The Seeker

1

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 personalis 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 childlike 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 personalties, and while these other personalties 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 beastlike 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 somewhat 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?”

“Perhaps only a part of it,” she replied. She held up her hand, thumb, and forefinger about an inch apart.

“A small part.”

“You are almost as bad as Lyric.”

“Well, if you are going to be insulting, then you can just duck under and let Eyron or the Guardian come out. Either one could certainly provide more stimulating conversation.”

“I couldn’t agree more,” Sorak replied, suddenly speaking in an entirely different tone of voice, one that was more clipped, insouciant, and a touch wry. It was no longer Sorak, Ryana realized, but Eyron. Sorak had taken her literally.

He had apparently decided that she was annoyed with him, so he had ducked under and allowed Eyron to come forth.

His bearing had undergone a subtle change, as well. His posture went from erect and square-shouldered to slightly slumped and round-shouldered. He altered his pace slightly, taking shorter steps and coming down a bit harder on his heels, the way an older, middle-aged person might walk. A casual observer might not have noticed any difference, but Ryana was villichi, and she had long since become alert to the slightest change in Sorak’s bearing and demeanor. She would have recognized Eyron even if he hadn’t spoken.

“I was only teasing Sorak a little,” she explained. “I was not really insulted.”

“I know that,” Eyron replied.

“I know you know that,” said Ryana. “I meant for you to let Sorak know it. I did not mean for him to go away. I just wish he wouldn’t be so somber and serious all the time.”

“He will always be somber and serious,” said Eyron. “He is somber and serious to the point of pain. You are not going to change him, Ryana. Leave him alone.”

“You’d like for me to do that, wouldn’t you?” she said irately. “It would make the rest of you feel more secure.”

“Secure?” Eyron repeated. “You think you present any sort of threat to us?”

“I did not mean it quite that way,” said Ryana.

“Oh? How did you mean it, then?”

“Why must you always be so disputatious?” she countered.

“Because I enjoy a good argument occasionally, just as you enjoy teasing Sorak from time to time. However, the difference between us is that I enjoy the stimulation of a lively debate, while you tease Sorak because you know that he is hopelessly ill equipped to deal with it.”

“That is not true!” she protested.

“Isn’t it? I notice that you never try it with me. Why is that, I wonder?”

“Because teasing is a playful pastime, and your humor is all caustic and bitter.”

“Ah, so you want playful humor? In that case, I will summon Lyric forth.”

“No, wait—”

“Why? I thought that was what you wanted.”

“Stop trying to twist my words!”

“I am merely trying to make you see their import,” Eyron replied dryly. “You never try to bait me with your wit, not because you fear I am your match, but because you bear me no resentment, as you do Sorak.”

She stopped in her tracks suddenly, absolutely astonished at his words. “What?”

Eyron glanced back at her. “You are surprised? Truly, it seems you know yourself even less well than Sorak does.”

“What are you talking about? I love Sorak! I bear no resentment toward him! He knows that! You all know that!”

“Do we, indeed?” Eyron replied, with a wry grimace. “In point of fact, Lyric knows you love Sorak merely because he has heard you say so. But he comprehends nothing of the emotion himself. The Ranger may or may not know it. Either way, it would make no difference to him. Screech? Screech could comprehend the act of mating, certainly, but not the more complex state of love. The Watcher knows and understands, but she is uneasy with the concept of a woman’s love. Kivara is rather titillated by the notion, but for reasons having to do with the senses, not the heart. And the Shade is as far removed from love as the night is from the day. Now the Guardian knows you love Sorak, but I doubt she would disagree with me that you also feel resentment toward him. As for Kether... well, I would not presume to speak for Kether, as Kether does not condescend to speak with me. Nevertheless, the fact remains that beneath your love for Sorak smolders a resentment that you lack the courage or honesty to acknowledge to yourself.”

“That is absurd!” Ryana said, angrily. “If I were to resent anyone, it would be you, for being so contentious all the time!”

