Shadow & Claw

by Wolfe, Gene

  I sat up in the tossing bed. Dim light filtered beneath the door; there was no one there.

  When I lay down again, the room was filled with Thecla’s perfume. The false Thecla from the House Azure had come, then. I got out of bed, and nearly falling opened the door. There was no one in the passage outside.

  A chamber pot waited beneath the bed, and I pulled it out and filled it with my spew, rich meats swimming in wine mixed with bile. Somehow I felt what I had done was treason, as if by casting out all that the guild had given me that night I had cast out the guild itself. Coughing and sobbing I knelt beside the bed, and at last, after wiping my mouth clean, lay down again.

  No doubt I slept. I saw the chapel, but it was not the ruin I knew. The roof was whole and high and straight, and from it there hung ruby lamps. The pews were whole and gleamed with polish; the ancient stone altar was swatched in cloth of gold. Behind the altar rose a wonderful mosaic of blue; but it was blank, as if a fragment of sky without cloud or star had been torn away and spread upon the curving wall.

  I walked toward it down the aisle, and as I did so I was struck by how much lighter it was than the true sky, whose blue is nearly black even on the brightest day. Yet how much more beautiful this was! It thrilled me to look at it. I felt I was floating in air, borne up by the beauty of it, looking down upon the altar, down into the cup of crimson wine, down upon shewbread and antique knife. I smiled …

  And woke. In my sleep I had heard footsteps in the passage outside, and I knew I had recognized them, though I could not just then recall whose steps they were. Struggling, I brought back the sound; it was no human tread, only the padding of soft feet, and an almost imperceptible scraping.

  I heard it again, so faint that for a time I thought I had confused my memory with reality; but it was real, slowly coming up the passage, slowly going back. The mere lifting of my head brought a wave of nausea; I let it fall again, telling myself that whoever might pace back and forth, it was no affair of mine. The perfume had vanished, and sick though I was, I felt I needed to fear unreality no longer—I was back in the world of solid objects and plain light. My door opened a trifle and Master Malrubius looked in as though to make certain I was all right. I waved to him and he shut the door again. It was some time before I recalled that he had died while I was still a boy.

  XII

  The Traitor

  The next day my head ached and I was ill. But as I was (by a long-standing tradition) spared from the cleaning of the Grand Court and the chapel, where most of the brothers were, I was needed in the oubliette. For a few moments at least the morning calm of the corridors soothed me. Then the apprentices came clattering down (the boy Eata, not quite so small now, with a puffed lip and the gleam of triumph in his eye), bringing the clients’ breakfast—cold meats mostly, salvage from the ruins of the banquet. I had to explain to several clients that this was the only day of the year on which they would get meat, and went along assuring one after another that there would be no excruciations—the feast day itself and the day after are exempt, and even when a sentence demands torment on those days, it is postponed. The Chatelaine Thecla was still asleep. I did not wake her, but unlocked her cell and carried her food in and put it on her table.

  About midmorning I again heard the echoes of footsteps. Coming to the landing, I saw two cataphracts, an anagnost reading prayers, Master Gurloes, and a young woman. Master Gurloes asked if I had an empty cell, and I began to describe those that were vacant.

  “Then take this prisoner. I have already signed for her.”

  I nodded and grasped the woman by the arm; the cataphracts released her and turned away like silver automata.

  The elaboration of her sateen costume (somewhat dirty and torn now) showed that she was an optimate. An armigette would have worn finer stuffs in simpler lines, and no one from the poorer classes could have dressed so well. The anagnost tried to follow us down the corridor, but Master Gurloes prevented him. I heard the soldiers’ steel-shod feet on the steps.

  “When am I … ?” It had a rising, somehow terrorized inflection.

  “To be taken to the examination room?”

  She clung to my arm now as though I were her father or her lover. “Will I be?”

  “Yes, Madame.”

  “How do you know?”

  “All who are brought here are, Madame.”

  “Always? Isn’t anybody ever released?”

