by Gene Wolfe
I sat up. My cloak was soaked with dew, and dew lay like sweat upon my face. Beside me, Jonas had just begun to stir. Ten paces off two great destriers — one the color of white wine, one of unspotted black — champed their bits and stamped with impatience. Of feast and feasters there was no more sign than of Thecla, whom I have never seen again and now no longer hope to see in this existence. Terminus Est lay beside me in the grass, secure in her tough, well-oiled sheath. I picked her up and made my way downhill until I found a stream, where I did what I might to refresh myself. When I returned, Jonas was awake. I directed him to the water, and while he was gone I made my farewell to dead Thecla. Yet some part of her is with me still; at times I who remember am not Severian but Thecla, as though my mind were a picture framed behind glass, and Thecla stands before that glass and is reflected in it. Too, ever since that night, when I think of her without thinking also of a particular time and place, the Thecla who rises in my imagination stands before a mirror in a shimmering gown of frost-white that scarcely covers her breasts but falls in ever-changing cascades below her waist. I see her poised for a moment there; both hands reach up to touch our face.
Then she is whirled away in a room whose walls and ceiling and floor are all of mirrors. No doubt it is her own memory of her image in those mirrors that I see, but after a step or two she vanishes into the dark and I see her no more.
By the time Jonas returned I had mastered my grief and was able to make a show of examining our mounts. “The black for you,” he said, “and the cream for me, obviously. Both of them look like they outvalue either of us, though, as the sailor told the surgeon who took off his legs. Where are we going?”
“To the House Absolute.” I saw the incredulity in his face. “Did you overhear me talking with Vodalus last night?”
“I caught the name, but not that we were to go there.”
I am no rider, as I have said before, but I got one foot into the black’s stirrup and swung myself up. The mount I had stolen from Vodalus two nights before had worn a lofty war saddle, fiendishly uncomfortable but very difficult to fall out of; this black carried a nearly flat affair of padded velvet that was both luxurious and treacherous. I had no sooner got my legs around him than he began to dance with eagerness.
It was the worst possible time, perhaps; but it was also the only time. I asked, “How much do you remember?”
“About the woman last night? Nothing.” Jonas dodged the black, loosed the cream’s reins, and vaulted up. “I didn’t eat. Vodalus was watching you, but after they had swallowed the drug, no one was watching me, and anyway I have learned the art of appearing to eat without actually doing it.”
I looked at him in astonishment.
“I’ve practiced several times with you — at breakfast yesterday, for example. I don’t have much appetite, and I find it socially useful.” As he urged the cream down a forest path, he called over his shoulder, “As it happens, I know the route fairly well, at least for most of the way. But would you mind telling me why we’re going?”
“Dorcas and Jolenta will be there,” I said. “And I have to do an errand for our liege, Vodalus.” Because we were almost certainly watched, I thought it better not to say that I had no intention of performing it.
Here, lest this account of my career run forever, I must pass very quickly over the events of several days. As we rode, I told Jonas all that Vodalus had told me, and much more. We halted at villages and towns as we found them, and where we halted I practiced such of my craft as was in demand — not because the money I earned was strictly necessary to us (for we had the purses the Chatelaine Thea had given us, much of my fee from Saltus, and the money Jonas had obtained for the man-ape’s gold) but in order to allay suspicion.
Our fourth morning found us still pressing northward. Gyoll sunned itself to our right like a sluggish dragon guarding the forbidden road that returned to grass upon its bank. The day before, we had seen uhlans on patrol, men mounted much as we were and bearing lances like those that had killed the travelers at the Piteous Gate.
Jonas, who had been ill at ease since we had set out, muttered, “We must hurry if we’re to be near the House Absolute tonight. I wish Vodalus had given you the date that celebration begins and some indication of how long it’s to last.”
I asked, “Is the House Absolute still far off?”
He pointed out an isle in the river. “I think I recall that, and when I was two days from it, some pilgrims told me the House Absolute was nearby. They warned me of the praetorians, and seemed to know what they were talking about.”
