Shadow & Claw (The Book of the New Sun #1-2 ) - Gene Wolfe Page 0,57

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.

XVII

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.”

But the student said: “Another season. Let pass another season, and I will do everything you advise.”

Autumn came, and the sycamores of the city of pale towers, that were sheltered from the sea winds by its high wall, dropped leaves like the gold manufactured by their owners. And the wild salt geese streamed among the pale towers, and after them the ossifrage and the lammergeir. Then the