

For a breath I admired the play of my own light on its pale limbs, but itseemed to me it had been only two watches or three since daylight had come tothe slopes of Mount Typhon, and the vitality I felt now put me in no mood tocontemplate statues or seek rest in one of the secluded arbors scatteredthroughout the gardens. A hidden archway not far from where the buck hadstood gave access to the Secret House. I ran to it, murmured the word thatmastered it, and went in.

How strange and yet how good it was to thread those narrow passages oncemore! Their suffocating constriction and padded, ladderlike steps summonedup a thousand memories of gambades and trysts: coursing the white wolves,scourging the prisoners of the antechamber, reencountering Oringa.

Had it been true, as Father Inire had originally intended, that these tortuous

passageways and cramped chambers were known only to himself and thereigning Autarch, they would have been fully as dull as any dungeon and, ifanything, less pleasant. But the Autarchs had revealed them to theirparamours, and those paramours to their own gallants, so that they soon heldat least a round dozen intrigues on any fine spring evening, and perhaps attimes a hundred. The provincial administrator who brought to the HouseAbsolute certain dreams of adventure or romance seldom realized that theystole past on slippered feet within an ell of his sleeping head. Entertainingmyself with such reflections as these, I had walked perhaps half a league(halting from time to time to spy out both public halls and private apartmentsthrough the oillets the place provided) when I stumbled over the body of anassassin.

He lay, as he had surely lain for a year at least, upon his back; the sere flesh ofhis face had begun to fall away from his skull, so that he grinned as though atdiscovering death was but a jest in the end. His outstretched hand had lost itsgrip upon the venom-daubed batardeau lying across its palm. As I bent toinspect it and him, I wondered whether he had contrived to nick himself; farstranger things have taken place within the Secret House. More probably, Idecided, he had fallen victim to some defense of his intended victim's—

waylaid, perhaps, when his mission was betrayed, or felled by some woundbefore he could reach safety. For a moment I considered taking his batardeauto replace the knife I had lost so many chiliads ago, but the thought of wieldinga poisoned blade was repugnant.

A fly buzzed about my face.

I waved it away, then watched in amazement as it burrowed into the dry flesh,followed by a score of others.

I stepped back; before I could turn away, all the hideous stages of putrefactionpresented themselves in order reversed, like urchins at an almshouse whothrust the youngest of their company to the front: the wrinkled flesh swelledand seethed with maggots, retreated to the lividity of death, and finallyresumed the coloration and almost the appearance of life; the flaccid handclosed on the corroded steel hilt of the batardeau until it gripped it like a vise.Recalling Zama, I was ready to run when the dead man sat up— or to wrest hisweapon from him and kill him with it. Perhaps these impulses canceled eachother; in the event I did neither, merely stood aside to watch him.He rose slowly and stared at me with empty eyes. I said, "You had better putthat away before you hurt someone." Such weapons are usually sheathed withthe sword, but there was a scabbard for his at his belt, and he did as Isuggested.

"You are confused," I told him. "It would be wise for you to stay here untilyou come to yourself. Don't follow me."

He made no reply, nor did I expect any. I slipped by him and walked away asquickly as I could. When I had gone fifty strides or so, I heard his falteringsteps; I began to run, making as little noise as possible and dodging down thisturning and that.

How far it was, I cannot say. My star was still ascendant, and it seemed to me Imight have dashed around the whole circuit of Urth without tiring. I ran bymany strange doors without opening any, knowing that all would lead fromthe Secret House to the House Absolute by one means or another. At last I

came to an aperture closed by no door; a strong draft from it carried thesound of a woman's weeping, and I halted and stepped through.

I found myself in a loggia, with arches on three sides. The woman's sobsseemed to come from my left; I went to one of the arches and peered out. Itoverlooked that wide and windy gallery we called the Path of Air— the loggiawas one of those constructions that appear merely ornamental though theyserve the needs of the Secret House.

Shadows on the marble floor far below me showed that the woman was ringedby half a dozen scarcely visible Praetorians, one of whom supported her by theelbow. At first I could not see her eyes, which were bent toward the floor andlost in her raven-dark hair.

Then (I cannot tell by what chance) she glanced up at me. Hers was a lovelyface of that complexion called olive and as smoothly oval as an olive, too, withsomething in it that tore my heart; and though it was strange to me, I had thesensation of return once again. I felt that in some lost life I had stood justwhere I was standing then; and that in that life I had seen her beneath me injust that way.

She and the shadows of the Praetonans were soon almost out of sight. I shiftedfrom one arch to the next to keep them in view; and she stared back at me,until she was looking over the shoulder of her pale gown when I last glimpsedher.

She was as lovely and as unknown at that final glimpse as at the first. Herbeauty was reason enough for any man to stare at her, but why did she stare atme? If I had understood her expression at all, it had been one of mingled hopeand fear, and perhaps she too had some sense of a drama being played upon asecond occasion.

A hundred times I reviewed my scrapes and escapes in this Secret House,whether as Thecla alone, or as Severian and Thecla united, or as the oldAutarch. I could not find the moment— yet it existed; and I began, as I walkedon, to search those veiled lives that lie behind the last, memories that I havescarcely mentioned in this narrative, that dim as they grow stranger andstretch backward, perhaps, to Ymar, and behind Ymar to the Age of Myth.Yet overwhelming all these shadowy lives— and incomparably more vivid, as amountain may be seen to the very expression in its eyes when the forest aboutits base has sunk into a green haze— hurtled the white star that was myself. Iwas there also; and I saw before me, seemingly still very distant (though Iknew it was much nearer than it appeared) the crimson sun that was to be,after so many centuries, simultaneously my destruction and my apotheosis. Toits left and right, brave Skuld and sullen Verthandi seemed inconsequentialmoons. The night-dark dot of Urth crept across its face, nearly lost among itsmottlings; and in the dying moments of that night I wandered, bewildered andwondering, underground.

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO - DING, DONG, DING!

WHEN I HAD entered the secret house, I had scarcely known where I wasbound. Or rather, I had scarcely been conscious of it; unconsciously, I hadbeen directing my steps toward the Hypogeum Amaranthine, as I at lengthrealized. I intended to learn who it was who sat the Phoenix Throne, and toreclaim it if I could. When the New Sun arrived, our Commonwealth wouldrequire a ruler who understood what had taken place; so I thought.A certain door of the Secret House opened behind the velvet arras that hungbehind the throne. I had sealed it with my word in the initial year of my reign;and I had hung the narrow space between the arras and the wall with bells, sothat no one could walk there without making some sound that would beoverheard by the occupant of the throne.

Now the door opened smoothly and silently at my command. I stepped out andclosed it after me. The little bells, suspended upon silk threads, tinkled softly;above them larger bells, from whose tongues the threads hung, whispered withbrazen voices and let fall a shower of dust.

I stood motionless, listening. At last the bells ceased their jingling, though notbefore I had heard the laughter of the small Tzadkiel in it.

"What is that ringing?" It was an old woman who spoke, her tones thin andcracked.

Another spoke in a man's deep voice. I could not make out his words.

"Bells!" the old woman exclaimed. "We heard bells. Are you grown so deaf,chiliarch, that you didn't hear them too?"

Now I wished indeed for the batardeau, with which I might have slit the arrasand so peered out; as the deep voice spoke again, it struck me that others whohad stood where I stood must have had the same thought, and sharp knives toboot. I searched the arras with my fingertips.

"They rang, we tell you. Send someone to inquire."

Perhaps there were many such rents, for I found one in a breath, made bysome watcher only a trifle, below my own height. Applying my eye to it, I sawthat I stood three strides to the right of the throne. Only the hand of theoccupant was visible to me where it lay upon the arm, as thin as that of ananatomy, a hand webbed with blue veins and spangled with gems.

Before the throne, head bent, crouched a form so vast that for a moment Ithought it was that Tzadkiel who had commanded the ship. Its disordered hairwas caked with blood.

Behind it stood a cluster of shadowy guardsmen, and beside it a helmetlessofficer whose insignia and virtually invisible armor marked him as thechiliarch of the Praetorians, though he was not, of course, the chiliarch whohad held the post during my reign, nor the one whom I had carried down fromthe upright timber in an epoch now unimaginably distant.

Before the throne and thus almost out of my field of view, a ragged womanleaned upon a carven staff. She spoke just as I realized that she was there,saying, "They ring to welcome the New Sun, Autarch. The whole of Urth

prepares for his coming."

"In our childhood," the old woman on the throne muttered, "we had little todo but read history. Thus we know that there have been a thousand prophetssuch as you, my poor sister— no, say a hundred thousand. A hundredthousand crazed paupers who fancied themselves great rhetors and sought tomake themselves great rulers as well."

"Autarch," answered the ragged woman, "won't you hear me? You speak ofthousands and hundreds of thousands. A thousand times at least I have heardobjections such as you bring, but you have not yet heard what I will say."

"Go on," the woman on the throne told her. "You may speak as long as youamuse us."

"I haven't come to amuse you, but to tell you that the New Sun has come oftenbefore, seen perhaps by only a single person, or a few. You must recall theClaw of the Conciliator, for it vanished in our time."

"It was stolen," muttered the old woman who sat the throne. "We never sawit."

"But I did," the ragged woman with the staff said. "I saw it in the hands of anangel, when I was just a girl and very ill. Tonight as I was coming here I saw itagain, in the sky. So did your soldiers, although they are afraid to tell you. Sodid this giant who has come as I have to warn you and has been savaged for it.So would you see it, Autarch, if you would quit this tomb."

"There have been such portents before. They have portended nothing. Itwould take more than the sight of a bearded star to change our mind."I thought of stepping onto the stage then to end the play, if I could; and yet Iremained where I was, wondering for whose entertainment such plays arestaged. For it was a play, and in fact a play I had seen before, though neverfrom the audience. It was Dr. Tabs's play, with the old woman on the throne ina role the doctor had taken for himself, and the woman with the staff in one ofthe roles that had been mine.

I have just written that I chose not to step forth, and it is true. But in the veryact of making my decision, I must have moved a trifle. The little bells laughedagain, and the larger bell from whose tongue they depended struck once,though ever so softly.

"Bells!" the old woman exclaimed again. "You, sister, you witch or whateveryou call yourself. Go out! There's a guard at our door. Tell their lochage wewish to know why the bells ring."

"I will not leave this place at your command," the woman said. "I haveanswered your question already."

The giant looked up at that, parting his lank hair with blood-smeared hands.

"If bells ring, they're ringing because a New Sun is coming," he rumbled in avoice almost too deep to be understood. "I do not hear them, but I do not needto hear them." Though I doubted my eyes, it was Baldanders himself.

"Are you saying we are mad?"

"My hearing is not acute. Once I studied sound, and the more one learns ofthat, the less one hears it. Then too, my tympanic membranes have grown toowide and thick. But I have heard the currents that scour the black trenchesand the crash of the waves upon your shore."

"Silence!" the old woman commanded.

"You can't order the waves to be silent, madame," Baldanders told her. "Theyare coming, and they are bitter with salt."

One of the Praetorians struck the side of his head with the butt of his fusil; itwas like the blow of a mallet.

Baldanders seemed unaffected. "The armies of Erebus follow the waves," hesaid, "and all the defeats they suffered at your husband's hands will beavenged."

From those words I knew the identity of the Autarch, and the shock of seeingBaldanders once more was as nothing to that. I must have started, because thesmall bells rang loudly, and a larger one spoke twice.

"Listen!" Valeria exclaimed in her cracked voice.

The chiliarch looked stricken. "I heard them, Autarch." Baldanders rumbled,

"I can explain them. Will you hear also what I say?"

"And I," the woman with the staff told Valeria. "They ring for the New Sun,as the giant has already announced to you."

Valeria muttered, "Speak, giant."

"What I am about to say is not important. But I will say it in order that youwill listen to what is important afterward. Our universe is neither the highestnor the lowest. Let matter become overdense here, and it bursts into thehigher. We see nothing of that because everything runs from us. Then we talkof a black hole. When matter grows overdense in the universe below us, itexplodes into ours. We see a burst of motion and energy, and we speak of awhite fountain. What this prophetess calls the New Sun is such a fountain."Valeria murmured, "We have a fountain in our garden that foretells, and Iheard someone call it the White Fountain many years ago. But what has any ofthis to do with the bells?"

"Be patient," the giant told her. "You learn in a breath what I learned in alifetime."

The woman with the staff said, "That's well. Only breaths remain to us. Athousand or so, it may be."

The giant glared at her before he spoke again to Valeria. "Things oppositeunite and appear to disappear. The potential for both remains. That is one ofthe greatest principles of the causes of things. Our sun has such a black hole asI described to you at its core. To fill it, a white fountain has been drawn acrossthe void for millennia. It spins as it flies, and in its motion emits waves ofgravitation."

Valeria exclaimed, "What! Waves of dignity? You're mad, just as thischiliarch has told us."

The giant ignored her interruption. "These waves are too slight to render usgiddy. Yet Ocean feels them and breeds new tides and fresh currents. I heardthem, as I have already told you. They brought me here."

The chiliarch snarled, "And if the Autarch orders it, we'll toss you back."

"Bells feel them in the same way. Like Ocean, their mass is delicately poised.Thus they ring, just as this woman says, pealing tbe coming of the New Sun."I was about to step out, but I saw that Baldanders was not yet finished.

"If you know anything of science, madame, you must know that water is butice given energy"

I could not see her head from my vantage point, but Valeria must havenodded.

"The legend of the mountains of fire is more than a legend. In ages when menwere only higher beasts, there were indeed such mountains. Their spew of firewas rock rendered incandescent by energy, as water is ice made fluid. A world

below this, charged with too much energy, flared into our own— as withuniverses, so with worlds. In those ages, the young Urth was little more than afalling drop of that watery rock; men and women lived upon its floating scumand thought themselves secure."

I heard Valeria sigh. "When we were ourselves young, we nodded over suchprosy stuff for endless days, having nothing better to do. But when ourAutarch came for us and we woke to life, we found no agnation in all that wehad studied."

"It has arrived at last, madame. The force that made your bells sound haswarmed the cold heart of Urth once more. Now they toll the death ofcontinents."

"Is that the news you have come to tell us, giant? If the continents die, whowill live?"

"Those on ships, possibly. Those whose ships are in the air or in the void,certainly. Those who live under the sea already, as I have now for fifty years.But it matters nothing. What— "

Baldanders's solemn voice was interrupted by the banging of a door somedistance down the Hypogeum Amaranthine and the tatoo of running feet. Ajunior officer sprinted up to the chiliarch, saluting while Baldanders and thewoman with the staff turned to stare.

"Sieur..." The man faced his commander but could not keep his frightenedeyes from wandering toward Valeria.

"What is it?"

"Sieur, another giant— "

"Another giant?" Valeria must have leaned forward at that. I saw a flash ofgems and a wisp of gray hair beneath it.

"A woman, Autarch! A naked woman!"

Although I could not see her face, I knew Valeria must be addressingBaldanders when she asked, "And what can you tell us about this? Is it yourwife, perhaps?"