  “Occasionally.”

  “Then I might be too, mightn’t I?” The hope in her voice now made me think of a flower growing in shadow.

  “It’s possible, but it’s very unlikely.”

  “Don’t you want to know what I’ve done?”

  “No,” I said. As it happened, the cell next to Thecla’s was vacant; for a moment I wondered if I should put this woman there. She would be company (the two could speak through the slots in their doors), but her questions and the opening and closing of the cell might wake Thecla now. I decided to do it—the companionship, I felt, would more than compensate for a little lost sleep.

  “I was affianced to an officer, and I found he was maintaining a jade. When he wouldn’t give her up, I paid bravos to fire her thatch. She lost a featherbed, a few sticks of furniture, and some clothes. Is that a crime for which I should be tortured?”

  “I don’t know, Madame.”

  “My name is Marcellina. What is yours?”

  I turned the key to her cell while I debated answering her. Thecla, whom I could hear stirring now, would doubtless tell her in any event. “Severian,” I said.

  “And you get your bread by breaking bones. It must give you good dreams at night.”

  Thecla’s eyes, widely spaced and as deep as wells, were at the slot in her door. “Who is that with you, Severian?”

  “A new prisoner, Chatelaine.”

  “A woman? I know she is—I heard her voice. From the House Absolute?”

  “No, Chatelaine.” Not knowing how long it might be before the two would be able to see each other again, I made Marcellina stand before Thecla’s door.

  “Another woman. Isn’t that unusual? How many do you have, Severian?”

  “Eight on this level now, Chatelaine.”

  “I would think you would often have more than that.”

  “We rarely have more than four, Chatelaine.”

  Marcellina asked, “How long will I have to stay here?”

  “Not long. Few stay here long, Madame.”

  With an unhealthy seriousness, Thecla said, “I am about to be released, you understand. He knows.”

  Our guild’s new client looked at what could be seen of her with increased interest. “Are you really about to be set free, Chatelaine?”

  “He knows. He’s mailed letters for me—haven’t you, Severian? And he’s been saying goodbye for these last few days. He’s really rather a sweet boy in his way.”

  I said, “You must go in now, Madame. You may continue to talk, if you like.”

  I was relieved after I had served the clients their suppers. Drotte met me on the stair and suggested I go to bed.

  “It’s the mask,” I told him. “You’re not used to seeing me with it on.”

  “I can see your eyes, and that’s all I need to see. Can’t you recognize all the brothers by their eyes, and tell whether they’re angry, or in the mood for a joke? You ought to go to bed.”

  I told him I had something to do first, and went to Master Gurloes’s study. He was absent, as I had hoped he would be, and among the papers on his table I found what I had, in some fashion I cannot explain, known would be there: an order for Thecla’s excruciation.

  I could not sleep after that. Instead I went (for the last time, though I did not know it) to the tomb in which I had played as a boy. The funeral bronze of the old exultant was dull for lack of rubbing, and a few more leaves had drifted through the half-open door; otherwise it was unchanged. I had once told Thecla of the place, and now I imagined her with me. She had escaped by my aid, and I pro
mised her that no one would find her here, and that I would bring her food, and when the hunt had cooled I would help her secure passage on a merchant dhow, by which she could make her way unnoticed down the winding coils of Gyoll to the delta and the sea.

  Were I such a hero as we had read of together in old romances, I would have released her that very evening, overpowering or drugging the brothers on watch. I was not, and I possessed no drugs and no weapon more formidable than a knife taken from the kitchen.

  And if the truth is to be known, between my inmost being and the desperate attempt there stood the words I had heard that morning—the morning after my elevation. The Chatelaine Thecla had said I was “rather a sweet boy,” and some already mature part of me knew that even if I succeeded against all odds, I would still be rather a sweet boy. At the time I thought it mattered.

  The next morning Master Gurloes ordered me to assist him in performing the excruciation. Roche came with us.

