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When Jonas and I had come to Saltus, our path had threaded hills of debris froely of broken stone and brick When I had ridden on the false errand of Agia's letter, I had galloped past h the forest at its nearest approach to the village Noent as where there was no path Here, in addition to ht forth froht otherwise have defa foul lay in tuht of the baluchither's lofty back - obscene statues, canted and cru, and human bones to which strips of dry flesh and hanks of hair still clung And with the a private resurrection, had rendered their corpses forever imperishable lay here like drunkards after their debauch, their crystal sarcophagi broken, their li rotted or rotting, and their eyes blindly fixed upon the sky

At first Jonas and I had attempted to question our captors, but they had silenced us with blows Now that the baluchither wound his way a this desolation, they see us The man with the scarred face replied, "To the wild, the hoia and asked if he served her; he laughed and shook his head "My master is Vodalus of the Wood"

"Vodalus!"

"Ah," be said "You know hied the black-bearded man, who rode in the hoith us "Very kindly Vodalus will treat you, no doubt, for offering so blithely to rack one of his servants"

"I know him indeed," I said, and was about to tell the scarred man of my connection with Vodalus, whose life I had preserved in the last year before I became captain of apprentices But then I came to doubt if Vodalus would remember it, and only said that if I had known Barnoch to be a servant of Vodalus, I would on no account have agreed to perform his excruciation I lied, of course; for I had known, and had justified accepting ht that I would be able to spare Barnoch soood; all three chortled, even the trainer who bestrode the baluchither's neck When their ht I rode out of Saltus to the northeast Are we going that way now?"

"So that's where you were Ouryou, and came back empty-handed" The scarred man sht that he returned now successful where Vodalus hio north, as you can see by the sun"

"Yes," said the scarred " And then, to pass the time, he described to me the means by which his master dealt with captives, most of which were primitive in the extreony

As if some invisible hand had spread a curtain over us, the shadows of the trees fell upon the howdah The glitter of billions of shards of glass was left behind with the staring of the dead eyes, and we entered into the coolness and green shade of the high forest Ah he stood three tiht of abeast; and ho rode his back hold of a pixie monarch

And it came to me that these trees had been hardly smaller when I was yet unborn, and had stood as they stood nohen I was a child playing a the cypresses and peaceful to in the last light of the dying sun, even as nohen I had been dead as long as those who rested there I sa little it weighed on the scale of things whether I lived or died, though ed a rasp each smallest chance to live, yet in which I cared not too much whether I saved myself or not By that ood a friend tonot always, but often

"Severian, are you all right?"

It was Jonas who spoke I looked at him, I think, in some wonder "Yes Did I seem ill?"

"For aon the fa to understand it I think it recalls to me many sue as the towers there, and many of the towers are wrapped in ivy, so that in quiet suht between them has this emerald quality Too, it is quiet here, as there"

"Yes?"

"You must have ridden many times in boats, Jonas"

"Occasionally, yes"

"It is so wanted to do, and did for the first tiia and I were ferried to the island where the Botanic Gardens stand, and then later e crossed the Lake of Birds The motion is much like the motion of this beast, and it is as silent, save for a splashing, sooes into the water I feel now that I'h the Citadel in a flood, solerave that I burst out laughing at the sight of his face, and stood up,(I think) to look over the side of the howdah and show by so my fancy I had no sooner stood, however, than the scarredhis dirk's point within a thuain To spite him I shook my head

He flourished his weapon "Get down or I'll rip your belly open!"

"And lose the glory of bringing me back? I don't think so Wait until the others tell Vodalus that you had me, and you stabbed me when my hands were tied"

Now came the turn of fate The beardedacquainted with the proper way to bare so long a sword - which is to grip the quillons in one hand and the throat of the sheath with the other, and by opening the arht to free it by pulling up, as if he were jerking a weed frouard by one of the baluchither's rolling steps, and lurched against the h to part a hair, cut them both; the man with the scarred face threw hi one of his feet behind the scarred ed to tu of the howdah

Meantime, the black-beardedat his wound, which was very long, though no doubt shallow I knew that weapon as I know my own hand, and it took only a ing it between s that bound ht have killed s

He bent double, and long before he could straighten himself I was up, with Terminus Est ready

The contraction of his muscles snapped him erect, as often happens when the subject is not n the trainer had (so swiftly had it all taken place) that so was amiss He looked back at us, and I was able to take hi the blade one-handed in the horizontal stroke, as I leaned out of the howdah

His head had no round when the baluchither stepped between two great trees growing so close together that he seeh a crevice in a wall Beyond lay a glade rass greell as fern, and spots of sunlight, unshaded with green and rich as orpiment, played over the turf Here Vodalus had caused to be erected his throne, beneath a canopy woven of flowering vines; and here, as it chanced, he sat with the Chatelaine Thea beside hi his followers