Anathem

by Neal Stephenson

  I almost missed my cue. But I felt Ala swinging around toward me. We came together, there on the rubble, and found each other. You might find it odd that a story like this one ends with a kiss, as if it were a popular speely, or a comedy acted out on a stage. But in that we started so many things in that moment, we brought to their ends many others that have been the subject matter of this account, and so here is where I draw a line across the leaf and call it the end.

  GLOSSARY

  A.R.: Year of the Reconstitution. Arbre’s dating system defines Year 0 as the year in which the Reconstitution took place; any year prior to that is assigned a negative number, any year that is expressed as a positive number or, equivalently, followed by A.R., happened afterwards.

  Adrakhonic Theorem: An ancient theorem from plane geometry, attributed to Adrakhones, the founder of the Temple of Orithena, stating that, in a right triangle, the square of the hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the squares of the other two sides. Equivalent to the Pythagorean Theorem on Earth.

  Allswell: A naturally occurring chemical that, when present in sufficient concentrations in the brain, engenders the feeling that everything is basically fine. Its level may be artificially adjusted by, e.g., consuming blithe.

  Analemma: A shape like a slender, elongated figure eight, observed by astronomers who track the way the sun’s apparent movement across the sky varies from day to day over the course of a year.

  Anathem: (1) In Proto-Orth, a poetic or musical invocation of Our Mother Hylaea, used in the aut of Provener, or (2) an aut by which an incorrigible fraa or suur is ejected from the mathic world.

  Apert: The aut in which a math opens its gates for a period of ten days, during which time the avout are free to come and go extramuros, and Saeculars are free to come in, sightsee, and talk to the avout. Depending on the math, Apert is celebrated every one, ten, hundred, or thousand years.

  Arbortect: One who genetically engineers new species of trees.

  Arbre: The name of the planet on which Anathem is set.

  Ark: Equivalent to a church, temple, synaogue, etc., on Earth.

  Atlanian: See Liaison, Atlanian.

  Aut: A rite observed in the mathic world. Some of the more important and commonly celebrated auts are Provener, Eliger, Regred, and Requiem. Rarely celebrated rites include Anathem, Voco, and Inbrase.

  Avout: A person sworn to the Cartasian Discipline and therefore dwelling in the mathic, as opposed to Saecular, world.

  Baritoe, Saunt: (1) A noblewoman of the mid-Praxic Age, the hostess and the leader of the Sconics. (2) A concent of the same name, one of the Big Three.

  Baz: Ancient city-state that later created an empire encompassing the known world.

  Bazian Orthodox: The state religion of the Bazian Empire, which survived the Fall of Baz, erected, during the succeeding age, a mathic system parallel to and independent of that inaugurated by Cartas, and endured as one of Arbre’s largest faiths.

  Big Three: The Concents of Saunt Muncoster, Saunt Tredegarh, and Saunt Baritoe, all relatively old, wealthy, distinguished, and close together.

  Blithe: A weed that was genetically altered to produce the brain chemical known as Allswell. Forbidden to the avout.

  Bly, Saunt: A theor of the Concent of Saunt Edhar who was Thrown Back and lived out the remainder of his days as a Feral on a butte, later known as Bly’s Butte. According to legend, he was worshipped as a god by the local slines, who eventually killed him and ate his liver.

  Book, The: A tome filled with subtly incoherent material, which misbehaving avout are forced to study as a form of penance. Divided into chapters, the difficulty of which grows exponentially.

  Bulshytt: Speech (typically but not necessarily commercial or political) that employs euphemism, convenient vagueness, numbing repetition, and other such rhetorical subterfuges to create the impression that something has been said.

  Calca: An explanation, definition, or lesson that is instrumental in developing some larger theme, but that has been moved aside from the main body of the dialog and encapsulated in a footnote or appendix.

  Cartabla: A portable location-finding and map-display gadget, like a GPS unit on Earth.

  Cartas, Saunt: An educated Bazian noblewoman who, after the Fall of Baz, founded the first math and created the Discipline that was followed all throughout the Old Mathic Age and, with certain renovations, in the mathic world following the Reconstitution.

  Cartasian Discipline: The set of rules prescribed by Saunt Cartas, who is credited with having brought the mathic world into being following the Fall of Baz. An avout is a person who has taken an oath to observe the Discipline.

  Causal Domain: A collection of things mutually linked in a web of cause-and-effect relationships.

  Centenarian: An avout sworn not to emerge from the math or to have contact with the outside world until the next Centennial Apert. Informally, “Hundreder.”

  Chapter: Local organizational unit of an Order of avout. Orders generally span the entire mathic world, and may have local Chapters in any number of different maths and concents. Commonly, as for example at Edhar, a math will comprise two or more distinct Chapters, belonging to different Orders.

  Chronicle: Log of all events, great and small, taking place within a math or concent. Assiduously maintained and archived by hierarchs.

  Chronochasm: In Mathic architecture, the space in the interior of a clock tower housing the workings of the clock and related equipment such as dials, bells, etc.