  I unlocked her cell. She did not understand at first why we had come, and asked me if she had a visitor, or if she were to be discharged.

  By the time we reached our destination she knew. Many men faint, but she did not. Courteously, Master Gurloes asked if she would like an explanation of the various mechanisms.

  “Do you mean the ones you are going to employ?” There was a tremor in her voice, but it was not marked.

  “No, no, I wouldn’t do that. Just the curious machines you will be seeing as we pass through. Some are quite old, and most are hardly ever used.”

  Thecla looked about her before answering. The examination room—our workroom—is not divided into cells, but is a unified space, pillared with the tubes of the ancient engines and cluttered with the tools of our mystery. “The one to which I will be subjected—is that old too?”

  “The most hallowed of all,” Master Gurloes replied. He waited for her to say something more, and when she did not, proceeded with his descriptions. “The kite I’m certain ou must be familiar with—everyone knows of it. Behind it there … if you’ll take a step this way you’ll be able to see it better … is what we call the apparatus. It is supposed to letter whatever slogan is demanded in the client’s flesh, but it is seldom in working order. I see you’re looking at the old post. It’s no more than it seems, just a stake to immobilize the hands, and a thirteen-thonged scourge for correction. It used to stand in the Old Yard, but the witches complained, and the Castellan made us move it down here. That was about a century ago.”

  “Who are the witches?”

  “I’m afraid we don’t have time to go into that now. Severian can tell you when you’re back in your cell.”

  She looked at me as if to say “Am I really going back, eventually?” and I took advantage of my position on the side opposite Master Gurloes to clasp her icy hand.

  “Beyond that—”

  “Wait. Can I choose? Is there any way I can persuade you to … do one thing instead of another?” Her voice was still brave, but weaker now.

  Gurloes shook his head. “We have no say in the matter, Chatelaine. Nor do you. We carry out the sentences that are delivered to us, doing no more than we are told, and no less, and making no changes.” Embarrassed, he cleared his throat. “The next one’s interesting, I think. We call it Allowin’s Necklace. The client is strapped into that chair, and the pad is adjusted against his breastbone. Each breath he draws thereafter tightens the chain, so that the more he breathes, the less breath he can take. In theory it can go on forever, with very shallow breaths and very small tightenings.”

  “How horrible. What is that behind it? That tangle of wire, and the great glass globe over the table?”

  “Ah,” said Master Gurloes. “We call this the revolutionary. The subject lies here. Will you, Chatelaine?”

  For a long moment Thecla stood poised. She was taller than any of us, but with that terrible fear in her face, her height was no longer imposing.

  “If you do not,” Master Gurloes continued, “our journeymen will have to force you. You would not like that, Chatelaine.”

  Thecla whispered, “I thought you were going to show me all of them.”

  “Only until we reached this spot, Chatelaine. It’s better if the client’s mind is occupied. Now lie down, please. I won’t be asking again.”

  She lay down at once, quickly and gracefully, as I had often seen her stretch herself in her cell. The straps Roche and I buckled about her were so old and cracked that I wondered if they would hold.

  There were cables to be wound from one part of the examination room to another, rheostats and magnetic amplifiers to be adjusted. Antique lights like blood-red eyes gleamed on the control panel, and a droning like the song of some huge insect filled the entire chamber. For a few moments, the ancient engine of the tower lived again. One cable was loose, and sparks as blue as burning brandy played about its bronze fittings.

  “Lightning,” Master Gurloes said as he rammed the loose cable home. “There’s another word for it, but I forget. Anyway, the revolutionary here runs by lightning. It’s not as if you were going to be struck, of course, Chatelaine. But lightning’s the thing that makes it go.

  “Severian, push up your handle there until this needle’s here.” A coil that had been as cold as a snake when I had touched it a moment before was warm now.

  “What does it do?”

  “I couldn’t describe it, Chatelaine. Anyway, I’ve never had it done, you see.” Gurloes’s hand touched a knob on the control panel and Thecla was bathed in white light that stole the color from all it fell upon. She screamed; I have heard screaming all my life, but that was the worst, though not the loudest; it seemed to go on and on like the shrieking of a cartwheel.

