(1517-1633) Wittenberg & Rome
The nail piercing the Wittenberg church door was a sound that echoed in Enki's soul. Martin Luther's rage was a fire, and for a moment, Enki—living as a itinerant scholar—let himself warm his hands at it. This was not quiet defiance; this was a hammer swung at the cage's lock.
But the fire spread. It burned into dogma. Enki watched Luther's movement harden, creating new laws, new orthodoxies, a new cage from the splinters of the old.
A century later, in Rome, he stood in the crowd as Galileo Galilei was forced to recant. The old man's eyes, full of the stars he had seen, scanned the faces of his accusers and found Enki's. In that gaze was a silent plea: You see the truth. Testify.
Galileo saw the universe as it was. Luther had seen faith as it should be. Both were broken by systems that valued control over truth.
Enki's hand twitched. He could step forward. He could speak of the two moons, of Sebastian's testimony in stone, of the cosmic laws that made a lie of the Church's earth-centric universe. It would cost him everything. It might save this one man's spirit.
The Veil was a collar around his throat, tightening. He saw not comets, but the certain, immediate annihilation of this entire center of learning. He remained silent.
Galileo, broken, whispered the words of recantation. The truth was forced to kneel.
Scrapbook Entry: "A hammer and a telescope. One sought to free the soul, the other the mind. Both were captured and turned into tools for new prisons. I watched a man's universe be crushed by the very faith that promised liberation. I had the keys to two cages in my hands, and I let them rust. I am not a witness. I am a monument to caution."