  Cnoön: According to Protan metatheorics, the pure, eternal, changeless entities, such as geometric shapes, theorems, numbers, etc., that belong to another plane of existence (the Hylaean Theoric World) and that are somehow perceived or discovered (as opposed to fabricated) by working theors.

  Cnoüs: Ancient historical figure famous for having a vision in which he claimed to see into another, higher world. The vision was interpreted in two different and incompatible ways by his daughters Hylaea and Deät.

  Collect: Used as a verb, to accept a newcomer into a math from extramuros during Apert. Typically the newcomer is within a few years of his or her tenth birthday. Used as a noun to denote such a newcomer.

  Concent: A relatively large community of avout in which two or more maths exist side by side. In general, Centenarian and Millenarian orders are only to be found in concents, as practical considerations make it difficult for them to exist as freestanding maths.

  Convox: A large convocation of avout from maths and concents all over the world. Normally celebrated only at Millennial Apert or following a sack, but also convened in highly exceptional circumstances at the request of the Saecular Power.

  Cosmi: Plural of cosmos. A coinage necessary for discoursing of polycosmic theorics.

  Cosmographer: In Earth terms, an astronomer/astrophysicist/ cosmologist.

  Counter-Bazian: Religion rooted in the same scriptures, and honoring the same prophets, as Bazian Orthodoxy, but explicitly rejecting the authority, and certain teachings, of the Bazian Orthodox faith.

  DAG: See Directed Acyclic Graph.

  Datonomy: An approach to philosophy rooted in the work of the Sconics and based on rigorous study of data, or, literally, givens, meaning what is given to our minds by our sensory apparatus.

  Deät: One of the two daughers of Cnoüs, the other being Hylaea. She interpreted her father’s vision as meaning that he had glimpsed a heavenly spiritual kingdom populated by angelic beings and ruled by a supreme creator.

  Decenarian: An avout sworn not to emerge from the math or to have contact with the outside world until the next Decennial Apert. Informally, “Tenner.”

  Deolater: One who favors Deät’s interpretation of her father Cnoüs’s vision and therefore believes in a Heaven with a God in it. Compare Physiologer.

  Dialog, Peregrin: A Dialog in which two participants of roughly equal knowledge and intelligence develop an idea by talking to each other, typically while out walking around.

  Dialog, Periklynian: A comp
etitive Dialog in which each participant seeks to destroy the other’s position (see Plane).

  Dialog, Suvinian: A Dialog in which a mentor instructs a fid, usually by asking the fid questions, as opposed to speaking discursively.

  Dialog: A discourse, usually in formal style, between theors. “To be in Dialog” is to participate in such a discussion extemporaneously. The term may also apply to a written record of a historical Dialog; such documents are the cornerstone of the mathic literary tradition and are studied, re-enacted, and memorized by fids. In the classic format, a Dialog involves two principals and some number of onlookers who participate sporadically. Another common format is the Triangular, featuring a savant, an ordinary person who seeks knowledge, and an imbecile. There are countless other classifications, including the suvinian, the Periklynian, and the peregrin.

  Diax’s Rake: A pithy phrase, uttered by Diax on the steps of the Temple of Orithena when he was driving out the fortune-tellers with a gardener’s rake. Its general import is that one should never believe a thing only because one wishes that it were true. After this event, most Physiologers accepted the Rake and, in Diax’s terminology, thus became Theors. The remainder became known as Enthusiasts.

  Diax: An early physiologer at the Temple of Orithena, credited with driving out the Enthusiasts, founding theorics, and placing it on a solid, rigorous intellectual footing.

  Directed Acyclic Graph: An arrangement of nodes connected by one-way links (think boxes connected by arrows) so arranged that it is not possible to follow the links around in a circle.

  Discipline: See Cartasian Discipline.

  Dowment: In its most general usage, any wealth accumulated and held by a Lineage in the mathic world. Almost always used to refer to a building and its contents.

  Doyn: At Concents that observe the mealtime tradition of the Messal, a senior avout who has the privilege of sitting at the table and being waited on by a servitor.

  Drummon: A large wheeled vehicle used extramuros to transport heavy freight on roads.

  Ecba: A volcanic island in the Sea of Seas, home of the Temple of Orithena until the catastrophic eruption of-2621.

  Edhar: A Saunt belonging to the Evenedrician order who in 297 established a new order and later founded a concent, where he lived until he died; both the order and the concent ended up being named after him. The full name of the latter is “The Concent of Saunt Edhar” but in common usage this is often shortened to “Saunt Edhar” or simply “Edhar.”

  Eleven: The list of plants forbidden intramuros, typically because of their undesirable pharmacological properties. The Discipline states that any specimen noticed growing in the math is to be uprooted and burned without delay, and that the event is to be noted in the Chronicle.

  Eliger: The aut by which a fid chooses, and is chosen by, a specific chapter in his or her math, and thereby ceases to be a fid. Typically celebrated within a few years of the age of twenty.

  Enthusiast: Disparaging term for those early Physiologers at Orithena who were driven out by Diax because of their unwillingness or inability to think rigorously.

  Erasmas: A fraa at Saunt Baritoe’s in the Fourteenth Century A.R. who, along with Uthentine, founded the branch of metatheorics called Complex Protism. Also, his namesake, a fraa at Saunt Edhar’s in the Thirty-seventh Century who narrates Anathem.