Following his example, I had allowed my mount to break into a trot. “You were walking.”
“Riding my merychip — I suppose I’ll never see the poor creature again. She was slower at her best than these animals at their worst, I’ll grant you. But I’m not certain they’re twice as fast.”
I was about to say I did not believe Vodalus would have dispatched us when he did if he had not thought it possible for us to reach the House Absolute in time, when something that at first seemed a great bat came skimming within a handbreadth of my head.
If I did not know what it was, Jonas did. He shouted words I could not understand and lashed my destrier with the ends of his reins. It bounded forward and nearly threw me, and in an instant we were galloping madly. I remember shooting between two trees with not a span to spare on either side and seeing the thing silhouetted against the sky like a fleck of soot. A moment later it was rattling among the branches behind us.
When we cleared the margin of the wood and entered the dry gully beyond, it was not to be seen; but as we reached the bottom and began to climb the farther side, it emerged from the trees, more ragged than ever.
For the space of a prayer it seemed to have lost sight of us, soaring at an angle to our own path, then swooping toward us again in a long, flat glide. I had Terminus Est clear of her sheath, and I neck-reined the black between the flying thing and Jonas.
Swift though our destriers were, it came far more swiftly. If I had possessed a pointed blade, I think I could have spitted it as it dove; had I done so I would surely have perished. As it was, I caught it with a two-handed stroke. It was like cutting air, and I thought the thing too light and tough for even that bitter edge. An instant later it parted like a rag; I felt a brief sensation of warmth, as though the door of an oven had been opened, then soundlessly shut. I would have dismounted to examine it, but Jonas shouted and waved. We had left the lofty forest about Saltus far behind, and were entering a broken country of steep hills and ragged cedars. A grove of these stood at the top of the slope; we plunged into their tangled growth like madmen, flattened against the necks of our mounts.
Soon the foliage grew so thick they could move no faster than a walk. Almost at once we reached a sheer rock-face and were forced to halt. When we were no longer smashing through the tangled limbs, I could hear something else behind us — a dry rustling, as though a wounded bird were fluttering among the treetops. The medicinal fragrance of the cedars oppressed my lungs.
“We must get out,” Jonas panted, “or at least keep moving.” The splintered end of a branch had gouged his cheek; a trickle of blood coursed down it as he spoke. After looking in both directions he chose the right, toward the river, and lashed his mount to force it into what appeared to be an impenetrable thicket.
I let him break a trail for me, reflecting that if the dark thing caught us I might be able to make some sort of defense against it. Soon I saw it through the gray-green foliage; a few moments later there was another, much like the first and only a short distance behind it.
The wood ended, and we were able to flog our mounts to a gallop again. The fluttering scraps of night came after us, but though their smaller size made them appear swifter, they were slower than the single large entity had been.
“We have to find a fire,” Jonas shouted above the drumming of the destriers’ hooves. “Or a big animal we can kill. If you slashed the belly of one of these beas
ts, that would probably do it. But if it didn’t, we couldn’t get away.”
I nodded to show that I also opposed killing one of the destriers, though it crossed my mind that my own might soon drop from exhaustion. Jonas was having to allow his to slow now to keep from distancing me. I asked, “Is it blood they want?”
“No. Heat.”
Jonas swung his destrier to the right and slapped its flank with his steel hand. It must have been a good blow, for the animal leaped ahead as though stung. We jumped a dry watercourse, careened sliding and stumbling down a dusty hillside, then struck open, rolling ground where the destriers could show their best speed.
Behind us fluttered the rags of black. They flew at twice the height of a tall tree and seemed to be blown along by the wind, though the rippling of the grass showed that they faced it.
Ahead, the lay of the ground changed as subtly and yet as abruptly as cloth alters at a seam. A sinuous ribbon of green lay as flat as if it had been rolled, and I swung the black down it, shouting in his ears and belaboring him with the flat of my blade. He was drenched with sweat now and streaked with blood from the broken twigs of the cedars. Behind us I could hear Jonas’s shouted warnings, but I gave them no heed.
