Chapter 1 - Freedom

Once upon a time, on the continent of Khaan, there existed humans who were deeply sensitive to the greed men carried within.

Back when lives where simple and towns but housed a few hundred people, those with the power were respected as peace keepers of the small communities.

But as time passed, civilizations developed, cities expanded and the human society grew complex. The ability to sense every good and bad wish of those around them became a burden, as did the attempt by rulers to exploit their powers.

And so, those with the power secluded themselves to the mountains of the far West, beyond the great plains of Jorsaam, bordering only on the scarcely populated Northern kingdoms. This was just around the time when the Empire of Sisa was beginning its expansion across the continent.

This happened some seven hundred years ago – long enough ago for the people to forget but recent enough to not be a myth. In the mean time, the Great Empire of Sisa collapsed into a small kingdom in the central continent and the surrounding lands gave birth to numerous kingdoms which make up the political landscape of today.

Few still know of the people with the power. Those who do, they dismiss their knowledge as a metaphoric exaggeration by the old historians.

Even fewer know that their hidden villages exist to this day and that their isolated gene pool has not only been giving birth to deformed and sickly children, but also brought to life a certain boy with senses so sharp that he was shunned even by his own.

Kling Kling Kling

The bright metallic sound echoed through the small cave behind the mountain waterfall.

Kling Kling Kling

It continued rhythmically until a small piece of rock split from the wall of the cave with a clack.

The tall pale boy on the verge of manhood picked up the gently sparkling mineral. It was a blotchy combination of white and sky blue. The people of the low-lands called it the cloud crystal and from what he understood, it was valued quite highly. For the past year, he had been slowly chipping away at the wall of this cave, hoping that he was not mistaken that these were the indeed the valuable cloud crystals.

Just then, he sensed a familiar smell in the air. To be precise, it was more of a tingling, vibrating sensation which he sensed from no organ in particular but a smell was the closest which came to describing it in one word.

Every person had a distinct smell of greed and he recognized the scent of one of his aunts approaching the waterfall. He had a lot of aunts, and uncles for that matter, but that was simply because everyone in his small village was somehow related and did not mean that he had any special relationship with this woman.

She was probably only here to tell him that the ceremony was starting soon. No-one in the village willingly approached him if they could avoid it.

He quickly slid the minerals he had mined that day into his pocket, hurried out of the cave and picked up the woven basket full of mushrooms and other edible roots. As if he had just finished collecting them, he wandered down the mountain path to meet the woman half way.

“Gudja”, she called out as she saw him. “We’re starting.”

He nodded in response and watched her hurry away with a frown. She knew he had sensed her coming as usual and was desperate to get away from the boy who could do so despite her best efforts to suppress her desires.

The ceremonial hall was the only stone building in the settlement otherwise consistent of a few dozen wooden dwelling hidden away in a sheltered cove half way up a mountain. Gudja was the last to enter and as he carefully closed the entrance behind him, the elders were just about to place a sleeping child on the alter to speak words of blessing.

“Oh Peaceful God,

From thee, we learned of mankind’s greed.

From thee, we learned to not desire.

Under thy protection do we live in peace.

Under thy protection do we live humanely.

Thou hast bestowed upon this child your blessing.

Under the guidance of thy sign,

we return this child to thee.”

The leading elder raised his hands and the villagers chanted in unison.

To protect us from sin

To protect us from sin

To protect us from sin

…

The elder raised his hands again, this time carrying the child – a few months old and with disproportionately short stumps in place of arms. This deformation was the blessing of the Peaceful God. Gudja looked down in discomfort. Every one of these ceremonies was a reminder of what had been supposed to happen to himself.

As the villagers continued to chant the five words, the elders opened a door behind the alter and disappeared with the child. What exactly took place behind that door was known only to the elders and neither Gudja nor the other villagers wished to know more than was taught.

A while later, they reappeared with a small vase which was also the signal for the chanting to stop and allowed Gudja to escape the suffocating hall – the sacrificial ceremony was finished and he was not obliged to accompany the elders to sew the remains of the child from the cliff.

