Kane stood on the rock, gazing on the barren black field that lay before him. The field was empty and unused, and he could not see anyone that desired to keep it that way. But he did not care for this, he wanted to exert his power.

"Sntoe. Ctlase. Asrie. Srduindehg. Itno. Ensxicste." he barked, the strange foreign words coming roughly from his throat as they tore their path into the air. Words thrumming with power as the ground began to exert itself.

With a deep groan and shudder, the world about Kane tilted as the ground began to uplift itself and rise, black stone walls forming before his very eyes. Kane started to laugh, drunk with the power he could exert. The castle formed before his eyes as he stood there with a mad grin on his face as he watched it come into existence. And then, the world was still.

He gazed over the castle and laughed with abandon, his body drunk on the feeling of power he could feel coursing through him. This was real power, not following the rules of the master and not caring a whit for the safety of others!

"What are you doing" a voice dryly spoke behind him.

Kane whirled about, he had expected this. The master stood there, his black robes still as he watched Kane impassively. His aged lined face held no expression and his eyes did not display any emotion.

"Master" Kane's voice cracked. "Am I to be banished?"

"Banished and killed" the master confirmed.

Kane sighed, he had expected this yes. The master had come faster than he had thought, but he knew the master would come. Did not even think the master wouldn't come.

The master knew all that went on in the world, the master raised him and trained him. He taught Kane all that he knew. As he looked at the master, he saw behind him the Castle of Stone. The home of the master and students. Looking around the world, he could see the land stretching to all the corners, then meeting a thick thick mist. The Dimensional Mists. They flowed and tested the borders, but retreated immediately, unable to penetrate the magic of the Castle of Stone.

Kane looked back at the master. "I shall leave then"

The master nodded "You will"

Kane looked behind him belatedly at the castle he had created, and sighed with discontent. He had hoped to have some time before the inevitable. But now he must leave. His feet stepped away from the master who stood there watching him as Kane moved towards the village. He was leaving, but he has permitted to say his farewell. He has not seen his family for five years.

The ground was stony as he walked, his familiar skipping alongside him with the ground black as the sky was blue. The only grass you could find was in carefully tended plots and the trees were watered daily by the people of the world. He knew of only a few thousand people alive, for who can live in the Dimensional Mists. None but the banished, and the banished do not last long if they attempt to create a lightgate. It was the only logical thing to do once banished, seek your escape.

Five years Kane had lived in the Castle of Stone. Five years since he had last seen his family. He knew it was a privilege, his being taken. The master carefully teaching those who would be the future of the land. They were taught the rules, the words of power and the machinations to chain those words together. But again and again, they were told.

Do not chain the words more than twice, to do it three times is to court banishment and to do it more is your death in wait. The mists will be disturbed and the land will revolt. Do not chain the words of power beyond what you have been told for the consequences are dire.

Kane had listened eagerly, his ears sinking in every piece of information that the master had to teach. But as the years passed, Kane wondered. Why, why must he not chain the words of power. Why do mists roil so as the words shudder and stir them so. He knew as they all knew, that none can live in the mists for long. To do so is to court death.

Kane entered his village, the people around him looking with interest as Kane walked through for the first time in years. He stepped onto grass, children playing with a dog. His familiar looked about itself quizzly and Kane looked at the surroundings with interest. It had been so long.

A child began to cry, and Kane looked over. His familiar sat there, thin wooden limbs scoffing a small bread treat down. Kane was puzzled and approached the child. Crouching, he asked "What's wrong?"

"M-My food" the child wailed, and Kane realized that the familiar did not ask for permission. But Kane did not have another treat to replace it with.

"What would you like instead?" Kane offered to the child.

The child looked at Kane with tearful eyes, then looked towards the dog. "A toy"

Kane smiled, this he could do.

"Two. Hnad. Scitk" he barked, the words grating at his throat as his fingers clasped about a sudden thick wooden stick. The world slightly shuddered about him, but he ignored it as he grinned at the child. Take it.

The child took the stick from his hands, and ran to the dog. Kane smiled as he saw the child use the stick to play with the dog. But as he looked away, he realized that a man approached, grabbing a child with chains about her feet. A slave.

