We were gathering the papers and the rags which the wind had blown from the
Theatre, when we saw an iron bar among the weeds. It was old and rusted by
many rains. We pulled with all our strength, but we could not move it. So we
called International 4-8818, and together we scraped the earth around the bar. Of
a sudden the earth fell in before us, and we saw an old iron grill over a black
hole. International 4-8818 stepped back. But we pulled at the grill and it gave
way. And then we saw iron rings as steps leading down a shaft into a darkness
without bottom.
"We shall go down," we said to International 4-8818.
"It is forbidden," they answered.
We said: "The Council does not know of this hole, so it cannot be forbidden."
And they answered: "Since the Council does not know of this hole, there can be
no law permitting to enter it. And everything which is not permitted by law is
forbidden."
But we said: "We shall go, none the less."
They were frightened, but they stood by and watched us go.
The Lost World
We have stolen candles from the Home of the Street Sweepers, we have stolen flints
and knives and paper, and we have brought them to this place. We have stolen glass
vials and powders and acids from the Home of the Scholars. Now we sit in the tunnel
for three hours each night and we study. We melt strange metals, and we mix acids,
and we cut open the bodies of the animals which we find in the City Cesspool. We have
built an oven of the bricks we gathered in the streets. We burn the wood we find in
the ravine. The fire flickers in the oven and blue shadows dance upon the walls, and
there is no sound of men to disturb us. We have stolen manuscripts. This is a great
offense. Manuscripts are precious, for our brothers in the Home of the Clerks spend
one year to copy one single script in their clear handwriting. Manuscripts are rare
and they are kept in the Home of the Scholars. So we sit under the earth and we read
the stolen scripts. Two years have passed since we found this place. And in these two
years we have learned more than we had learned in the ten years of the Home of the
Students.
We have learned things which are not in the scripts. We have solved secrets of which
the Scholars have no knowledge. We have come to see how great is the unexplored, and
many lifetimes will not bring us to the end of our quest. But we wish no end to our
quest. We wish nothing, save to be alone and to learn, and to feel as if with each
day our sight were growing sharper than the hawk's and clearer than rock crystal.
Strange are the ways of evil. We are false in the faces of our brothers. We are
defying the will of our Councils. We alone, of the thousands who walk this earth,
we alone in this hour are doing a work which has no purpose save that we wish to do
it. The evil of our crime is not for the human mind to probe. The nature of our
punishment, if it be discovered, is not for the human heart to ponder. Never, not
in the memory of the Ancient Ones' Ancients, never have men done that which we are
doing.
And yet there is no shame in us and no regret. We say to ourselves that we are a
wretch and a traitor. But we feel no burden upon our spirit and no fear in our heart.
And it seems to us that our spirit is clear as a lake troubled by no eyes save those
of the sun. And in our heart - strange are the ways of evil! - in our heart there is
the first peace we have known in twenty years.
Quest
And there it was that we saw Liberty 5-3000 walking along the furrows. Their body
was straight and thin as a blade of iron. Their eyes were dark and hard and glowing,
with no fear in them, no kindness and no guilt. Their hair was golden as the sun;
their hair flew in the wind, shining and wild, as if it defied men to restrain it.
They threw seeds from their hand as if they deigned to fling a scornful gift, and
the earth was a beggar under their feet.
We stood still; for the first time did we know fear, and then pain. And we stood
still that we might not spill this pain more precious than pleasure.
Liberty 5-3000
There is some word, one single word which is not in the language of men, but which
had been. And this is the Unspeakable Word, which no men may speak nor hear. But
sometimes, and it is rare, sometimes, somewhere, one among men find that word.
They find it upon scraps of old manuscripts or cut into the fragments of ancient
stones. But when they speak it they are put to death. There is no crime punished
by death in this world, save this one crime of speaking the Unspeakable Word.