Once outside and far enough away from the small gathering, he breathed in deeply and tilted his head back as far as he could.

Soft white rays of sunlight spilled through the branches and touched on his pale face, enhancing the two small protrusions which sprouted from his forehead - deformations, just like the ones on the child who had just been sacrificed. The only difference had been that Gudja’s protrusions had been small enough to be hidden by his mother as an infant, so that by the time the elders noticed, he was past the sacrificial age of four.

This was why he hated the ceremony. Every time it would remind him that he was a failure. It would also remind the villagers that Gudja was a stain to the pure community and their disdain for him would show more harshly than usual.

Summer was beautiful. Even in these harsh mountainous lands, summer brought a short period of plenty. But this year, most importantly, summer was when Gudja had a chance to escape from this village.

For a very long time in his life, his own and 3 other settlements of a similar kind had been his entire universe. To be precise, he had known that there were humans outside but until very recently, that had been a world which he had nothing to do with.

“The humans outside are filled with greed and conflict”

“You will be tainted by the devil if you leave this paradise”

“Those who tried to leave lost their sanity and killed them selves”

...these were words which every child of the “Peaceful God” was taught, and had no reason to doubt. Greed drove men to deceive and kill their brothers, destroy homes, take what was not theirs and torment the weak. All men knew of it. It was a secret to none. But greed was the work of the devil and mankind would fall prey to it over and over again.

This was why his people had been chosen by the Peaceful God and had been granted the ability to sense the greed in men stronger than others, the ability to resist, and to choose a life of no greed.

From a very young age, children born to this village were taught to meditate for hours, to learn to suppress their wishes, to never ask for more or better. If a child were to so much as think of wanting more than its fair share of a meal, someone would sense it and the it would be punished.

The elders would tutor them rigidly in reading and writing, calculations, medicine, history – though it was questionable how much of it was true – and philosophy. They were punished for slacking, but never rewarded for accomplishments. Discipline was a prime necessity to suppressing greed. They would certainly have made for some fine soldiers.

And so, the people of this community lived in a perfect paradise under the rule of the Peaceful God, save for Gudja, the single stain on this white carpet.

His significantly stronger divination than the rest of the tribe exposed the most minuscule of wishes, locked away with much care and dedication, which would have went unnoticed if not for him. It was no surprise therefore that the cursed boy, the failed sacrifice, became the target of fear as well as of abomination.

Although Gudja had noticed at an early age that something did not make sense about the world he lived in, fear of the horrendous outside deterred him from leaving. It was just last summer that his perception changed, when he accidentally wandered too far down the mountain.

That day, he suddenly sensed a tingling in the air. It took him a moment to realise that it was an amplified version of what he sensed from the people of his village. Greed.

Like a moth unable to resist the temptation of light, he slowly followed the trail until it was close enough that he could hear every wish of the man carrying firewood down the foot path.

He wanted more land, so he wanted a sharper ax to fell trees faster.

He wanted more sheep, so that he could sell more wool.

He wanted to make his house bigger, and warmer.

He wanted money.

He wanted more money.

He wanted enough money to buy the dainty glass hairpin for his wife, which she was looking at so longingly at the market last month.

Why?

Was greed not supposed to be demonic?

If these beautiful wishes were of the devil, then he was ready to love the devil.

That day, Gudja realised that the Peaceful God gave him nothing.

After many weeks and months of creeping down the mountain to listen to the wishes of the outside world, he had made up his mind. It wasn’t enough. He wanted to know more of the world. He wanted to see it. He wanted to be a part of it. He wanted all these things these people had, and wished for, and more…

“Oh, Peaceful God”, he whispered, “I may be a sinner. But I don’t think what I hear is greed. And now, I too have learnt to desire happiness.”

That night, the boy lade provisions and some basic weapons and tools into his basket. The satchel of precious crystals was stored safely underneath his clothes.

His knowledge of the outside was fragmented. But he had to go. At least, he could not stay.

Just like that, he was running down the mountain, as fast as he could, to get as far away as possible before the scent of his greed, which was no doubt was gushing out of him like water cascades through a crack in a dam, could wake someone from the village.