Station Of Seers : 26

"This thing you see before you is called a book," Hirrilow explained to Asanka. "It contains symbols which represent thought. When you understand what those symbols mean it is called reading and when you can create them it is called writing. A collection of books is known as a library. This is my library, here, high in my private rooms at the top of the dome of Kalonia. I keep books here because I wish to preserve some of the old knowledge which is not stored within the vurtiverse. It is useful to me. But reading and writing are forbidden for all humans outside the Enclaves. That is one of the central and most important principles of the Vow Of Earth."
"Why?"
Hirrilow sighed. "Because the Guardians and the Galactic Compact believed that before all other causes it was reading and writing which had ultimately given rise to a Great Sin of which they were mortally afraid. They would do anything to avoid that sin again and to forget that it had happened. The Guardians wanted forgiveness above all else. The Vow Of Earth promised that there would be a Season of Innocence and so it has proved. The price of the Season of Innocence is the Great Forgetting; that humans no longer learn to read or write lest they be slaves to an evil History. It was History that led them into sin and History cannot live without reading and writing and books. So reading and writing and books must be forbidden."
"Is that true?" Asanka asked.
"I don't know if it is true," Hirrilow said. "I have doubts. Even if the Great Forgetting is right, all books are not History books and the redemption of Earth has been bought at a high price. But since you are now a citizen of Kalonia the rules which apply to the Riders do not apply to you. I intend to teach you to read and to write if you want to learn. But do not tell your mother because she would not understand. The Riders fear reading and writing in an instinctive way. And do not tell Gyrun because he would not approve. He does not know of my library."
Asanka looked at the book with a strange hunger for it was beautiful, mysterious and dangerously seductive. "I would like to learn to read," he answered.