There was power in the written word. It was through this power that a simple string of seemingly unrelated and largely innocuous words could move a crowd to tears, to jubilation, to the exhilarated feeling of a thousand hearts, all beating as one, that comes in between. Everyone knew of the power, because it was so seemingly obvious. Get a good speechwriter, a good novelist, a poet with a true gift, and that power could be possessed by anyone.
There was power in the written word. A power so great that it had been struck from the annals of history, so all but a handful of men remembered the whispers of it - told in the dead of night, where naught but ghosts might overhear. Kept secret and locked away from the light of day, these words only stood to grow in power; and grow they did.
There were words in languages forgotten by mankind, ancient words in tongues that were not meant for mortal ears. Written out on sheep skin, on papyrus and crumbling rice paper, they were persevered, locked away for eternity, away from the prying eyes of anyone who would seek to possess their secrets and their power. They called out, a silent wail into the void of their empty prison, desperate for a reader, for one who can bring them to life once more.
The people who protected these books were, largely, unaware of what they were charged with protecting. It was a secret entrusted to only a select few, and even fewer still who were in the position of any real authority. They followed an ancient model - a politician, a leader, a so-called good man could never have control over such a power, for they would surely become corrupt. The guardians were lawyers, they were teachers, and they were farmers.
For nearly three hundred years since the collection had been moved from England, smuggled at the bottoms of sea chests and at the bases of barrels of hardtack, this system worked. Owned by a property nominally belonging to the United States Government, the collection was protected, at least on paper - hidden beneath a library.
The library was sold on a Tuesday with little fanfare...
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YOU ARE READING
The Readers of the Grand Library
AdventureA group of strangers gathers to help restore a forgotten library and to protect the world from a calamity caused by the books it once kept hidden from the world. Thea is a reader. She can sing the truth out of the pages of a book and make them int...
