I looked at Laken. Her face was fervent, white. “I can’t read it,” I said. “It’s in the high language. I don’t know enough of it.”

She took the scroll from me, and I saw that her hands shook. “It was written four centuries ago,” she said, her voice quavering. “The Firelord told me of it. I think not many people know it exists.” She drew a deep breath, and read the first part of it to me.

These are the words of the people calling themselves Chosen, written by the prophet Hamash. This is what occurred in the days following the time of the shaking, when stars fell and meteorites struck the earth, when the dust covered the sun and the world shifted on its axis and the cold age began. In those first days, the people who were left, whose lands were destroyed, travelled to find another place less devastated. They found it in the mountains of Galenia, where there dwelled a peaceful and prosperous race. This race lived in grand homes built on the mountainsides, homes of wood and stone and fine furniture. They had a city called Kasimarra, with a palace where their king lived. The palace was reached by a high road, and was at that time undefended, as the king was a man of peace who had no army. He and his people were easily defeated, and their homes taken over by the stronger nation.

At that time, the cold would kill a man within half a day if he was unprotected from it, and the new race needed fuel for fires, and fuel in plentiful and constant supply. All the trees were cut down and burned; then a new fuel was needed. Such fuel was hidden in countless seams in the mountains of Galenia, but was obtained only by long and hard labour. So the conquered people were enslaved, and by their labour the fuel was procured. But the slaves rebelled, and many escaped, so the master race devised a way to suppress them totally.

A new religion was written, in which the master race proclaimed that God himself chose them above all others, and gave them special power and wisdom to redeem the world from the cold. These new teachings were designed to justify the enslavement of the weaker race.

The slaves were branded, their language obliterated, their religion erased, their rights as human beings abolished. Succeeding generations of the master race were taught that the quelled race was subhuman, of low intelligence and no feeling. The slaves were bred for the purpose of mining only, and were given the status of beasts.