It was stated that "when [Merryn and Severian] meet in Sword, they meet as strangers." I don't think that's right. The first recorded confrontation should be at the end of Claw of the Conciliator during the Miracle of Apu Punchau, right? On Page 399 of Shadow and Claw (Chapter XXX: The Badger Again)Severian describes how he met the old woman as an apprentice, and she had with her an aide who was the same as Merryn, but that the face of neither had changed over time, so that there may be only two witches in the world. So it appears as though Merryn doesn't change much in this account given in Claw, or it is a different girl who looks exactly like Merryn. The odd thing is that he says that the young one may not be alive anymore: "The young one (if she is still living)" (P 400) And I was sure that somewhere Sev and Merryn indicated that they knew each other from before, but that it wasn't in Severian's manuscript. I think it is one of those scenes that Gene cut out in revising New Sun, for he claims that the bulk of his revision of the work was in trimming out excess stuff. I don't know. Why is Merryn the same age since Severian's youth? Is the one showing up in Return to the Whorl a little girl?
Marc Aramini