application for the Chatelaine Thecla (The Book of the New Sun)

[forlornexultant]

(( Contains spoilers for the entire Book of the New Sun, including the fifth book that follows the tetralogy. They've been out for ages, but if you had plans to read the books soon, you may want to skip Thecla's application

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[forlornexultant]

I had begun to consider how best the alzabo might be explained, when the man revealed to me his name.

"He would like you then," I said. "He has a liking for persons who share his name, and yours is very like." Conscious of no fellow-feeling, I experienced therefore a renewed awareness of Severian's absence. This awareness brought neither relief nor pain to me. "Likely it's because he had no family. The torturers bring up only the male children born to their prisoners; the children lose their lineage and know nothing of their families."

I recollected myself from this tangential musing.

"But you did not inquire of Severian, rather of the analeptic alzabo. You do not have the look of a weak-stomached man. Know, then, that the alzabo is a savage beast whose favorite repast is human flesh. Its natural intellect is no greater than that of a common dog. When it has eaten of man, however, for a brief time thereafter -- days, perhaps -- it takes on the intellect of its prey. The personality, the voice, all appurtenances of the prey are imprinted within the alzabo's mind. Often it will use these appurtenances to lure subsequent prey..."

I shook my head. I was remembering the family of young Severian, the child whom my Severian had met and adopted -- whose family had been prey to an alzabo in just such a way. I retained the memory of the alzabo using the voice of that child's sister, and then of their father, calling for the others to join him.

"Forgive me. I am prone to digression, not always so badly as I am now." That too was Severian's influence. "I was to tell you of the analept alzabo. From a gland at the base of the beast's skull a secretion may be collected and distilled to make the pharmacon we call by that beast's name. A person who uses this drug may then partake of a corpse and experience the memories of the deceased." I watched his face to see whether he would react with the revulsion I expected. "The very idea is naturally abhorrent to most. The practice when adopted can serve to bind the practitioners more strongly together, in their complicity. Vodalus saw the utility of this practice, and compounded it: his followers, when deceased, would be consumed ritually by those followers still living, to share what useful intelligence they had gleaned, and to cement the loyalty of the living twofold."

I paused.

[methleigh]

Far from being revolted, Severus was fascinated. He doesn't rub his hands together, but it is tempting. "We have a bird called a jobberknoll. At its death it expresses in a single scream, every sound it has heard throughout its entire life. We make from it potions of memory and mental strength. While it is only superficially similar, perhaps they have some otherwise rarely seen quality in common."

He leans forward a little, interested, though he is deeply relieved Voldemort had never heard of this possibility. "So, you might say this is eating death. The dead can live forever. The living never truly lose their loved ones. Except of course that the dead have no volition and the living have no response. When they are promised this, followers of... Vodalus... reach for such gifts? There are men who would do anything for immortality."

[forlornexultant]

"There may be a neurochemical similarity," I assented, shivering, and said no more of the jobberknoll.

"I do not wish to mislead you. What happened when Severian partook of the pharmacon and of my flesh at Vodalus' behest was not typical. The other Vodalarii partook as well. Perhaps they lived my memories, vividly, and then no more. The drug does not make a corpse-eater into an alzabo. Perhaps they felt themselves accompanied by a shadow-Thecla, within their hearts, for a day or more, to fade into a shared memory thereafter. I cannot say, for I did not indwell in them. What happened with Severian was different because Severian is different -- because of what he carried or what he is. He has resurrected the dead ... and in him, I was resurrected."

[methleigh]

"No, I have never encountered a potion which caused a drinker to take on the form of the creature from which the potion was made. Although we do have something called Polyjuice Potion which allows a drinker to become - for an hour only - the form of another person if some part of them - a hair, a fingernail - is included in the potion.

"But the alzabo analeptic - if one consumes it, or a group of people, and then they consume flesh of the dead, the dead then lives in them and they know the memories of the dead, and the dead one lives within them, as part of them. But this is only for a brief time. In Severian's case, you were the... dead one, and you lived within him - as part of him - much longer. And there was a trial at which you were... separated from him that you might speak or act on his behalf. Then you, being separated, lived again truly."

Oh, there is someone who would have just loved that information.

[forlornexultant]

Believing his summary to be the closest I could bring him to understanding what even Severian/myself had not fully understood, I nodded.

"I would say that I lived truly within him, though dependent, and though not always in full consciousness. That is a mercy; there is much I would have preferred not to see, had I a choice; and there is much I did choose not to see. Permit me also to point this out: the trial has only just concluded, or perhaps it is ongoing still. I have not been alone for very long ..."

[methleigh]

"We have something called a 'pensieve.' With this one can enter another's memories, to experience them as he or she experienced them. One is oneself, yet one sees through the other' eye, hears with their ears, can turn and experience all about them where they were. One can do nothing - conciousness but no volition, no ability to choose or act. It is temporary only though - one experiences only that brief time.

It must be disorienting."

