Sacrifice of the First Sheason

by Peter Orullian

  Then Palamon drew out a small journal. Before setting it all down—everything from the moment he’d found Manoa splayed across the Tabernacle steps, to his return to a vacant archive—he turned to Efram.

  “Thank you,” he said. “You have my undying gratitude.”

  The farmer replied, “What must we do?”

  Palamon thought. How to begin the last stages of forming this world without the help of the First Fathers? When a spontaneous smile touched his cheeks it felt good. Perhaps he would find his humor and delight after all, in simply a different way.

  “My friend, bring others here. I will begin to teach them: to read, to write, to remember. Some, even, will take up the ways of the Sheason.” He nodded, mostly to himself. “And with time, and industry, and holding to what we know is right and true—” and those things left to me by Dossolum in the ledger yet in my home—“we will continue on.” He looked up at Efram. “And we will find some small bit of glory along the way if we try, Efram.” If we try.

  Copyright © 2010 by Peter Orullian