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Gene Wolfe - Sword & Citadel: The Second Half of ’The Book of the New Sun’

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Book:
Sword & Citadel: The Second Half of ’The Book of the New Sun’
Author:
Gene Wolfe
Publisher:
Orb Books
Genre:
Books / Art
Year:
1994
Rating:
3 / 5
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Sword & Citadel: The Second Half of ’The Book of the New Sun’: summary, description and annotation

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The Book of the New Sun is unanimously acclaimed as Gene Wolfes most remarkable work, hailed as a masterpiece of science fantasy comparable in importance to the major works of Tolkien and Lewis by Publishers Weekly, and one of the most ambitious works of speculative fiction in the twentieth century by The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. Sword & Citadel brings together the final two books of the tetralogy in one volume:

The Sword of the Lictor is the third volume in Wolfes remarkable epic, chronicling the odyssey of the wandering pilgrim called Severian, driven by a powerful and unfathomable destiny, as he carries out a dark mission far from his home.

The Citadel of the Autarch brings The Book of the New Sun to its harrowing conclusion, as Severian clashes in a final reckoning with the dread Autarch, fulfilling an ancient prophecy that will forever alter the realm known as Urth.

Brilliant . . . terrific . . . a fantasy so epic it beggars the mind. An extraordinary work of art!-Philadelphia Inquirer

The Book of the New Sun establishes [Wolfes] preeminence, pure and simple. . . . The Book of the New Sun contains elements of Spenserian allegory, Swiftian satire, Dickensian social consciousness and Wagnerian mythology. Wolfe creates a truly alien social order that the reader comes to experience from within . . . once into it, there is no stopping.--The New York Times Book Review

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Table of Contents

Into the distance disappear the mounds of human heads.
I dwindlego unnoticed now.
But in affectionate books, in childrens games,
I will rise from the dead to say: the sun!

Osip Mandelstam

Master of the House of Chains

It was in my hair, Severian, Dorcas said. So I stood under the waterfall in the hot stone roomI dont know if the mens side is arranged in the same way. And every time I stepped out, I could hear them talking about me. They called you the black butcher, and other things I dont want to tell you about.

Thats natural enough, I said. You were probably the first stranger to enter the place in a month, so its only to be expected that they would chatter about you, and that the few women who knew who you were would be proud of it and perhaps tell some tales. As for me, Im used to it, and you must have heard such expressions on the way here many times; I know I did.

Yes, she admitted, and sat down on the sill of the embrasure. In the city below, the lamps of the swarming shops were beginning to fill the valley of the Acis with a yellow radiance like the petals of a jonquil, but she did not seem to see them.

Now you understand why the regulations of the guild forbid me from taking a wifealthough I will break them for you, as I have told you many times, whenever you want me to.

You mean that it would be better for me to live somewhere else, and only come to see you once or twice a week, or wait till you came to see me.

Thats the way its usually done. And eventually the women who talked about us today will realize that sometime they, or their sons or husbands, may find themselves beneath my hand.

But dont you see, this is all beside the point. The thing is Here Dorcas fell silent, and then, when neither of us had spoken for some time, she rose and began to pace the room, one arm clasping the other. It was something I had never seen her do before, and I found it disturbing.

What is the point, then? I asked.

That it wasnt true then. That it is now.

I practiced the Art whenever there was work to be had. Hired myselfout to towns and country justices. Several times you watched me from a window, though you never liked to stand in the crowdfor which I hardly blame you.

I didnt watch, she said.

I recall seeing you.

I didnt. Not when it was actually going on. You were intent on what you were doing, and didnt see me when I went inside or covered my eyes. I used to watch, and wave to you, when you first vaulted onto the scaffold. You were so proud then, and stood just as straight as your sword, and looked so fine. You were honest. I remember watching once when there was an official of some sort up there with you, and the condemned man and a hieromonach. And yours was the only honest face.

You couldnt possibly have seen it. I must surely have been wearing my mask.

Severian, I didnt have to see it. I know what you look like.

Dont I look the same now?

Yes, she said reluctantly. But I have been down below. Ive seen the people chained in the tunnels. When we sleep tonight, you and I in our soft bed, we will be sleeping on top of them. How many did you say there were when you took me down?

About sixteen hundred. Do you honestly believe those sixteen hundred would be free if I were no longer present to guard them? They were here, remember, when we came.

Dorcas would not look at me. Its like a mass grave, she said. I could see her shoulders shake.

It should be, I told her. The archon could release them, but who could resurrect those theyve killed? Youve never lost anyone, have you?

She did not reply.

Ask the wives and the mothers and the sisters of the men our prisoners have left rotting in the high country whether Abdiesus should let them go.

Only myself, Dorcas said, and blew out the candle.

Thrax is a crooked dagger entering the heart of the mountains. It lies in a narrow defile of the valley of the Acis, and extends up it to Acies Castle. The harena, the pantheon, and the other public buildings occupy all the level land between the castle and the wall (called the Capulus) that closes the lower end of the narrow section of the valley. The private buildings of the city climb the cliffs to either side, and many are in large measure dug into the rock itself, from which practice Thrax gains one of its sobriquetsthe City of Windowless Rooms.

Its prosperity it owes to its position at the head of the navigable part of the river. At Thrax, all goods shipped north on the Acis (many of which have traversed nine tenths of the length of Gyoll before entering the mouth of the smaller river, which may indeed be Gyolls true source) must be unloaded and carried on the backs of animals if they are to travel farther.Conversely, the hetmans of the mountain tribes and the landowners of the region who wish to ship their wool and corn to the southern towns bring them to take boat at Thrax, below the cataract that roars through the arched spillway of Acies Castle.

As must always be the case when a stronghold imposes the rule of law over a turbulent region, the administration of justice was the chief concern of the archon of the city. To impose his will on those without the walls who might otherwise have opposed it, he could call upon seven squadrons of dimarchi, each under its own commander. Court convened each month, from the first appearance of the new moon to the full, beginning with the second morning watch and continuing as long as necessary to clear the days docket. As chief executor of the archons sentences, I was required to attend these sessions, so that he might be assured that the punishments he decreed should be made neither softer nor more severe by those who might otherwise have been charged with transmitting them to me; and to oversee the operation of the Vincula, in which the prisoners were detained, in all its details. It was a responsibility equivalent on a lesser scale to that of Master Gurloes in our Citadel, and during the first few weeks I spent in Thrax it weighed heavily upon me.

It was a maxim of Master Gurloess that no prison is ideally situated. Like most of the wise tags put forward for the edification of young men, it was inarguable and unhelpful. All escapes fall into three categoriesthat is, they are achieved by stealth, by violence, or by the treachery of those set as guards. A remote place does most to render escapes by stealth difficult, and for that reason has been favored by the majority of those who have thought long upon the subject.

Unfortunately, deserts, mountaintops, and lone isles offer the most fertile fields for violent escapeif they are besieged by the prisoners friends, it is difficult to learn of the fact before it is too late, and next to impossible to reinforce their garrisons; and similarly, if the prisoners rise in rebellion, it is highly unlikely that troops can be rushed to the spot before the issue is decided.

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