The Claw of the Conciliator by Gene Wolfe (American, 1981)

Summary:
The story begins with Severian looking for the group he was travelling with through Urth, a medieval-futuristic Earth. Severian is brought to Vodalus, a revolutionary man who wants to bring Urth back to its past glory. As Severian had spared Vodalus’ life before, he is given the chance of forgiveness under one condition: he has to deliver an important message to Absolute House. He accepts the task, but on his way he gets caught by men from Absolute House and is taken to prison. After the prison was attacked, Severian looks for the exit and encounters an “androgyne”, who is the person he was ordered to deliver the message. After completing the task, the androgyne sets him free. Severian finds his group and participates on a play they had prepared, but during the performance they were attacked by aliens and forced to leave the place. Afterwards, they go by separate ways, Severian now accompanied by two female friends runs across Hildegrin, a Vodalus subordinate. After hearing an important message through Dorcas, one of the friends of Severian, Hildegrin conjurates the “past Urth” along with Severian and his companions. They had summoned death, who walks like a procession.

Another summary:
This book starts a little after the last one finished. Severian is now traveling without the rest of his group, and on his way to the small town of Saltus. He is now traveling with Jonas (whom he met at the gate). During a festival, Severian executes two people: the first one turns out to be a servant of Vodalus. When the crowd is dragging this man out of his home, Severian recognizes Agia (whose brother Severian executed in the previous book). Afterwards, Severian looks for her around town, but instead of finding her, he meets a man with green skin who says he comes from the future. After not finding her, he returns to execute the second person: Morwenna.
 While eating dinner with Jonas, he receives a note from Thecla asking him to meet her at a nearby cave. Thecla died in the previous book. Severian steals a horse, and rides to the cave. There, he finds a group of man-apes and barely escapes. He cuts the hand of one of the creatures, and then cures it using the hand of the conciliator. He has no time to figure out what’s happening, because he escapes the cave and is immediately attacked by Agia and a group of assassins. He beats them, but lets Agia go. He returns to Saltus, and both him and Jonas are kidnapped.
 Vodalus turns out to be the kidnapper. He invites Severian to join him. During dinner, they eat Thecla’s flesh. That, combined with alzabo allows Thecla’s memories to live within Severian. He is then given the task to deliver a message to a servant in The House of Absolute. Severian and Jonas start going north, and are attacked by Notules and barely escape. They enter a forest and Jonas urges Severian to hurry and to light a fire. The creature continues attacking them, when suddenly, someone appears in the distance. Thrilled by this appearance, Severian raises his sword in salute. The newcomer answers this by raising his own weapon, which radiates blue light from the tip as he rides towards the creature. The mogul has become two, Severian attacks one, and it splits into two again. The human fires a bolt of energy towards the creatures, but hits a tree. The creatures fall onto the human, when Jonas and Severian approach, they find him dead.
 Jonas somehow manages to trap the Notules and tells Severian that they should leave. Severian refuses, and tries to revive the fallen soldier with the claw of the conciliator. Jonas tells him the soldier isn’t dead. They hear a sound, and see someone approaching down the road. When he looks back at the body, the man wakes up very disoriented. Seemingly having lost his recent memory, Severian tells the soldier (Cornet Mineas) that they are poor travelers who found him lying on the ground.
 Jonas tells Severian that reviving someone is impossible, and then they hear something huge moving among the trees. So, they run as fast as they can until they come upon a road made of white pebbles and flowers. Jonas identifies this as the grounds of The House of Absolute. The first thing they see is a giant living statue. Suddenly, Severian is thrown off his horse, and gets a blow to the head, fainting. When he wakes, he has a wire around his neck, and his captors are going through his things. The leader takes all of Severian’s money, and his sword.
 Being led down the road, they see a procession. Among the walkers, Jonas recognizes Dr. Talos and the troupe of actors from the previous book. Inquiring around him, Severian finds out that the most of the captives are there for crimes committed by their ancestors. When they are finally alone, Jonas asks Severian to use the claw to help them escape (the claw is hidden in his boot). However, Severian refuses to try because the claw might shine and attract attention.
 After some events, and while they are sort of free, Jonas reveals that he is not entirely human. Rather, he is a robot that has added human parts. After several days in the ante chambers of prison, Severian finally manages to escape carrying Jonas (who is unwell). They arrive in a room full of mirrors, which Jonas says he recognizes. He approaches one panel, presses some buttons, and he is somehow teleported out of the room, leaving Severian alone.
 Wandering through the house of Absolute, he bumps into a soldier and talks the man into telling him where Severian’s sword is. He retrieves his sword, and continues exploring the house. After a long time wandering around, he comes into a room full of framed pictures. Cleaning one of the pictures is an old man Severian met long ago in the citadel (in the first novel). They chat for a while. The old man shows Severian some paintings. Severian, wanting to appreciate better one of them, takes a step back and suddenly finds himself in a different room. The room with the paintings disappears, and he meets a figure wearing a yellow robe.
 This man turns out to be the person to whom he had to deliver the message from Vodalus. He does, and the man leads him to a guava tic book written in an union language. Severian asks if the book shows a map out of the place, and the man answers that no, that the book is the way out itself. When he flips the pages, they turn out to be mirrors. In one of them, Severian has a vision of a gigantic butterfly woman. This changes him, and when he wakes up from his vision, swears fealty to the Manx on the yellow robes. Now Severian has a permanent mark upon his brow. In the laps of their conversation, Severian realizes that the man in Yellow is the Autarch and that he was just tasked (by the man himself) to kill him.
 When he finally leaves, he finds Dr. Tallos, who welcomes him and explains that the rest of the troupe is asleep and that they are going to perform later. He meets Dorcas once more. She tells him she has been having weird dreams. And he realizes that she is Severian’s own grandmother. The play starts. And suddenly, almost at the end of the play, someone fires a pistol and chaos ensues.
 After some weird visions, Severian finds the troupe of actors. They give him some of the money from the play and, together with Dorcas and Jolenta, they part ways. At night, Severian dreams of an undine who tries to convince him of drowning. After several days of traveling, they arrive at the house of a herd man. They ask him to allow Jolenta (who appears to be dying) to rest inside. The man refuses, because he says one of his friends is also dying there. Severian offers to help, and the herdsman agrees. He cures the sick man using the claw, but is unable to help Jolenta. The newly cured man recognizes Severian as the new Lector of Thrax and tries to kill him (helped by the herdsman). They are quickly overpowered by Dolenta and Severian.
 The next day, they continue their journey in a tower. Here, they meet two women (one young, one old) who Severian calls with es. They try to help Jolenta, besides the women, they also meet Hildegrin, who asks if they delivered the message. Hildegrin asked everyone to help her bring back the past. They all link hands and conjure the past. Severian collapses, and when he wakes up, he is in a different place (although he can see his companion as translucent figures). A procession of the dead comes to life, and a man with a bronze funeral mask approaches Severian. This man is Apu-Punchau, a man from legends. Hildegrin runs towards Apu-Punchau, and they struggle. However, they cannot beat one another. When Severian tries to help, he receives a blow on the side of the head. After waking up, he finds himself in his present, but there is none besides him except Dorcas and a dead Jolenta.

