said, though, that the dull eyes he has at most times reminded you of a corpse's. Haven't you ever looked into the glass? Your own eyes are not the eyes of a dead woman.”
“Perhaps not.” Dorcas paused. “You used to say they were beautiful.”
“Aren't you glad to live? Even if your husband is dead, and your child is dead, and the house you once lived in is a ruin — if all those things are true — aren't you full of joy because you are here again?
You're not a ghost, not a revenant like those we saw in the ruined town. Look in the glass as I told you. Or if you won't, look into my face or any man's and see what you are.”
Dorcas sat up even more slowly and painfully than she had risen to drink the wine, but this time she swung her legs over the edge of the bed, and I saw that she was naked under the thin blanket. Before her illness Jolenta's skin had been perfect, with the smoothness and softness of confectionery. Dorcas's was flecked with little golden freckles, and she was so slender that I was always aware of her bones; yet she was more desirable in her imperfection than Jolenta had ever been in the lushness of her flesh. Conscious of how culpable it would be to force myself on her or even to persuade her to open to me now, when she was ill and I was on the point of leaving her, I still felt desire for her stir in me. However much I love a woman — or however little — I find I want her most when I can no longer have her. But what I felt for Dorcas was stronger than that, and more complex. She had been, though only for so brief a time, the closest friend I had known, and our possession of each other, from the frantic desire in our converted storeroom in Nessus to the long and lazy playing in the bedchamber of the Vincula, was the characteristic act of our friendship as well as our love. “You're crying,” I said. “Do you want me to leave?” She shook her head, and then, as though she could no longer contain the words that seemed to force themselves out, she whispered, “Oh, won't you go too, Severian? I didn't mean it. Won't you come? Won't you come with me?”
“I can't.”
She sank back into the narrow bed, smaller now and more childlike.
“I know. You have your duty to your guild. You can't betray it again and face yourself, and I won't ask you. It's only that I never quite gave up hoping you might.” I shook my head as I had before. “I have to flee the city —”
“Severian!”
“And to the north. You'll be going south, and if I were with you, we would have courier boats full of soldiers after us.”
“Severian, what happened?” Dorcas's face was very calm, but her eyes were wide.
“I freed a woman. I was supposed to strangle her and throw her body into the Acis, and I could have done it — I didn't feel anything for her, not really, and it should have been easy. But when I was alone with her, I thought of Thecla. We were in a little summerhouse screened with shrubbery, that stood at the edge of the water. I had my hands around her neck, and I thought of Thecla and how I had wanted to free her. I couldn't find a way to do it. Have I ever told you?” Almost imperceptibly, Dorcas shook her head.
“There were brothers everywhere, five to pass by the shortest route, and all of them knew me and knew of her.” (Thecla was shrieking now in some corner of my mind.) “All I really would have had to do would have been to tell them Master Gurloes had ordered me to bring her to him. But I would have had to go with her then, and I was still trying to devise some way by which I could stay in the guild. I did not love her enough.”
“It's past now,” Dorcas said. “And, Severian, death is not the terrible thing you think it.” We had reversed our roles, like lost children who comfort each other alternately.
I shrugged. The ghost I had eaten at Vodalus's banquet was nearly calm again; I could feel her long, cool fingers on my brain, and though I could not turn inside my own skull to see her, I knew her deep and violet eyes were behind my own. It required an effort not to speak with her voice. “At any rate, I was there with the woman, in the summerhouse, and we were alone. Her name was Cyriaca. I knew or at least suspected that she knew where the Pelerines were — she had been one of them for a time. There are silent means of excruciation that require no equipment, and although they are not spectacular, they are quite effective. One reaches into the body, as it were, and manipulates the client's nerves directly. I was going to use what we call Humbaba's Stick, but before I had touched her she told me. The Pelerines are near the pass of Orithyia caring for the wounded. This woman had a letter, she said, only a week ago, from someone she had known in the order...”
Following the Flood
The summerhouse had boasted a solid roof, but the sides were mere latticework, closed more by the tall forest ferns planted against them than by their slender laths. Moonbeams leaked through. More came in at the doorway, reflected from the rushing water outside. I could see the fear in Cyriaca's face, and the knowledge that her only hope was that I retained some love for her; and I knew that she was thus without hope, for I felt nothing.
“At the Autarch's camp,” she repeated. “That was what Einhildis wrote. In Orithyia, near the springs of Gyoll. But you must be careful if you go there to return the book — she said too that cacogens had landed somewhere in the north.” I stared at her, trying to determine whether she were lying.
“That's what Einhildis told me. I suppose they must have wished to avoid the mirrors at the House Absolute so they, could escape the eyes of the Autarch. He's supposed to be their servitor, but sometimes he acts as if they were his.”
I shook her. “Are you joking with me? The Autarch serves them?”
“Please! Oh, please...”
I dropped her.
“Everyone... Erebus! Pardon me.” She sobbed, and though she lay in shadow I sensed that she was wiping her eyes and nose with the hem of her scarlet habit. “Everyone knows it except the peons, and the goodmen and the good women. All the armigers and even most of the optimates, and of course the exultants have always known. I've never seen the Autarch, but I'm told that he, the Viceroy of the New Sun, is scarcely taller than I am. Do you think our proud exultants would permit someone like that to rule if there weren't a thousand cannon behind him?”
“I've seen him,” I said, “and I wondered about that.” I sought among Thecla's memories for confirmation of what Cyriaca said, but I found only rumor.
“Would you tell me about him? Please, Severian, before —”
