I rewrote the begining. Does this work, or are you bored out of your mind?#
At the end of the monsoon season, a Gifted hermit and three priests came to my house. Three priests, one for each god of the Triad: Creator, Protector and Destroyer. And a Gifted hermit, for the untamed wisdom of the forest.
"We have come for your wife," they told me.
I stood, shock-still. Deri had been playing in silence with our two-year-old son, Karale, but now she rose, and came to stand by my side. She did not look at me.
"Tell me," she said, softly.
The white-haired hermit was the one who spoke. Her face looked ageless, and her skin held the palor of things that lived forever in shadow. "My name is Emodhe. I was Gifted by the Triad three days ago, and I saw you in the vision the gods granted me."
"I no longer matter in the hierarchy of the temple, or in the mortal world," Deri said, her voice toneless. I could not read the expression in her eyes. "The gaze of the Triad should pass over me."
[This message has been edited by Silver3 (edited June 22, 2005).]