The Amphitheater of the New Sun
Posted: Sun Dec 04, 2011 8:39 pm
This is an alternate, lamer, and much shorter ending to The Book of the New Sun. It can't even properly be called an ending to something called The Book of the New Sun since it fails to presage The New Sun adequately and instead focuses on the mundane political affairs of the Autarchy of Severian's Urth.
If you like the fanfic, I suggest purchasing the whole of the series, usually comprised of two volumes: Shadow of the Torturer and Claw of the Conciliator together as Shadow and Claw, and Sword of the Lictor and Citadel of the Autarch together as Sword and Citadel. There is also a sequel to the series called The Urth of the New Sun which I have not yet read, though it's currently sitting on my sofa nearby.
This story begins at page 261 of my copy of The Claw of the Conciliator, in Chapter 8: The Cultellarii. It comes immediately after the paragraph which ends "the final war of Urth" and, in a manner of speaking, ungratefully effaces - as though one of the greatest epics of all time were worthy of erasure rather than promulgation - all the adventure that follows. Severian seems fully conscious of the fact that the reader, likely a member of this forum who is largely unaware of The Book of the New Sun, needs some catching up and has explained some, though not all, of what the reader will need to follow the events of this branch chapter (in other words, this text is not fully accommodating to the reader unfamiliar with the Book of the New Sun and is, simultaneously, more clunky than it needs to be for anyone who has read that text - an unhappy median). The reader may also find that the meaning of some words looked up in dictionaries do not accord with how they are used in the text: this is also a result of Severian's story being the product of futurity. As reflected in the Jungle Garden of Nessus, we may find that these future apparitions will be erased and replaced by our cleaving to (or, as I like to think, rebelling against) the Increate, blessed and cursed be all his names.
The Amphitheater of the New Sun:
The man who came to me to bring a request for my services as an executioner could hardly have known of the egotistic import which I took the news that I would be executing Vodalus of the Woods (also known as Ike-Mike) to have for my person, my fate, and my values. I was, on the surface of things, a public servant presumed to have ties and loyalty to the Autarchy, separated and exalted above the masses. My height also may have brought forth expectations of Exultancy, a fact of which I had become aware during my travels outside the guild of torturer's Matachin Tower. And I had already practised the arts of the lictor, often seen as grossest of all those taught by the guild perhaps because the aim - to bring the conclusion of life as instantaneously and painlessly as possible - so contradicted the natural tendency of all our other professional exercises, upon a mere servant of Vodalus, so the tragicomic reality that I, a Vodalarii, faced as a result of the Autarchy's request for my intercession on their behalf in the case of bringing to a terminal point the life of Vodalus. Who was he to place any special importance on my role in what was to follow? I could also ask who am I, but surely every man believes in his own capacity for judgment - or at least surely long-memoried Severian, making such a statement, do.
Bearing Terminus Est, my large executioner's sword with hydrargyrum embedded in the spine, I followed the messenger through town towards my destination. I mostly dissuaded attempts at conversation, my contemplation of my current course of action blurring my thoughts. I thought chiefly of Thecla, and how the role I had played in her suicide - which I had so recently been deluded into thinking was a myth due to Agia's machinations - of her had ended my brotherhood in the Guild of Torturers, how I now would bring to an end the loyalty I had to Vodalus and his ideals for change and reinvigoration of the Autarchy. As we entered a thoroughfare the man drew my attention with a gesture and a shout over the traffic to a large stone wall. As we drew closer, he lead me to right, and as the end of the wall came more clearly into sight another wall, parallel to the first, came into view. As we entered the barricade round the structure I saw that it was what one might describe as an arched gate, fallen Urthward, with corridored interiors with vigilants at windows, armed with artillery, at the ready to fire on the noisy and potentially - for the identification of a coin bearing the Autarch is not identification of loyalty to the Autarch, as is proven by my chrisos which I accepted in return for loyalty to Vodalus - unruly crowd.
A detachment of lance-bearing dimarchi cleared a way through the crowd for me, sometimes shoving those singles or clusters whose steps were too slow. Because it is my wont to vaunt up the stage as my first gesture to the crowd as the chief enactor of a ritual important to the Autarchy's functioning, I had the guards lead me to rim closest the center of the stage. It was there that I determined that I would be unable to do so here - the stage was simply too high for me to attempt such a task, I believed. So, duly chastened and even a little humiliated under my fuligin cloak by the efforts of some probably long-dead architect, I climbed the steps on the edge of the stage and strode to that center rim and stood sentinel, Terminus Est unsheathed and held perpendicular to the stage's surface, awaiting the presence of my liege and subject.
