The Rising Sun: Episode 3 Read Online Free PDF Page A

them.”
     
    The two of them sank into a short silence,
in which Ion looked about the cruiser around him. Most of the seats
were empty, and the chatter in the hall was almost negligible. A
strangely gloomy air seemed to have settled over the world.
     
    “When Mantra and the other masters met you,”
Qyro said, turning to look at Ion. “did they tell you what exactly
was going on? And why he wanted you to get to the most dangerous
planet to get hold of this piece of scrap?” He ended by holding the
crystal out before Ion. “Whatever in the world it is.”
     
    Ion frowned, recalling the conversation.
     
    “They didn’t tell me much, but I do remember
something of what they told me.” Ion felt his voice darken. “They
told me the Xeni were back. And that the Nyon needed to stop them
before they finished what Redgarn started eight millennia
back.”
     
    He looked at Qyro, whose jaw had dropped
wide open.
     
    “The Xeni ? ” the Redling
gasped.
     
    “You’ve heard of them, I presume?” asked
Ion.
     
    “What! Of course I have. The whole world
has! But they were supposed to be dead. The Nyon took care of them
eight millennia back, didn’t they?”
     
    “Apparently not as well they should have.”
said Ion. “they’ve been in hiding ever since, waiting to grow
stronger before the time to strike back … I guess that time’s
here.”
     
    Qyro looked out the window, thinking for a
few seconds. “You know … Vestra and I heard rumours of some strange
terrorist attack just earlier on…”
     
    “That must be them, then.” confirmed
Ion.
     
    Qyro looked at the crystal piece, his brow
sinking lower in a frown. “But what does this have to do
with anything?”
     
    “I wish just as much as you, that I knew.”
chuckled Ion. “But they didn’t tell me anything more. Let’s hope
they do when we get back.”
     
    Qyro continued to stare at the crystal
shard, as though by holding it in his glare, it would reveal all of
its secrets. With a sigh, he stuffed it back into his pocket under
his thick furcoat.
     
    “Tell me how it is.”
     
    Qyro looked at Ion, an eyebrow raised. “How what is?”
     
    Ion looked out the window by the wall beside
him. “Life with the Nyon.”
     
    Qyro gave the question a moment’s thought.
Then, he gave Ion a strange smile.
     
    “It’s life as it’s meant to be.” he said.
“At least for me, it is.” He sighed, turning to gaze out the window
again. “Nobody said life was meant to be easy … or a bed of
roses.”
     
    “Nobody should expect it to.” said Ion. “the
true measure of a man’s life isn’t in the amount of happiness he
finds … but quite the opposite. The amount of pain he endures.”
     
    Qyro nodded, sagging on his seat and folding
his arms.
     
    “There’s much suffering in our world, the
world of the Nyon.” he told Ion. “but I wouldn’t presume to know
even a fragment of it. I wouldn’t presume to have seen a fraction
of what some of the older masters saw and went through, in their
time with the brotherhood.”
     
    “How come?”
     
    “I just joined less than two years back.”
answered Qyro. “I was a stay mystic all along, before I joined
them.” A dark look crossed his face, and Ion knew that he was
drifting through those memories, memories of his life as a stray
mystic earlier on. “It wasn’t easy, living as I did back then. I
had known other stray mystics … and I was a part of the world that
the mystic evading prosecution knew. I saw all of the suffering,
apart from my own. And the question that hit me when I spent those
years, hiding and fleeing, was this: was this all my life was going
to come to?” He gave a shake of his head. “No … I wanted to be a
part of something greater. And even if it meant compromising
safety, and taking the world full on … taking the most dangerous
route there was, that was what I yearned for my life to come to at
the end. Something that made meaning. And a greater cause.” A