Roujeark

On the eve of the Quest of Oron Amular, after a lifetime of waiting, our hero Roujeark penned these words…

Sometimes I feel as though the summons will never come. Wait, he said. It’s not your time, he said. That was forty years ago! Forty years since I went to Oron Amular, only to be turned away. And what have I done since? Nothing! Worn my boot-soles out treading these lonely mountain paths. Alone. Whom have I to call friend? Who would know if I fell from this height, my body broken on the rocks and my scribblings borne away by the wind?

My father wanted better for me than this. He said I could rise above his obscurity and do something worthwhile…be someone. On the night he died, he urged me to go to Oron Amular, and seek training as a wizard. He said my gift was far greater than his, but that I needed tutelage to discover its real potential. Those were his words, and they have stuck with me, for shortly afterwards the blades found him and the flames engulfed our home.

He sent me with Prélan’s* guidance, though I didn’t know who He was until I met Him for myself in Kalimar, the land of the elves. I was lost and in hiding from the elves, but He found me and set my feet upon the right path. But what was the point? Why did He guide me to the Mountain if I was only going to be turned away? Why bother with a friendless orphan? Why bestow a gift that can never be used?

The old man said I would come back, though. In all my years of wandering I have never forgotten it. All those years of scraping a living amusing witless peasants with conjuring tricks and enduring the scorn and suspicious eyes of settled folk. Through wind and snow, whatever life threw at me, I held on to the hope that things would change, that my life might mean something.

I will send you a sign, he said. I have seen it in my dreams, the ancient emblem of the League of Wizardry, born by a rider from afar and emblazoned across the skies of Maristonia, but will I ever see it with my waking eyes? I didn’t think so, until I saw a pillar of fire light the night two moons ago. That persuaded me – maybe the time is near? So I left the uplands and came south, to this place. What else could it have meant, other than that my time of waiting is nearly at an end? Or maybe I just imagined it…

Yet I feel drawn to the capital somehow, to Mariston whose streets I’ve never before trodden. I wouldn’t go willingly, for it is an alien place to me, but I will go, if there’s even the slightest chance…What? That I might find whomever it is I’m looking for? The old wizard, he said something about me coming back in company, but maybe my memory plays me false. I’m ill-suited to company now, even if I could find the right person. The city is full of great lords and no one there even remembers that Oron Amular exists. I know it does, but I have no idea what I might find if I get back there one day.

So I will climb this hill, one last time. Every night for the past week I’ve ascended to the rocky summit and gazed down upon the dawning world, seeking a glimpse of something that never came. One last time I will look, look for my sign. I owe it to myself, one final chance to see if that old man spoke true.

The weary, soul-sick armist climbs the hill one last time. Will he see the sign he seeks? Will he find his way back to Oron Amular? And if he does, with great events in motion, will he survive long enough to discover what calling Prélan has upon his life? Read Oron Amular to find out…

*Prélan is the elvish word for God, the same God known as Yahweh in this world.