Sword and Citadel

Page 58

 

  "But are you nothing else besides a former journeyman of that guild?"

  "No. "

  Vodalus sighed and smiled, then leaned back in his chair and sighed again. "My servant Hildegrin always insisted you were important. When I asked him why, he had any number of speculations, none of which I found convincing. I thought he was trying to get silver from me for a little easy spying. Yet he was right. "

  "I have only been important once to you, Liege. "

  "Each time we meet, you remind me that you saved my life once. Did you know that Hildegrin once saved yours? It was he who shouted Run! to your opponent when you dueled in the city. You had fallen, and he might have stabbed you. "

  "Is Agia here?" I asked. "Shell try to kill you if she hears that. "

  "No one can hear you but myself. You may tell her later, if you like. She will never believe you. "

  "You cant be sure of that. "

  He smiled more broadly. "Very well, Ill turn you over to her. You can then test your theory against mine. "

  "As you wish. "

  He brushed my acquiescence aside with an elegant motion of one hand. "You think you can stalemate me with your willingness to die. Actually youre offering me an easy exit from a dilemma. Your Agia came to me with a very valuable thaumaturgist in her train, and asked as the price of his service and her own only that you, Severian of the Order of the Seekers for Truth and Penitence, should be put into her hands. Now you say you are that Severian the Torturer and no one else, and it is with great embarrassment that I resist her demands. "

  "And whom do you wish me to be?" I asked.

  "I have, or I should say I had, a most excellent servant in the House Absolute. You know him, of course, since it was to him that you gave my message. " Vodalus paused and smiled again. "A week or so ago we received one from him. It was not, to be sure, openly addressed to me, but I had seen to it not long before that he was aware of our location, and we were not far from him. Do you know what he said?"

  I shook my head.

  "Thats odd, because you must have been with him at the time. He said he was in a wrecked flier - and that the Autarch was in the flier with him. He would have been an idiot to have sent such a message in the ordinary course of things, because he gave his location - and he was behind our lines, as he must have known. "

  "You are a part of the Ascian army, then?"

  "We serve them in certain scouting capacities, yes. I see you are troubled by the knowledge that Agia and the thaumaturgist killed a few of their soldiers to take you. You need not be. Their masters value them even less than I do, and it was not a time for negotiation. "

  "But they did not capture the Autarch. " I am not a good liar, but I was too exhausted, I think, for Vodalus to read my face easily. He leaned forward, and for a moment his eyes glowed as though candles burned in their depths. "He was there, then. How wonderful. You have seen him. You have ridden in the royal flier with him. " I nodded once more.

  "You see, ridiculous though it sounds, I feared you were he. One never knows. An Autarch dies and another takes his place, and the new Autarch may be there for half a century or a fortnight. There were three of you then? No more?"

  "No. "

  "What did the Autarch look like? Let me have every detail. " I did as he asked, describing Dr. Talos as he had appeared in the part.

  "Did he escape both the thaumaturgists creatures and the Ascians?