1 I shall learn many secrets from my books.
2 We have solved secrets of which the Scholars have no knowledge.
3 We know, for we have found a secret unknown to all our brothers.
4 We must not keep our secret to ourselves, nor buried under the ground.
5 Nothing matters save the work, our secret, our evil, our precious work.
6 This is our wonder and our secret fear, that we know and do not resist.
7 Hundreds upon hundreds of years ago men knew secrets which we have lost.
8 And we wonder how it came to pass that these secrets were lost to the world.
9 We see the dust of centuries, the dust which hid the great secrets and perhaps great evils.
10 The secrets of this earth are not for all men to see, but only for those who will seek them.
11 And as we look upon the Uncharted Forest far in the night, we think of the secrets of the Unmentionable Times.
12 For should any men save the Scholars learn of our secret, they would not understand it, nor would they believe us.
13 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.
14 And if sometimes, in the secret darkness of our heart, we regret that which befell us on our fifteenth birthday, we know that it was through our own guilt.
15 Men never enter the Uncharted Forest, for there is no power to explore it and no path to lead among its ancient trees which stand as guards of fearful secrets.
16 But our hand which followed the track, as we crawled, clung to the iron as if it would not leave it, as if the skin of our hand were thirsty and begging of the metal some secret fluid beating in its coldness.