At last I climbed cautiously up and thrust my head above the level of the ground. I was not (as I had supposed) in the village I had seen; the windings of the maze had carried me beyond it to some secret exit. The great, silent trees stood closer here, and the light that had appeared so brilliant to me was the filtered green shade of their leaves. I emerged and found that I had left a hole between two roots, a place so obscure that I might have walked within a pace of it and yet not seen it. If I could, I would have blocked it with some weight to prevent or at least delay the escape of the creature that hunted me; but there was no stone or other object to hand that would serve such a purpose.

By the old trick of observing the slope of the ground and in so far as possible always walking downhill, I soon discovered a small stream. There was a little open sky above it, and as nearly as I could judge, the day appeared eight or nine watches over. Guessing that the village would not lie far from the source of the good water I had found, I soon found that as well. Wrapped in my fuligin cloak and standing in the deepest shade, I observed it for some time. Once a man — not painted like the two who had stopped us on the path — crossed the clearing. Once another left the suspended hut, went to the spring and drank, then returned to the hut.

It grew darker, and the strange village woke. A dozen men left the suspended hut and began to pile wood in the center of the clearing. Three more, robed and bearing forked staffs, emerged from the house of the tree. Still others, who must have been watching the jungle paths, slipped out of the shadows soon after the fire was kindled and spread a cloth before it.

One of the robed men stood with his back to the fire while the other two crouched at his feet; there was something extraordinary about them all, but I was reminded of the bearing of exultants, rather than of the Hierodules I had seen in the gardens of the House Absolute — it was the carriage that the consciousness of leadership confers, even as it severs the leader from common humanity. Painted and unpainted men sat cross-legged on the ground, facing the three. I heard the murmur of voices and the strong speech of the standing man, but I was too far to understand what was said. After a time the crouching men rose. One opened his robe like a tent, and Becan’s son, whom I had made my own, stepped forth. The other produced Terminus Est in the same manner and drew her, displaying her bright blade and the black opal in her hilt to the crowd. Then one of the painted men rose, came some distance toward me (so that I feared he was about to see me, though I had covered my face with my mask) and lifted a door set into the ground. Soon afterward he emerged from another nearer the fire, and moving somewhat more rapidly went to the robed men to report.

There could be little doubt of what he was saying. I squared my shoulders and walked into the firelight. “I am not there,” I said. “I am here.”

There was an inrush of many breaths, and though I knew I might soon die, it was good to hear.

The midmost of the robed men said, “As you see, you cannot escape us. You were free, yet we drew you back.” It was the voice that had interrogated me in my underground cell.

I said, “If you have walked far in The Way, you know you have less authority over me than the ignorant may believe.” (It is not difficult to ape the way such people talk, for it is itself an aping of the speech of ascetics, and such priestesses as the Pelerines.) “You stole my son, who is also son to The Beast Who Speaks, as you must know by this time if you have much questioned him. To gain his return, I surrendered my sword to your slaves, and for a time submitted myself to you. I will take it up again now.”

There is a place in the shoulder that, when pressed firmly with the thumb, paralyzes the entire arm. I laid my hand on the shoulder of the robed man who held Terminus Est, and he dropped it at my feet. With more presence of mind than I would have credited in a child, the boy Severian picked it up and handed it to me. The midmost robed man lifted his staff and shouted, “Arms!” and his followers rose as one man. Many had the talons I have described, and many of the others drew knives.

I fastened Terminus Est over my shoulder in her accustomed place and said, “You surely do not suppose that I require this ancient sword as a weapon? She has higher properties, as you of all people should know.”

The robed man who had produced little Severian said hurriedly, “So Abundantius has just told us.” The other man was still rubbing his arm.

I looked at the midmost robed man, who was clearly the one referred to. His eyes were clever, and as hard as stones. “Abundantius is wise,” I said. I was trying to think of some way in which I could kill him without drawing the others down on us. “He knows too, I think, of the curse that afflicts those who harm the person of a magus.”

“You are a magus then,” Abundantius said.

“I, who took the archon’s prey from out of his hands and passed invisible through the midst of his army? Yes, I have been called so.”

“Prove then that you are a magus and we will hail you as a brother. But if you fail the test or refuse it — we are many, and you have but one sword.”

“I will fail no fair assay,” I said. “Though neither you nor your followers have authority to make one.”

He was too clever to be drawn into such a debate. “The test is known to all here except yourself, and known, too, to be just. Everyone you see about you has succeeded in it, or hopes to.”

They took me to a hall I had not seen before, a place substantially built of logs, and hidden among the trees. It had no windows, and only a single entrance. When torches were carried inside, I saw that its one chamber was unfurnished but for a carpet of woven grass, and so long in proportion to its width that it seemed almost a corridor.

Abundantius said, “Here you will have your combat with Decuman.” He indicated the man whose arm I had numbed, who was, perhaps, a trifle surprised at being thus singled out. “You bested him by the fire. Now he must best you, if he can. You may sit here, nearest the door, so that you may be assured we cannot enter to give him aid. He will sit at the farther end. You shall not approach one another, or touch one another as you touched him by the fire. You must weave your spells, and in the morning we shall come to see who has mastered.”

Taking little Severian by the hand, I led him to the blind end of that dark place. “I’ll sit here,” I said. “I have every confidence that you will not come to Decuman’s aid, but you have no way of knowing whether I have confederates in the jungle outside. You have offered to trust me, and so I shall trust you.”

“It would be better,” Abundantius said, “if you were to leave the child in our keeping.”

I shook my head. “I must have him with me. He is mine, and when you robbed me of him on the path, you robbed me too of half my power. I will not be separated from him again.”

After a moment, Abundantius nodded. “As you wish. We but desired that he might come to no harm:”

“No harm will come to him,” I said.

There were iron brackets on the walls, and four of the naked men thrust their torches into them before they left. Decuman seated himself cross-legged near the door, his staff upon his lap. I sat too, and drew the boy to me. “I’m scared,” he said; he buried his little face in my cloak.

“You have every right to be. The past three days have been bad ones for you.”

Decuman had begun a slow, rhythmic chant.

“Little Severian, I want you to tell me what happened to you on the path. I looked around and you were gone.”

It took some comforting and coaxing, but at last his sobs ceased. “They came out — the three-colored men with claws, and I was afraid and ran away.”