by Wolfe, Gene
VIII
The Conversationalist
Next day, for the first time, I carried Thecla’s supper to her. For a watch I remained with her, frequently observed through the slot in the cell door by Drotte. We played word games, at which she was far better than I, and after a while talked of those things those who have returned are said to say lie beyond death, she recounting what she had read in the smallest of the books I had brought her—not only the accepted views of the hierophants, but various eccentric and heretic theories.
“When I am free,” she said, “I shall found my own sect. I will tell everyone that its wisdom was revealed to me during my sojourn among the torturers. They’ll listen to that.”
I asked what her teachings would be.
“That there is no agathodaemon or afterlife. That the mind is extinguished in death as in sleep, yet more so.”
“But who will you say revealed that to you?”
She shook her head, then rested her pointed chin upon one hand, a pose that showed off the graceful line of her neck admirably. “I haven’t decided yet. An angel of ice, perhaps. Or a ghost. Which do you think best?”
“Isn’t there a contradiction in that?”
“Precisely.” Her voice was rich with the pleasure the question gave her. “In that contradiction will reside the appeal of this new belief. One can’t found a novel theology on Nothing, and nothing is so secure a foundation as a contradiction. Look at the great successes of the past—they say their deities are the masters of all the universes, and yet that they require grandmothers to defend them, as if they were children frightened by poultry. Or that the authority that punishes no one while there exists a chance for reformation will punish everyone when there is no possibility anyone will become the better for it.”
I said, “These things are too complex for me.”
“No they’re not. You’re as intelligent as most young men, I think. But I suppose you torturers have no religion. Do they make you swear to give it up?”
“Not at all. We’ve a celestial patroness and observances, just like any other guild.”
“We don’t,” she said. For a moment she seemed to brood on that. “Only the guilds do, you know, and the army, which is a kind of guild. We’d be better off, I think, if we did. Still all the days of feast and nights of vigil have become shows, opportunities to wear new dresses. Do you like this?” She stood and extended her arms to show the soiled gown.
“It’s very pretty,” I ventured. “The embroidery, and the way the little pearls are sewed on.”
“It’s the only thing I have here—what I was wearing when I was taken. It’s for dinner, really. After late afternoon and before early evening.”
I said I was sure Master Gurloes would have others brought if she asked.
“I already have, and he says he sent some people to the House Absolute to fetch them for me, but they were unable to find it, which means that the House Absolute is trying to pretend I don’t exist. Anyway, it’s possible all my clothes have been sent to our chateau in the north, or one of the villas. He’s going to have his secretary write them for me.”
“Do you know who he sent?” I asked. “The House Absolute must be nearly as big as our Citadel, and I would think it would be impossible for anyone to miss.”
“On the contrary, it’s quite easy. Since it can’t be seen, you can be there and never know it if you’re not lucky. Besides, with the roads closed, all they have to do is alert their spies to give a particular party incorrect direction, and they have spies everywhere.”
I started to ask how it was possible for the House Absolute (which I had always imagined a vast palace of gleaming towers and domed halls) to be invisible; but Thecla was already thinking of something else altogether, stroking a bracelet formed like a kraken, a kraken whose tentacles wrapped the white flesh of her arm; its eyes were cabochon emeralds. “They let me keep this, and it’s quite valuable. Platinum, not silver. I was surprised.”
“There’s no one here who can be bribed.”
“It might be sold in Nessus to buy clothing. Have any of my friends tried to see me? Do you know, Severian?”
I shook my head. “They would not be admitted.”
“I understand, but someone might try. Do you know that most of the people in the House Absolute don’t know this place exists? I see you don’t believe me.”
“You mean they don’t know of the Citadel?”
“They’re aware of that, of course. Parts of it are open to everyone, and anyway you can’t miss seeing the spires if you get down into the southern end of the living city, no matter which side of Gyoll you’re on.” She slapped the metal wall of her cell with one hand. “They don’t know of this—or at least, a great many of them would deny it still exists.”
She was a great, great chatelaine, and I was something worse than a slave (I mean in the eyes of the common people, who do not really understand the functions of our guild). Yet when the time had passed and Drotte tapped the ringing door, it was I who rose and left the cell and soon climbed into the clean air of evening, and Thecla who stayed behind to listen to the moans and screams of the others. (Though her cell was some distance from the stairwell, the laughter from the third level was audible still when there was no one there to talk with her.)
