# Tomb it may concern (was: The eyes of a clone) *The Urth list — 2 messages, 2 voices, 01 Aug 2005* > 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. --- ### Tony Ellis *01 Aug 2005, 14:48* Apologies for the change of thread, but I wanted to distance this from any discussion of clones. It's Severian's tomb. At the end of Citadel, talking about the 'other Severian', he says that he "became himself a walker of the corridors [of time]. I know now the identity of the man called the Head of Day.... I know too in whose mausoleum I tarried as a child, that little building of stone with its rose, its fountain and its flying ship all graven. I have disturbed my own tomb, and now I go to lie in it." Citadel XXXVIII That last sentence pretty much says it all. After Severian brings the new sun he has both the ability to travel in time and the ability to resurrect, so there's no reason why he couldn't leave tombs all over history. And as someone who has already brought the new sun, there's no reason why he shouldn't include a white fountain in his coat of arms when he does so. (It would be a bizarre thing for Ymar to do, on the other hand.) To answer your point, Roy, about Severian in Apu-Punchau's chamber looking so much like the figure on the funeral bronze... I think that's just to underline the fact that Severian has now reached the age when he's about to start his time-wanderings. --- ### don doggett *01 Aug 2005, 20:30 · in reply to Tony Ellis* > --- Tony Ellis wrote: > > It's Severian's tomb. (followed by relevant support) However, this doesn't preclude it being Ymar's tomb as well. It's a mausoleum which probably holds many bodies. The name Ymar can also mean ox (horn anyone hoof, hide, sinew?) and the ox is symbolic of the Aleph. And Sev doesn't have to be a clone of Ymar to -be- him. Witness how Able and Arnthor are both "King Arthur" in WK. My fancy (and that's all it is) is that they are clones of each other in the most mundane of all ways: they are twins, separated through time. (though I guess being separated through eons of time isn't so mundane after all). Come to think of it, if Horn is a clone of Ymar, (who is undoubtedly, in my mind, Typhon's bastard- there is no other way to legitimize his rule. The conciliator's intercession was far too peripheral to support a successful rebellion) it makes much more sense why Silkhorn would meet Severian. But I'm rampantly speculating now. I'll do that in my own head and save you the eyestrain. Don ---