“On the contrary, that is precisely why you do not resent me,” Eyron said. “I allow you an outlet for your anger. Deep down, you are angry at Sorak, but you cannot express it. You cannot even admit it to yourself, but it is there, nevertheless.”

“I thought the Guardian was the telepath among you,” said Ryana sourly. “Or have you developed the gift as well?”

“It does not require a telepath to see where your feelings lie,” said Eyron. “The Guardian once called you selfish. Well, you are. I am not saying that is a bad thing, you understand, but by not admitting to yourself that your feelings of anger and resentment stem from your own selfish desires, you are only making matters worse. Perhaps you would prefer to discuss this with the Guardian. You might take it better if you heard it from another female.”

“No, you started this, you finish it,” Ryana said. “Go on. Explain to me how my own selfish desires led me to break my vows and abandon everything I knew and cherished for Sorak’s sake.”

“Oh, please,” said Eyron. “You did absolutely nothing for Sorak’s sake. What you did you did for your own sake, because you wanted to do it. You may have been born villichi, Ryana, but you always chafed at the restrictive life in the convent. You were always dreaming of adventures in the outside world.”

“I left the convent because I wanted to be with Sorak!”

“Precisely,” Eyron said, “because you wanted to be with Sorak. And because with Sorak gone, there was no compelling reason for you to remain. You sacrificed nothing for his sake that you would not have gladly given up, in any case.”

“Well... if that is true, and I have only done what I wanted to do, then what reason would I possibly have for being angry with him?”

“Because you want him, and yet you cannot have him,” Eyron said simply.

Even after knowing him for all those years, and having seen how his personas shifted, it was difficult for her to hear those words coming from his lips. It was Eyron speaking, and not Sorak, but it was Sorak’s face she saw and Sorak’s voice she heard, even though the tone was different.

“That has already been settled,” she said, looking away. It was difficult to meet his gaze. Eyron’s gaze, she reminded herself, but still Sorak’s eyes.

“Has it?”

“You were there when we discussed it, were you not?”

“Simply because a matter was discussed does not mean it has been settled,” Eyron replied. “You grew up with Sorak, and you came to love him, even knowing that he was a tribe of one. You thought you could accept that, but it was not until you forced the issue that Sorak told you it could never be, because three of us are female. It came as quite a shock to you, and Sorak bears the blame for that because he should have told you. There lies the root of your resentment, Ryana. He should have told you. All those years, and you never even suspected, because he kept it from you.”

Ryana was forced to admit to herself that it was true. She had thought she understood, and perhaps she did, but despite that, she still felt angry and betrayed.

“I never kept anything from him,” she said, looking down at her feet. “I would have given anything, done anything. He had but to ask! Yet, he kept from me something that was a vital part of who and what he was. Had I known, perhaps things might have been different. I might not have allowed myself to fall in love with him. I might not have built up my hopes and expectations . . .Why, Eyron? Why couldn’t he have told me?”

“Has it not occurred to you that he might have been afraid?” said Eyron.

She glanced up at him with surprise, seeing Sorak’s face, his eyes gazing back at her ... yet it was not him. “Afraid? Sorak was never afraid of anything. Why would he be afraid of me?”

“Because he is male, and he is young, and because to be a young male is to be awash in insecurities and feelings one cannot fully understand,” Eyron replied. “I speak from experience, of course. I share his doubts and fears. How could I not?”

“What doubts? What fears?”

“Doubts about himself and his identity,” said Eyron. “And a fear that you might think him less of a male for having female aspects.”

“But that is absurd!”

“Nevertheless, it is true. Sorak loves you, Ryana. But he can never make love with you because our female aspects could not countenance it. You think that is not a source of torment for him?”

“No less than it is for me,” she replied. She looked at him, curiously. “What of you, Eyron? You have said nothing of how you feel about me.”

“I think of you as my friend,” said Eyron. “A very close friend. My only friend, in fact.”

“What? Do none of the others—?”

