Gene Wolfe - The Shadow of the Torturer

We entered, and in so doing stepped into such silence as must have been in the morning of the world, before the fathers of men first hammered out brazen gongs, built squealing cartwheels, and splashed Gyoll with striding oars. The air was fragrant, damp, and a trifle warmer than it had been outside. The walls to either side of the tessellated floor were also of glass, but so thick that sight could scarcely penetrate them; leaves and flowers and even soaring trees seen through these walls wavered as though glimpsed through water. On one broad door I read:

“You may enter whichever you like,” an old man said, rising from his chair in a corner. “And as many as you like.”

Agia shook her head. “We won’t have time for more than one or two.”

“Is it your first visit? Newcomers generally enjoy the Garden of Pantomime.” He wore a faded robe that reminded me of something I could not place. I asked if it were the habit of some guild.

“Indeed it is. We are the curator’s—have you never met one of our brotherhood previously?”

“Twice, I believe.”

“There are only a few of us, but our charge is the most important that society boasts—the preservation of all that is gone. Have you seen the Garden of Antiquities?”

“Not yet,” I said.

“You should! If this is your first visit, I would advise you to begin with the Garden of Antiquities. Hundreds and hundreds of extinct plants, including some that have not been seen for tens of millions of years.” Agia said, “That purple creeper you’re so proud of—I met it growing wild on a hillside in Cobblers Common.”

The curator shook his head sadly. “We lost spores, I’m afraid. We know about it… A roof pane broke, and they blew away.” The unhappiness quickly left his lined face, draining away as the troubles of simple people do. He smiled. “It’s likely to do well now. All its enemies are as dead as the disorder’s its leaves cured.”

A rumbling made me turn. Two workmen were wheeling a cart through one of the doorways, and I asked what they were doing.

“That’s the Sand Garden. They’re rebuilding it. Cactuses and yucca—that kind of thing. I’m afraid there’s not much to see there now.” I took Agia by the hand, saying, “Come on, I’d like to look at the work.” She smiled at the curator and gave a half shrug, but followed docilely enough. Sand there was, but no garden. We stepped into a seemingly unlimited space dotted with boulders. More stone rose in cliffs behind us, concealing the wall through which we had come. Just beside the doorway spread one large plant, half bush, half vine, with cruel, curved thorns; I assumed that it was the last of the old flora, not yet removed. There was no other vegetation, and no sign of the restocking the curator had implied except for the twin tracks of the workmen’s cart, winding off among the rocks.

“This isn’t much,” Agia said. “Why don’t you let me take you to the Garden of Delectation?”

“The door is open behind us—why is it I feel I can’t leave this place?” She looked at me sidelong. “Everyone feels like that in these gardens sooner or later, though usually not so quickly. It would be better for you if we stepped outside now.” She said something else as well, something I could not catch. Far off, I seemed to hear surf pounding on the edge of the world. “Wait…” I said. But Agia drew me out into the corridor again. Our feet carried away as much sand as a child might hold in the palm of one hand. “We really don’t have much time left now,” Agia told me. “Let me show you the Garden of Delectation, then we’ll pluck your avern and go.”

“It can’t be much later than midmorning.”

“It’s past noon. We were more than a watch just in the Sand Garden.”

“Now I know you’re lying to me.”

For an instant I saw a flash of anger in her face. Then it was spread over with an unction of philosophical irony, the secretion of her injured self-esteem. I was far stronger than she, and poor though I was, richer; she told herself now (I felt I could almost hear her voice whispering in her own ear) that by accepting such insults she mastered me.

“Severian, you argued and argued, and in the end I had to drag you away. The gardens affect people like that—certain suggestible people. They say the Autarch wants some people to remain in each to accent the reality of the scene, and so his archimage, Father Inire, has invested them with a conjuration. But since you were so drawn to that one, it’s not likely any of the others will affect you so much.”

“I felt I belonged there,” I said. “That I was to meet someone… and that a certain woman was there, nearby, but concealed from sight.”

We were passing another door, on which was written:

When Agia did not answer me, I said, “You tell me the others won’t affect me, so let’s go in here.”

“If we waste our time with that, we won’t get to the Garden of Delectation at all.”

“Only for a moment.” Because she was so determined to take me into the garden she had selected, without seeing any of the others, I had grown frightened of what I might find there, or bring with me.

The heavy door of the Jungle Garden swung toward us, bringing a rush of steaming air. Beyond, the light was dim and green. Lianas half obscured the entrance, and a great tree, rotted to punk, had fallen across the path a few strides away. Its trunk still bore a small sign: Caesalpinia sappan.

“The real jungle is dying in the north as the sun cools,” Agia said. “A man I know says it has been dying so for many centuries. Here, the old jungle stands preserved as it was when the sun was young. Come in. You wanted to see this place.”

I stepped inside. Behind us the door swung shut and vanished.

As Agia had said, the real jungles sickened far to the north. I had never seen them, yet the Jungle Garden made me feel I had. Even now, as I sit at my writing table in the House Absolute, some distant noise brings back to my ears the screams of the magenta-breasted, cynaeous-backed parrot that flapped from tree to tree, watching us with white-rimmed and disapproving eyes—though this is no doubt because my mind was already turned to that haunted place. Through its screaming, a new sound—a new voice—came from some red world still unconquered by thought.

“What is it?” I touched Agia’s arm.

“A smilodon. But he’s far away and only wants to frighten the deer so they’ll blunder into his jaws. He’d run from you and your sword much faster than you could run from him.” Her gown had been torn by a branch, exposing one breast. The incident had left her in no good mood.

“Where does the path lead? And how can the cat be so far off when all this is only one room of the building we saw from the top of the Adamnian Steps?”

“I’ve never gone so deeply into this garden. You were the one who wanted to come.”

“Answer my questions,” I said, and took her by the shoulder. “If this path is like the others—I mean, in the other gardens—it runs in a wide loop that will eventually return us to the door by which we came in. There’s no reason to be afraid.”

“The door vanished when I shut it.”

“Only trickery. Haven’t you seen those pictures in which a pietist exhibits a meditating face when you’re on one side of the room, but stares at you when you cross to the opposite wall? We’ll see the door when we approach it from the other direction.”

A snake with camelian eyes came gliding onto the path, lifted a venomous head to look at us, then slipped away. I heard Agia’s gasp and said, “Who’s afraid now? Will that snake flee you as quickly as you would flee it? Now answer my question about the smilodon. Is it really far away? And if so, how can that be?”