Unlike myself, he was brought, along with the Alcade who would be ministering over the proceedings, out from one of several arches that surrounded the stage on the curved sides that touched the fallen archway. Presumably, he had been held in some prison here prior to my arrival. Had it been ruled, I would have ministered to him in my finer arts of torture in such a cell, possibly monitored by the alcade. I suspect that the lack of such punishments was due to the haste they felt was necessary in removing the captured Vodalus from our midst as soon as possible, before his escape could be effected - possibly the same reason his transport to the Matachin Tower had not been affected: as I have reflected elsewhere in my narrative, the demands of the campaign against the Ascians left us little in the way of a military presence in Nessus's proper to maintain order.
Reader, if you have followed my tale from beginning to end, you will have probably not chanced to miss that I have reflected oftentimes upon my uncommonly skillful memory, which allows me to recall and swoon within much of what my fellow men say and do, and more besides. I have also spoken of how falling back into these memories leaves me in a drunken reverie - indeed, to be more exact, the experience and contemplation of past memories in painful detail is the one thing that brings my memory to a dull failure to capture the reality ensuing around me. It was at this time, as Vodalus was issued by guards like a subject into my presence again, that I found myself in an experience similar yet completely obverse to that harrowing moment by the stone sink where I wondered at my sanity and the world around me as a phantasm - rather, the realization that full realization of Vodalus' presence, and my role - brought about by my treachery of the guild for the sake of his consort's sister, though not for reason of that relation - as his executioner was like an unwelcome anodyne, bringing reality to the fore and making it impossible to deny; I was about to uphold the rites of the guild which had - not at all to my dismay - cast me out and in so doing end my loyalty to the man I had held higher than the Autarch. The contemplation of this matter engulfed me until I realized that I had missed all of what Vodalus had to offer to his audience - was his farewell proud? apologetic? vituperative? The Alcade lacked the innovative spirit to make use of Vodalus's words in his own reply, so I never came to know - and some of the Alcade's words as well, though I had maintained a steadfast stand by the block. The crowd had gone quiet and listened to the Alcade's response.
"...It is customary that, when bringing a life to a period as we do now, the caloyer says Increate, it is known to us that those who will perish here are no more evil in your sight than we. But today the Autarchy has a different kind of criminal brought to the block for termination - a megalomaniac who dared above his standing to exult himself beyond exultancy, far unlike all of us who willingly serve and service the Autarchy. We have a man who constantly offended, constantly brought chaos to the realm in a time of unrest and war. He demanded a return to the opulent ways of past times, and a disciplining of the overabundant classes who he felt offended the ideals he holds concerning how men should be governed and govern themselves. He demanded the place of the Autarch while the present Autarch and his servant, Father Inire, denied him. Instead of taking up arms against the Ascians he has taken up arms against his own countrymen of Nessus. He complains to you now of staled olden traditions - but without those traditions, would you not treasure and serve the world around you less? He complains to you of our stagnation - but is it our place to thrive before the coming of the New Sun? Furthermore, it is customary that when a man commits a crime, he be tried before he is punished. But do you really expect the Autarchy to give such leniency to a man who commits crimes not against its subservients, but against the body of the Autarchy itself? If you would protest this perceived injustice, by all means - rise against the Autarchy that defends you from the Ascians, clothes and feeds many of you, the Autarchy that stands between you and this man with lances held high in defense of the punishment to be visited upon him!"
So saying, the Alcade finished the speech, and it was in my hands to likewise finish the ceremony. The Alcade's words had given me something to focus on, to take my mind away from my felt commitments to Vodalus. Though I found myself hardly in agreement with anything he had said, the fact of the matter is that my loyalty to Vodalus was something more of the sentimental loyalty I had had towards Triskele, that 3-legged dog of the beast masters' tower, than a logical and well-thought out propositional-based loyalty of a man-at-arms. If I had not seen him fight in the graveyard of the citadel, had not fought for him myself, I would never have been swayed by the words of his followers to consider a life in his footsteps. And so it was that I felt myself being freed from my commitments to the Vodalarii and their master without really being free of my attachments to them and him. I raised Terminus Est. There was no brilliant gleam, the old sun being obscured by clouds. The crowd stirred mildly, not disrupting but becoming a part of my concentration on the prone form of Vodalus. "Strike and fear not!" I seemed to hear from the absent maid of our ritual feast. The parting of my patron's head from his shoulders was a relief that came of the flowing down of the hydrargyrum, the weight of which far overmatched the resistance of Vodalus's (Ike-Mike's) outstretched neck. I discerned the crowd's roar as joyous - perhaps the Alcade had more reason to warn me of the Autarchy's willingness to meet resistance with violence than the crowd, which apparently had no loyalty to the cause of the Vodalarii. As I performed capers round the stage with the basketed head, a I wondered what my concerns were upon this earth with both my loyalty to the guild and my loyalty to Vodalus bereft and broken.
