Shadow & Claw

by Wolfe, Gene

  I nodded.

  “Then there is nothing to prevent him, from a position, say, of thirty thousand years ago, coming into what we call the present. Dead or not, if he ever existed, he could be around the next bend of the street or the next turn of the week.”

  We had reached the beginning of the stair. The steps were of stone as white as salt, sometimes so gradual that several strides were needed to go from one descent to the next, sometimes almost as abrupt as a ladder. Confectioners, sellers of apes, and the like had set up their stands here and there. For whatever reason, it was very pleasant to discuss mysteries with Agia while descending these steps, and I said, “All this because those women say they possess one of his glittering fingernails. I suppose it performs miraculous cures?”

  “On occasion, so they claim. It also forgives injuries, raises the dead, draws new races of beings from the soil, purifies lust, and so on. All the things he is supposed to have done himself.”

  “You’re laughing at me now.”

  “No, only laughing at the sunshine—you know what it is supposed to do to women’s faces.”

  “Make them brown.”

  “Make them ugly. To begin with, it dries the skin and creates wrinkles and so on. Then too, it shows up every little defect. Urvasi loved Pururavas, you know, before she saw him in a bright light. Anyway, I felt it on my face, and I was thinking, ‘I don’t care for γou. I’m still too young to worry about you, and next year I’ll get a wide hat from our stock.’”

  Agia’s face was far from perfect now in the clear sunshine, but she had nothing to fear from it. My hunger fed at least as ravenously upon her imperfections. She possessed the hopeful, hopeless courage of the poor, which is perhaps the most appealing of all human qualities; and I rejoiced in the flaws that made her more real to me.

  “Anyway,” she continued, squeezing my hand, “I have to admit I’ve never understood why people like the Pelerines always think ordinary people have to have their lust purified. In my experience, they control it well enough by themselves, and just about every day, too. What most of us need is to find someone we can unbottle it with.”

  “Then you care that I love you.” I was only half joking.

  “Every woman cares if she’s loved, and the more men who love her, the better! But I don’t choose to love you in return, if that’s what you mean. It would be so easy today, going around the city with you like this. But then if you’re killed this evening, I’ll feel badly for a fortnight.”

  “So will I,” I said.

  “No you won’t. You won’t even care. Not about that or anything, not ever again. Being dead doesn’t hurt, as you of all people should know.”

  “I’m almost inclined to think this whole affair is some trick of yours, or of your brother’s. You were outside when the Septentrion came—did you tell him something to inflame him against me? Is he your lover?”

  Agia laughed at that, her teeth flashing in the sun. “Look at me. I have a brocade gown, but you’ve seen what’s beneath it. My feet are bare. Do you see rings or earrings? A silver lamia twined about my neck? Are my arms constricted with circlets of gold? If not, you may safely assume I have no officer of the Household Troops for my paramour. There’s an old sailor, ugly and poor, who presses me to live with him. Other than that, well, Agilus and I own our shop. It was bequeathed to us by our mother, and it’s free of debt only because we can find no one who’s enough of a fool to lend anything on it. Sometimes we rip up something from our stock and sell it to the paper-makers so we can buy a bowl of lentils to divide between us.”

  “You should eat well tonight anyway,” I told her. “I gave your brother a good price for this mantle.”

  “What?” Her good humor seemed to have returned. She took a step back and feigned astonishment with an open mouth. “You won’t buy me a supper this evening? After I’ve spent the day counseling you and guiding you about?”

  “Involving me in the destruction of the altar those Pelerines had erected.”

  “I’m sorry about that. I really am. I didn’t want you to tire your legs—you’ll need them when you fight. Then those others came up, and I thought I saw a chance for you to make some money.”

  Her look had left my face and come to rest on one of the brutal busts that flanked the stair. I asked, “Is that really all there was to it?”

