2 The Peak

The merchants had mentioned that the Weather Shrine was supposed to be located on the northernmost mountain of the Lonely Peaks. That matched with what Lionel had seen for most of his life. There had always been constant cloud cover and occasionally lightening on that mountain. It had been a little more than two days since Lionel left his shack. If he wanted to reach the Shrine before the Shifting took place he only had a little less than a day to reach it.

When Lionel left his home it had been a warm day. The citizens of Wastrial knew that the Weather Shrine ensured the weather would be consistent in all areas of the Wastrial Nation; except for those in closest proximity to the Shrine. Those lands would always be a torrent of horrid weather. Lionel had witnessed the mountain's ever constant storms as he grew up. He grabbed his father's old coat and cap before he left. He knew he would have to face that storm to reach Drindle.

Lionel had been trudging up the mountain for days and had since eaten the meager food he was able to bring. He grew hungrier and hungrier as time went by. His father's old coat was too large for Lionel but it provided him with some protection from the freezing wind. He wore the old cap that gave him some relief. It couldn't protect his face from the wind and freezing snow though. The howling winds flung the snow into Lionel's face chapping it and making his eyes water. The snow fall was so dense that he could hardly see in front of him. The only way that he could tell he was moving toward the peak was by the constant incline he felt in his feet and legs. He continued to climb.

He kept replaying the images of the Gardgan barging into his home and stabbing his mother. The sight of her being sliced into small unrecognizable pieces of meat left him in a deplorable mental state. His tears had already stopped, his cheeks were a frozen mix of tears and his mother's blood. He felt so numb from the cold and from the loss; he couldn't stop the vivid memories of his childhood from replaying themselves in his mind.

He thought of one of his first memories of his mother. Lionel had been five or six; he had wanted to help his mother, Liza, in the fields. She let him use the hoe but told him not to play around with it. He listened at first and slowly worked his way around the field and did exactly as she instructed. When she turned her back and started to weed the fields, Lionel began to swing the hoe quickly trying to hurry and help his mom get done. In doing so he caught his ankle with the hoe and caused a gash. He remembered crying out to his mom. Liza ran to him and wasn't even angry; she was more concerned that his wound would get infected. She didn't scold Lionel, she told him his lesson was learnt the hard way. The next time Lionel helped his mother she asked him to be careful.

As Lionel remembered his mother he continued to move slowly up the mountain. He felt like he could start to make out the peak with his eyes. Looking at the top of the mountain he recalled the time that his mother had talked about her family.

Lionel had been out playing with one of the local villager's children; when they said that their parents wanted them home for their grandparents visit. later that night while Liza was tucking Lionel into bed; he stared out his window at the top of the mountain when he asked.

"Momma, where are my grandparents?"

Lionel looked over toward his mom when he finished his question. He could still recall the cold, lonely expression that filled his mother's face when he asked that. His mother slowly started a story he would continue to think on over the years. Liza's father had been a minor noble who had little to no lands and wasn't even granted a title. When he passed away he left no heir, only Liza and her sister. The two local Barons decided that they were going to split the meager lands; they sent knights to forcibly remove Liza and her sister. Liza's sister argued and yelled at the knight that was trying to push her out of the family residence. He finally grew sick of her insults and grabbed her. The knight threw her on his shoulder to carry her out of the house; in doing so inadvertently slammed her head into a doorway. Liza's sister had died on the spot. Liza was left with no family and no money to make it. She was scared and alone. She told Lionel that if it hadn't been for his father, Garreth, she would have never made it through that point in her life.

Lionel never learned about his father's past. His father was an average man in Lionel's eyes. the only exceptional features of Garreth was his height and shoulders. He stood a little less that two meters, and his shoulders were a little under a meter and a half wide. He had always thought of his dad as a good man. All of the villager's would look at him and treat him with respect. Even the landlord would refer to Garreth as Sir. Lionel didn't know what made his dad so special but when he asked about it, Garreth would say, " If you do right by others, they will do right by you."

As Lionel was thinking about his dad He could start to make out a light toward the peak of the mountain. He tried to increase his pace, he was too numb to move at more than a slow shuffle. as he drew nearer he could hear a low hum under the noise of the wind. The constant noise dulled his remaining senses. His mind began to play tricks on him; it felt like he walked for hours but moved a little more than twenty meters. His vision flickered in an out of focus while he continued to place one foot in front of the other.

As his sight was growing dimmer there was a sudden change. The snow and wind had stopped. He could see a small round hut where the light had been. The hut was about a Kilometer away. Lionel tried to run forward but his numb feet got tangled and he fell face first into the snow. The low hum he had been hearing turned into a deep throaty voice.

"So you came to save me?"

Lionel thought he was hallucinating. He struggled to lift his face out of the snow. His eyes kept losing focus as he tried to find where the voice was coming from.

"Hurry and accept my Will."

Lionel could see a faint shadowy figure in the distance. The voice sounded anxious.

"What are you doing? Hurry or we will both die."

"What... are..." Lionel tried to speak but the deep voice cut him off.

"Stop wasting energy. Say 'I Accept' or we both die."

Lionel's head sagged back into the snow and his vision blurred. He was scared, he could feel his heartbeat growing fainter and his mind started to slip. He mustered what remained of his strength.

"I... Accept..." as he spoke his consciousness vanished.