“Oh, no, I did not mean that,” said Eyron, “that is different. I meant my only friend outside the tribe. I do not make friends easily, it seems.”

“Could you countenance me as Sorak’s lover?”

“Of course. I am male, and I consider you my friend. I cannot say that I love you, but I do have feelings of affection for you. Were the decision mine alone to make—mine and Sorak’s, that is—I would have no objections. I think the two of you are good for one another. But, unfortunately, there are others to consider.”

“Yes, I know. But I am grateful for your honesty. And your expression of goodwill.”

“Oh, it is much more than goodwill, Ryana,” Eyron said. “I am very fond of you. I do not know you as well as Sorak does; none of us do, except perhaps the Guardian. And while I must confess that my nature is not the most amenable to love, I think that I could learn to share the love that Sorak feels for you.”

“I am glad to hear that,” she said.

“Well, then, perhaps I am not quite as disputatious as you think,” said Eyron.

She smiled. “Perhaps not. But there are times. . .”

“When you would like to strangle me,” Eyron completed the statement for her.

“I would not go quite that far,” she said. “Pummel you a bit, perhaps.”

“I am gratified at your restraint, then. I am not much of a fighter.”

“Eyron fears a fee-male! Eyron fears a fee-male!”

“Be quiet, Lyric!” Eyron said, in an annoyed tone.

“Nyaah-nyaah-nyahh, nyaah-nyaah-nayahh!”

Ryana had to laugh at the sudden, rapid changes that flickered across Sorak’s features. One moment, he was Eyron, the mature and self-possessed, articulate adult; in the next instant, he was Lyric, the taunting and irrepressible child.

His facial expressions, his bearing, his body language, everything changed abruptly back and forth as the two different personas alternately manifested themselves.

“I am pleased you find it so amusing,” Eyron said to her irritably.

“Nyaah-nyaah-nyaah, nyaah-nyaah-nyaah!” Lyric taunted in a high-pitched, singsong voice.

“Lyric, please,” Ryana said. “Eyron and I were having a conversation. It is not polite to interrupt when grown-ups are speaking.”

“Oh, all-riiight. . .” Lyric said dejectedly.

“He never listens to me the way he listens to you,” said Eyron, as Lyric’s pouting expression was abruptly replaced on Sorak’s face by Eyron’s wry look of annoyance.

“That is because you are impatient with him,” Ryana said with a smile. “Children always recognize the weak points in adults, and they are quick to play on them.”

“I grow impatient merely because he delights so in annoying me,” said Eyron.

“It is only a ploy to get attention,” said Ryana. “If you were to indulge him more, he would feel less need to provoke you.”

“Females are better at such things,” said Eyron.

“Perhaps. But males could do equally well if they took the time to learn,” Ryana said. “Most of them forget too easily what it was like to be a child.”

“Sorak was a child,” Eyron said. “I never was.”

Ryana sighed. “There are some things about you all that I think I shall never understand,” she said with resignation.

“It is better simply to accept some things without trying to understand them,” replied Eyron.

“I do my best,” Ryana said.

They continued talking for a while as they walked, and it helped to pass the time of their journey, but Eyron soon wearied of the trek and ducked back under, allowing the Guardian to manifest. In a way, however, the Guardian had been there all along. Like the Watcher, she was never very far beneath the surface, always present, even when one of the others had come out. As her name implied, her primary role was to act as the protector of the tribe.

She was the strong, maternal figure, sometimes interacting with the others in an active way, sometimes content to remain passive, but always there as a moderating presence, a force for balance in the inner tribe. While she was manifested, Sorak was there too as an underlying presence. If he chose to, he could speak, or else he could simply listen and observe while the Guardian interacted with Ryana. When any of the others were out, things were often slightly different. If Lyric was at the fore of their personas, he and Sorak could both be out at the same time, like two individuals awake in the same body, as was the case with Sorak and the Guardian, or Screech. But if it was Eyron, or the Ranger, or any of the others that were stronger personalities, Sorak often wasn’t there at all. At such times, he faded back into his own subconscious, and his knowledge of what occurred during the times when any of the stronger ones were out depended on the Guardian granting him access to the memories. Kivara seemed to cause him the greatest difficulty. Of all his personalities, she was the most unruly and unpredictable, and the two were frequently in conflict. If Kivara had her way, Sorak had explained, she would come out more often, but the Guardian kept her in line.

