by Simon Hawke
“Then the sooner we begin it, the sooner it will end,” Ryana said, picking up her rucksack, her crossbow, and her staff. “But what are we to do when we reach Nibenay?”
“Your guess is as good as mine,” said Sorak, “but if we try to cross the Stony Barrens, we may never even reach the Barrier Mountains.”
“The desert tried to claim you once before, and it failed,” said Ryana. “What makes you think that now it will succeed?”
Sorak smiled. “Well, perhaps it won’t, but it is not wise to tempt fate. In any case, there is no need for both of us to make so hazardous a journey. You could return to Tyr and join a caravan bound for Nibenay along the trade route by way of Altaruk and Gulg. I could simply meet you there and—”
“No, we go together,” said Ryana, in a tone that brooked no argument. She slung her crossbow across her back and slipped her arms through the straps of the rucksack. Holding her staff in her right hand, she started off down the western slope. She walked a few paces, then paused, looking back over her shoulder. “Coming?” Sorak grinned. “Lead on, little sister.”
Chapter One
They traveled due east, moving at a steady but unhurried pace. The oasis at Silver Spring was roughly sixty miles straight across the desert from where they had made camp upon the ridge. Sorak estimated it would take them at least two days to make the journey if they walked eight to ten hours a day. The pace allowed for short, regular rest periods, but did not allow for anything that might slow them down.
Ryana knew that Sorak could have made much better time had he been traveling alone. His elf and halfling ancestry made him much better suited for a journey in the desert. Being villichi, Ryana’s physique was superior to most other humans, and her training at the convent had given her superb conditioning. Even so, she could not hope to match Sorak’s natural powers of endurance. The dark sun could quickly sap the strength of most travelers, but even in the relentless, searing heat of an Athasian summer, elves could run for miles across the open desert at speeds that would rupture the heart of any human who attempted to keep pace. As for halflings, what they lacked in size and speed, they made up for in brute strength and stamina. In Sorak, the best attributes of both races were combined.
As Ryana had reminded him, the desert had tried to claim him once before, and it failed. A human child abandoned in the desert would have had no hope of surviving more than a few hours, at best. Sorak had survived for days without food or water until he had been rescued. Still, it had been a long time since Sorak had seen the desert, and it held a grim fascination for him. He would always regard the Ringing Mountains as his home, but the desert was where he had been born. And where he had almost died.
As Ryana walked beside him, Sorak remained silent, as if oblivious to her presence. Ryana knew that he was not ignoring her; he was immersed in a silent conversation with his inner tribe. She recognized the signs. At such times, Sorak would seem very distant and preoccupied, as if he were a million miles away. His facial expression was neutral, yet it conveyed a curious impression of detached alertness. If she spoke to him, he would hear her—or, more specifically, the Watcher would hear and redirect Sorak’s attention to the external stimulus. She maintained her own silence, however, so as not to interrupt the conversation she was not able to hear.
For as long as she had known Sorak, which had been almost all her life, Ryana had wondered what it must be like for him to have so many different people living inside him. They were a strange and fascinating crew. Some she knew quite well; others she hardly knew at all. And there were some of whom she was not even aware. Sorak had told her he knew of at least a dozen personalities residing within him. Ryana knew of only nine.
There was the Ranger, who was most at home when he was wandering in the mountain forests or hunting in the wild. He had not liked the city and had only come out rarely while Sorak was in Tyr. As children, when Ryana and Sorak had gone out on hikes in the forests of the Ringing Mountains, it was always the Ranger who was in the forefront of Sorak’s consciousness. He was the strong and silent type. So far as Ryana knew, the only one of Sorak’s inner tribe with whom the Ranger seemed to interact was Lyric, whose playfulness and child-like sense of wonder compensated for the Ranger’s dour, introspective pragmatism.
Ryana had met Lyric many times before, but she had liked him much better in her childhood than she did now. While she and Sorak had matured, Lyric had remained essentially a child by nature. When he came out, it was usually to marvel at some wildflower or sing a song or play his wooden flute, which Sorak kept strapped to his pack. The instrument was about the length of his arm and carved from stout, blue pagafa wood. Sorak was unable to play it himself, while Lyric seemed to have the innate ability to play any musical instrument he laid his hands on. Ryana had no idea what Lyric’s age was, but apparently he had been “born” sometime after Sorak came to the convent. She thought, perhaps, that he had not existed prior to that time because Sorak had sublimated those qualities within himself. His early childhood must have been terrible. Ryana could not understand what Sorak could possibly regain if he managed to remember it.
