(urth) Shadow, Chapter X

[Roy C. Lackey]

Matt Teel wrote:

>>I've checked the archives, but don't see that this has been discussed:
what do you all make of the enigmatic reference at the beginning of Shadow
Chapter X (The Last Year), where Severian and Roche are leaving the House
Azure and the white-haired man pulls out something that Severian assumes at
first to be an icon, but then discovers is a vial shaped like a phallus?

Possible foreshadowing of his becoming Autarch? I don't know. Even if it is
foreshadowing, it should make sense within the scene itself, but I can't
quite figure it out.

Anyone want to guess?<<
______________________________

Severian didn't know it at the time, but the autarch had received another
guest that night at the House Azure, Paeon, who had told him that Severian
would be the next autarch. See the scene after the flier crash in chapter
XXV, CITADEL.

-Roy