Abaia and the undines

David Duffy · 11 Dec 2008, 20:45 · from 2008-December.txt.gz

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From: David.Duffy at qimr.edu.au (David Duffy)
Date: Fri, 12 Dec 2008 06:45:20 +1000 (EST)
Subject: (urth) Abaia and the undines
In-Reply-To: <49417A05.3070301 at verizon.net>
References: <mailman.41299.1229024757.21489.urth-urth.net at lists.urth.net>
	<49417A05.3070301 at verizon.net>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.64.0812120642491.25654 at orpheus.qimr.edu.au>

On Thu, 11 Dec 2008, David Stockhoff wrote:

> 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.

He looks younger/less damaged, I assume.

David Duffy.

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