Sword & Citadel by Gene Wolfe Page A

for me it became the time in which I had lived, so that I lived again. But I have been dead. For a long, long time I was dead, a shrunken corpse preserved in the brown water. And there is something in me that is dead still.”
    â€œThere is something in all of us that has always been dead,” I said. “If only because we know that eventually we will die. All of us except the smallest children.”
    â€œI’m going to go back, Severian. I know that now, and that’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. I have to go back and find out who I was and where I lived and what happened to me. I know you can’t go with me …”
    I nodded.
    â€œAnd I’m not asking you to. I don’t even want you to. I love you, but you are another death, a death that has stayed with me and befriended me as the old death in the lake did, but death all the same. I don’t want to take death with me when I go to look for my life.”
    â€œI understand,” I said.

    â€œMy child may still be alive—an old man, perhaps, but still alive. I have to know.”
    â€œYes,” I said. But I could not help adding, “There was a time when you told me I was not death. That I must not let others persuade me to think of myself in that way. It was behind the orchard on the grounds of the House Absolute. Do you remember?”
    â€œYou have been death to me,” she said. “I have succumbed to the trap I warned you of, if you like. Perhaps you are not death, but you will remain what you are, a torturer and a carnifex, and your hands will run with blood. Since you remember that time at the House Absolute so well, perhaps you … I can’t say it. The Conciliator, or the Claw, or the Increate, has done this to me. Not you.”
    â€œWhat is it?” I asked.
    â€œDr. Talos gave us both money afterward, in the clearing. The money he had got from some court official for our play. When we were traveling, I gave everything to you. May I have it back? I’ll need it. If not all of it, at least some of it.”
    I emptied the money in my sabretache onto the table. It was as much as I had received from her, or a trifle more.
    â€œThank you,” she said. “You won’t need it?”
    â€œNot as badly as you will. Besides, it is yours.”
    â€œI’m going to leave tomorrow, if I feel strong enough. The day after tomorrow whether I feel strong or not. I don’t suppose you know how often the boats put out, going downriver?”
    â€œAs often as you want them to. You push them in, and the river does the rest.”
    â€œThat’s not like you, Severian, or at least not much. More the sort of thing your friend Jonas would have said, from what you’ve told me. Which reminds me that you’re not the first visitor I’ve had today. Our friend—your friend, at least—Hethor was here. That’s not funny to you, is it? I’m sorry, I just wanted to change the subject.”
    â€œHe enjoys it. Enjoys watching me.”
    â€œThousands of people do when you perform in public, and you enjoy doing it yourself.”
    â€œThey come to be horrified, so they can congratulate themselves later on being alive. And because they like the excitement, and the suspense of not knowing whether the condemned will break down, or if some macabre accident will occur. I enjoy exercising my skill, the only real skill I have—enjoy making things go perfectly. Hethor wants something else.”
    â€œThe pain?”
    â€œYes, the pain, but something more too.”
    Dorcas said, “He worships you, you know. He talked with me for some time, and I think he would walk into a fire if you told him to.” I must have winced at that, because she continued, “All this about Hethor is making you ill, isn’t it? One sick person is enough. Let’s speak of something else.”

    â€œNot ill as you are, no. But I can’t think of Hethor except