The Rock on Which We Fall

Prologue

Prologue

The rock was carved with runes older than the Egyptians, it was obvious due to the state wear and wash they were in. But the Clea did not care what condition the runes were in, only that they worked. They stood in a circle around the great rock in dark robes of purple and black, connected by chains of dark red gems. They chanted as the young boy walked up the stone steps, the rock must have been 30 feet tall and a gruesome trudge up the steep steps.
He had been prepared for the burden he was to bear, for 13 years he was preparing for the runes of High Rock, and what it meant if they accepted him. But he knew he would be, it was his destiny, or so they told him.
The stone was cold, his bare feet were freezing, and all he was wearing other than small shorts was his skin.
The Clea picked up their chanting the red chains glowing brighter and brighter as they grew in sound. The runes on the stone lit up with a golden light, and when the Clea raised their hands, golden runes flying off of their finger tips. The runes on the High Rock started to do the same, glowing brighter and swirling in the air in long strings of golden light.
The boy had just a moment to marvel at the beauty of the light in the night sky before the strings dove at him. The pain that followed was the most excruciating feeling he had ever felt, but under that he felt power, a wellspring  of untapped energy just waiting to be used, by him.
The pain spread with the runes sweeping  across his head, and helpless screams escaped him as he crumpled to his knees. The runes spread across every inch of his body, but forming a circle around his heart, waiting for something. The boy waited the pain seeping into him, leaving strings of them implanted all over his body five long stings. Two spreading from his arms then a band around his wrists, two spreading his legs then a band around his ankles, and finally a string up through his chest and a band across his neck. The runes were accepting him, but he felt incomplete, the gates of energy were still closed, but so close to opening, if he only had the key.
The mass of tangled glowing runes receded leaving the lines tattooed on him, forming a sphere around him and pulling him off of the ground, magically weightless. The pain still burned inside of him just below the skin, but such power lay beyond. It needed something to restrain it make it tangible and have real power in the world of reality, It needed a final rune.
The mass of runes constricted and moved, as if they were thinking and deciding. A final golden mark formed in front of the boy, glowing brighter than all the others, made up of strings of other runes. He felt the power of it, more powerful than anything he has ever felt before.
The air around the rune seemed to chill, the ground collecting frost, the damp stone freezing. It floated closer to the boy, and he reached over to take hold of it, but before he could, the mark smashed itself into the middle of the circle around his heart. The pain he felt now made the earlier feel like a soothing massage. When the pain receded though, he felt the gates open, to more power than he ever felt before, and it was his.
The runes dropped him to the ground, and retreated back to the original carvings in the stone. The Clea stopped chanting, and their marks too dissipated. The boy looked up to see the High Master at the head of the circle, even though his hood was up he felt the Master's penetrating  gaze on him. The boy stood up.
" I am Vladimir Gustavech, chosen one of the Clea and of the runes of Heron, and I am the Frost Bringer!"