The Urth of the New Sun

Chapter VII — A Death in the Light

BY THE time I had recovered myself enough to rise, the assassin was gone. A few bloodstains, nearly black in the light of the golden candle, remained in the circle ruled by my shaggy friend. He himself sat upon his haunches with his hind legs folded in an oddly human way beneath him, his light extinguished, licking his paws and smoothing the silky hair around his mouth with them. “Thank you,” I said, and he cocked his head attentively at the sound.

The assassin’s knife lay not far off, a big, broad-bladed, rather clumsy bob with a worn handle of some dark wood. He had been a common sailor then, in all probability. I kicked it away and called to mind his hand as I had glimpsed it — a man’s hand, large, strong, and rough, but with no identifying marks, so far as I had seen. A missing finger or two would have been convenient, but it was at least possible that he had those now: a sailor with a badly bitten hand.

Had he followed me so far through the dark, down so many stairs and ladders, along so many twisted passages? It seemed unlikely. He had come upon me here by accident then, seized his opportunity, and acted — a dangerous man. It seemed better to me to search for him at once than to wait until he had time to recover himself and concoct some tale to explain his injured hand. If I could discover his identity, I would make it known to the officers of the ship; and if there was not time for that or they would take no action, I would kill him myself.

Holding the golden candle high, I started up the stairs to the crew’s quarters, knitting plans much faster than I walked. The officers — the captain the dead steward had mentioned — would refurnish my stateroom or assign another to me. I would have a guard posted outside, not so much to protect me (for I intended to stay there no more than I had to in order to keep up appearances) as to give my enemies something to strike at. Then I…

Between one breath and the next, every light in that part of the ship came on. I could see the unsupported metal stair on which I stood, and through the twining black metal of its treads the pale greens and yellows of the vivarium. To my right, radiance from indistinct lamps lost itself in nacreous mist; the distant wall at my left shone gray-black with damp, a dark tarn turned on edge. Above, there might have been no ship at all, but a clouded sky besieged by a circling sun.

It lasted no longer than a breath. I heard distant shouts as sailors here and there called the attention of their mates to, what could not in any case be missed. Then a darkness fell that seemed more terrible than before. I climbed a hundred steps; light flickered as though every lamp were as tired as I, then went out again. A thousand steps, and the flame of the golden candle shrunk to a dot of blue. I extinguished it to save what little fuel remained and climbed on in the dark.

Perhaps it was only because I was leaving the depths of the ship and ascending toward that uppermost deck which confined our atmosphere, but I felt chilled. I tried to climb more quickly, to warm myself by the exertion, and found I was unable to do so. Haste only made me stumble, and the leg that had been laid open by some Ascian infantryman at the Third Battle of Orithyia drew the rest toward the grave.

For a time I was afraid I would not recognize the tier that held my cabin and Gunnie’s, but I left the stair without thought, kindled the golden candle for an instant only, and heard the creaking of hinges as the door swung open.

I had shut the door and found the bunk before I sensed that I was not alone. I called out, and the voice of Idas, the white-haired sailor, answered me in a tone of mingled fear and interest.

I asked, “What are you doing here?”

“Waiting for you. I — I hoped you would come. I don’t know why, but I thought you might. You weren’t with the others down there.”

When I said nothing, he added, “Working, I mean. So I slipped away myself and came here.”

“To my cabin. The lock shouldn’t have let you in.”

“But you didn’t tell it not to. I described you, and it knows me, you see. My own cabin’s near here. I told it the truth, that I only wanted to wait for you.”

I said, “I’ll order it to admit no one but myself.”

“It might be wise to make exceptions for your friends.”

I told him I would consider it, actually thinking that he would certainly not be such an exception. Gunnie, perhaps.

“You have a light. Wouldn’t it be nicer if you used it?”

“How do you know I’ve got one?”

“Because when the door opened, there was a light outside for a moment. It was something you were holding, wasn’t it?”

I nodded, then realized he could not see me in the dark and said, “I prefer not to exhaust it.”

“All right. I was surprised, though, when you didn’t use it to find that bed.”

“I remembered where it was well enough.”

