It was fascinating, that evening, to see how much the fashions of the period in which those chambers were furnished differed from our own. They did without chairs as we know them, having for seats only complex cushions; and their tables lacked drawers and that symmetry we have come to consider essential. By our standards too, there was too much fabric and not enough wood, leather, stone, and bone; I found the effect at once sybaritic and uncomfortable.
Yet it was impossible that I should occupy a suite other than that anciently set aside for the autarchs; and impossible too that I should have it refurnished to a degree that would imply criticism of my predecessors. And if the furniture had more to recommend it to the mind than to the body, what a delight it was to discover the treasures those same predecessors had left behind: There were papers relating to matters now utterly forgotten and not always identifiable; mechanical devices ingenious and enigmatic; a microcosm that stirred to life at the warmth of my hands, and whose minute inhabitants seemed to grow larger and more human as I watched them; a laboratory containing the fabled "emerald bench"
and many other things, the most interesting of which was a mandragora in spirits.
The cucurbit in which it floated was about seven spans in height and half as wide; the homuncule itself no more than two spans tall. When I tapped the glass, it turned eyes like clouded beads toward me, eyes blinder far in appearance than Master Palaemon's. I heard no sound when its lips twitched, yet I knew at once what words they shaped and in some inexplicable sense I felt the pale fluid in which the mandragora was immersed had become my own blood-tinged urine.
"Why have you called me, Autarch, from the contemplation of your world?"
I asked, "Is it truly mine? I know now that there are seven continents, and none but a part of this are obedient to the hallowed phrases."
"You are the heir," the wizened thing said and turned, I could not tell if by accident or design, until it no longer faced me.
I tapped the cucurbit again. "And who are you?"
"A being without parents, whose life is passed immersed in blood."
"Why, such have I been! We should be friends then, you and I, as two of similar background usually are."
"You jest."
"Not at all. I feel a real sympathy for you, and I think we are more alike than you believe."
The tiny figure turned again until its little face looked up into my own. "I wish that I might credit you, Autarch."
"I mean it. No one has ever accused me of being an honest man, and I've told lies enough when I thought they would serve my turn, but I'm quite sincere. If I can do anything for you, tell me what it is."
"Break the glass."
I hesitated. "Won't you die?"
"I have never lived. I will cease thinking. Break the glass."
"You do live."
"I neither grow, nor move, nor respond to any stimulus save thought, which is counted no response. I am incapable of propagating my kind, or any other. Break the glass."
"If you are indeed unliving, I would rather find some way to stir you to life."
"So much for brotherhood. When you were imprisoned here, Thecla, and that boy brought you the knife, why did not you look for more life then?"
The blood burned in my cheek, and I lifted the ebony baculus, but I did not strike. "Alive or dead, you have a penetrating intelligence. Thecla is that part of me most prone to anger."
"If you had inherited her glands with her memories, I would have succeeded."
"And you know that. How can you know so much, who are blind?"
"The acts of coarse minds create minute vibrations that stir the waters of this bottle. I hear your thoughts."
"I notice that I hear yours. How is it that I can hear them, and not others?"
Looking now directly into the pinched face, which was lit by the sun's last shaft penetrating a dusty port, I could not be sure the lips moved at all. "You hear yourself, as ever. You cannot hear others because your mind shrieks always, like an infant crying in a basket. Ah, I see you remember that."
"I remember a time very long ago when I was cold and hungry. I lay upon my back, encircled by brown walls, and heard the sound of my own screams. Yes, I must have been an infant. Not old enough to crawl, I think. You are very clever. What am I thinking now?"
"That I am but an unconscious exercise of your own power, as the Claw was. It is true, of course. I was deformed, and died before birth, and have been kept here since in white brandy. Break the glass."
"I would question you first," I said.
"Brother, there is an old man with a letter at your door."
I listened. It was strange, after having listened only to his words in my mind, to hear real noises again the calling of the sleepy blackbirds among the towers and the tapping at the door.
The messenger was old Rudesind, who had guided me to the picture-room of the House Absolute. I motioned him in (to the surprise, I think, of the sentries) because I wanted to talk to him and knew that with him I had no need to stand upon my dignity.
"Never been in here in all my years," he said. "How can I help you, Autarch?"
"We're served already, just by the sight of you. You know who we are, don't you?
You recognized us when we met before."
"If I didn't know your face, Autarch, I'd know a couple dozen times over anyhow.
I've been told that often. Nobody here talks about anything else, seems like.
How you was licked to shape right here. How they seen you this time and that time. How you looked, and what you said to them. There ain't one cook that didn't treat you to a pastry often. All them soldiers told you stories. Been a while now since I met a woman didn't kiss you and sew up a hole in your pants.
You had a dog "
"That's true enough," I said. "We did."
"And a cat and a bird and a coti that stole apples. And you climbed every wall in this place. And jumped off after, or else swung on a rope, or else hid and pretended you'd jumped. You're every boy that's ever been here, and I've heard stories put on you that belong to men that was old when I was just a boy, and I've heard about things I did myself, seventy years ago."
"We've already learned that the Autarch's face is always concealed behind the mask the people weave for him. No doubt it's a good thing; you can't become too proud once you understand how different you really are from the thing they bow to. But we want to hear about you. The old Autarch told us you were his sentinel in the House Absolute, and now we know you're a servant of Father Inire's."
"I am," the old man said. "I have that honor, and it's his letter I carry." He held up a small and somewhat smudged envelope.
"And we are Father Inire's master." He made a countrified bow. "I know so, Autarch."
"Then we order you to sit down, and rest yourself. We've questions to ask you, and we don't want to keep a man your age standing. When we were that boy you say everyone's talking of, or at least not much older, you directed us to Master Ultan's stacks. Why did you do that?"
"Not because I knew something others didn't. Not because my master ordered it, either, if that's what you're thinking. Won't you read his letter?"
"In a moment. After an honest answer, in a few words." The old man hung his head and pulled at his thin beard. I could see the dry skin of his face rise in hollow-sided, tiny cones as it sought to follow the white hairs. "Autarch, you think I guessed at something back then. Perhaps some did. Perhaps my master did, I don't know." His rheumy eyes rolled up under his brows to look at me, then fell again. "You were young, and seemed a likely-looking boy, so I wanted you to see."
"To see what?"
"I'm an old man. An old man then, and an old man now. You've grown up since. I see it in your face. I'm hardly any older, because that much time isn't anything to me. If you counted all the time I've spent just going up and down my ladder, it'd be longer than that. I wanted you to see there has been a lot come before you. That there was thousands and thousands that lived and died before you was ever thought of, some better than you. I mean, Autarch, the way you was then.