The Citadel of the Autarch by Gene Wolfe Read Free Book Online Page B

the same, anybody can see it isn't true—people don't get cut up the way you are except where the fighting is. You were hit by rock splinters.
    That's what happened to you, and the Pelerine who spoke to us the first night we were here saw that right away. So I think you've been north longer than you'll admit, and maybe longer than you think yourself. If you've killed a lot of people, it might be nice for you to believe you have a way to bring them back."
    I tried to grin at him. "And where does that leave you?"
    "Where I am now. I'm not trying to say I owe you nothing. I had fever, and you found me. Maybe I was delirious. I think it's more Wolfe,_Gene_-_Book_of_the_New_Sun_4_-_The_Citadel_of_the_Autarch likely I was unconscious, and that let you think I was dead. If you hadn't brought me here, I probably would have died."
    He started to stand up; I stopped him with a hand on his arm. "There are some things I should tell you before you go," I said. "About yourself."
    "You said you didn't know who I was."
    I shook my head. "I didn't say that, not really. I said I found you in a wood two days ago. In the sense you mean, I don't know who you are—but in another sense I think I may. I think you're two people, and that I know one of them."
    "Nobody is two people."
    "I am. I'm two people already. Perhaps more people are two than we know. The first thing I want to tell you is much simpler, though.
    Now listen." I gave him detailed directions for finding the wood again, and when I was certain he understood them, I said, "Your pack is probably still there, witthe straps cut, so if you find the place you won't mistake it. There was a letter in your pack. I pulled it out and read a part of it. It didn't carry the name of the person you were writing to, but if you had finished it and were just waiting for a chance to send it off, it should have at least a part of your name at the end. I put it on the ground and it blew a little and caught against a tree. It may still be possible for you to find it."
    His face had tightened. "You shouldn't have read it, and you shouldn't have thrown it away."
    "I thought you were dead, remember? Anyway, a good deal was going on at the time, mostly inside my head. Perhaps I was getting Wolfe,_Gene_-_Book_of_the_New_Sun_4_-_The_Citadel_of_the_Autarch feverish—I don't know. Now here's the other part. You won't believe me, but it may be important that you listen. Will you hear me out?"
    He nodded.
    "Good. Have you heard of the mirrors of Father Inire? Do you know how they work?"
    "I've heard of Father Inire's Mirror, but I couldn't tell you where I heard about it. You're supposed to be able to step into it, like you'd step into a doorway, and step out on a star. I don't think it's real."
    "The mirrors are real. I've seen them. Up until now I always thought of them in much the same way you did—as if they were a ship, but much faster. Now I'm not nearly so sure. Anyway, a certain friend of mine stepped between those mirrors and vanished. I was watching him. It was no trick and no superstition; he went wherever the mirrors take you. He went because he loved a certain woman, and he wasn't a whole man. Do you understand?"
    "He'd had an accident?"
    "An accident had had him, but never mind that. He told me he would come back. He said, 'I will come back for her when I have been repaired, when I am sane and whole.' I didn't quite know what to think when he said that, but now I believe he has come. It was I who revived you, and I had been wishing for his return—perhaps that had something to do with it."
    There was a pause. The soldier looked down at the trampled soil on which the cots had been set, then up again at me. "Possibly whenever a man loses his friend and gets another, he feels the old Wolfe,_Gene_-_Book_of_the_New_Sun_4_-_The_Citadel_of_the_Autarch friend is with him again."
    "Jonas—that was his name—had a habit of speech. Whenever he had to say something unpleasant, he softened it, made a joke of