M'k'n'zy felt his left arm stiffening up again.  The blood that covered his biceps had long since dried; the large piece of metal that had embedded itself in his arm had cut him rather severely, and it had been a hellish few minutes to pry it out of where it had lodged itself.  That wasn't the major problem though.  The big difficulty was that he had dislocated the damned limb.  The pain had been excruciating as M'k'n'zy had braced himself and, agonizingly, shoved it back into place.  It had been so overwhelming, in fact, that M'k'n'zy had fainted dead away.  When he came to a few minutes later, he cursed himself for his weakness.

    He treasured the small bit of shade that he'd managed to find for himself as he extended his fingers and flexed them, curved them into a fist and straightened them once more.  "Come on," he muttered to himself through cracked lips, expressing annoyance with the uncooperative portions of his body.  "Come on."  He worked his fingers, the wrist, and the elbow until he was satisfied with the movement in them.  Then he surveyed the territory, trying to asses his situation.

    While Falkar was wild of mien by the moment and by happenstance, M'k'n'zy had that look to him all the time.  His skin also had a burnished look to it, but had more of a leathery texture to it than Falkar's, most likely due to the fact that he spent so much time out in the sun.  His hair was wild and unkempt.  The Xenexians had a reputation for being a savage people, but one look into M'k'n'zy's purple eyes bespoke volumes of intelligence, cunning, and canniness.  No one who thought him a simple scrapper could hold to that opinion if they looked into his face for more than a moment. 

    One would never have thought that M'k'n'zy was merely nineteen.  The years of hardship he had endured gave him a weathered look, with several deep creases already lining his forehead.  And more...there was something in his eyes.  Whatever innocence he had once possessed was long gone.

    Those savage eyes scanned that section of Xenex called the Pit.  It was an area approximately thirty miles across that was well known to the people of M'k'n'zy's home city of Calhoun as someplace from which people should-under ordinary circumstances-steer clear.  For starters, it was extremely inhospitable, filled with small life-forms that had developed various nasty abilities required for surviving in the desert environment.  Moreover, the combination of assorted fronts which would slip in and become trapped within the mountains that ringed portions of the terrain.  Fierce dust storms would whip up at any time, or torrents of rain would fall-sometimes for days- to be followed by such calm and dryness that one would think that there had been no precipitation there for ages.  In some areas the terrain was cracked and dry, while in others the ground was exceedingly malleable.

    Beyond the physical challenges the place presented, there was something else about the area as well.  Something that bordered on the supernatural.  Those who were advocates of pseudoscience would claim that the Pit was a source for a rift in reality.  That it was a sort of nexus, an intersection for multiple realities that would drift in and out as easily as dust motes caught up in vagrant breezes.  Those who were not of a pseudoscientific bent just figured the place was haunted.

    Either way, it was the most unpredictable piece of real estate on Xenex.

    But although modern Xenexians gave the Pit a wide berth, centuries previously it had been part of a fundamental rite of passage among Xenexian youth.  When a Xenexian reached a certain age, he or she would trudge into the midst of the Pit to embark on what was called the "Search for Allways." It was believed that, if one wandered the Pit for a sufficiently long enough time, visions of one's future would reveal themselves and one would come to understand one's true purpose in life.

    However, the Search for Allways began to take a significant death toll as young Xenexians would fall prey to the dangers that the Pit presented.  As a consequence, the Search disappeared from the practiced traditions of the Xenexians.  This did not mean, however, that it vanished from practice altogether.  Instead, it went underground.  A sort of dare, a test of one's bravery and character...and, if truth must be told, ego.  Those who felt that they had a destiny-whatever that might be-would take it upon themselves to embark on a Search of their very own.  Parents would try to emphasize to their children the folly of such actions, just as their parents had before them.  And in most cases they were no more successful in dissuading their own children than their own parents had been in discouraging them.

    By the time M'k'n'zy was thirteen, he had no parents who could try and talk sense into him (although to be fair, even if his parents had been alive, the odds are that they would not have been successful).  Loudly proclaiming to his peers that he was a young man of destiny, M'k'n'zy set out for the Pit to discover just what that glorious future might be.  As the (unofficial) tradition dictated, he went out into the Pit with no supplies save for a supply of water that would last him-under ordinary circumstances-one day.

    Even with rationing, by the fifth day he had used up the entire supply.

    It was day eight when his big brother D'ndai found him, unconscious, dehydrated, and muttering to himself.  D'ndai brought him home and, when M'k'n'zy was fully recovered, he told his friends of the remarkable visions he had seen.  Visions of his people free from Danterian rule.  Visions of a proud and noble people rising up against their oppressors.  And he recounted these visions with such force, such conviction, and such belief that they were attainable goals, that it became the basis for the eventual uprising of the Xenexian people.

    The truth was, he hadn't seen a damned thing.

    It was his great frustration, his great shame.  It was the last thing he wanted to admit.  And so, when his friends had pressed him for details of what-if anything-he had seen, he began to string together a series of fabrications which grew with every retelling.  In fact, somewhere along the way even M'k'n'zy allowed himself to believe that his claims were reality.

    Deep within him he knew this wasn't the case.  But, like most men of destiny, he wasn't going to allow trivialities such as truth to stand in his way.