Hero of Nira

Kryon's Myth

   After what felt like hours, the winding staircase leveled off into a tunnel, wide enough for five men the stand side-by-side, and tall enough so that Shri couldn’t reach the ceiling, even by jumping.

   The light he had been following seemed to recede as he descended the stairs, always a few steps ahead of him. Even now, though the tunnel was illuminated, Shri still couldn’t see the source.

   The walls were lined with simple columns, in between which were many faded or chipped murals and lines of text in the same script as the floor of the Hall of Roots. Occasionally, Shri thought one of the paintings looked familiar, but he could never figure out why; they were all of hooded people walking among stars, or birds flocking.

   He stopped abruptly. The tunnel suddenly split into two separate passages, both of which were brightly lit. Though he peered down each one in turn, they were identical passages, right down to the crumbling murals. Both floors were covered in layers of dust; no tracks were visible. Both had no scent Shri could detect. Not a sound came from either one, canceling his theory of running water. Thoroughly stumped, he sat cross-legged and closed his eyes in thought.

   After what felt like hours, Shri was ready to give up and return to the Temple. Maybe Anuraug would let him leave today, anyway. In either case, he didn’t relish the idea of the spiral staircase.

   He stood and dusted himself off, but when he turned to go, he tripped on a loose mound of rock. He slipped backwards into a wall, while several small stones shot in the opposite direction.

   Shri rubbed the back of his head—and froze. He thought he heard something from down one of the hallways. But though he listened intently, he couldn’t hear it anymore.

   He picked up a small stone and dropped it experimentally. The crack of stone on stone echoed throughout the tunnel, as well as a low humming.

   He tossed two more stones, one down each branching tunnel. The left one reverberated with stone—but the right one seemed to buzz with a ringing sound.

   Hesitating for a moment, Shri turned down the right-hand passage. Soon the main hallway behind him disappeared around a corner.

   Before he had time to guess what he would find, the tunnel opened up into a larger room. Shri stopped dead in his tracks.

   Like the halls behind him, the walls were covered in murals, mostly of many kinds of birds. Unlike the halls, though, the paint was pristine and unblemished by age, as if it had only been created the day before.

   In the center of the room was an enormous statue of silver in the shape of a falcon with spread wings and some kind of crown. The statue seemed to pulse with power, and cast an unearthly light on the walls surrounding it. Shri could feel its eyes—two gleaming blue jewels—piercing straight through him.

   He stood mesmerized by the falcon for several minutes, until it almost seemed alive.

   Shri shook his head and looked again—he could’ve sworn the statue nodded at him.

   “Okay, then,” he said to himself. He moved around the statue, hoping to find a door or another tunnel, but there was nothing but more painted stone.

   He sighed and turned back to the tunnel he had come from, taking one last look at the magnificent silver falcon.

   Maybe I’ll try the left-hand branch now, he thought. As long as I don’t have to—

   Shri’s brain suddenly registered what he’d just seen. He whirled to face the statue again.

   The falcon had changed position. It was now stooped over with its wings held low and its head down in an unmistakable bow. At its feet, something was glowing with a dazzling pure-white light. Shielding his eyes, Shri crept closer.

   The light dimmed when he reached the falcon’s pedestal, allowing Shri a better look at the object there. Sitting on on a rich purple cloth was a piece of metal. It was flat, curved on one edge like a bow, and jagged on the other; Shri guessed it was broken from some larger object, and had probably been a circular shape. On the broad face of the fragment was a partial image Shri recognized as the top of the falcon statue’s crown. When he picked up the fragment, the metal felt warm on his skin, but quickly cooled.

   A loud squawk rang out behind him. His head whipped around to see a kingbird hopping towards him. It stopped and stared at him with a beady black eye before fluttering up and tugging on his coat.

   Still holding the metal fragment, Shri moved to the door. He paused to glance back at the enormous silver statue, which had returned to its upright, spread-winged position.

   The kingbird squawked again and Shri followed it down the hallway.

***

   The passage back to the main temple felt like a dream. Shri had never seen anything like a moving statue, or this glowing scrap of silver metal. And he definitely felt a presence in the falcon’s chamber, something barely perceptable, as if the air itself was charged with energy.

