Shadow & Claw (The Book of the New Sun, #1-2)

by Gene Wolfe

It was in this instant of confusion that I realized for the first time that I am in some degree insane.

It recalled something I had seen elsewhere (I could not remember where),

Does he really have a perfect memory?! He just contradicted himself.

The pain had been too pleasurable, the pleasure too painful; so that I feared that in time my mind would no longer be the thing I knew.

but doubtless you would have forgotten everything anyway.

Then his masters don't know about his memory.

Here I pause. If you wish to walk no farther with me, reader, I cannot blame you. It is no easy road.

“It is beyond value, which means it is worthless.

My hands raised themselves like spiders to pluck out my eyes—and would have done so if the ragged man beside me had not struck them down with his own hand, which was of steel.

I believe Sevarian told a whole different thing.

His tone betrayed him as much as Thecla’s thoughts. I wanted to kneel, but he clapped his hands, and a bent little man slipped silently into the room. He wore a cowled habit like a cenobite’s. The Autarch spoke to him, something I was too distracted to understand.

Here I pause. If you wish to walk no farther with me, reader, I do not blame you. It is no easy road.