My father was a soldier, who rose high quickly, and was cast down even faster. The tale my mother told was that he died on his feet, surrounded by the bodies of a hundred attackers. He angered the wrong people, and sold his life dearly.
The night my father died, my mother and I fled Katheer with two camels, whatever valuables we could carry, and our lives. My mother was a good wife, from a good family, but the life of an outlaw was not one she was suited for. Within two turns of the moon what little valuables we had were gone. Within six, so was she. I never knew if she was caught by soldiers, kidnapped and sold into slavery, or simply wandered away in search of a better life.
So that was that. From the age of seven I was a street rat, a gutter rat, a wharf rat... basically any place that you find rats, there was I. But that was not my fate. No son of Fakar could spend all his life as a nobody. Destiny has a way of picking her favorite sons. At the age of twelve my magic began to manifest.
For a while I was a thief, stealing trinkets from fat merchants. Later I worked in a circus. I’ve been a smuggler, a scribe, and even a tax-collector (we all have to take jobs we don’t like, from time to time—have faith, little of the gold I collected made its way into the pockets of the Satrap). Anywhere a tricky spell or a spelling trick could fetch a warm meal and a soft bed, there was I.
I recently found myself in a bit of trouble with the city guards, and so I thought it expedient to take a job on a merchant vessel, ferrying this and that from here to there. A good, honest (mostly) life on the open sea. I’ve put in to every port from Kapatesh to Port Peril. But that was not my fate, either.
Alas, the boat was sunk. Denied the precious cargo they so desired, the pirates who attacked us decided to take a few slaves instead. And thus I find myself before you. Destiny, it seems, is not yet finished with me.
