Friend, you have been kind to me though I am a stranger, a sick and wild-eyed traveler from a place with a name that means little in these parts. Though I have known you but an hour, I believe you are a good man, and strong, as I myself was once. If you can bear the sight of me awhile, sit and listen. May these words of mine be like seeds that fall on glad earth, for the journey of The Book cannot end here.
They say my mother lost many children before she bore my sisters, Arain and Mera. How wonderful they must have seemed to her, for one healthy babe is treasure enough, and two at once are a miracle. My sisters came together from the womb, as much alike as two shafts of golden wheat that have sprung from the same seed. From the day of their birth, their hair was white and shining, their eyes the cool violet of river mist at dusk, and their skin like flawless ivory. In the city of Handred it was said that they were an omen sent by Feder, and that their beauty was His mark of greatness.
My sisters were but eight years old and I a child of two when our parents were killed by raiders from Nupask. We buried our mother and father ourselves, and made a burnt offering of their hair, so that Feder would smile on Handred and grant our women many children.
We were of no high blood and might well have spent the remainder of our childhood as street urchins had it not been for the pious of the city. The pious looked kindly upon Arain and Mera because their beauty was the mark of God's favor, and they looked kindly upon me because I was my sisters' brother. We never lacked food or a warm hearth.
One spring evening a tall, pale woman came from the temple. She spoke at length with Arain and Mera. Later they told me that her name was Jana, and that she was the High Colonel of the Service. I had heard of the High Colonel. I knew of her importance. And, with a child's clean wisdom, I sensed that her visit would bring a great change to our lives.
Truly it did. For not long after that Arain and Mera went off to the Great School, and I saw them much less often. Only then did I begin to understand that they were different from me. I was ordinary. I belonged and was accepted among the children in the streets as my sisters had never been. And I knew that the High Colonel would never come for me.
Instead, it was old Mathias the potter who came for me. Seeing that I was too young to be alone so much of the time, he took me in as his apprentice. I owe Mathias a great debt. Without him I might never have known the joy of a well-chosen glaze on fine clay, the satisfaction of a beautiful form turned on a familiar wheel, the comfort of a workshop warmed by a kiln. But the time for repaying debts has long since passed, and my regrets lie inside me like jagged shards.
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