4
A Whisper Among Gods
"There will be no words that I can offer in solace, I will not lie to you or hide the truth, however your questions will have to wait. There is movement that will be building within a city known as Pamor and I need my friend there to see it is kept polite. Along the way you should look for a blonde half-elven woman with a brownish stripe in her hair, she will be a close ally in our work.
Of course, you are free to do as you see fit.
I hope to see you there!"
-Unknown (Attributed to Isira)
"Letters From the Gods, Volume 984"
~Leslie~
There was a time that Leslie had thought of isolation as a spectator's sport; something she could participate in while still being within reach of the Little Kettle Inn. It was a time when she could sit by the window and listen to people walking by while she stewed in her own quiet oblivion. In her blind oblivion she could feel the thrum of the village's life passing her by one day at a time. She was cut off from the sighted world, isolated by anger and darkness, yet she could still feel like part of the human race.
In the mountains several hundred leagues from her village, however, there were no voices, no footsteps, no secret rendezvous beside her house. Only wind. Gusts whistled and lapped at the rocks like a candle's flame-- Leslie could
feel
the natural magic moving the unforgiving stone, welling up in the valleys and gliding around the peaks effortlessly. It was a song meant for those who left the comfort of their homes. Even if Isira hadn't given her new eyes to see with, just
being
was an act of rebellion against her life.
However, like the vibrant green and purple flowers that she had come to call 'piss weed' for their particular smell and tendency to spread into every cracked rockface she came across, her mind often drifted into those quiet moments in the dark, back to the uncertainty, the fear, the boredom. Fortunately for her, the thought of her hands getting torn up by the clingy little flower had made her dress morph a set of gloves to match the boots it clad her in. She wasn't an especially strong person, a little on the short side and far enough into her forties that coming out here would have been suicide without some kind of divine help. Paladin or no, coming out here had been a calculated risk.
Some would say she was terrible with math. She'd have agreed with them.
The relic she wore protected her from every jagged edge, every scrape and every near accident she'd had since leaving Hector's two weeks ago. It also helped that- either by her connection with the divine or the dress itself that sleep, hunger and thirst weren't things she needed to worry about. She'd plowed through the rations Hector had given her in the first couple days just
trying
to feel something.
But it never came. No hunger pangs, no exhaustion, no thirst. Just a warm contentment in the pit of her stomach that always followed her. Even when she tried to force the issue, her body refused to cooperate. It was a divine joke, but it was something Hector had insisted was unique. To him, her very existence defied the typical rules of paladinhood-- it was part of how she'd convinced him to tell her where Isira's nearest temple had been.
"Convinced" was a bit of a strong word. A solid week of begging and prodding was coercion of a sort, but it had gotten her there in the end. She'd take it where she could get it; it didn't fit to be a weak paladin if this was truly what she was meant for.
Leslie dug her fingers into the crack of the mountain, feeling around inside it until she got the grip she was looking for whereupon she loosened the tight bonds of the rock's structure to make a better hand and foot hold. The work was as tedious as it had been the first time, but with practice she'd become faster at it and the slate gave like clay. Once she was suitably anchored she moved herself up a few feet, kicked her foot into the old slot and repeated the process. Again and again, one foot in front of the other up the sheer face of what would have been her doom in any other situation.
It wasn't the tallest peak in the land, perhaps twice as high as the last one she'd climbed over, but upon reaching the top she was immediately struck by two realizations: the first being what utter beauty could be rendered in desolation and the second that she might, in fact, have been dropped on her head as a child.
The ruins of a cathedral sat proudly against the reds of the early afternoon sun, carved out of stone, molded around a central hall who's skeletal fingers now reached for an indifferent sky, offering prayers to a god or goddess who no longer watched over it. Wild flowers grew in the shattered remains of the once proud structure while swaths of sunlight poured in through the broken ceiling and missing windows. Down just off to the left side was a well worn dirt path that lead directly down the side of the mountain to the valley below. She could've walked the entire gods damned way up here if she wanted.
Leslie stared at the trail, her bright silver gaze roaming the land while volumes of curse words strung themselves together in her mind. She almost uttered them all, just to hear a voice, but she had other things to do here.
She turned back to the cathedral and perched herself in the shadow of its skeleton, slipping out of her knapsack and digging out the map. This was where it was supposed to be, almost exactly two leagues from Hector's hamlet. This was it.
This
was the temple of Isira?
Leslie eased herself back from the building and paced a circuit around it, frowning. There were mountains directly connected to the plateau sweeping out in a wide and remarkably smooth Y through which light was allowed to pour into the circular hole where a window had once punctuated the temple's rear wall.
