which we had 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.

We blew out the candle. Darkness swallowed us. There was nothing left
around us, nothing save night and a thin thread of flame in it, as a
crack in the wall of a prison. We stretched our hands to the wire, and
we saw our fingers in the red glow. We could not see our body nor feel
it, and in that moment nothing existed save our two hands over a wire
glowing in a black abyss.

Then we thought of the meaning of that which lay before us. We can light
our tunnel, and the City, and all the Cities of the world with nothing
save metal and wires. We can give our brothers a new light, cleaner and
brighter than any they have ever known. The power of the sky can be made
to do men's bidding. There are no limits to its secrets and its might,
and it can be made to grant us anything if we but choose to ask.

Then we knew what we must do. Our discovery is too great for us to waste
our time in sweeping streets. We must not keep our secret to ourselves,
nor buried under the ground. We must bring it into the sight of all
men. We need all our time, we need the work rooms of the Home of the
Scholars, we want the help of our brother Scholars and their wisdom
joined to ours. There is so much work ahead for all of us, for all the
Scholars of the world.

In a month, the World Council of Scholars is to meet in our City. It is
a great Council, to which the wisest of all lands are elected, and it
meets once a year in the different Cities of the earth. We shall go to
this Council and we shall lay before them, as our gift, the glass box
with the power of the sky. We shall confess everything to them. They
will see, understand and forgive. For our gift is greater than our
transgression. They will explain it to the Council of Vocations, and we
shall b