We rounded a curve, and through a break in the trees I saw the gleam of the river. Another curve, with the black beginning to flag again — then, far off, the sight I had been waiting for. Perhaps I should not tell it, but I lifted my sword to Heaven then, to the diminished sun with the worm in his heart; and I called, “His life for mine, New Sun, by your anger and my hope!” The uhlan (and there was only one alone) must surely have thought me threatening him, as indeed I was. The blue radiance at the tip of his lance increased as he spurred toward us.
Winded though he was, the black swerved for me like a hunted hare. A twitch of the reins, and he was sliding and turning, his hooves scarring the green verdure of the road. In no more than a breath, we had reversed our track and were pounding back toward the things that pursued us. Whether Jonas understood my plan then I do not know, but he fell in with it as though he did, never slackening his own pace.
One of the fluttering creatures swooped, looking for all Urth like a hole torn in the universe, for it was true fuligin, as lightless as my own habit. It was trying for Jonas, I believe, but it came within sword reach, and I parted it as I had before, and again felt a gust of warmth. Knowing from where that heat came, it seemed more evil to me than any vile odor could; the mere sensation on my skin made me ill. I reined sharply away from the river, fearing a bolt from the uhlan’s lance at any moment. We had no more than left the road when it came, searing the ground and setting a dead tree ablaze.
I pulled my mount’s head up, making him rear and roar. For a moment I looked for the three dark things around the burning tree. They were not there. I glanced toward Jonas then, fearing they had overtaken him after all and were attacking him in some way I could not comprehend.
They were not there either, but his eyes showed me where they had gone: they flitted about the uhlan, and he, as I watched, sought to defend himself with his lance. Bolt after bolt split the air, so that there was a continual crashing like thunder. With each bolt the brightness of the sun was washed away, but the very energies with which he sought to destroy them seemed to give them strength. To my eyes they no longer flew, but flickered as beams of darkness might, appearing first in one place then in another, and always nearer the uhlan, until in less time than I have taken to write of it all three were at his face. He tumbled from his saddle, and the lance fell from his hand and went out.
Chapter 13
THE CLAW OF THE CONCILIATOR
I called, “Is he dead?”, and saw Jonas nod in reply. I would have ridden away then, but he motioned for me to join him and dismounted. When we met by the uhlan’s body, he said, “We may be able to destroy those things so they can’t be flown against us again or be used to harm anyone else. They’re sated now, and I think we might handle them. We need something to put them in — something water-tight, of metal or glass.”
I had nothing of that kind and told him so.
“Neither have I.” He knelt beside the uhlan and turned out his pockets. Aromatic smoke from the blazing tree wreathed everything like incense, and I had the sensation of being once more in the Cathedral of the Pelerines. The litter of twigs and last summer’s leaves on which the uhlan lay might have been the straw-strewn floor; the trunks of the scattered trees, the supporting poles.
“Here,” Jonas said, and picked up a brass vasculum. Unscrewing the lid he emptied it of herbs, then rolled the dead uhlan on his back.
“Where are they?” I asked. “Has the body absorbed them?”
Jonas shook his head, and after a moment began, very carefully and delicately, to draw one of the dark things from the uhlan’s left nostril. Save for being absolutely opaque, it was like the finest tissue paper.
I wondered at his caution. “If you tear it, won’t it just become two?”
“Yes, but it is sated now. Divided, it would lose energy and might be impossible to handle. A lot of people have died, by the way, because they found they could cut these creatures, and choose to stand their ground doing it until they were surrounded by too many to fend off.”
One of the uhlan’s eyes was half-open. I had seen corpses often before, but I could not escape the eerie feeling that he was in some sense watching me, the man who had killed him to save himself. To turn my mind to other things, I said, “After I cut the first one, it seemed to fly more slowly.”
