Trials of Stone

The Approach

He faced the sea that's blackness matched the star-pocked sky above. The crash of waves blended with the pervasive sigh of wind through the endless rolling desert he had wandered through, to finally arrive here, at the Altar of Stone.

Before him a sharp wedge of land jutted out into the water, sloping upwards, framed intermittently by the spray of waves crashing upon its flanks. At its peak, three stone pillars, each twenty feet tall, stood in a triangle, one on each edge and one at the very point.

His hand resettled on the handle of the large, unadorned war hammer he carried over his shoulder. As he drew near, he saw that each pillar was made of a different stone. The one on his left was deep, crystalline obsidian, the edges of long facets gleaming wickedly in the starlight. The one on his right was of perfectly smooth, pure-white marble, and the pillar at the point of the jut of land was made of stacked, curved granite bricks, their edges worn smooth by time, the whole thing covered in a thin layer of green moss. At the center of the triangle of pillars stood a slender white pedestal, coming to his chest height. As he approached the edge of the altar, he saw that it was made from a single carved and polished bone.

His foot landed between the first two pillars, and immediately a ball of multicolored flame leapt into being atop the bone pedestal, casting rapid flickers of rainbow light on surrounding pillars. His body tensed, and he brought the hammer down to a ready position at his side.

A voice appeared in his head, words forming in his mind without resonating at all in the air. "You face the Trials of Stone" it said, "to test your body, mind, and soul." At each of these three words, one of the pillars emitted its own light. The obsidian pillar let out a sullen red light from within on "body", the marble pillar flared white on the word "soul", and green light slipped out through the cracks of the granite pillar on the word "mind." "For what do you challenge yourself? What gain do you seek?"

Pangs of memory hit him at the questions. A laughing wife and child, and their fading smiles as marching torchlight slowly rose over the distant hills. The red mist in his eyes as he held their corpses.

"Power," he said. "Power for revenge."

"You challenge the Lords of Stone; Sindile of Obsidian, Adio-Baha of Marble, Zaman of Granite. If your strength prevails, the True Power of Stone shall be yours." The flame winked out, but each of the pillars still glowed.

He looked around him, and saw that each pillar was carved with a unique sigil. On the obsidian pillar were two long overlapping triangles, run through by a single line, the whole shape like a stylized dagger. On the marble was a cruciform human figure, and on the granite column was a simple solid circle above three long, vertical lines, heavier at the bottom than at the top.

He hefted the hammer back to his shoulder, flexed the muscles in his arms and back, turned to his left, and placed his palm upon the obsidian pillar.

He hissed and pulled it away at a sudden sharp pain, looked down to see a long shallow cut across his palm, brimming with blood. As he watched, droplets of blood burst into scarlet sparks, and then suddenly crimson fire roared from the wound and into his face, a brilliant light that blinded him and a heat that pressed against his skin, forcing him to his knees. He gnashed his teeth against the pain, but it built and built, and just before he let a scream escape him, it was suddenly gone, and the fire that had enveloped him vanished as quickly as it had appeared, plunging him into a vast, clinging silence.