Subject: (urth) The horror at Saltus

From: Robert Borski <rborski at coredcs.com>
Date: Tue, 13 Oct 1998 16:44:42 +0000

This one's for alga, because I miss her.

At the ridotto being held by Abdiesus, Cyriaca, on her way to seducing
Severian, relates a longish tale about the Ages of Myth and Monarch
respectively (SWORD, Chap. 6). I'm going to skip most of it, but you should
probably read the chapter in its entirety. At any rate, to pick up the
story near the end: "When morning came, [the autarch of the time] ordered
that the torches not be kindled, but that there should be a great vault
built to house all the volumes and scrolls the white-robed men had
gathered. For he thought that if the new empire he had planned should fail
him at last, he would retire to that vault and enter the worlds that, in
imitation of the ancients, he was determined to cast aside.

"His empire did fail him, as it had to...But he did not retire as he had
planned into that vault and the curtain wall he had caused to be built
around it, for when once the wild things have been put behind a man for
good and all, they are trap-wise and cannot be recaptured.

"Nevertheless, it is said that before all he gathered was sealed away, he
set a guardian over it. And when that guardian's time on Urth was done, he
found another, and he another, so that they continue ever faithful to the
demands of that autarch..."

Cyriaca, earlier, has called this vault "the lost archives" and when she
finishes her tale, Sev says, "It is a wonderful story. I think that perhaps
*I know more of it than you, but I have never heard* it before."

This is because he's just realized the Claw has reawakened the guardian of
the lost archives.

Still not good enough? Well, when Sev loops back in time and becomes the
Conciliator in URTH, he's told that the Saltus mine is brand new. And when
he's atop Mount Typhon earlier in SWORD, he can't get over how unrutted the
roads are, despite the heavy traffic they would have had to bear; they're
also too steep in places for regular carts and barrows. And while Cyriaca
never identifies the monarch of the tale, it's fairly obvious he's
Typhon--so we can pretty much guess the nature of the guardian.

In other words, whichever one of you first guessed taluses, you're right.

--------------------------------------------------------- 

Now for a mechanical horror of another sort. Have any of you had any
problems with your pc when you spend a lot of time zipping about the
archives for this list in a single session? Because this gives both of my
computers fits, and they each have almost nothing in common. Let me know if
you do or have any thoughts on why this may be occuring. Thanks.

Robert Borski

*More Wolfe info & archive of this list at http://www.urth.net/urth/