Click to Subscribe
‘She’
Impressions of Chapter 14 of Gene Wolfe’s Shadow of the Torturer
© 2019 James LaFond
APR/1/19
Reading from pages 90-94 of Shadow & Claw
Terminus Est
“…when a gift is deserved, it is not a gift but a payment. The only true gifts are such as you now receive.”
Master Palaemon, scholar of the two guild masters, liked Severian for his scholarship and gifts him his very own executioner’s sword, presented as a female mate to the male wielder, with an edge for beheading men and one for beheading women, and a beautiful inscription, “This is the line of division.”
The sword is also likened to a snake who writhes when she is raised, due to the fact that the blade is impregnated with some kind of heavy liquid metal. It is as large as a staff in its scabbard and will be the torturer’s badge of office, talisman and burden. Throughout the story Severian panics whenever separated from his sword and its possession puts him in peril as often as its service rescues him from it.
Soon in trouble with authorities on the bridge so large it is treated as a military municipality, for fear of causing a riot over his antique costume, Severian is regaled by a minor official about the art of ruling millions:
“Disturbances cannot be tolerated because disturbances cannot be extinguished.”
The author then inserts a humorous piece of workplace violence that clues the reader in to the fact that the torturers have a martial skill set.
Diction of note
-hydrargyrum, a liquid metal heavier than iron
-quaesitor, a judicial official
-Moira,
-paterissa,
-flambeaux
-externs
-lochage
Fat Girl Dancing
‘The Witches, Our Sisters’
before the rising sun
‘The World-River Uroboros’
eBook
your trojan whorse
eBook
thriving in bad places
eBook
within leviathan’s craw
eBook
all-power-fighting
eBook
hate
eBook
cracker-boy
eBook
taboo you
eBook
logic of steel
eBook
masculine axis
eBook
fate
eBook
blue eyed daughter of zeus
eBook
solo boxing
eBook
america the brutal
eBook
into leviathan’s maw
eBook
sons of aryas
eBook
the combat space
eBook
the fighting edge
eBook
beasts of aryas
eBook
winter of a fighting life
eBook
broken dance
eBook
the lesser angels of our nature
eBook
fanatic
eBook
night city
eBook
logic of force
eBook
by the wine dark sea
eBook
advent america
eBook
wife—
eBook
when you're food
eBook
under the god of things
eBook
honor among men
eBook
dark, distant futures
eBook
the sunset saga complete
eBook
on the overton railroad
eBook
book of nightmares
eBook
barbarism versus civilization
eBook
time & cosmos
eBook
predation
eBook
orphan nation
eBook
triumph
eBook
song of the secret gardener
eBook
fiction anthology one
eBook
let the world fend for itself
eBook
z-pill forever
eBook
the greatest boxer
eBook
the year the world took the z-pill
eBook
on combat
eBook
songs of aryas
eBook
menthol rampage
eBook
uncle satan
eBook
ranger?
eBook
the first boxers
eBook
the greatest lie ever sold
eBook
sorcerer!
eBook
son of a lesser god
eBook
the gods of boxing
  Add a new comment below:
Name
Email
Message