He shook his head; and I, recalling the crimson chamber in his castle,speculated upon his living arrangements in thalassic caverns I could scarcelyconceive.

"The lochage is bringing the giant woman for questioning," the young officersaid.

His chiliarch added, "Do you wish to behold her, Autarch? If not, I canconduct the interrogation."

"We are tired. We will retire now. In the morning, tell us what you havelearned."

"Sh-she s-says," the young officer stammered, "that certain cacogens havelanded a man and a woman from one of their ships."

For a moment, I imagined it was to Burgundofara and myself that thisreferred; but Abaia and his undines were not likely to be in error by wholeages.

"And what else?" Valeria demanded.

"Nothing else, Autarch. Nothing!"

"It is in your eyes. If it is not soon upon your tongue, it will be buried withyou."

"It's only a groundless rumor, Autarch. None of our men have reported

anything."

"Out with it!"

The young officer looked stricken. "They say Severian the Lame has been seenagain, Autarch. In the gardens, Autarch."

It was then or never. I lifted the arras and stepped from under it, as all thelittle bells laughed and above them a great bell pealed three times.

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE - THE EVENING TIDE

"YOU ARE no more surprised to see me than I am to see you," I told them.And for three, at least, it was true.

Baldanders (whom I had never expected to see again when he had dived intothe lake, and yet whom I had seen again looking just as I recalled him, whenhe fought for me before Tzadkiel's Seat of Justice) was grown too large for meto think him human ever again, his face heavier still and more misshapen, hisskin as white as that of the water woman who had once saved me fromdrowning.

The girl whose brother had begged for a coin outside their jacal had become awoman of sixty or more, and the gray of age overlay the leanness andbrownness of long roads. Earlier she had propped herself with her staff in away that showed it was more than her badge of office; now she stood withshining eyes, as straight as a young willow.

Of Valeria I will not write— save to say that I should have known her instantlyanywhere. Her eyes had not aged. They were still the bright eyes of the girlwho had come to me wrapped in furs across the Atrium of Time; and Timehad no power over them.

The chiliarch saluted and knelt to me as the castellan of the Citadel once had,and after a pause that grew embarrassingly long, his men and the youngofficer knelt too. I motioned for them to stand, and to give Valeria time torecover herself (for I feared for a moment that she might faint or worse), Iasked the chiliarch whether he had been a junior officer when I sat thePhoenix Throne.

"No, Autarch. I was only a boy."

"Yet clearly you recall me."

"It's my duty to know the House Absolute, Autarch. There are pictures andbusts of you in some parts of it."

"They..."

The voice was so weak I scarcely heard it. I turned to make sure it was indeed

Valeria who spoke.

"They don't really look as you did. They look the way I thought— "I waited, wondering.

She waved a hand. It was a weak old woman's gesture. "As I thought youmight when you came back to me, back to our family tower in the Old Citadel.They look the way you do now." She laughed, and began to sob.Following hers, the giant's words sounded like the rumbling of cart wheels.

"You look as you always have," he said. "I do not remember many faces,Severian; but I remember yours."

"You're saying that we have a quarrel to settle. I would rather leave itunsettled and give you my hand."

Baldanders rose to take it, and I saw that he had grown to fully twice myheight.

The chiliarch inquired, "Autarch, has he the freedom of the House Absolutenow?"

"He does. He is indeed a creature of evil; but so are you, and so am I."Baldanders rumbled, "I will do no evil to you, Severian. I never have. When Iflung away your jewel, I did so because you believed in it. That did harm, or soI believed."

"And good, but that is all behind us. Let's forget those things if we can."The prophetess said, "He has done harm too by saying here that you wouldbring destruction. I have told them the truth— that you would bring a rebirth,but they would not credit me."

I told her, "He has told the truth, as well as you. If the new is to be born, theold must be swept aside. One who plants wheat kills grass. You are bothprophets, although of different kinds; and each of you has prophesied as theIncreate instructed you."

Then the great doors of lapis lazuli and silver at the most distant end of theHypogeum Amaranthine— doors used in my reign only for solemn processionsand the ceremonial presentations of extern ambassadors— were flung wide;and this time it was not a lone officer who burst into the hypogeum but twoscore troopers, each brandishing a fusil or a blazing spear. Their backs wereturned even toward the Phoenix Throne.

For a moment they occupied my attention so completely that I forgot howmany years had passed since Valeria had last seen me— for me the time hadnot been years, but fewer perhaps than a hundred days all told. And so fromthe side of my mouth in the old way I had often used when we stood togetherat some lengthy ritual, the stealthy way of talking that I had learned as a boywhispering behind Master Malrubius's back, I murmured, "This will besomething worth seeing."

Hearing her gasp, I glanced at her and saw her tear-stained cheeks and all thedamage time had wrought. We love most when we understand that the objectof our love has nothing else; and I do not think I have ever loved Valeria morethan I did then.

I put my hand upon her shoulder, and though that was not a time or place forintimate scenes, I have been glad since that I did, for there was time fornothing more. The giantess crawled through the doorway, her hand first, likesome five-legged beast, then her arm. It was larger than the trunks of many

trees that are counted as old, and as white as sea foam; but disfigured by acrusted burn that cracked and bled even as it appeared.

I heard the prophetess mumble some prayer that ended with mention of theConciliator and the New Sun. It is strange to hear yourself prayed to; andstranger still to realize that the supplicant has forgotten you are present.A gasp then, and not just from Valeria but from us all, I believe, saveBaldanders. The undine's face appeared with her other hand, and althoughthey did not in reality fill all that wide door, so large were they, and the massof brilliant green hair, that they appeared to. I have sometimes heard it said inhyperbole that eyes are as big as platters. Of her eyes it was so; they wept tearsof blood, and more blood trickled from her nostrils.

I knew she must have followed Gyoll from the sea, and from Gyoll traced itstributary, which wandered through the gardens where Jolenta and I had oncefloated upon it. I called to her, "How were you caught and driven from yourelement?"

Perhaps because she was a woman, her voice was not so deep as I anticipated,though it was deeper even than Baldander's. Yet there was a lilt to it, asthough she who struggled to pass the doorway even as she spoke and was soclearly dying had yet some vast joy that owed nothing to her own life or thesun's. She said, "Because I would save you..."

With those words her mouth filled with blood; she spat it out, and it seemedsome drain had opened from an abattoir.

I asked, "From the storms and fires that the New Sun will bring? We thankyou, but we have been warned already. Are you not a creature of Abaia's?"

"Even so." She had dragged herself through the doorway to the waist. Nowher flesh seemed so heavy it must be torn from her bones by its own weight;her breasts hung like the haycocks a child sees, who stands upon his head. Iunderstood that it would never be possible to return her to her water— thatshe would die here in the Hypogeum Amaranthine, and a hundred men wouldbe needed to dismember her corpse, and a hundred more to bury it.The chiliarch demanded, "Then why shouldn't we kill you? You're an enemyof our Commonwealth."

"Because I came to warn you." She had allowed her head to sink to theterrazzo, where it lay at so unnatural an angle that her neck might have beenbroken; yet she still spoke.

"I can give you a more forcible reason, chiliarch," I said. "Because I forbid it.She saved me once when I was a boy, and I remember her face as I remembereverything. I would save her now if I could." Looking at her face, a face ofsupernal beauty made hideous by its own weight, I asked, "Do you rememberthat?"

"No. It hasn't yet occurred. It will, because you spoke."

"What's your name? I've never known it."

"Juturna. I want to save you...not earlier. Save all of you."

Valeria hissed, "When has Abaia sought our good?"

"Always. He might have destroyed you..."

For the space of six breaths she could not continue, but I motioned Valeria andthe rest to silence.

"Ask your husband. In a day, or a few days. He's tried to tame you instead.Catch Catodon...cast out his conation. What good? Abaia would make of us agreat people."

I was reminded then of what Famulimus had asked me when I met her first:

"Is all the world a war of good and bad? Have you not thought it might besomething more?" And I felt myself upon the marches of a nobler world,where I should know what it might be. Master Malrubius had led me from thejungles of the north to Ocean speaking of hammer and anvil, and it seemed tome also that I sensed an anvil here. He had been an aquastor, like those whohad fought for me in Yesod, created from my mind; thus he had believed, as Ihad, that the undine had saved me because I would be a torturer and anAutarch. It might be that neither he nor the undine were wholly wrong.While I hesitated, lost among such thoughts, Valeria, the prophetess, and thechiliarch had whispered among themselves; but soon the undine spoke again.

"Your day fades. A New Sun...and you are shadows."

"Yes!" The prophetess seemed ready to leap for joy. "We are the shadows castby his coming. What more can we be?"

"Another comes," I said, for I thought I heard the patter of hurrying feet.Even the undine lifted her head to listen.

The sound, whatever it was, grew louder and louder still. A strange windwhistled down that long chamber, fluttering its antique hangings so that theystrewed the floor with dust and pearls. Roaring like the thunder it flung backthe double doors that had been propped open by the undine's waist, and itcarried that perfume— wild and saline, as fetid and fecund as a woman'sgroin, that once met can never be forgotten; so that at that instant I would nothave been surprised to hear the crash of surf or the mewing of gulls.

"It's the sea!" I called to the others. Then, as I tried to adjust my mind withwhat must surely have occurred, "Nessus must be under water."

Valeria gasped, "Nessus drowned two days ago."

As she spoke, I snatched her up; her frail body seemed lighter than a child's.The waves came then, the uncountable white-maned destriers of Ocean,foaming across the undine's shoulders so that for a breath I saw her as thoughI saw two worlds together, at once a woman and a rock. She lifted her heavyhead higher at their coming and cried out in triumph and despair. It was thewail a storm gives as it sweeps over the sea, and a cry I hope never to hearagain.

The Praetorians were clattering up the steps of the dais to escape the water,the young officer who had seemed so frightened and feeble before takingJader's sister (a prophetess no longer, for she had no more to prophesy) by thehand and drawing her up with him.

"I will not drown," Baldanders rumbled. "And the rest do not matter. Saveyourself if you can."

I nodded without thinking and with my free arm jerked aside the arras. ThePraetorians crowded forward, so that the bells that had pealed three times forme jangled madly and broke their cracked, dry straps, falling clangorously.Not whispering but shouting, for the word would never be of use again, Icommanded the sealed door through which I had come. It flew open, andthrough it came the assassin, mute still, half-unknowing, numbed by thememory of the ashen plains of death. I called to him to halt, but he had caughtsight of the crown and Valeria's poor, ravaged face beneath it.

He must have been a swordsman of renown; no master-at-arms could havestruck more quickly. I saw the flash of the poisoned blade, then felt the fierypain of its thrust through my wife's poor, raddled body into my own, where it

reopened the wound that Agilus's avern leaf had made so many years before.

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR - THE MORNING TIDE

THERE WAS a shimmering azure light. The Claw had returned— not theClaw destroyed by Ascian artillery, nor even the Claw I had given thechiliarch of Typhon's Praetorians, but the Claw of the Conciliator, the gem Ihad found in my sabretache as Dorcas and I walked down a dark road besidethe Wall of Nessus. I tried to tell someone; but my mouth was sealed, and Icould not find the word. Perhaps I was too distant from myself, from theSeverian of bone and flesh borne by Catherine in a cell of the oubliette underthe Matachin Tower. The Claw endured, shining and swaying against the darkvoid.

No, it was not the Claw that swayed but I, swaying gently, gently while the suncaressed my back.

The sunlight must have brought me to myself, as it would have raised me frommy deathbed. The New Sun must come; and I was the New Sun. I lifted myhead, opened my eyes, and spat a stream of crystal fluid like no water ofUrth's; it seemed not water at all, but a richer atmosphere, corroborant as thewinds of Yesod.

Then I laughed with joy to find myself in paradise, and in laughing felt that Ihad never laughed before, that all the joy I had ever known had been but avague intuition of this, sickly and misguided. More than life, I had wished aNew Sun for Urth; and Urth's New Sun was here, dancing about me like tenthousand sparkling spirits and tipping each wave with purest gold. Not evenon Yesod had I seen such a sun! Its glory eclipsed every star and was like theeye of the Increate, not to be looked upon lest the pyrolater go blind.Turning from that glory, I cried out as the undine had, in triumph anddespair. Around me floated the wrack of Urth: trees uprooted, loose shingles,broken beams, and the bloated corpses of beasts and men. Here spread whatthe sailors who had fought against me on Yesod must have seen; and I, seeingit now as they had, no longer hated them for drawing work-worn knivesagainst the coming of the New Sun, but felt a fresh surprise that Gunnie haddefended me. (Not for the first time, I wondered too if she had tipped thebalance; had she fought against me, she would have fought me, and not theeidolons. Such was her nature; and if I had died, Urth would have perishedwith me.)

Far off I heard, or thought I heard, an answering cry over the murmur of the

many-tongued waves. I started toward it but soon halted, hampered by mycloak and boots; I kicked off the boots (though they were good ones and nearlynew) and let them sink. The junior officer's cloak soon followed, something Iwas later to regret. Swimming, running, and walking great distances havealways made me conscious of my body, and it felt strong and well; theassassin's poisoned wound had healed like the poisoned wound Agilus hadmade.

Yet it was merely well and strong. The inhuman power that it had drawn frommy star was gone, though it must surely have healed me while it remained.When I tried to reach the part of myself that had once been there, it was asthough one who had lost a leg sought to move it.

The cry came again. I answered, and dissatisfied with my progress (as well as Icould judge, each wave I breasted drove me back as far as I had swumforward), I took a deep breath and swam some distance underwater.I opened my eyes almost at once, for it seemed to me that the water held nosting of salt; and as a boy I had swum with open eyes in the wide cisternbeneath the Bell Keep, and even in the stagnant shallows of Gyoll. This waterappeared as clear as air, though blue-green at its depths. Vaguely, as we maysee a tree above us mirrored in some quiet pool, I beheld the bottom, wheresomething white moved in so slow and errant a fashion that I could not be surewhether it swam or merely drifted. The very purity and warmth of the wateralarmed me; I grew fearful that I might somehow forget it was not air in factand lose myself as I had once been lost among the dark and twining roots ofthe pale blue nenuphars.

I breached then, shooting free of the waves by two cubits, and saw, still someway off, a ragged raft to which two women clung, and on which a man stoodshading his eyes with his hand while he scanned the tossing surface.A dozen strokes carried me to them. The raft had been built of whateverfloating stuff they could find, and bound together in any way that would serve.Its core was a large table such as an exultant might have spread for anintimate supper in his suite; and the table's eight sturdy legs, now pawing theair by pairs, seemed parodies of masts.

When I had clambered onto the back of a cabinet (somewhat cumbered by thewell-meant help I got), I saw that the survivors comprised a fat, bald man andthe two women, both fairly young, one short and blessed with the merry,round face of a cheerful doll, the other tall, dark, and hollow-cheeked.

"You see," the fat man said, "not all's lost. There'll be more, mark my word."The dark woman muttered, "And no water."

