{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/1553", "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it. Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.", "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'" }, "archive": "urth", "thread": { "id": 1553, "subject": "Meeting Father Inire", "messages": 3, "voices": 3, "first": "1999-04-20T21:24:27+00:00", "last": "1999-04-21T06:44:37+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Dan Rabin", "address": "danrabin at a.crl.com" }, "date": "1999-04-20T21:24:27+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Meeting Father Inire", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Robert Borski writes:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "As with the oft-mentioned Fechin, we never actually meet\nInire. He's always offstage or discussed in anecdotal fashion by others\nwho've met him (Thecla, Odilio, Hildegrin).\n\nThen again, given the importance of masks in New Sun..." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "From _Citadel_, ch. 28 \"On the March\":" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "For guides our column had three savages: a pair of young men who might have\nbeen brothers or even twins, and a much older one, twisted, I thought, by\ndeformites as well as age, who perpetually wore a grotesque mask. Though\nthe first two were younger and the third much older, all three of them\nrecalled to me the naked man I had once seen in the Jungle Garden. They\nwere as naked as he and had the same dark, metallic-looking skina and\nstraight hair. [...]\n....and one night when my guards were chattering among themselves and I sat\ncrouched over our little fire, I saw the old guide (his bent figure and the\nimpression of an immense head conferred by his mask were unmistakable)\napproach this palanquin [holding the Old Autarch (DR)] and slip beneath it.\nSome time passed before he scuttled away. This old man was said to be an\n_uturuncu_, a shaman capable of assuming the form of a tiger." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "The bent figure meets descriptions of Father Inire elsewhere. Father Inire\nis a Hierodule; Hierodules wear masks. Father Inire is in the habit of\nconferring with the Autarch.\n\nIn _Citadel_, ch. 35 \"Father Inire's Letter\", Rudesind mentions that his\nmaster (Father Inire) \"went away north\", but is hesitant to dwell on the\npoint. In Severian's reply, he says, \"We even know that your master was\nwith us in the jungles of the north, where he tried until it was too late\nto rescue my predecessor\". Inire's letter itself alludes to recent events\nwith Agia and Vodalus that imply that he was nearby.\n\nSo, Robert is wrong: we *do* actually meet Father Inire in the main\nnarrative, and Robert is right, masks have to do with the matter.\n\nToo bad we don't get to see him do the tiger trick, though...\n\n -- Dan Rabin" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Nicholas Gevers", "address": "potto at webmail.co.za" }, "date": "1999-04-21T06:44:37+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Re: Meeting Father Inire", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I very much like Dan Rabin's reading of the uturuncu as Inire. But I\nthink we encounter Inire directly much earlier, in Chapter XXI of\nCLAW: \"[The Autarch} clapped his hands, and a bent little man slipped\nsilently into the room. He wore a cowled habit like a cenobite's. The\nAutarch spoke to him, something I was too distracted to understand.\"\nOf course, when Sev doesn't listen, we know a significant conversation\nis taking place just beyond reach. The \"cowled servitor\" then guides\nSev through \"many leagues of the contrived corridors of the Second\nHouse\" to the Vatic Fountain - a confidential route to a highly\nsignificant location. The servitor is no more a servitor than the\nAutarch is a low-level official at the House Absolute.\n//--------------------------------------\nNicholas Gevers\npotto at webmail.co.za" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Robert Borski", "address": "rborski at coredcs.com" }, "date": "1999-04-21T02:36:55+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Re: Meeting Father Inire", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "\n\nCongratulations, Dan! You're absolutely right, of course--the shaman is\nFather Inire, although, as I very clearly state, he's not in his Inire\nguise--so we don't really meet him as Inire, but as Inire masked. It's also\nthe uturuncu/Inire that provides Appian (who's already been searched) with\nthe cutting instrument Sev later uses to access his predecessor's\nskull-encased brain. Also, I believe that somewhere--can't find the\nreference--Father Inire's apemen, the guardians of Saltus, are described as\n*tiger* firefly men. Still and all, it's nice to know at least one other\nperson shares my opinion.\n\nMy challenge to you, however: can you find at least one more instance where\nInire is met in disguise? (There are actually several.) I'll even advance\nyou one, and then leave a clue or two. In Chapter XXI of CLAW\n(\"Hydromancy\"), after being shown the Book of Mirrors by Appian, Sev asks\nfor directions to the Green Room, so he can rendezvous with Dorcas, Dr.\nTalos, et al. He's told by Appian (who doesn't realize Sev is on to his\nreal identity) he must take the autarch's life if the autarch ever comes\nnear Thrax. Writes Sev: \"His tone betrayed him as much as Thecla's\nthoughts. I wanted to kneel, but he clapped his hands, and a bent little\nman slipped silently into the room. He wore a cowled habit like a\ncenobite's. The Autarch spoke to him, something I was too distracted to\nunderstand.\" The cowled figure--who I submit is Father Inire, and may be\neven addressed as such by Appian--then shows Sev to the Vatic Fountain. \n\nNow for the clues I mentioned. Notice that the uturuncu carries \"a staff\ncrooked as himself, topped with the dried head of a monkey.\" Who else\ncarries a similar staff? Moreover, this staff-carrier has a mythic\nname--which makes him an alien. I also mentioned him in a post not that\nvery long ago. (Think younger, earlier--a herald.)\n\n((All answers to the above and more will be covered in the longest essay of\nUNDINES, \"Masks.\"))\n\nRobert Borski" } ] } ] }