Someone a long time ago, a very long time ago, had used those words, “the splendor of humanity.” That was in a different language, a language Garekyn could hear in his head but not write, yet Garekyn had translated the sentiment easily into the Russian or English he’d been learning from Prince Brovotkin. Garekyn’s mind had been equipped for the quick understanding of language and the quick analysis of patterns and systems. He loved learning. And Prince Brovotkin loved him for it. But Garekyn’s earliest memories were broken and fragmentary. They accosted him in unexpected and sometimes inexplicable flashes. His mind had been bruised and hurt in the catastrophe which had locked him in the ice. And who knew how the passage of time had affected Garekyn? He sought with all his might to recover every bit of vagrant memory that he could.

Three years after the premiere of The Sleeping Beauty ballet, when the great Tchaikovsky died, Garekyn wept bitterly. So did Prince Brovotkin. By that time, Garekyn had been thoroughly educated in the Prince’s library and Prince Alexi had taken Garekyn to Paris twice and London once, to Rome and Florence and Palermo, and was planning to take him to America. Garekyn knew more about the late nineteenth century than he’d ever known or understood about his brief existence twelve thousand years earlier.

To Prince Brovotkin, Garekyn confided all that he knew of himself, of how he’d been sent with three other humanoid beings to Earth specifically to correct a grievous error. Bits and pieces came to Garekyn when he talked, when they traveled, when Garekyn read new books or saw new cities—when Garekyn encountered new wonders such as the Pyramids of Giza or the great Crystal Palace in London, or the great cathedral of Saint Mary of the Nativity in Milan.

People of the Purpose is what they had called themselves, Garekyn and his kindred, but not because they meant to fulfill what the Parents had sent them to do, but because they had conceived of another purpose far more important.

Splendor of humanity. A being who had spoken those words…but there Garekyn’s faculties betrayed him. He could hear the voice, and see the eyes, pale eyes, not brownish black like his but remarkably pale greenish-blue eyes, so rare in that time on Earth, and golden-red hair—such lustrous golden-red hair.