"We'll get something, never fear. Meantime, none to share amongst four's buta bit worse than none to share amongst three, provided it's doled out fairly."I said, "This must be fresh water all around us."

The fat man shook his head. "I fear it's the sea, sieur. High tides because of theDay Star, sieur, and they've swallowed up the countryside at present. Gyoll'smixed in with them, to be sure, so the water's not quite so salt as they say oldOcean is, sieur."

"Don't I know you? You seem familiar."

He bowed as skillfully as any legate, all the while keeping a hand braced onone of the table legs. "Odilo, sieur. Master steward, sieur, and charged by ourbenign Autarch, whose smiles are the hopes of her humble servants, sieur,with the regulation of the whole of the Hypogeum Apotropaic in its entirety,

sieur. Doubtless you saw me there, sieur, upon some visit you made to ourHouse Absolute, though I did not have occasion to wait upon you there, sieur,I'm sure, as I would have recollected such an honor to the very day of mydemise, sieur."

The dark woman said, "Which may be this."

I hesitated. I did not want to feign to be the exultant Odilo plainly took me for;but to announce myself the Autarch Severian would be awkward even if Iwere believed.

The doll-faced woman rescued me. "I'm Pega, and I was the armagettePelagia's soubrette."

Odilo frowned. "Hardly well mannered for you to introduce yourself in such away, Pega. You were her ancilla."

And then to me. "She was a good servant, sieur, I have no question. A triflegiddy, perhaps."

The doll-faced woman looked chastened, though I suspected the expressionwas entirely assumed. "I did madame's hair and took care of her things, butshe really kept me to tell her all the latest jokes and gossip, and to trainPicopicaro. That was what she said, and she always called me her soubrette."A fat tear rolled down her cheek, gleaming in the sun; but whether it was forher dead mistress or the dead bird, I could not be sure.

"And this, ah, female will not introduce herself to Pega and me. That is,beyond her name, which is— "

"Thais."

"I am enriched by this introduction," I said. By then I had remembered that Iheld honorary commissions in half a dozen legions and epitagms, all of which Icould employ as incognitos without a lie. "Hipparch Severian, of the BlackTarentines."

Pega's mouth shaped a tiny circle. "Ooh! I must've seen you in theprocession!" She turned to the woman who had called herself Thais. "His menwore lacquered cuir-bouilliwith white plumes, and you never saw suchdestriers!"

Odilo murmured, "You went with your mistress, I take it?"

Pega made some response, but I gave it no heed. A corpse bobbing a chainfrom the raft had caught my eye, and I thought how absurd it was that Ishould squat on a dead man's furniture and dissemble to servants with Valeriarotting underwater. How she would have mocked me! At a pause in the talk, Iasked Odilo whether his father had not been steward before him in the sameplace.

He beamed with pleasure. "He was indeed, sieur, and gave the most completesatisfaction all his life. That was in the great days of Father Inire, sieur, when,if I may say so, sieur, our Hypogeum Apotropaic was famous all across theCommonwealth. May I ask why you inquire, sieur?"

"I merely wondered. It's more or less the usual thing, I believe."

"It is, sieur. The son's given an opportunity to show his mettle if he can; and ifhe does, he retains the office. You may not believe it, sieur, but my father onceencountered your namesake before he had become Autarch. Do you know ofhis life and deeds, sieur?"

"Not as much as I'd like to, Odilo."

"Graciously spoken, sieur. Most graciously spoken indeed." The fat stewardnodded and beamed at the two women to make sure they appreciated the

exquisite courtesy of my reply.

Pega was studying the sky. "It's going to rain, I believe. Maybe we won't die ofthirst after all."

Thais said, "Another storm. We'll drown instead."

I told them I hoped not, and began to examine my emotional state before Iremembered it could no longer be the power of my star that had summonedthe clouds gathering in the east.

Odilo was not to be deprived of his anecdote. "It was late one night, sieur, andmy father was making his final rounds when he saw someone attired in thefuligin habiliments of a carnifex, though without the customary sword ofexecution. As was to be expected, his first thought was that the man wasarrayed for a masque, of which there are always several in one part or anotherof the House Absolute on any given night. Yet he knew none was to take placein our Hypogeum Apotropaic, neither Father Inire nor the then Autarchhaving much fondness for those diversions."

I smiled, recalling the House Azure. The dark woman shot me a significantglance and ostentatiously covered her lips with her hand, but I had no desireto cut Odilo's recital short; now that I would no longer wander through theCorridors of Time, all that concerned the past or the future seemed infinitelyprecious to me.

"His next thought— which had better been his first, sieur, as he often owned tomy mother and me as we sat by the fireside— was that this carnifex had set outupon some sinister mission, supposing himself apt to pass unobserved. It wasvital, sieur, as my father understood at once, to learn if his errand servedFather Inire or some other. My father therefore approached him as boldly asif he'd a cohort of hastarii at his back and asked his business straight out."Thais murmured, "If he had been set upon some evil errand, he would haveowned it, no doubt."

Odilo said, "My dear lady, I don't know whom you may be, as you haverefrained from informing us even when our exalted guest obligingly made usprivy to his own patrician identity. But you obviously know nothing of artifice,nor of the intrigues carried out daily— and nightly! — among the myriadhallways of our House Absolute. My father was well aware that no agententrusted with an irrevealable commission would disclose it, however abruptthe demand. He hazarded that some involuntary gesture or fleeting expressionmight betray treachery, were such intended."

"Wasn't that Severian masked?" I asked. "You said he was dressed as atorturer."

"I'm quite certain he wasn't, sieur, as my father described him often— a mostsavage countenance, sieur, severely scarred on one cheek."

"I know!" Pega broke in. "I've seen his portrait and his bust. They're in theHypogeum Abscititious, where the Autarch put them when she married again.He looked like he'd cut your throat whistling."

I felt that someone had cut my own.

"Quite apropos!" Odilo approved. "My father said much the same, though henever put it so succinctly that I can recall."

Pega was examining me. "He never had children, did he?"

Odilo smiled. "One would have heard of that, I imagine."

"Legitimate children. But he could have covered any woman in the HouseAbsolute, just by cocking an eyebrow. Exultants, all of them."

Odilo told her to hold her tongue and said, "I do hope you will forgive Pega,sieur. After all, it's rather a compliment."

"To be told I look like a cutthroat? Yes, it's the kind I'm always getting." Ispoke without reflection and continued in the same way, seeking at once toturn the talk to Valeria's remarriage and to conceal the grief I felt. "Butwouldn't the cutthroat have to be my grandfather? Severian the Great wouldbe eighty or more if he were alive, surely. Whom should I ask about him,Pega? My mother or my father? And don't you think there must have beensomething about him after all, for him to command so many fine chatelaineswhen he'd been a torturer in his youth, even if the Autarch took a newhusband?"

To fill the silence that followed my little speech, Odilo said, "That guild isabolished, sieur, I believe."

"Of course you do. That's what people always believe." The whole of the eastwas black already, and the motion of our improvised raft had grownperceptibly more lively.

Pega whispered, "I didn't mean to offend, Hipparch. It's just that..."Whatever it was, was lost in the breaking of a wave.

"No," I told her. "You're right. He was a hard man from all I know of him;and a cruel one too, at least by reputation, though perhaps he wouldn't haveowned to that. Quite possibly Valeria wed him for his throne, though I believeshe's sometimes said otherwise. Her second husband made her happy, atleast."

Odilo chortled. "Well put, sieur. A distinct hit. You must take care, Pega,when you cross swords with a soldier."

Thais stood, grasping a table leg with one hand and pointing with the other.

" Look! "

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE - THE BOAT

IT WAS a sail, lifted at times so high that we could glimpse the dark hullunder it— at others nearly lost, dipping and spinning down the trenches of theflood. We shouted till we were hoarse, all of us, and capered and waved ourarms, and at last I lifted Pega onto my shoulder, balancing as precariously as Ihad in the tossing howdah of Vodalus's baluchither.

The wind spilled from the gaff-rigged sail. Pega groaned. "They're sinking!"

"No," I told her, "they're coming about."

The little jib emptied and flapped in its turn, then filled again. I cannot sayjust how many breaths or how many beatings of my heart passed before wesaw the sharp jibboom stabbing the sky like a flagstaff set on a green hill.Time has seldom gone more slowly for me, and I feel they might havenumbered several thousands.

A moment more, and the boat lay within long bowshot of us, with a ropetrailing in the water. I plunged in, not sure that the others would follow me,but feeling I would be better able to help them on board than on the raft.At once it seemed I had plunged into another world, more outlandish than theBrook Madregot. The unresting waves and clouded sky vanished as if they hadnever existed. I sensed a mighty current, yet I could not have said by whatmeans I knew of it; for although the drowned pastures of my drowned nationslipped under me and its trees gestured to me with supplicating limbs, thewater itself seemed at rest. It was as if I watched the slow rolling of Urthacross the void.

At length I saw a cottage with its walls and stone chimney still standing; itsopen door appeared to beckon me. I felt a sudden terror and swam upwardtoward the light as desperately as when I had been drowning in Gyoll.My head broke the surface; water streamed from my nostrils. For a moment itseemed that both raft and boat were gone, but a wave lifted the boat so that Iglimpsed its weather-stained sail. I knew I had been underwater a long time,even though it had not seemed so. I swam as fast as I could, but I was carefulto keep my face in air as much as possible, and I closed my eyes when it wasnot.

Odilo stood in the stern with a hand on the tiller; when he saw me, he wavedand shouted some encouragement I could not hear. In a moment or two,Pega's round face appeared above the gunnel, then another face, one I did notknow, brown and wrinkled.

A wave picked me up as a cat does her kittens, and I dove headfirst down itsfarther side and found the floating rope in the trough. Odilo abandoned thetiller (which was held with a loop of cordage in any case, as I saw when I goton board) and joined in hauling me in. The little boat had only a couple ofcubits of freeboard, and it was not difficult to brace my foot on the rudder andvault over the stern.

Although Pega had first seen me less than a watch before, she hugged me likea stuffed toy.

Odilo bowed as though we were being presented to each other in theHypogeum Amaranthine. "Sieur, I feared that you had lost your life amongthese raging seas!" Odilo bowed again. "Sieur, it is exceeding pleasant as wellas quite astonishing, sieur, if I may say so, sieur, to see you once again, sieur!"Pega was more straightforward. "All of us thought you were dead, Severian!"I asked him where the other woman was, then caught sight of her as abucketful of water flew over the side and back into the flood. Like a sensiblewoman, she was bailing; and like a woman of sense, bailing downwind.

"She's here, sieur. We are all here, all here now, sieur. I myself was the first toreach this craft." Odilo inflated his chest with pardonable pride. "I was able toassist the females a bit, sieur. But no one had seen you at all, sieur, not sincewe cast our lots with the waves, if I may phrase it thus, sieur. We are mosthappy, sieur, indeed we are quite delighted— " He recollected himself. "Not

that a young officer of your physique and undoubted prowess could be inmuch danger, sieur, where such humble persons as we had come safelythrough, sieur. Though but narrowly, sieur. Very narrowly, sieur. And yet theyoung women were concerned for you, sieur, for which I hope and trust you'llforgive them."

"There's nothing to forgive," I told him. "I thank all of you for your help."The old sailor whose boat it was made some complex gesture (half-concealedby his thick coat) that I was unable to follow, then spit to windward.

"Our rescuer," Odilo continued, beaming, "is— "

"Don't matter," the sailor snapped. "You get down there and trim thatmains'l. Jib's fouled, too. You stamp now and stutter, or she'll capsize."It had been ten years and more since I had sailed on the Samru, but I hadlearned then how a fore-and-aft rig operates, and I do not forget. I hadtrimmed the gaff mainsail before Odilo and Pega had fathomed the mysteriesof its simple rigging, and with a little help from the stay I freed the jib andpayed out the sheet.

For the remainder of the day we lived in fear of the storm, flying before thestrong winds that preceded it, always escaping but never completely sure wehad. By night the danger seemed to have lessened, and we hove to. The sailorgave each of us a cup of water, a round of hard bread, and a scrap of smokedmeat. I had known I was hungry, but I discovered that I was ravenous, as waseveryone else.

"We've got to keep both eyes open for something to eat," he directed Odiloand the women solemnly. "Sometimes, when there's a wreck, you can findbiscuit boxes or barrels of water. This's about the biggest wreck there everwas, I suppose." He paused, squinting at his vessel and the surrounding flood,still lit by the lingering incandescence of Urth's new sun. "There's islands— orthere was— but we might not find them, and we've not got food enough norwater neither to reach the Xanthic Lands."

"I have observed," Odilo said, "that in the course of life events attain somenadir from which they are afterward elevated. The destruction of the HouseAbsolute, the death of our beloved Autarch— if she has not, by the mercy ofthe Increate, somewhere survived— "

"She has," I told him. "Believe me." When he stared at me with his eyes filledwith hope, I could only add weakly, "I feel it."

"I trust so, sieur. Your feelings do you credit. But as I was saying,circumstances then reached their worst for us all." He looked about, and evenThais and the old sailor nodded.

"And yet we lived. I discovered a floating table and thus was able to proffermy assistance to these poor women. Together we discovered still morefurniture and constructed our raft, on which we were soon joined by ourexalted guest; and at last you, Captain, rescued us, for which we are extremelygrateful. That I should call a tendency. Our circumstances will incline towardthe better for some time to come, I believe."

Pega touched his arm. "You must have lost your wife, and your family too,Odilo. It's admirable of you not to mention them, but we know how you mustfeel."

He shook his head. "I never married. I'm glad of it now, though I've often

regretted it. To be the steward of an entire hypogeum, and particularly, as Iwas in my youth, to be steward of my Hypogeum Apotropaic in the time ofFather Inire, requires the most unremitting effort; one has hardly a watch inwhich to sleep. Previous to my own father's lamented demise, there was acertain young person, the confidential servitrix of a chatelaine, if I may say so,to whom I hoped— but the chatelaine retired to her estates. For a time, theyoung person and I corresponded."

He sighed. "Doubtless she found another, for a woman will always findanother if she wishes. I hope and trust that he was worthy of her."I would have spoken then to relieve the tension if I could; but torn betweenamusement and sympathy as I was, I could think of nothing innocuous to say.Odilo's inflated manner rendered him ridiculous, and yet I was conscious itwas a manner that had evolved over many years, through the reigns of manyAutarchs, as a means of preserving such people as Odilo had lately been fromdismissal and death; and I was conscious too that I myself had been one ofthose Autarchs.

Pega had begun to talk to him in a low tone that was nearly a whisper, andalthough I could hear her voice above the slap of the waves against our side, Icould not tell what was said. Nor was I sure I wished to hear it.The old sailor had been rummaging under the little poopdeck that covered thelast couple of ells of the stern. "Haven't but four blankets," he announced.Odilo interrupted Pega to say, "Then I must do without. My clothing is drynow, and I should not be uncomfortable."

The sailor tossed a blanket to each of the women, and one to me, keeping thelast for himself.

