Role

Chapter 5

Ralshamar had come to realise that very few people truely understood the
way that the world worked.

There were the imperials, who once honeyed words had failed had turned to
violence; and when violence had proved less than persuasive, to bribes. The
shackles of the oath did not chafe so much they would have him believe. Yet
did the man who saw clearly seek a knife to put out his own eyes with? no.

Then the maran. Ralshamar had seen little of those that dwelled within the
fortress, though the few that he had had forced him into retreat. A state
of affairs that must be rectified, but not this day. With every passing
month his body grew stronger, and in time those highest of the profane
would be put to the sword.

Then there were these villagers.

Though the empire and the maran had wronged him more and were an afront to
all he believed, he held a strange disdain for these hut-dwelling men and
women that it had taken him many years to put a finger on the source of.

If he had been weaker, he could have ended up one of them. Had he not
suffered beneath the touch of magic? Was it not written upon his skin for
all to see until his final breath? It would have been easy to ascribe blame,
to walk in a world of fog and lies where his existence could be put to the
noble task of stopping such a malignant force. To grant meaning to pain
where there was no meaning; to ascribe a higher calling to suffering where
there had been none.

These men and women may have been strong of body, but their minds were weak.

And that, Ralshamar had decided, was a lesson worth remembering.