(urth) The Old Pen Case

[Dave Tallman]

OBW starts with: "It is worthless, this old pen case I brought from 
Viron. It is nothing. You might go around the market all day and never 
find a single spirit who would trade you a fresh egg for it. Yet it 
holds... Enough. Yes, enough. I am sick of fancies."

I believe we can take the old pen case as a metaphor for the old body 
Horn has brought back from the whorl. "At present it holds two quills, 
for I have taken the third one out. Two were in it when I found it in 
the ashes of our shop. The third, with which I am writing, was dropped 
by Oreb not so long ago." To push the analogy, the three pens are three 
spirits: Silk, Pas, and Horn. The third, with which he begins to write 
this book, will be "dropped" before the end.

I believe we can trace the major changes in the contents of the "pen 
case" through key events in the book:

1) Horn falls into the pit, dies, and is resurrected after three days by 
the power of the Neighbors. I believe this is when he gained the power 
to astral-project. Many have asked why he didn't use his astral 
projection power to visit Nettle: in fact, he did so once and it 
frightened her so much that he never repeated it (OBW 9, p. 203).

He probably also gained the power to alter stories at this time. One 
aspect of this seems to be the ability to alter objects in his own 
possession. He converted the ring Oreb found into Seawrack's ring, and 
he converted the leather-and-metal pen case he found on the steps of 
Smoothbone's ruined shop (RttW 12, p. 252) into a leather-and-pasteboard 
pen case "found... in the ashes of our shop." (I think Horn didn't want 
to admit to himself that his father ran back to the old shop and left 
his own personal pen case for Horn to find when he excused himself at 
the tavern).

2) Horn hears Seawrack's siren song and becomes enthralled by it. From 
then on, he can hear her singing whereever he is, and even infect others 
with this ability (IGJ 17, pp. 266-267). I don't remember whether he can 
hear her on Green or in the Whorl, but he probably can't on Urth since 
he calls the Matachin Tower a haven of rest and prayer (RttW 13, p. 263).

3) Horn is transferred into Silk's body on the Whorl. Silk is in the 
middle of mourning the death of Hyacinth and has cut himself in grief (I 
believe that this is the traditional cutting of a mourner rather than a 
suicide attempt). Horn/Silk denies who he is, realizing that if he 
really replaced Silk he has destroyed the object of his mission. He pins 
his hopes on the Silver Silk in Pig, but knows he cannot take Pig to 
Gaon without endangering both of them.

4) There was probably a transfer and merging of Passilk into Horn/Silk 
as well. Note the silver monitor screen in Pig's room (RttW 18, p. 372). 
Once Pig had a working eye, an upload and re-download into Pig and Silk 
was feasible. (Note: the idea that Pig was born blind is absurd -- the 
Passilk possession requires that he was sighted at the time he killed 
the auger, not to mention that a blind man becoming a mercenary at all 
is nonsensical).

5) At the escape from Gaon, part of Horn's spirit is projected into 
Babbie. This might have been enabled by the Neighbors or the Outsider. 
More of Silk's personality is evident after this in the next book. Just 
like the hunted Scylla, this may have been intended to protect part of 
himself in case the inhumus killed him.

6) There is a huge change in the appearance of Silk's astral form 
between one visit to Urth and the next. The difference seems to be the 
visit to Greater Scylla. I believe that Horn's spirit separated from 
Silk and went into one of the undine tentacles of Scylla. Hoof sees the 
undine with glowing eyes who smiles at him, just as Babbie smiled (RttW 
17, pp. 365-366).

On the return from this projection Babbie is sleeping, and I believe 
Babbie also lost his part of Horn at this time. We don't see Babbie 
acting human again, and he eventually returns to Witch Island and Mucor. 
He apparently doesn't go to the Whorl with Silk. In any case, as an 
animal his lifespan is limited and he might not have lived long enough 
to travel with the Whorl when it was ready to go.

The attraction of the Greater Scylla to Horn's spirit is probably 
because of his enthrallment by Seawrack. In IGJ, Horn knew that a return 
to Seawrack would be suicidal and he asked no better death. Silk's deal 
with Greater Scylla to summon the Mother and get Seawrack back was 
probably also suicidal in intent, but his scruples about unfaithfulness 
to Nettle made him decide not to do that "while Nettle was alive" (RttW 
20, p. 407). Instead, he chose to provoke Juganu to kill him.  But after 
talking to Remora and realizing that he was Silk and that Horn was gone, 
he knew that he could summon Seawrack safely and get her away from Blue. 
(He was not Nettle's husband at all now, so he could call Seawrack even 
though Nettle was still alive.) Getting Seawrack away from the Mother's 
influence might have enabled Silk to redeem her from being the siren 
man-trap she was into a fully human woman in time.

7) Horn in the undine may have humanized her to some extent. It may be 
that his influence caused this undine (separated from Scylla to become 
Juturna) to intervene in Severian's life in positive ways, contrary to 
the will of Abaia.

8) Severian's memories of the good Silk looking like the ghost of 
Malrubius (and also positively associated with the dog Triskele) 
probably influenced the character of the aquastor that the Hierodules 
made for him. I don't believe Silk himself revisited Severian to be that 
aquastor himself.