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The dew found thearden, half-smothered in flowers For a time they slept so, but when afternoon threw backward the shadows of their masts they were awake Then the princess bade farewell to the isle and swore that though she ht visit every country over which her mother strode, she never would return there; and the Corn Maidens swore likewise Too many of them there were, perhaps, for the ship to hold; yet it held theold with their hair Many adventures they had in icians This tale ht tell how they cast their dead into the sea with prayers, yet afterward saw theht; or how certain of the Corn Maidens wed those princes who, having spent years so long enchanted that they are loath to leave that life (and have in that tiramary), build palaces on lily pads and are seldos have no place here Be it sufficient to say that as they neared the cliff at whose top stands the city of thefor them over the sea And when he beheld their dark sails, s tar that had blinded their ene man, and he threw hi when his dreams are dead

Chapter 18

MIRRORS

As I read this idle tale I looked at Jonas from time to time, but I never saw the least flicker of expression on his face, though he did not sleep When it was complete, I said, "I'm not certain I understand why the student at once assumed his son was dead when he saw the black sails The ship the ogre sent had black sails, but it came only once a year, and had already come"

"I know," Jonas said His voice held a flatness I had not heard before

"Do you mean you know the answers to those questions?"

He did not reply, and for a time we sat in silence, I with the brown book (so insistently evocative of Thecla and the evenings we had shared) still held open by a forefinger, he with his back to the cold wall of the prison roo to either side as though he had forgotten them

At last a small voice ventured to say, "That irl who had lifted the ceiling tile for me

I was so concerned for Jonas that for aus; but Jonas muttered, "Yes, it is a very old story, and the hero had told the king, his father, that if he failed he would return to Athens with black sails" I am not sure what that remark meant, and itI heard Jonas say, I feel I should record it here, as I have transcribed the wonder-tale that proirl and I endeavored to persuade hiain He would not, and at last we desisted I spent the re beside him, and after a watch or so Hethor (whose small store of wit - as I supposed - had soon been exhausted by the prisoners) came to join us I had a ith Lo place should be on the opposite side of the room

Whatever we may say, all of us suffer froh some who sleep copiously swear that they do not Some are disquieted by incessant dreahtful character So but have "recovered" froh awareness were a disease, as perhaps it is

My own case is that I usually sleep without h I soone this far with ht my sleep was so different from its usual nature that I have sometimes wondered if it should be called sleep at all Perhaps it was so as sleep, as alzabos, when they have eaten of men, pose as men

If it was the result of natural causes, I attribute it to a combination of unfortunate circumstances I, who had all my life been accustomed to hard work and violent exercise, had for that day been confined without either The tale froination - which was still more stimulated by the book itself and its associations with Thecla, and by the knowledge that I was noithin the walls of the House Absolute itself, of which I had heard her speak so often Possibly hts were oppressed by worry for Jonas, and by the feeling (which had been growing on me all day) that this place was the end of my journey; that I would never reach Thrax; that I would never rejoin poor Dorcas; that I would never restore the Claw, or even rid myself of it; that in fact the Increate, whom the owner of the Claw had served, had decreed that I who had seen so many prisoners die should end my own life as one

I slept, if it may be called sleep, only for a ; a spash renched allbut darkness I heard Jonas's breathing, andas I had left hiain

Or rather, I tried to sleep, and passed into that vague state that is neither sleeping nor waking At other times I have found it pleasant, but it was not so now - I was conscious of the need for sleep, and conscious that I was not sleeping Yet I was not "conscious" in the usualof that term I heard faint voices in the inn yard, and felt, somehow, that soon the bells of the caain, and I sat up For a reen fire, but there was nothing I had covered myself with my cloak; I threw it off, and in the instant it took to do so remembered that I was in the antechamber of the House Absolute, and that I had left the inn of Saltus far behind, though Jonas lay beside ood hand behind his head The pale blur I saas the white of his right eye, though the sighing of his breath was that of one who slept I was still too much asleep myself to wish to talk, and I had a presentiment that he would not answer ain, I surrendered ht of the herd driven through Saltus and counted them from memory: one hundred and thirty-seven Then there were the soldiers who had co up from Gyoll The innkeeper had asked ure, but I had never counted theht not, have been a spy

Master Palaeht us how to sleep - no apprentice had ever needed to learn that after a day of errands and scrubbing and kitchen work We had rioted each night for half a watch in our quarters, then slept like the citizens of the necropolis until he ca slops

There is a rack of knives over the table where Brother Aybert slices meat One, two, three, four, five, six, seven knives, all with plainer blades than Master Gurloes's One with a rivetfrom its handle One with a handle a little burned because Brother Aybert had once laid it on the stove

I ide-awake again, or thought I was, and I did not knohy Beside me Drotte slumbered undisturbed I closed my eyes once more and tried to sleep as he did

Three hundred and ninety steps froround to our doruns throbbed at the top of the tower? One, two, three, four, five, six guns One, two, three levels of cells in use in the oubliette One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight wings on each level One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen cells in each wing One, two, three bars on the littleof my cell's door

I ith a start and a sensation of cold, but the sound that had disturbedof one of the hatches far down the corridor Beside me, my boy lover, Severian, lay in the easy sleep of youth I sat up thinking I would lightof that chiseled face Each ti on that face Each time I took it and blew upon it, and held it to my breast, and each time it pined and died; yet so deeper under this load of earth and h metal and earth to the wind and the sky