(urth) traveling north

[Roy C. Lackey]

Jane Delawney wrote:
[snip]
> Anyway - I finally remembered the other place (well actually one of the
> others, but this is the most immediate one) where my vague recollection
> of a sense of north/south 'wrongness' came from.
>
> The passage is right at the end of *Shadow*; on the last but one page of
> my Arrow Paperbacks copy (p.300 of the 1981 printing). The speaker is
> Jonas.
>
> "In the old times, the Lords of this world feared no one but their own
> people, and to defend themselves against them built a great fortress on
> a hill to the *north* of the city. It was not called Nessus then,
> because the river was unpoisoned.
>
> "Many of the people were angry at the building of that *citadel*,
> holding it to be their right to slay their lords without hindrance if
> they so desired. But others went out in the ships that ply between the
> stars, returning with treasure and knowledge."
>
> [All emphases mine of course. Also of course, the Citadel where Severian
> was raised is in the far *south* of 'contemporary' Nessus.]

Nessus started out on the Gyoll on or near the southwest coast of the
continent. As the river became polluted, the city kept growing upstream, in
a generally northern direction. At some point, the rulers built the Citadel
to the north of the city as it then existed. Over many years, the living
city grew and caught up with the Citadel, then grew beyond it, so that by
the time Sev was born the Citadel was near the southern edge of the
inhabited portion of the city.

-Roy