From: CRCulver@aol.com
Subject: (urth) Musings on the Hierodule fieldguide
Date: Wed, 2 Sep 1998 20:03:22 EDT

<???--Father Inire.  He's a hunched little guy, a Daedalus or
Hephaestus or Toth, and since Toth is the most ancient I tend to
think of Inire as being something like Toth's totem, the ibis, a bent
neck little bird hobbling around, finding treasures in the muck. (Of
course, he's also Lewdis Carnal, Victorian child pornographer,
hunched over his primitive camera obscena. <g>)>

Happily, Inire seems to be just enamoured by little exultantesses, and there
is no evidence of his actually molesting them. Boy, wouldn't that be an
embarassment to the reign of the Autarch Severian.
I'm sure Inire has a longer lifespan than other Hierodules, considering he
easily surivived ~2 chiliads as grand vizier (but what happened to him after
Severian sailed to Yesod???)
Mantis compares Inire to a bird, but I believe the monkey comparison is used
more than once in the ol' manuscripts

<There are more Hierodules onboard the time saucer.  Dr. Talos wants them to
come out and blast/scare the natives.>

Do you mean the so-called "fantassins?" Fantassination is one of the least-
discussed aspects of Hierodulic technology, and I wish Wolfe would share more.
Perhaps the fantassins about the Ship of the Hierodules are the same who tried
to subdue Baldanders at the House Absolute.

Christopher R. Culver <crculver@aol.com>
http://members.aol.com/crculver/index.html

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