Eyron could not understand, either. If Lyric was the child within Sorak, then Eyron was the world-weary and cynical adult who always weighed the consequences of every action taken by the others. For every reason Sorak had to do something, Eyron could usually come up with three or four reasons against it. Sorak’s quest was a case in point. Eyron had argued in favor of Sorak’s continued ignorance about his past. What difference would it really make, he had asked, if Sorak knew which tribe he came from? At best, all he would learn was which tribe had cast him out. What would it benefit him to know who his parents were? One was an elf; the other was a halfling. Was there any pressing reason to know more? What difference did it make, Eyron had asked, if Sorak never learned the circumstances leading to his birth? Perhaps his parents had met, fallen in love, and mated, against all the beliefs and conventions of their respective tribes and races. If so, then they may both have been cast out themselves, or worse. On the other hand, perhaps Sorak’s mother had been raped during an attack on her tribe, and Sorak had been the issue—not only an unwanted child, but one that was anathema to both his mother and her people. Whatever the truth was, Eyron had insisted, there was really nothing to be gained from knowing it. Sorak had left the convent, and life was now his to start anew. He could live it in any manner that he chose.
Sorak disagreed, believing he could never truly find any meaning or purpose in his life until he found out who he was and where he came from. Even if he chose to leave his past behind, he would first have to know what it was he was leaving.
When Sorak had told Ryana of this discussion, she had realized that, in a way, he had been arguing with himself. It had been a debate between two completely different personalities, but at the same time, it was an argument between different aspects of the same personality. In Sorak’s case, of course, those different aspects had achieved a full development as separate individuals. The Guardian was a prime example, embodying Sorak’s nurturing, empathic, and protective aspects, developed into a maternal personality whose role was not only to protect the tribe, but to maintain a balance between them.
When she had read the journals of the two villichi priestesses who had also been tribes of one, Ryana had learned that cooperation between the different personalities was by no means a given. Quite the opposite. Both women had written that in their younger days, they had no real understanding of their condition, and that they had often experienced “lapses,” as they called them, during which they were unable to remember periods of time lasting from several hours to several days. During those times, one of their other personalities would come out and take control, often acting in a manner that was completely inconsistent with the behavior of the primary personality. At first, neither of them was aware that they possessed other personalities, and while these other personalities were aware of the primary, they were not always aware of one another. It was, the
victims wrote, a very confusing and frightening existence.
As with Sorak, the training the women received at the villichi convent enabled them to become aware of their other personalities and come to terms with them. Training in the Way not only saved their sanity, but opened up new possibilities for them to lead full and productive lives.
In Sorak’s case, the Guardian had been the one who had responded first, serving as a conduit between Sorak and the other members of his inner tribe. She possessed the psionic talents of telepathy and telekinesis, while Sorak, contrary to initial perceptions, appeared to possess no psionic talent whatsoever.
This had frustrated him immensely during his training sessions, and when his frustration had reached a peak, the Guardian would always take over. It was Mistress Varanna who had first realized this and prevailed upon the Guardian to acknowledge herself openly, convincing her that it would not be in Sorak’s best interests for her to protect him from the truth about himself. For Sorak, that had been the turning point.
Because the Guardian always spoke with Sorak’s voice, Ryana had never realized that she was female. It was not until Ryana told Sorak she desired him that she discovered the truth about the Guardian’s gender. No less shocking was the discovery that Sorak had at least two other female personalities within him—the Watcher, who never slept and only rarely spoke, and Kivara, a mischievous and sly young girl of a highly inquisitive and openly sensual temperament. Ryana had never spoken with the Watcher, who never manifested externally, nor had she ever met Kivara. When the Guardian came out, she usually manifested in such a manner that there was no visible change in Sorak’s personality or his demeanor. From the way Sorak spoke about Kivara, however, it seemed clear that Kivara could never be that subtle. Ryana could not imagine what Kivara would be like. She was not really sure she wanted to know.
She knew of three other personalities Sorak possessed. Or perhaps it was they who possessed him.
There was Screech, the beast-like entity who was capable of communication only with other wild creatures, and the Shade, a dark, grim, and frightening presence that resided deep within Sorak’s subconscious, emerging only when the tribe was facing a threat to its survival. And finally, there was Kether, the single greatest mystery of Sorak’s complicated multiplicity.
Ryana had encountered Kether only once, though she had discussed the strange entity with Sorak many times. The one time she had seen him, Kether had displayed powers that seemed almost magical, though they must have been psionic, for Sorak had never received any magical training. Still, that was merely a logical assumption, and when it came to Kether, Ryana was not sure that logic would apply. Even Sorak did not quite know what to make of Kether.
“Unlike the others, Kether is not truly a part of the inner tribe,” Sorak told her when she voiced her thoughts. He appeared nervous, attempting to explain the little he understood about the strange, ethereal entity called Kether. “At least, he somehow does not seem to be. The others know of him, but they do not communicate with him, and they do not know where he comes from.”
“You speak as if he comes from somewhere outside yourself,” Ryana said.
“Yes, I know. And yet, that is truly how it seems.”
“But… I do not understand. How can that be? How is it possible?”
“I simply do not know,” Sorak replied with a shrug—“I wish I could explain it better, but I cannot. It was Kether who came out when I was dying in the desert, sending forth a psionic call so powerful that it reached Elder Al’Kali at the very summit of the Dragon’s Tooth. Neither I nor any of the others have ever been able to duplicate that feat. We do not possess such power. Mistress Varanna always believed that the power was within me, but I suspect the power truly lies with Kether and that I am but a conduit through which it sometimes flows. Kether is by far the strongest of us, more powerful even than the Shade, yet he does not truly seem to be a part of us. I cannot feel him within me, as I can the others.”
