Note: This story is already finished. I wrote it a long time ago, but I never really liked it. Now, a couple of years later, I was looking back through it and I realized that it's actually quite good. The problem is that most of the stuff in my head is not on the page. I must have rushed through the story just to get to the end, because I can see where it's going with everything, but it never really gets there. So I'm going back over it and fixing the garbled bits, adding the missing parts, and fleshing out what is here. Hopefully, this won't take long, since the actual writing is already done. If you notice anything wrong like grammatical errors or logical flaws or holes in the plot, please tell me. I'm not perfect, after all, and I might miss stuff.

Prologue

The pain was exquisite, exhilarating and debilitating all at once. A sudden shock of doubt intensified the agony, so the boy pushed it down and buried it beneath a thousand layers of raw willpower.

"And now I declare you Man, master of all that walk the Earth, and heir to the mantle of my ancestors—and the loving embrace of the Empire."

The Empire? Something within the boy rebelled against the thought, something that was all instinct and nothing else. Something important. The man before him reached out and dragged his thumb across the gaping wound that dripped blood into the boy's eyes, smearing it with some thick goo that burned like all the fires of hell.

"Only through pain may your body be purified and cleansed, made ready to accept the embrace of the Empire."

The Empire. It seemed a pretty cruel thing to do, demanding that a boy of but eight years be subjected to such suffering as this for no reason other than gaining membership to a thing that, at the moment, seemed little more than a childish club. The thumb over the wound turned suddenly vicious, digging in with malicious abandon.

"And once you are ready to meet the embrace of the Empire, as surely as She is yours, so you are Hers."

But I don't want to be anyone's! The abrupt arrival of that truism prodded the boy to action as nothing else had, and, bulling through the torment, he cried out and jerked away from the vicious thumb and the man who owned it.

Chapter One

The man's eyelids flickered, and he coughed violently, gasping at the fierce pain that shot through his head. He recovered his breath, sat up slowly, and glanced around the dank cave he occupied, lifted his fingers to his aching brow. They came away scarlet with blood. Where was he?

He considered this question for a very long time before finally establishing that he could find no suitable response.

Soft steps outside touched the man's ears, and he did not pause to wonder how he identified the sound so quickly, but melted into the shadows of the cave with a practiced ease he had not known he possessed.

A second man, slim, lean, and bare to the waist, with deeply bronzed skin, entered the rocky shelter, bearing a tightly wrapped bundle. He looked about in consternation.

The first man crept up behind the second and caught him in a tight and flawless headlock. "Where?" he croaked, his mouth dry and his voice harsh.

To his credit, the second man did not struggle. "We are in a cave a short distance from the village of Coplan, in the nation of Killik." He tapped his bundle. "I have brought you food and drink."

The first man licked dry lips with his parched tongue and spun his captive about. He snatched the bundle, shoved the second man to the ground roughly, and unwrapped it. Balancing the hunks of bread and cheese on his thigh, he lifted the corked canteen to his mouth, tore the cork away with his teeth, and downed the whole thing in one go. The second man watched blandly.

"I must go. I will be missed if I am gone much longer."

The first man eyed him warily and wiped his mouth on his arm. "How do I know you're not going to turn on me?"

"Are you kidding?" the second man inquired, incredulous.

The first man scowled darkly.

The second man examined his companion closely, his brow deeply furrowed in confusion. After what seemed an eternity, he shook his head slightly. "Do you…not remember?"

"Remember what?"

"You, the Andivasi, the others…all of it…" He trailed off at the blank look on the first man's face. "I don't have time to explain it now—it'll have to wait. For now, just know that I am Tork, and I am a friend."

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Tyanyin slipped between the iron bars over the window of the extravagant building. He praised whatever deity might be listening that he had been a hunted, hated, haunted child and had grown into a tiny excuse for a man. He was strong, though, almost impossibly so, and fast as lightning. Silent as a shadow, swift as a deer, he hugged the shady corners of the wide corridors of the Andivasi aristocrat's mansion.

Of all the peoples of Killik, Ty and his kind enjoyed the most freedom. The people of the mountains, he knew, suffered the most under Andivasi rule, as they had under the Aberithians and the Layrnese and the Fauni and the Sebans before them. Their foreign masters' insatiable greed for the rare ores and minerals high up in the mountains drove the mountain men into impoverished servitude beneath a heavy yoke. Even the lowlanders struggled mightily under the vicious demands of the masters for their annual tribute, breaking their backs day by day in the blistering heat of their fields and withering away week by week to produce the crops needed to feed their families and conquerors. The upper tier of Killik faired no better than their less fortunate counterparts, being forced to host any Andivasi and pay crippling amounts of money to their masters. So many ancient and respected Killik families had been utterly destroyed by Andivas, and those few who remained were not a tenth of what they had been.

But Ty was none of these. No, he belonged to that insane sect of Killik society that belonged to no one. He minded no laws, defied all authority, and knew his death was imminent. As all of his kind, Ty did not, could not, would not fear death. He had nothing left in life—perhaps there was more waiting for him in death. Unlike most of his kind, however, Ty was not yet ready to face oblivion. No, not nearly enough of his foreign enemies had preceded him. Not nearly enough.

For that reason, he knew, he was feared by the Andivasi. No mere desperate criminal was he, no, but a man with a purpose and nothing to keep him from it.

