burdened with the head and with his weapon, and it is rare for anyone else involved — soldiers, officers of the court, and so on — to be willing to do so. (At the Citadel it was done by two journeymen and thus presented no difficulty.)
The chiliarch, a cavalryman by training and no doubt by inclination, had solved the problem by ordering that the body should be pulled behind a baggage sumpter. The animal had not been consulted, however, and being more of the laborer than the warrior kind, took fright at the blood and tried to bolt. We had an interesting time of it before we were able to get poor Agilus into a quadrangle from which the public was excluded.
I was cleaning off my boots when the portreeve met me there. When I saw him I supposed he had come to give me my fee, but he indicated that the chiliarch wished to pay me himself. As I told him, it was an unexpected honor.
“He watched everything,” the portreeve said. “And he was quite pleased. He instructed me to tell you that you and the woman who travels with you are welcome to spend the night here, if you wish.”
“We'll leave at twilight,” I told him. “I believe that will be safer.” He took thought for a moment, then nodded, showing more intelligence than I would have anticipated. “The miscreant will have a family, I suppose, and friends — though no doubt you know no more of them than I. Still, it's a difficulty you must face frequently.”
“I have been warned by more experienced members of my guild,” I said. I had said that we would leave at twilight, but in the event we waited until it was fully dark, in part for safety's sake and in part because it seemed wise to eat the evening meal before we left.
We could not, of course, make directly for the Wall and Thrax. The gate (of whose location I had only a vague idea in any event) would be shut, and I had been told by everyone that there were no inns between the barracks and the Wall. What we had to do, then, was first to lose ourselves, and then to find a place where we could spend the night and from which we could go without difficulty to the gate the next day. I had gotten detailed directions from the portreeve, and though we missed our way, it was some time before we realized it, and we began our walk quite cheerfully. The chiliarch had tried to hand me my fee instead of casting it on the ground at my feet (as is customary), and I had had to dissuade him for the sake of his own reputation. I gave Dorcas a tailed account of this incident, which had amused me nearly as much as it had flattered me. When I had finished, she asked practically, “He paid you well then, I suppose?”
“More than twice what he should have given for the services of a single journeyman. A master's fee. And of course I got a few tips in connection with the ceremony. Do you know, despite all I spent while Agia was with me, I have more money now than I did when I left our tower? I'm beginning to think that by practicing the mystery of our guild while you and I are traveling, I'll be able to support us.”
Dorcas seemed to draw the brown mantle closer about her. “I was hoping you wouldn't have to practice it again at all. At least, not for a long time. You were so ill afterward, and I don't blame you.”
“It was only nerves — I was afraid that something would go wrong.”
“You pitied him. I know you did.”
“I suppose so. He was Agia's brother, and like her, I think, in everything except sex.”
“You miss Agia, don't you? Did you like her so much?”
“I only knew her for a day — much less time than I have known you already. If she had had her way, I'd be dead now. One of those two averns would have been the end of me.”
“But the leaf didn't kill you.”
I still recall the tone she used when she told me that; indeed, if I close my eyes now, I can hear her voice again and renew the shock I felt as I realized that ever since I had sat up to see Agilus still grasping his plant, I had been avoiding the thought. The leaf had not killed me, but I had turned my mind from my survival just as a man suffering from a deadly sickness manages by a thousand tricks never to look at death squarely; or rather, as a woman alone in a large house refrains from looking into mirrors, and instead busies herself with trivial errands, so that she may catch no glimpse of the thing whose feet she hears at times on the stairs.
I had survived, and I should be dead. I was haunted by my own life. I thrust one hand into my cloak and stroked my flesh, gingerly at first. There was something like a scar, and a little caked blood still adhered to the skin; but there was no bleeding and no pain. “They don't kill,” I said. “That's all.”
“She said they did.”
“She told a great many lies.” We were mounting a gentle hill bathed in pale green moonlight. Ahead of us, seeming as mountains do to be nearer than it was or could possibly be, was the pitch-black line of the Wall. Behind us the lights of Nessus created a false dawn that died bit by bit as the night advanced. I stopped at the top of the hill to admire them, and Dorcas took my arm. “So many homes. How many people are there in the city?”
“No one knows.”
“And we will be leaving them all behind. Is it far to Thrax, Severian?”
“A long way, as I've told you already. At the foot of the first cataract. I'm not compelling you to go. You know that.”
“I want to. But suppose... Severian, just suppose I wanted to go back later. Would you try and stop me?”
I said, “It would be dangerous for you to try to make the trip alone, so I might try to persuade you not to. But I wouldn't bind or imprison you, if that's what you mean.”
“You told me you'd written out a copy of the note someone left for me in that inn. Do you remember? But you never showed it to me. I'd like to see it now.”
“I told you exactly what it said, and it's not the real note, you know. Agia threw that away. I'm sure she thought that someone — Hildegrin, perhaps — was trying to warn me.” I had already opened my sabretache; as I grasped the note, my fingers touched something else as well, something cold and strangely shaped. Dorcas saw my expression and asked, “What is it?” I drew it out. It was larger than an orichalk, but not by much, and only a trifle thicker. The cold material (whatever it was) flashed celestine beams back at the frigid rays of the moon. I felt I held a beacon that could be seen all over the city, and I thrust it back and dropped the closure of my sabretache. Dorcas was clasping my arm so tightly that she might have been a bracelet of ivory and gold grown woman-sized. “What was that?” she whispered. I shook my head to clear my thoughts. “It isn't mine. I didn't even know I had it. A gem, a precious stone...”
