“After a while,” Rod continued, “we decided to send messengers to the villagers nearby. We thought that with all you had taught us, and what we had taught the villagers of Rise, we should continue to share. So the messengers we sent were told to teach as much as they could, including the making and lighting of the lamps in the village. Of course, they also told the tale of the Lightbringer. Each of those messengers has, in turn, come to be called a Lamplighter.
“Meanwhile, here in Rise, we found that there were others who quickly (or even not-so-quickly) embraced the things we were teaching. As they embraced them, they taught others and made changes of their own. Just as the Huddler in Rise and elsewhere came to call those of us who had learned directly from you – the Lightbringer – Lamplighters, so the other Huddlers came to call those who learned from us and spread the ideas the Shadowpushers, since they continued to push back the shadows and spread the light.
“No one Huddler seemed to be responsible for this. It just seemed to happen. And as the Huddlers at each of the other villages spread the learning, so they also spread the names, and now at any village nearby you will find that they know of the Lightbringer, and either have Lamplighters of their own, or Shadowpushers who learned from the Lamplighters.
“One way and another, the things you’ve taught us – not just the making and doing, but the thinking – have spread from village to village.”
And Ham cried. And Ham laughed.
