Etched Prologue Story

In a small servant’s hut, half enshrouded in the ground next to the prison enclosure came the first cries of an infant, thin on the cool air of pre-dawn. As his mother folded him in her arms, protecting him from the world of political turmoil and unrest, she could not know that he might live to see her die, along with the entire race that surrounded the capital city of their land. Dormant within his new life lay the power to save them all. But now, the mother’s caressing words, whispered into his tiny ears belied the violence his eyes might see in his lifetime. Would his attempts to save his people fall on deaf  hearts and bring down life? Or would there be peace through acceptance of his ways? Neither mother nor babe knew. For now the child’s life was hers, this small suckling, to love and to hold and to teach for a time.