Defender of Thought
I awoke from a dead sleep to the acrid smell of smoke. My eyes flew open, and my body started moving before I could stop myself. The books!
I’d devoted my life to the Library. My parents sold me to the Librarians in exchange for a few pieces of silver. I didn’t have to devote my soul to the written word, but the librarians were kind - they taught me to read - and nothing else seemed to matter.
Now they were burning.
The whole of human knowledge and understanding was burning, and I had been lost in slumber after too many hours of study. I had to do something!
I scrambled through the assembled mob, trying to find the head Librarian. My stomach turned when I realized that the mob wasn’t just an assembly of random citizens or revolting slaves, but soldiers. This was calculated, no matter what they would later claim.
I found the head Librarian near the rarer collections, refusing to let them be razed to cinder. I ran to her and held the line with her. These soldiers had no right to burn the thoughts and truth of all Mankind.
Someone struck me in the head and must have hauled me out of the Library. Tia was later murdered as she tried to get away from the maddening crowd as our [word] temple burned.
Some say she was killed by the priesthood, others that it was simple laymen who did it. Either way, they were acting under orders from the Caesar.
They hurt her. They mutilated her. They spread lies about her.
And, with the Library gone, there was nothing that could be done to correct or preserve her legacy.
I am now a free person, old and frail, and I do my best to keep her memory alive. I scribble and scrawl what I can remember from my studies, but too much time has passed, and too much has been lost. I can only pray that Man will someday rediscover some of it, but I fear Man will never remember all that we have lost.
Even now, the candle of my life grows dim, and I must go into the dark alone. We are all alone in the end. I can only hope that Tia will meet me on the other side when I get there.
