(urth) Seeing the signs...

[Lee Berman]

>Gerry Quinn- The young-old face of the woman reminds me of Merryn.  Perhaps this is a 
>characterisitic of the Witches.
 
It is Merryn. It is she who answers the door to the Witches Keep and guides Severian to the
Cumaean sitting at her artificial landscape. There is the suggestion that maybe there are only two
witches born into the world over and over.
 
 
Merryn's facial skin is later seen to be stretched across her bone like parchment. To me this
suggests plastic surgery/face lift and the beautification that Merryn claims the Cumaean
capable of. Since Severian is only a tot at their first meeting it suggests to me she can't
be his twin sister. But with cloning and whatnot, many things are possible.