The Guardian was capable of overriding all the other personalities, Sorak’s included, save for Kether and the Shade.

And those two appeared only rarely.

It had taken Ryana ten years to become accustomed to the intricacies of the relationships of Sorak’s inner tribe. She could imagine how it would be for anyone who met Sorak for the first time. And she could understand why Sorak did not trouble to explain his curious condition to others that he met. It would only frighten people and confuse them.

Without training in the Way, it would have frightened and confused him, too. She wondered if there was any way that he could ever become normal.

“Guardian,” she said, knowing that the privacy of her own thoughts would be respected unless she invited the Guardian to look into her mind, “I have been wondering about something, but before we speak of it, I wish to make certain you do not take it amiss. It is not my desire to offend.”

“I would never think that of you,” the Guardian replied. “Speak then, and speak frankly.”

“Do you think that there is any chance Sorak could ever become normal?”

“What is normal?” the Guardian replied.

“Well . . . you know what I mean. Like everybody else.”

“Everybody else is not the same,” the Guardian replied. “What is normal for one person may not be normal for another. But I believe I understand your meaning. You wish to know if Sorak could ever become just Sorak, and not a tribe of one.”

“Yes. Not that I wish you did not exist, you understand. Well ... in a sense, I suppose I do, but it is not because of any feeling that I have against you. Any of you. It is just that... if things had been different...”

“I understand,” the Guardian replied, “and I wish that I could answer your question, but I cannot. It goes beyond my realm of knowledge.”

“Well. . . suppose we find the Sage,” Ryana said, “and suppose he can change things with his magic—make it so that Sorak is no longer a tribe of one, but simply Sorak. If that were possible . . .” her voice trailed off.

“How would I feel about that?” the Guardian completed the thought for her. “If it were possible, I suppose it would depend on how it were possible.”

“What do you mean?”

“It would depend on how it would be achieved, assuming that it could be achieved,” the Guardian replied. “Imagine yourself in my place, if you can. You are not simply Ryana, but Ryana is merely one aspect of your self. You share your body and your mind with other aspects, who are equally a part of you, though separate. Let us say that you have found a wizard who can make you the same as everybody else—the same, that is, in the sense you mean. Would you not be concerned about how that would be done?

“If this wizard were to say to you, ‘I can make you whole, unite all of your aspects into one harmonious persona,’ well, in that case, you might be inclined to accept such a solution. And accept it eagerly. But what if that same wizard were to say to you, ‘Ryana, I can make it so that you will be like everybody else. I can make it so that only Ryana will exist, and the others will all disappear’? Would you be so eager to accept such a solution then? Would it not be the same as asking you to agree to the deaths of all the others? And if we assume, for the sake of the discussion, that you could accept such a situation, what would be the outcome? If all the others were separate entities who made up a greater whole, what would be gained, and what would be lost? If they were to die, what sort of person would that leave? One who was complete? Or one who was but a fragment of a balanced individual?”

“I see,” Ryana said. “In such a case then, if the choice were mine to make, I would, of course, refuse. But suppose it was the first choice that you mentioned?”

“To unite us all in one persona—Sorak’s?” asked the Guardian.

“In a manner that would preserve you all, though as one individual instead of many,” said Ryana. “What then?”

“If that were possible,” the Guardian replied, “then I think, perhaps, I would have no objection. If it would benefit the tribe to become one instead of many and preserve all those within it as a part of Sorak, then it might indeed be for the best. But again, we must think of what might be gained and what might be lost. What would become of all the powers we have as a tribe? Would they be preserved, or would some be lost as a result? And what would become of Kether? If Kether is, as we suspect, a spirit from another plane, would his ability to manifest through Sorak be preserved? Or would that bridge be forever burned behind us?”

