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"Oh, yes," she said seriously, and looked up at me Her small, tilted face was never ht, or more pure "Oh, yes I could, Severian Just as you can be what they call you What you sometimes are Do you remember ho the cathedral leap into the sky and burn away in an instant? And hoalking down a road between trees untila light ahead, and it was Dr Talos and Baldanders, ready to put on their shoith Jolenta?"

"You held my hand," I said "And we talked about philosophy How could I forget?"

"When we caht and Dr Talos saw us - do you remember what he said?"

I cast , the end of the day on which I had executed Agilus In ia's scream, and then the roll of Baldanders's drum "He said that everyone had come now, and that you were Innocence, and I was Death"

Dorcas nodded soleht But you're not really Death, you know, no matter how often he calls you that You're no more Death than a butcher is because he cuts the throats of steers all day Toman named Severian, and if you wanted to put on different clothes and become a carpenter or a fisherman, no one could stop you"

"I have no desire to leaveto remember People don't want other people to be people They throw names over them and lock them in, but I don't want you to let them lock you in Dr Talos is worse than most In his oay, he's a liar"

She left the accusation unfinished, and I ventured, "I once heard Baldanders say he seldom lied"

"In his oay, I said Baldanders is right, Dr Talos doesn't lie the way other people understand lying Calling you Death wasn't a lie, it was aa"

"Metaphor," I suggested

"But it was a dangerous, bad metaphor and it was aimed at you like a lie"

"Do you think Dr Talos hates me, then? I would have said he was one of the few people who've showed me real kindness since I left the Citadel You, Jonas - who's gone now - an old woman I met while I was imprisoned, a man in a yellow robe - who also called me Death, by the way - and Dr Talos It's a short list, actually"

"I don't think he hates in the e understand it," Dorcas replied softly "Or for thathe co down is easier than building, that's what he does h," I said "I used to have a crippled dog, and I've seen Baldanders look at the doctor the way Triskele used to look at me"

"I understand you, but it doesn't strike ht of how you ? Do you know anything about their past?"

"Only that they lived together near Lake Diuturna The people there appear to have set fire to their house to drive them away"

"Do you think Dr Talos could be Baldanders's son?"

The idea was so absurd that I laughed, happy to have the release from tension "Just the sa, hardworking father with a brilliant, erratic son At least so it seems toback to the Green Room (which no more researden would have) that it occurred toDorcas "Innocence" had not been a metaphor of the same kind

Chapter 23

JOLENTA

The old orchard and the herb garden beyond it had been so silent, so freighted with oblivion, that they had recalled to me the Atrium of Time, and Valeria with her exquisite face framed in furs The Green Room was pandemonium Everyone ake now, and so Children clied birds, pursued by theirstruck even while rehearsals continued, so that I saw a see thron and reveal beyond it the grass-green s while a dancer pirouetted on his forehead

Baldanders and our tent were gone, but in aup and hurried us away doisted walks, past balustrades and waterfalls and grottoes filled with raw topazes and flowering iant labored to erect our stage under the eyes of a dozen white deer

It was to be a e than the one I had played upon within the Wall of Nessus Servants froht timbers and nails, tools and paint and cloth in quantities enerosity had waked the doctor's bent toward the grandiose (which never slu Baldanders andfrantic additions to the iant was our carpenter, and though he reat strength - driving a spike as thick asa tih with a few strokes of his ax - that heunder the whip

Dorcas found a talent for painting that I at least was surprised by Together, we erected the black plates that drink the sun, not only to gather energy for the night's performance, but to power the projectors now These contrivances can provide a backdrop of a thousand leagues as easily as the interior of a hut, but the illusion is complete only in total darkness It is best, therefore, to strengthen it with painted scenes behind, and Dorcas created those with skill, standing waist-high in ht-faded ies