From: m.driussi@genie.com
Subject: (urth) Inire at the helm
Date: Sat, 11 Jul 98 21:00:00 GMT

raster,

Right, I only meant leaving Inire in charge seems like a dumb idea
if you know in advance you are going to be gone for more than a year.
I'm quite comfortable with Inire running things while Severian was
doing his slave stint in Ascia.  And I can easily believe a similar
set-up for Severian's presumed quick jaunt to Yesod ("a three hour
tour . . . a three hour tour . . .").

Time to point out that memories of the old Autarch's trip (first one
since Ymar) probably gives the itinerary, which then turns out to be
false for Severian's trip.  We can figure that the old Autarch was
returned to his own timeline thirty to ninty days after he had left,
if Severian has a sense that 100 days is getting somewhat late.

But I wonder what became of Inire himself.  And I wonder if he was
advising Valeria, before and/or after she took the throne.

Like you, I see trouble with the breakdown of the real autarchy.  The
way I see it, the autarchy is the pact with Yesod, the legitimacy by
which Yesod recognizes the autarch as the representative of all Urth.
If Valeria ain't a real autarch, and I believe we can all agree
there (just like any man can't call himself Pope and literally be
recognized as the Pope), then the pact is invalidated.  Inire, vizier
to countless autarchs, may be forbidden to deal with non-autarch
usurpers--he might be on-loan from Yesod, like a diplomat, and
subject to recall if the situation deteriorates.  "I'm sorry, but the
U.N. does not recognize your junta as the legitimate government."

The war with Ascia seems to have continued on.  Eata's tale points to
some criticism of Severian's Reign--that Severian was always off
fighting the Ascians (this would be a good cover for that year as a
slave, btw), that Valeria's Reign meant she could mind the domestic
front while her Albertine consort (heh) could make passionate war
with Ascia off at the front.

Re: age of hierodules.  Well Baldanders may be only guessing, but if
so I think he has stumbled into the truth, since O, B, & F say pretty
much the same thing about themselves only (granting the different
flavors of hierodules available): "Ages are aeons to us."  Which
leads Baldanders to make his dog statement.  Later, on the Ship, he
visits their chambers and decides they are uplifted kelpies or
dolphins or what-have-you.  In contrast to reptile Cumaean and wryneck
ibis thoth Inire.

Re: the flying sorcerers and Baldanders.  Good points about the
disjointed nature of dealing with them in their retro-time travel!
Trying to think about how this would work in Severian's court, I long
ago gave up and figured that they just arrived by ship early in his
reign--he recognized them and they recognized him--and they hung out
in realtime for the ten years or so until he got on the Ship, and then
they started tracking backwards in time, never going forwards again
except in realtime.

=mantis=

*More Wolfe info & archive of this list at http://www.urth.net/urth/