The Book of the New Sun

Shadow of the Torturer

The Commonwealth

Severian, an apprentice in the torturers' guild, barely survives a swim in the River Gyoll. On his way back to the Citadel Severian and several other apprentices sneak into a necropolis where Severian first encounters Vodalus, the legendary revolutionary. Vodalus, along with two others, including a woman named Thea, are robbing a grave. Vodalus and his companions are confronted by volunteer guards. Severian saves Vodalus's life, earning his trust and the reward of a single "gold" coin.

Shortly before Severian is elevated to journeyman he encounters and falls in love with Thecla, a beautiful aristocratic prisoner. Thecla's crime is never made clear, though it is ultimately implied that she is imprisoned for political reasons since Thecla's half-sister is Thea, Vodalus's lover. The Autarch (ruler of the Commonwealth) wishes to use Thecla to capture Vodalus. When finally Thecla is put to torture, Severian takes pity on her and helps her commit suicide, by smuggling a knife into her cell, thus breaking his oath to the guild.

Though Severian expects to be tortured and executed, instead the head of the guild is uncharacteristically forgiving and dispatches Severian to Thrax, a distant city which has need of an executioner. Master Palaemon gives Severian a letter of introduction to the archon of the city and Terminus Est, a magnificent executioner's sword. He departs the guild headquarters, traveling through the decaying city of Nessus. He finally comes upon an inn, where he forces the innkeeper to take him in despite being full and is asked to share a room with other boarders. This is where he first meets Baldanders and Dr. Talos, travelling as mountebanks, who invite Severian to join them in a play to be performed the same day. During breakfast, Dr. Talos manages to recruit the waitress, Jolenta, for his play and they set out into the streets. Not intending to participate, Severian parts with the group and stops at a rag shop to purchase a mantle to hide his fuligin cloak (the uniform of his guild, which inspires terror in common folk). The shop is owned by a twin brother and sister, and the brother immediately takes interest in Terminus Est. Severian refuses to sell the sword, shortly after which a masked and armoured hipparch enters the shop and challenges Severian to a duel. Severian is forced to accept, and he departs with the sister, Agia, to secure an avern, a deadly plant that is used for dueling. While on their way, urged by Agia's bet to a passing fiacre, their driver crashes into and destroys the altar of a religious order, where Agia is accused of stealing a precious artifact. After Agia is searched and released, they continue their journey to the Botanic Gardens, a large landmark of Nessus created by the mysterious Father Inire, right hand to the Autarch.

Inside the gardens, Severian falls into a lake used to inter the dead, and while pulling himself out he finds a young woman named Dorcas to have come up from the lake as well. Dazed and confused, the woman follows Severian and Agia. Severian secures the avern and the group proceeds to an inn near the dueling grounds. While eating dinner, Severian receives a mysterious note warning about one of the women. After dinner, Severian meets with his challenger, and though stabbed by the avern he miraculously survives and finds that his challenger was the male owner of the rag shop, Agia's brother. When Severian wakes again, he finds himself to be in a lazaret. After finding Dorcas and identifying himself, he is requested to perform an execution. The prisoner turns out to be his challenger, Agia's brother, whom he executes.

Severian and Dorcas return to their travels and while searching his belongings, Severian finds the Claw of the Conciliator. Apparently Agia stole the Claw from the altar they destroyed and placed it in Severian's belongings knowing that she would be searched. Eventually Severian and Dorcas encounter Dr. Talos, Baldanders and Jolenta, who are almost ready to perform the play they had invited Severian to the morning before. Severian assists in the play, and the next day the group sets out toward the great gate leading out of Nessus. When they are at the gate, there is suddenly a commotion and the narration abruptly ends.

The Claw of the Conciliator

The book continues shortly after the previous installment left off, skipping Severian's journey from the gate of Nessus to the nearby town of Saltus. Having been separated from the rest of the group he was traveling with, Severian pauses his search for them here as he is given an opportunity to practice his art (in this case, execution) on two people. The first was accused of being a servant of Vodalus, a revolutionary leader. As the man is dragged out of his home by a mob, Severian glimpses Agia amidst the crowd, a woman who with her twin brother had formerly tried to swindle and then kill Severian to gain his valuable executioner's sword. (Severian executed the brother at the request of the local authorities.) Realizing she has been sighted, Agia flees and Severian, still in love with her, follows, searching for her at the town fair. Unable to find her, he ends up at a tent containing a man whose skin is green. The green man is held as a slave, and his master makes money off of him, claiming he can answer any question. In answer to Severian's queries as to how he could know everything, the green man tells Severian he is from the future. The green man does not know where Agia can be found, but Severian takes pity on him and gives him a piece of his whetstone so that he can free himself by grinding through his chains, thus recalling his mercy to Thecla, another prisoner, in the first book. Unable to find Agia, Severian returns to town where he later executes a woman accused of being a witch.

