Abaia and the undines

David Stockhoff · 11 Dec 2008, 20:37 · from 2008-December.txt.gz

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From: dstockhoff at verizon.net (David Stockhoff)
Date: Thu, 11 Dec 2008 15:37:25 -0500
Subject: (urth) Abaia and the undines
In-Reply-To: <mailman.41299.1229024757.21489.urth-urth.net at lists.urth.net>
References: <mailman.41299.1229024757.21489.urth-urth.net at lists.urth.net>
Message-ID: <49417A05.3070301 at verizon.net>

That makes sense! I thought Juturna was referring to the next Severian's drowning in Gyoll, which would mean there are not 2 (which I have argued against before) but an infinite series of Severians (which is insane). 

But this is better.

Although I still don't understand the corpse in the tomb where Severian played. And now that I understand that he did not move into a new body on the starsailship but was recreated by Tzadkiel, I don't understand why his face was changed when he returned from Yesod. Valeria recognized him for the first time then. 

...I asked the chiliarch whether he had been a junior officer when I sat the Phoenix Throne.
"No, Autarch. I was only a boy."
"Yet clearly you recall me."
"It's my duty to know the House Absolute, Autarch. There are pictures and busts of you in some parts of it."
"They..."
The voice was so weak I scarcely heard it. I turned to make sure it was indeed Valeria who spoke.
"They don't really look as you did. They look the way I thought---"
I waited, wondering.
She waved a hand. It was a weak old woman's gesture. "As I thought you might when you came back to me, back to our family tower in the Old Citadel. They look the way you do now." She laughed, and began to sob.

It couldn't be age. Severian has been gone for weeks or months at most.

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Message: 5
Date: Thu, 11 Dec 2008 12:20:19 -0700
From: "Dave Tallman" <davetallman at msn.com>
Subject: Re: (urth) Abaia and the undines
To: urth at lists.urth.net

I think that Juturna granted him the gift of water-breathing at their
encounter in the throne room. She said saving him from drowning was
something she had not yet done, but would do because he said. Severian
believed that Juturna saved him from drowning in the Gyoll in his youth, but
he was wrong -- the skull he found and placed in the tomb was his own. What
emerged from the Gyoll was his first aquastor.
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