  “To confess the truth, I wanted them to go on thinking you might be an armiger. Armigers go about in fancy dress so much because they’re always going to fetes and tournaments, and you have the face. That’s why I thought so myself when I first saw you. And you see, if you were, then I was someone that somebody like that, an armiger and probably the bastard of an exultant, might care for. Even if it was only a kind of joke. I had no way of knowing what would happen.”

  “I understand,” I said. Suddenly laughter overcame me. “What fools we must have looked, jolting along in the fiacre.”

  “If you understand, then kiss me.”

  I stared at her.

  “Kiss me! How many chances have you left? I’ll give you more, what you want—” She paused, then laughed too. “After supper, perhaps. If we can find a private spot, though it won’t be good for your fighting.” She threw herself into my arms then, rising on her toes to press my lips. Her breasts were firm and high, and I could feel the motion of her hips.

  “There now.” She pushed me away. “Look down there, Severian. Between the pylons. What do you see?”

  Water glimmered like a mirror in the sun. “The river.”

  “Yes, Gyoll. Now to the left. Because there are so many nenuphars, the island is hard to see. But the lawn is a lighter, brighter green. Don’t you see the glass? Where it catches the light?”

  “I see something. Is the building all glass?”

  She nodded. “That’s the Botanic Gardens, where we’re going. They’ll let you cut your avern there—all you have to do is demand it as your right.”

  We made the rest of the descent in silence. The Adamnian Steps wind back and forth across a long hillside, and they are a favored place for strollers, who often hire a ride to the top and descend. I saw many couples finely dressed, men with the marks of old difficulties scarring their faces, and romping children. Saddening me more, I saw too from several points the dark towers of the Citadel on the opposite bank, and on the second or third such sighting it came to me that when I had swum from the eastern bank, diving from the water-stairs and fighting with the tenement children, I had once or twice noticed this narrow line of white on the other shore, so far upstream as to be nearly beyond sight.

  The Botanic Gardens stood on an island near the bank, enclosed in a building of glass (a thing I had not seen before and did not know could exist). There were no towers or battlements: only the faceted tholus, climbing until it lost itself against the sky and its momentary brilliancies were confounded with the faint stars. I asked Agia if we would have time to see the gardens—and then, before she could reply, told her that I would see them whether there was time or not. The fact was that I had no compunction about arriving late for my death, and was beginning to have difficulty in taking seriously a combat fought with flowers.

  “If you wish to spend your last afternoon visiting the gardens, so be it,” she said. “I come here myself often. It’s free, being maintained by the Autarch, and entertaining if you’re not too squeamish.”

  We went up steps of glass, palely green. I asked Agia if the enormous building existed only to provide blooms and fruit.

  She shook her head, laughing, and motioned toward the wide arch before us. “On either side of this corridor are chambers, and each chamber is a bioscape. I warn you though that because the corridor is shorter than the building itself, the chambers will widen as we go into them more deeply. Some people find that disconcerting.”

  We entered, and in so doing stepped into such silence as must have been in the morning of the world, before the fathers of men first hammered out brazen gongs, built squealing cartwheels, and splashed Gy
oll with striding oars. The air was fragrant, damp, and a trifle warmer than it had been outside. The walls to either side of the tessellated floor were also of glass, but so thick that sight could scarcely penetrate them; leaves and flowers and even soaring trees seen through these walls wavered as though glimpsed through water. On one broad door I read:

  THE GARDEN OF SLEEP

  “You may enter whichever you like,” an old man said, rising from his chair in a corner. “And as many as you like.”

  Agia shook her head. “We won’t have time for more than one or two.”

  “Is it your first visit? Newcomers generally enjoy the Garden of Pantomime.”

  He wore a faded robe that reminded me of something I could not place. I asked if it were the habit of some guild.

  “Indeed it is. We are the curators—have you never met one of our brotherhood previously?”

  “Twice, I believe.”

