The Boy of Stone

Brothers of the Q’in monestary west of Tarlak tell the story of a wanderer who took dinner there one night.  This was a man of the northern woodlands—or so he claimed to be—and this was believed on account of his strong, lumberjack’s bearing and his mention of the little-known logging town of Horl.  He’d hailed the brothers along the Central Road, and was told he had tidings for the abbot.  An audience he was given, and when brought before the Most Revered Brother Zanchele, gave the following tale:

There was found one day near Horl, perhaps fifty moons ago, a perfectly-carved boy of stone.  The boy’s young sister had found him, petrified from head-to-toe, behind a tree as the children played their game of hide & go-find.  Soon the town warlord was brought to see the stone boy, and it was said this lord was so startled by the discovery that he called an alarm for twenty men.  This lord reported knowing the existence of beasts capable of turning living beings into statues, and surmised the stone boy must have encountered precisely such a monstrosity. 

Determined to protect Horl from this creature, the lord sounded a call for men of arms to hunt the fiend responsible.  One who answered this appeal was the popular Quillderran ranger Kerlinala, who tracked the beast to a small cave opening on a river island south of town.  That evening, Kerlinala descended into the cavern with a team of fearsome warriors, intending to hunt the monster down.  But this lord, whom the wanderer called “Soo Kiru,” had no faith in Kerlinala or her companions—and so at nightfall ordered the cave sealed behind them.  The wanderer confessed his shame at being one of four men who carried out this grim betrayal—a shame that only intensified days later, when the stone boy was again seen in town.  Having resumed his natural form, the boy ran free as though nothing had ever happened to him.

Yet guilt alone had not driven the wanderer from Horl.  One of but four witnesses to Lord Soo Kiru’s treachery, the wanderer soon realized the peril he was in.  One of the others was already dead, hanged as a thief.  Another had gone missing.  Soon, the wanderer, anticipated, he too would join them—and so he fled Horl in desperate search of sanctuary.  This is what ultimately led him to the monks of Tarlak, though the wanderer stated he would not be long at the monastery.  

Revered Brother Zanchele naturally sheltered the wanderer that evening, and no doubt expected to debrief the wanderer at length the following day.  But in the morning, the wanderer was found motionless in his room, having carved deeply into his wrists and bled to death in silence.  So concluded their tale.