Role

Chapter 4

Unable to bear it, Hollaran screams in anguish and before anyone can move, hurls
himself out the bell tower window, taking his life forever. Shocked silence
follows, but before long the gathered knights and squires begin to react, and
some are dispatched to Hollaran's home to speak to the wife and her young son.
In that way does she learn of what has happened, and while she is torn between
taking her life and her son's, she cannot bring herself to do it, and as he grows
he learns of his father's deeds, and the curse. He vows to redeem the family.
He vows not to father a child until he does. But he fails, at both. And this
pattern repeats itself over the years, the centuries. Each son - and it is
always a son first, strangely - vows to be the one to bring an end to the curse.
Each vows to remain chaste until he succeeds or dies. But each fails, and as
each ages he weakens and gives in to a desire for a son to succeed where he
has failed.

As the years and generations go by, as with all lore, the story is slightly
changed from telling to telling. By the time Hollaran's many-great grandson
Vutzig is born, the need for the restoration of their Honor remains, but now
he is Fated to be the one, not merely one in a chain. He will be the end of
the chain. And, though the original, true cause of the curse was Hollaran's
own behavior, over time the family has placed the blame on magic, first in the
form of the dark mages that called up the dark being, and second in the form
of the dragon's magic. Without these things, Hollaran's honor would not have
been broken, and then the curse would not have been placed. Only magic can
cause such horror, enduring for thousands of years. And only by fighting magic,
rather than what Hollaran would have called simple evil, can Vutzig now find
a place to fight with honor. A fight he looks forward to greatly.