   As he followed his guide down the maze-like corridors of the forest temple, more and more kingbirds took pursuit. The bird leading Shri would sometimes chirp to one of them or screech to another. While he wasn’t sure exactly what was happening, he felt like he was on parade, with a growing entourage of onlookers on his tail. It did make him nervous that the kingbirds were suddenly so fascinated by him.

   He was led right up to a large wooden door lined with roots and vines that he had never used before. He knew it was where Anuraug spent most of the day, and up until now he thought of the room as untouchable, maybe even dangerous.

   His guide fluttered behind him and gave him a sharp prod in the back. He was clearly supposed to enter.

   He pushed on the heavy door and stepped into the opening.

   The room inside was brighter than any other in the temple, shining with a clear white light that seemed to come directly from the walls and ceiling.. Instead of the masses of tree limbs and roots covering the rest of the building, this room was filled with ferns and mosses. The walls were pock-marked by thousands of little square holes, most of which held rolls of parchment. At the far end of the chamber was Anuraug, seated cross-legged on the ground with several scrolls unfurled before him.

   When the door creaked open, he glanced up at Shri inquiringly.

   “Yes, lad? What is it?”

   Shri’s guide swooped over and alighted on Anuraug’s shoulder, twittering softly in his ear. The rest of the kingbirds—dozens of them by now—remained in the hallway, rustling their feathers anxiously.

   Anuraug glanced wildly at Shri, then at the metal fragment in his hand. With suprising speed for a man his age, he leapt to his feet and dashed over to Shri so quickly, Shri was sure he had just materialized out of nowhere.

   Rather roughly, he seized Shri’s hand and peered at the silvery metal with his one uncovered eye for several minutes.

   “This… can this be?” he muttered. Releasing Shri, he hurried to a wall and began yanking scrolls out.

   “What’s going on?” Shri demanded at last as Anuraug opened and threw aside another parchment.

   “Lad, do you know what that is?” Anuraug asked distractedly.

   “Well… no.”

   “Surely you do,” Anuraug said, the pile of discarded scrolls at his feet getting larger. “It’s a popular story, you must have heard of it…”

   “I don’t think so…”

   “Really? The legend of Kryon?”

   Kryon? “The fairytale? My mother used to—”

   “Fairytale? My my, is that what they call it these days?” Anuraug stopped his frantic searching with slumping shoulders and a frown. “Ah well, I suppose now is as good a time as any for a little history.”

   He motioned for Shri to sit. “If there’s one thing I forget,” he said, more to himself than to Shri, “…it’s that knowledge is never absolute. It changes with the times, even if we fail to notice.”

   Anuraug lowered himself to the mossy floor and leaned against the base of a particularily large fern. “I haven’t heard the ‘fairytale’ version of this, so I can’t be sure what you already know or not. However, I can assure you that the story I tell you is as close to the truth as can be.

   “This was back before the land of Nira was formed. Before Nira, the continent was divided into dozens of smaller kingdoms, each with its own set of royalty and its own interests at heart. There were frequent wars—terrible wars in which many hundreds were killed. And as if this wasn’t enough, the Dark One came.

   “He—or it—was a being with unimagineable dark powers, and a black soul to match. Popular theory was that he was a demon escaped from hell… well, no one really knows. Soon after he arrived, the Dark One began to conquer the kingdoms, one by one. When he finally held control of every last one, he rose massive armies and horded huge amounts of gold and other valuables. He did keep the country’s tradition of bloody wars alive and well.

   “It was then, in the darkest hour, that Kryon appeared. Even I don’t know from whence he came. Some say he was a god in human form, others say he was merely blessed by the gods, and still others say he was just an ordinary man with an extraordinary life. Whatever the case may be, he did exist.

   “Using the power of a magical medallion—whose origins are also a mystery—Kryon managed to defeat the Dark One and banish him back to whatever realm he came from. The people of the land united under their rescuer, and Kryon took power as Emperor of Nira. He was a decent ruler, as rulers go. What peace could be had was had while he was on the throne. He lived until an extreme old age and—finally proving he was mortal after all—he succumbed to nature and passed on.