I put mine in Odilo's lap. "I'm not going to sleep for a while; I have somethings to think about. Why don't you use it until I'm ready for it? When I getsleepy, I'll try to take it without waking you."

Thais began, "I— " and though I was not meant to, I saw Pega elbow her sosharply she had to catch her breath.

Odilo hesitated; I could hardly make out his drawn face in the fading light, butI knew he must be very tired. At last he said, "That is most kind, sieur. Thankyou, sieur."

I had finished my bread and smoked meat long before. Not wishing to give himtime to repent his decision, I went to the bow and stared out over the water.The waves still retained a twilight gleam from the sun, and I knew that theirlight was mine. I understood at that moment how the Increate must feel abouthis creation, and I knew the sorrow he knows because the things he createspass away. I think it may be a law binding even him— that is to say, a logicalnecessity— that nothing can be eternal in the future that is not rooted ineternity in the past, as he himself is. And as I contemplated him in his joys andsorrows, it came to me that I was much like him, though so much smaller; thusan herb, perhaps, might think concerning a great cedar, or one of theseinnumerable drops of water about Ocean.

Night fell, and all the stars came out, so much the brighter for having hiddenlike frightened children under the gaze of the New Sun. I searched them— notfor my own star, which I knew I would never see again, but for the End of theUniverse. I did not find it, not upon that night nor any night since; yet surely it

is there, lost among the myriad constellations.

Virescent radiance peeped across my shoulder like a ghost, and I,remembering the colored and many-faceted lanterns at the stern of the Samru,imagined we had hoisted a similar light; I turned to look, and it was the brightface of Lune, from which the eastern horizon had fallen like a veil. No mansince the first had seen it as brilliant as I did that night. How strange to thinkthat it was the same poor, faint thing I had seen only the night before besidethe cenotaph! I knew then that our old world of Urth had perished, even as Dr.Tabs had foretold, and that our boat floated not there, but upon the waters ofthe Urth of the New Sun, which is called Ushas.

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX - THE RUNAWAY

FOR A LONG while I stood there in the bow, sifting the sentinels of the nightas Ushas's swift motion revealed them. Our ancient Commonwealth haddrowned; but the starlight that touched my eyes was more ancient still, hadbeen old when the first woman nursed the first child. I wondered if the starswould weep, when Ushas herself was old, to learn of the death of ourCommonwealth.

Certainly I, who had once been such a star, wept then.

From this I was taken by a touch at my elbow. It was the old sailor, the captainof our boat; he who had seemed so aloof before now stood with his shouldernext to mine, staring across the floodwaters as I did. It struck me that I hadnever learned his name.

I was about to ask it when he said, "Think I don't know you?"

"Possibly you do," I told him. "But if so, you have the advantage of me."

"The cacogens, they can call up a man's thought and show it to him. I knowthat."

"You think I'm an eidolon. I've met them, but I'm not one of them; I'm a manlike you."

He might not have heard me. "All day I been watching you. I been lying awakewatching you ever since we laid down. They say they can't cry, but it's nottrue, and I saw you crying and remembered what they said and how it'swrong. Then I thought, how bad can they be? But it's bad luck to have themon a ship, bad luck to think too much."

"I'm sure that's true. But those who think too much cannot help it."He nodded. "That's so, I suppose."

The tongues of men are older than our drowned land; and it seems strangethat in so great a time no words have been found for the pauses in speech,

which have each their own quality, as well as a certain length. Our silenceendured while a hundred waves slapped the hull, and it held the rocking of theboat, the sigh of the night wind in the rigging, and pensive expectation.

"I wanted to say there's nothing you can do to her that'll hurt me. Sink her orrun her aground, I don't care."

I told him I supposed I might do both, but that I would not do themintentionally.

"You never did me much harm when you were real," the sailor said afteranother long pause. "I wouldn't have met Maxellindis if it hadn't been foryou— maybe that was bad. Maybe it wasn't. We'd some good years together,Maxellindis and me."

I examined him from a corner of my eye as he stared blindly over the restlesswaves. His nose had been broken, perhaps more than once. In my mind Istraightened it again and filled in his lined cheeks.

"There was that time you pounded me. Remember, Severian? They'd justmade you the captain. When it came my turn I did the same to Timon."

" Eata! " Before I knew what I was doing, I had grabbed him and picked himup just as I used to when we had been apprentices together. "Eata, you littlesnot-nose, I thought I'd never see you again!" I spoke so loudly that Odilomoaned and stirred in his sleep.

Eata looked startled. His hand went toward the knife at his belt, then drewaway.

I put him down. "When I reformed the guild you were gone. They said you'drun away."

"I did." He tried to swallow, or perhaps only to catch his breath. "It's good tohear you, Severian, even if you're just a bad dream. What did you call them?"

"Eidolons."

"A eidolon. If the cacogens are going to show me somebody out of my head, Imight have had worse company"

"Eata, do you remember the time we were locked out of the necropolis?"He nodded. "And Drotte made me try to squeeze through the bars, but Icouldn't do it. Then when the volunteers opened it, I ran off and left you andhim and Roche to the crows. None of you seemed much afraid of MasterGurloes, but I was, back then."

"We were too, but we didn't want to show it in front of you."

"I suppose." He was grinning; I could see his teeth flash in the greenmoonlight, and the black smudge where one had been knocked out. "That'swhat boys are like, like the skipper said when he showed his daughter."Wildly and momentarily it occurred to me that if Eata had not run, it mighthave been he who saved Vodalus, he who did and saw all the things that I hadseen and done. It may be that in some other sphere it happened so. Pushingaway the thought, I asked, "But what have you been doing all this time? Tellme."

"Not much to tell. When I was captain of apprentices it was easy enough toslip away and see Maxellindis whenever her uncle's boat was dockedsomewhere around the Algedonic Quarter. I had talked to the sailors andlearned to sail a bit myself; and so when it came feast time, I couldn't gothrough with it, couldn't put on fuligin."

I said, "I did it only because I couldn't imagine living in any place except theMatachin Tower."

Eata nodded. "But I could, see? I'd thought all that year about living on theboat and helping Maxellindis and her uncle. He was getting stiff, and theyneeded somebody spry and stronger than her. I didn't wait for the masters tocall me in to choose. I just ran off."

"And after that?"

"Forgot the torturers as fast as I could and as much as I could. Only lately I'vestarted trying to remember what it was like, living in the Matachin Towerwhen I was young. You won't believe this, Severian, but for years I couldn'tlook at Citadel Hill when we went up or down that reach. I used to keep myeyes turned away."

"I do believe you," I told him.

"Maxellindis's uncle died. There was a tap he used to go to, way down south inthe delta in a place called Liti. You've probably never heard of it. Maxellindisand me came to get him one night, and he was sitting there with his bottle andglass, with one arm on the table and his head down on his arm; but when Itried to shake his shoulder he fell out of the chair, and he was cold already."

"'Men to whom wine had brought death long before lay by springs of wineand drank still, too stupefied to know their lives were past.'"

"What's that?" Eata asked.

"Just an old story," I said. "Never mind, go on."

"After that, just her and me worked the boat. The two of us could do it aboutas well as the three of us had before. We never really got married. When weboth wanted to we never had the money, somehow. And when we had themoney, there was always some kind of quarrel. After a couple of yearseverybody thought we were married anyway." He blew his nose, flinging themucus over the side.

"Go on," I said again.

"We did some smuggling, and one night we got stopped by a cutter. Eight orten leagues south of Citadel Hill, that was. Maxellindis jumped— I heard thesplash— and I would have too, but one of the taxmen threw a achicoat my feetand tripped me up. You know what they are, I suppose."

I nodded. "Was I Autarch still? You might have appealed to me."

"No. I thought about it, but I was sure you'd send me back to the guild."

"I wouldn't have," I told him, "but would that have been worse than what thelaw did to you?"

"It would have been for the rest of my life. That's what I kept thinking about.Anyway, they took me upriver with our boat in tow. I was held till the assize,and then the judge ordered me flogged and made me sign on a carrack. Theykept me in irons till we were out of sight of the coast, and they worked me likea slave, but I got to see the Xanthic Lands and I went over the side there andstayed for two years. It's not such a bad place if you've got some money."I said, "But you came back."

"There was a riot and this girl that I'd been living with got killed in it. Theyhave them there every couple years over the price of food in the market. Thesoldiers break heads, and I guess they broke hers. There was a caravelanchored off Blue Flower Island right then, and I went to see the captain andhe gave me a berth. A man can be a terrible fool when he's young, and Ithought maybe Maxellindis had got us another boat. But when I came backshe wasn't on the river. I've never seen her again. She died, I guess, the night

the cutter got its grapple on us."

He paused chin in hand. "Maxellindis was almost as good a swimmer as I everwas. You remember I could swim almost as well as you and Drotte, but maybea nixie pulled her down. That used to happen, sometimes, specially on thelower reaches."

I said, "I know," remembering Juturna's huge face as I had glimpsed it as aboy, when I had almost drowned in Gyoll.

"Not much more to tell I'd brought back a bit of money in a silk cestus I'd hada man make for me over there, and I got a little more when the caravel paidoff. I bought this boat here on shares and here I am. But I can still speak alittle of the Xanthic tongue, and more will come to my mouth when I hear it inanother one. Or it would if we had more water and a little more food."I told him "There are many isles in that sea. I saw them on a chart in theHypotherm Classis once."

He nodded "I guess a couple hundred, and a lot more that don't show on anychart I've seen. You'd think a ship couldn't miss them all but it can. Unlessyou're pretty lucky, you can pass right between them without ever knowingthey're there. A lot depends on when it's night and when it's day, and a lotmore on how high up your lookout stands— if he's in the maintop of a carrackor the bow of my little boat."

I shrugged. "We can only hope."

"That's like the frog said when he seen the stork. But his mouth was dry, andhe couldn't quite get the word out."

Eata paused for a moment, studying me instead of the waves. "Severian, doyou know what's happened to you? Even if you're just a dream from thecacogens?"

"Yes," I said. "But I'm not a phantom. Or if I am, it's Tzadkiel theHierogrammate you should blame for me."

"Then tell me what happened to you, just like I told you everything that'shappened to me."

"All right, but I want to ask you something first. What took place here onUrth after I left?"

Eata sat down on a locker from which he could look up at me without turninghis head. "That's right," he said. "You sailed off to bring the New Sun, didn'tyou? Did you ever find him?"

"Yes and no. I'll tell you all about that as soon as you tell me what happenedon Urth."

"I don't know much about what you'd probably like to hear." He rubbed hisjaw. "Anyway, I'm not so sure I can remember just what went on or just whenit was. All the while Maxellindis and me were together you were Autarch, butmostly they said you were off fighting the Ascians. Then, when I got back fromthe Xanthic Lands, you were gone."

I said, "If you stayed two years, you must have been eight with Maxellindis."

"That would be about right. Four or five with her and her uncle, and two orthree after, just us two on the boat. Anyway, your autarchia, she was Autarch.People talked about it because of her being a woman, and they said she didn'thave the words.

"So when I traded my extern gold for chrisos, some had your face on themand some hers, or anyway some woman's. She married Dux Caesidius. Theyhad a big celebration all up and down Iubar Street, meat and wine for

everybody. I got drunk, and I didn't get back to my boat for three days. Peoplesaid their marrying was good— she could stay in the House Absolute and takecare of the Commonwealth while he took care of the Ascians."

"I remember him," I said. "He was a fine commander." It was strange tosummon up that hawk face and imagine its fierce, surly owner lying withValeria.

"Some said she did it because he looked like you," Eata told me. "But he washandsomer, I think, and maybe a little taller."

I tried to remember. Handsomer, certainly, than I had been with my scarredface. It seemed to me that Caesidius had been a bit below me in height, thoughevery man is taller when everyone kneels to him, to be sure.

"And then he died," Eata continued. "That was last year."

"I see," I said.

For a long while I stood with my back against the gunwale, thinking. Therising moon, now almost overhead, cast the shadow of the mast like a blackbar between us. From its farther side, Eata sounded strangely youthful. "Nowwhat about the New Sun, Severian? You promised you'd tell me all abouthim."

I began, but while I spoke of stabbing Idas I saw that Eata was asleep.

CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN - THE SUNKEN CITY

I TOO should have slept, but I did not. For a watch or more I remainedstanding in the bow, looking sometimes at the sleepers and sometimes at thewater. Thais lay as I have so often lain, face down, her head cradled in herfolded arms. Pega had curled her plump body into a ball, so that I might havebelieved her a kitten turned into a woman; her spine was pushed againstOdilo's side. He lay upon his back with his belly rising into the air, his armsabove his head.

Eata sprawled, still more than half sitting, his cheek to the gunwale; I thoughthe must be exhausted. As I studied him, I wondered whether he would stillbelieve me an eidolon when he woke.

Yet who was I to call him mistaken? The true Severian— and I felt sure therehad once been a true Severian— had disappeared among the stars long ago. Istared up at them, trying to find him.

At length I realized I could not, not because he was not there (for he was), butbecause Ushas had turned away from him, hiding him, with many others,

behind her horizon. For our New Sun is only one star among myriads, thoughperhaps now, when none but he can be seen by day, men will forget that.No doubt our sun is as fair as all the rest from the deck of Tzadkiel's ship. Iwinnowed them still, even when I knew I would never discover that Severianwho was no dream of Eata's; and at last I understood that I searched for theship. I did not find it, but the stars were so lovely I did not grudge the effort.The brown book that I no longer carry with me, a book that has no doubt beendestroyed with a thousand millions of others in what was the library of MasterUltan, had spun a tale of a great sanctuary, a place veiled by a diamond-sprinkled curtain lest men see the face of the Increate and die. After ages ofUrth, a bold man forced his way into that temple, slew all its guardians, andtore down the curtain for the sake of the many diamonds sewn into it. Thesmall chamber he found beyond the curtain was empty, or so the tale says; butwhen he walked out and into the night, he looked at the sky and was consumedby flames. How terrible it is that we know our stories only when we have livedthem!

Perhaps it was the memory of this tale. Perhaps it was no more than thethought of the drowned library, of which Cyby, I feel sure, had been the finalmaster— and in which Cyby, I feel certain, must have died. However it may be,the knowledge that Urth had been destroyed came to me with a clarity andhorror it had not had before, not even when I had seen the ruined cottage withits chimney still standing, though that had filled me with so much dread. Theforests where I had hunted were gone, every tree and every stick. The millionlittle freeholdings that had nourished a million Melitos and sent them northarmed with so much ingenuity and humble courage, the broad pampas fromwhich Foila had ridden at the gallop with her lance and her high heart— allwere gone, every turnip and every blade of grass.

A dead child, rocked by the waves, seemed to gesture to me. When I saw him, Iunderstood that there was but one way in which I might expiate what I haddone. A wave beckoned, the dead boy beckoned, and even as I told myself Ilacked the will to take my own life, I felt the gunwale slipping from my hands.Water closed over me, yet I did not drown. I felt I might breathe that water,yet I did not breathe. Illuminated by Lune, which flamed now like an emerald,the flood spread about me like green glass. Slowly I sank through an abyssthat seemed clearer than air.

