Prologue

The man cradled the gangly girl in his arms as if she were a baby, but she wasn’t aware the way an infant was. Her mind was consumed by her need to fend off sleep.

“What else could be behind such dreams?” her father demanded.

The father had married into his second cousin’s bloodline, which was the most sensitive branch of all the Peoples. Now he alone was free of the dream torment, while his wife, daughters and son suffered terribly.

The daughter in his arms was catatonic, her body half-dead from need of sleep.

The Caretaker of the People pondered this pathetic young victim as she tensed and slackened rhythmically, fighting to stay awake. She succumbed to her need, and became limp in her father’s arms as sleep overcame her.

They held their breath, the father and the Caretaker. Maybe this time there would be no dreams …

The girl screamed, her eyes opening wide and her hands clawing at her father’s chest. Her mind told her that she was falling from a great height, burning in boiling rain, sinking into water so deep that all light was erased.

Her moment of terror faded, but her reality was just as bad. She didn’t see her father or the Caretaker, but focused again on fighting to stay awake.

“She is like this always now. For two days it has been thus,” her father said. “I’m afraid she is already mad.”

Okyek Meh Thih, the Caretaker of the People, felt sad and helpless. He stood up.

“What will you do?” the father asked.

“I will seek out wisdom,” Okyek Meh Thih announced.

The girl’s father showed a sign of faint hope, but Okyek Meh Thih felt no hope.

It was his duty. His grandfather’s instructions were quite clear. If a time came when the dreams disrupted the lives of the People, then Okyek Meh Thih must go into the mountain again and meditate on the message in the cave. Every fiber of his being told him to stay and offer comfort to the suffering People, and yet he did his duty and walked away from them.

What wisdom could there be in those old mountains and the faded inscription of a people long dead?