The wind blows harshly through the cloisters; to my fancy, it brings with it the distant cries of anguish and despair that echo now around our land. These are indeed dark times. Here, beneath the magnificent vaulted roof of Salisbury Cathedral, a few of us struggle to keep the candle of humanity's faith alight; the last outpost of Christianity in a world grown Godless through too many gods. Sometimes even my own faith grows dim, though I joined the church more than thirty years ago. The old certainties have been blown away by that cold wind. Simply to believe in the one, pure thing in a time of everyday wonders and miracles is almost too much. For why should anyone believe in one thing when it is possible to believe in everything? But I struggle and I strive, and I continue the ministry that I have held all my adult life. Now, more than ever, I have a purpose. The Lord, perhaps, will grant me the strength to see Him clearly once more and permit me to spread His word across the land as my antecedents did in the first Dark Age.

It seems that in my blackest moments I draw most comfort not from contemplation of the divine, but through an examination of humanity. And in those times I like to turn my thoughts to the five who set out to be the saviours of our race, not through any desire for glory, but simply to serve the greater good; in their example we see humanity in its most glorious essence, forged through hardship and conflict.

The first of the five was Jack Churchill, an archaeologist, known to his friends as Church. A good man in many ways, but one damaged by life. For two years he had struggled with the blackest of emotions that accompanied the suicide of his girlfriend Marianne: grief, certainly, but mainly guilt that he had somehow been complicit in his inability to recognize whatever internal turmoil she had been experiencing that had driven her to such a terrible act. The second of the five was Ruth Gallagher, a lawyer, introspective and intelligent, given to controlling her emotions. She felt trapped in a career she found soulless, but which had been the wish of her father who had died of a heart attack soon after his brother had been murdered.