Far off, great shapes loomed— things a hundred times larger than a man.Some seemed ships and some clouds; one was a living head without a body;another had a hundred heads. In time they were lost in the green haze, and Isaw below me a plain of muck and silt, where stood a palace greater than ourHouse Absolute, though it lay in ruins.

I knew then that I was dead, and that for me death held no release. A momentlater I knew also that I was dreaming, that with the crowing of the cock(whose bright black eyes would not again be pierced by the magicians) I wouldwake to find myself sharing the bed with Baldanders. Dr. Tabs would beathim, and we would go forth in search of Agia and Jolenta. I gave myself to thedream; but almost, I think, I had rent the Veil of Maya, that glorious spinningof appearances hiding the last reality.

Then it was whole once more, though fluttering still in the icy winds that blowfrom Reality to Dream and carry us with them like so many leaves. The

"palace" that had suggested the House Absolute was my city of Nessus. Vastas it had been, it seemed larger than ever now; many sections of the Wall hadfallen like our Citadel wall, making it truly an infinite city. Many towers hadfallen too, their walls of brick and stone crumbled like the rinds of so manyrotten melons. Mackerel schooled where yearly the Curators had paced insolemn procession to the cathedral.

I tried to swim and discover that I was swimming already, my arms and legsstroking rhythmically without my willing it. I stopped, but I did not (as I hadexpected) float to the surface. Drifting torpidly in an unseen current, Idiscovered the channel of Gyoll stretched below me, crossed by its proudbridges still, but robbed of its river now that water was everywhere. Drownedthings waited there, decayed and decked with green and streaming weeds:wrecked vessels and tumbled columns. I tried to expel the final breath frommy lungs, that I might drown as well. Air indeed bubbled forth; but the chillwater that rushed in did not bring with it the chill of death.

Still I sank, ever so slowly, until I stood where I had never thought to stand, inthe mud and filth at the bottom of the river. It was like standing upon the deckof Tzadkiel's ship, for there was scarcely pressure enough on the soles of mybare feet to hold me down. The current urged me to go with it, and I feltmyself a ghost who might be dispersed with a puff of breath if only the breathmuttered words of exorcism.

I walked— or rather, say that I half swam and feigned to walk. Each stepraised a cloud of silt that drifted beside me like a living creature. When Ipaused and looked up, I beheld green Lune, a shapeless blur above the unseenwaves.

When I looked down again, a yellowed skull lay at my feet, half-buried in themud. I picked it up; the lower jaw was gone, but otherwise it was whole andshowed no injury. From its size and unworn teeth, I guessed it to have been aboy's or a young man's. Some other, then, had drowned in Gyoll long ago,perhaps some apprentice who had died too long before my time for me to hearhis short, sad tale, perhaps only a boy from the tenements that had crowdedthe filthy waters.

Or perhaps it was the skull of some poor woman, strangled and thrown intothe river; so women and children, and men as well, had perished in Nessusevery night. It came to me that when the Increate had chosen me hisinstrument to destroy the land, only babes and beasts had died in innocenceAnd yet I felt that the skull had been a boy's, and the boy had somehow diedfor me, the victim of Gyoll when Gyoll had been cheated of his due sacrifice. Itook it by the eyes, shook out the mud, and carried it with me.

Long stairs of stone descended deep into the channel, mute testimony to thenumber of times its levees had been raised and its landings extended fromabove. I climbed them all, though I might have floated up nearly as readily.The tenements had fallen, every one. I saw a mass of tiny fish, several hundredat least, clustered in the wreckage they scattered in sparks of argent fire at myapproach revealing a bleached corpse partly devoured. After that I did notdismiss their schools again.

Doubtless there were many such dead in the city, which had once been so largeas to excite the admiration of all the world; but what of me? Was I not anotherdrifting corpse? My arm was cold to my own touch, and the weight of waterburdened my lungs; even to myself, I seemed to walk in sleep. Yet I still moved

or believed I moved against all currents, and my cold eyes saw.

The locked and rusted gate of the necropolis stood before me, wisps of mazedkelp threading its spikes like the mountain paths, the unchanged symbol of myold exile. I launched myself upward, swimming several strokes and thusflourishing the skull without intending it. Suddenly ashamed, I released it; butit appeared to follow me, propelled by the motion of my hand.

Before I had embarked upon the ship of the Hierodules that was to carry meto the ship of Tzadkiel, I had crouched in air, surrounded by circling, singingskulls. Here spread the reality this ceremony had foretold. I knew that; Iunderstood it, and I was certain in my knowledge— the New Sun must do whatI now did, going weightless through his drowned world, ringed by her dead.The loss of her ancient continents was the price Urth had paid; this journeywas the price I had to pay, and I was paying it at this moment.The skull settled softly upon the sodden earth in which the pailpers of Nessushad been laid, generation after generation. I picked it up again. What wordshad the lochage addressed to me in the bartizan?

The exultant Talarican, whose madness manifested itself as a consuming interest

in the lowest aspects of human existence, claimed that the persons who live by

devouring the garbage of others number two gross thousands— that if a pauper

were to leap from the parapet of this bridge each time we draw breath, we should

live forever, because Nessus breeds and breaks men faster than we respire.They leap no longer, the water having leaped for them. Their misery, at least,is ended; and perhaps some survived.

When I reached the mausoleum where I had played as a boy, I found its long-jammed door shut, the force of the onrushing sea having completed a motionbegun perhaps a century ago. I laid the skull on its threshold and swam hardfor the surface, a surface that danced with golden light.

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT - OLD LANDS AND NEW

EATA'S BOAT was nowhere in sight. To write, as I must write, that I swamall that day and most of the following night seems preposterous, yet it was so.The water the others had called salt did not seem salt to me; I drank when Ithirsted and was refreshed by it. I was seldom tired; when I was, I rested onthe waves, floating.

I had already discarded all my clothes except my trousers, and now I slippedthose off. From an old habit of prudence, I examined the pockets before Iabandoned them; there were three small brass coins there, the gift of Ymar.

Their legends, like their faces, had worn away; and they were dark withverdigris— in appearance precisely the ancient things they were. I let them slipfrom my fingers, with all Urth.

Twice I saw great fish, which were perhaps dangerous; but they appeared topose no threat to me. Of the water women, of whom Idas had been, perhaps,the smallest, I saw nothing. Nor did I see Abaia, their master. Nor Erebus, norany other such monstrous thing.

Night came with teeming stars in her train, and I floated on my back andgazed at them, rocked by the warm arms of Ocean. How many rich worldsflew above me then! Once when I had fled from Abdiesus, I had huddled in thelea of a boulder and stared at these same stars, trying to imagine theircompanions and how men might live upon them and lift cities that knew less ofevil than ours. Now I knew how foolish all such dreams must be, for I had seenanother world and found it stranger than anything I might have imagined.Nor could I have dreamed the heteroclite crewmen I had met aboardTzadkiel's ship, nor the jibers; and yet both had come from Briah, even as I;and Tzadkiel had not scrupled to take them into his service.

But though I rejected all such dreams, I found that they came unbidden.About certain stars, though they appeared but embers wafted through thenight, I seemed to see stars smaller still; and as I watched them, dim vistastook shape in my mind, lovely and terrifying. At last clouds came to blot thestars, and for a time I slept.

When morning came, I watched the night of Ushas fall from the face of theNew Sun. No world of Briah could hold a sight more wonderful, nor had I seena thing more marvelous on Yesod. The young king, bright with such gold as isnot found in any mine, strode across the waves; and the glory of him was suchthat he who looked on it should never look upon another.

Waves danced for him and cast ten thousand drops to honor his feet, and heturned each to diamond. A great wave came— for the wind was rising— and Irode it as a swallow rides the spring air. At its crest I could stay for less than abreath, but from that summit I glimpsed his face; and I was not blinded, butknew his face for my own. It is a thing that has not happened since, andperhaps never will. Between us, five leagues or more away, an undine rosefrom the sea, lifting her hand to him in salute.

Then the wave subsided, and I with it. If I had waited, a second wave wouldhave come, I think, raising me a second time; but for many things (of whichthat moment was for me the chief) there can be no second time. So that noinferior memory should obscure it, I sounded the sun-bright water, pushingever deeper, eager to test the powers I had discovered only the night before.They remained, although I no longer swam half in dream, and the urge to endmy life had vanished. My world was now a place of palest, purest blue, flooredwith ocher and canopied in gold. The sun and I floated in space and smileddown upon our spheres.

When I had swum a while— how many breaths I cannot say, for I did not drawbreath— I recalled the undine and set out to find her. I feared her still, but Ihad learned at last that such as she were not always to be feared; and thoughAbaia had conspired to prevent the coming of our New Sun, the age in whichmy death might have prevented it was past. Deeper I swam and deeper, for I

soon learned how much easier it was to see a thing that moved against thebright surface.

Then all thoughts of the undine evaporated. Under me lay another city, one Idid not know, a city that was never Nessus. Its towers sprawled along the floorof Ocean, where the stumps of a few yet stood; and ancient wrecks lay amongthem, who had been ancient already when the wrecks had been fair youngships launched to shouts of joy, with banners in their rigging and dancing ontheir forecastles.

Searching among the fallen towers I discovered treasures so noble they hadwithstood the passing of aeons— splendid gems and bright metals. But I didnot find the things I sought— the name of the city and the name of theforgotten nation that had raised it, and had lost it to Ocean just as we had lostNessus. With shards and shells, I scraped lintels and pedestals; there weremany words written there, but in a character I could not read.

For several watches, I swam and searched among those ruins and never raisedmy eyes; but at last a huge shadow glided down the sand-strewn avenue beforeme, and I looked up to behold the undine, kraken-tressed and ship-bellied,pass swiftly overhead and vanish in a dazzle of sunfire.

At once I forgot the ruins. When I reached the air again, I blew out water andfoggy breath like a manatee and threw back my head to toss my hair awayfrom my eyes. For as I shot up, I had seen the shore: a low, brown coast fromwhich I was barred by less water than had once divided the Botanic Gardensfrom the bank of Gyoll.

In hardly more time than I take to dip my pen, there was land beneath myfeet. I waded out of the sea while loving it still, even as I had earlier droppedfrom the stars while loving them; and in truth there is no place in Briah that isnot lovely when it no longer holds the threat of death, save for the places menhave made so. But it was the land that I loved best, for it was to the land that Iwas born.

Yet what a terrible land it was! Not a blade of grass grew anywhere. Sand, afew stones, many shells, and thick, black mud that baked and cracked in thesun made up the whole of it. Some lines of Dr. Tabs's play returned to tormentme:

The continents themselves are old as raddled women, long since stripped of

beauty and fertility. The New Sun comes, and he will send them crashing into the

sea like foundered ships. And from the sea lift new— glittering with gold, silver,

iron, and copper. With diamonds, rubies, turquoises, lands wallowing in the soil

of a million millennia, so long ago washed down to the sea.I, who boast of forgetting nothing, had forgotten that it was the demons whohad spoken so.

A thousand times I was tempted and worse than tempted to return to Ocean;but I did not, trudging north along a strand that appeared to continueinfinitely, unchanged, to north and south. Wreckage littered the beach,splintered building timbers and uprooted trees, all tossed there by the waveslike so many jackstraws, with sometimes a rag or a stick of smashed furnitureamong them. Occasionally I found a broken branch so fresh that it still carriedunwithered leaves, as if unaware that its very world had passed away. "Lift,oh, lift me to the fallen wood!" So Dorcas had sung to me when we hadcamped beside the ford, and so she had written upon the silvered glass in our

chamber in the Vincula of Thrax. As ever, Dorcas had been wiser than eitherof us knew.

At length the shore bent inward to make a great bay, a bay so large that itsinnermost recesses were lost in the distance. Across a league of sparklingwater I could see the bay's farther lip. It would have been easy enough for meto swim to the other side, but I was reluctant to plunge in.

The New Sun had nearly vanished behind the rising shoulder of the world, andalthough it had been pleasant enough to sleep cradled by the waves, I had nodesire to do it again, nor did I want to sleep wet ashore. I decided to campwhere I was, build a fire if I could, and eat if I could find food; for the firsttime that day it occurred to me that I had not tasted food since the meagermeal we had shared on the boat.

There was firewood enough for an army, but though I sifted it for the kegs andboxes Eata had hoped to find, they were not there; after two watches, astoppered bottle half-full of rough red wine was the sole discovery I couldboast, the wrack of some low tavern like that in which Maxellindis's uncle haddied. By striking stone upon stone and discarding those that seemed leastpromising, I eventually produced an occasional feeble spark; but nothing thatwould ignite the still-damp tinder I had collected. When the New Sun washidden and my futile efforts were mocked by the silent fires of stars, I gave upand settled down to sleep, somewhat warmed by the wine.

I had thought never to behold Apheta again. In that I had been mistaken, for Isaw her that night, looking down from the sky just as she had looked down atme when I had left Yesod with Burgundofara. I blinked and stared, but soonsaw only the green disk of Lune.

It did not seem to me that I slept, but Valeria sat beside me weeping fordrowned Urth; her sweet, warm tears pattered on my face. I woke and found Iwas hot and flushed, and that Lune was concealed behind clouds from whichfell a gentle rain. Not far down the beach, a door without a doorway offeredthe shelter of a crude roof. I crept beneath it, buried my face in my arm, andslept once more, wishing never to wake.

Again green light drenched the beach. One of the flapping horrors that hadsnatched me from the wreck of the old Autarch's flier fluttered mothlikebetween my eyes and Lune, waxing ever larger; for the first time I knew thatnotules were its wings. It landed clumsily among white wolves on the crackedmud.

Without memory of mounting, I was upon its back and slipping off. Moonlitwaves closed about me, and I saw the Citadel below me. Fish as large as shipsswam between the towers, which I had been wrong to think fallen; save for thewater and their wreaths of weed, all stood as they had before. For a moment Itrembled to think I might be impaled on their spires. The great gun that hadfired at me when I had been taken to the Prefect Prisca now boomed again, itsbolt cleaving Ocean with a roar of steam.

The bolt struck me, but it was not I who died— this drowned Citadel vanishedlike the dream it was, and I found that I was swimming through the gap in thecurtain wall and into the real Citadel itself. The tops of its towers thrust abovethe waves; and Juturna sat among them, submerged to the neck, eating fish.

"You lived," I called, and felt that this too was merely a dream.She nodded. "You did not."

I was weak with hunger and fear, but I asked, "Then am I dead? And have I

come to a place of the dead?"

She shook her head. "You live."

"I'm asleep."

"No. You have..." She paused, chewing, her enormous face without expression.When she spoke again, fish that were not the huge fish of my dream butsilvery creatures no bigger than perch leaped from the water before her chinto snap at the fragments that dropped from her lips. "You have resigned yourlife, or endeavored to do so. To some extent you have succeeded."

"I'm dreaming."

"No. You no longer dream. Thus would you die, if you could."

"It was because I couldn't watch Thecla in torment, wasn't it? Now I've seenUrth die like that, and I was Urth's killer."

