The Shadow of the Torturer

The Shadow of the Torturer by Gene Wolfe Read Free Book Online

Book: The Shadow of the Torturer by Gene Wolfe Read Free Book Online
Authors: Gene Wolfe
had never been. Shaking with cold I crossed to the nearest door and pounded on it. I had the feeling that I might wander forever in the tunnels below without ever finding another way to the surface, and I was resolved to smash one of the windows if need be rather than return that way. There was no sound within, though I beat my fist against the door panels again and again.
    There is really no describing the sensation of being watched. I have heard it called a prickling at the back of the neck, and even a consciousness of eyes that seem to float in darkness, but it is neither - at least, not for me. It is something akin to a sourceless embarrassment, coupled with the feeling that I must not turn around, because to turn will be to appear a fool, answering the promptings of baseless intuition. Eventually, of course, one does. I turned with the vague impression that someone had followed me through the hole at the base of the dial.
    Instead I saw a young woman wrapped in furs standing before a door at the opposite side of the court. I waved to her and began to walk toward her (hurriedly, because I was so cold). She advanced toward me then, and we met on the farther side of the dial. She asked who I was and what I was doing there, and I told her as well as I could. The face circled by her fur hood was exquisitely molded, and the hood itself, and her coat and fur-trimmed boots, were soft-looking and rich, so that I was miserably conscious as I spoke to her of my own patched shirt and trousers and my muddy feet.
    Her name was Valeria. "We do not have your dog here," she said. "You may search, if you do not believe me."
    "I never thought you did. I only want to go back where I belong, to the Matachin Tower, without having to go down there again."
    "You're very brave. I have seen that hole since I was a little girl, but I never dared go in."
    "I'd like to go in," I said. "I mean, inside there."
    She opened the door through which she had come and led me into a tapestried room where stiff, ancient chairs seemed as fixed in their places as the statues in the frozen court. A diminutive fire smoked in a grate against one wall. We went to it, and she took off her coat while I spread my hands to the warmth.
    "Wasn't it cold in the tunnels?"
    "Not as cold as outside. Besides, I was muning and there was no wind."
    "I see. How strange that they should come up in the Atrium of Time." She looked younger than I, but there was an antique quality about her metal-trimmed dress and the shadow of her dark hair that made her seem older than Master Palaemon, a dweller in forgotten yesterdays.
    "Is that what you call it? The Atrium of Time? Because of the dials, I suppose."
    "No, the dials were put there because we call it that. Do you like the dead languages? They have mottoes. 'Lux dei vitae viam monstrat,' that's 'The beam of the New Sun lights the way of life.' 'Felicibus brevis, miseris hora longa.'
    'Men wait long for happiness.' 'Aspice ut aspiciar.' "
    I had to tell her with some shame that I knew no tongue beyond the one we spoke, and little of that.
    Before I left we talked a sentry's watch or more. Her family occupied these towers. They had waited, at first, to leave Urth with the autarch of their era, then had waited because there was nothing left for them but waiting. They had given many castellans to the Citadel, but the last had died generations ago; they were poor now, and their towers were in ruins. Valeria had never gone above the lower floors.
    "Some of the towers were built more strongly than others," I said. "The Witches'
    Keep is decayed inside too."
    "Is there really such a place? My nurse told me of it when I was little - to frighten me - but I thought it was only a tale. There was supposed to be a Tower of Torment too, where all who enter die in agony."
    I told her that, at least, was a fable.
    "The great days of these towers are more fabulous to me," she said. "No one of my blood carries a sword now against the enemies of the

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