“In war no force may fail, Severian, until its trumpets blow ‘Surrender.’ Till then, though it may die, it does not know defeat.”
Barbatus remarked, “And who can say that this was not for the best? We’re all tools in his hands.”
I told him, “I understand something more — something I had not really understood until this moment: why Master Malrubius spoke to me of loyalty to the Divine Entity, of loyalty to the person of the monarch. He meant that we must trust, that we must not refuse our destinies. You sent him, of course.”
“The words were his, just the same — by now you should know that, too. Like the Hierogrammates, we summon personalities of the past from remembrance; and like the Hierogrammates, we do not falsify them.”
“But there are so many things I don’t know. When we met on Tzadkiel’s ship, you hadn’t known me before, and from that I knew it to be our final meeting. Yet you are here, all three.”
Sweetly Famulimus sang, “Thus surprised are we, Severian, to find you here where men have scarce begun. Though we have traced the time line down so far, whole ages of the world have passed since we’ve seen you.”
“And yet you knew I would be here?”
Stepping from the shadows, Barbatus said, “Because you told us so. Have you forgotten we were your councilors? You told us how the man Hildegrin was destroyed, so we’ve watched this place for you.”
“And I. I died too. The autochthons — my people—”
I broke off, but no one else spoke. And at last I said, “Ossipago, bring your light, please, to where Barbatus stood.”
The mechanism turned his sensors toward Barbatus, but did not move.
Famulimus sang softly, “Barbatus, you must guide him now, I fear. But truly our Severian should know. How can we ask that he should bear all loads, while yet by us not treated as a man?”
Barbatus nodded, and Ossipago moved nearer the place where Barbatus had been standing when I woke. I saw there what I had feared to see, the corpse of the man the autochthons had called Head of Day. Golden bands wreathed his arms, bracelets studded with orange jacinths and flashing green emeralds.
“Tell me how you did this,” I demanded.
Barbatus stroked his beard and did not reply.
“You know who schooled you by the restless sea, and fought for you when Urth lay in the scales,” Famulimus crooned.
I stared at her. Her face was as lovely and as inhuman as ever — not without expression, but bearing an expression that had little or nothing to do with mankind and its concerns.
“Am I an eidolon? A ghost?” I looked at my hands, hoping to be reassured by their solidity. They were shaking; to quiet them I had to jam them against my thighs.
Barbatus said, “What you call eidolons are not ghosts, but beings maintained in existence by some external source of energy. What you call matter is all, in actuality, merely bound energy. The only difference is that some is held in material form by its own energy.”
At that moment I wanted to cry more than I have ever wanted anything in my life. “Actuality? You think there’s really any actuality?” The release of tears would have been nirvana; harsh training yet held, and no tears came. For an instant I wondered wildly whether eidolons could weep at all.
“You speak of what is real, Severian; thus do you hold to what is real still. A moment since we spoke of him who makes. Among your folk the simple call him God, and you, the lettered, name him Increate. What were you ever but his eidolon?”
“Who maintains me in existence now? Ossipago? You may rest, Ossipago.”
Ossipago rumbled, “I don’t respond to commands from you, Severian. You learned that long ago.”
“I suppose that even if I were to kill myself, Ossipago could still call me back to existence.”
Barbatus shook his head, though not as a human being would have. “There would be no point — you could take your life again. If you truly want to die, go ahead. There are funeral offerings here, including a great many stone knives. Ossipago will bring you one.”
I felt as real as I ever have; and when I searched among my memories, I found Valena there still, and Thecla and old Autarch, and the boy Severian (who had been Severian only). “No,” I said. “We will live.”
“I thought so.” Barbatus smiled. “We’ve known you half our lives now, Severian, and you’re a weed that grows best when stepped upon.”
Ossipago seemed to clear his throat. “If you wish to speak more, I will take us to a better time. I have a link to the pile on our craft.”
Famulimus shook her noble head, and Barbatus looked at me.
“I’d rather we conferred here,” I told them. “Barbatus, when we were on the ship, I fell down a shaft. One doesn’t fall swiftly there, I know; but I fell a long way, I think nearly to the center. I was badly hurt, and Tzadkiel cared for me.” I paused, trying to remember all the details I could.
“Proceed,” Barbatus urged me. “We don’t know what you’re going to tell us.”
“I found a dead man there, with a scarred cheek like mine. His leg had been injured years before, just like mine. He was hidden between two machines.”
“Yet meant for you to find, Severian?” Famulimus asked.
“Perhaps. I knew Zak had done it. And Zak was Tzadkiel, or part of Tzadkiel; but I didn’t understand that then.”
“Yet you do now. It is the time for speech.”
I did not know what else to say and finished weakly, “The dead man’s face was bruised, but it looked very much like mine. I told myself that I couldn’t have died there, that I wouldn’t die there, because I felt sure I’d be laid in the mausoleum in our necropolis. I’ve told you about that.”
Ossipago rumbled, “Many times.”
“The funeral bronze is so like me, so much like the way I look now. Then there was Apu-Punchau. When he appeared…the Cumaean, she was a Hierodule, like you. Father Inire told me.”
Famulimus and Barbatus nodded.
“When Apu-Punchau appeared, he was me. I knew it, but I didn’t understand.”
“Neither did we,” Barbatus said, “when you told us about it. I think I may now.”
“Then tell me!”
He gestured toward the corpse. “There is Apu-Punchau.”
“Of course, I knew that long ago. They called me by that name, and I saw this place built. It was to be a temple, the Temple of Day , the Old Sun. But I’m Severian, and Apu-Punchau the Head of Day, too. How could my body rise from death? How could I die here at all? The Cumaean said it wasn’t his tomb, but his house.” I seemed to see her before me as I spoke, the old woman hiding the wise snake.
“She told you too that she knew not that age,” Famulimus sang.
I nodded.
“How could the warm sun die that rose each day? And how could you then die, that were that sun? Your people left you here with many a chant. And sealed your door, that you might live forever.”
Barbatus said, “We know that eventually you’ll bring the New Sun, Severian. We’ve passed through the time, as through many others, to that meeting with you in the giant’s castle — which we thought would be our last. But do you know when the New Sun was made? The sun you brought to this system to heal its old one?”
“When I was landed on Urth it was the age of Typhon, when the first great mountain was carved. But before that I was on Tzadkiel’s ship.”
“Which sometimes sails more swiftly than the winds that drive it,” Barbatus grunted. “So you know nothing.”
Famulimus sang, “If you would have our counsel now, tell all. We cannot be good guides if we walk blind.”
And so, beginning with the murder of my steward, I recounted everything that had happened to me from that time until the last moment I could recall before I woke in the House of Apu-Punchau. I have never been apt in winnowing needed details from the rest (as you, the reader of this, know too well), in part because it seems to me that all details are needed. Still less so was I then, when I could labor with my tongue and not my pen; I told them a great many things that I have not put into this record.