We have seen one of such men burned alive in the square of the City. And it was a
sight which has stayed with us through the years, and it haunts us, and follows us,
and it gives us no rest. We were a child then, ten years old. And we stood in the
great square with all the children and all the men of the City, sent to behold the
burning. They brought the Transgressor out into the square and they led them to the
pyre. They had torn out the tongue of the Transgressor, so that they could speak no
longer. The Transgressor were young and tall. They had hair of gold and eyes blue
as morning. They walked to the pyre, and their step did not falter. And of all the
faces on that square, of all the faces which shrieked and screamed and spat curses
upon them, theirs was the calmest and the happiest face.
As the chains were wound over their body at the stake, and a flame set to the pyre,
the Transgressor looked upon the City. There was a thin thread of blood running from
the corner of their mouth, but their lips were smiling. And a monstrous thought came
to us then, which has never left us. We had heard of Saints. There are the Saints of
Labor, and the Saints of the Councils, and the Saints of the Great Rebirth. But we
had never seen a Saint nor what the likeness of a Saint should be. And we thought
then, standing in the square,that the likeness of a Saint was the face we saw before
us in the flames, the face of the Transgressor of the Unspeakable Word.
As the flames rose, a thing happened which no eyes saw but ours, else we would not
be living today. Perhaps it had only seemed to us. But it seemed to us that the eyes
of the Transgressor had chosen us from the crowd and were looking straight upon us.
There was no pain in their eyes and no knowledge of the agony of their body. There
was only joy in them, and pride, a pride holier than is fit for human pride to be.
And it seemed as if these eyes were trying to tell us something through the flames,
to send into our eyes some word without sound. And it seemed as if these eyes were
begging us to gather that word and not to let it go from us and from the earth. But
the flames rose and we could not guess the word....
What - even if we have to burn for it like the Saint of the Pyre - what is the
Unspeakable Word?
The Unspeakable Word
It is said. Now let us be lashed for it, if we must. The Council of Scholars has
said that we all know the things which exist and therefore the things which are
not known by all do not exist. But we think that the Council of Scholars is blind.
The secrets of this earth are not for all men to see, but only for those who will
seek them. We know, for we have found a secret unknown to all our brothers.
We know not what this power is nor whence it comes. But we know its nature, we
have watched it and worked with it. We saw it first two years ago. One night, we
were cutting open the body of a dead frog when we saw its leg jerking. It was dead,
yet it moved. Some power unknown to men was making it move. We could not
understand it. Then, after many tests, we found the answer. The frog had been
hanging on a wire of copper; and it had been the metal of our knife which had sent
the strange power to the copper through the brine of the frog's body. We put a
piece of copper and a piece of zinc into a jar of brine, we touched a wire to them,
and there, under our fingers, was a miracle which had never occurred before, a new
miracle and a new power.
This discovery haunted us. We followed it in preference to all our studies. We
worked with it, we tested it in more ways than we can describe, and each step was
as another miracle unveiling before us. We came to know that we had found the
greatest power on earth. For it defies all the laws known to men. It makes the
needle move and turn on the compass which we stole from the Home of the Scholars;
but we had been taught, when still a child, that the loadstone points to the north
and that this is a law which nothing can change; yet our new power defies all laws.
We found that it causes lightning, and never have men known what causes lightning.
In thunderstorms, we raised a tall rod of iron by the side of our hole, and we
watched it from below. We have seen the lightning strike it again and again. And
now we know that metal draws the power of the sky, and that metal can be made to
give it forth.
The First Discovery
We made it. We created it. We brought it forth from the night of the ages. We
alone. Our hands. Our mind. Ours alone and only.
We know not what we are saying. Our head is reeling. We look upon the light
which we have made. We shall be forgiven for anything we say tonight ....
Tonight, after more days and trials than we can count, we finished building a
strange thing, from the remains of the Unmentionable Times, a box of glass,
devised to give forth the power of the sky of greater strength than we had ever
achieved before. And when we put our wires to this box, when we closed the current
- the wire glowed! It came to life, it turned red, and a circle of light lay on
the stone before us.
We stood, and we held our head in our hands. We could not conceive of that which
we had created. We had touched no flint, made no fire. Yet here was light, light
that came from nowhere, light from the heart of metal.
The Discovery
"Our greeting to you, our honored brothers of the World Council of Scholars!"