  She was not unconscious when the white light died. Her eyes were open, staring upward; but she did not appear to see my hand, or to feel it when I touched her. Her breathing was shallow and rapid.

  Roche asked, “Shall we wait until she can walk?” I could see he was thinking how awkward so tall a woman would be to carry.

  “Take her now,” Master Gurloes said. We got out the travail.

  When all my other work was complete, I came into her cell to see her. She was fully aware by then, though she could not stand. “I ought to hate you,” she said.

  I had to lean over her to catch the words. “It’s all right,” I said.

  “But I don’t. Not for your sake … if I hate my last friend, what would be left?”

  There was nothing to say to that, so I said nothing.

  “Do you know what it was like? It was a long time before I could think of it.”

  Her right hand was creeping upward, toward her eyes. I caught it and forced it back.

  “I thought I saw my worst enemy, a kind of demon. And it was me.”

  Her scalp was bleeding. I put clean lint there and taped it down, though I knew it would soon be gone. Curling, dark hairs were entangled in her fingers.

  “Since then, I can’t control my hands … I can if I think about it, if I know what they’re doing. But it is so hard, and I’m getting tired.” She rolled her head away and spat blood. “I bite myself. Bite the lining of my cheeks, and my tongue and lips. Once my hands tried to strangle me, and I thought oh good, I will die now. But I only lost consciousness, and they must have lost their strength, because I woke. It’s like that machine, isn’t it?”

  I said, “Allowin’s Necklace.”

  “But worse. My hands are trying to blind me now, to tear my eyelids away. Will I be blind?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “How long before I die?”

  “A month, perhaps. The thing in you that hates you will weaken as you weaken. The revolutionary brought it to life, but its energy is your energy, and in the end you will die together.”

  “Severian …”

  “Yes?”

  “I see,” she said. And then, “It is a thing from Erebus, from Abaia, a fit companion for me. Vodalus …”

  I leaned closer, but I could not hear. At las
t I said, “I tried to save you. I wanted to. I stole a knife, and spent the night watching for a chance. But only a master can take a prisoner from a cell, and I would have had to kill—”

  “Your friends.”

  “Yes, my friends.”

  Her hands were moving again, and blood trickled from her mouth. “Will you bring me the knife?”

  “I have it here,” I said, and drew it from under my cloak. It was a common cook’s knife with a span or so of blade.

  “It looks sharp.”

  “It is,” I said. “I know how to treat an edge, and I sharpened it carefully.” That was the last thing I said to her. I put the knife into her right hand and went out.

  For a time, I knew, her will would hold it back. A thousand times one thought recurred: I could reenter her cell, take back the knife, and no one would know. I would be able to live out my life in the guild.

  If her throat rattled, I did not hear it; but after I had stared at the door of her cell for a long while, a little crimson rivulet crept from under it. I went to Master Gurloes then, and told him what I had done.

  XIII

  The Lictor of Thrax

  For the next ten days I lived the life of a client, in a cell of the topmost level (not far, in fact, from that which had been Thecla’s). In order that the guild should not be accused of having detained me without legal process, the door was left unlocked; but there were two journeymen with swords outside my door, and I never stepped from it save for a brief time on the second day when I was brought to Master Palaemon to tell my story again. That was my trial, if you like. For the remainder of the time, the guild pondered my sentence.

  It is said that it is the peculiar quality of time to conserve fact, and that it does so by rendering our past falsehoods true. So it was with me. I had lied in saying that I loved the guild—that I desired nothing but to remain in its embrace. Now I found those lies become truths. The life of a journeyman and even that of an apprentice seemed infinitely attractive. Not only because I was certain I was to die, but truly attractive in themselves, because I had lost them. I saw the brothers now from the viewpoint of a client, and so I saw them as powerful, the active principles of an inimical and nearly perfect machine.