Jonas had placed the horror he had drawn out in the vasculum and was extracting a second from the right nostril; he murmured, “The speed of any flying thing depends on its wing area. If that weren’t the case, the adepts who use these creatures would tear them into scraps before they sent them forth, I suppose.”
“You sound as though you’ve encountered them before.”
“We docked once at a port where they’re used in ritual murders. I suppose it was inevitable that someone would bring them home, but these are the first I’ve seen here.” He opened the brass lid and laid the second fuligin thing on the first, which stirred sluggishly. “They’ll recombine in there — this is what the adepts do to get them back together. I doubt if you noticed it, but they were torn somewhat in going through the wood and healed themselves in flight.”
“There’s one more,” I said.
He nodded and used his steel hand to force open the dead man’s mouth; instead of holding teeth and livid tongue and gums it appeared to be a bottomless gulf, and for a moment my stomach churned. Jonas drew out the third creature, streaked with the dead man’s saliva.
“Wouldn’t he have had a nostril open, or his mouth, if I hadn’t cut the thing a second time?”
“Until they worked their way into his lungs. We’re lucky, actually, to have been able to get to him so quickly. Otherwise you would have had to slice the body open to get them out.”
A wisp of smoke called to mind the burning cedar. “If it was heat they wanted…”
“They prefer life’s heat, though they can sometimes be distracted by a fire of living vegetable matter. It’s something more than heat, I think, really. Perhaps some radiant energy characteristic of growing cells.” Jonas stuffed the third creature into the vasculum and snapped it shut. “We called them notules, because they usually came after dark, when they could not be seen, and the first warning we had was a breath of warmth; but I have no idea what the natives call them.”
“Where is this island?”
He looked at me curiously.
“Is it far from the coast? I’ve always wanted to see Uroboros, though I suppose it is dangerous.”
“Very far,” Jonas said in a flat voice. “Very far indeed. Wait a moment.” I waited, watching, as he strode to the riverbank. He threw the vasculum hard — it had almost reached midstream when it dropped into the water.
When he returned I asked, “Couldn’t we have used those things ourselves? It doesn’t seem l
ikely that whoever sent them is going to give up now, and we might have need of them.”
“They would not obey us, and the world is better without them anyway, as the butcher’s wife told him when she cut away his manhood. Now we’d best be going. There’s somebody coming down the road.”
I looked where Jonas had pointed, and saw two figures on foot. He had caught his destrier by the halter as it drank and was ready to climb into the saddle.
“Wait,” I said. “Or go on a chain or two and wait for me there.” I was thinking of the man-ape’s bleeding stump, and I seemed to see the dim votive lights of the cathedral hanging, crimson and magenta, among the trees. I reached into my boot, far down where I had pushed it for safety, and drew out the Claw. It was the first time I had seen it by full daylight. It caught the sun and flashed like a New Sun itself, not blue only but with every color from violet to cyan. I laid it on the uhlan’s forehead, and for an instant tried to will him alive.
“Come on,” Jonas called. “What are you doing?”
I did not know how to answer him.
“He’s not quite dead,” Jonas called. “Get off the road before he finds his lance!” He lashed his mount.
Faintly, a voice I seemed to recognize called, “Master!” I turned my head to look down the grass-grown highway.
“Master!” One of the travelers waved an arm, and both began to run.
“It’s Hethor,” I said; but Jonas had gone. I looked back at the uhlan. Both his eyes were open now, and his chest rose and fell. When I took the Claw from his forehead and thrust it back into my boot-top, he sat up. I shouted to Hethor and his companion to leave the road, but they did not appear to understand.
“Who are you?”
“A friend,” I said.
Though the uhlan was feeble, he tried to rise. I gave him my hand and pulled him up. For a moment he stared at everything — myself, the two men running toward him, the river, and the trees. The destriers appeared to frighten him, even his own, which stood patiently awaiting its rider. “What is this place?”