Speaker 1: Chapter five of Anthem. This is a LibriVox recording. All
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Speaker 1: Caden von Klegg Anthem by Einrand, Chapter five. We made it,
Speaker 1: we created it, We brought it forth from the night
Speaker 1: of the ages. We alone, our hands, our mind ours alone,
Speaker 1: and only we know not what we are saying. Our
Speaker 1: head is reeling. We look upon the light which we
Speaker 1: have made. We shall be forgiven for anything we say.
Speaker 1: Tonight to night, after more days and trials than we
Speaker 1: can count, we finished building a strange thing from the
Speaker 1: remains of the unmentionable times, a box of glass, devised
Speaker 1: to give forth the power of the sky, of greater
Speaker 1: strength than we had ever achieved before. And when we
Speaker 1: put our wires to this box, when we closed the current,
Speaker 1: the wire glowed, it came to life, it turned red,
Speaker 1: and a circle of light lay on the stone before us.
Speaker 1: We stood, and we held our head in our hands.
Speaker 1: We could not conceive of that which we had created.
Speaker 1: We had touched no flint, made no fire. Yet here
Speaker 1: was light, Light that came from nowhere, Light from the
Speaker 1: heart of metal. We blew out the candle. Darkness swallowed us.
Speaker 1: There was nothing left around us, nothing save night and
Speaker 1: a thin thread of flame in it, as a crack
Speaker 1: in the wall of a prison. We stretched our hands
Speaker 1: to the wire, and we saw our fingers in the
Speaker 1: red glow. We could not see our body nor feel it,
Speaker 1: And in that moment nothing existed save our two hands
Speaker 1: over a wire, glowing in a black abyss. Then we
Speaker 1: thought of the meaning of that which lay before us.
Speaker 1: We can light our tunnel, and the city, and all
Speaker 1: the cities of the world with nothing save metal and wires.
Speaker 1: We can give our brothers a new light, cleaner and
Speaker 1: brighter than any they have ever known. The power of
Speaker 1: the sky eye can be made to do men's bidding.
Speaker 1: There are no limits to its secrets and its might,
Speaker 1: and it can be made to grant us anything. If
Speaker 1: we but choose to ask, then we knew what we
Speaker 1: must do. Our discovery is too great for us to
Speaker 1: waste our time in sweeping the streets. We must not
Speaker 1: keep our secret to ourselves, nor buried under the ground.
Speaker 1: We must bring it into the sight of men. We
Speaker 1: need all our time. We need the workrooms of the
Speaker 1: Home of Scholars. We want the help of our brother scholars,
Speaker 1: and their wisdom joined to ours. There is so much
Speaker 1: work ahead for all of us, for all the scholars
Speaker 1: of the world. In a month, the World Council of
Speaker 1: Scholars is to meet in our city. It is a
Speaker 1: great council to which the wisest of all lands are elected,
Speaker 1: and it meets once a year in the different cities
Speaker 1: of the earth. We shall go to this council, and
Speaker 1: we shall lay before them as our gift, the glass
Speaker 1: box with the power of the sky. We shall confess
Speaker 1: everything to them. They will see, understand, and forgive, For
Speaker 1: our gift is greater than our transgression. They will explain
Speaker 1: it to the Council of Vocations, and we shall be
Speaker 1: assigned to the Home of the Scholars. This has never
Speaker 1: been done before, but neither has a gift such as
Speaker 1: ours ever been offered to men. We must wait. We
Speaker 1: must guard our tunnel as we had never guarded it before.
Speaker 1: For should any men, save the scholars, learn of our secret,
Speaker 1: they would not understand it, nor would they believe us.
Speaker 1: They would see nothing save our crime of working alone,
Speaker 1: and they would destroy us and our light. We care
Speaker 1: not about our body but our light is yes, we
Speaker 1: do care. For the first time, we do care about
Speaker 1: our body, for this wire is a part of our body,
Speaker 1: as a vein torn from us, glowing with our blood.
Speaker 1: Are we proud of this thread of metal or of
Speaker 1: our hands which made it? Or is there a line
Speaker 1: to divide these two? We stretch out our arms for
Speaker 1: the first time. Do we know how strong our arms are?
Speaker 1: And a strange thought comes to us. We wonder, for
Speaker 1: the first time in our life, what we look like.
Speaker 1: Men never see their own faces and never ask their
Speaker 1: brothers about it, for it is evil to have concern
Speaker 1: for their own faces or bodies. But tonight, for a
Speaker 1: reason we cannot fathom, we wish it were possible to
Speaker 1: us to know the likeness of our own person. End
Speaker 1: of Chapter five. Recording by Caden von Klegg The Lunar
Speaker 1: Island dot blogspot dot com.