The fact was that I had refrained from lighting the golden candle as a matter of self-discipline. I was tempted to use it to see whether Idas had been burned or bitten. But reason told me the assassin who had been burned would be in no condition to make a second attempt on my life, and that the one who had been bitten could hardly have reached the iron stair in the airshaft far enough ahead of me to have climbed it unheard.

“Would you mind if I talked to you? When we met earlier and you spoke of your home world, I wanted to very much.”

“I’d like to,” I told him, “if you wouldn’t mind answering a few questions.” What I would really have liked was a chance to rest. I was still far from recovered, but an opportunity to gain information was not to be squandered.

“No,” Idas said. “Not a bit — I’d very much enjoy answering your questions, if you’ll answer mine.”

Seeking an innocuous way to begin, I took off my boots and stretched myself upon the bunk, which complained of me softly. “Then what do you call the tongue we’re speaking?” I began.

“The way we’re talking now? Why, Ship, of course.”

“Do you know any other languages, Idas?”

“No, not I. I was born on board, you see. That was one of the things I wanted to ask you about — how life is different for someone from a real world. I’ve heard a lot of stories from the crew, but they’re just ignorant seamen. I can tell that you’re a person who thinks.”

“Thank you. Having been born here, you’ve had a lot of chances to visit real worlds. Have you found many where they spoke Ship?”

“To tell the truth, I haven’t taken shore leave as often as I could have. My appearance…you’ve probably noticed—”

“Answer my question, please.”

“They speak Ship on most worlds, I suppose.” Idas’s voice sounded a trifle nearer than it had, I thought.

“I see. On Urth, what you call Ship is spoken only in our Commonwealth. We hold it a more ancient tongue than the others, but up until now I’ve never been sure that was true.” I decided to steer the talk to whatever had plunged everything in darkness: “This would be a great deal more satisfying if we could see each other, wouldn’t it?”

“Oh, yes! Won’t you use your light?”

“In a moment, perhaps. Do you think they’ll get the ship’s lights working again soon?”

“They’re trying to fix it so the most important parts have lights now,” Idas said. “But this isn’t an important part.”

“What went wrong?”

I could practically see his shrug. “Something conductive must have fallen across the terminals of one of the big cells, but no one can find out what it was. Anyway, the plates burned through. Some cables too, and that shouldn’t have happened.”

“And all the other sailors are working there?”

“Most of my gang.”

I was certain he was nearer now, no more than an ell from the bunk.

“A few got off for other things. That was how I got away. Severian, your home world…is it beautiful there?”

“Very beautiful, but terrible too. Possibly the loveliest things of all are the ice isles that sail up like argosies from the south. They’re white and pale green, and they sparkle like diamonds or emeralds when the sun strikes them. The sea around them looks black, but it’s so clear you can see their hulls far down in the pelagic deeps—”

Idas’s breath hissed ever so faintly. Hearing it, I drew my knife as quietly as I could.

“—and each rears like a mountain against a royal-blue sky dusted with stars. But nothing can live on those ice isles…nothing human. Idas, I’m getting sleepy. Perhaps you’d better go.”

“I’d like to ask you much, much more.”

“And so you will, another time.”

“Severian, do men touch each other sometimes on your world? Clasp hands as a sign of friendship? They do that on a lot of worlds.”

“And on mine, too,” I said, and shifted the knife to my left hand.

“Let’s clasp hands then, and I’ll go.”

“All right,” I told him.

Our fingertips touched, and at that moment the cabin light came on.

He was holding a bob, its blade below his hand. He drove it down with all his weight behind it. My right hand flew up. I could never have stopped that blow, but I managed to deflect it; the broad point went through my shirt and plunged into the mattress so near my skin that I felt the chill of the steel.

He tried to jerk the bob back, but I got his wrist, and he could not pull free of my grip. I could have killed him easily, but I ran my blade through his forearm instead, to make him let go of the hilt.

He screamed — not so much from pain, I think, as from the sight of my blade thrusting from his flesh. I threw him down, and a moment later had the point of my knife at his throat.

“Quiet,” I told him, “or I’ll kill you on the spot. How thick are these walls?”

“My arm—”

“Forget your arm. There’ll be time enough to lick your blood. Answer me!”