Reader, my journey here is not what it was meant to be - have I finally remembered falsely? - so which journey was it that prevailed? Might it be both? - a pox on tongue and teeth alike if you dare so far as to say "neither!" Here it ends, unless you would renew your readership.
If you like the fanfic, I suggest purchasing the whole of the series, usually comprised of two volumes: Shadow of the Torturer and Claw of the Conciliator together as Shadow and Claw, and Sword of the Lictor and Citadel of the Autarch together as Sword and Citadel. There is also a sequel to the series called The Urth of the New Sun which I have not yet read, though it's currently sitting on my sofa nearby.
This story begins at page 261 of my copy of The Claw of the Conciliator, in Chapter 8: The Cultellarii. It comes immediately after the paragraph which ends "the final war of Urth" and, in a manner of speaking, ungratefully effaces - as though one of the greatest epics of all time were worthy of erasure rather than promulgation - all the adventure that follows. Severian seems fully conscious of the fact that the reader, likely a member of this forum who is largely unaware of The Book of the New Sun, needs some catching up and has explained some, though not all, of what the reader will need to follow the events of this branch chapter (in other words, this text is not fully accommodating to the reader unfamiliar with the Book of the New Sun and is, simultaneously, more clunky than it needs to be for anyone who has read that text - an unhappy median). The reader may also find that the meaning of some words looked up in dictionaries do not accord with how they are used in the text: this is also a result of Severian's story being the product of futurity. As reflected in the Jungle Garden of Nessus, we may find that these future apparitions will be erased and replaced by our cleaving to (or, as I like to think, rebelling against) the Increate, blessed and cursed be all his names.
The Amphitheater of the New Sun:
The man who came to me to bring a request for my services as an executioner could hardly have known of the egotistic import which I took the news that I would be executing Vodalus of the Woods (also known as Ike-Mike) to have for my person, my fate, and my values. I was, on the surface of things, a public servant presumed to have ties and loyalty to the Autarchy, separated and exalted above the masses. My height also may have brought forth expectations of Exultancy, a fact of which I had become aware during my travels outside the guild of torturer's Matachin Tower. And I had already practised the arts of the lictor, often seen as grossest of all those taught by the guild perhaps because the aim - to bring the conclusion of life as instantaneously and painlessly as possible - so contradicted the natural tendency of all our other professional exercises, upon a mere servant of Vodalus, so the tragicomic reality that I, a Vodalarii, faced as a result of the Autarchy's request for my intercession on their behalf in the case of bringing to a terminal point the life of Vodalus. Who was he to place any special importance on my role in what was to follow? I could also ask who am I, but surely every man believes in his own capacity for judgment - or at least surely long-memoried Severian, making such a statement, do.
Bearing Terminus Est, my large executioner's sword with hydrargyrum embedded in the spine, I followed the messenger through town towards my destination. I mostly dissuaded attempts at conversation, my contemplation of my current course of action blurring my thoughts. I thought chiefly of Thecla, and how the role I had played in her suicide - which I had so recently been deluded into thinking was a myth due to Agia's machinations - of her had ended my brotherhood in the Guild of Torturers, how I now would bring to an end the loyalty I had to Vodalus and his ideals for change and reinvigoration of the Autarchy. As we entered a thoroughfare the man drew my attention with a gesture and a shout over the traffic to a large stone wall. As we drew closer, he lead me to right, and as the end of the wall came more clearly into sight another wall, parallel to the first, came into view. As we entered the barricade round the structure I saw that it was what one might describe as an arched gate, fallen Urthward, with corridored interiors with vigilants at windows, armed with artillery, at the ready to fire on the noisy and potentially - for the identification of a coin bearing the Autarch is not identification of loyalty to the Autarch, as is proven by my chrisos which I accepted in return for loyalty to Vodalus - unruly crowd.
A detachment of lance-bearing dimarchi cleared a way through the crowd for me, sometimes shoving those singles or clusters whose steps were too slow. Because it is my wont to vaunt up the stage as my first gesture to the crowd as the chief enactor of a ritual important to the Autarchy's functioning, I had the guards lead me to rim closest the center of the stage. It was there that I determined that I would be unable to do so here - the stage was simply too high for me to attempt such a task, I believed. So, duly chastened and even a little humiliated under my fuligin cloak by the efforts of some probably long-dead architect, I climbed the steps on the edge of the stage and strode to that center rim and stood sentinel, Terminus Est unsheathed and held perpendicular to the stage's surface, awaiting the presence of my liege and subject.
Unlike myself, he was brought, along with the Alcade who would be ministering over the proceedings, out from one of several arches that surrounded the stage on the curved sides that touched the fallen archway. Presumably, he had been held in some prison here prior to my arrival. Had it been ruled, I would have ministered to him in my finer arts of torture in such a cell, possibly monitored by the alcade. I suspect that the lack of such punishments was due to the haste they felt was necessary in removing the captured Vodalus from our midst as soon as possible, before his escape could be effected - possibly the same reason his transport to the Matachin Tower had not been affected: as I have reflected elsewhere in my narrative, the demands of the campaign against the Ascians left us little in the way of a military presence in Nessus's proper to maintain order.
