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“Don’t you see? The Hierarchs and their Hierodules — and the Hierogrammates too — have been trying to let us become what we were. What we can be. Isn’t that right, my lady? That’s their justice, their whole reason for being. They bring us through the pain we brought them through. And—” I could not complete the thought. The words had become iron on my lips.
Apheta said, “You in turn will make us go through what you did. I think you understand. But you” — she looked to Gu
Apheta turned back to me. “I told you that you had brought unwelcome news. The news was that we might indeed lose the game you and I spoke of.”
I said, “I have three questions, my lady. Let me ask them and I’ll go, if you’ll let me.”
She nodded.
“How is it that Tzadkiel could say my examination was over, when the aquastors had to fight and die to save me?”
“The aquastors did not die,” Apheta told me. “They live in you. As for Tzadkiel, he spoke as he did because it was the truth. He had examined the future and found the chance high that you would bring a fresh sun to your Urth, and thus save that strand of your race, so that it might produce ours in your Briahtic universe. It was on that examination that everything hinged; it was over, and the result favorable to you.”
Gu
“My second question. Tzadkiel said also that my trial could not be just, and that he would make what reparation he could. You have said that he is truthful. Did my trial differ from my examination? How was it unjust?”
Apheta’s voice seemed no more than a sigh. “It is easy for those who need not judge, or judging need not toil for justice, to complain of inequity and talk of impartiality. When one must actually judge, as Tzadkiel does, he finds he ca
“Us, you mean!” Gu
“Yes, you shipmen. And he gave you, Autarch, those who had reason to hate you for your defenders. That was just to the shipmen, but not to you.”
“I have deserved punishment often before, and not received it.”
Apheta nodded. “For that reason certain of the scenes you saw, or at least might have seen had you troubled to look, were made to appear in the narrow passage that rings this room. Some recalled your duty. Others were meant to show you that you yourself had often meted out the harshest justice. Do you see now why you were chosen?”
“A torturer, to save the world? Yes.”
“Take your head out of your hands. It is enough that you and this poor woman can scarcely hear me. At least permit me to hear you. You have asked the three questions you spoke of. Have you more?”
“Many. I saw Dana. And Guasacht and Erblon. Had they reason to hate me?”
“I do not know,” Apheta whispered. “You must ask Tzadkiel, or those who assisted him. Or ask yourself.”
“I suppose they had. I would have displaced Erblon if I could. As Autarch, I could have promoted Guasacht, but I did not; and I never tned to find Dana after the battle. There were so many other things — so many important things — to do. I see why you called me a monster.”
Gu
I shrugged. “Yet all of them fought for Urth, and so did Gu
“Not for the Urth you have known,” Apheta whispered. “For a New Urth many will never see, except through your eyes and the eyes of others who recall them. Have you more questions?”
Gu
I sensed that she was ashamed for them. I said, “Their ru
“They will be returned to the ship,” Apheta told her.
“What about Severian and me?”
I said, “They’ll try to kill us on the voyage home, Gu
Apheta shook her head. “You will be returned to the ship indeed, but by a different way. Believe me, the problem will not arise.”
Dark-robed Hierarchs came down the aisle with travails, gathering the dead. “They will be interred in the grounds of this building,” Apheta whispered. “Have we reached your last question, Autarch?”
“Nearly. But look there. One of those bodies belongs to one of your own people, to Tzadkiel’s son.”
“He will lie here as well, with those who fell with him.”
“But was it intended so? Did his father plan that too?”
“That he should die? No. But that he should risk death. What right would we have to risk your life and the lives of so many others if we would bear no risk ourselves? Tzadkiel risked death with you on the ship. Venant here.”
“He knew what would happen?”
“Do you mean Tzadkiel or Venant? Venant surely did not know what would happen, yet he knew what might happen, and he went forth to save our race, as others have gone forth to save theirs. For Tzadkiel I ca
“You told me each of the isles judges a galaxy. Are we — is Urth — important to you after all?”
Apheta rose, smoothing her white gown. Her floating hair, which had seemed unca
Gu
We did, but she walked only a step or two to the spot where Tzadkiel’s Seat of Justice had stood. “Severian, take her hand,” she told me. She herself took my free hand, and Gu
The stone on which we stood sank under us. In an instant the floor of the Chamber of Examination closed above our heads. We dropped, or so it seemed, into a vast pit filled with harsh yellow light, a pit a thousand times wider than the square of stone. Its sides were mighty mechanisms of green and silver metals, before which men and women hovered and darted like so many flies, and across which titanic scarabs of blue and gold clambered like ants.