Everyone dreams of having a life worth living, of becoming the warrior you sense is sleeping inside you, of climbing the mountain and standing at the top and looking at the vast world around you.

Maybe, from that high up, you could see the truth.

Everyone dreams.

I was a boy. I was young and hopeful and I dreamed too. No one really encouraged it.

My wean mother seemed intent on beating it out of me. My real mother couldn't care less.

My father was eternally frightened, both of my mother and of the cruel world that waited beyond her 'protection'. He told me to accept my place in this life, that one could only climb so far before he fell.

But I did not listen to him. I could see something that none of them could see, some distant, golden beauty waiting for me. Far away and very, very high. But it was mine and I wanted it and I needed it. I wanted to become that wise, great, powerful person that I knew was inside me.

Instead of fearing the authority of my mother, her goddess and all the other females who now seemed determined to show me my place, I began to hate it. Not just quiet resentment, I hated it. I hated them for thinking me weak and stupid, I hated them for believing in their proud, haughty way that they could push me around. I hated them and that hate only served to further my purpose. The bitterness growing underneath my innocent hope drove me to prove them wrong. I would show them, I thought, I would show them everything I was, everything I could be. Someday they would look at me and they would be afraid.

So I grew up. I became a wizard, because it seemed a path to power. The demons respected me (or if they didn't, they quickly learned to), the spells obeyed me, the books did not tease or mock me, this was my world. I was in control. I studied hard, pushing myself to become the best.

And I became everything I ever wanted to be. They fear me now, I see it in their eyes, though they try so hard not to show it. No one has raised a whip against me for as long as I can remember. They think I will fight back, and for once, they are right.

My sister, Triel, rules the city now. She comes to me for advice. Me, the brother she was always lecturing on how weak and foolish he was. She still believes she has some element of control over me. Her belief, like her belief in her dark goddess, is wrong. But I will let her think that. My time is coming.

They told me I would never get where I wanted to be. They told me there was a wall, a wall that I could not hope to breach. Now the wall stands before me, and it looks flimsy and weak. I did not come this far to be stopped by a illusion in the minds of those who do not understand. I am ever reaching, climbing, trying for something better. I will not think of how easy my life could have been, because I will lose my focus and I will fall. I will not worry about how people will think of me, because I will lose my focus and I will fall. I will not ponder over all the little, petty questions that nag at my mind, because I will lose my focus and I will fall.

All I will think of is the goal. I will do whatever it takes, I will throw the very essence of my being into reaching that summit, into grabbing the rock and pulling myself up, then the next, then the next, then the next. Until I find the truth and the world lies before me like an open book, beauty and ugliness side by side, for me to discover and understand.

This is the story of my life. This is the purpose of my existence. It is exhausting and frustrating and full of problems and trials. But I am doing something and I can feel my blood flowing through my veins, driven by the same fury and hope that I am driven by. I am alive and shouting out my survival, so that they can always hear it, so that it will ring in their ears, reminding them that they failed and I succeeded. It makes them angry and they think up new schemes to push me down. I still climb though, onwards and upwards. Hurting and weary and aching, but I would not want it any other way.