Trylstrian's Doubt.

Trylstrian’s head hit the wall with a sick sound, echoing in the womb of earth that he had turned into his hideaway. He was mostly alone; no living dead creature could possibly interrupt him when it was hanging impotently on a meat hook. Those had been hard to come by under any pretence. It had required base thievery and a bit of guile to bring those sturdy chains into his lair. So much careful planning had been put into this place. So many sickening hours and false smiles had been wasted in this terrible countryside, all so that his name would never be known, for him to dwell in mud-soaked caverns and wait for-
That still bothered him. The magician took to pacing, now, his bare feet squelching under the perpetual moisture. His head was hung low, heavily weighted by the constant need to think so very hard. It was a nauseating habit, and he was beginning to loathe it. Five hundred paces, all carefully counted, were made before he abruptly veered off the bludgeoned path. He came to a lengthy bit of parchment and held it up, resorting to the poor lighting to strain his eyes and make out the cryptograph. It was all here: the plan as had been outlined so long ago by his master. It was dangerous to have it recorded, but he knew that no one here had ever seen the symbols that were written on this page, or had even spoken the language that he knew so well.
No one knew anything about his homeland, about his people, about their culture. It was all carefully designed in and out of house to ensure that no foreigner ever saw sign of their safe haven. So why, then, was he here? If there was no one alive who could speak of them, why did he need to do these terrible things – and the more he thought of it, the more Trylstrian knew that these things were indeed terrible. There was no moral justification for it. No pretence of serving some greater cause besides the personal will of a man who knew nothing in the way of necessity when it came to moral justification.
His fingertips slowly slid on the parchment, letting the ink smear a little as he had done so many times before. It was becoming hard to read, but the magician would never need to. He had memorized the text after two years of pouring over it. Two years of life in this place! Coupled with another four years of travel, Trylstrian only now realized the passage of time. What a nightmare.
He let the parchment fall and angrily kicked at it, drove it into the mud, and buried it there. So much time had passed, and only now had he made any progress! He had wasted so much time, over what? Over moral dilemmas and the lovesick prattling aimed at an unobtainable woman. It was…
“Sickening.”
Yet there they remained. Trylstrian found himself laying in the mud, now. He let it pour through the gaps in his fingers, let the cool caress touch upon the back of his head. He spread his arms and legs as far as they would go and closed his eyes to deal with it all. For an idea was brewing in his giant lizard brain, one which made it recoil with horror. It would certainly mean his death, but perhaps it would put right some of the insanity that he’d perpetrated.
It was a terrible decision to be faced with, and Trylstrian doubted he would be able to make it.