Five hundred years ago, chaos reigned in the land. From the followers of the goddesses, Sola, Luna and Erda, a group of believers were called. They retreated to a hidden valley in the mountains. The goddesses ordered them to form a community and wait for a call to return to the outer world. A narrow pass over the mountain called the Gap guarded the place they people called Sanctuary.
During their isolation talents
arose. Some became Healers and were able to treat and diagnose illness by
touch. Sensitives who could read the emotions of others and on occasion read or
send thoughts were born. Singers of great power who with their voices could
guide and direct others arose. Elders appeared and they could lead and use the
voice of command. Teachers who held traces of all the talents and who could
tell if a child bore a talent. Of those with the talents there were no more
than ten to twenty who bore each gift. Once there had been talented called
Seers but there had been no one with a touch of more than one talent for more
than twenty years.
The remaining people were
commoners. They were divided into four groups. Caretakers cared for the running
of the town and those with gifts. Rangers guarded the boundaries of the valley
and the slopes. The farmers cared for the land. The herders tended the animals.
Many of the commoners prayed one of their children would show a talent.
As the years passed hierarchies
developed. The Elders became the rulers. Of the ones gifted as Teachers, there
were seldom more than one and during some generations none.
Twice the call to return to the
world was heard. Each time the Elders found a way to prevent the dispersal and
to keep the number of the community to less than fifteen hundred commoners.
“Enough said. You’ll soon wish
you’d let someone else do the chore. Elder John complained the whole way.”
David arched an eyebrow. “Why him?”
“He knew I wanted to see you and he suspects…Tell you later.” Paul’s lips
tightened.
David knew Paul wouldn’t speak until he was ready. He wondered what Paul
planned. He’d been isolated from his friend and could no longer read Paul’s
emotions or hear his thoughts.
“We’ll talk later.” Paul grasped David’s arm and pulled him toward the
stone hut. “Elder John and I will spend the night and leave at sunrise. I’ll be
back in time to prepare for being invested.”
David stared at the ground. Jealousy pierced his thoughts. He should have
stood on the stage of the meeting house too.
His hands fisted and he forced his throat to open. “I’m happy for you.”
And he was but the news dropped more acid to erode his self-confidence.
Elder John stepped into view. Heaving gasps rocked his rotund body. He
slumped on the stone bench outside the hut. “Have you a place for a weary old
man to rest. Preferably prone.”
David clasped the older man’s hand. The elder had always treated him with
kindness. John had even broken the community’s rules to aid David’s mother
before he and his twin sister had left the isolated cottage to enter the
village school. Her banishment had meant no one could visit or help but Elder
John had brought gifts of food and clothing. There had been others who came in
secret.
David helped John to his feet and opened the door into the hut built from
rocks taken from the hillside. A row of double-decker cots stood along one
wall. A fire burned on the hearth.
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