"Who were you," she asked me, "when you stood before the Hierogrammate'sSeat of Justice?"

"A man who had not yet destroyed everything he ever loved."

"You were Urth, and thus Urth lives."

I shouted, "This is Ushas!"

"If you say it. But Urth lives in Ushas and in you."

"I must think," I told her. "Go away and think." I had not meant to plead, butwhen I heard my voice I knew it for a beggar's.

"Then do so."

I looked without hope at the half-submerged Citadel.

Juturna pointed like a village woman directing some lost traveler, her handsand arms extending in directions I had not seen until she indicated them.

"That way the future, this way the past. There is the margin of the world, andbeyond that, your sun's other worlds and the worlds of other suns. Here is thestream that rises in Yesod and rushes to Briah."

I did not hesitate.

CHAPTER FORTY-NINE - APU-PUNCHAU

THE WATERS were no longer black with night, but darkly green; in them itseemed I glimpsed innumerable strands of weed, standing upright andswaying in the current. Hunger filled my mind with the memory of Juturna'sfish; yet I watched Ocean wane, becoming thinner and lighter, each minutedroplet separating itself from its fellows until what remained was merely mist.I drew breath, and it was of air and not water. I stamped, and I stood uponsolid ground.

What had been the flood was a pampa of waist-high grass, a sea of grass whose

shore was lost in swirling white, as though a rout of ghosts danced thereswiftly, silently, and somberly. The caress of the mist failed to horrify me, butit was as mucid as that of any specter in a midnight tale. Hoping to find foodand to warm myself, I began to walk.

It is said that they who wander in darkness, and still more they who do so in amist, merely scribe circles across the plain. Perhaps it was so for me, but I donot believe it. A faint wind stirred the mist, and I kept that wind ever at myback.

Once I had strode grinning along the Water Way and imagined myselfunlucky, and I had been ecstatic in my misfortune. Now I knew that I had thenbegun the journey that was to make me Urth's executioner; and although mytask was done, I felt I could never be happy again— although after a watch ortwo I would have been happy enough, I suppose, if only my warmjourneyman's cloak had been returned to me.

At last Urth's old sun rose behind me, and rose in glory crowned with gold.The specters fled before it; I beheld the spreading pampa, an endless,whisperous green Ocean, across which raced a thousand waves. Endless, thatis, except in the east, where mountains lifted haughty fastnesses not yetstamped with the human form.

I continued westward, and it came to me as I walked that I, who had been theNew Sun, would hide myself behind the horizon if I could. Perhaps he who hadbeen the Old Sun had felt the same. There had been such an Old Sun, after all,in Dr. Tabs's Eschatology and Genesis, and although our performanceremained forever incomplete, Dr. Tabs, who had himself become a wandererin western lands, had once intended to take the part.

Long-legged birds stalked the pampa but fled when I drew too near. Once, justafter the sun appeared, I saw a spotted cat; but it was full fed and slunk away.Condors and eagles wheeled overhead, black specks against the brilliant bluesky. I was as famished as they; and though there could be none in such a place,from time to time I imagined the odor of frying fish, misled no doubt by thememory of the shabby inn where I had first encountered Baldanders and Dr.Tabs.

A client in a cell can endure three days or more without water, so MasterPalaemon had taught us; but for one who must labor under the sun, the time ismuch less. I would have died that day, I believe, if I had not found it— as I didwhen my shadow stretched long behind me. It was only a narrow stream,scarcely broader than the brook beyond Briah had seemed in my sight, and sodeeply sunk into the pampa that it was invisible until I had nearly tumbledinto its ravine.

I scrambled down the rocky sides as readily as any monkey and sated mythirst with sun-warmed water that tasted of mud to one who had drunk of theclean sea. Had you been with me then, reader, and insisted I walk farther withyou, I think I would have taken your life. I sank down among the stones, tooweary to go another step, and slept before I closed my eyes.

But not, I think, for long. Nearby a big cat coughed, and I woke shaking with afear older than the first human dwelling. When I was a boy sleeping beside theother apprentices in the Matachin Tower, I had often heard that cough fromthe Bear Tower and had not been frightened. It is the presence or absence ofwalls that makes the difference, I think. I had known then that walls enclosed

me, and that others imprisoned the smilodons and atroxes. I knew now thatthere were none, and I gathered stones by starlight, stacking them, as I toldmyself, for missiles— but in fact (as I now believe) to build a wall.How strange it was! When I had swum and walked far beneath the flood, Ihad fancied myself a godling, or at least something more than a man; now Ifelt myself something less. Yet it seems to me upon reflection to be not sostrange after all. In this place I was, perhaps, at a time far earlier than that atwhich Zak had done whatever he had done aboard the ship of Tzadkiel. Herethe Old Sun had not yet dimmed, and even those influences that cast shadowsbehind them as long as mine when I walked to the ravine might fail to reachme.

Dawn came at last. The sun of the preceding day had left me reddened andtender; I stayed in the ravine, where there was at times a little shade, andmade my way through the stream or beside it, finding the body of a peccarykilled when it had come to drink. I tore a bit of meat away, chewed it, andwashed it down with muddy water.

It was about nones when I came in sight of the first pump. The ravine wasnearly seven ells deep, but the autochthons had built a series of little dams likethe steps of a stair, piling up the river stones. A wheel hung with leathernbuckets reached thirstily down for the water, turned by two squat, mummy-colored men who grunted with satisfaction each time a bucketful splashed intotheir clay trough.

They shouted to me in a tongue I did not know, but did not try to stop me. Iwaved to them and walked on, wondering to see them watering their fields, foramong the constellations of the previous night had been the crotali, the winterstars that bring the rattle of ice-sheathed branches.

I passed a score of similar wheels before I reached the town, where a stonestair led up from the water. Women came there to wash clothes and fill jugs,and remained to gossip. They stared at me; and I displayed my hands so theycould see I was unarmed, though my nakedness must have made that clearenough without the gesture.

The women talked among themselves in some lilting language. I pointed to mymouth to show I was hungry, and a gaunt woman a trifle taller than the restgave me a strip of old, coarse cloth to tie around my waist, women being muchthe same in every place.

Like the men I had seen, these women had small eyes, narrow mouths, andbroad, flat cheeks. It was a month or more before I understood why theseseemed so different from the autochthons I had seen at Saltus Fair, in themarket of Thrax, and elsewhere, though it was only that these people hadpride and were far less inclined to violence.

The ravine was wide at the stair and gave no shade. When I saw that none ofthe women meant to feed me, I climbed the steps and sat on the ground in theshadow of one of the stone houses. I am tempted to insert here all sorts ofmusings, things that I actually thought of later in my stay in the stone town;but the truth is that I thought then of nothing. I was very tired and veryhungry, and in some pain. It was a relief to get out of the sun, and not to walk,and that was all.

Later the tall woman brought me a flat cake and a jar of water, setting themthree cubits beyond my reach and hurrying off. I ate the cake and drank thewater, and slept that night in the dust of the street.

Next morning I wandered about the town. Its houses were built of river stoneslaid with a mortar of mud. Their roofs were nearly flat, of meager logscovered with more mud mixed with straw, husks, and stalks. At one door, awoman gave me half a blackened meal cake. The men I saw ignored me. Later,when I had come to know the people better, I understood that this was becausethey had to be able to explain anything they saw; because they had no notionwho I was or where I had come from, they pretended they had not seen me.That evening I sat in the same place as before, but when the tall woman cameagain, putting my cake and jar a bit nearer this time, I picked them up andfollowed her back to her house, one of the oldest and smallest. She was afraidwhen I pushed aside the tattered matting that formed her door, but I sat in acorner while I ate and drank, and tried to show her by my looks that I meantno harm. That night it was warmer beside her tiny fire than it had beenoutside.

I set to work repairing the house by taking down parts of the walls thatseemed ready to fall and restacking them. The woman watched me for a timebefore she went into the town. She did not return until late afternoon.The next day I followed her and discovered she went to a larger house whereshe ground maize in a quern, washed clothes, and swept. By then I hadmastered the names of a few simple objects, and I helped her whenever Iunderstood her work.

The master of that house was a shaman. He served a god whose frightfulimage was set up just beyond the town to the east. After I had labored for hisfamily for a few days, I learned that his principal act of worship had beencompleted each morning before I arrived. After that I rose earlier and carriedthe sticks to the altar where he burned meal and oil, and at the midsummerfeast slit the throat of a coypu to the slap of dancing feet and the thudding oflittle drums. Thus I lived among these people, sharing as much of their lives asI could.

Wood was very precious. Trees would not grow on the pampa, and they couldgive up only the edges of their fields to them. The tall woman's fire, like all therest, was of stalks, cobs, and husks, mixed with sun-dried dung. At times stalksappeared even in the fire the shaman kindled new each day when, singing andchanting, he caught the Old Sun's rays in his sacred bowl.

Though I had rebuilt the walls of the tall woman's house, there seemed little Icould do about the roof. The poles were small and old, and several were badlycracked. For a time, I considered erecting a stone column to shore it up, butsuch a column would have left the house very cramped.

After some thought, I tore down the whole sagging structure and replaced itwith intersecting arches like those I remembered from the shepherd's bothywhere I had once left a shawl of the Pelerines, all of loose-laid river stones, allmeeting over the center of the house. I used more stones, pounded earth, andthe poles from the roof for the scaffolding needed until each arch was whole,and strengthened the walls to bear the outward thrust with yet more stones Icarried from the river. The woman and I had to sleep outside while theconstruction was in progress; but she did so without complaint, and wheneverything was complete and I had plastered the beehive roof with mud andmatted grass as before, she had a new dwelling, high and sturdy.

When I started to work, tearing away the old roof, no one paid much attentionto me; but when that was done and I began to lay up my arches, men came

from the fields to watch, and some helped me. While I was dismantling the lastscaffolding, the shaman himself appeared, bringing the hetman of the town.For some time, they walked around and around the house; but when it becameclear that the scaffolding was no longer holding up the roof, they carriedtorches inside. And at last, when all my work was finished, they made me sitdown and questioned me about it, using many gestures because I still knew solittle of their tongue.

I told them all I could, piling chips of flat stone to show how it was done. Thenthey asked me about myself: where I had come from and why I lived amongthem. It had been so long since I had been able to talk with anyone other thanthe woman that as much of my tale came stumbling forth as I could give formto. I did not expect them to believe me; it was enough that they— thatsomeone— had been told.

At last, when I stepped outside to point toward the sun, I found that eveninghad come while I had stammered and scratched my crude pictures in the dirtfloor. The tall woman sat beside the door, her black hair whipped by a fresh,cold wind from the pampas. The shaman and the hetman came out too,carrying their guttering torches, and I saw that she was very frightened.I asked what the trouble was, but the shaman began a long speech before shecould reply, a speech of which I grasped no more than every tenth word.When he had finished, the hetman spoke in the same way. What they saiddrew men from the houses around us, some with hunting spears (for thesewere not warlike people), some with adzes or knives. I turned back to thewoman and asked what was happening.

She whispered furiously in return, telling me the shaman and the hetman hadsaid that I had said I brought the day and walked through the sky. Now wewould have to remain where we were till day came without my bringing it;when that happened, we would die. She wept. Perhaps tears rolled down hergaunt cheeks; if so, I could not see them by the flickering light of the torches.It struck me that I had never seen one of these people cry, not even littlechildren. Her dry, rattling sobs moved me more than any tears I have everseen.

We waited before her house for a long while. Fresh torches arrived, and fueland live embers carried from the houses nearby gave us several small fires.Despite them, my legs became stiff from the cold that seeped from the earth.Our only hope appeared to lie in outlasting these people, in drawing taut theirnerves. But when I studied their faces, faces that might have been so manywooden masks smeared with ocher clay, I felt that they would outwear theyear, far less a short summer's night.

If only I could speak their tongue fluently, I thought, I might be able to wakefear enough in them, or at least explain what I had actually meant. Thewords— words not, alas, in their tongue but in my own— reechoed through mymind, so that I fell to speculating about them. Did I myself know what thosewords meant? Those or any others? Surely not.

Desperate, and driven by the same unquenchable impulse to sterile self-expression that has led me to write and revise the history I sent to molder anddrown in Master Ultan's library and soon after flung into the void, I began togesticulate, to tell my story once again, as well as I could, this time without theuse of words. My own arms cradled the infant I had been, thrashed helplessly

in Gyoll until the undine saved me. No one moved to stop me, and after sometime I stood up so that I might use my legs as well as my arms, walkingpantomime down the empty, cluttered corridors of the House Absolute, andgalloping for the destrier that had died beneath me at the Third Battle ofOrithyia.

It seemed I heard music; and some later time I heard it indeed, for many ofthe men who had come when they heard the speeches of the hetman and theshaman were humming, beating a solemn cadence upon the ground with thebutts of stone-tipped spears and antler-headed adzes; one played a nose flute.Its piping notes swarmed about me like bees.

In time I saw that some of the men were looking toward the sky and nudgingone another. Thinking they detected the first gray radiance of dawn, I lookedtoo; but I saw rising only the cross and the unicorn, the stars of summer. Thenthe shaman and the hetman prostrated themselves before me. At that instant,by the most marvelous good fortune, Urth looked upon the sun. My shadowfell across them.

CHAPTER FIFTY - DARKNESS IN THE HOUSE OF DAY

THE TALL woman and I moved into the Shaman's house and took the bestroom. I was no longer permitted to work. The injured and the ill were broughtto me for healing; some I cured as I had cured Declan, or as we of the guildhad been taught to prolong the lives of our clients. Others died in my arms.Perhaps I could have revivified the dead as well, as I had recalled poor Zama;I never attempted to do so.

Twice we were attacked by nomads. The hetman fell in the first battle, Irallied his warriors, and we turned the nomads back. A new hetman waschosen, but he seemed to regard himself— and to be regarded by his ownpeople— as little more than my subordinate. In the second battle, it was I wholed the war party while he took the nomads from the rear with a small force ofpicked bowmen. Together we herded and slaughtered them like sheep, and wewere not molested again.

Soon the people began work on a new structure much larger than anythingthey had built before. Although its walls were very thick and its arches strong,I feared that they might not support so great a weight as a roof of mud andstraw would impose; I taught the women to fire clay tiles just as they firedtheir pots, and to lay them to make a roof. When the building was completed, Irecognized the roof upon which Jolenta would die, and I knew I would be

buried beneath it.

Though you may think it incredible, before that time I had seldom thought ofthe undine or the directions she had indicated to me, preferring to revisit inmemory the Urth of the Old Sun, as it was in the days of my childhood orunder my autarchy. Now I explored fresher memories, for much as I fearedthem, I found I feared death more.