  “There are only a few of us, but our charge is the most important that society boasts—the preservation of all that is gone. Have you seen the Garden of Antiquities?”

  “Not yet,” I said.

  “You should! If this is your first visit, I would advise you to begin with the Garden of Antiquities. Hundreds and hundreds of extinct plants, including some that have not been seen for tens of millions of years.”

  Agia said, “That purple creeper you’re so proud of—I met it growing wild on a hillside in Cobblers Common.”

  The curator shook his head sadly. “We lost spores, I’m afraid. We know about it … A roof pane broke, and they blew away.” The unhappiness quickly left his lined face, draining away as the troubles of simple people do. He smiled. “It’s likely to do well now. All its enemies are as dead as the disorders its leaves cured.”

  A rumbling made me turn. Two workmen were wheeling a cart through one of the doorways, and I asked what they were doing.

  “That’s the Sand Garden. They’re rebuilding it. Cactuses and yucca—that kind of thing. I’m afraid there’s not much to see there now.”

  I took Agia by the hand, saying, “Come on, I’d like to look at the work.” She smiled at the curator and gave a half shrug, but followed docilely enough.

  Sand there was, but no garden. We stepped into a seemingly unlimited space dotted with boulders. More stone rose in cliffs behind us, concealing the wall through which we had come. Just beside the doorway spread one large plant, half bush, half vine, with cruel, curved thorns; I assumed that it was the last of the old flora, not yet removed. There was no other vegetation, and no sign of the restocking the curator had implied except for the twin tracks of the workmen’s cart, winding off among the rocks.

  “This isn’t much,” Agia said. “Why don’t you let me take you to the Garden of Delectation?”

  “The door is open behind us—why is it I feel I can’t leave this place?”

  She looked at me sidelong. “Everyone feels like that in these gardens sooner or later, though usually not so quickly. It would be better for you if we stepped outside now.” She said something else as well, something I could not catch. Far off, I seemed to hear surf pounding on the edge of the world.

  “Wait …” I said. But Agia drew me out into the corridor again. Our feet carried away as much sand as a child might hold in the palm of one hand.

  “We really don’t have much time left now,” Agia told me. “Let me show you the Garden of Delectation, then we’ll pluck your avern and go.”

  “It can’t be much later than midmorning.”

  “It’s past noon. We were more than a watch just in the Sand Garden.”

  “Now I know you’re lying to me.”

  For an instant I saw a flash of anger in her face. Then it was spread over with an unction of philosophical irony, the secretion of her injured selfesteem. I was far stronger than she, and poor though I was, richer; she told herself now (I felt I could almost hear her voice whispering in her own ear) that by accepting such insults she mastered me.

  “Severian, you argued and argued, and in the end I had to drag you away. The gardens affect people like that—certain suggestible people. They say the Autarch wants some people to remain in each to accent the reality of the scene, and so his archimage, Father Inire, has invested them with a conjuration. But since you were so drawn to that one, it’s not likely any of the others will affect you so much.”

  “I felt I belonged there,” I said. “That I was to meet someone … and that a certain woman was there, nearby, but concealed from sight.”

  We were passing another door, on which was written:

  THE JUNGLE GARDEN

  When Agia did not answer me, I said, “You tell me the others won’t affect me, so let’s go in here.”

  “If we waste our time with that, we won’t get to the Garden of Delectation at all.”

  “Only for a moment.” Because she was so determined to take me into the garden she had selected, without seeing any of the others, I had grown frightened of what I might find there, or bring with me.

  The heavy door of the Jungle Garden swung toward us, bringing a rush of steaming air. Beyond, the light was dim and green. Lianas half obscured the entrance, and a great tree, rotted to punk, had fallen across the path a few strides away. Its trunk still bore a small sign: Caesalpinia sappan.

  “The real jungle is dying in the north as the sun cools,” Agia said. “A man I know says it has been dying so for many centuries. Here, the old jungle stands preserved as it was when the sun was young. Come in. You wanted to see this place.”