Then Collective 0-0009, the oldest and wisest of the Council, spoke and asked:
"Who are you, our brother? For you do not look like a Scholar."
"Our name is Equality 7-2521," we answered, "and we are a Street
Sweeper of this City."
Then it was as if a great wind had stricken the hall, for all the Scholars spoke at
once, and they were angry and frightened.
"A Street Sweeper! A Street Sweeper walking in upon the World Council of
Scholars! It is not to be believed! It is against all the rules and all the laws!"
But we knew how to stop them.
"Our brothers!" we said. "We matter not, nor our transgression. It
is only our brother men who matter. Give no thought to us, for we are nothing, but
listen to our words, for we bring you a gift such as had never been brought to men.
Listen to us, for we hold the future of mankind in our hands."
Then they listened.
We placed our glass box upon the table before them. We spoke of it, and of our
long quest, and of our tunnel, and of our escape from the Palace of Corrective
Detention. Not a hand moved in that hall, as we spoke, nor an eye. Then we put the
wires to the box, and they all bent forward and sat still, watching. And we stood
still, our eyes upon the wire. And slowly, slowly as a flush of blood, a red flame
trembled in the wire. Then the wire glowed.
But terror struck the men of the Council. They leapt to their feet, they ran from
the table, and they stood pressed against the wall, huddled together, seeking the
warmth of one another's bodies to give them courage.
We looked upon them and we laughed and said:
"Fear nothing, our brothers. There is a great power in these wires, but this
power is tamed. It is yours. We give it to you."
Still they would not move.
"We give you the power of the sky!" we cried. "We give you the key
to the earth! Take it, and let us be one of you, the humblest among you. Let us
all work together, and harness this power, and make it ease the toil of men. Let
us throw away our candles and our torches. Let us flood our cities with light. Let
us bring a new light to men!"
But they looked upon us, and suddenly we were afraid. For their eyes were still,
and small, and evil.
"Our brothers!" we cried. "Have you nothing to say to us?"
Then Collective 0-0009 moved forward. They moved to the table and the others followed.
"Yes," spoke Collective 0-0009, "we have much to say to you."
The sound of their voices brought silence to the hall and to beat of our heart.
"Yes," said Collective 0-0009, "we have much to say to a wretch who
have broken all the laws and who boast of their infamy!
How dared you think that your mind held greater wisdom than the minds of your
brothers? And if the Councils had decreed that you should be a Street Sweeper, how
dared you think that you could be of greater use to men than in sweeping the
streets?"
"Should it be what they claim of it," said Harmony 9-2642, "then it
would bring ruin to the Department of Candles. The Candle is a great boon to
mankind, as approved by all men. Therefore it cannot be destroyed by the whim of
one."
"This would wreck the Plans of the World Council," said Unanimity 2-9913,
"and without the Plans of the World Council the sun cannot rise. It took fifty
years to secure the approval of all the Councils for the Candle, and to decide upon
the number needed, and to re-fit the Plans so as to make candles instead of
torches. This touched upon thousands and thousands of men working in scores of
States. We cannot alter the Plans again so soon."
The World Council of Scholars
It was on our second day in the forest that we heard steps behind us. We hid in
the bushes, and we waited. The steps came closer. And then we saw the fold of a
white tunic among the trees, and a gleam of gold. We leapt forward, we ran to
them, and we stood looking upon the Golden One.
They saw us, and their hands closed into fists, and the fists pulled their arms
down, as if they wished their arms to hold them, while their body swayed. And
they could not speak.
We dared not come too close to them. We asked, and our voice trembled:
"How did you come to be here, Golden One?"
But they whispered only:
"We have found you. . . ."
"How did you come to be in the forest?" we asked.
They raised their head, and there was a great pride in their voice; they answered:
"We have followed you."
Flight to the Forest
We go on and we bless the earth under our feet. But questions come to us again, as
we walk in silence. If that which we have found is the corruption of solitude,
then what can men wish for save corruption? If this is the great evil of being
alone, then what is good and what is evil?