Kane looked away, it was not his to deal with. This was the way of the world, even though it was only recently that he had come to grow feelings that were not his. He did not know why, but the idea of slavery had begun to disgust him, the beatings of the weak getting under his skin. He did not like the idea of the world. And so he wanted to revolt, the words of power barked into the air.

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He wanted to say his farewells to his parents, perhaps for the last time.

He moved through the village, corruption visible to his eyes. Inner morals conflicted with what he had been taught, and unbidden memories of another life shifted before his eyes. He knew that this place was bad, that he didn't want to be here. But it was what he had lived and grown up with, how can he abandon it.

His parents sat in their house, Kane's father talking to his mother. When they saw him, they both smiled to see him. It had been five years. Kane spent a minute talking to them, then told them that he had been banished. It was like a wet blanket had fell on the room.

Shortly after he left the village, he knew it was time to go into the mists.

His first step inside was quiet, the mists folding about him as if a gentle hug. But his feet didn't falter, he knew the mists were harmless. They didn't corrupt, but stifled what new life they could. The formless magics forbid new magics to come to life.

He walked for he did not know how long, his feet never faltering on the ground and the white emptiness of the mists encompassing his view. He did not recall the last he had seen the skies, and did not remember the taste of food. But he did not grow hungry nor thirsty, that was not the way of the mist.

He reached a area, this would be fine he decided. His throat came into use for the first in weeks as he barked four simple words of power. "Rtaeret. mtsis. of. dnimsenons.". The mists reared back as if struck, and as if by magic the area was clear of obstruction. The ground bleak and empty, black as if charred. He could hear the world thudding about him, the mists churning intensely. But that was of no matter.

The next hundred years he spent in that area, barking words of power as the world shuddered and complained. Groans coming as the world twisted to his will. He did not relent as the light bent to his command, forming slow bars over the years into a space before him.

The master came, he knew he would. But each time the master came, he would fend him off with chains of power, the world screaming its agnoy out to be heard and each time, the master would retreat. Unable to stay in the mists.

The lightgate shimmered before him, complete and finished. A hundred years it had taken him, and yet Kane looked as young as the day he had first stepped in the mists. Through the gate he could see another world, one without the mists. The master stood behind him, as he knew he would.

"Do not go in" the master said, but Kane did not care.

Kane could hear the world screaming like it had never screamed before, the churning of his guts feeling like he should spew. But he persevered. The gate had been opened, and he had stepped through.

Standing in a square of concrete, large builds of glass and metal raised about him. Was this the planet earth? There were so many people. They started at him and muttered, he had stepped out of the air, who was he?

Kane looked about in wonder and marvel. He could see no mists, the blue of the sky far more blue than the one of his world. He now knew what true blue was, the gray sky of his world incomparable to this. He looked at the signs above the shops, the strange machines roaring past on the road of gravel and he marveled.

He wanted to explore more.

"Dsik. of. Fcore." he barked, screams erupting near him as the people felt the wrongness of the world as it moaned in newfound pain. Did this world not know of the words of power?

He rose into the sky, his feet on the disk as he commanded it fly. None could see what he stood on, but all could see his body as he flew into the sky. This world was strange he thought, far far away he could see a giant bird he did not recognise. And yet, it seemed to be a machine?

The people about him gaped and stared as he moved through the air, closely looking at the shops as he passed. Machines beneath him crashed and screeched to a stop, loud crashes startling him as he looked below. He recognised misery below him, flames licking at metal where machines had collided against each other with the screams and tears of humans beneath him. But he did not spare another thought as he flew onwards.

Each of the shops were different, signs above them were not the same and the interiors decorated with more color than he had ever seen before. Then he came to a stretch of buildings that he thought he recognised, but how could he? He had never been here before. He flew over the road and ignored the screams of the machines below him as he explored this new curiosity. Why did he know this place?

Recognising a building, he was startled to realized he knew this shop, had seen it many times in the memories that were not his. He dropped to the floor from the disk, his feet bending smoothly as he landed on the ground. He looked inside the glass and stared in the shop. He could see someone polishing a table, their back to him.

"Ourbstioctn. Dapspaeir." he barked. The world barely complaining as it bent to his will. He stepped through the now gone glass and moved towards the back of the figure who bent over a table, polishing it to perfection. Sensing someone behind them, the figure stood up and turned towards Kane.

Surprise were in both of their expressions.

They knew each other, knew each other very well.

Just as they knew, each other was Kane.