(urth) Silk and Malrubius

[Peter Sun Rogers]

Hi all, I just finished reading Return to the Whorl again and it struck me
that Severian refers to Silkhorn's bird as *Malrubius*'s bird. This made me
realize that many of the characteristics that Severian attributes to the
ghost of Malrubius in *Book of the New Sun, *echo the traits we know best
of Silk quite strongly. When Malrubius peaked in to check on Severian, it
reminded me of something that Silk might do if he heard a worrying noise in
a student's room. Also, Malrubius's lecture on the Seven Principles of
Governance:

*"Attachment to the person of the monarch. Attachment to a bloodline or
other sequence of succession.*

*Attachment to the royal state. *

*Attachment to a code legitimizing the governing state. *

*Attachment to the law **only. *

*Attachment to a greater or lesser board of electors, as framers of the
law. *

*Attachment to an **abstraction conceived as including the body of
electors, other bodies giving rise to them, and numerous **other elements,
largely ideal."*

This struck me as the type of revelation Silk might have had after his
Enlightenment at the ball court. So perhaps in the same way that Severian
is both Severian and Thecla, and Silk is both Silk and Horn, perhaps Silk
is both Silk and Malrubius. That is to say, a conceptual soul that inhabits
both Silk and Malrubius simultaneously. In this case, it appears as if Book
of the New Sun *does *set some precedent for the events of Book of the
Short Sun, despite Severian's claim that he would never write about Silk.

Severian claimed that he would never write about his journeys with Silkhorn
because he would be immediately discredited. However, who says that the
only times that Silk visited Severian were the two times that he was
accompanied by his sons? It is likely that he checked up on Severian his
entire life, with Severian barely noticing him several times. In this way,
Silk is both Severian's mentor and protector, watching over the man who
would (one day) become the male and female voices that whispers
enlightenment into his ears at the beginning of the Book of the Long Sun.
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