Everything which comes from the many is good. Everything which comes from one is
evil. This have we been taught with our first breath. We have broken the law,
but we have never doubted it. Yet now, as we walk through the forest, we are
learning to doubt.
There is no life for men, save in useful toil for the good of all their brothers.
But we lived not, when we toiled for our brothers, we were only weary. There is
no joy for men, save the joy shared with all their brothers. But the only things
which taught us joy were the power we created in our wires, and the Golden One.
And both these joys belong to us alone, they come from us alone, they bear no
relation to all our brothers, and they do not concern our brothers in any way.
Thus do we wonder.
There is some error, one frightful error, in the thinking of men. What is that
error? We do not know, but the knowledge struggles within us, struggles to be born.
The Doubt
We climbed paths where the wild goat dared not follow. Stones rolled from under
our feet, and we heard them striking the rocks below, farther and farther down,
and the mountains rang with each stroke, and long after the strokes had died.
But we went on, for we knew that no men would ever follow our track nor reach
us here.
Then today, at sunrise, we saw a white flame among the trees, high on a sheer peak
before us. We thought that it was a fire and stopped. But the flame was unmoving,
yet blinding as liquid metal. So we climbed toward it through the rocks. And there,
before us, on a broad summit, with the mountains rising behind it, stood a house
such as we had never seen, and the white fire came from the sun on the glass of
its windows. The house had two stories and a strange roof flat as a floor. There
was more window than wall upon its walls, and the windows went on straight around
the corners, though how this kept the house standing we could not guess. The walls
were hard and smooth, of that stone unlike stone which we had seen in our tunnel.
We both knew it without words: this house was left from the Unmentionable Times.
The House From Unmentionable Times
I am. I think. I will.
My hands... My spirit... My sky... My forest... This earth of mine.... What must I say besides?
These are the words. This is the answer.
I stand here on the summit of the mountain. I lift my head and I spread my arms.
This, my body and spirit, this is the end of the quest. I wished to know the
meaning of things. I am the meaning. I wished to find a warrant for being. I need
no warrant for being, and no word of sanction upon my being. I am the warrant
and the sanction.
It is my eyes which see, and the sight of my eyes grants beauty to the earth. It
is my ears which hear, and the hearing of my ears gives its song to the world. It
is my mind which thinks, and the judgement of my mind is the only searchlight that
can find the truth. It is my will which chooses, and the choice of my will is the
only edict I must respect.
Many words have been granted me, and some are wise, and some are false, but only
three are holy: "I will it!"
Whatever road I take, the guiding star is within me; the guiding star and the
loadstone which point the way. They point in but one direction. They point to me.
I know not if this earth on which I stand is the core of the universe or if it is
but a speck of dust lost in eternity. I know not and I care not. For I know what
happiness is possible to me on earth. And my happiness needs no higher aim to
vindicate it. My happiness is not the means to any end. It is the end. It is its
own goal. It is its own purpose.
Neither am I the means to any end others may wish to accomplish. I am not a tool
for their use. I am not a servant of their needs. I am not a bandage for their
wounds. I am not a sacrifice on their altars. I am a man. This miracle of me is
mine to own and keep, and mine to guard, and mine to use, and mine to kneel before!
I do not surrender my treasures, nor do I share them. The fortune of my spirit is
not to be blown into coins of brass and flung to the winds as alms for the poor of
the spirit. I guard my treasures: my thought, my will, my freedom. And the greatest
of these is freedom.
I owe nothing to my brothers, nor do I gather debts from them. I ask none to live
for me, nor do I live for any others. I covet no man's soul, nor is my soul theirs
to covet.
I am neither foe nor friend to my brothers, but such as each of them shall deserve
of me. And to earn my love, my brothers must do more than to have been born. I do
not grant my love without reason, nor to any chance passer-by who may wish to claim
it. I honor men with my love. But honor is a thing to be earned. I shall choose
friends among men, but neither slaves nor masters. And I shall choose only such as
please me, and them I shall love and respect, but neither command nor obey. And we
shall join our hands when we wish, or walk alone when we so desire. For in the
temple of his spirit, each man is alone. Let each man keep his temple untouched and
undefiled. Then let him join hands with others if he wishes, but only beyond his
holy threshold.
