He awoke in an infirmary bed with his face covered in bandages. His caretakers were thin, somber Calirians dressed in alchemist's robes. In time they removed his wraps and taught him to speak and understand the common tongue. they refused to answer his questions or even let him see his face, which felt tender and scarred.

They focused intensely on teaching him to mimic voice recordings preserved on wax cylinders, to walk in the manner of a man he saw in blurred images in the sorcerers' crystals, and to train in the use of weapons by masters who themselves seemed to ape someone else's fighting style.

His caretakers suffered strict inspections throughout that long punishing period, by an Arnican high-priest and a Calirian general known as War Master Mendego. Upon overhearing a conversation between Mendego and the high-priest - they were to have him ready soon, or else proof of him and his caretakers was to be burned from memory - the man used his learned skills to escape. Chased by Mendego's soldiers, he fled across the Caliri border into Arnica. There, to his shock, he realized his face was that of the man in the sorcerers' glass - Gwaith Ironhand, the lost leader of Arnica's Resurgent Movement and feared enemy of the Caliri.

As Arnica's grand centennial celebration and tournament approached, he entered the games in disguise under the assumed name Nashorn. He was quickly dubbed The Disinherited due to a lack of allegiance to any country or liege. Unsure of whose pawn he was intended to be, Nashorn fights to survive and to discover who or what he truly is.