Ty smiled grimly as he flattened himself against the wall and watched a guard pass mere inches away from him.

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"I appear to be at a disadvantage," Tork admitted.

"Several of them," the stranger affirmed, wolfing down his meager meal.

"You know my name. Might I ask yours?"

"You can ask, but I won't tell."

"From where do you hail?"

The stranger did not respond.

"Why will you not speak to me?"

The stranger swallowed his last bite and sighed. "Look, Tork, I'd love to tell you, honestly. But I don't…remember anything. You know as much about me as I do."

Tork frowned, his head tilted to one side as he digested this. "You recall nothing?"

The stranger shook his head.

"Yet you have not forgotten how to use you hands." He rubbed his sore throat ruefully.

"Some things just stick with you better than others, I guess."

Tork considered his companion solemnly. "And you recall nothing else?"

"Nothing."

"But you have no name."

The man did not respond for a long time. Finally, he sat back, stretching his legs out before him. "I have nothing. No name. No home. No identity. I don't know…who I am…"

"You and I are not so different."

"What do you mean? At least you…know."

Tork shook his head and pressed one hand to his heart. "No. I do indeed have a name, a self. But no identity. I am what I am made to be."

The stranger frowned. "Are you talking slavery?"

Tork nodded slowly. He dropped his arm to his side.

"I'd like to hear your tale."

"There is not much to tell. It has ever been so."

"Always?"

"For as long as time has been, Killik has never been free."

"I don't understand."

"My land is a gateway nation, the only one of its kind. We are the only route between the two main lands, and the Flaming Hills make our land fertile and our mines rich. We are a rare prize, and have never been without a master."

"That's terrible! Why don't you fight?"

"We have fought, since the dawn of time. But always, with the leaving of one master comes another. Just last year, many of my people allied themselves with the Andivasi, who challenged our old masters, the Aberithians. With our aid and at the cost of our people, the Andivasi won their battle. They promised us freedom from the Aberithians, and we had it. The Andivasi are our new masters."

Tork's words sparked a vicious, irrational rage within the stranger, but he knew not at what or whom his anger was directed. He wrestled it back with a supreme act of will.

"You speak their tongue."

"Whose?"

"Theirs; the language of Andivas. I do not know if you even remember..."

The stranger grimaced. "Please—speak to me in your own language."

Tork did. "It is your language, too."

"I hear you and understand well," the stranger responded in kind. He was not as efficient in Killik as he was in Andivasi, but he spoke it.

"You have a name among us. And a purpose."

"I do?"

"Indeed."

"And what is it?"

"If you truly do not remember, then perhaps it is best you do not know. It will come back to you in its own time, and if not…"

"We'll worry about that when it happens. Or rather, fails to."

Tork nodded. "Then I will tell you what my father told me when I was very young, and what yours told you as well. The life of the Killik is hard. We live by the rule of survival without submission. Long have we been trodden upon, but longer still have we had our pride. And we will keep it." He bit into his palm until it bled.

Understanding the significance of the gesture, the stranger followed suit and clasped Tork's hand in his own.

"Then I name you Meech, man of mystery."

"I can think of no better name."

Tork squeezed the stranger's hand tightly. "Welcome back to our world, Meech."

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"Ty!"

"He's here!"

"He's back!"

"You're okay!"

"What'd you get?"

Ty let down his guard like he never did anywhere else in the world. He felt the urge to laugh, but permitted himself only a tight little smile as the dozen or so children flocked around him. They knew better than to touch him, but they crawled all over each other, their sunken, hollow eyes sparking to life at the sight of their only ally and protector. Ty shrugged his little satchel off his shoulder and unbuckled the flap, opening it and drawing out several loaves of fresh bread. He broke the loaves and passed the food into their eager young hands. This and the handful of gold coins in his pocket were the results of this night's labors.

Most of the children in this underground haven beneath a crumbling, abandoned warehouse were orphans whose parents had been killed by the Andivasi. A few, though, had been discreetly handed over to Ty by Killik parents who become so astonishingly poor, they knew they could not care for a child. These concerned parents often worried Ty, for they all seemed to know just how to find him. He knew the Killiks feared him as much as the Andivasi did, if not more, for Ty and those of his ilk were well known to cause trouble wherever they went, and trouble brought swift, violent, unfair, and undirected reprisals by the Andivasi. Out in the mountains, entire villages had been wiped out because one of their number turned rogue.

This, however, had never been a concern with Ty. Despite the paradox of his name, he had nothing to tie him to anyone else in the world. His parents had fallen long ago to the Aberithians, and as for the man who took him in and cared for him afterward…well, he, too, was long gone. Ty touched the scar that slashed across his face from brow to cheek. Yes, he was long, long gone.

After devouring their meal, the children crowded around to drink from the wooden barrel in the corner of their sanctuary before drifting off, one by one, to the sundry pile of rags and furs against a wall that served as their bed. Ty took a thin blanket from the wooden chest beside the only entrance (a deep crack in the foundations of the warehouse) and spread himself out to sleep in the middle of the cellar.

Tomorrow, the children would make their way out into the streets to beg food and money off the very Andivasi who had orphaned them, while Ty began gathering information and planning a raid against his next hapless victim.