The illusion was dispelled soon enough. Hastarii stood at either end of the corridor to bar it, and two more crossed their weapons before the door leading to the Well of Green Chimes.
Someone touched my arm, and I turned to see the white-haired Nicarete. “You must get something,” she said. “If not for yourself, then for your friend. They never bring enough.”
I nodded, and by reaching over the heads of several persons I was able to pick up a pair of sticky loaves. “How often do they feed us?”
“Twice a day. You came yesterday just after the second meal. Everyone tries not to take too much, but there is never quite enough.”
“These are pastries,” I said. The tips of my fingers were coated with sugar icing flavored with lemon, mace, and turmeric.
The old woman nodded, “They always are, though they vary from day to day. That silver biggin holds coffee, and there are cups on the lower tier of the cart. Most of the people confined here don’t like it and don’t drink it. I imagine a few don’t even know about it.”
All the pastries were gone now, and the last of the prisoners, save for Nicarete and me, had drifted back into the low-ceilinged room. I took a cup from the lower tier and filled it. The coffee was very strong and hot and black, and thickly sweetened with what seemed to me thyme honey.
“Aren’t you going to drink it?”
“I’m going to carry it back to Jonas. Will they object if I take the cup?”
“I doubt it,” Nicarete said, but as she spoke she jerked her head toward the soldiers.
They had advanced their spears to the position of guard, and the fires at the spearheads burned more brightly. With her I stepped back into the antechamber, and the doors swung closed behind us.
I reminded Nicarete that she had told me the day before that she was here by her will, and asked if she knew why the prisoners were fed on pastries and southern coffee.
“You know yourself,” she said. “I hear it in your voice.”
“No. It’s only that I think Jonas knows.”
“Perhaps he does. It is because this prison is not supposed to be a prison at all. Long ago — I believe before the reign of Ymar — it was the custom for the Autarch himself to judge anyone accused of a crime committed within the precincts of the House Absolute. Perhaps the autarchs felt that by hearing such cases they would be made aware of plots against them. Or perhaps it was only that they hoped that by dealing justly with those in their immediate circle they might shame hatred and disarm jealousy. Important cases were dealt with quickly, but the offenders in less serious ones were sent here to wait—”
The doors, which had closed such a short time ago, were opening again. A little, ragged, gap-toothed man was pushed inside. He fell sprawling, then picked himself up and threw himself at my feet. It was Hethor.
Just as they had when Jonas and I had come, the prisoners swarmed around him, lifting him up and shouting questions. Nicarete, soon joined by Lomer, forced them away and asked Hethor to identify himself. He clutched his cap (reminding me of the morning when he had found me camping on the grass by Ctesiphon’s Cross) and said, “I am the slave of my master, far-traveled, m-m-map-worn Hethor am I, dust-choked and doubly deserted,” looking at me all the while with bright, deranged eyes, like one of the Chatelaine Lelia’s hairless rats, rats that ran in circles and bit their own tails when one clapped one’s hands.
I was so disgusted by the sight of him, and so concerned about Jonas, that I left at once and went back to the spot where we had slept. The image of a shaking, gray-fleshed rat was still vivid as I sat down; then, as though it had itself recalled that it was no more than an image purloined from the dead recollections of Thecla, it flicked out of existence like Domnina’s fish.
“Something wrong?” Jonas asked. He appeared to be a trifle stronger.
“I’m troubled by thoughts.”
“A bad thing for a torturer, but I’m glad of the company.”
I put the sweet loaves in his lap and set the cup by his hand. “City coffee — no pepper in it. Is that the way you like it?”
He nodded, picked up the cup, and sipped. “Aren’t you having any?”
“I drank mine there. Eat the bread; it’s very good.”
He took a bit of one of the loaves. “I have to talk to somebody, so it has to be you even though you’ll think I’m a monster when I’m done. You’re a monster too, do you know that, friend Severian? A monster because you take for your profession what most people only do as a hobby.”
“You’re patched with metal,” I said. “Not just your hand. I’ve known that for some time, friend monster Jonas. Now eat your bread and drink your coffee. I think it will be another eight watches or so before they feed us again.”
“We crashed. It had been so long, on Urth, that there was no port when we returned, no dock. Afterward my hand was gone, and my face. My shipmates repaired me as well as they could, but there were no parts anymore, only biological material.” With the steel hand I had always thought scarcely more than a hook, he picked up the hand of muscle and bone as a man might lift a bit of filth to cast it away.
“You’re feverish. The whip hurt you, but you’ll recover and we’ll get out and find Jolenta.”
Jonas nodded. “Do you remember how, when we neared the end of the Piteous Gate, in all that confusion, she turned her head so that the sun shone on one cheek?” I told him I did.
“I have never loved before, never in all the time since our crew scattered.”
“If you can’t eat anything more, you ought to rest now.”
“Severian.” He gripped my shoulder as he had before, but this time with his steel hand; it felt as strong as a vise. “You must talk to me. I cannot bear the confusion of my own thoughts.”
For some time I spoke of whatever came into my head, without receiving any reply. Then I remembered Thecla, who had often been oppressed in much the same way, and how I had read to her. Taking out her brown book, I opened it at random.
Chapter 17
THE TALE OF THE STUDENT AND HIS SON
Part I
The Redoubt of the Magicians
Once, upon the margin of the unpastured sea, there stood a city of pale towers. In it dwelt the wise. Now that city had both law and curse. The law was this: That for all who dwelt there, life held but two paths: they might rise among the wise and walk clad with hoods of myriad colors, or they must leave the city and go into the friendless world.
Now one there was who had studied long all the magic known in the city, which was most of the magic known in the world. And he grew near the time at which he must choose his path. In high summer, when flowers with yellow and careless heads thrust even from the dark walls overlooking the sea, he went to one of the wise who had shaded his face with myriad colors for longer than most could remember, and for long had taught the student whose time was come. And he said to him: “How may I — even I who know nothing — have a place among the wise of the city? For I wish to study spells that are not sacred all my days, and not go into the friendless world to dig and carry for bread.”
Then the old man laughed and said, “Do you recall how, when you were hardly more than a boy, I taught you the art by which we flesh sons from dream stuff? How skillful you were in those days, surpassing all the others! Go now, and flesh such a son, and I will show it to the hooded ones, and you will be as we.”