When I had sat upon a spur of rock thrust from the slope of Mount Typhonand watched Typhon's soldiers coming for me, I had seen the meadow that isbeyond Briah as clearly as I now saw our fields of maize. But then I had beenthe New Sun, with all the power of my star to draw upon, though it was so faraway. Now I was the New Sun no more, and the Old Sun still had long to rule.Once or twice when I was nearly asleep, it seemed to me that the Corridors ofTime slanted from some corner of our room. Always, when I tried to flee downany, I woke; and there was only stone, and the roof poles above.Once I descended again to the ravine and retraced my steps to the east fromwhich I had come. At last I stumbled over the pitiful little wall I had reared atthe coughing of the cat, but though I went farther still, I returned to the stonetown the day after I had left it.

At last, when I had lost all count of years, it came to me that if I could notrediscover the entrance to the Corridors of Time— and I could not— I mustfind Juturna; and that to find her I must first find the sea.

At dawn the next day, I wrapped some meal cakes and dried meat in a clothand left the stone town, walking westward. My legs had grown stiff; and whenafter seven or eight watches of steady walking I fell and twisted my knee, I feltI had almost become again that Severian who had boarded the ship ofTzadkiel. Like him, I did not turn again, but continued as I had set my face. Ihad become used to the heat of the Old Sun long before, and it was the waningof the year.

The young hetman and a party of men from the stone town overtook me whileUrth looked upon the Old Sun from her left. After a time, they seized my armsand tried to force me to go back; I refused, telling them I was bound for Oceanand hoped never to return.

I sat up, but I saw nothing. For a moment, I felt sure I had gone blind.Ossipago appeared, shining with blue radiance. He said, "We are here,Severian."

Knowing him for a mechanism, the servant and yet the master of Barbatusand Famulimus, I answered, "With light— the god from the machine. Thatwas what Master Malrubius said when he came."

Barbatus's pleasant baritone flouted the gloom. "You're conscious. What doyou remember?"

"Everything," I said. "I've always remembered everything." Dissolution wasin the air, the fetor of rotting flesh.

Famulimus sang, "For that were you chosen, Severian. You and you alonefrom many princes. You alone to save your race from lethe."

"And then to abandon it," I said.

No one answered.

"I have thought about that," I told them. "I would have tried to return sooner,if I had known how."

Ossipago's voice was so deep that one felt rather than heard it. "Do you

understand why you could not?"

I nodded, feeling foolish. "Because I'd used the power of the New Sun toretrace time until the New Sun itself no longer existed. Once I believed youthree were gods, and then that the Hierarchs were still greater gods. So theautochthons believed me a god, and feared I would plunge into the western sealeaving them in night with winter always. But only the Increate is God,kindling reality and blowing it out. All the rest of us, even Tzadkiel, can onlywield the forces he's created." I have never been clever at thinking ofanalogies, and now I groped for one. "I was like an army retreating so far thatit's cut off from its base." I could not bite back the next words. "An armydefeated."

"In war no force may fail, Severian, until its trumpets blow 'Surrender.' Tillthen, though it may die, it does not know defeat."

Barbatus remarked, "And who can say that this was not for the best? We'reall tools in his hands."

I told him, "I understand something more— something I had not reallyunderstood until this moment: why Master Malrubius spoke to me of loyaltyto the Divine Entity, of loyalty to the person of the monarch. He meant that wemust trust, that we must not refuse our destinies. You sent him, of course."

"The words were his, just the same— by now you should know that, too. Likethe Hierogrammates, we summon personalities of the past from

remembrance; and like the Hierogrammates, we do not falsify them."

"But there are so many things I don't know. When we met on Tzadkiel's ship,you hadn't known me before, and from that I knew it to be our final meeting.Yet you are here, all three."

Sweetly Famulimus sang, "Thus surprised are we, Severian, to find you herewhere men have scarce begun. Though we have traced the time line down sofar, whole ages of the world have passed since we've seen you."

"And yet you knew I would be here?"

Stepping from the shadows, Barbatus said, "Because you told us so. Have youforgotten we were your councilors? You told us how the man Hildegrin wasdestroyed, so we've watched this place for you."

"And I. I died too. The autochthons— my people— "I broke off, but no one else spoke. And at last I said, "Ossipago, bring yourlight, please, to where Barbatus stood."

The mechanism turned his sensors toward Barbatus, but did not move.Famulimus sang softly, "Barbatus, you must guide him now, I fear. But trulyour Severian should know. How can we ask that he should bear all loads, whileyet by us not treated as a man?"

Barbatus nodded, and Ossipago moved nearer the place where Barbatus hadbeen standing when I woke. I saw there what I had feared to see, the corpse ofthe man the autochthons had called Head of Day. Golden bands wreathed hisarms, bracelets studded with orange jacinths and flashing green emeralds.

"Tell me how you did this," I demanded.

Barbatus stroked his beard and did not reply.

"You know who schooled you by the restless sea, and fought for you whenUrth lay in the scales," Famulimus crooned.

I stared at her. Her face was as lovely and as inhuman as ever— not without

expression, but bearing an expression that had little or nothing to do withmankind and its concerns.

"Am I an eidolon? A ghost?" I looked at my hands, hoping to be reassured bytheir solidity. They were shaking; to quiet them I had to jam them against mythighs.

Barbatus said, "What you call eidolons are not ghosts, but beings maintainedin existence by some external source of energy. What you call matter is all, inactuality, merely bound energy. The only difference is that some is held inmaterial form by its own energy."

At that moment I wanted to cry more than I have ever wanted anything in mylife. "Actuality? You think there's really any actuality?" The release of tearswould have been nirvana; harsh training yet held, and no tears came. For aninstant I wondered wildly whether eidolons could weep at all.

"You speak of what is real, Severian; thus do you hold to what is real still. Amoment since we spoke of him who makes. Among your folk the simple callhim God, and you, the lettered, name him Increate. What were you ever buthis eidolon?"

"Who maintains me in existence now? Ossipago? You may rest, Ossipago."Ossipago rumbled, "I don't respond to commands from you, Severian. Youlearned that long ago."

"I suppose that even if I were to kill myself, Ossipago could still call me backto existence."

Barbatus shook his head, though not as a human being would have. "Therewould be no point— you could take your life again. If you truly want to die, goahead. There are funeral offerings here, including a great many stone knives.Ossipago will bring you one."

I felt as real as I ever have; and when I searched among my memories, I foundValena there still, and Thecla and old Autarch, and the boy Severian (who hadbeen Severian only). "No," I said. "We will live."

"I thought so." Barbatus smiled. "We've known you half our lives now,Severian, and you're a weed that grows best when stepped upon."

Ossipago seemed to clear his throat. "If you wish to speak more, I will take usto a better time. I have a link to the pile on our craft."

Famulimus shook her noble head, and Barbatus looked at me.

"I'd rather we conferred here," I told them. "Barbatus, when we were on theship, I fell down a shaft. One doesn't fall swiftly there, I know; but I fell a longway, I think nearly to the center. I was badly hurt, and Tzadkiel cared forme." I paused, trying to remember all the details I could.

"Proceed," Barbatus urged me. "We don't know what you're going to tell us."

"I found a dead man there, with a scarred cheek like mine. His leg had beeninjured years before, just like mine. He was hidden between two machines."

"Yet meant for you to find, Severian?" Famulimus asked.

"Perhaps. I knew Zak had done it. And Zak was Tzadkiel, or part of Tzadkiel;but I didn't understand that then."

"Yet you do now. It is the time for speech."

I did not know what else to say and finished weakly, "The dead man's face wasbruised, but it looked very much like mine. I told myself that I couldn't havedied there, that I wouldn't die there, because I felt sure I'd be laid in themausoleum in our necropolis. I've told you about that."

Ossipago rumbled, "Many times."

"The funeral bronze is so like me, so much like the way I look now. Then therewas Apu-Punchau. When he appeared...the Cumaean, she was a Hierodule,like you. Father Inire told me."

Famulimus and Barbatus nodded.

"When Apu-Punchau appeared, he was me. I knew it, but I didn'tunderstand."

"Neither did we," Barbatus said, "when you told us about it. I think I maynow."

"Then tell me!"

He gestured toward the corpse. "There is Apu-Punchau."

"Of course, I knew that long ago. They called me by that name, and I saw thisplace built. It was to be a temple, the Temple of Day, the Old Sun. But I'mSeverian, and Apu-Punchau the Head of Day, too. How could my body risefrom death? How could I die here at all? The Cumaean said it wasn't histomb, but his house." I seemed to see her before me as I spoke, the old womanhiding the wise snake.

"She told you too that she knew not that age," Famulimus sang.

I nodded.

"How could the warm sun die that rose each day? And how could you thendie, that were that sun? Your people left you here with many a chant. Andsealed your door, that you might live forever."

Barbatus said, "We know that eventually you'll bring the New Sun, Severian.We've passed through the time, as through many others, to that meeting withyou in the giant's castle— which we thought would be our last. But do youknow when the New Sun was made? The sun you brought to this system toheal its old one?"

"When I was landed on Urth it was the age of Typhon, when the first greatmountain was carved. But before that I was on Tzadkiel's ship."

"Which sometimes sails more swiftly than the winds that drive it," Barbatusgrunted. "So you know nothing."

Famulimus sang, "If you would have our counsel now, tell all. We cannot begood guides if we walk blind."

And so, beginning with the murder of my steward, I recounted everything thathad happened to me from that time until the last moment I could recall beforeI woke in the House of Apu-Punchau. I have never been apt in winnowingneeded details from the rest (as you, the reader of this, know too well), in partbecause it seems to me that all details are needed. Still less so was I then, whenI could labor with my tongue and not my pen; I told them a great many thingsthat I have not put into this record.

While I spoke, a sunbeam found its way through some chink; so I knew that Ihad returned to life in the night, and that a new day had begun.And I was talking still when the potters' wheels began their whir, and weheard the chatter of women trooping to the river that would fail their townwhen the sun cooled.

At last I said, "So much for me, and now for you. Can you unravel the mysteryof Apu-Punchau for me now that you've heard all this?"

Barbatus nodded. "I believe we can. You know already that when a ship sailsswiftly between the stars, minutes and days on board may be years orcenturies on Urth."

"It must be so," I admitted, "when time was first measured by the coming and

going of the light."

"Therefore your star, the White Fountain, was born some while, and doubtlessa long while, before the reign of Typhon. I'd guess that the time is not fardistant now."

Famulimus appeared to smile, and perhaps it was in fact a smile. "Indeed itmust be so, Barbatus, when by the star's own power he came here. Flying histime, he runs till he must halt; then halts he here because he cannot run."If Barbatus was discomposed by this interruption, nothing indicated it. "Itmay be that your power will return when the light of your star is first seen onUrth. If that is so, when that time comes Apu-Punchau may waken, providedhe chooses to leave the place where he has found himself."

"Wake to death in life?" I asked. "How horrible!"

Famulimus disagreed. "Say wonderful, Severian, instead. To life from death toaid the folk that loved him."

I considered that for a time while all three stood waiting patiently. At last Isaid, "'Perhaps death is only horrible to us because it's a dividing of the terrorof life from the wonder of it. We see only the terror, which is left behind."Ossipago rumbled, "So we hope, Severian, as much as you."

"But if Apu-Punchau is myself, what was the body I found on Tzadkiel'sship?"

Nearly whispering, Famulimus sang, "The man whom you saw dead yourmother bore. Or so it seems to me from what's been said. Now I would weepfor her if I had tears, though not— perhaps— for you still living here. What wedid here for you, Severian, the mighty Tzadkiel accomplished there,remembrance taking from your dead mind to build your mind and you anew."

"Do you mean that when I stood before Tzadkiel's Seat of Justice, I was aneidolon Tzadkiel himself had made?"

Ossipago muttered, " Made'stoo strong a term, if I have as much, access toyour tongue as I like to think. Made tangible, possibly."

I looked from him to Famulimus for enlightenment.

"You were reflected thought in your dead mind. He fixed the image, make itwhole, mended the fatal wound you'd borne."

"Made me a walking, speaking picture of myself." Although I pronounced thewords, I could scarcely bring myself to think about what they meant. "The fallkilled me, just as my people killed me here."

I bent to look at the corpse of Apu-Punchau more closely. Barbatus muttered,

"Strangled, I believe."

"Why couldn't Tzadkiel have called me back as I called back Zama? Healedme as I healed Herena? Why did I have to die?"

I have never been more startled than I was by what happened next:Famulimus knelt and kissed the floor before me.

Barbatus said, "What makes you think Tzadkiel wields such power?

Famulimus and Ossipago and I are nothing before him, but we're not his

slaves; and great though he is, he's not the head of his race and its savior."No doubt I should have felt ennobled. The fact is that I was merely stunnedand excruciatingly embarrassed. I motioned urgently to Famulimus to riseagain and blurted, "But you walk the Corridors of Time!"

Barbatus prostrated himself in turn as Famulimus rose.

She sang, "For but a little way, Sevenan— that we may speak with you, do

common things. Our clocks run widder-shins round both your suns."From his knees Barbatus said, "If we'd let Ossipago take us to a better place,as he wished, it would have been an earlier one. That would not have been abetter place for you, I think."

"One further question, illustrious Hierodules, before you return me to my ownperiod. When I spoke with Master Malrubius beside the sea, he dissolved intoa glittering dust. And yet— " I could not say it, but my eyes sought out thecorpse.

Barbatus nodded. "That eidolon, as you call them, had been in existence onlybriefly. I don't know what energies Tzadkiel called upon to support you on theship; it may even be that you yourself drew the support you needed fromwhatever source was at hand, just as you took power from the ship when youtried to raise your steward. But even if it was a source you left behind whenyou came here, you had lived a long time before that, on the ship, in Yesod, onthe ship again, in the tender, in Typhon's time, and so on. During all that timeyou breathed, ate, and drank matter that was not unstable, converting it toyour body's use. Thus it became a substantial body."

"But I'm dead— not even here, dead back there on Tzadkiel's ship."

"Your twin lies dead there," Barbatus told me. "As another lies dead here. Imight say in passing that if he weren't dead, we couldn't have done what wedid, because every living being is more than mere matter." He paused andglanced toward Fainulimus for help, but received none. "What do you know ofthe anima?"

I thought then of Ava, and what she had said to me: " You're a materialist, like

all ignorant people. But your materialism doesn't make materialism true." LittleAva had died with Foila and the rest. "Nothing," I muttered. "I know nothingof the anima."

"In a way, it's like a line of verse. Famulimus, what was the one you quoted tome?"

His wife sang, "Awake! for Morning in the Bowl of Night, Has flung the Stonethat puts the Stars to Flight."

"Yes," I said. "I understand."

Barbatus pointed. "Suppose I were to write those lines upon that wall— andthen to write them again upon that other wall. Which would be the truelines?"

"Both," I said. "And neither. The true lines are not writing, nor speech either.I can't say what they are."

"That is the way of the anima, as I understand it. It was written there." Heindicated the dead man. "Now it is written in you. When the light of the WhiteFountain touches Urth, it will be written there again. Yet the anima will not beerased in you by that writing. Unless— "

I waited for him to continue.

Ossipago said, "Unless you come too close. If you write a name in the dust andretrace it with your finger, there are not two names, but one. If two currentsflow through a conductor, there is one current."