“Perhaps you cannot feel him because he resides deep beneath your level of awareness, like the infant core of which you spoke,” Ryana said.
“Perhaps,” said Sorak, “though I am aware of the infant core, albeit very dimly. I am also aware of others that are deeply buried and do not come out… or at least have refrained from coming out thus far. I sense their presence; I can feel them through the Guardian. But with Kether, there is a very different feeling, one that is difficult to describe.”
“Try.”
“It is…” He shook his head. “I do not know if I can properly convey it. There is a profound warmth that seems to spread throughout my entire body and a feeling of… dizziness, though perhaps that it not quite the right word. It is a sort of lightness, a spinning sensation, almost as if I am falling from a great height… and then I simply fade away. When I return, there is still that sensation of great warmth, which remains present for a while, then slowly fades. And for however long Kether possessed me, I can usually remember nothing.”
“When you speak of the others manifesting,” said Ryana, “you simply say they ‘come out.’ But when you speak of Kether, you speak of being possessed.”
“Yes, that is how it feels. It is not as if Kether comes out from within me, but as if he… descends upon me somehow.”
“But from where?”
“I only wish I knew. From the spirit world, perhaps.”
“You think that Kether is a fiend?”
“No, fiends are merely creatures of legend. We know that they do not exist. We know that spirits do exist, however. They are the animating core of every living thing. The Way teaches us that the spirit never truly dies, that it survives corporeal death and unites with the greater life-force of the universe. We are taught that elementals are a lower form of spirit, entities of nature bound to the physical plane. But higher spirits exist upon a higher plane, one we cannot perceive, for our own spirits have not yet ascended to it.”
“And you think that Kether is a spirit that has found a way to bridge those planes through you?”
“Perhaps. I cannot say. I only know there is a sense of goodness about Kether, an aura of tranquility and strength. And he does not seem as if he is a part of me, somehow. More like a benevolent visitor, a force from without. I do not know him, but neither do I fear him. When he descends upon me, it is as if I fall asleep, then awake with a pervading sense of calm, and peacefulness, and strength. I cannot explain it any more than that. I truly wish I could.”
I have known him almost all my life, Ryana thought, and yet, there are ways in which I do not know him at all. For that matter, there are ways in which he does not even know himself.
“A copper for your thoughts,” Sorak said, abruptly bringing her back to the present from her reverie. She smiled. “Can you not read them?”
“The Guardian is the telepath among us,” he replied gently, “but she would not presume to read your thoughts unless you gave consent. At least, I do not think she would.”
“You mean you are not sure?”
“If she felt it was important to the welfare of the tribe, then perhaps she might do it and not tell me,” he said.
“I do not fear having my thoughts read by the Guardian. I have nothing to hide from you,” Ryana said. “From any of you. Just now, I was merely thinking how little I truly know you, even after ten years.”
“Perhaps because, in many ways, I do not truly know myself,” Sorak replied wistfully.
“That is just what I was thinking,” said Ryana. “You must have been reading my mind.”
“I told you, I would never knowingly consent to—”
“I was only joking, Sorak,” said Ryana.
“Ah, I see.”
“You really should ask Lyric to loan you his sense of humor. You have always been much too serious.”
She had meant it lightly, but Sorak nodded, taking it as a completely serious comment. “Lyric and Kivara seem to possess all of our humor. And also Eyron, I suppose, although his humor is of a s
omewhat caustic stripe. I have never been very good at being able to tell when people are joking with me. Not even you. It makes me feel… insufficient.”
Parts of what should have been a complete personality have been distributed among all of the others, thought Ryana with a touch of sadness. When they were younger, she had often played jokes on him because he was always such an easy victim. She wondered whether she should save her jests for Lyric, who could be tiresome because he seemed to have no serious side at all, or try to help Sorak develop the lighter side of his own nature.
“I have never felt that you were insufficient in any way,” she told him. “Merely different.” She sighed. “It’s strange. When we were younger, I simply accepted you the way you were. Now, I find myself struggling to understand you—all of you—more fully. Had I made the effort earlier, perhaps I would have never driven you away.”
He frowned. “You thought you drove me away from the convent?” He shook his head. “I had reasons of my own for leaving.”
“Can you say with honesty that I was not one of those reasons?” she asked directly.
He hesitated a moment, then replied, “No, I cannot,”
“So much for the duplicity of elves,” she said.
“I am only part elf,” Sorak replied. Then he realized she was teasing him a bit and smiled. “I had my own reasons for leaving, it is true, but I also did not wish to remain a source of emotional distress to you.”
“And so you created even more emotional distress by leaving,” she said lightly. “I understand. It must be elfling logic.”
He gave her a sidelong glance. “Am I to suffer your barbs throughout this entire journey?”
