Master Palaemon thought a long time before he answered. “I cannot say. You believe me wise because I taught you once, but I have not been north, as you have. You have seen armies of Ascians, and I have never seen one. You flatter me by asking my opinion. Still—from all you’ve said, they are rigid, cast hard in their ways. I would guess that very few among them think much.”

I shrugged. “That is true in any aggregate. Master. But as you say, it is possibly more true among them. And what you call their rigidity is terrible—a deadness that surpasses belief. Individually they seem men and women, but together they are like a machine of wood and stone.”

Master Palaemon rose and went to the port and looked out upon the thronging towers. “We are too rigid here,” he said, “Too rigid in our guild, too rigid in the Citadel. It tells me a great deal that you, who were educated here, saw them as you did; they must be inflexible indeed. I think it may be that despite their science, which may amount to less than you suppose, the people of the Commonwealth will be better able to turn new circumstances to their benefit.”

“We are not flexible or inflexible,” I said. “Except for an unusually good memory, we are only an ordinary man.”

“No, no!” faster Palaemon struck his table, and again the lenses flashed. “You are an extraordinary man in an ordinary time. When you were a little apprentice, I beat you once or twice—you will recall that, I know. But even when I beat you, I knew you would become an extraordinary personage, the greatest master our guild would ever have. And you will be a master. Even if you destroy our guild, we will elect you!”

“We have already told you we mean to reform the guild, not destroy it. We’re not even sure we’re competent to do that. You respect us because we’ve moved to the highest place. But we reached it by chance, and know it. Our predecessor reached it by chance too, and the minds he brought to us, which we touch only faintly even now, are not, with one or two exceptions, those of genius. Most are only common men and women, sailors and artisans, farmwives and wantons. Most of the rest are eccentric second-rate scholars of the sort Thecla used to laugh at.”

“You have not just moved into the highest place,” Master Palaemon said, “you have become it. You are the state.”

“We are not. The state is everyone else—you, the castellan, those officers outside. We are the people, the Commonwealth.” I had not known it myself until I spoke.

I picked up the brown book. “We are going to keep this. It was one of the good things, like your sword. The writing of books shall be encouraged again. There are no pockets in these clothes; but perhaps it will do good if we are seen to carry it when we leave.”

“Carry it where?” Master Palaemon cocked his head like an old raven.

“To the House Absolute. We’ve been out of touch, or the Autarch has, if you wish to put it so, for over a month. We have to find out what’s happening at the front, and perhaps dispatch reinforcements.” I thought of Lomer and Nicarete and the other prisoners in the antechamber. “We have other tasks there too,” I said. Master Palaemon stroked his chin. “Before you go. Severian—Autarch—would you like to tour the cells, for old times sake? I doubt those fellows out there know of the door that opens to the western stair.”

It is the least-used staircase in the tower, and perhaps the oldest. Certainly it is the one least altered from its original condition. The steps are narrow and steep, and wind down around a central column black with corrosion. The door to the room where I, as Thecla, had been subjected to the device called the Revolutionary stood half open, so that though we did not go inside, I nevertheless saw its ancient mechanisms; frightful, yet less hideous to me than the gleaming but far older things in Baldanders’s castle.

Entering the oubliette meant returning to something I had, from the time I left for Thrax, assumed gone forever. Yet the metal corridors with their long rows of doors were unchanged, and when I peered through the tiny windows that pierced those doors I saw familiar faces, the faces of men and women I had fed and guarded as a journeyman.

“You are pale. Autarch,” Master Palaemon said. “I feel your hand tremble.” (I was supporting him a little with one hand on his arm.)

“You know that our memories never fade,” I said. “For us the Chatelaine Thecla still sits in one of these cells, and the Journeyman Severian in another.”

“I had forgotten. Yes, it must be terrible for you. I was going to take you to the Chatelaine’s old one, but perhaps you would rather not see it.”

I insisted that we visit it; but when we arrived, there was a new client inside, and the door was locked. I had Master Palaemon call the brother on duty to let us in, then stood for a moment looking at the cramped bed and the tiny table. At last I noticed the client, who sat upon the single chair, with wide eyes and an indescribable expression blended of hope and wonder. I asked him if he knew me.