The Seeker Read online

  The Seeker

  Tribe of One Trilogy

  Book Two

  Simon Hawke

  Table of Contents

  Acknowledgments

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  FOR BRIAN THOMSEN

  Special acknowledgments to Rob King, Troy Denning, Robert M. Powers, Sandra West, Jennifer Roberson, Deb Lovell, Bruce and Peggy Wiley, Emily Tuzson, Adele Leone, the crew at Arizona Honda, and my students, who keep me on my toes and teach me as much as I teach them.

  Prologue

  The twin moons of Athas flooded the desert with a ghostly light as the dark sun sank on the horizon. The temperature dropped quickly while Ryana sat warming herself by the campfire, relieved at having left the city.

  Tyr held nothing for her but bad memories. As a young girl growing up in a villichi convent, she had dreamt of visiting the city at the foot of the Ringing Mountains. Tyr had seemed like an exotic and exciting place then, when she could only imagine its teeming marketplaces and its tantalizing nightlife. She had heard stories of the city from the older priestesses, those who had been on pilgrimages, and she had longed for the day when she could take her own pilgrimage and leave the convent to see the outside world. Now she had seen it, and it was a far cry from the dreams of her youth.

  When in her girlish dreams she had imagined the crowded streets and glamorous marketplaces of Tyr, she had pictured them without the pathetic, scrofulous beggars that crouched in the dust and whined plaintively for coppers, holding out their filthy hands in supplication to every passerby. The colorful images of her imagination had not held the stench of urine and manure from all the beasts penned up in the market square, or the human waste produced by the city’s residents, who simply threw their refuse out the windows into the streets and alleys. She had imagined a city of grand, imposing buildings, as if all of Tyr were as impressive as the Golden Tower or Kalak’s ziggurat. Instead she found mostly aging, blocky, uniformly earth-toned structures of crudely mortared brick covered with cracked and flaking plaster, such as the ramshackle hovels in the warrens. There the poor people of Tyr lived in squalid and pitiful conditions, crowded together like beasts crammed into stinking holding pens.

  She had not imagined the vermin and the filth, or the flies and the miasma of decay as garbage rotted in the streets, or the pickpockets and the cutthroats and the vulgar, painted prostitutes, or the rioting mobs of desperate people caught up in the painful transition of a city laboring to shift from a sorcerer-king’s tyranny to a more open and democratic form of government. She had not imagined that she would come to Tyr not as a priestess on a pilgrimage, but as a young woman who had broken her sacred vows and fled the convent in the night, in pursuit of the only male she had ever known and loved. Nor had she imagined that before she left the city, she would learn what it meant to kill.

  She turned away from the shadowy city in the distance, feeling no regret at leaving it, and gazed across the desert spreading out below. She and Sorak had made camp on the crest of a ridge overlooking the Tyr Valley, just east of the city. Beyond the city, to the west, the foothills rose to meet the Ringing Mountains. To the east, they gradually fell away, almost completely encircling the valley, save for the pass directly to the south, along which the trade route ran from Tyr out across the tablelands. The caravans always took the pass, then headed southeast to Altaruk, or else turned to the northeast toward Silver Spring, before heading north to Urik, or northeast to Raam and Draj. To the east of the oasis known as Silver Spring, there was nothing but rocky, inhospitable desert, a trackless waste known as the Stony Barrens that stretched out for miles before it ended at the Barrier Mountains, beyond which lay the cities of Gulg and Nibenay.

  The caravans all have their routes mapped out, Ryana thought, while ours has not yet been determined. She sat alone, huddled in her cloak, her long, silvery white hair blowing gently in the breeze, and wondered when Sorak would return. Or, perhaps more properly, she thought, the Ranger. Shortly before he had left the campsite, Sorak had fallen asleep, and the Ranger had come out to take control of his body. She did not really know the Ranger very well, though she had met him many times before. The Ranger was not much for words. He was a hunter and a tracker, an entity wise in the lore of the mountain forests and desert tablelands.

  The Ranger ate flesh, as did the other entities who made up Sorak’s inner tribe. Sorak, like the villichi among whom he was raised, was vegetarian. It was one of the many anomalies of his multiplicity. Though, unlike her, Sorak had not been born villichi, he had been raised in the villichi convent and had adopted many of their ways. And, like all villichi, he had sworn to follow the Way of the Druid and the Path of the Preserver.

  Ryana recalled the day when Sorak had been brought to the convent by the pyreen elder, who had found him half dead in the desert. He had been cast out of his tribe and left to die because he had been born a half-breed. Though the human and demihuman races of Athas frequently mixed, and half-breeds such as half-dwarves, half-giants, and half-elves were not uncommon, Sorak was an elfling—perhaps the only one of his kind.

  Elves and halflings were mortal enemies, and usually killed one another on sight. Yet, somehow, an elf and a halfling had mated to produce Sorak, giving him the characteristics of both races. Halflings were small, though powerfully built, while elves were extremely tall, lean and long-limbed. Sorak’s proportions, a mixture of the two, were similar to those of humans. In fact, at first glance, he looked completely human.

