Know, O Proud Heart of Fear, that in those days there were no kings and queens, no lords and vassals. In the countless millennia before Everon, known also as the Age of Man, there were only masters and slaves. The masters were ancient, as practiced at cruelty as the stars at shining. They were more powerful than gods, and they were not men.

Their slaves were innumerable, but all of our mothers and fathers were among them. Humans were their cattle and their playthings. But even slaves of a thousand generations may be born with hearts bright enough to hope and dark enough to do what must be done. Even a slave may rise from the dust, and whet his gaze into a knife, and tell his master, “You will never own me.”

—THE TESTIMONY OF SAINT ANEMLEN AT THE COURT OF THE
BLACK JESTER, SHORTLY BEFORE THE
COMMENCEMENT OF HIS TORTURES