Eating dinner with his friend Jonas (whom he met at the gate at Nessus) that evening, he finds a letter he first thinks is from Thecla (but is actually from Agia) asking him to meet her at a nearby cave. In the cave, Severian encounters and barely escapes a group of man-apes. The light from the Claw (a relic he accidentally came into possession of, which had previously been held by a religious order) stops the man-apes' attack, but it also seems to wake a gargantuan unknown creature deep below in the cave, who is only heard and not seen. Severian has little time to ponder this as he escapes, only to be attacked by Agia and her assassins outside the cave. One of the attackers is killed by one of the man-apes, who had its hand cut off by Severian in the battle in the cave. The ape gestures its stump at Severian, wanting him to do something with it, but Severian does not know what. Severian prepares to execute Agia, but, still unable to hate her, lets her go and returns to Saltus, where he and Jonas are kidnapped by Vodalus' gang for having agreed to execute one of its members.

Severian recalls to Vodalus that he saved his life some years past, so Vodalus allows Severian to enter his service. Severian and Jonas attend a midnight dinner with Vodalus, where they consume Thecla's roasted flesh, which, when combined with an alien substance, allows Thecla's memories to live within Severian. Given the task to deliver a message to a servant in the House Absolute, the Autarch's seat of power, Severian and Jonas set off to the north. They are attacked by a flying creature who feeds on the heat and life force of living beings, and escape only by tricking the creature into attacking and killing a nearby soldier instead. Severian feels guilty and, having a suspicion of the healing powers of the Claw, uses it to bring the soldier back to life. They are then captured by guards of the House Absolute and thrown into an antechamber designed to hold prisoners indefinitely. Severian's Claw heals a wound Jonas receives during the night they spend there; then the pair escape some unknown horror using a pass phrase to open a secret door — Severian remembers the phrase using Thecla's memory. Walking the corridors of the House Absolute, Jonas is revealed to be a robot who once crash-landed on earth and is now partly covered by human flesh, and steps into a mirror and disappears, promising to return for Jolenta when he is healed. Severian is lost and eventually encounters the Autarch himself, to whom he swears service, upon being shown a portal to another universe.

Stumbling into the gardens of the House Absolute, Severian is reunited with Dorcas, Dr. Talos, and Baldanders, who are preparing to once again perform the play they put on in the first book. Severian participates again, but the play is cut short when Baldanders flies into a rage and attacks the audience, revealing that aliens are among them. The band is scattered and Severian finds them a distance away the next morning, heading north. Talos and Baldanders part ways with Severian and Dorcas at a crossroad, Severian heading toward Thrax, and the giant and his physician headed toward Lake Diuturna. The waitress Jolenta tries to have Talos take her with him, but he has no more use for her now that the plays are no longer necessary, and Severian is forced to take her. As they head north, Jolenta is attacked by a "blood bat" and becomes ill. It is revealed that she had been scientifically altered by Dr. Talos to be gorgeous and desirable, but is quickly becoming sickly and unattractive. Soon the trio meets an old farmer who tells them they must pass through an enigmatic stone city to get to Thrax. Upon arriving at the ruinous city, Severian sees a pair of witches initiate a dream-like event in which ghostly dancers of the stone town's past fill the area and engage with the witch's servant, who is actually Vodalus's lieutenant Hildegrin. The book ends with Dorcas and Severian emerging from a stupor in the stone town, Jolenta dead, and the witches and Hildegrin gone.

The Sword of the Lictor

Having completed the journey he was sent upon when he was exiled from the Citadel, Severian takes up his position as the Lictor (or Master of Chains) of the city of Thrax. His lover Dorcas falls into depression, in part because of her position as the partner of a reviled and feared figure in a strange city. She is also becoming increasingly upset by her mysterious past, and convinced that she must unravel its secrets, however disturbing they may turn out to be.

Escaping an exotic creature that incinerates things, which seems to have come to Thrax to find him, Severian finds himself again showing mercy to a condemned prisoner and is forced to flee the city. He and Dorcas separate, and he journeys alone into the mountains in search of the Pelerines, whom he believes to be the rightful keepers of the priceless relic which he carries, the Claw of the Conciliator.

On the road, he battles his enemy Agia, and the Alzabo, a beast which acquires the memories of those it consumes, as well as a gang of men who have opted to become as animals. In the wake of this violence, he takes an orphaned boy, little Severian, into his care. They encounter a village of men who claim to be sorcerers, and who possess more power than Severian at first believes. Escaping amidst the threat that yet another dangerous creature has been set upon his trail, Severian discovers a monarch from the past, Typhon, in an ancient city. Typhon tries to manipulate Severian during a complex confrontation. Little Severian is killed.

