	He awoke grogily, shaking the now familar pain of sennach leaf poison from his head. This was a much stronger dose than he'd everhad before, he had no idea how long he had been unconscious. Was this a test? Some final examination to be passed. He didn't know. Immediately his eyes adjusted to the dim light in the room. He was lying flat on a table of some sort, restrained at the wrists and ankles with leather straps. Across his waist was a much larger one, tight enough to wind him slightly. Looking around the room he could see shelves of bottles and various unpleasant looking sharp implements. This was obviously somebody's torture chamber.
	The sound of a door opening, some muffled footsteps. Both above his head.  His table swung so he lay at an angle to the floor, a candle held up to his face, cloaking the wielder in it's glare. 
	"So, we are awake then are we? Good good, time to proceed then." The figure shuffled away, pottering opposite him, mixing the contents of bottles it removed from the shelves. Arquinsiel could see it, draped in robes and wearing a scarf that covered it's face. After several minutes he finished and opened the door again pausing to impart words of wisdom, "Don't  go anywhere, I shall be right back." The figure left, closing the door behind him. Arquinsiel could hear him laughing hoarsely to himself at his witicism as he walked away.
	Time passes, not much. The figure returns with two more, these both women. "Why am I here?" Arquinsiel manages to ask at last, the pain having receeded enough to let him frame a thought. 
	"You know why you are here, your training is complete....."
	It took him a moment to remember, it had been several years since his last conversation with his father. The words came back to him clearly now, with all the force of a crossbow bolt. <i>"You will then assume a commoner's name, have your features altered and have your loyalty guarenteed with magic....."</i> This was it then, he was to be chained, rendered docile, harmless to all his father did not specifically order harmed. Made into a tool, an unthinking object used to get a job done and nothing more.
	".... you will be loyalty-bound to the council first and your family second. Anything you do will be ordained by one of those two orgainisations, the council taking precedance of course..." the figure rattled on unheeded.
	Deep inside him, something stirred, awoke and took stock. It was not happy with this turn of events. It screamed. Screamed furiously, broadcasting it's rage to him. It <i>was</i> him. The fundamental part of him, his independance, his soul. And it was, for the first time in his entire life, moved to take action. He was intrigued, lost within himself on a journey of self discovery. But he didn't have time for that now.
	He came back to the present hard, suddenly seeing again, feeling again. The remains of the potion the figure had prepared dribbled from his slack mouth. He could hear the three figures chanting. They were obiously the mages who were to apply those chains to him. If he let them. He could feel the pressure mounting, building, forcing tendrils into his mind, rooting out his sense of self and subjugating it to the magic. Somehow he knew that all he had to do to resist them was to want it. And want it he did, fiercely.
	His hand started moving. Slowly.
	The chanting reached a crescendo and then ended suddenly. It had all taken but a few minutes, he had expected something much more time consuming. The figures moved off to the shelves, rattling glass and metal, congratulating themselves on another job well done. The first figure came back to him, pulled his eyelids open wide, looking deep inside. He muttered something to himself, then chanted a single word clearly.
	Suddenly he recoiled in horror, his eyes open wide "The magic did not take! He is un-bound! We must try again, quickly!" The other two figures ran back to him, already chanting, joining their voices with the first chanter's. He felt the pressure rising again and dismissed it with a thought. Moving with a speed built over his years of training he ripped his one free hand fully from it's bonds and grabbed at his tied hand. The thing inside him screamed again, and he listened. The room went black, perfect darkness engulfing them all. One of the women screamed "He is <i>daruthani</i>! One of the untrained!" she was near hysterical, and the male was not much better but the other woman was chanting quietly.
	Swiftly he released the rest of his bonds, working under cover of the darkness. Just as his last foot came free the darkness lifted and the room was once again candle-lit.
