From: Charles Dye <raster@highfiber.com>
Subject: (urth) Re: Digest urth.v025.n015
Date: Wed, 21 Apr 1999 09:32:02

Dan Rabin <danrabin@a.crl.com> writes:
>
>Robert Borski writes:
>
>>....and one night when my guards were chattering among themselves and I sat
>>crouched over our little fire, I saw the old guide (his bent figure and the
>>impression of an immense head conferred by his mask were unmistakable)
>>approach this palanquin [holding the Old Autarch (DR)] and slip beneath it.
>>Some time passed before he scuttled away.  This old man was said to be an
>>_uturuncu_, a shaman capable of assuming the form of a tiger.
>
>The bent figure meets descriptions of Father Inire elsewhere.  Father Inire
>is a Hierodule; Hierodules wear masks.  Father Inire is in the habit of
>conferring with the Autarch.   [clip]
>
>So, Robert is wrong: we *do* actually meet Father Inire in the main
>narrative, and Robert is right, masks have to do with the matter.

Father Inire might even appear twice.  In Chapter XXI of "Claw", the old
Autarch sends Severian away in the custody of "a bent little man" in a
"cowled habit like a cenobite's."  Severian takes little notice of this
servant, though he is instantly available to the Autarch in the Secret
House.  No mention of a mask in this episode, however.

raster@highfiber.com



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