The Shadow of the Torturer: Chapters XXI and XXII

The Hut in the Jungle and Dorcas

I forgot to schedule this for yesterday (Wednesday) but decided that maybe Thursday is the right day for these anyway.

On to today’s chapters.

What a weird time! And what are we to make of what Severian and Agia experience in these chapters? Agia is getting increasingly fed up with Severian, which is understandable. But there’s a lot of interesting information in these chapters that may or may not be relevant to unwrapping some of The Book of the New Sun’s mysteries.

Not that you can put these pieces together now. Maybe you won’t even be able to use these pieces once you’re finished with the entire series.

“Then he went up from the plain to Mt Nebo, the headland that faces the city, and the Compassionating showed him the whole country, all the land as far as the Western Sea. Then he said to him: ‘This is the land I swore to your fathers I should give their sons. You have seen it, but you shall not set your feet upon it.’ So there he died, and was buried in the ravine.”

A woman is reading this, which seems to be from Deuteronomy, though things have turned a bit. Here’s the passage from the Bible:

Then Moses went up on Mount Nebo from the plains of Moab. He went to the top of Pisgah, across from Jericho. The Lord showed him the whole land. He could see Gilead as far as Dan, all of Naphtali, the territory of Ephraim and Manasseh, all the territory of Judah as far as the Mediterranean Sea, the Negev, and the Jordan Plain—the valley of Jericho (the City of Palms)—as far as Zoar.

Then the Lord said to him, “This is the land I promised with an oath to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. I said I would give it to their descendants. I have let you see it with your own eyes, but you may not go there.”

Wolfe removed the names so it would be less obvious, but he also added the Compassionating, which, I suppose, is a name for Yahweh, or at least an invented one by Wolfe.

She reads this to a naked man but also to a man standing at the hut’s window, looking out. The woman seems disinterested in the naked man but the man at the window wants to hear him out. He rambles on about quite a lot and most of it is difficult to really relate to anything else.

As the chapter goes on, there seems to be evidence that these three are from a different time. Marie (the woman) and Robert (man at the window) seem to be from our arena of time. They mention Paris and taking a flight, and they seem to get on a plane, though it’s described in a peculiar way.

Into view came the strangest flier I have ever seen. It was winged, as if it had been built by some race that had not yet realized that since it would not flap wings like a bird in any case, there was no reason its life, like a kite’s, could not come from its hull. There was a bulbous swelling on each argent pinion, and a third at the hull; the light seemed to glimmer before these swellings.

I suspect the naked man was from still another time, possibly in the distant past or future of Severian’s world, where humanity has returned to a more primitive technological and theological state. Though as confused as you might be, Severian too is confused and tells Agia so. He even demands she explain what they witnessed, to which Agia says, “I didn’t build this place, Severian.”

Which isn’t helpful but is about as realistic and relatable as it gets!

She describes the Gardens again, the way susceptible minds are taken and lost inside, how taking the wrong path can lead you to be physically and mentally lost.

Severian is reminded of Thecla’s friend being lost in Father Inire’s mirrors and wonders if these people have become caught in his reality or he in theirs.

Agia ignores this but is finally able to drag Severian to the Sanguinery Fields

And we may ask: who is caught in whose reality? The naked man seems an intruder on Marie and Robert’s timeline, as does Severian, and yet all three of them seem trapped in the Gardens. Yet Robert hears wisdom in the naked man’s monologues, and especially when he says the tokoloshe is coming.

What is a tokoloshe?

In Nguni mythology, it’s a mischievous dwarf-like spirit. Hopefully that clears this whole scene up!

And then there’s the chant:

In the night when all is silent
Hear him screaming in the treetops!
See him dancing in the fire!
He lives in the arrow poison,
Tiny as a yellow firefly!
Brighter than a falling star!
Hairy men walk in the forest—

He comes when the sun is setting,
See his feet upon the water!
Tracks of flame across the water!

Those who have read my novel Iron Wolf will no doubt recognize many aspects of Wolfe in that novel. This is what may be called an allusion or homage. From the giant my characters meet to the labyrinth they enter, and even another character met along the way, all of them are very Wolfean. Which shows how delightful and interesting I find this.

So I hope you, too, are enjoying the twisting, strange ride that is this novel.

We go on with Agia and Severian on their mission to acquire an avern, the poisonous flower that he needs to wield in his duel against a soldier. And they come to a curious place with a large body of water brown as tea that’s apparently full of corpses being preserved in the water.

Agia says they are filled with lead to keep them submerged and that their positions are mapped so you could come later and pull out the body you’re looking for.

They meet a boatman who ferries them across and who describes the water as pickling the dead, but he also tells them that they move around and may in fact rise again from the dead, which makes the map useless.

He himself searches for his dead wife Cas but she is not where she should be according to the maps. He describes, though, how he witnessed a man being pulled out of the water who appeared as alive as any of them standing in his ferry and talking.

He and his wife Cas had a shop and you may be asking yourself: Why is Severian telling us about this man and his wife?

Is it not enough to know that he believes the dead may rise from here and live again?

In any case, Severian falls into the dark water and the reeds cause him to struggle and get caught and in the stumbling he lost Terminus Est but he found it and reached down to grab it but when he pulled it another hand on the sword pulled him down into the water.

What a cliffhanger!

Next week, we’ll read Chapter XXIII and XXIV.

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• Glossolalia - A Le Guinian fantasy novel about an anarchic community dealing with a disaster

• Sing, Behemoth, Sing - Deadwood meets Neon Genesis Evangelion

• Howl - Vampire Hunter D meets The Book of the New Sun in this lofi cyberpunk/solarpunk monster hunting adventure

• Colony Collapse - Star Trek meets Firefly in the opening episode of this space opera

• The Blood Dancers - The standalone sequel to Colony Collapse.

• Iron Wolf - Sequel to Howl.

• Sleeping Giants - Standalone sequel to Colony Collapse and The Blood Dancers

• Broken Katana - Sequel to Iron Wolf.

• Libertatia; or, The Onion King - Standalone sequel to Colony Collapse, The Blood Dancers, and Sleeping Giants

• Noir: A Love Story - An oral history of a doomed romance.

• House of Ghosts - Standalone sequel to Libertatia; or, the Onion King