  I stepped inside. Behind us the door swung shut and vanished.

  XX

  Father Inire’s Mirrors

  As Agia had said, the real jungles sickened far to the north. I had never seen them, yet the Jungle Garden made me feel I had. Even now, as I sit at my writing table in the House Absolute, some distant noice brings back to my ears the screams of the magenta-breasted, cynaeous-backed parrot that flapped from tree to tree, watching us with white-rimmed and disapproving eyes—though this is no doubt because my mind was already turned to that haunted place. Through its screaming, a new sound—a new voice—came from some red world still unconquered by thought.

  “What is it?” I touched Agia’s arm.

  “A smilodon. But he’s far away and only wants to frighten the deer so they’ll blunder into his jaws. He’d run from you and your sword much faster than you could run from him.” Her gown had been torn by a branch, exposing one breast. The incident had left her in no good mood.

  “Where does the path lead? And how can the cat be so far off when all this is only one room of the building we saw from the top of the Adamnian Steps?”

  “I’ve never gone so deeply into this garden. You were the one who wanted to come.”

  “Answer my questions,” I said, and took her by the shoulder.

  “If this path is like the others—I mean, in the other gardens—it runs in a wide loop that will eventually return us to the door by which we came in. There’s no reason to be afraid.”

  “The door vanished when I shut it.”

  “Only trickery. Haven’t you seen those pictures in which a pietist exhibits a meditating face when you’re on one side of the room, but stares at you when you cross to the opposite wall? We’ll see the door when we approach it from the other direction.”

  A snake with carnelian eyes came gliding onto the path, lifted a venomous head to look at us, then slipped away. I heard Agia’s gasp and said, “Who’s afraid now? Will that snake flee you as quickly as you would flee it? Now answer my question about the smilodon. Is it really far away? And if so, how can that be?”

  “I don’t know. Do you think there are answers to everything here? Is that true in the place you come from?”

  I recalled the Citadel and the age-old usages of the guilds. “No,” I said. “There are inexplicable offices and customs in my home, though in these decadent times they are falling out of use. There are towers no one has ever entered, too, and lost rooms, and tunnels whose
entrances have not been seen.”

  “Then can’t you understand that it’s the same way here? When we were at the top of the steps and you looked down and saw these gardens, could you make out the entire building?”

  “No,” I admitted. “There were pylons and spires in the way, and the corner of the embankment.”

  “And even so, could you delimit what you saw?”

  I shrugged. “The glass made it difficult to tell where the edges of the building were.”

  “Then how can you ask the questions you do? Or if you have to ask them, can’t you understand that I don’t necessarily have the answers? From the sound of the smilodon’s roar, I knew he was far off. Perhaps he is not here at all, or perhaps the distance is of time.”

  “When I looked down on this building, I saw a faceted dome. Now when I look up, I see only the sky between the leaves and vines.”

  “The surfaces of the facets are large. It may be that their edges are concealed by the limbs,” Agia said.

  We walked on, wading a trickle of water in which a reptile with evil teeth and a finned back soaked himself. I unsheathed Terminus Est, fearing he would dart at our feet. “I grant,” I told her, “that the trees grow too thickly here to permit me to see far to either side. But look here, through the opening where this freshet runs. Upstream I can see only more jungle. Downstream there is the gleam of water, as though it empties into a lake.”

  “I warned you that the rooms open out, and that you might find that disturbing. It is also said that the walls of these places are specula, whose reflective power creates the appearance of vast space.”

  “I once knew a woman who had met Father Inire. She told me a tale about him. Would you like to hear it?”

  “Suit yourself.”

  Actually it was I who wanted to hear the story, and I did suit myself: I told it to myself in the recesses of my mind, hearing it there hardly less than I had heard it first when Thecla’s hands, white and cold as lilies taken from a grave filled with rain, lay clasped between my own.