Ryana nodded. “Yes, those are all things that would have to be considered. Still, it was but an idle speculation. Perhaps not even the Sage would have such power.”

“We shall not know that until we find him,” said the Guardian. “And who is to say how long this quest may take? There is still one more thing to consider, so long as we are discussing possibilities. Something that you may have failed to take into account.”

“And that is?”

“Suppose we found the Sage, and he was able to unite us all into one person, with no loss to any of us. Sorak would become the tribe, all blended into one person who was, as you say, ‘normal.’ And the tribe would become Sorak. All the things that I am, all that is Kivara, and Lyric, the Watcher and the Ranger and the Shade, Screech and Eyron and the others, some of whom still lie deeply buried, all would become a part of Sorak. What, then, would become of the Sorak that you know and love? Would he not become someone very different? Would the Sorak that you know not cease to exist?”

Ryana continued walking silently for a while, mulling that over. The Guardian did not impinge upon her contemplation.

Finally, Ryana said, “I had never considered the possibility that Sorak might be changed in a manner that would render him completely different. If that were the case, then I suppose my own thoughts on the matter, my own feelings, would be determined by whether or not such a change would be in his best interests. That is to say, in all of your best interests.”

“I do not mean to be harsh,” the Guardian said, “but consider also that it is Sorak as you know him now who loves you. I understand that love, and am capable of sharing it to some degree, but I could not love you that way that Sorak does. Perhaps it is because I am a female and my nature is such that I could not love another female. If Sorak were to change in the way we are discussing, perhaps that love would change, as well. But you must also consider all the others. Eyron is male, yet he thinks of you as a friend, not as a lover. The Watcher does not love you and never could. The Ranger is indifferent to you, not because of any shortcoming on your part, it is just that the Ranger is the Ranger, and he is not given to such emotions. Neither is the Shade. Kivara is fascinated by new sensations and experiences, but while she may not balk at a physical relationship with you, she would be a very fickle and uncaring lover. And there are all the others, whose feelings and modes of thought would all go into creating the new Sorak of whom we speak. It is quite possible that this new Sorak would no longer love you.”

Ryana moistened her lips. “If the change would benefit him—would benefit you all—and make him happy, then I would accept that, despite the pain that it would bring me.”

“Well, we speak of something that may never come to pass,” the Guardian replied. “When we first spoke of your love for Sorak, I called you selfish and accused you of thinking only of yourself. I spoke harshly and I now regret that. I know now that you are nothing of the sort. And what I am about to say, I say not for my sake, but for yours. To long for something that may never be is to build a foundation on a swamp. Your hopes are likely to sink into the quagmire. I know that it is far more easily said than done, but if you could try to learn how to love Sorak as a friend, a brother, then whatever happens in the future, you may save your heart from breaking.”

“You are right,” Ryana said. “It is far more easily said than done. Would it were not so.”

They traveled on throughout the day, stopping occasionally to rest, and their journey was, for the most part, uneventful. As the day wore on, the temperatures climbed steadily, until the dark Athasian sun was beating down on them like a merciless adversary. Sorak came out again and accompanied her for the rest of their journey that day, though the Guardian kept him from remembering the last part of their conversation. They found themselves conversing less and less, conserving their energies for the long trek still ahead of them.

Ryana had never traveled in the Athasian desert before, and as the tablelands stretched out before them seemingly into infinity, she marveled at the land’s savage beauty and its eerie stillness. She had always somehow thought of the desert as an empty and desolate place, but it was far from that. It was full of life, though of a sort that had, of necessity, found ways to adapt to the inhospitable climate.