  The differences were slight, though significant. His long black hair was thick and luxuriant, like a halfling’s mane. His eyes were deeply set and dark, with an unsettling, penetrating gaze, and like both elves and halflings, he could see in the dark. His eyes had the same, cat-like lambency that halfling eyes had in the darkness. His facial features had an elvish cast, sharply pronounced, with high, prominent cheekbones; a sharp nose; a narrow, almost pointed chin; a wide, sensual mouth; arched eyebrows; and pointed ears. And, like elves, he could grow no facial hair.

  But as unique as his physical appearance was, his mental makeup was even more unusual. Sorak was a ‘tribe of one.’ The condition was exceedingly rare, and so far as Ryana knew, only the villichi truly understood it. She knew of least two cases that had occurred among villichi, though neither during her lifetime. Both priestesses who had been so afflicted had kept extensive journals, and as a girl, Ryana had studied them in the temple library, the better to understand her friend.

  She had been only six years old when Sorak had been brought to the villichi convent, and he had been approximately the same age. He had no memory of his past, the time before he was cast out into the desert, so he himself did not know how old he was. The trauma of his experience had not only wiped out his memories, it had divided his mind in such a way that he now possessed at least a dozen different personalities, each with its own unique attributes, not the least of which were powerful psionic powers.

  Before Sorak came, there had never been a male in residence at the villichi convent. The villichi were a female sect, not only by choice, but by accident of birth, as well. Villichi, too, were rare, though not as uncommon as tribes of one. Only human females were born villichi, though no one knew why. They were a mutation, marked by such physical characteristics as their unusual height and slenderness, their fairness, and their elongated necks and limbs. In terms of their physical proportions, they had more in common with elves than humans, though elves were taller
still. But what truly made them different was that they were born with fully developed psionic abilities. Whereas most humans and many demihumans had a latent potential for at least one psionic power, it usually took many years of training under a psionicist, a master of the Way, to bring it out. Villichi children were born with it in full flower.

  Ryana was short for a villichi, though at almost six feet, she was still tall for a human female, and her proportions were closer to the human norm. The only thing that marked her as different was her silvery white hair, like that of an albino. Her eyes were a striking, bright emerald green, and her skin was so fair as to be almost translucent. Like all villichi, she burned easily in the hot Athasian sun if she was not careful.

  Her parents were poor and already had four other children when she was born. Things had been hard enough for them without an infant who tossed household objects around with the power of her mind whenever she was feeling hungry or cranky. When a villichi priestess on pilgrimage had come to their small village, they had been relieved to surrender the custody of their troublesome psionic child to an order devoted to the proper care, nurturing, and training of others like her.

  Sorak’s situation had been different. Not only was he a male, which was bad enough, he was not even human. His arrival at the convent had stirred up a great deal of heated controversy. Varanna, the high mistress of the order, had accepted him because he was both a tribe of one and gifted with incredible psionic powers, the strongest she had ever encountered. The other priestesses, however, had initially resented the presence of a male in their midst, and an elfling male at that.

  Even though he was just a child, they had protested. Males sought only to dominate women, they had argued, and elves were notoriously duplicitous. As for halflings, not only were they feral flesh-eaters, they often ate human flesh as well. Even if Sorak did not manifest any of those loathsome traits, the young villichi felt that the mere presence of a male in the convent would be disruptive. Varanna had stood firm, however, insisting that though Sorak had not been born villichi, he was nevertheless gifted with unusual psionic talent, as were they all. He was also a tribe of one, which meant that without villichi training to adapt him to his rare condition, he would have been doomed to a life of suffering and, ultimately, insanity.

  On the day Sorak was first brought to Ryana’s residence hall, the other young priestesses had all protested vehemently. Ryana, alone, stood up for him. Looking back on it now, she was not sure she could remember why. Perhaps it was because they were roughly the same age, and Ryana had no one else her age to be friends with at the convent. Perhaps it was her own natural willfulness and rebelliousness that had caused her to diverge from the others and stand up for the young elfling, or perhaps it was because she had always felt alone and saw that he was alone, too. Perhaps, even then, she had known somehow, on some deeply intuitive, subconscious level, that the two of them were fated to be together.

  He had seemed hurt, lost and alone, and her heart went out to him. He had no memory. He did not even know his own name. The high mistress had named him Sorak, an elvish word used to describe a nomad who always walked alone. Even then, Ryana had joined herself to him, and they had grown up as brother and sister. Ryana had always thought she understood him better than anybody else. However, there were limits to her own understanding, as she had discovered on the day, not very long ago, when she had announced her love to Sorak—and been rebuffed, because several of Sorak’s personalities were female, and could not love another woman.

  She had first felt shock, and then humiliation, then anger at his never having told her, and then pain… for him and for his loneliness, for the unique and harsh realities of his existence. She had retired to the meditation chamber in the tower of the temple to sort things out in her own mind, and when she came out again, it was only to learn that he had left the convent.

  She had blamed herself at first, thinking she had driven him away. But the high mistress had explained that, if anything, she had only been the catalyst for a decision Sorak had been struggling to make for quite some time.

