Role

Chapter 13

The spring morning sun gently warming his bare back, Admund dug the earth
with his bare hands.

'Deeper. Deeper still. Closer to the Mother's embrace. It will be safe there
until it is strong enough.' his madness spoke to him. 'Faster. Faster! Ten
are not enough. More!'

Everything hurt. His muscles had turned to water from the frantic digging.
His bones ached. He choked the whine of pain in his throat. Ten was not
enough. He kept digging.

The wolf spirit keened at his side. It nuzzled his bent back, trying to pry
his obsession with his task, but he could not, wold not stop.

'We must do more, wolf. It is not enough,' Admund said in response. 'More.
More!'

He kept to his task, entering a trance as his thoughts carried his
consciousness away from the pain. He was angry. So many things unfinished, so
little time. He had spent his life searching for his family, guided by the
mysterious riddles of a leper seer. How could he have missed that what
appeared as a leper, frail old man was Argothus the Mad, an Archmagus of
Chaos and a half-nightwalker? That thing, a master of deception and shadow,
it had managed to lead them all astray. Only if Brother had been with us..
his wisdom would have seen right through that veil.

'Childish, wishful thinking!' he scolded himself. He always hoped for things
to be what they were not, for matters to resolve in ways they would not. Even
that shod mare, Theoredus. The very name brought Admund's blood to a boil. A
centaur that killed the mother of his friend, Lorente, had disregarded all
his pleas not to harm what was most dear to his dead friend. A centaur that
had gotten his freedom from the Shadow Plane for free, the price of his
freedom paid by Admund and his Brother, had turned to follow a selfish need
to defile Thar-Eris. He had gotten everything for free, both freedom and
forgiveness, and there he was still, pontificating, claiming it was
blood-lust that drove Admund and not love for the only Mother he ever had.