For the word "We" must never be spoken, save by one's choice and as a
second thought. This word must never be placed first within man's soul, else it
becomes a monster, the root of all the evils on earth, the root of man's torture
by men, and of an unspeakable lie.
The word "We" is as lime poured over men, which sets and hardens to
stone, and crushes all beneath it, and that which is white and that which is black
are lost equally in the grey of it. It is the word by which the depraved steal the
virtue of the good, by which the weak steal the might of the strong, by which the
fools steal the wisdom of the sages.
What is my joy if all hands, even the unclean, can reach into it? What is my
wisdom, if even the fools can dictate to me? What is my freedom, if all creatures,
even the botched and the impotent, are my masters? What is my life, if I am but to
bow, to agree and to obey? But I am done with this creed of corruption.
I am done with the monster of "We," the word of serfdom, of plunder, of
misery, falsehood and shame. And now I see the face of god, and I raise this god
over the earth, this god whom men have sought since men came into being, this god
who will grant them joy and peace and pride.
This god, this one word:
"I."
I am. I think. I will.
It was when I read the first of the books I found in my house that I saw the
word "I." And when I understood this word, the book fell from my hands,
and I wept, I who had never known tears. I wept in deliverance and in pity for
all mankind.
I understood the blessed thing which I had called my curse. I understood why the
best in me had been my sins and my transgressions; and why I had never felt guilt
in my sins. I understood that centuries of chains and lashes will not kill the
spirit of man nor the sense of truth within him.
I read many books for many days. Then I called the Golden One, and I told her what
I had read and what I had learned. She looked at me and the first words she spoke
were:
"I love you."
Then I said:
"My dearest one, it is not proper for men to be without names. There was a
time when each man had a name of his own to distinguish him from all other men. So
let us choose our names. I have read of a man who lived many thousands of years
ago, and of all the names in these books, his is the one I wish to bear.
He took the light of the gods and he brought it to men, and he taught men to be
gods. And he suffered for his deed as all bearers of light must suffer. His name
was Prometheus."
"It shall be your name," said the Golden One.
"And I have read of a goddess," I said, "who was the mother of the
earth and of all the gods. Her name was Gaea. Let this be your name, my Golden One,
for you are to be the mother of a new kind of gods."
"It shall be my name," said the Golden One.
Now I look ahead. My future is clear before me. The Saint of the pyre had seen
the future when he chose me as his heir, as the heir of all the saints and all the
martyrs who came before him and who died for the same cause, for the same word,
no matter what name they gave to their cause and their truth.
I shall live here, in my own house. I shall take my food from the earth by the
toil of my own hands. I shall learn many secrets from my books. Through the years
ahead, I shall rebuild the achievements of the past, and open the way to carry them
further, the achievements which are open to me, but closed forever to my brothers,
for their minds are shackled to the weakest and dullest ones among them.
I have learned that my power of the sky was known to men long ago; they called it
Electricity. It was the power that moved their greatest inventions. It lit this
house with light which came from those globes of glass on the walls. I have found
the engine which produced this light. I shall learn how to repair it and how to
make it work again. I shall learn how to use the wires which carry this power. Then
I shall build a barrier of wires around my home, and across the paths which lead to
my home; a barrier light as a cobweb, more impassable than a wall of granite; a
barrier my brothers will never be able to cross. For they have nothing to fight me
with, save the brute force of their numbers. I have my mind.
Then here, on this mountaintop, with the world below me and nothing above me but
the sun, I shall live my own truth. Gaea is pregnant with my child. Our son will
be raised as a man. He will be taught to say "I" and to bear the pride
of it. He will be taught to walk straight and on his own feet. He will be taught
reverence for his own spirit.
When I shall have read all the books and learned my new way, when my home will be
ready and my earth tilled, I shall steal one day, for the last time, into the
cursed City of my birth. I shall call to me my friend who has no name save
International 4-8818, and all those like him, Fraternity 2-5503, who cries without
reason, and Solidarity 9-6347 who calls for help in the night, and a few others. I
shall call to me all the men and the women whose spirit has not been killed within
them and who suffer under the yoke of their brothers. They will follow me and I
shall lead them to my fortress. And here, in this uncharted wilderness, I and they,
my chosen friends, my fellow-builders, shall write the first chapter in the new
history of man.