  “I have always known that he would leave us one day,” Mistress Varanna had said. “Nothing could have held him, not even you, Ryana. Elves and halflings are wanderers. It is in their blood. And Sorak has other forces driving him, as well. There are questions he hungers to have answered, and he cannot find those answers here.”

  “But I cannot believe that he would simply leave without even saying good-bye,” Ryana had said.

  Mistress Varanna had smiled. “He is an elfling. His emotions are not the same as ours. You, of all people, ought to know that by now. You cannot expect him to act human.”

  “I know, but… It’s just that… I had always thought…”

  “I understand,” the high mistress had said in a sympathetic tone. “I have known how you felt about Sorak for quite some time now. I could see it in your eyes. But the sort of partnership you hoped for was never meant to be, Ryana. Sorak is an elfling and a tribe of one. You are villichi, and the villichi do not take mates.”

  “But there is nothing in our vows that prohibits it,” Ryana had protested.

  “Strictly speaking, no, there is not,” the high mistress had agreed. “I will grant you that the interpretation of the vows we take could certainly be argued on that point. But practically speaking, it would be folly. We cannot bear children. Our psionic abilities and our training, to say nothing of our physical makeup, would threaten most males. It is not for nothing that most of the priestesses choose celibacy.”

  “But Sorak is different,” Ryana had protested, and the high mistress held up her hand to forestall any further comment.

  “I know what you are going to say,” she said, “and I will not disagree. His psionic powers are the strongest I have yet encountered. Not even I can penetrate his formidable defenses. And since he is a half-breed, he may also be unable to sire offspring. However, Sorak has certain unique problems that he may never be able to overcome. At best, he will only find a way to live with them. His path in life is a solitary one, Ryana. I know that it is hard for you to hear these things right now, and harder still to understand them, but you are young yet, and your best and most productive years are still ahead of you.

  “Soon,” she had continued, “you will be taking over Sister Tamura’s training sessions, and you will discover that there is a great measure of satisfaction to be found in molding the minds and bodies of the younger sisters. In time, you will be departing on your first pilgrimage to seek out others like ourselves and bring them into the fold, and to gather information about the state of things in the outside world. When you return, it will help us in our quest to find a way of reversing all the damage that our world has suffered at the hands of the defilers. Our task here is a holy and a noble one, and its rewards can be ever so much greater than the ephemeral pleasures of love.

  “I know these things are hard to hear when one is young,” Varanna had said with an indulgent smile. “I was young myself once, so I know, but time brings clarity, Ryana. Time and patience. You gave Sorak what he needed most, your friendship and your understanding. More than anyone else, you helped him gain the strength that he required to go out and find his own way in the world. The time has come for him to do that, and you must respect his choice. You must let him go.”

  Ryana had tried to tell herself that the high mistress was right, that the best thing she could do for Sorak was to let him go, but she could not make herself believe it. They had known each other for ten years, since they were both small children, and she had never felt as close to any of her villichi sisters as she had to Sorak. Perhaps she had nurtured unreasonable expectations as to the sort of relationship they could have, but while it was now clear to her that they never could be lovers, she still knew that Sorak loved her as much as he could ever love anyone. For her part, she had never wanted anyone else. She had never even known another male.

  The priestesses had frequently discussed the different ways in whic
h physical desire could be sublimated. On occasion, a priestess on a pilgrimage might indulge in the pleasures of the flesh, for it was not expressly forbidden by their vows, but even those who had done so had eventually chosen celibacy. Males, they said, left much to be desired when it came to such things as companionship, mutual respect, and spiritual bonding. Ryana was still a virgin, so she had no personal experience from which to judge, but the obvious implication seemed to be that the physical side of love was not all that important. What was important was the bond that she had shared with Sorak from childhood. With his departure, she had felt a void within her that nothing else could fill.

  That night, after everyone had gone to sleep, she had quickly packed her rucksack with her few possessions, then stole into the armory where the sisters kept all the weapons used in their training. The villichi had always followed a philosophy that held the development of the body to be as important as the training of the mind. From the time they first came to the convent, the sisters were all trained in the use of the sword, the staff, the dagger, and the crossbow, in addition to such weapons as the cahulaks, the mace and flail, the spear, the sickle, and the widow’s knife. A one villichi priestess on a pilgrimage was not as vulnerable as she appeared.

  Ryana had buckled on an iron broadsword and tucked two daggers into the top of each of her high moccasins. She also took a staff and slung a crossbow across her back, along with a quiver of bolts. Perhaps the weapons were not hers to take, but she had put in her share of time in the workshop of the armory, fashioning bows and arrows and working at the forge, making iron swords and daggers, so in a sense, she felt she had earned a right to them. She did not think Sister Tamura would begrudge her. If anyone would understand, Tamura would.

  Ryana then had climbed over the wall so as not to alert the old gatekeeper. Sister Dyona might not have prevented her from leaving, but Ryana was sure she would have tried to talk her out of it and insisted that she first discuss it with Mistress Varanna. Ryana was in no mood to argue or try to justify her actions. She had made her decision. Now she was living with the consequences of that decision, and those consequences were that she had absolutely no idea what lay ahead of her.