	"Restrain him!" the male shouted. They all chanted. Again he felt magic washing over him, this time the concentrated force of a spell designed to render him unconscious. This time he barely had to acknowledge it before it was gone. Grabbing the table's edge to speed himself he spun around it, moving for the door at a run. Ripping it open he found himself in a small, empty room bare but for a table and a single chair which he kicked back at the doorway. There was another door directily opposite. No, not empty he noticed, his sword belt and cloak were draped around the chair. He grabbed them and ran on, swinging the cloak around his shoulders as he did so, through the door and into a corridor running perpendicular. Boucing off the cold stone wall he took a second to fasten his swords on before speeding off again. He could hear the mages coming after him now, thier cursing echoing down the stone corridor. 
	He kept running, passing doors on both sides. Within a few seconds he reached a staircase leading up. He shot up it on all fours, sacrificing dignity for speed. At the top he found a hidden door, made to look like part of another stone wall. A quick search turned up the latch and he pushed the door open hard. He found himself in another corridor, picking a direction at random he kept running. As the immediate danger passed and the adrenaline rush began to fade he realised that he would have to find somewhere to hide for a while, somewhere he could gather his thoughts and prepare himself for his escape. Conveniently there were again doors on both sides. He chose one, again at random, and found himself in what appeared to be a dining room, obviously long left lie idle. Cobwebs covered the elegant glass chadelier and dust blanketed the floor, chairs and the long, mahogany table. He pushed the door closed quietly behind him, careful not to raise the dust before it.
	Outside the door he could hear the shouts of the mages alerting the guards to his escape, the clatter of weapons and armour as the guards rushed to find him. Eventually they would look here,  that was a given. The question was when. He decided to give himself a slow count of three hundred to rest before moving again.
	At three hundred he ripped the door open again and sprinted along the corridor, back the way he had come. The last thing they would expect would be for him to go higher, so higher he would go. Coming to the secret door he saw it had been left lying open. As he passed it he heard shouts of suprise coming from within. Barely a second later he could hear several guards in hot pursuit of him.
1299
	He knew there would be a stairwell ahead of him, a sevant's access to the higher levels from this one. He reached the end of the corridor and found what he was looking for through a door on his right -  a stairwell leading both up and down. He hesitated, wondering, up or down? Up was likely to be an unexpeted move, but down would mean a way out. He shook his head to clear his doubts, he had chosen a course and he would stick to it, see it through to the end, whatever it may be.
	He climbed, higher and higher until he had no more stairs to climb. He could hear the guards behind him, a foor or two below. He had only the vaguest idea of how high he had climbed, certainly over a dozen levels. Pausing momentarily to listen at the door he pushed it open and continued to run. Halfway along the corridor something screamed at him to stop. He skidded to a halt and looked around. Beside him was a single door, the frame ornately carved and decorated in a trailing vine pattern, as were all those on the floor. He reached to open it but found it locked. Without conscious he pulled out a pick and wiggled it into the lock.
	It clicked open as if it wished nothing more than to admitt him to the room beyond. He stepped through, leaving the door behind him unlocked.
	And he froze.
	Suddenly he knew why he had known which way to run, why he had known to go up instead of trying to find a way out, why he had known to stop and open this door, why it had opened with barely a thought.
	He was in his own room. He was <i>home.</i> The corridors down which he now fled from guards were the very same down which he had run as a child. He knew the ground now, better than his enemy did. He was safe.
	Or was he? He had never in all his years known about the secret door down into that fearful laboratory. Nor, now that he thought about it, had he ever known about the dining room he had hidden in. If he had missed those it was likely he had missed other rooms and passages within the house. He was decidely <i>not</i> safe here. He had to leave, to find somewhere to hide, think this through. Somewhere safer than his very own room in his father's house. 
	Inside him something cracked a little bit, began to cry at the unfairness of it all. He quickly smothered it with a blanket of rage. NO! He would not lose to them. They wanted to make him into their mindless tool did they? Well, he would make them regret that descision.