In our dormitory that night I asked if anyone knew the names of the journeymen Master Gurloes had sent in search of the House Absolute. No one did, but my question stirred an animated discussion. Although none of the boys had seen the place or so much as spoken with anyone who had, all had heard stories. Most were of fabled wealth—gold plates and silk saddle blankets and that sort of thing. More interesting were the descriptions of the Autarch, who would have had to be a kind of monster to fit them all; he was said to be tall when standing, of common size seated, aged, young, a woman dressed as a man, and so on. More fantastic still were the tales of his vizier, the famous Father Inire, who looked like a monkey and was the oldest man in the world.
We had just begun trading wonders in good earnest when there was a knock at the door. The youngest opened it, and I saw Roche—dressed not in the fuligin breeches and cloak the regulations of the guild decree, but in common, though new and fashionable, trousers, shirt, and coat. He motioned to me, and when I came to the door to speak to him, he indicated that I was to follow him.
After we had gone some way down the stair, he said, “I’m afraid I frightened the little fellow. He doesn’t know who I am.”
“Not in those clothes,” I told him. “He’d recall you if he saw you dressed the way you used to be.”
That pleased him and he laughed. “Do you know, it felt so strange, having to bang on that door. Today is what? The eighteenth—it’s been under three weeks. How are things going for you?”
“Well enough.”
“You seem to have the gang in hand. Eata’s your second, isn’t he? He won’t make a journeyman for four years, so he’ll be captain for three after you. It’s good for him to have the experience, and I’m sorry now you didn’t have more before you had to take the job on. I stood in your way, but I never thought about it at the time.”
“Roche, where are we going?”
“Well, first we’re going down to my cabin to get you dressed. Are you looking forward to becoming a journeyman yourself, Severian?”
These last words were thrown over his shoulder as he clattered down the steps ahead of me, and he did not wait for an answer.
My costume was much like his, though of different colors. There were overcoats and caps for us too. “You’ll be glad for them,” he said as I put mine on. “It’s cold out and starting to snow.” He handed me a scarf and told me to take off my worn shoes and put on a pair of boots.
“They’re journeymen’s boots,” I protested. “I can’t wear those.”
“Go ahead. Everyone wears black boots. Nobody will notice. Do they fit?”
They were too large, so he made me draw a pair of his stockings on over my own.
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p; “Now, I’m supposed to keep the purse, but since there’s always a chance we may be separated, it would be better if you have a few asimi.” He dropped coins into my palm. “Ready? Let’s go. I’d like to be back in time for some sleep if we can.”
We left the tower, and muffled in our strange clothing rounded the Witches’ Keep to take the covered walk leading past the Martello to the court called Broken. Roche had been right: it was starting to snow, fluffy flakes as big as the end of my thumb sifting so slowly through the air that it seemed they must have been falling for years. There was no wind, and we could hear the creaking our boots made in breaking through the familiar world’s new, thin disguise.
“You’re in luck,” Roche told me. “I don’t know how you worked this, but thank you.”
“Worked what?”
“A trip to the Echopraxia and a woman for each of us. I know you know—Master Gurloes told me he’d already notified you.”
“I had forgotten, and anyway I wasn’t sure he meant it. Are we going to walk? It must be a long way.”
“Not as long as you probably think, but I told you we have funds. There will be fiacres at the Bitter Gate. There always are—people are continually coming and going, though you wouldn’t think it back in our little corner.”
To make conversation, I told him what the Chatelaine Thecla had said: that many people in the House Absolute did not know we existed.
“That’s so, I’m sure. When you’re brought up in the guild it seems like the center of the world. But when you’re a little older—this is what I’ve found myself, and I know I can rely on you not to tell tales—something pops in your head, and you discover it isn’t the linchpin of this universe after all, only a well-paid, unpopular business you happen to have fallen into.”
As Roche had predicted there were coaches, three of them, waiting in the Broken Court. One was an exultant’s with blazonings painted on the doors and palfreniers in fanciful liveries, but the other two were fiacres, small and plain. The drivers in their low fur caps were bending over a fire they had kindled on the cobbles. Seen at a distance through the falling snow it seemed no bigger than a spark.
Roche waved an arm and shouted, and a driver vaulted into the seat, cracked his whip, and came rattling to meet us. When we were inside, I asked Roche if he knew who we were, and he said, “We’re two optimates who had business in the Citadel and are bound now for the Echopraxia and an evening of pleasure. That’s all he knows and all he needs to know.”
I wondered if Roche were much more experienced at such pleasures than I was myself. It seemed unlikely. In the hope of discovering whether he had visited our destination before, I asked where the Echopraxia lay.
“In the Algedonic Quarter. Have you heard of it?”
I nodded and said that Master Palaemon had once mentioned that it was one of the oldest parts of the city.
“Not really. There are parts farther south that are older still, a waste of stone where only omophagists live. The Citadel used to stand some distance north of Nessus, did you know that?”
