The Child

When a young mother gave birth to a boy on the steps of an Urzàri temple, the priests ordered that the woman be executed for defiling the sanctuary. The woman was dragged by her hair from the temple steps and hacked to death in the square. An old woman named Dūja snatched the infant and disappeared into the crowd. When the temple’s augurers warned that the child posed a threat to the temple, soldiers were sent from house to house searching for the infant. When news of the prophecy reached the streets, the child became a savior in the minds of the people, destined to liberate the people of Urzar from the rule of the old temples.