Outside, the earth and sky were black, and the wind cut my face like a knife. My feet moved by feel on the frigid stones. I climbed the narrow rocky track up behind our camp, and stumbled into the damp, musky soil of the cultivated land. I stooped down and felt in the darkness. My fingers moved across cabbages, the smaller leaves of beets, and found the mint. I picked some, then went back to the path. I looked down the rocky slope towards our camp. Fires were being rekindled, and the light gleamed through the cracks in the tents. The smell of smoke wafted up to me. I looked along to my right, past the camp to the place further on where the mine was. There were no torches blazing in the blackness, so I was early yet.

I stood in the early dawn, sniffing my mint leaves, and the most terrible despair swept over me. For all my courage last night, I dreaded today. I sank to the frozen soil, and covered my face with my hands. Why? Why was I not like other Quelled? Why did I have this fire in me, this mad rebellion burning? It would be my death in the end.

Slowly, slowly, like water seeping through rags or the smell of smoke wafting on the wind, I became aware of a presence all around. I lifted my head, listening, my ears and eyes straining in the darkness. It was a vibration, a sense of deep and vibrant power, such as I felt in the silence of the mines from the firestones all around. I gazed up at the sky, totally black still, but alive. And warm. I thought wildly of the stories I had heard of a powerful god who lived in times long past, and was sung of in our great Quelled myths. Was this him? I wanted to speak – my whole being cried out to him – but I had no words. How did one who was forbidden to speak to a Chosen, address a god?

“Are you there?” I whispered, terrified, peering into the dark. I waited, trembling, for an answer. Nothing. The power ebbed and faded, and all was only blackness It was like a death – worse than a death. It was a forsaking, a withdrawal of all dreams, all promises, all hope.

“You’re a lie!” I screamed inwardly, to the empty dark. “You’re weak. Powerless. If you are real, come out and show yourself. They say you called forth the mountains, that you spoke and the world was formed. If you live, do something. Rescue me from the mine today.”

The darkness was silent, passionless, and bitterly cold. I realised I had been crying, and my tears turned to ice on my face. Shivering from cold and fury, I stood. So, I had challenged God. The feeling pleased me, gave me a wild, cool kind of satisfaction.

I said aloud to the forsaken sky, “If you are listening, it is the woman Elsha who speaks.” I smiled defiantly, and started on the downward path to our camp.