“Not thick at all. The walls and floors are just sheets of metal.”

“Good. That means there’s no one about. I was listening while I lay on the bunk, and I didn’t hear a single step. You may wail all you want. Now stand up.”

The hunting knife had a good edge: I slit Idas’s shirt down the back and pulled it off, revealing the budding breasts I had half suspected.

“Who put you on this ship, girl? Abaia?”

“You knew!” Idas stared at me, her pale eyes wide.

I shook my head and cut a strip from the shirt. “Here, wind your arm with this.”

“Thank you, but it doesn’t matter. My life’s over anyway.”

“I said to wind it. When I go to work on you, I don’t want to get any more blood on these clothes than I have already.”

“There will be no need to torture me. Yes, I was a slave of Abaia’s.”

“Sent to kill me so I wouldn’t bring the New Sun?”

She nodded.

“Chosen because you were still small enough to pass as human. Who are the others?”

“There aren’t any others.”

I would have seized her, but she held up her right hand. “I swear it by Lord Abaia! There may be others, but I don’t know them.”

“It was you who killed my steward?”

“Yes”

“And searched my stateroom?”

“Yes.”

“But it wasn’t you I burned with my pistol. Who was that?”

“Only a hand I hired for a chrisos; I was down the gangway when you fired. You see, I wanted to cast the body adrift, but I wasn’t sure I could carry it without help and work the hatches too. Besides…” Her voice trailed away.

“Besides what?”

“Besides, he’d have had to help me with other things too, after that. Isn’t that right? Now, how did you know? Please tell me.”

“It wasn’t you that attacked me at the apport pens, either. Who was that?”

Idas shook her head as though to clear it. “I didn’t know you’d been attacked at all.”

“How old are you, Idas?”

“I don’t know.”

“Ten? Thirteen?”

“We don’t number the years.” She shrugged. “But you said we weren’t human, and we’re as human as you. We’re the Other People, the folk of the Great Lords who dwell in the sea and underground. Now, please, I’ve answered your questions, so answer mine. How did you know?”

I sat on the bunk. Soon I would begin the excruciation of this lanky child; it had been a long while — perhaps before she was born — since I had been the Journeyman Severian, and I would not relish the task. I was half hoping she would bolt for the door.

“In the first place, you didn’t talk like a sailor. I once had a friend who did, so I notice when others do, though that’s much too long a tale to tell now. My troubles — the murder my steward and so on — started soon after I met you and others. You told me at once that you’d been born on this ship, but the others talked like seamen, except for Sidero, and you didn’t.”

“Purn and Gunnie are from Urth.”

“Then too, you misdirected me when I asked the way to the galley. You meant to follow me and kill me when you could, but I found my stateroom, and that must have seemed better to you. You could wait until I was asleep and talk your way past the lock. That wouldn’t have been hard, I suppose, since you’re a member of the crew.”

Idas nodded. “I brought tools, and I told your lock I’d been sent to mend a drawer.”

“But I wasn’t there. The steward stopped you as you were leaving. What were you looking for?”

“Your letter, the one that the aquastors of Urth gave you for the Hierogrammate. I found it and burned it there in your own stateroom.” Her voice held a note of triumph now.

“You would have found that easily enough. You were looking for something else too, something you expected to be hidden. In a moment or two I’m going to hurt you very badly unless you tell me what that was.”

She shook her head. “Is it all right if I sit down?”

I nodded, expecting her to sit on the chest or the spare bunk, but she sank to the floor, looking like a real child at last despite her height.

“A moment ago,” I continued, “you kept asking me to kindle my light. After the second, it wasn’t hard to guess you wanted to be certain your thrust would be a clean kill. So I used the words argosy and pelagic, because Abaia’s slaves employ them as passwords; long ago someone who thought for a moment I might be one of you showed me a card saying he was to be found on Argosy Street, and Vodalus — you may have heard of him — once told me to a message to one who should say to me, ‘The pelagic argosy sights — ‘”

I never finished my quotation. On the ship, where heavy things were so light, the child fell forward very slowly; and yet it was fast enough for a soft tap when her forehead struck the floor. I am sure she must have been dead almost from the beginning of my vainglorious little speech.