Neverness by David Zindell Page B

Near the middle of the book, which contained thirteen hundred and forty-nine brittle pages, I saw a word that I recognized. The word reminded me that the Timekeeper was not a man to be laughed at or mocked. Once, when I was a young novice, the horologes had caught a democrat with a laser burning
written words
into the white marble of the tower. The Timekeeper - I remember his neck muscles writhing like spirali beneath his tight skin - had ordered the poor man thrown from the top of the tower in atonement for the dual crimes of destroying beauty and inflicting his ideas on others. Barbaric, According to the canons of our Order, of course, slelling is supposedly the only crime punishable by death. (When slel-neckers are caught stealing another's DNA they are beheaded, one of the few ancient customs both efficient and merciful.) We hold that banishment from our beautiful city is punishment enough for all other crimes, but for some reason, when the Timekeeper had seen the graffito, FREEDOM, etched into the archway above the Tower's entrance, he had raged and had discovered an exceptionary clause in the ninety-first canon permitting him, so he claimed, to order that: "The punishment will fit the crime." To this day, the graffito remains above the archway, a reminder not only that is freedom a dead concept, but that our lives are determined by sometimes capricious forces beyond our control.
       We talked for a while about the forces that control the universe, and we talked about the quest. When I expressed my excitement over the possibility of discovering the Elder Eddas, the Timekeeper, ever a man of contradictions, ran his fingers through his snowy hair as he grimaced and said, "I'm not so sure I want man saved. So, I've had enough of men - maybe it's time the ticking stopped and the clock ran down. Let the Vild explode, every damn star from Vesper to Nwarth. Saved! Life is hell, eh? and there's no salvation except death, no matter what the Friends of Man say." I waited for his breath to run out as he ranted about the pervasive - and perverse - effect that the alien missionaries and alien religions had had upon the human race; I waited a long time.
       The sky had long since grown dark and blackened when he hammered the edge of his fist against his thigh and growled out, "Piss on the Ieldra! So they made themselves into gods and carked themselves into the core? They should leave us alone, eh? Man's man, and gods are gods, each to his own purpose. But you've sworn your silly oath, so you go find them or their Eddas or anything else you think you can find."
       Then he sighed and added, "But go carefully."
       It is strange how often the smallest of events, the most trivial of decisions, can utterly change our lives. Having said goodbye to the Timekeeper, I reached the ice beneath the Tower, and I stole another look at the book he had given me. Poems! A simple book of clumsy, ancient poems! There on the gliddery, which was dark and bare, I stood for a long time wondering if I shouldn't throw the book into our dormitory room's fireplace; I stood there brooding over the meaning of chance and fate. Then the icy, damp wind off the Sound began to blow, carrying into my bones the chill of death - whose death I did not then know. The wind drove hard snowflakes across the ice, stinging my face and scouring the windows of the tower. The soft sound of ice brushing against glass was almost lost to the tinkling of the wind chimes hanging from the Tower's window ledges. Shrugging my shoulders, I pulled the hood of my kamelaika over my head. The Timekeeper wanted me to read the book. Very well, I would read the book.
       My hands were numb as I slipped it into the pack I wore at the small of my back I struck off down the gliddery in a hurry. Bardo and my other friends would be waiting dinner for me, and I was hungry and cold.
    I spent most of my last night in the city making my various goodbyes. There was a dinner in my behalf in