Scrubby pagafa trees dotted the landscape, though in the desert they grew much smaller and more twisted than they did in the forest and around the cities, where more water was available. Here, in the tablelands, they grew no taller than ten or fifteen feet, and their bare and twisted, leafless branches afforded nothing in the way of shade. Their blue-green trunks and branches enabled them to manufacture life-sustaining energy from the sun, and their roots went deep in search of water, spreading wide with numerous feeders. During the brief rainy season, when the monsoons would sweep across the desert, depositing the precious water in brief but furious storms, the branches of the pagafa tree would leaf out in fine, needlelike growth, creating a feathery-looking crown, and additional branches would shoot forth to take advantage of the added water. Then, when the almost ever-present drought returned, the needlelike leaves would fall and the new branches would die back, allowing the tree to conserve its energy for its next cycle of growth.

The leaves fell, dried out in less than a day, and made a rust-colored blanket underneath the tree. These dried leaves made excellent nesting material for desert rodents, which dug burrows beneath the many forms of cacti that grew out in the tablelands. Some of the cacti were very small, no larger than a human fist, covered with a fine growth of silvery pincushion that once or twice a year—after a rain—exploded into brightly colored blooms that lasted no more than a day. Some were large and barrel-shaped, as tall as a full-grown man and twice as thick around.

The rodents liked to nest among the thick roots at the pagafa’s base, and eventually, their burrowing killed the plant, though only after many years. Slowly, the huge tree lost its support and fell from its own weight, and then dried out, its carcass becoming a temporary home for kips and scarab beetles, who dined upon its drying, pulpy meat. The large, thick spines of the cactus were then harvested by desert antloids, whose worker drones formed long lines across the desert as they carried back the thick spines to their warrens to help support the many tunnels that they excavated in the hard-baked desert ground.

Occasionally, antloid warrens came under attack from desert drakes, one of the large reptiles that made its home in the Athasian desert. Part lizard and part snake, the drake’s thick hide, so highly prized for armor in the cities, rendered it impervious to the mandibles of antloids. Its long, talonlike claws allowed it to dig up the warrens, and its thick, twin-pronged, muscular tongue gave it the ability to capture antloids and drag them out to where it could crush their exoskeletons.

The antloids would come swarming out to fight it, and sometimes, if the colony was large enough, they overwhelmed the drake by the sheer weight of their numbers, piling up their huge bodies on top of it. If the drake prevailed over the antloids, the survivors scattered and abandoned the dug up warren. It then provided a home for hurrums, brightly colored beetles prized in cities for the melodious humming sounds they made, or renks, large desert slugs that dined on the wastes left behind in the antloid warren.

If the antloids managed to defeat the drake, however, they ate its carcass, sharing it with other life forms: jankx, furred and squeaking mammals that lived in townlike burrows on the tablelands; or z’tals, tall, bipedal lizards that lived in small herds out in the desert and laid eggs inside the excavated antloid warren after they had disposed of the carcass of the drake.

The loosened earth left behind after the drake destroyed the antloid warren allowed the seeds of brambleweeds to root, and they grew up around the eggs left behind by the z’tal, their spiny tentacles poking up out of the ground and protecting the eggs from predatory snakes and rodents. All life in the desert was closely interdependent, a mutated yet balanced ecology that had grown up in the devastation left behind by the defilers.

Ryana wondered what the desert had been like before, in the days when Athas was still green. She tried to imagine the barren, scrubby, rolling plain before her when it was covered with tall grasses that rippled in the wind, blooming with wildflowers, and resonating with the song of birds. It was the dream of every druid and of all villichi, of all preservers every-where, that someday Athas would once again grow green. Chances were that Ryana would never live to see that day, but even so, she was glad that she had left the mountains to truly see the desert—not the vast and empty wasteland it appeared to be, seen from the heights of the Ringing Mountains, but the strangely beautiful and vibrant place it really was.