Continuing his journey, Severian is drawn into a local conflict on the side of a group of islanders being enslaved. He then discovers that his old companions Dr. Talos and Baldanders are the enslavers, and is forced to battle the giant Baldanders.

In the wake of this battle, in which his sword and the Claw are both (at least apparently, in the latter case) destroyed, Severian seeks to digest a series of revelations: about the nature of Baldanders, the nature of the aliens who manipulate events on Urth yet profess to be his friends, and the nature of the Claw which he carried for so long. As he does so, he finds himself approaching the edge of the war in the North.

The Citadel of the Autarch

Severian finds himself wandering around when he first happens upon a dead soldier whom he revives with the Claw. The soldier remains unable to speak as they make their way to the Pelerines camp. In the camp, Severian suffers a fever and is treated along with others injured in the war. While recovering, Severian judges a story telling contest. Before leaving he returns the Claw by putting it in an altar. Outside the church Severian is tasked to visit a friend of the Pelerines in the mountain, to bring him back from the danger of the war to the safety of the camp. Severian arrives to the man's house but, due to time-travel related phenomena, the man disappears as he is led away. Upon returning to the camp, Severian discovers it has been attacked and abandoned. Severian soon finds the new camp where most of those he met during his stay are dead or dying.

Eventually, Severian is drawn into war against armies of the North composed of people known as Ascians. Severian nearly perishes but is rescued by the androgynous spy he met in the House Absolute, the Autarch of the Commonwealth. Severian is nursed back to health and converses with the Autarch about his role in the Commonwealth. They board a flier and while heading out over the war zone, they are shot down. The Autarch is dying and tells Severian to consume the alzabo vial around the his neck and consume his flesh, as Severian is to be the next Autarch. Severian does so and thus he acquires hundreds of consciousnesses that the Autarch once had.

Before the Autarch died, he messaged Vodalus that the Autarch was aboard the flier. Thea and a group of Vodalus' men descend on the crash site and rescue Severian from the Ascians. Severian is held prisoner and is visited by Agia who attempts to kill him once again. He survives and is rescued by the green time traveler whom he rescued earlier in The Claw of the Conciliator. The green man opens a passage through time in which Severian is then visited by an alien who takes the form of Master Malrubius and Triskele. Malrubius tells him that he must one day face a challenge that will either allow man to return to the stars (if he succeeds) or strip him of his manhood, leaving him infertile, and unable to produce an heir (if he fails). Severian realizes that the last Autarch must have failed which feminized him and gave him his androgynous looks.

After the meeting, Severian is left on a beach. He discovers a bush covered in thorns. He claims the single black one, grown from a species of bush that grow exclusively white Claw shapes, and ponders the meaning of the Claw in relationship to higher beings, time-travel and the New Sun.

Severian makes his way back to Nessus aboard a ship whose crew revere him on sight. He visits with people of his past and assumes the role of Autarch. He returns to the waiter who slipped him the note in the Shadow of the Torturer saying that Agia had been there before. The note was meant for Dorcas who reminded the waiter of his mother. A picture of Dorcas in a locket around the waiter's neck confirms this suspicion. Severian also notes that the waiter very much resembles himself and it is implied that the waiter is Severian's father.

The book ends with Severian exploring the citadel and retracing Triskele's steps through an underground building. Seeing the dog's footsteps and his own he follows the latter, returning to the Atrium of Time.

The Urth of the New Sun

Unlike the four earlier parts of the Book of the New Sun, Urth of the New Sun mostly takes place outside Urth. The book is yet again a continuation of Severian's narration of the aftermath of his ascent to the throne and subsequent journey "between the suns" to be judged and win back the fountain of life that will rejuvenate the slowly dying sun and revive life on Urth. When the book begins, Severian has already rewritten his accounts of before and is beginning his new log aboard the spaceship that will take him to Yesod, an enigmatic planet, home to the godlike beings who have the power to grant Urth and its sun a new lease on life.

Aboard the ship, Severian meets Zak, a mysterious being, who begins small and soon develops human form and turns out to be the all-powerful Tzadkiel of Yesod. Once in Yesod, Severian faces an immense task of facing all the deceased people he has encountered since his childhood, including Thecla and Master Malrubius. When he faces the tribunal to be judged by Tzadkiel, he is told that the trial was already successfully passed. Severian is made the New Sun.

After his return to Urth from Yesod, he finds the sun still dying, and that the New Sun is still very far, far away, but nevertheless moving relentlessly. He learns that many years have passed backwards. He also learns that he possesses healing power that he once attributed the Claw of the Conciliator. He encounters an earlier version of Typhon who attempts to kill him. He manages to escape via the Corridors of Time. There, with the aid of a version of Tzadkiel, he travels back to the future. In his palace he finds his wife Valeria sitting on the throne attended by his old enemy Baldanders (who has grown enough to match the size of an undine). Shortly after Severian reveals himself, an apocalyptic flood washes away the citadel and much of the land of Urth, thus bringing destruction and rebirth.

