This free short story is a prelude to the novel "The Prometheus Cycle: the Star, the Sword, and the Mirror." This is the closest "folk tale" in the Realm, as told by an agent of a foreign government recruiting merchants against the Realm's interests by using forbidden pagan stories to undermine the Church of Elene. This is a variation of the same folk tale in the novel, and the contrasts are based on time, culture and changes in the oral tradition.