	Standing up again, although he didn't remember sitting down, he drew a sword with his right hand, looked at the dim reflection of the moonlight on the blade. Then he remembered, he was one of the outcasts, time to start thinking like one. He drew the second blade and viciously, with a cry of anger, kicked open the door to the room with such force that it banged into the wall and the hinges groaned in protest.
	He stepped into the corridor only to be confronted by four very supprised guards holding the flashy spiked blades favoured by those his age. Quick-stepping twice to the closest guard he stuck his left blade into the man's larynx before he even had a chance to raise his guard. The second guard barely managed to block a wild, flashing swing from his right sword, and the third tried to press in only to find Arquinsiel's left sword back in place before his blade could connect. A quick slice across with the right and the guard fell back holding his face and screaming while the second guard looked in supprise at the left blade which had slid under the slice to bury itself in his gut.
	The fourth guard had the presence of mind to shout for help before engaging but that was all. He died within a second of his cry, both his lungs pierced by Arquinsiel's blades. 
	The third guard was slumped against a wall, sobbing softly as tears of blood ran from his ruined eyes. Arquinsiel simply hacked at the back of the man's neck with a sword before looking up. At the end of the corridor, the opposite one from the stairs, stood a dozen very stunned but very determined looking guardsmen. Arquinsiel turned and ran, laughing as he did so. Behind him he could hear them following, shouting for him to surrender. He kept running.
	Reaching the stairs he took them running, barely touching every fourth step in his haste. Eventually he reached the end, the bottom of the stairwell, far ahead of the guards above him. He ran out into the corridor, aiming for the front door of the mansion. He passed room after room, eventually finding the great atrium at the front of the house. He sprinted to the double door that barred his escape and pushed half of it open, slipping quickly out as soon as he was able to fit. 
	And found himself standing facing a ring of guards with spears. One shouted "Give up rogue, the gates are barred and the portcullis is down. You are trapped, surrounded and outnumbered. You have no hope of escape."
"I fail to see how my situation has changed from the begining then, forgive me for not complying" Arquinsiel replied sneeringly. Thinking quicky he broke to his right, slashing his blades wildly to force the single guard blocking the the stairs to the battlements out of his way. He ran along beside the crenelations on the top of the wall that ringed the front of the house, eventually reaching the gate house. As he did he saw a robed figure marching imperiously out of the now fully open double door. Someone flanked by a dozen guards on each side. His father.
	"Son, I order you to stop this instant!" his father's voice carried strongly across the courtyard even at this distance, sounding as if he spoke no more than a a sword's length away from Arquinsiel.
	"Ah father, would that I could but I can't so I shan't. I'm afraid this one of your little toys did not entertain as you expected it to do, I shall remove it from your sight and never shall it trouble you again," he spoke in a mocking, sing-song tone of voice, enjoying the reddening face of his father visible even across the hundred feet between them. "And now I take my leave, good day to you!" He jumped over the edge of the wall onto the street below. Hitting the ground on both feet he bounced into a sideways roll and came up running. He could hear the supprised shouts of the guards inside and the furious orders of the commanders trying to open the gate in time to persue him. 
	Arquinsiel ran around a corner at full sprint, leaving his house out of sight behind him. He ducked into an alley and paused to sheath his blades, hiding them beneath his cloak. Wouldn't do to advertise his status as a tool of some family too blatantly he thought with a wry smile. Sobering for a moment he took stock of his situation.  He was alone in a city of thousands, all of them knowing that someone with two blades on his person would never enjoy the protection of his family, would be an un-punished kill. Would, in fact, likely, be a signifigant benefit to their house to have the asset of another out of the way with no chance of repriesal. His family knew he had escaped, the mages knew why and he was, not right. Not like the others.
	He knew of only one person he could trust to shelter him at all, let alone for as long as he needed. The only problem would be getting to her, sequestered away as she was high in the field academy. Nothing like a challenge he supposed, smiling again.