I shook my head.
“The city keeps creeping upriver. The armigers and optimates want purer water—not that they drink it, but for their fishponds, and for bathing and boating. Then too, anyone living too near the sea is always somewhat suspect. So the lowest parts, where the water’s the worst, are gradually given up. In the end the law goes, and those who stay behind are afraid to kindle a fire for fear of what the smoke may draw down on them.”
I was looking out the window. We had already passed through a gate unknown to me, dashing by helmeted guards; but we were still within the Citadel, descending a narrow close between two rows of shuttered windows.
“When you are a journeyman you can go into the city any time you want, provided you’re not on duty.”
I knew that already, of course; but I asked Roche if he found it pleasant.
“Not pleasant, exactly … I’ve only gone twice, to tell you the truth. Not pleasant, but interesting. They know who you are, naturally.”
“You said the driver didn’t.”
“Well, he probably doesn’t. Those drivers go all over Nessus. He may live anywhere, and not get to the Citadel more than once a year. But the locals know. The soldiers tell. They always know, and they always tell, that’s what everybody says. They can wear their uniforms when they go out.”
“These windows are all dark. I don’t think there’s anyone in this part of the Citadel at all.”
“Everything’s getting smaller. Not much anybody can do about that. Less food means fewer people until the New Sun comes.”
Despite the cold, I felt stifled in the fiacre. “Is it much farther?” I asked.
Roche chuckled. “You’re bound to be nervous.”
“No, I’m not.”
“Certainly you are. Just don’t let it bother you. It’s natural. Don’t be nervous about being nervous, if you see what I mean.”
“I’m quite calm.”
“It can be quick, if that’s what you want. You don’t have to talk to the woman if you don’t want to. She doesn’t care. Of course, she’ll talk if that’s what you like. You’re paying—in this case I am, but the principle’s the same. She’ll do what you want, within reason. If you strike her or use a grip, they’ll charge more.”
“Do people do that?”
“You know, amateurs. I didn’t think you’d want to, and I don’t think anybody in the guild does it, unless perhaps they’re drunk.” He paused. “The women are breaking the law, so they can’t complain.”
With the fiacre sliding alarmingly, we wheeled out of the close and into a still narrower one that ran crookedly east.
IX
The House Azure
Our destination was one of those accretive structures seen in the older parts of the city (but so far as I know, only there) in which the accumulation and interconnection of what were originally separate buildings produce a confusion of jutting wings and architectural styles, with peaks and turrets where the first builders had intended nothing more than rooftops. The snow had fallen more heavily here—or perhaps had only been falling while we rode. It surrounded the high portico with shapeless mounds of white, softened and blurred the outlines of the entrance, made pillows of the window ledges, and masking and robing the wooden caryatids who supported the roof, seemed to promise silence, safety, and secrecy.
There were dim yellow lights in the lower windows. The upper stories were dark. In spite of the drifted snow, someone within must have heard our feet outside. The door, large and old and no longer in the best condition, swung back before Roche could knock. We entered and found ourselves in a narrow little room like a jewel box, in which the walls and ceiling were covered with blue satin quilting. The person who had admitted us wore thick-soled shoes and a yellow robe; his short, white hair was smoothed back from a wide but rounded brow above a beardless and unlined face. As I passed him in the doorway, I discovered that I was looking into his eyes as I might have looked into a window. Those eyes could truly have been of glass, so unveined and polished they seemed—like a sky of summer drought.
“You are in good fortune,” he said, and handed us each a goblet. “There is no one here but yourselves.”
Roche answered, “I’m sure the girls are lonesome.”
“They are. You smile … I see you do not believe me, but it is so. They complain when too many attend their court, but they are sad, too, when no one comes. Each will try to fascinate you tonight. You’ll see. They’ll want to boast when you are gone that you chose them. Besides, you are both handsome young men.” He paused, and though he did not stare, seemed to look at Roche more closely. “You have been here previously, have you not? I remember your red hair and high color. Far to the south, in the narrow lands, the savages paint a fire spirit much like you. And your friend has the face of an exultant … that is what my young women like best of all. I see why you brought him here.” His voice might have been a man’s tenor or a woman’s contralt
o.
Another door opened. It had a stained-glass insert showing the Temptation. We went into a room that seemed (no doubt in part because of the constriction of the one we had just left) more spacious than the building could well contain. The high ceiling was festooned with what appeared to be white silk, giving it the air of a pavilion. Two walls were lined with colonnades—these were false, the pretended columns being only half-round pilasters pressed against their blue-painted surfaces, and the architrave no more than a molding; but so long as we remained near the center, the effect was impressive and nearly perfect.
