The Fall of Babel (The Books of Babel #4)

by Josiah Bancroft

First, the masses must be coddled and made beholden, then given no alternative, and at last, when their fear is as potent as awe, they will have forgotten any illusion that they were ever my equal. Have no doubt, Tom, I will stand at my coronation, and all the Tower shall kneel.” As Senlin listened to Marat again expose the lavishness of his vanity, it dawned upon him how simple the world was in the eyes of a zealot. Everyone was either an implement or an idiot, a rung or an impediment, and the Tower was but a toy he had promised himself. His was not a complex philosophy, but rather an august sort of childishness. Civility, wisdom, and empathy required growth, sacrifice, a willingness to change, but evil never grew up. Evil was as callow and foolish at the end of itself as it was at the start.