She knew some of that beauty could be deadly. If the ten-foot antloids attacked, which was especially likely in the season their queen produced young, their fearsome mandibles would make short work of her. The rare and gorgeous burnflowers that grew out in the desert could be as lethal as they were beautiful. Though easily avoided in the light of day because their patches could be seen for miles, they could kill during the early morning if an unwary traveler happened to be near them when the bulb-shaped flowers opened. The shiny, silvery-colored blooms, some as large as two to three feet in diameter, would open toward the sun and track its progress across the sky throughout the day, absorbing its life-giving rays and reflecting them back as deadly beams of energy. It was the plant’s protective mechanism, but the sight of those beautiful blooms opening would be the last sight anyone would ever see.

If the burnflowers killed, it was merely an accident of their adaptation to survive in such a hostile climate, but a blossomkiller did so by design. The blossomkiller was carnivorous, and its survival in the desert depended on its ability to trap its prey. It did so with a wide network of rootlike surface vines that, unlike its taproot, radiated out from the body of the plant to a distance of as much as fifty feet. It took but the merest touch on one of these vines to send an impulse to the pistils of the colorful flowers, which would then shoot out a spray of sharp, needlelike quills. These quills were covered with a poison that produced paralysis. Once the hapless victim, whether animal, humanoid or human, was frozen into immobility, the tendrils of the blossomkiller would reach out and wrap themselves around their prey. A small desert rodent or mammal would be digested within a matter of hours. For a human, the process could take days. It was a horrible and agonizing death.

Nor were lethal plants and insects the only dangers in the desert. There was a wide variety of deadly reptiles, from poisonous snakes no longer than a human finger to the deadly drakes, some species of which could grow as long as thirty feet and wider than the trunk of a well-watered agafari tree. Death could come from above, in the form of floaters, creatures with light, translucent bodies composed of a jelly like protoplasm with stinging tendril tentacles that trailed down below them. The merest brush of one such tentacle could produce a large and painful welt that would take weeks to heal, while solid contact could be fatal. And death could also come from underfoot, in the form of dune trappers, sand cacti, or sink worms.

Dune trappers were lifeforms that were neither plant nor animal, but something in between. They lived almost entirely beneath the desert surface in pits they excavated as they grew. The mouth of the dune trapper gradually grew and spread out on the surface, filled with what appeared to be a pool of cool, clear water. Plants would grow up around the mouth of the strange creature, sustained by the moisture it produced, giving the deceptive appearance of a small, welcoming oasis. But to approach that pool in an attempt to drink from it was almost certain death. The mouth of the dune trapper, triggered by a footstep on the soft membrane that lay just beneath the sand, would suck the unsuspecting victim down into the pit the creature occupied, there to be digested by the fluid that had first appeared to be a pool of water.

Sand cacti were no less deadly. Like the dune trapper, the main body of the plant grew beneath the surface of the desert, especially where the soil was sandy. Only the tips of its numerous spines protruded just above the surface, over a wide area, poking up no more than an inch or two, so that they were difficult to spot. Stepping on a spine would trigger a response within the plant that would cause it to shoot that spine up into the victim’s foot, where its barbed hook would find firm purchase, and the plant would start to drain the blood out of its prey. Once “hooked,” the victim’s only chance was to tear loose from the spine, or cut it free, but this could not be accomplished without also tearing loose a lot of flesh, and if any of the spine remained embedded in the victim, it had to be cut out or else infection would set in.

Sink worms posed an even greater danger. A sharp-eyed traveler might detect the shallow depressions left in the sandy soil where they had passed, but to be hunted by a sink worm was a terrifying prospect, for it could detect the footsteps of its prey upon the surface and come up underneath it. A small, young sink worm could take off a foot or an entire leg. An adult could swallow a human being whole.

Nor were those the only dangers of the desert. Back in the villichi temple, Ryana had studied about all the life-forms that dwelled on Athas, and desert predators had filled up an entire stack of scrolls. The Ringing Mountains were not without their dangers, but they paled in comparison to what the desert held in store. It was a place of quiet and ethereal beauty, but it also promised death to the unwary. In the daytime, a vigilant traveler, well versed in the hazards of the desert, could take steps to avoid them. At night, the dangers multiplied as the nocturnal predators awoke.

And night was fast approaching.