In additional travels, he eventually becomes a mercenary in the north and is seriously injured. During his convalescence he encounters an Ascian man, before venturing out once again. Towards the end of the final volume of Book of the New Sun, he encounters the Autarch again, but they're captured by Vodalus. The Autarch is critically injured and can only survive within Severian's mind, who eats the forebrain of the Autarch with a mixture the ruler kept along himself at all times, inheriting the throne and all the memories of his predecessors.