[forlornexultant]

I shook my head. "The analeptic alzabo is not like your pensieve. It affects the frontal cells of the brain, in those who partake of the pharmacon; you cannot choose to enter and leave another's memory, to watch passively, as the pensieve sounds to me. Yet you're right, it is disorienting for those who take it. My sister Thea said to Severian ..."

I recalled her words directly, and quoted them to Severus Snape then. It was a wonder to me that Severian's voice did not issue from my mouth to speak this memory I had gleaned only through my unity with Severian. "It is said to be perilous, when one has known the shared in life; memories held together may amaze the mind."

Thea had gone on to say more: Yet I who loved her will risk that confusion, and knowing from your look when you spoke of her that you would desire it as well ... Spitefully I hoped the temporary effects of the alzabo in her -- unenhanced as she was no Conciliator -- had indeed confounded her utterly. She had not loved me enough to rescue me from the Citadel in life, and Vodalus had been able to procure my dead corpus easily enough.

"Have you experience, in your pensieve, of memories in which you yourself were a player?" I wanted to know.

Hufflepuff!

[methleigh]

"One can certainly revisit one's own memories. That is one of its uses - to reexperience an instance that puzzled one, from which one hopes to learn more. It is not entirely passive - one is there. One is free to act, it is just that one has no effect upon what one is watching. After all, it has already occurred. One may not create paradox by changing what has happened."

Severus is curious. Thecla is relating all of this, but she seems so detached, save when she speaks of Severian. Hufflepuff, then. Her primary trait seems to be loyalty, rather than knowledge, ambition or folly.

"Why do you ask?"

[forlornexultant]

I could not readily render an explanation, for the simple reason that the question answered was not exactly the question I had intended to ask. A few breaths' caesura marked my consideration how best I should convey the difference.

"I ask out of interest rather in a phenomenon I cannot name; like an echo, or a mirror of many angles. If a confederate of yours had stored memory in a pensieve, and if you then entered his memory by way of this pensieve, you would be observing yourself at a remove ..."

[methleigh]

"Every time you view something in a pensieve you are at a remove. If it is a memory you are reviewing, you are not in your own mind or head, viewing from your own body. It is as if you were there outside yourself; as if you were your invisible twin companion, perhaps. Though you may watch yourself backwards in time, your original may not watch you after the fact, observing them. If you looked at your memory or a friend's memory of the same event, you would see exactly the same thing, have the same freedom to move about the scene. You would watch yourself speak, but you would not experience yourself thinking. In the same way you would watch him speak, but you would not experience what he was thinking. Your thoughts would be new, with the perspective of time and subsequent events."

[forlornexultant]

I nodded. He touched now upon the subject I had sought. "Tell me of the disorientation attendant upon this twinning, I pray."

[methleigh]

"There is little actual disorientation, once you know what to expect. The first time, there was a little awkwardness realising that though they were there for you, you were not there for them. You realise quite quickly that they may, for instance, pass through you unaware, that they will hear nothing you say. Is that what you meant? Why do you ask?"

[forlornexultant]

"I ask because I seek to understand. I understand you are being patient with me, for which I am not ungrateful, Severus Snape. Perhaps I speak with you too long only because you are Severian's namesake. I will not be offended should you find me dull company." I smiled at him as I would have smiled at Severian when he was young, though this man was old and there was about him something sour.

Hufflepuff!

[methleigh]

Severus is not sure how to react to this admission. He is confused by the expression of gratitude and suspicious that the smile might be somehow condescending. Hastily he explains the new sorting procedure.

"This is a... ritual by which we, of Hogwarts, might meet you, discern your character and vote into which of our Houses we believe you ought to be admitted. The houses are Slytherin, for those of ambition and intrigue, Ravenclaw for those given to intellectual pursuits, Hufflepuff for those who are loyal and true, and Gryffindor for those who engage in bravado and folly. I believe, based on your singular devotion to Severian, that Hufflepuff would suit you best. I myself been Master of Defence Against the Dark Arts and Potions Master. At present I am Head of the Hospital Wing.

Conversation is rarely or never a question of dullness or patience." He frowns slightly and his lips thin with a little pressure.

[forlornexultant]

Singular devotion? I could have choked with laughter, had I permitted myself to begin laughing. I had not chosen to become one with Severian. He was a rope ladder, a skeleton key, a knife. I had intended to use him, and his use being past, I would not have remained with him for long (this we both had long known in our intervening years). That I had cloven unto him was Vodalus' work and the power of the alzabo.

Only because I had died did I live with and within the man I would blithely have left behind. Now he was to me as my own self.

"Are you devoted to your hands and feet? Your lungs or heart? You did not choose them among all the organs in the world. They are simply yours."

[methleigh]

Severus arches an eyebrow at this. "Ah, but I do not mention my lungs, my heart, my hands, my feet at every breath. And even should I lose them, I would certainly not mention it, compare notes with those in similar predicament, dwell on it constantly. I would work rather than speaking, and if I did speak, it would still be of magic and potions."