   “And that is the true account of Kryon the Fearless,” Anuraug said, closing his visible eye and leaning back again.

   Shri shuddered, as if waking from a dream. Throughout the old man’s story, he could swear he saw it happening right in front of his eyes. The old kings, blood-soaked fields, a fearsome shadowy shape, and a man holding what looked like a dazzling piece of the sun.

   “Is that what this is? Kryon’s medallion?” Shri held up the fragment of silver.

   “No, lad. It is one piece of the medallion. A quarter, to be exact.”

   “Why was it broken? Did someone try to destroy it?”

   Anuraug smiled. “First it is important you know who I am. I can tell you for a fact that the the story I’ve just told is accurate, because I was there myself. I am one of four Sages who exist to protect the natural world, a task set to us ages ago by the gods themselves.”

   “What? You’re a god…?”

   “No no, lad,” Anuraug laughed. “Hardly. Like any man, I have my limits and my flaws. Anyway, the medallion. Before Kryon died, he came to each of us in turn. You see, he was always a clever and noble man. He knew if he left the medallion—an object of such immense power—to be passed on to his successors, there would be wars and chaos again as everyone fought to own it. And he was reluctant to destroy it, for it had cost him dearly to own in the first place, and I also suspect he sensed it would be needed again. So he broke it into four pieces and passed them to the four Sages for safekeeping.”

   Shri’s mind was overflowing. “Wait, four… and the…” He scratched his head, trying to sort through everything. “Wait a second, if you Sages can’t die and have magical powers, couldn’t you stop the Dark Guy instead?”

   “It’s true, we live far longer than ordinary men, and we do possess many abilities, we have our reasons for not participating. Suffice to say, if we were able to help, we would have.”

   “Okay… And why do I have this thing?” he held up the medallion fragment, which glinted in the bright room.

   “Ah, now that I can’t be sure of. When he handed the pieces to us, he said that the medallion would… reveal itself. He never specified how, or who would be the one to find it.”

   “Well, I just found it by accident,” said Shri, feeling some of the mystique fading away. “I just wandered in and picked it up.”

   “Did you?” said Anuraug, raising an eyebrow. “I could have sworn I set a few defenses on it, to keep it hidden. Ah well…”

   Wait, that’s right! Shri remembered the Ravenstone moving, and the two identical tunnels. And now that he thought of it, the medallion piece hadn’t been there the first time he had looked at the falcon statue.

   “Kryon himself did say the medallion could not be hidden from the right person,” Anuraug said, idly shuffling through the mound of scrolls on the ground.

   “And am I the right person?” Shri asked doubtfully. “Some kind of ‘Chosen One’?”

   “Chosen One!” Anuraug scoffed. “Bah, all that silly ‘destiny’ nonsense. No, lad, there is something about you… some quality you have that the medallion was looking for.”

   This puzzled Shri. What’s so special about me? he thought. “What quality?”

   “I have no idea,” Anuraug said with a shrug. “I have never been able to learn the medallion’s secrets, and Kryon left no clues behind. But he never put much stock in fate either. He knew that effort and personality were far more influential than destiny.”

   Something clicked in Shri’s mind. “Wait, am I going to have to find the rest of this thing, then?”

   Anuraug nodded. “Looks to be so. I doubt it would have shown itself if there wasn’t some need for it again.”

   “So I’ll have to go on some grand quest to recover the rest of this metal thing and fight some evil demon?”

   “Probably.”

   “I don’t have time for that!” Shri leapt to his feet. “If you don’t remember, I have to find my sister! She needs me more than a useless scrap of metal!”

   Anuraug hesitated. He didn’t seem to expect this outburst, and when he stood also, a light seemed to glint in his eye. “Yes, I understand that, but if the whole world is in danger, shouldn’t that come first? By all means, rescue your sister, but think of others as well! Countless others!”

   “And what happens to Jia in the meantime? What if she’s hurt, or… No, Jia comes first!” He flung the medallion fragment to the floor, where it bounced harmlessly off the thick moss.

   “But—”

   Shri didn’t wait to hear more. He stormed out of the chamber, nearly trampling the swarm of kingbirds listening at the door.