  Ethras: A relatively prosperous and powerful city-state in the ancient world that, during its Golden Age (circa-2600 to-2300) was home to many theors, including Thelenes and Protas. The site of many important Dialogs studied, re-enacted, and memorized by fids.

  Etrevanean: See Liaison, Etrevanean.

  Evenedric: A protégé of Halikaarn, credited with carrying Halikaarn’s work forward into the time of the Reconstitution and helping to found the Semantic Faculties.

  Evenedricians: An early offshoot of the Halikaarnians.

  Everything Killer: A weapons system of unusual praxic sophistication, thought to have been used to devastating effect in the Terrible Events. The belief is widely held, but unproved, that the complicity of theors in the development of this praxis led to universal agreement that they should henceforth be segregated from non-theorical society, a policy that when effected became synonymous with the Reconstitution.

  Evoke: To call out an avout in the aut of Voco.

  Extra: Slightly disparaging term used by avout to refer to Saecular people.

  Extramuros: The world outside the walls of the math; the Saecular world.

  Faanians: An early offshoot of the Procians.

  Fendant: See Warden Fendant.

  Feral: A literate and theorically minded person who dwells in the Saeculum, cut off from contact with the mathic world. Typically an ex-avout who has renounced his or her vows or been Thrown Back, though the term is also technically applicable to autodidacts who have never been avout.

  Fetch: A wheeled vehicle used extramuros, typically by artisans, to transport small amounts of freight, tools, etc. Typically larger and less comfortable than a mobe.

  Fid: A young avout; an avout who has not yet joined an Order. See Eliger.

  Fluccish: The dominant global language of the Saecular world. Derived from an ancient “barbarian” (i.e., non-Orth) language, its vocabulary overlaps with that of Orth when dealing with abstractions, technical, medical, or legal terms. When extramuros culture is largely illiterate or aliterate (which is most of the time), it is written in short-lived, ad hoc writing systems such as Kinagrams or Logotype, but it can also be transcribed using the same alphabet as is employed for Orth.

  Fraa: A male avout.

  Gardan’s Steelyard: (1) A rule of thumb stating that when one is comparing two hypotheses, preference should be given to the one that is simpler. Also referred to as Saunt Gardan’s Steelyard or simply the Steelyard.

  Gheeth: An informal term, verging on an ethnic slur, for a particular ethnic group in the Saecular world.

  Graduation: A procedure by which an avout belonging to a Unarian, Decenarian, or Centenarian math may move up to (respectively) the adjoining Decenarian, Centenarian, or Millenarian math, traditionally by passing through a labyrinth that bridges the two maths in question.

  Grandfraa: An informal term of respect by which an avout might address a very senior fraa, especially, but not necessarily, one who has celebrated the aut of Regred.

  Grandsuur: An informal term of respect by which an avout might address a very senior suur, especially, but not necessarily, one who has celebrated the aut of Regred.

  HTW: See Hylaean Theoric World.

  Halikaarn: A Saunt from the last decades of the Praxic Age who clashed with his contemporary, Proc. Sometimes called Saunt Halikaarn the Great. Broadly speaking, Halikaarn is seen as the standard-bearer of the school of theorics promulgated thousands of years earlier by Protas and Thelenes and carried forward after his death by his disciple Evenedric and the Semantic Faculties.

  Halikaarnian: Of, or relating to, Saunt Halikaarn or any of the Orders that claim descent from the Semantic Faculties. Frequently seen as natural opponents of Procians and Faanians.

  Harbinger: One of a series of three calamities that engulfed most of Arbre during the last decades of the Praxic Age and later came to be seen as precursors or warnings of the Terrible Events. The precise nature of the Harbingers is difficult to sort out because of destruction of records (many of which were stored on syntactic devices that later ceased functioning) but it is generally agreed that the First Harbinger was a worldwide outbreak of violent revolutions, the Second was a world war, and the Third was a genocide.

  Hemn space: What is called configuration, state, or phase space on Earth.

  Hierarch: One of a specialized caste of avout whose responsibilities include the administration of maths and concents, interaction with the Saecular world and with hierarchs in other maths, defense of the math from Saecular molestation, policing, and maintenance of the Discipline.

  Hundred, to go: To lose one’s mind, to become mentally unsound, to stray i
redeemably from the path of theorics.

  Hundreder: Informal term for a Centenarian (see).

  Hylaea: One of the two daughters of Cnoüs, the other being Deät. She interpreted her father’s vision as meaning that he had glimpsed a higher and more perfect world (the Hylaean Theoric World or HTW) populated by pure geometric forms, crudely copied by geometers in this world.

  Hylaean Theoric World: The name used by most adherents of Protism to denote the higher plane of existence populated by perfect geometric forms, theorems, and other pure ideas (cnoöns)

  Hypotrochian Transquaestiation: Only one of a very large number of rhetorical tactics drilled into fids, particularly those under the tutelage of Procians. It means to change the subject in such a way as to assert, implicitly, that a controversial point has already been settled one way or the other.