THE PATH OF RENUNCIATION

49

It was only a couple of days' journey to the mountains, darkening with sharp peaks in the north. There, on the eastern slopes, hidden from prying eyes, native Shanfar shone white under the sun - the city where Darita herself was born a quarter of a century ago and where her mother and father remained. So many years have passed since she last saw them that the faces dear to her heart were almost erased from her memory. Long painful years of slavery, from morning to night filled with blood, sweat and horror, drove even thoughts of disobedience out of Darita's soul. In the Black Fortress, fear was everywhere: it seemed to ooze from the walls, flow down the floor, envelop and suffocate. Darita had known his taste and smell since childhood, from the day a tall blond man with eyes as black as night came and took her sister, her beloved Dera, by the hand. He killed her on the same new moon, how he killed before that all the firstborn of their people - over and over again ... for so long that