Another summary:
Severian is a torturer. There is a fair where he is going to do his job. The man he has to kill is Barnoch, Vodalus’ spy. He sees Agia’s face in the crowd, and he tries to follow her but fails. Then he sees the Greenman, a man who reads the future in the fair. The Greenman says that he comes from the future; he is a prisoner and he is going to die. Severian tells him that he will help him and asks where Agia is. The Greenman tells him that she is “above the ground” and that some men were trying to save Barnoch. Severian goes back, but this time he has to kill Morwenna who says is innocent. They were missing the chair and the rope, but he kills her with his sword. Eusebia admits that Morwenna was innocent. Jonas tells Severian that he is not guilty of what happened, but Severian is proud of his job. He reads a letter from Thecla and goes out to try to find her. Man-apes attack Severian, but he stops them with the light from the Claw. Then Agia attacks him. The letter was a trap. He was going to kill Agia, but he finally frees her. He returns, and Vodalus’ people kidnap him and Jonas for betraying Vodalus. Severian tells Vodalus what he did for him so he could free them. They have dinner with Vodalus, and Severian eats Thecla so he can have her memories. Now they have to deliver a message in House Absolute. They are attacked, and Severian feels guilty because a soldier got killed. He uses the Claw to heal him. They get captured. Severian uses Thecla’s memory to escape. Jonas discovers that he is a robot and he disappears through a mirror. Severian finds the Autarch and tells him he will be his servant if he shows him the portal to another universe. Severian finally finds Dorcas. Balanders says aliens are there. The farmer tells them that to get to Thrax they have to pass through a stone. Severian takes Jolenta, but in their way, a bat bites Jolenta, and she gets sick. Jolenta starts to change completely as some substances had modified her. Finally, she dies.

World view: The world portrayed in the story is an hypothetical society which seems to be worse than the one the author lives in.
Future projections: Sees the future as potential to reform a reality that once seemed unchangeable.
Ideology: The majority is oppressed by a ruling elite or an individual powergroup that come to dominate society to their own interests.
Characters, plot and writing style: The story features a rebellion against the adverse circumstances (revolutionaries may exploit newer technologies for these ends).
Classification: Dystopia