Role

Chapter 7

Journal,

I meant to write in you when I found my first gray hair, but that time has
blown in and away again like a storm in the night. Fully half of my head
seems to be covered in gray now, though the vanity in me still thanks mother
for the elven blood that keeps me mostly free of wrinkles.

Scrying comes more easily now, especially after I've gotten to know someone
a bit...the signs are clear more often than not when I seek out a potential
pledge's future in the ice. Uevre Ergush would just say it is because I am
understanding them more deeply. I can see that this is true, but what a grand
joke it would be if it is my subconcious creating the images I see in the
ice to fit the narrative I've created about someone in my own head. I like
to think that it is a little of both...some of my own capacity, and some of
the Storm's Light helping me glimpse what might be.

Zah...Zah takes his toll on me. I harbor no resentment for the death I face
at his hands, nor should the rabbit feel anger towards the hawk that eats it.
It's the distraction he creates for the others, the pain he causes those who
he hurts just to hurt me. The Squires and Scribes, the Tara'bal. He is, I
say again, a rabid wolf who has gone outside of his normal hunting grounds.
His pack should cull him, but I'm afraid the entire Village has grown more
willing to shed blood for the sake of shedding blood. Mage or not.

My truest hope lies with the Squires who come to us through the less usual
means. It seems our pledges, by and large, seek to be Pathfinders, and I
already know what sort of future with the Fortress they will have...I have
seen it time, and time, and time again. I know what they will ask of me,
and when, and how many might die in the process of besting this dragon or
that lord.

It is the others, those priests of the less frequently worshipped Gods, the
Solaths and Guvlegs, the odd ones who came to us through some...special
intervention...that give me the most hope. I can easily believe that the
Light will work hard to bring about what must be, so if it brings us
someone unusual or odd, or from a long distance, it must be for an unusual
and important reason.

Enough rambling, for now, I need to drill the new Squires on avoiding the
traps I set outside the gates, before someone almost drowns in quicksand
again.