These are the things before me. And as I stand here at the door of glory, I look
behind me for the last time. I look upon the history of men, which I have learned
from the books, and I wonder. It was a long story, and the spirit which moved it
was the spirit of man's freedom. But what is freedom? Freedom from what? There is
nothing to take a man's freedom away from him, save other men. To be free, a man
must be free of his brothers. That is freedom. That and nothing else.
At first, man was enslaved by the gods. But he broke their chains. Then he was
enslaved by the kings. But he broke their chains. He was enslaved by his birth, by
his kin, by his race. But he broke their chains. He declared to all his brothers
that a man has rights which neither god nor king nor other men can take away from
him, no matter what their number, for his is the right of man, and there is no
right on earth above this right. And he stood on the threshold of the freedom for
which the blood of the centuries behind him had been spilled.
But then he gave up all he had won, and fell lower than his savage beginning.
What brought it to pass? What disaster took their reason away from men? What whip
lashed them to their knees in shame and submission? The worship of the
word "We."
When men accepted that worship, the structure of centuries collaped about them,
the structure whose every beam had come from the thought of some one man, each in
his day down the ages, from the depth of some one spirit, such spirit as existed
but for its own sake. Those men who survived those eager to obey, eager to live
for one another, since they had nothing else to vindicate them - those men could
neither carry on, nor preserve what they had received. Thus did all thought, all
science, all wisdom perish on earth. Thus did men - men with nothing to offer save
their great number - lost the steel towers, the flying ships, the power wires, all
the things they had not created and could never keep. Perhaps, later, some men had
been born with the mind and the courage to recover these things which were lost;
perhaps these men came before the Councils of Scholars. They were answered as I
have been answered - and for the same reasons. But I still wonder how it was
possible, in those graceless years of transition, long ago, that men did not see
whither they were going, and went on, in blindness and cowardice, to their fate.
I wonder, for it is hard for me to conceive how men who knew the word "I"
could give it up and not know what they lost. But such has been the story, for I
have lived in the City of the damned, and I know what horror men permitted to be
brought upon them.
Perhaps, in those days, there were a few among men, a few of clear sight and clean
soul, who refused to surrender that word. What agony must have been theirs before
that which they saw coming and could not stop! Perhaps they cried out in protest
and in warning. But men paid no heed to their warning. And they, these few, fought
a hopeless battle, and they perished with their banners smeared by their own blood.
And they chose to perish, for they knew. To them, I send my salute across the
centuries, and my pity. Theirs is the banner in my hand. And I wish I had the power
to tell them that the despair of their hearts was not to be final, and their night
was not without hope. For the battle they lost can never be lost. For that which
they died to save can never perish. Through all the darkness, through all the shame
of which men are capable, the spirit of man will remain alive on this earth. It may
sleep, but it will awaken. It may wear chains, but it will break through. And man
will go on. Man, not men.
Here on this mountain, I and my sons and my chosen friends shall build our new land
and our fort. And it will become as the heart of the earth, lost and hidden at
first, but beating, beating louder each day. And word of it will reach every corner
of the earth. And the roads of the world will become as veins which will carry the
best of the world's blood to my threshold. And all my brothers, and the Councils of
my brothers, will hear of it, but they will be impotent against me. And the day
will come when I shall break all the chains of the earth, and raze the cities of
the enslaved, and my home will become the capital of a world where each man will be
free to exist for his own sake. For the coming of that day shall I fight, I and my
sons and my chosen friends. For the freedom of Man. For his rights. For his life.
For his honor.
And here, over the portals of my fort, I shall cut in the stone the word which is
to be my beacon and my banner. The word which will not die, should we all perish in
battle. The word which can never die on this earth, for it is the heart of it and
the meaning and the glory.
The sacred word: EGO
The sacred word: EGO