(urth) The Two Coins...

[Ryan Dunn]

I just caught this, wondered what you guys thought of this.

Near the end of Citadel, Dr. Talos is granted an audience with Severian. He gives him a coin, one he never got to give him before they went to the gate. It was a false coin just like the one Vodalus gave Severian in Shadow, in the necropolis.

However, not only that, but it has some other similar characteristics...

VODALUS'S COIN:
"He laid something in my palm: a small coin so smooth it seemed greased."

TALOS'S COIN:
"I flipped the coin and caught it. It felt as though it had been lightly greased."

BOTH COINS:
"I was looking at the two coins. They had the same brassy shine and appeared to have been struck in the same die."

This brings up two questions to me...

1. Who dropped the false coin at the play that night?
2. Is this possibly the same coin?

Hethor springs to mind. He was the one who interrupted them the morning after the show, at least, and he was a visitor in the crowd at Severian's first beheading at least once before.

...ryan

P.S. I wondered where the passage was that led people to assume it was the Old Autarch's face on the front, and not Tzdakiel's. Anyone?