Reader, if you have followed my tale from beginning to end, you will have probably not chanced to miss that I have reflected oftentimes upon my uncommonly skillful memory, which allows me to recall and swoon within much of what my fellow men say and do, and more besides. I have also spoken of how falling back into these memories leaves me in a drunken reverie - indeed, to be more exact, the experience and contemplation of past memories in painful detail is the one thing that brings my memory to a dull failure to capture the reality ensuing around me. It was at this time, as Vodalus was issued by guards like a subject into my presence again, that I found myself in an experience similar yet completely obverse to that harrowing moment by the stone sink where I wondered at my sanity and the world around me as a phantasm - rather, the realization that full realization of Vodalus' presence, and my role - brought about by my treachery of the guild for the sake of his consort's sister, though not for reason of that relation - as his executioner was like an unwelcome anodyne, bringing reality to the fore and making it impossible to deny; I was about to uphold the rites of the guild which had - not at all to my dismay - cast me out and in so doing end my loyalty to the man I had held higher than the Autarch. The contemplation of this matter engulfed me until I realized that I had missed all of what Vodalus had to offer to his audience - was his farewell proud? apologetic? vituperative? The Alcade lacked the innovative spirit to make use of Vodalus's words in his own reply, so I never came to know - and some of the Alcade's words as well, though I had maintained a steadfast stand by the block. The crowd had gone quiet and listened to the Alcade's response.
"...It is customary that, when bringing a life to a period as we do now, the caloyer says Increate, it is known to us that those who will perish here are no more evil in your sight than we. But today the Autarchy has a different kind of criminal brought to the block for termination - a megalomaniac who dared above his standing to exult himself beyond exultancy, far unlike all of us who willingly serve and service the Autarchy. We have a man who constantly offended, constantly brought chaos to the realm in a time of unrest and war. He demanded a return to the opulent ways of past times, and a disciplining of the overabundant classes who he felt offended the ideals he holds concerning how men should be governed and govern themselves. He demanded the place of the Autarch while the present Autarch and his servant, Father Inire, denied him. Instead of taking up arms against the Ascians he has taken up arms against his own countrymen of Nessus. He complains to you now of staled olden traditions - but without those traditions, would you not treasure and serve the world around you less? He complains to you of our stagnation - but is it our place to thrive before the coming of the New Sun? Furthermore, it is customary that when a man commits a crime, he be tried before he is punished. But do you really expect the Autarchy to give such leniency to a man who commits crimes not against its subservients, but against the body of the Autarchy itself? If you would protest this perceived injustice, by all means - rise against the Autarchy that defends you from the Ascians, clothes and feeds many of you, the Autarchy that stands between you and this man with lances held high in defense of the punishment to be visited upon him!"
So saying, the Alcade finished the speech, and it was in my hands to likewise finish the ceremony. The Alcade's words had given me something to focus on, to take my mind away from my felt commitments to Vodalus. Though I found myself hardly in agreement with anything he had said, the fact of the matter is that my loyalty to Vodalus was something more of the sentimental loyalty I had had towards Triskele, that 3-legged dog of the beast masters' tower, than a logical and well-thought out propositional-based loyalty of a man-at-arms. If I had not seen him fight in the graveyard of the citadel, had not fought for him myself, I would never have been swayed by the words of his followers to consider a life in his footsteps. And so it was that I felt myself being freed from my commitments to the Vodalarii and their master without really being free of my attachments to them and him. I raised Terminus Est. There was no brilliant gleam, the old sun being obscured by clouds. The crowd stirred mildly, not disrupting but becoming a part of my concentration on the prone form of Vodalus. "Strike and fear not!" I seemed to hear from the absent maid of our ritual feast. The parting of my patron's head from his shoulders was a relief that came of the flowing down of the hydrargyrum, the weight of which far overmatched the resistance of Vodalus's (Ike-Mike's) outstretched neck. I discerned the crowd's roar as joyous - perhaps the Alcade had more reason to warn me of the Autarchy's willingness to meet resistance with violence than the crowd, which apparently had no loyalty to the cause of the Vodalarii. As I performed capers round the stage with the basketed head, a I wondered what my concerns were upon this earth with both my loyalty to the guild and my loyalty to Vodalus bereft and broken.
Reader, my journey here is not what it was meant to be - have I finally remembered falsely? - so which journey was it that prevailed? Might it be both? - a pox on tongue and teeth alike if you dare so far as to say "neither!" Here it ends, unless you would renew your readership.