While I stared in disbelief, Famulimus sang, "You came too near your doubleonce, you know; that was here, in this poor town of stones. Then he was gone,and only you remained. Our eidolons are always of the dead. Have you not

wondered why? Be warned!"

Barbatus nodded. "But as for our returning you to your own time, we can'thelp you. Your green man knew more than we, perhaps; or at least he hadmore energy at his disposal. We'll leave you food, water, and a light; but you'llhave to wait for the White Fountain. It shouldn't be long, as Famulimus said."She had begun to fade into the past already, so that her song seemed to comefrom far away. "Do not destroy the corpse, Severian. However tempted youmay be— be warned!"

Barbatus and Ossipago had faded while I watched Famulimus. When hervoice was gone, there was no sound in the House of Apu-Punchau but his ownfaint breath.

CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE - THE URTH OF THE NEW SUN

FOR ALL that remained of that day I sat in the dark and cursed myself for afool. The White Fountain would shine in the night sky, I knew, and everythingthe Hierodules had said implied it; yet I had failed to understand it until theyhad gone.

A hundred times I relived the rain-swept night when I had descended from theroof of this very structure to aid Hildegrin. How near had I come to Apu-Punchau before I had merged with him? Five cubits? Three ells? I could notbe sure. But surely it was no mystery that Famulimus had told me not to try todestroy him; if I were to come near enough to strike, we would merge— andhe, having deeper roots in this universe, would overwhelm me just as I wouldoverwhelm him in the unimaginably distant future when I would journey tothis place with Jolenta and Dorcas.

Yet if I had longed for the mysterious (as I certainly did not), there was riddleenough. The White Fountain shone already, that seemed certain, for without itI would not have been able to come to this ancient place or heal the sick. Why,then, had I been unable to travel the Corridors of Time as I had from MountTyphon? Two explanations seemed likely.

The first was simply that on Mount Typhon my whole being had been spurredby fear. We are strongest in a crisis, and Typhon's soldiers had been comingfor me, doubtless to kill me. Yet I faced another crisis now, for Apu-Punchaumight rise and come toward me at any moment.

The second was that such power as I had received from the White Fountainwas diminished by distance just as its light was. It must have been far nearerUrth in Typhon's time than in Apu Paunchau's; but if it were indeed thus

diminished, the passing of one day would scarcely make a difference, and aday at most was the longest for which I, could hope, with my other self aliveagain and so near. I would have to escape as soon as I could, and waitelsewhere.

It was the longest day of my life. If I had been merely awaiting nightfall, Icould have wandered in memory, recalling that marvelous evening when I hadwalked up the Water Way, the tales told in the Pelerines' lazaretto, or thebrief holiday that Valeria and I had once enjoyed beside the sea. As it was, Idared not; and whenever I relaxed my guard, I found my mind turned of itsown accord to dreadful things. Again I endured my imprisonment in thejungle ziggurat by Vodalus, the year I had spent among the Ascians, my flightfrom the white wolves in the Secret House; and a thousand similiar terrors,until at last it seemed to me that a demon desired that I surrender mymiserable existence to Apu-Punchau, and that the demon was myself.Slowly the noises of the stone town died away. The light, which earlier hadcome from the wall nearest me, now penetrated the wall beyond the altar onwhich Apu-Punchau lay, cutting the gloom with blades of hammered goldthrust between the crevices.

At last it faded. I rose, stiff in every joint, and began to probe the wall forweaknesses.

It had been built of cyclopean stones, with smaller stones driven between themby workmen swinging huge wooden mauls. The small stones were wedged sotightly that I tested fifty or more before finding one that could be pried loose;and I knew that I would have to remove one of the great stones to make anopening through which I could pass.

Even the small stone required a watch at least of tugging and prying. I used ajasper-bladed knife to scrape away the mud around it, then broke that knifeand three others trying to get it out. Once I abandoned the task in disgust andmounted the wall like a spider, hoping that the roof would supply an easierroad to freedom, as the thatch had in the hall of the magicians. But the vaultedceiling was as solid as the walls, and I dropped to the floor again to bloody myfingers on the loose stone.

Suddenly, when it seemed certain it could never be freed, it slipped clatteringto the floor. For five long breaths I waited paralyzed, fearing that Apu-Punchau would wake. As far as I could judge, he never stirred.

Yet something else was stirring. The immense stone above tilted ever so gentlyto the left. Dried mud cracked, sounding as loud as the breaking of river ice inthe stillness, and came rattling down around me.

I stepped back. There was a grinding, as of a mill, and a second shower ofmud. I moved to one side and the great stone fell with a crash, leaving behindit a rough black circle full of stars.

I looked at one and knew myself a pinprick of light nearly lost in the opalinehaze of ten thousand more.

No doubt I should have waited— certainly it was possible that a dozen moregreat stones might follow the first. I did not. A leap carried me onto the fallenone, another into the aperture in the wall, and a third into the street. The noisehad wakened the people, of course; I heard their angry voices, saw the faintred glow of their fires seep past their doors as wives puffed dying embers whilehusbands groped for spears and toothed wardubs.

I did not care. All about me stretched the Corridors of Time, waving meadows

roofed with the lowering sky of Time and whisperous with the brooks thatripple from the most supernal universe of all to the least.

Bright-winged, the small Tzadkiel fluttered beside one. The green man racedbeside another. I chose one that ran as lonely as I, and mounted to it. Behindme along a line that seldom exists, Apu-Punchau, the Head of Day, steppedfrom his house and squatted to eat the boiled maize and roast meat his peoplehad left for him. I too hungered; I waved to him, then saw him no more.When I returned to the world called Ushas, it was onto a sandy beach— thebeach I had left when I dove into the sea in search of Juturna, and as near thatplace and time as I could make it.

A man carrying a wooden trencher heaped with smoking fish was walking thesea-wet sand fifty cubits or so in front of me. I followed him, and when we hadgone twenty paces he reached a bower, dripping with sea spray yet draped inwildflowers. Here he set his trencher upon the sand, took two backward steps,and knelt.

Catching up, I asked in the speech of the Commonwealth who would eat hisfish.

He looked around at me; I could see he was surprised to find me a stranger.

"The Sleeper," he said. "He who sleeps here and hungers."

"Who is this Sleeper?" I asked.

"The lonely god. One feels him here, always sleeping, ever hungry. I bring thefish to show that we are his friends, so he will not devour us when he wakes."

"Do you feel him now?" I asked.

He shook his head. "Sometimes it is stronger— so strong we see him bymoonlight lying here, though he vanishes when we come near. Today I did notfeel him at all."

"Did not?"

"I do now," he said. "Since you have come."

I sat down on the sand and picked up a large piece of fish, motioning for himto join me. The fish was so hot it burned my fingers, so I knew it had beencooked close by. He sat too, but did not eat until I made a second gesture.

"Are you always the one?"

He nodded. "Each god has someone, a man for a man-god, a woman for awoman-god."

"A priest or a priestess."

He nodded again.

"There is no God but the Increate, all the rest being his creatures." I wastempted to add, "Even Tzadkiel," but I did not.

"Yes," he said. And he turned his face away, not wishing, I think, to see mylook if he offended me. "That is so for the gods, certainly. But for humblecreatures like men, there are lesser gods, possibly. To poor, wretched menthese lesser gods are very, very exalted. We strive to please them."I smiled to show I was not angry. "And what do such lesser gods do to helpmen?"

"Four gods there are."

From his singsong, I knew he had recited the words many times, no doubt inthe teaching of children.

"First and greatest is the Sleeper. He is a man-god. He is always hungry. Oncehe devoured the whole land, and he may do so again if he is not fed. Though

the Sleeper has drowned, he cannot die— thus he sleeps here on the strand.Fish belong to the Sleeper— you must beg his leave before you fish. Silver fish Icatch for him. Storms are his anger, calm his charity."

I had become the Oannes of these people!

"The other man-god is Odilo. His are the lands beneath the sea. He loveslearning and right conduct. Odilo taught men to speak and women to write.He is the judge of gods and men, but punishes no one who has not sinnedthrice. Once he bore the cup of the Increate. Red wine is his. Wine his manbrings him."

It had taken a breath for me to recall just whom Odilo had been. Now Irealized that the House Absolute and our court had become the frame for avague picture of the Increate as Autarch. In retrospect, it seemed inevitable.

"There are two women-gods also. Pega is the day goddess. All beneath the sunis hers. Pega loves cleanness. She taught women to strike fire and to bake andweave. She mourns them in childbirth and comes to all at the moment ofdeath. She is the comforter. Brown bread is the offering her woman bringsher."

I nodded approvingly.

"Thais is the night goddess. All below the moon is hers. She loves the words oflovers and lovers' embraces. All who couple must beg her leave, speaking thewords as one in the darkness. If they do not, Thais kindles a flame in a thirdheart and finds a knife for the hand. Aflame, she comes to children,announcing that they are to be children no longer. She is the seducer. Goldenhoney is the offering her woman brings her."

I said, "It seems you have two good gods and two evil gods, and that the evilgods are Thais and the Sleeper."

"Oh, no! All gods are very good, particularly the Sleeper! Without the Sleeper,so many would starve. The Sleeper is very, very great! And when Thais doesnot come, her place is taken by a demon."

"So you have demons too."

"Everyone has demons."

"I suppose," I said.

The trencher was nearly bare, and I had eaten my fill. The priest— my priest, Ishould write— had taken only a single small piece. I rose, picked up what wasleft, and tossed it into the sea, not knowing what else to do with it. "ForJuturna," I told him. "Do your people know Juturna?"

He had jumped to his feet as soon as I stood up. "No— " He hesitated, and Icould see that he had almost spoken the name he had given me, but that hewas afraid to do so.

"Then perhaps she is a demon to you. For most of my life I thought her ademon too; it may be that neither you nor I have made a great mistake."He bowed, and although he was a bit taller and by no means plump, I sawOdilo in that bow as clearly as if the man himself stood before me.

"Now you must take me to Odilo," I said. "To the other man-god."We walked the beach together in the direction from which he had come. Thehills, which had been barren mud when I had left, were covered with soft,green grass. Wildflowers bloomed there, and there were young trees.I tried to estimate the time I had been gone, and to count the years I had lived

among the autochthons in their stone town; and though I could not be sure ofeither figure, it seemed to me they must have been much the same. I marveledthen to think of the green man, and how he had come for me in the jungles ofthe north at the very moment I required him. We both had walked theCorridors of Time, yet he had been a master while I was only an apprentice.I asked my priest when it had been that the Sleeper had devoured the lands.He was deeply tanned; even so, I saw the blood drain from his face. "Longago," he said. "Before men came to Ushas."

"Then how do men know of it?"

"The god Odilo taught us. Are you angry?"

Odilo had overheard my conversation with Eata, then. I had supposed himsleeping. "No," I said. "I only wish to hear what you know of it. Was it youwho came to Ushas?"

He shook his head. "My father's father and my mother's mother. They fellfrom the sky, scattered like seeds by the hand of the God of all gods."I said, "Not knowing fire or anything else," and as I spoke I recalled what theyoung officer had reported: that Hierodules had landed a man and woman onthe grounds of the House Absolute. Remembering that, it was simple enoughto guess who my priest's forebears had been— the sailors routed by mymemories had paid for their defeat with their pasts, just as I would have lostthe future of my descendants had my own past been defeated.

It was not much farther to the village. A few unreliable— looking boats werebeached there, unpainted boats built largely of gray driftwood, or so it seemedto me. On the shore, an eli or more above the high-tide mark, stood a square ofhuts formed by four perfectly straight lines. The square was Odilo's doing, Ifelt sure; it exhibited the love of order for order's sake so characteristic of anupper servant. Then I reflected that the ramshackle boats had probably beeninspired by him as well; it was he, after all, who had built our raft.Two women and a gaggle of children emerged from the square to watch uspass, and a man with a mallet stopped pounding dry grass into the seams of aboat to join them; my priest, walking half a step behind me, nodded towardme and made a gesture too swift for me to catch. The villagers fell to theirknees.

Inspired by the sense of theater I have often been forced to cultivate, I raisedmy arms, spread my hands, and gave them my blessing, telling them to be kindto one another and as happy as they could. That is really all the blessing wegodlings can ever give, though no doubt the Increate can do much more.Ten strides put the village behind us, though not so far behind that I could nothear the boatwright begin his pounding again, or the children resume theirplay and their weeping. I asked how much farther it was to wherever Odilolived.

"Not far," my priest said, and pointed.

We were walking inland now, climbing a grassy little hill. From the crest wecould see the crest of the next, and upon it three bowers side by side, decked asmy own had been with twined lupine, purple loosestrife, and white meadowrue.

"There," my priest told me. "There the other gods sleep."

Table of Contents

THE URTH OF THE NEW SUN

APPENDIX

CHAPTER ONE - THE MAINMAST

CHAPTER TWO - THE FIFTH SAILOR

CHAPTER THREE - THE CABIN

CHAPTER FOUR - THE CITIZENS OF THE SAILS

CHAPTER FIVE - THE HERO AND THE HIERODULES

CHAPTER SIX - A DEATH AND THE DARK

CHAPTER SEVEN - A DEATH IN THE LIGHT

CHAPTER EIGHT - THE EMPTY SLEEVE

CHAPTER NINE - THE EMPTY AIR

CHAPTER TEN - INTERLUDE

CHAPTER ELEVEN - SKIRMISH

CHAPTER TWELVE - THE SEMBLANCE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN - THE BATTLES

CHAPTER FOURTEEN - THE END OF THE UNIVERSE

CHAPTER FIFTEEN - YESOD

CHAPTER SIXTEEN - THE EPITOME

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN - THE ISLE

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN - THE EXAMINATION

CHAPTER NINETEEN - SILENCE

CHAPTER TWENTY - THE COILED ROOM

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE - TZADKIEL

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO - DESCENT

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE - THE SHIP

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR - THE CAPTAIN

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE - PASSION AND THE PASSAGEWAY

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX - GUNNIE AND BURGUNDOFARA

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN - THE RETURN TO URTH

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT - THE VILLAGE BESIDE THE STREAM

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE - AMONG THE VILLAGERS

CHAPTER THIRTY - CERYX

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE - ZAMA

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO - TO THE ALCYONE

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE - ABOARD THE ALCYONE

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR - SALTUS AGAIN

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE - NESSUS AGAIN

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX - THE CITADEL AGAIN

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN - THE BOOK OF THE NEW SUN

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT - TO THE TOMB OF THE MONARCH

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE - THE CLAW OF THE CONCILIATOR AGAIN

CHAPTER FORTY - THE BROOK BEYOND BRIAH

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE - SEVERIAN FROM HIS CENOTAPH

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO - DING, DONG, DING!

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE - THE EVENING TIDE

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR - THE MORNING TIDE

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE - THE BOAT

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX - THE RUNAWAY

CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN - THE SUNKEN CITY

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT - OLD LANDS AND NEW

CHAPTER FORTY-NINE - APU-PUNCHAU

CHAPTER FIFTY - DARKNESS IN THE HOUSE OF DAY

CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE - THE URTH OF THE NEW SUN