The Arms of the Autarch and the Ships of the Hierodules
Nowhere are the manuscripts of
The Book of the New Sun
more obscure than in their treatment of weapons and military organization.
The confusion concerning the equipment of Severian's allies and adversaries appears to derive from two sources, of which the first is his marked tendency to label every variation in design or purpose with a separate name. In translating these, I have endeavored to bear in mind the radical meaning of the words employed as well as what I take to be the appearance and function of the weapons themselves. Thus
falchion, fuscina,
and many others. At one point I have put the
athame,
the warlock's sword, into Agia's hands.
The second source of difficulty seems to be that three quite different gradations of technology are involved. The lowest of these could be termed the smith level. The arms produced by it appear to consist of swords, knives, axes, and pikes, such as might have been forged by any skilled metalworker of, say, the fifteenth century. These appear to be readily obtained by the average citizen and to represent the technological ability of the society as a whole.
The second gradation might be called the Urth level. The long cavalry weapons I have chosen to call
lances, conti,
and so on undoubtedly belong to this group, as do the “spears” with which the hastarii menaced Severian outside the door of the antechamber and other arms used by infantry. How widely available such weapons were is not clear from the text, which at one point speaks of “arrows” and “long-shafted khetens” being offered for sale in Nessus. It seems certain that Guasacht's irregulars were issued their conti before battle and that these were collected and stored somewhere (possibly in his tent) afterward. Perhaps it should be noted that small arms were issued and collected in this way in the navies of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, although cutlasses and firearms could be freely purchased ashore. The arbalests used by Agia's assassins outside the mine are surely what I have called Urth weapons, but it is likely these men were deserters.
The Urth weapons, then, appear to represent the highest technology to be found on the planet, and perhaps in its solar system. How efficient they would be in comparison with our own arms is difficult to say. Armor appears to be not wholly ineffective against them, but precisely this is true with regard to our rifles, carbines, and submachine guns.
The third gradation I would call the stellar level. The pistol given Thea by Vodalus and the one given Ouen by Severian are unquestionably stellar weapons, but about many other arms mentioned in the manuscript we cannot be so sure. Some, or even all, of the artillery used in the mountain war may be stellar. The
fusils
and
jezails
carried by special troops on both sides may or may not belong to this gradation, though I am inclined to think they do.
It seems fairly clear that stellar weapons could not be produced on Urth and had to be obtained from the Hierodules at great cost. An interesting questionâto which I can offer no certain answerâconcerns the goods given in exchange. The Urth of the old sun seems, by our standards, destitute of raw materials; when Severian speaks of mining, he appears to mean what we should call archaeological pillaging, and the new continents said (in Dr. Talos's play) to be ready to rise with the coming of the New Sun have among their attractions “gold, silver,
iron,
and
copper ⦔
(Italics added.) Slavesâsome slavery certainly exists in Severian's societyâfurs, meat and other food-stuffs, and labor-intensive items such as handmade jewelry would appear to be among the possibilities.
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We would like to know more about almost everything mentioned in these manuscripts; but most of all, certainly, we would like to know more about the ships that sail between the stars, commanded by the Hierodules but sometimes crewed by human beings. (Two of the most enigmatic figures in the manuscripts, Jonas and Hethor, seem once to have been such crewmen.) But here the translater is forced against one of the most maddening of all his difficultiesâSeverian's failure to distinguish clearly between space-going and ocean-going craft.
Irritating though it is, it seems quite natural, given his circumstances. If a distant continent is as remote as the moon, then the moon is no more remote than a distant continent. Furthermore, the star-traveling ships appear to be propelled by light pressure on immense sails of metal foil, so that an applied science of masts, cables, and spars is common to ships of both kinds. Presumably, since many skills (and perhaps most of all that of enduring long periods of isolation) would be required equally on both types of craft, crewmen from vessels that would only excite our contempt may sign aboard others whose capabilities would astonish us. One notes that the captain of Severian's lugger shares some of Jonas's habits of speech.
And now, a final comment. In my translations and in these appendixes I have attached to them, I have attempted to eschew all speculations; it seems to me that now, near the close of seven years' labor, I may be permitted one. It is that the ability to traverse hours and aeons possessed by these ships
may be no more than the natural consequence of their ability to penetrate interstellar and even intergalactic space, and to escape the death throes of the universe; and that to travel thus in time may not be so complex and difficult an affair as we are prone to suppose. It is possible that from the beginning Severian had some presentiment of his future.
G. W.
Novels
The Fifth Head of Cerberus
The Devil in a Forest
Peace
Free Live Free
The Urth of the New Sun
Soldier of the Mist
Soldier of Arete
There are Doors
Castleview
Pandora by Holly Hollander
Â
Novellas
The Death of Doctor Island
Seven American Nights
Â
Collections
Endangered Species
Storeys from the Old Hotel
Castle of Days
Â
The Book of the New Sun
Shadow and Claw
(comprising
The Shadow of the Torturer
and
The Claw of the Conciliator)
Sword and Citadel
(comprising
The Sword of the Lictor
and
The Citadel of the Autarch
)
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The Book of the Long Sun
Nightside the Long Sun
Lake of the Long Sun
Caldé of the Long Sun
Exodus from the Long Sun
Gene Wolfe was born in New York City and raised in Houston, Texas. He spent two and a half years at Texas A&M, then dropped out and was drafted. He was awarded the Combat Infantry Badge during the Korean War; afterward he attended the University of Houston on the GI Bill, earning a degree in mechanical engineering. His engineering career culminated in the editorship of the trade journal
Plant Engineering,
which he retained until his retirement in 1984.
He first came to prominence as a science fiction writer as the author of
The Fifth Head of Cerberus
(1972); in 1973
The Death of Doctor Island
won a Nebula for the best novella. His novel
Peace
won the Chicago Foundation for Literature Award in 1977; his poem “The Computer Iterates the Greater Trumps” was awarded the Rhysling for science-fiction poetry.
His four-volume
The Book of the New
Son quickly established itself as a classic in the field. The first volume,
The Shadow of the Torturer
(1980), won the World Fantasy Award and the British SF Association Award; the second,
The Claw of the Conciliator
(1981), won the Nebula Award; the third,
The Sword of the Lictor
(1982), won the Locus Award; the fourth,
The Citadel of the Autarch
(1983), won the John W. Campbell Memorial Award and the Prix Apollo. A coda to the sequence,
The Urth of the New Sun,
appeared in 1987.
Other novels include
Operation Ares
(1970);
The Devil in a Forest
(1976);
Free Live Free
(1984);
Soldier in the Mist
(1986) and
Soldier of Arete
(1989);
There Are Doors
(1988);
Pandora by Holly Hollander
(1990); and
Castleview
(1990). His most recent work is the four-volume
The Book of the Long Sun,
comprising
Nightside the Long Sun
(1993),
Lake of the Long Sun
(1994),
Caldé of the Long Sun
(1994), and the forthcoming
Exodus from the Long Sun.
His 1988 short story collection
Storeys from the Old Hotel
won the World Fantasy Award; other collections include
The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories
(1980),
Endangered Species
(1989), and
Castle of Days
(which also includes essays).
This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to real people or events is purely coincidental.
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SWORD AND CITADEL
This is an omnibus edition consisting of the novels:
The Sword of the Lictor
, copyright © 1981 by Gene Wolfe; and
The Citadel of the Autarch,
copyright © 1982 by Gene Wolfe.
All rights reserved.
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An Orb Edition
Published by Tom Doherty Associates, Inc.
175 Fifth Avenue
New York, N.Y. 10010
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eISBN 9781429966313
First eBook Edition : August 2011
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