Severian as a Christ figure

Severian, the main character and narrator to the series, can be interpreted as a Christ figure. His life has many parallels to the life of Jesus, and Gene Wolfe, a Catholic, has explained that he deliberately mirrored Jesus in Severian. He compares Severian's profession as a torturer to Jesus's profession as a carpenter in The Castle of the Otter:^[7]

It has been remarked thousands of times that Christ died under torture. Many of us have read so often that he was a "humble carpenter" that we feel a little surge of nausea on seeing the words yet again. But no one ever seems to notice that the instruments of torture were wood, nails, and a hammer; that the man who built the cross was undoubtedly a carpenter too; that the man who hammered in the nails was as much a carpenter as a soldier, as much a carpenter as a torturer. Very few even have seem to have noticed that although Christ was a "humble carpenter," the only object we are specifically told he made was not a table or a chair, but a whip.

Severian's life parallels Jesus' occasionally, with his descent into the cave of the man-apes being a Harrowing of Hell scene, his resurrection of Declan being a Lazarus of Bethany scene, and his friendship with Jonas reflecting Ahasuerus.^[8] Jonas has traveled the world looking to reconnect with the Hierodules, "tinkers with clumsy mechanisms", and is redeemed from wandering exile after befriending Severian. In this respect he represents the wandering Jew.^[9] Severian also suffers from occasional seemingly random bleeding from his forehead, as if from a crown of thorns. Also mirroring the crown of thorns, the Claw of the Conciliator, a thorn that causes Severian to shed blood, later becomes a religious relic due to its relation to Severian. Terminus Est represents his crucifix, with Severian describing his sword in Urth of the New Sun as a "dark cross upon my shoulder." Severian is resurrected as well, escaping to a Heaven-like plane of existence where an angel resides and then emerging from a stone tomb, just as Jesus rose from his stone tomb.^[10]

Vernacular

Gene Wolfe uses a variety of archaic and obscure terms throughout the series, and Wolfe himself, in the appendix of The Shadow of the Torturer, explains that the words are used because they are the closest translations in our current language, and no words are created:

"In rendering this book—originally composed in a tongue that has not yet achieved existence—into English, I might easily have saved myself a great deal of labor by having recourse to invented terms; in no case have I done so. Thus in many instances I have been forced to yet undiscovered concepts by their closest twentieth-century equivalents."

Wolfe admits, however, that some mistakes may have been made in spelling or exact meaning. His choice of words often come from an English–Latin dictionary or an English–Greek dictionary, where he finds roots of words to use.^[17]

Wolfe states that he uses strange and arcane words because he "thought they were the best for the story [he] was trying to tell." Language is Wolfe's medium as a writer, and he wishes to "press against the limits of prose." Wolfe's deliberate use of exotic words is meant to manipulate the reader and force upon them a certain visualization of the story, but he does not mean to confuse the reader. He compares the narrator, Severian, and the reader to an English-speaking person and a German-speaking person building a boat:^[18]

[The English-speaker] would say, "Bring me a flat board," and [the German-speaker] would bring him a board of proper size. They were actually doing something, you see; and the German understood what it was they were doing. Because they were working together (exactly as a writer and reader must) the unintelligible request was heard as "I need something," and the German had little difficulty guessing what was needed.

Why bother, in that case, to learn English? Or learn German? In the narrowest sense, you don't ... But knowing is better and broader and deeper than even the best guessing, and knowing is more fun.

Two examples of the arcane words Wolfe uses are "Ascian" and "Hydrargyrum". Ascian, despite its similarity to the word "Asian" is derived from a Latin word meaning "without shadow", as the Ascians are tropic dwellers who have no shadow at noon. Hydrargyrum, the fluid contained in Severian's sword Terminus Est, is derived from the Latin "hydr", meaning water, and "arguers", meaning silver, as hydrargyrum is liquid mercury.^[19]

Ascian language

The Ascian language further expounds on the idea that word choice alters the thinking of people, as the Ascian language is simply a set of quotations from government propaganda called "Correct Thought". In order to communicate, Ascians must memorize many quotations. This government regulation of language directly regulates the thought of Ascians.^[20]

Some examples include:

• “In times past, loyalty to the cause of the populace was to be found everywhere. The will of the Group of Seventeen was the will of everyone.”
  “Once upon a time…”
• “The people meeting in counsel may judge, but no one is to receive more than a hundred blows.”
  “He complained, and they beat him.”