Children of Thera



I


The body count mounts slowly.
Usually some innocent young Ashtani stumbling
someplace he had better off left
unexplored. And there is an unfinished
aqueduct in the desert, a relic of the beginning,
another massacre.

But Thera!

The main roads, our cities, are Vertani-free. You
could travel the world and see no evidence
of the Vertani, that they had ever come,
except in a few, mostly out-of-the-way,
places.

And Thera!

Centre of our world since Nicator.
"North of Thera" was a phrase we heard
from childhood, before we knew what Thera
was. For many of us, before we knew
what "North" meant.

Thera gone!

Thera was no stranger to massacre.
Shallamese, Ashtani soldiers plundered her
for long years. The parents of Nikolas
were once such victims, and Nikolas, like those
refugees we seek,

A child of Thera.



II


Nikolas wandered the world, and what he thought
became Seleucar. Greatest of cities, Thera's
daughter, lost to the world through clouded minds,
though some now living no doubt once knew
where she stood.

If Thera has another child, let that one also be
Peace through Strength. We must have peace with
Vertan, because they can destroy us utterly.
All the things we hold dear, the beauty
of Cyrene, the starkness of Mhaldor,
the splendor of Shallam, all our art, all our
past, could go as Thera did.

We may have hope for peace, because
this hasn't happened. Although all trust
departed with the stones of Thera, trust, like
Thera, may be rebuilt. Perhaps Vertan is as
shocked as we. Perhaps this, too, is pretense.

If we can no longer trust the Vertani,
any of us, as friends, maybe we can learn
to trust them as enemies. Enemies with honor
of some nature. Let us seek to discover
that nature, and judge them by their acts since
Thera.

The Vertani are not only an obstacle to be
overcome. The Vertani are also the key to a door.
One day, the legacy of Thera may stand,
rebuild, not only at its ancient site, but also
on the soil of many foreign planes. Even upon
Vertan.




Penned by my hand on the 17th of Phaestian, in the year 389 AF.